Playing Games

“Knee-jerk?” Instinctively, she looked down. The left knee of her jeans had a hole in it. The right was frayed. Not exactly the Valentine image she put out there. “And whatever do you mean by sound advice? Personally, I think my advice sounded awfully good. Oh, and if you don’t like to call it revenge sex, I’ll be glad to go with make-good sex, getting-even sex, do-unto-cheatin’-hubby sex. Take your pick.” This was getting particularly good between them tonight. Somehow she’d known it might when she’d given that little piece of revenge-sex advice to the caller.

“And you don’t think the wife plays a part in the husband’s actions?”

Oh, Eddie. You really opened yourself up with that one. Roxy glanced over at Astrid and winked. “A wife may play a part in the marital problems, but you and I both know it’s not always marital problems that send a man into another woman’s bed. So unless the wife actually drives her husband to his mistress’s door, and says, ‘There you go, dear. Go have a good time, and I’ll be back in an hour to get you,’ she’s not playing a part in his cheating. It’s a solo gig, Doc. He opened that door by himself, and he walked through it, and claiming she pushed him through it is a cop-out. Bottom line is, when he’s cheating it’s all about sex. Motivations don’t matter. So if that’s what it’s about for him, why can’t it be about that for her? I certainly think the first time he drops his pants for someone else he’s inviting his wife to do the same, if that’s what she wants to do.”

Edward let out an impatient breath meant to be heard on air. “Having an affair because she’s been hurt—what will that accomplish, Doctor, except to cause more hurt?”

“Sex, Doctor. Not an affair. And the only hurt it could possibly cause—since she’s a consenting adult—will be her husband’s, who deserves to be hurt for what he’s done to her. Like they say, an eye for an eye…or in this case…a romp for a romp.”

“Which will drag her down to her husband’s level. That, Valentine, solves nothing.”

Which was true, at least in Roxy’s thinking. But Roxy’s thinking wasn’t Valentine’s, and sometimes that little tug-of-war got rough. But, all for the ratings… “Quite the contrary, Doctor. It will serve as a catharsis. Surely, as a shrink, you realize the value of a good catharsis every now and then, don’t you?”

“As a shrink, Doctor McCarthy, surely you realize that catharsis is not an act of revenge, but an act of release—”

“And a good orgasm’s not a release, Eddie? If that’s what you think, then I’d say you don’t get around too much, do you?”

“An emotional release,” Edward said defensively, then nervously cleared his throat. “I’m talking about an emotional release, if you can forget about the sex for a minute.”

“Forget about the sex?” Roxy replied in her deepest, huskiest, sexiest voice. “Doesn’t sound like you’ve been having too much fun.” Roxy smiled, impressing a mental mark in her imaginary column. “Like I said before, you must not get around, because an orgasm can be as much of an emotional release as a physical one, and there are studies to back me up on that one, Doctor.” She added a second mark. “Think about it…Edward. Think about the last time you enjoyed that release…with another person, I mean.” She scrunched her nose at Astrid, at the thought of the pompous Doctor Craig indulging in that scenario. “Wasn’t it a wonderfully satisfying emotional surrender, as well as the obvious physical enjoyment?”

“It might have been, but this isn’t about me, Doctor,” he said, his voice so dark-chocolate it gave her goose bumps.

She glanced at her truffle. Never, ever until after Edward, but she wanted it so bad right now. “Isn’t it, Doctor?” she purred, claiming her third mark. “It’s about your ideas of right and wrong, which, like it or not, are affected by your life, your loves, your sexual experiences, and vice versa. My caller was hurt, she needed to vent, and yes, she needs to feel like she has some control in the matter. As a relationship counselor you know this, or you should. What I suggested, Eddie—a little revenge sex—gives her back some of that control. To me, that’s a pretty simple solution. You know what they say about two playing that game, and maybe when her husband finds out she’s been playing—and you know he’d never suspect she would, men never do—he might just rethink his playing if he wants that marriage to work out. If he doesn’t and he leaves, she’s better off without him.”

“Adultery, Doctor McCarthy, is never the solution. Not to any problem. It’s only a means to compound it.”

It was time to end this now. He was drifting off into levelheaded land, where it was hard to combat his real logic with Val sense. Meaning she had to cut him off before Edward succeeded in besting Valentine. That was not what her listeners wanted.

Roxy drew in a steadying breath, and looked to Astrid for her end-the-segment signal, but instead got the stretch sign, meaning she was going to have to roll this all the way to the next commercial break. “Adultery isn’t an issue for the husband, since he started it, Doctor, so don’t make it an issue for the wife, too.” She twisted toward Astrid, and gave her the slash-throat signal, but Astrid shook her head.’ Roxy shook her head emphatically, but Astrid countered with a nod to which Roxy mouthed the words, “You’re fired.” Astrid responded with a gesture Roxy knew was coming and turned away from before she saw it.

“I wouldn’t have to make it an issue for the wife, Doctor McCarthy, if you hadn’t given her license to go out and do what feels good simply as a way of getting back at her husband. But you did, and now…”

“And now nothing,” she countered. “It’s sex, Doctor Craig. Sex for the sake of getting even. Nooky for nooky, and that’s all it is, so don’t blow it out of proportion, okay?” A little over the top, she thought. Roxy had personal reactions. Val didn’t. Not ever. So, it was time to take a deep breath, refocus and bring Val back to the front of the line before Roxy went reactionary again and torpedoed the ratings.

“You know, Edward…” She whispered his name this time. Drew it out, turned it into husky need and silk sheets and promises. “It’s Friday…a little after midnight now. You should be in bed with someone…in bed and making mad, passionate love. You should be sweaty, and gasping for air, and on the verge of an orgasm so explosive you can literally feel the earth move. And afterwards, you should be sipping champagne in a bubble bath with her…I’m assuming it’s a her…and kissing her toes, feeling that familiar stirring down under the bubbles…the stirring that won’t let you make it all the way back to the bed this time. But you’re not. You’re on the phone debating sexual advice with a radio psychologist instead of indulging in some of those mighty fine pleasures yourself…pleasures I would certainly be indulging in if I weren’t working.” Yeah, right. Pleasures she hadn’t had since—she couldn’t remember when. “So I’m wondering, Doctor Edward Craig, why aren’t you?”

She shut her eyes, envisioning a wildly sexy Doctor Craig on her beach—she always envisioned him as wildly sexy—then jerked her eyes back open and glanced at Astrid, imploring her to end this thing. Which Astrid did with a slash gesture across her throat, laughing at the same time. Just in the nick of time, because that last image on the beach took deep root, wouldn’t go away even when her eyes were open.

“It’s not always about sex, Valentine,” Edward continued. “Sometimes it’s about making love. And that, my dear, is always the best sex, physically and emotionally. But we’ll save those fine distinctions for another night, if that’s okay with you.” With that, he clicked off.

The image of him on her beach still floating around in her head, Roxy grudgingly gave him a mark for that last remark. He deserved one every now and then. After all, Edward Craig translated into good rating points.

And good fantasies, when she let him. Very good fantasies.

“Be right back, sugars,” she said to her listeners. Then she grabbed the truffle, popped it into her mouth, and sank back into her chair to savor the taste.

2

Still Later, and Not a Creature Was Stirring, Except…

DRIP…DRIP…DRIP. Roxy shifted her stare from the computer screen, where she was designing the Rose Palace—her future home on the Sound—to the leaky kitchen faucet. An upright, with a nice, graceful, swan-curved neck and one handle. Drip! “Damn,” she muttered. She’d called that maintenance guy about it twice now. Begged him to come de-drip the durn thing. She’d been pretty blunt about how much it was annoying her, too, and how she really needed him over there as soon as possible. Which was yesterday, when it wasn’t even so much of an annoying drip as an occasional one.

So what if her call did have the dual purpose of drip-busting and getting an up-close and personal look at the man? Preferably from behind. Admittedly, she’d watched him a time or two. Or more. From the peephole in her door, from the elevator, in the lobby. He was the kind worth stopping and staring at. Gorgeous bod. Tight. She was betting six-pack abs under his T-shirt. A real appealing package in her 3D life—dull, dreary, dismal—even if all she got to do was look. Looking was good, though. Safe. Uninvolved. Easy.

Too bad she hadn’t taken that road the first time. But the appeal of a starving artist had seemed romantic at age twenty. Wore off fast, thank heavens. Funny how her working three jobs so that he could stare out the loft window and think about painting had a way of doing that.

So now she only looked. And Mr. Handyman was a looker well worth the effort. She was thanking her leaky swan-necked for choosing to slaver at that propitious moment, even if, so far, the plumbing Galahad had not come running to her watery rescue. All things considered, she thought she’d been pretty patient about waiting for him to haul his lethally fabulous butt through her front door to obliterate that damned dribble. But now it was getting ridiculous. The drip was running amuck and Roxy was actually more interested in a solution than the butt! Such a sad state of affairs. And pathetic.

Pathetic but true, Roxy. Admit it. Here it was, 3:30 a.m., and the damnable drippity-drip was so loud she just knew her snoopy neighbor on the other side of the wall would start banging out a Beethoven symphony. From day one in her apartment—was it only a month now?—he, she or whatever had pounded whenever Roxy sneezed, blinked, or when the light in her fridge came on. She did try hard to stay mouse quiet. Didn’t wear shoes, listened to music only through headphones, didn’t swing from the chandelier. The wee hours had always been good to her, and getting home at two-thirty every morning all wide-eyed and raring to do anything other than sleep furnished her with oodles of time to design her new house.

Until she moved in here. And Mr. Gorgeous Handyman cruising the hall in his drop-dead tool belt didn’t offset the inconvenience of having her nights interrupted by the Pounder.

Her house…. Roxy smiled, just thinking about it. It would be good. Better than that, it would be all hers with her own personal brand on every single aspect of it. She liked that, the total control, at least at this stage of the planning. The house that Roxy built, or would build, as soon as he got over here and took care of that demon drip from the very bowels of hydrous hell. It was driving her insane right now, not to mention ruining her creativity! And just when she was all set to choose between marble or granite on the…no, wait. That couldn’t be right. Marble or granite dining room chairs? Where’d the bathroom vanity go?

That demented demon drip stole it!

Roxy’s gaze shifted back over to the culpable faucet, the one devising its next move against her, and she scrunched her face into an I-dare-you-to-drip-one-more-time glare. Fat lot of good that did, because at that very moment the fiendish faucet morphed itself into a living, breathing entity, one blatantly defying her to do something about it. Okay bitch, you asked for it. Take this… Drip! One single, solitary drip! A laugh! That’s what it was. The faucet Lucifer was laughing at her. Ddd…ri…ppp! This time an exclamation point after the laugh! “That does it,” she snapped. Roxy stormed across the kitchen floor and smacked the faucet with her open palm. “Ouch,” she squealed, pulling her hand back and shaking it. Didn’t phase the drip at all. In fact, the dribbles started coming in punctuated pairs. Drip, drip! Ha, ha, ha! Drip, drip! Ha, ha, ha! Double-drip dare ya!

Of course, Pounder on the other side of the wall started right up.

“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord for ear-plugs, please,” Roxy muttered, pulling open her junk drawer to see if anything in it was up to the task of silencing the one-handled dribble monster. A wrench, a sledgehammer, a stick of dynamite! As she expected, though, there wasn’t a single, solitary usable thing in there—only a red plastic flashlight with dead batteries, naturally, some emergency candles with no matches, of course, and a fistful of wooden skewer sticks, not that she’d ever skewered a thing in her life. Well, maybe Pounder once or twice…in her dreams. But nothing labeled drip-fixer.

Frustrated that a pipe wrench hadn’t magically materialized when she needed it, Roxy started to slam the drawer shut, but caught herself in the nick of time, gently pushing it back into its place lest the wall-banging dervish on the other side started all over. Then she glared at the dreaded wall, “I hate this place, I hate this place.” Close her eyes, click her heels three times and maybe she’d land in the Rose Palace.

But mercifully, this apartment was only a temp—a refuge from the rodents and roaches and fleas, oh my! in her former apartment. And it was a quick hop to work as well—a stopgap until the Rose Palace was built, which she hoped wouldn’t be more than a year down the road. Provided he, the fixer of drips, ever got his pipe wrench over here.

Drip…ka-drip…ka-drip…drrrripppp…

“Okay, that’s it!” Roxy didn’t care what time it was. She’d already been reasonable with the guy, it didn’t work, so now it was time for him to come play on her turf during her hours. And she had his number. Right at the top of an important phone numbers list stuck to her fridge, just below her fave food deliveries—pizza first, then Chinese. So, he was about to make a little home delivery himself, substituting tool belt for pepperoni, and a pipe wrench for egg roll. It was time for Mr. Dazzling Derriere to get over there and prove just what he was good for, other than filling out his jeans in some really unbelievable ways.

“Six-three-three,” Roxy repeated the phone number from the list as she dialed. “You’d better be home…with all your tools ready to go.” She drummed her fingers impatiently on the countertop as the first four rings went by unanswered. By the sixth ring, she was tapping her right foot. “Two more rings, then I’m going to…”

“Hello.” The voice was a little jagged, a little thick, a whole lot gruff. And sexier than anything she’d ever heard at 3:38 in the morning. Or any other time of the morning, for that matter. This guy could be worth two truffles, she thought. But I’ll trade you two truffles for one fixed drip. That’s how desperate she was!

“Is this building maintenance? You are the handyman, aren’t you?” She didn’t even know his name. Hadn’t bothered asking. No need, since enjoying the marvelous view had been more than enough for her—until now.

“Call back in the morning.”

Certainly not a very friendly response for someone who dealt with the public, Roxy thought. “In the morning I’ll need an ark. You don’t happen to have one handy, do you? Or some bailing buckets?”

“Huh?”

“My faucet’s leaking. More like gushing all over the place. By morning my apartment’s going to be flooded.” Well, maybe that was a slight exaggeration, but demented drips called for desperate measures. “I need someone to come over here right now to fix it, before it starts leaking through the floor into the apartment below.” Well, maybe another teensy, weensy exaggeration. But if that’s what it would take to get him over there…

“Do you know what time it is, lady?” He was making no attempt to hide his irritation. “Because if this isn’t an emergency…” Bordering on downright hostile. But still so sexy she was thinking junk food. Always the infallible substitute.

“Well…” Roxy shrugged, then looked at the bug-eyed, tail-ticking cat clock on the wall. “Yep, I know exactly what time it is. I know what time it was when I called before—both times. And I called at respectable times then—you know, during the day, when you had that message on your voice mail saying to leave a message, that you’d call right back. But that didn’t work, did it? Since you never called back, and you never came over. So this time I thought if I called in the middle of the night when you’d probably be sleeping, I could wake you up and talk to you directly.” Roxy shut her eyes, trying to conjure up his sleeping image. Dark and brooding, hair tousled, sheet coming up only to his waist. Strong arms, naked chest…He wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing under the sheet because men like that always slept in the nude. Or they should, anyway. Damn waste of a lot of good maleness if they didn’t. God, she needed a Twinkie. “And since you’re up right now, why don’t you come on over here and do something about the drip? Okay?” With or without clothes.

“I’ll put you on the list for first thing in the morning,” he grumbled.

A turndown? He was actually refusing after she pleaded her case so eloquently? Well, that wasn’t good enough. If she had to suffer the drip, so did he. Roxy gritted her teeth for the next round. “Which is when? Nine o’clock? Ten o’clock? It can’t wait that long. It’s already oozing through the floorboards. You’ll be getting a call from my downstairs neighbor any minute.”

“Then go stick your finger in the dike, lady. That’ll hold it until morning.”

Roxy’s foot began its impatient tapping again. At this rate there really would be a flood before he got over there. “So, will a bribe work on you?” she blurted into the phone. Drip, drip. “Anything I have, short of sexual favors.” Of course, if he came over there the way she’d pictured him in bed… “Just please, come and take care of it right now. Okay? Or bring me a pipe wrench so I can do it myself.”

“You ever used a pipe wrench, lady?”

“Well, no. But how hard could it be? You clamp it on the pipe then twist.”

“All that leaks isn’t in the pipe.”

“Hey, I’ve got plenty of Bob Vila tapes and I know how to use them.” The only response to what she thought was a reasonable request was an audible, and very vexed, sigh. So she continued. “And if you let me use your tool I’ll promise not to ever call you at three-thirty in the morning again.”

“Three-forty,” he grunted. “And no way in hell are you touching my tool.”

Touching his tool…Boy, oh boy, the ideas that came with that. The ideas and the images. You wish I’d touch your tool, Mr. Handyman! “Three-forty,” she agreed. “So if your tool is off-limits, that means you’re coming over and doing it yourself. Right?” It was beginning to sound promising, from a purely plumbing perspective, of course.

“Who the hell are you, and where the hell do you live?”

So he wasn’t very friendly. Brooding and temperamental types were good, too. Especially when they packed a pipe wrench. And right now, the wrench was all she really wanted. “Roxy Rose. Apartment five-B.”

“Five minutes.” Then he hung up.

Five minutes—just enough time for him to get dressed. Damn! Another fantasy shot to pieces.

On her way from the kitchen into the dining nook she used as her office, Roxy passed by a large hall mirror and stopped, then hopped up on a plastic step to appraise her face. Whoever had hung that mirror must have been hanging it for Amazon women, because in her full five-foot-two glory she could just barely see her face. In fact, the mirror chopped her off at the nose, giving her a clear shot only of her eyes and forehead. So she’d bought the step. Easy solution. Just the way she liked things—easy.

Roxy smiled at the reflection and pushed her tangle of uncombed hair back from her face. “It’s a natural look, trendy-chic,” she always claimed, when friends asked why it was sticking out in odd directions, different odd directions. Truth was, she didn’t like the bother of fixing it, and she’d owned that disarrayed look long before it had become trendy-chic. “Oh well,” she sighed. “It’s not like this is a date.” Besides, no one had ever accused her of being a trendsetter—not in Roxy-mode. Roxy was no-fuss, nomuss, no makeup, with no particular concern over it. Trendy was Val’s gig, one she used for special appearances, photo shoots and the like. Geez, those mugs of her on the city buses. All over Seattle. Here a Valentine, there a Valentine, everywhere a Valentine. And all those billboards. Yikes! There were certain stretches of road she assiduously avoided because she loathed and detested being looked down upon by the pseudo-her camouflaged up to fit the public perception.

Hopping off the step, Roxy wondered if now would be a good time to get Mr. Beautiful Buns to lower the mirror, since he was already going to be there with his tools. Does-n’t hurt to ask, she decided, kicking her step back to the wall. Probably wouldn’t hurt to throw on a tighter T-shirt, either.

“WHO’S THERE?”

“It’s three forty-five, lady. Who do you think it is?”

“Can you show me some identification please—slip it under the door?”

“Lady, the only ID I have on me is my pipe wrench. So open up or I’m going back to bed.”

Smiling, she knew what ID she wanted to see. Yeah, like she’d really ask him to turn around so she could take a look. Only in your dreams, Rox. “Well, hold out that pipe wrench where I can see it,” she said, opening the door an inch. And there it was, his tool thrust right out there at her, and right behind it bare chest. Bare chest every bit as good as his backside. The she-gods were loving her tonight because this was pure, glorious male potency at its best. “Okay, I’m going to trust that that’s a pipe wrench.” Not that she had even looked at the wrench.

“It’s a pipe wrench, lady, so do you want me coming in and using it, because I’m two seconds away from going back across the hall to bed. Which is where I should have stayed in the first place.”

Mercy, mercy, please come in and use it. “Across the hall, as in you’re my neighbor?” Through the crack in the door, Roxy’s eyes wandered from his chest, down the low-riding jeans to his bare feet then back up to his chest. Hairless—somewhat surprising, since men with black hair usually had a fine mat on their chest. But his chest was boldly bare, showing off his flat, rippled stomach. Oh, my heavens, a six-pack! “I guess I’ve just been too busy to meet—”

“Your leak, lady?” he interrupted, his lack of interest in neighborly chitchat made abundantly clear by his testy intonation.

Roxy’s eyes went back up to his face. Except for the furious scowl it wasn’t bad—not bad at all. Probably the first time she’d looked past his…endowments, and she sure liked what she was seeing. Whiskey-brown eyes, dark eyebrows, and that nighttime shadow of stubble. Now, that would be something real nice to wake up to. She remembered waking up to Bruce. He looked more like the bad end of a mop in the mornings. “Please come in…um…neighbor.” She unlatched the chain, opened the door and pointed to the kitchen. “It’s through the living room…”

“I know where the kitchen is,” he snapped, his testiness booting up another notch.

“I guess you would…did you mention your name, by the way?”

“Ned,” he grunted in passing. “Ned Proctor.”

“Well, Ned Proctor. Welcome to my apartment.” Stepping back as he whooshed by, Roxy caught a trace of his scent. He smells great, too. Could this get any better? He was like a fresh splash of something bold and virile, unlike her one and only date in the past three months. What was his name? Michael? Or was it Rupert? Whichever…he’d shown up smelling like an array of discount cologne samples, and she’d sneezed her way around the first block with him before jumping out of his car and hoofing it all the way home—in the fresh air. It took a whole month for her aching sinuses to completely recover from that redolent attack.