"Are you tel ing me their readers are our demographic?" he asked in disbelief.
"Why not? Just because they've got money doesn't mean they don't enjoy sexy stories. Wealthy women read magazines, too, you know."
"You don't say." Rand skimmed the pages as she drove. "So it's true that size counts, hmm?"
"If we're being honest, yes, but only to a point." Cil a pul ed to a stop at a red light and flicked a glance at his hands. "Trust me, big boy, you've got nothing to worry about. Any other surprises there for you?"
"The missionary position is number one?"
"There's a lot to be said for missionary. I'd be happy to show you, if you like," she offered, with a hot, silky smile that had his hair curling.
A beat went by. Slowly, Rand let his breath out. "I thought we agreed that wasn't a good idea."
Cil a slanted him a look. "I think maybe we need to revisit that decision."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Wel , if we're both professionals, why can't we do what we want to in our spare time?" She glanced over her shoulder and changed lanes.
He could think of a mil ion reasons why they shouldn't. He could think of one reason why they should: he knew how good it would be. That wasn't enough, but God, he wanted her.
He stared at her, trying to formulate a reply, and then took a better look at the street they were driving down. "Where the hel are you going? I thought we were heading back to the office."
"We'l get there eventual y," she said breezily.
"And in the meantime?"
Cil a gave him a smile he didn't trust. "Consider it a field trip."
They were heading down Fairfax, on a block where more windows had bars than not. She turned into a strip mal with an adult bookstore.
"No," he said flatly.
"Don't worry, we're not stopping." She patted his knee and pul ed back out onto the road. "It's just to give you an idea of the options out there for your average woman who wants some sexy playthings." Cil a headed up and over onto Santa Monica. "I don't care how bad she wants it, she's not going to go into a place like that without a decontamination suit."
"There are other options."
"Sure. Catalogs, but who wants to offer up their name, address, credit card, the works?"
"I mean more reputable stores that sel sex toys."
"Sure." She whipped off the street into a parking lot. "Like this."
The brick-red building sat isolated in its own parking lot, edged with sandy rectangles sprouting mostly weeds. The sign on the roof said The Pleasure Zone.
Cil a opened her door. "Let's go shopping."
She was in high good humor, he noticed. He didn't get over to West Hol ywood very often, but he had a pretty good idea of what lay inside. A combination sex shop and head shop, he figured.
And he was right.
Inside, the colors were dark and incense lay heavy on the air. The store looked maybe a bit on the tawdry side, admittedly, but clean enough.
Certainly nothing that would alarm the average woman shopper. Okay, so maybe he felt a little bit awkward, but that was primarily because most of the toys were for women or for guys who batted for the other team. It wasn't exactly a place he belonged.
"So what's wrong with this?" he asked.
"Wel , it's not exactly the kind of store the average trust-fund baby is used to."
He shrugged. "It'l be good for them to get a glimpse of what real life is like."
"We stick with that idea and we're walking away from revenue." She passed a wire book rack and stopped to pul out a volume. "Oh, look— Going Down on a Woman: the complete guide. Nothing you need," she told him and put it back on the shelf.
There it was again, that disturbing chal enge, that reminder of what had passed between them. What was stil between them. If he were smart, he'd let it go.
But a part of him itched to take her up on it.
Cil a gave him a careless glance and blithely continued down the aisle to a display of lotions and oils. "Now, see, we could carry some of this stuff.
Not even you could kick up a fuss about this."
Rand frowned. It wasn't as if he was some kind of uptight moralist. He just wasn't convinced it was going to sel and he wasn't sure it was worth the risk. Then again…
Cil a picked up a sample bottle of almond oil and sniffed it, then rubbed some on the inside of her wrist. "This smel s wonderful. Try it," she invited, holding her hand up to him.
He caught the scent, the rich, sweet fragrance that emanated from her skin as though she were some luscious dessert. It smel ed delectable. She smel ed delectable, and he had a fleeting urge to press his lips to the fragile skin.
Cil a dropped her arm as though she hadn't noticed and continued down the aisle. "Oh, now here's one we should definitely have," she said, reading the label. "Hot friction oil." Delighted, she rubbed a bit of it into the back of her hand. Her mouth parted in pleasure. "This, you've got to feel." Before he understood her intent, she applied some to the back of his own hand.
He couldn't say whether the heat was from the action of the lotion or the touch of her fingers. Her thumb circled against his skin, heating it, sensitizing it, and—
And he felt himself getting hard.
Okay, this was a problem. Trying to not think about sex around Cil a was a chal enge at the best of times. Trying to avoid thinking about it in a store fil ed with lingerie and sex toys, while she was rubbing hot oil on his hand, was almost impossible.
"Al right, I get the point," he said brusquely.
Amusement danced in her eyes. She wasn't upset. She knew exactly why he was reacting the way he was.
And it was just what she wanted.
"So we can at least agree that the lotions and oils make sense, right? A smal , discreet display of them?" She picked up a bottle of strawberry-flavored gel and applied a sample to the inside of the wrist without the almond oil. "Hmm," she said, tasting it experimental y. "I don't know. What do you think?" She held it up for him.
Rand looked at her.
"Oh, come on, don't be stuffy about it. Just tel me what you think. It tastes too much like candy for me. Here, try."
Rand bent over her wrist and touched his tongue to the skin. A burst of sweetness rol ed through him. Underneath, though, was the far more enticing flavor of Cil a herself, a taste he had already learned and tried to forget.
Tried and failed.
His lips lingered. He heard Cil a's soft intake of breath, felt her tremble. He knew he needed to release her, but seconds passed before he could make himself do it.
When he looked up, her eyes were a little hazy. "Wel , maybe we'l skip those, try some others," Cil a said, her voice a little uneven. "Let's keep going."
She drifted away slowly at first, gaining purpose as she moved. "Ah yes, here we are," she said, her voice back to normal.
This was where the store got serious, he saw, looking over the array of typical, recognizable or frankly mysterious gadgets that sat on the shelf. The dildos, he recognized.
He lifted one. "Instant boyfriend?"
"It takes more than that to make a boyfriend," Cil a shot back at him and went on to the vibrators.
"I'd have thought a woman like you would have one or two of these already," he said, watching her switch on a sleek silver model and test it against her hand.
"I do," she laughed, pressing the vibrating tip against his chest. "I don't use it al that much, though."
The buzz went through his sternum. The look in her eyes set up an answering resonance much farther down. "Oh yeah? Why's that?"
"Wel , let's face it, it's not exactly something that a real man can do, is it?"
"Yeah, so?"
She stepped in close to him. "So I'd rather stick with the one hundred percent pure, organic version, thanks very much."
Before he could react, she'd moved away and had begun working her way along the aisle. "Now as I see it, we should have a couple of types of vibrators—your anatomical
y correct and your basic smooth versions. I think we should skip the artsy ones," she added, flicking a disdainful hand at a gizmo that looked, near as he could tel , like a dildo with a two inch tal rabbit attached at the base.
"And what's that, the multitasker?"
"For the girl who wants everything." She picked it up and turned it on. "You've never seen one of these before?"
"Not ones shaped like rabbits, no. Anyway, I don't exactly study them. They're al basical y for your gang anyway."
"Oh, you'd be surprised at what it could do for you, sugar," she purred at him, leaning it to press it for an instant against his crotch. The vibration sent a jolt through his system. "Like I said before," she whispered, "you've been hanging around with the wrong crowd."
His hard-on was immediate. Rand resisted the urge to look around like some high school kid and see who'd seen them. "You always like public games?"
"I seem to remember you did, too."
He had a sense of fighting a losing battle. "Whatever happened to taking care of business?"
"Nothing says we can't do both, as long as we're smart about it."
Her eyes were dark with promise as she leaned in toward him. Her scent wound around his brain, taking him back to the hot, urgent moments in the desert, the taste of her, the feel of her heat.
Rand dove his hands into her hair and dragged her to him.
Frustration. Desire. Compulsion. The wanting swept through him like a fury, finding release in the hard, bruising pressure of his mouth on hers. Her taste bloomed against his tongue, sweet, spicy and darkly seductive. He poured into the kiss the longing and the denial he'd felt for three long weeks, every time he'd seen her, every time he'd sat across from her in a meeting room, heard her laughing voice.
Every time he'd dreamed of her.
They were in the middle of a store and he didn't give a damn. They were working together and for a moment he didn't care. She matched him, took him deeper, her arms wrapping around him, her body pressing close.
Somehow, somewhere, in some smal pocket of sanity he stil possessed, he realized he was flirting with disaster. Somewhere, he knew he had to find a way to stop. Torturously, he began clawing his way back from the brink.
They parted, breathing hard, Cil a's eyes enormous and dark.
"We are not going to do this," he said evenly.
"After that? You've got to be kidding."
"It's not smart, Cil a, for either of us." He turned to leave the store, with her fol owing him.
"Y'al come back, now," the guy behind the counter cal ed.
* * *
CILLA SLAPPED OPEN the doors and stomped out into the sunlight of the parking lot. "What the hel was that al about in there," she demanded. "What are you playing at?" "What am I playing at? What about you, with your lotions and vibrators?"
"That was me trying to seduce you. I'd think you'd be smart enough to recognize it. I don't see why it has to be so hard. I want you, you want me.
We're adults. We ought to be able to keep the two separate," she flared, marching to her car.
"You can't possibly be that naive," he snapped back. "We have an affair, it ends one way or another, and then we've got to work together? No way am I walking into that."
She shoved her key into the lock. "Haven't you ever heard of casual sex, Rand? Trust me, I don't want to have your children. I just want to have a good time."
"That's not a good enough reason," he said from behind her.
"Oh, no?" She spun on her heel. "Then how about this?"
If the earlier kiss had sizzled, this one flamed. His hands ran down her body. Her fingers tangled in his hair. Through the alchemy of emotion, anger and lust fused to become molten desire. Mouth to mouth, body to body, they met. They sought provocation, not tenderness, chal enge, not kindness.
The flare, the fire satisfied in a way nothing else could have.
The honk of a passing car brought them to their senses.
Cil a leaned back against the car, breathing hard. "If you think you can put that away in a tidy little box, you're dreaming." She touched a finger to her bruised lips. "It's going to happen, Rand. You might as wel get used to it."
8
"WHAT ARE YOU swinging at?" Rand demanded of the television in disgust. He sprawled on the black leather couch in a faded Batman T-shirt and jeans, watching the Anaheim Angels fight off the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Two feet away, in a nearly identical position, sat his oldest friend, Wayne Castle.
They'd grown up together in Anaheim, down in Orange County, playing Little League, worshiping the Angels, riding their bicycles to the stadium and to the beach when they weren't in school. Moving on to col ege and employment hadn't interfered with their friendship. Rand earned degrees at Cal Berkeley and Stanford, and headed east to conquer the business world. Wayne became a dentist and returned to Costa Mesa to practice. It was a rare week when they didn't talk, and if it was mostly about sports, they somehow always managed to weave in the fabric of their lives at the same time.
Eckstein hit a line drive that went through the glove of the Tampa Bay shortstop, al owing the Angel on third to score.
Wayne clapped. "Yes, thank you. We accept charity in al of its manifestations."
"There's no way they should be fighting this hard with Tampa," Rand muttered bad temperedly. Tampa Bay held the spot similar to the one the Angels had back when Rand was a kid—the cel ar. Being an Angel fan back then had been a matter of learning a tolerance for pain. The occasional winning seasons had always ultimately ended in heartbreak, until he'd given up hope and just settled for dogged loyalty. Then had come the miraculous 2002 season, with its World Series win. Pretty much anytime after that, Rand figured, he could die a happy man.
Vladimir Guerrero swung at a hanging curvebal and sent it arcing high out over the back fence of the park and toward the freeway. "Goodbye, Mr.
Spaulding," Wayne hol ered as another man came home.
"Only two runs behind, now." Rand took a swig of beer and lapsed back on the couch.
Wayne gave him a stare. "So what's put you in the great mood today?"
"What do you mean?"
"What do I mean, he asks," Wayne said to an invisible person in the room. "You haven't exactly been Mr. Personality, and you're on your third beer, which I don't think I've seen you do in about ten years."
"They were getting past their freshness date."
"And, so are you. What's going on?"
Tampa Bay made a pitching change and the game broke.
"Oh, I've just got some things that are being a pain in the butt," Rand muttered with a scowl.
"Work things or woman-type things?"
"Yes."
"Ah. The dreaded mix."
Rand tapped his fingers restlessly on the couch. "Cil a's pushing me to sleep with her. No strings, she says."
"You're the only guy I know who'd consider that a problem."
"Wayne?" Rand turned to give him a look. "How long have you been having sex?"
Wayne grinned. "Can I count that time with Debbie Foster on the Little League field?"
"That wasn't sex, that was groping."
"She told me it was sex."
"That's what you get for being gul ible. How long?" he persisted.
Wayne counted in his head, stopping for a swig of his Sierra Nevada. "Eighteen years." He brightened. "My sex life can vote now."
"And in al of that time, have you ever once had sex with a woman when there were no strings attached?"
Wayne squinted at the ceiling and considered. Final y, he shook his head. "Absolutely not."
"Exactly. She might say it's just for sex, and maybe she even believes it, but it's not. Women don't do sex without strings, and in this case the strings are tangled up around my job."
"Hel , she's going to inherit someday. Maybe it should have some strings for you."
"I'm not sure it doesn't already." Moodily, he took a swig of his beer. "Goddammit, it pisses me off that she is who she is. I lik
e this woman, a lot. If things were different, I'd be al over her."
"So can you hold her off for six months?"
"I'm not sure I can hold myself off for six months."
A commercial came on and Wayne grabbed the remote to switch to ESPN. "Wel , one could ask why you care. It's just a six-month project.
Besides, you've been tel ing me since day one that this Danforth gig is a short-term thing for you."
"Short-term is relative. I'm sure as hel not going to make a dumb move based on a short timeline and wind up being screwed if I need it to last longer."
"So you're going to avoid getting screwed to avoid getting screwed."
"You've got a wonderful way with words."
"Thanks, I've been working on it," Wayne said modestly. "Seriously, though, once this project is out of the way, you go on to other stuff, right?"
"Yeah, but—"
"Yeah, but what? You want her. She wants you. Say you take advantage of it. You've got a built-in fail-safe, right? No matter if you crash and burn, you're out of each other's hair in six months. What's the harm?"
"The harm is that maybe I get too cute for my own good." Rand lapsed into moody silence, not reacting even when an error on the Angels' third baseman al owed two Tampa runs to score.
"You know, there are a mil ion beautiful women in L.A.," Wayne said thoughtful y as the camera panned over the crowd. "Look at her, she's a goddess. Hel , if your gut's tel ing you to stay out of it, then stay out of it." He turned to look at Rand. "You've got the cool apartment. Make use of it.
Play around. It'l get her right out of your head."
That was the problem, Rand thought. There might be a mil ion beautiful women in L.A., but he'd stopped noticing them. Somehow, they'd al just turned into wal paper. Only Cil a stood out to him. Only Cil a stayed in his mind, hour after hour, day after day.
* * *
RAND SAT IN HIS OFFICE typing an answer to an e-mail, trying to figure out how it had already gotten to be 3:00 p.m. At a rap on his open door, he glanced up to see Cil a. She wore a blue tweed blazer belted over a pencil skirt, and sky-high heels. What was it about a woman in stilettos that was so damned hot, he wondered as he looked at her standing there. But was it the heels or was it the way she stood there like a world-beater, a sexy world-beater, and daring him not to notice?
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