The Sex Solution

by Kimberly Raye

  Not half as exciting as the image of Austin.

  She forced the notion aside and smiled. “It’s more work than excitement, but I like it.”

  “I know what you mean. Running the bar was always that way for me until Brady.” She glanced at her watch. “Speaking of which, Brady’s company’s softball team is playing the Kerrville Kangaroos in fifteen minutes and I promised to pick up sandwiches. I hired this really great cook and he makes the best brisket po’boys.” At Madeline’s questioning expression, she added, “With Brady and the kids, I had to cut back my hours at the bar. I only go in two days a week to oversee the books and the inventory. I’ve got a manager who runs things now.”

  “A manager?”

  She nodded. “She’s a godsend. Gotta run, but it was good seeing you. Good luck with your job!”

  “Good luck with the whole mom and wife thing.” Madeline watched Eden cross the street and disappear into the Pink Cadillac, and did her best to ignore the strange sense of longing that suddenly filled her.

  Longing?

  Because Eden was a mom and a wife?

  Actually, the longing was more because Eden was a mom and wife and she seemed so happy about it. She’d even given up much of what she’d spent years working to build.

  Not Madeline. She had plans. Goals. She wanted to go somewhere in her life, to move all the way to the top of V.A.M.P.’s research and development, and she was this close.

  She gave the shop one last glance before starting back up the street. She’d wasted too much time with silly reminiscing. She was all about getting things done now. In store for the evening was another test. And another round of sex so that she could work Austin completely out of her system.

  She prayed they were both a success.

  “ARE YOU READY?” Austin ducked his head in the doorway of Miss Marshalyn’s house late Tuesday afternoon, fully expecting to see her wearing one of her nice polyester pantsuits and matching accessories. Her “going out” clothes. Instead, she wore a purple housedress and matching Keds. The sleeves were rolled up and she was submerged up to her elbows in a sink full of suds.

  “Why aren’t you ready for choir practice?”

  “I’m not going.” She pulled her hands free and grabbed a dish towel.

  “But you never miss practice.”

  “I am today. I’m tired. I was out late bowling last night.” She folded the used towel and set it back on the counter. “You’ll never guess who was there.”

  “Spur Tucker.”

  “Spur Tucker, of all people,” she went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “He was going around to all the women, eating their nachos and taking bites of their frito pies. It was positively scandalous.”

  “Did you give him a bite of your pie?” His eyes twinkled.

  “I was eating a hot dog, and the only thing I gave him was a piece of my mind.”

  Austin glanced at his watch. “So what about choir practice? Time’s wasting.”

  “I already told you, I’m not going,” she said again. “I hate choir.”

  “You love to sing.”

  “I hate the old biddies I sing with.”

  “They’re your best friends.”

  “Some friends.” She snorted. “I told them all last night I was bringing my special recipe fudge pie today.” She indicated the dessert sitting on her kitchen table. A strange aroma filled the air. “I had just pulled it from the oven when Arsell Jenkins called and said she was bringing her coconut cake. She said the girls took a vote last night after I left and I’m out of the dessert rotation. They said that I can’t bake to save my life anymore.”

  “What does baking have to do with choir? You love to sing.” Not to mention, singing was safe for someone with poor eyesight. No walking involved. Just standing in the same spot, clapping and tapping every now and then.

  “I can’t go to choir practice without bringing something.”

  “So buy something.”

  She pinned him with a stare. “Are you implying that they’re right?”

  “No one bakes like you.” He gave the pie and its funny smell a wide birth as he rounded the table. “It’s not your baking.” He came up to her, took her hand and said the one thing they both already knew. “It’s your eyesight, sugar.”

  “My eyesight is perfectly fine,” she huffed, snatching her hand away. She sank down at the kitchen table and Austin had no choice but to take the seat she motioned him into.

  The smell grew stronger and his eyes started to water.

  “Do you know what else Arsell said? She said that the girls think I have Old Timer’s, and that my baking mistakes were because I’m starting to lose it upstairs.” She tapped her temple. “Can you imagine? Me? With Old Timer’s? Why, I can recite every scripture Pastor Standley has ever read at Wednesday night Bible study. I do not get mixed up. I simply made one itsy-bitsy mistake with Cheryl Louise’s groom’s cake. Sugar and salt. Both white. It was just an honest mistake. People make them all the time.”

  “If it’s just a mistake, chances are it won’t happen again. You shouldn’t go making any rash decisions about quitting choir based on one honest mistake.”

  “True, but Arsell and the others think I have Old Timer’s, and if I happen to make another mistake, then they’ll make a big deal. I refuse to have the entire town wagging their collective tongue. I’d rather sing at home. At least then maybe they’ll feel bad.”

  He folded his arms and eyed her. “Or you could talk to Dr. Bartlett about the eye surgery he mentioned during your last appointment.”

  “My sight is just fine for a woman my age,” she insisted. “Speaking of which, I haven’t seen you out and about with anyone lately. You’re not dating, are you?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “My going-away party is the weekend after next. You’d better work a little harder. Unless you’ve changed your mind. In that case, I could give that real estate man a call and put this old place up for sale to some anonymous stranger who’s never even set foot here and will no doubt bulldoze everything. Maybe even put up a few condos.”

  “We’re out in the middle of nowhere. Nobody puts up condos in Nowhere, Texas.”

  “Maybe they’ll open up one of those dude ranches and have all sorts of people coming and going, and they’ll still have to bulldoze because they’ll want modern lodging and probably a spa and a golf course and tennis courts—”

  “Nobody’s bulldozing anything.” He frowned and turned. “I’ve got a woman in mind.”

  “Who?”

  “If you’re not going to choir, then I’ll get back to work.” He pushed to his feet.

  “Who?” She followed him out onto the front porch. “Come on. Say something.”

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t let a bunch of gossips keep me from doing something I enjoy. Go to choir practice anyway. Show those old women that they can’t keep a good woman down.”

  “That’s not what I wanted you to say. Tell me her name.”

  “Have a nice day, Miss Marshalyn.” He tipped his hat and stepped off the front porch, his boots eating up dust as fast as his legs could carry him before he had to admit the truth—that he still hadn’t decided on any one suitable woman in particular.

  Now if they were talking a hot, brazen, totally unsuitable woman…well, he’d found her, all right.

  Talk about bad luck.

  FORGET BAD. His luck was plumb rotten.

  Austin came to that conclusion when Madeline met him at the door wearing a thin white silk blouse tucked into a tight black skirt. She hadn’t bothered to wear a bra and her nipples made mouthwatering points beneath the flimsy material. Her breasts trembled with every breath she took.

  It took everything he had not to pull her into his arms, peel the shirt from her and return the attention she’d lavished on his own nipples the night before.

  He focused on walking to the sofa and sitting down in his usual spot. She came around him and the blindfold slid into place. Next came the sca
rf at his wrists.

  “We didn’t do this last night.”

  “Because I needed your arms free to try out the samples on your skin. Tonight we’re isolating your sense of taste. So no touching.” She tied the ends into place and checked her work. “Unless you start to feel dizzy. If so, tell me and I’ll see what I can do.”

  A few moments later, the couch dipped just to his left.

  Several moments passed where Austin heard nothing save the frantic beat of his heart as he waited. And waited.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting ready,” she said, her voice soft and sweet and slightly amused. “Be patient.”

  “I’ve got work to do—”

  “Now,” she breathed. “I’m definitely ready.”

  He should have known by the way she said the words that something was up—besides his dick, that is. But he was so fixated on getting started and getting out of there that nothing else registered.

  “Let’s go,” he told her, his fingers clasped together. “Let’s get it over with.”

  “Okay. I’m going to hold the first sample up. Take a lick and tell me what you taste in three descriptive words.”

  His lips parted and his tongue darted out and he lapped a dollop of a creamy, puddinglike substance. The sweet taste of raspberries with an underlying hint of salty skin exploded in his mouth and he quickly realized that she wasn’t holding the sample with a spoon. She’d dipped her finger into the mixture and held it out to him.

  He swallowed and his head snapped back. “What the hell are you doing?” he sputtered.

  “Administering the sample.”

  “With your finger.”

  “So what?”

  “So shouldn’t you use a spoon, or fork or…something? Anything but your finger?”

  “I could just scoop it into my palm if you’d like.”

  “It’s not about what I like. It’s about the fact that this is a taste test. Taste as in eat. Most people eat with a damned spoon or something.”

  “I need to know how the subtle flavor of skin mingles with the actual sample, and how palatable the combination is. That’s why you have to taste the lotion as it was meant to be used—slathered onto a warm body. My warm body.”

  The moment she said the words, he envisioned her peeling off her shirt and smoothing the sample over her ripe nipples and letting him take a nice long lick.

  His jeans strained over his massive erection and he shifted for a more comfortable position.

  “Are you okay?” Her whisper raised the hair on the back of his neck. She sounded so breathless, so sexy, so…warm.

  He tried to shake away the sudden image of wild and wicked Madeline stretched out on the couch, naked except for a thin sheen of lotion.

  “I didn’t mean to surprise you,” she went on. “I figured it would be obvious that we need to do it this way.”

  “Well, yeah,” he said, his voice tight and strained. It also made the situation much harder than he’d anticipated. Harder being the key word.

  Descriptive words, he told himself. Just describe the damned thing and get this over with.

  But he couldn’t. With all the talk, he’d lost the full impact of the taste and now he needed another.

  “Let me try it again.” He opened his mouth. He meant to lick. At least that’s what he told himself. But instead, his damned mouth seemed to have its own agenda, and it wanted a taste. A real taste.

  His lips closed around the tip of her finger. He suckled, drawing a gasp from her before he drew the tip deeper into the warm heat of his mouth. He sucked and laved her skin, savoring the taste of her mingled with the raspberries. A potent combination.

  “Potent,” he murmured when he finally pulled back and drank in a deep breath. “Powerful.”

  “And?” She sounded breathless, as if the contact had affected her the way it had affected him.

  “Sweet.”

  “That’s good. Now we’ll move on to number two.”

  He expected a finger. Instead, she’d slathered the sample onto the inside of her wrist, which she touched to his lips.

  He tasted sweet vanilla and sugar, like frosting, and he couldn’t resist. He lapped at the creamy substance until he reached bare skin. He licked the last bit of sweetness and pressed his lips against her frantic pulse for a long moment.

  “I…” she started, seeming at a loss for words. Almost as if bold and brazen Madeline had suddenly lost her nerve.

  The realization eased his own anxiety and turned it to something darker and more determined.

  “Cupcakes,” he breathed as he pulled away. “You taste like cupcakes. Sweet and moist and…” He lapped one final time at the tender inside of her wrist and made her catch her breath. “Sticky,” he finished.

  “I…” she began again, then cleared her throat. “I mean, good. That was really good. Let’s move on to number three. Try this one,” she said.

  His tongue darted out and touched soft, fragrant skin smoothed with sweet lotion that tasted like…chocolate. It didn’t matter that Austin had always been partial to everything from vanilla ice-cream cones to Twinkies rather than Ding Dongs. Suddenly it was all about the mouthwatering flavor coating his tongue.

  And what was one more little taste?

  He licked and nibbled, his lips pressed to the delicate skin as he devoured the sample. Her breath caught and her free hand touched the back of his neck as if to brace herself. Or hold him close.

  Either way, her fingers scorched him and made him even more ravenous. He ate at her until he sucked bare, salty skin that tantalized his taste buds even more than the delicious chocolate.

  “Rich,” he breathed as his lips worked an inch up the tender inside of her upper arm. He felt the fullness of her breast against his cheek and it was all he could do not to turn and suckle her right through her blouse. But he wasn’t that far gone.

  Not yet.

  “Sweet,” he added, moving another inch higher. “Sinful.”

  “No more,” she said, her voice slightly pleading.

  “Isn’t this what you wanted?” He kissed her skin.

  “I mean the sample.” Her words pushed past the fog of desire gripping his senses. “There’s no more. We should move on to the next one.”

  He pulled away, his heart pounding as he waited for what would come next. A dozen possibilities flashed in his mind before long, silky fingers finally threaded through his hair and turned his head sideways before guiding his lips down.

  More luscious skin smoothed with the flavor of candied apples mesmerized his taste buds and he reacted like a starving man. He licked and nibbled until a frantic thud pulsed against his mouth and he realized his location.

  Her neck.

  Whoa, buddy. This is bad. Real bad.

  But even as the warning echoed through his head, he lifted his bound hands and touched her neck with his fingertips, desperate for more than just a taste. He needed to feel her, to soak up her softness and consume it the way he was consuming the cream smoothed over her delicious skin.

  Trailing his fingertips down, he felt his way to the deep vee of her cleavage. He lingered at the warm skin there for a moment as he nibbled. Then he touched one silk-covered nipple.

  He circled the nub, feeling it ripen even more beneath his touch. He needed to taste her, to feel the hard tip against his lips and suck her into the wet heat of his mouth.

  Despite his bound hands, he made quick work of the buttons, feeling his way from one to the next until he shoved the material aside. He kissed a path to her nipple and was about to close his mouth over her when she pushed him away.

  “Wait.” She moved, scooting a few inches away. “We’ve got another sample.”

  But he wasn’t of a mind to wait. Snagging the edge of the tie around his wrist, he pulled and the material loosened. He slid his hands free. Then he reached for the blindfold, pulling the silk down just in time to see her touch a dollop of burnt orange cream to her rosy-red nipple.

&n
bsp; “Aw, hell,” he groaned. At the sound of his voice, her head snapped up and her hand froze.

  “You’re supposed to keep your senses isolated.” Her words drew his attention to her face. To the flush of her cheeks and the desire burning in her eyes and the wet fullness of her lush mouth. Her tongue swiped across her bottom lip and his insides hollowed out.

  He tried to find his voice, but he couldn’t. He hadn’t had the chance to really look last night, and Christ, she looked beautiful. Wanton. Wild.

  “Go ahead,” she said, as if she mistook his silence for confusion. “Take a taste.”

  Oddly enough, it wasn’t the bold, brazen way she said the words that made him grow even harder. It was the jolt of pure lust that shot through him, as if he hadn’t just had one of the best climaxes of his life not more than twenty-four hours ago. That, and something else. A need more fierce than anything he’d ever felt before.

  He reached out, touched his fingertip to her nipple. The bud hardened even more, pressing and tightening, reaching out. He drew in a shaky breath and brought the dab of cream on his finger to his own lips. The warm flavor of pumpkin combined with cinnamon and sugar set his mouth watering and hunger gnawed at his insides.

  “That’s not what I meant,” she told him.

  “I know,” he told her. He kissed her roughly, his fingers threading through her hair as he held her for the onslaught of his lips and tongue.

  Then he buttoned her blouse, stood and walked away before he stopped thinking with his head and gave in to his damned body again.

  She was a one-night stand, as in one, as in temporary, and as much as he wanted to forget that fact, he couldn’t.

  He wouldn’t.

  Not with his land, and his heart, hanging in the balance.

  THE DOOR SLAMMED SHUT behind Austin and he drank in the night air, eager to calm his pounding heart.

  “Damn, but that was close,” he muttered.

  “You ain’t just whistling Dixie.” The crackly voice came from Austin’s left. He glanced to the side to see the old man braced against the porch rail. “You and Maddie been watching that Exorcist marathon that’s on cable tonight?”