You Sexy Thing!. Tori Carrington
pop up even further. “Yes. As in Peeping Tom,” she finished.
Oh, shit.
It couldn’t be.
It wasn’t possible he’d blundered into another situation with the same woman twice in one day. The law of averages completely went against such an improbability.
Yet here he was. Staring at the water nymph from the shower earlier that morning.
2
DYLAN WATCHED as Grace Mattias pulled her hair back, revealing the lightly freckled, even planes of her face. “Picture me without makeup…and clothes.”
He closed his eyes tightly and uttered a pungent curse.
“Dr. Fairbanks?” A male voice said into his ear phones. “The FCC frowns on the use of such language.”
He grimaced and forced himself to face forward, well away from the provocative woman next to him and toward the radio host. How bad could it get? This was a morning show, right? Certainly there were guidelines the show had to follow. “Are we on the air?”
“Not yet.” This time it was the radio host who spoke. And Dylan didn’t like the width of his predatory grin. “But we will be in three, two, one…welcome back everybody. This is Baxter Berning on WDRT and you’re listening to America’s most popular syndicated talk show. Boy, are you ever in store for a tasty treat today. If you’ve just tuned in, don’t worry about what you’ve missed. If you’ve stuck around, then you’re about to hit pay dirt. I’d like to begin this segment by introducing two of the foremost experts in the area of sex.” He drew out the word with suggestive flair then picked up a book Dylan didn’t recognize because it wasn’t his own. Baxter introduced Grace. Then he homed in on Dylan, ignoring the copy of his book at his elbow as he leaned forward.
Bad news. Whenever they overlooked his book, it meant they were about to go off on a tangent, outside the list of acceptable interview questions Tanja had provided the producer. Worse news.
“Now let’s see if I can get this straight, Dr. Fairbanks. Am I to gather from your conversation with Gracie—can I call you Gracie?”
The redhead next to him nodded, causing all that red hair to shimmer under a warm spotlight. Then she leaned closer to her mic, almost as if about to kiss it, and said, “You can call me anything you’d like, Baxter. Just don’t call me late for bed.”
Dylan cringed. This was a doctor? He didn’t know any doctors who spoke like that. Okay, there were his parents, but for all intents and purposes, they weren’t real doctors anymore.
The host reacted. “Ooo. For my listeners, I’d like to point out that Gracie is every bit the sex kitten she sounds like. This is one interview you’ll want to check out when it airs on TV.” He leaned forward. “Anyway, back to you Dr. Fairbanks.”
“Call me Dylan, please,” he said, uncomfortably tugging on the lapels of his jacket.
“Right. Anyway, am I correct in assuming that you, um, played Peeping Tom to Gracie’s sexy victim this morning?”
Oh, God. It was one thing to have suffered through the unfortunate event in the first place. To be humiliated before a national audience was altogether different. “Not by design, I assure you,” he said, then cleared the high-pitched panic from his voice. “It was a simple misunderstanding. I mistook Dr. Mattias’s hotel room for my own, and by innocent accident let myself into her room.”
“I was in the shower,” Grace clarified.
Dylan jerked to gape at her. She didn’t have to share that. He cringed and prayed Diana wasn’t listening to the show in San Francisco.
“Uh-huh. I’ve heard of wanting to get a peek at the competition, Doc, but this is fantastic.” The host sat back, dragging his mic with him. “So tell us, does the female sex doc look as good out of her clothes as in?”
Dylan’s collar felt like a tightening noose as he slanted another gaze Grace’s way. Oh, boy, did she, his own body responded. But to Baxter he said, “I’m afraid I didn’t get a good look.”
“Didn’t get a good look,” the host repeated. “Now that’s the biggest load I’ve ever heard. Are you human, man? I mean, just look at her. That’s a piece even the Pope would look twice at. You can’t tell me you didn’t take advantage of the prime opportunity and devour that tight little body with your eyes.”
“If that was a compliment, thank you, Baxter.” Grace’s voice practically purred in Dylan’s ears.
He hit his chin on the mic. “I’ll be the first to admit that Dr. Mattias is…attractive.”
“Trust me, you’re not the first, and you won’t be the last, Doc.”
Grace laughed, a throaty sound that made the swirling in Dylan’s stomach slink lower. “I’m afraid you’re making Dylan uncomfortable, Bax. If you’d read his book, and believe me, I have, then you’d know that he doesn’t buy into the whole chemistry theory. He believes the human anatomy was designed solely for reproduction purposes and that only within the confines of a monogamous relationship—”
“Marriage,” Dylan corrected, regaining his bearings, and unendingly grateful his colleague had shifted the conversation back to solid ground. If they stuck to their books and medical terminology, he’d be fine.
She smiled at him. “All right, then, marriage. As I was saying, Dr. Dylan believes only within the bonds of marriage should sexual, um, attraction be explored.”
The host’s gaze bore into Dylan. “Does that mean you’re still a virgin, Doc?”
He nearly choked. “No. No, of course not.”
The shock jock snapped his fingers in front of his microphone. “Then you’re one of those, oh, what’s the term they’re throwing around like yesterday’s paper? I got it. A born-again virgin. Are you a born-again virgin, then?”
Dylan hated the term, though by the host’s definition, he suspected his situation fit within the wide parameters. “No comment.”
“Come on, Doc, just look at her. Are you telling me that you don’t just totally want to bang her brains out? Whip out ol’ George and get down to introductions? For crying out loud, Gracie is a walking wet dream.”
Explicit pImages** flashed through Dylan’s mind. Visions of Grace standing under the shower stream, the water sluicing over her womanly curves, her nipples hard and begging for attention, her thighs warm and wet with an altogether different moisture.
Get it together, Dylan. Now was not the time or the place to explore his most untoward thoughts of the woman next to him.
He cleared his throat. “Don’t get me wrong. As I point out in Chapter Four of my latest book, Reaching New Heights—Advice on How to Obtain Ultimate Sexual Pleasure, attraction between a man and a woman plays an important role when they first meet. But it’s a mere pebble in the foundation of a solid, fulfilling relationship.”
The host made a face, obviously not getting the response he wanted. He opened Grace’s book and flipped through the pages. “Seems yours and the sex doctor’s beliefs are completely contrary then.” He grinned at Grace. “It says here that you suggest your patients go out on sexual safaris.”
“Some patients,” Grace said, straightening her headphones, then fluffing all that red hair back around them. “Those without a dark, painful sexual past who are merely in need of finding themselves…sexually. An awakening of sorts, if you will.”
Sexual safari? Dylan thought. It was only when the voices in his headphones went silent that he realized he’d made the remark aloud.
“You were saying?” the host asked.
Yeah, he was saying. Dylan sat up a little straighter, speaking into the mic at an angle as he looked at Grace. “Define sexual safari, Dr. Mattias.”