Adam crossed his arms over his chest in what Lane assumed was a ‘quintessential alpha male’ pose. ‘By all means, Lane, let’s get down to business,’ he said. ‘Oh, sorry, should I call you Lane? Perhaps you’d prefer Miss Davis? Ms Davis? It’s not Dr Davis, is it? Because Sarah tells me you were some ace university student, so I guess a PhD isn’t out of the question.’
Lane did not allow even the flicker of one eyelid as she picked up her briefcase and retrieved the all-important paperwork off the coffee table. ‘It’s Ms, but Lane is fine.’
‘All right. Lane it is.’ He drew out the sound of her name until it was thick and honeyed and beautiful.
Lane caught her breath before it could hitch in her throat. Checklist. Checklist. Concentrate on the checklist. But her eyes didn’t seem to want to focus on that perfect document in her hand. ‘Then let’s move on,’ she said. ‘We can get away from the smoked salmon by sitting at the dining table. This way, please.’
She could feel him following, though he lagged several steps behind. The knowledge of him was as pervasive and intimate as a layer of musk oil on her skin.
She was about to contract Adam Quinn for three months of sex.
God help her.
CHAPTER TWO
His sister was dead meat. Chopped, minced, fricasseed, barbecued.
Adam nurtured the thought as he followed the uptight Ms Davis to her precious dining room table.
Why had he let Sarah talk him into this?
Adam sighed inwardly. Why? Because he was a sucker when it came to his sister and since she damn well knew it, she took shameless advantage of him. And because it had been sold to him as a fifteen-minute job. Walk in and unsettle her fast. Be unpleasantly intimidating. Not cruel, not disparaging, not nasty to innocent, awkward Lane—just intimidating enough to scare her out of her insane scheme. Enough that she’d be ripping up her contract and showing him the door.
Innocent? Awkward?
Did Sarah even know this woman who was supposed to be one of her best friends?
Sex lessons! Who in their right mind would contract a total stranger to teach them about sex? To actually show them how to do it, all gory details included? For all Lane knew, he could be some depraved murderer. A pervert. A weirdo.
Which of course explained Sarah’s plea to him, because God alone only knew what Lane would have ended up with if she’d done what she’d intended and got some stranger off a dating app. Any other man would have had her stripped and under him by now, skip the formalities.
Because hell, she may not radiate raw sex appeal, but the untouchable, unruffled calmness she exuded was somehow more seductive. An almost irresistible challenge, like a citadel daring you to breach its walls. And she was pretty enough, in a clear-cut, haughty way that would make any man want to mess her up a little. Yep, any other man in his place right now would—
No, he wasn’t going to think about it. For his own sanity, he was going to put it out of his mind.
He watched, narrow-eyed, as Lane placed her briefcase on the floor and the papers in her hand on the dining table. Surprise, surprise—the table was glass. Hall table, coffee table, and now the dining table—all glass.
He hated glass furniture. Was her bed made of glass too? It wouldn’t surprise him. Lane looked inscrutably cool enough to have a glass bed. Cool as a refrigerated cucumber. No, cooler. Three months, God help him! If he agreed to do this, they’d be able to cut up his body for ice cubes at the end of it.
Not that he was going to agree. Nope. No way.
She gestured with one hand to the opposite side of the table. She had to be annoyed with him after his graceless entry, but not by one dip of her auburn eyelashes did she show it. Everything was tightly controlled, even the precision of her next hand movement, which said: ‘Sit—and do it now.’
Adam sat.
Dammit, he thought immediately, he was obeying her, like a dutiful puppy. It was a foreign feeling, to be obeying someone—and he didn’t like it one bit.
Keeping Sarah’s firm instructions in mind, he tried out a glower. People had been known to run full pelt from one of his scowls—the eyebrow, courtesy of stepmother #1’s belt buckle, added a certain fierceness—so he figured it should at least give Lane a few second thoughts about what she was getting herself into.
‘Can’t find a man to provide the service free of charge?’ he asked, with his best attempt at surly belligerence.
‘I’m sure I could have, if all I wanted was a fun night out. But this is not about fun. It’s about knowledge and technique.’ Lane smoothed out her papers. ‘And I’ve been assured you’re highly skilled.’
What the—? Take a damn breath. ‘I’ve never had any complaints.’
‘Good. Then let’s get started.’
Adam felt his teeth grinding. ‘Let’s,’ he said, not knowing where the hell this was going to end up.
His teeth were still grinding half an hour later when Lane had painstakingly, without a blush, gone through the ins and outs of an exhaustive list of terms and conditions. It was an effort to match her detachment as she calmly discussed confidentiality, payment by direct deposit into an account of his choice (form included, to be filled out at his leisure), the minimum two/maximum four nights-per-week schedule, the fact that the lessons would be taught at her house, blood tests, contraception, the unlikely event of pregnancy, and so on and so forth and forth and forth.
And after it all, she folded her slender, pale hands together and waited.
Without a word, he tossed his copy of the contract onto the table.
Her hands tightened on each other for a fraction of a second. ‘Any questions?’
How would his sister expect him to respond to that? Actually I’m only here to scare you out of it? Surely Sarah knew that once Lane Davis made up her mind, nothing budged her. He’d only just met her and even he could see it. Just the effort she’d put into the contract told him he was going to have his work cut out for him. He was reluctantly impressed. It was a wonder every law firm in the country wasn’t beating her door down with an employment offer.
What the hell was he supposed to do? Sarah’s plan was failing dismally. Adam thought he’d done a good job of being unpleasantly intimidating, but Lane wasn’t daunted. Intrepid, that’s what she was. Which, in his book, was another word for reckless.
A Plan B would have been nice right about now. Except he didn’t have one.
He could just refuse to sign the contract, he supposed. Let Sarah look after the mess herself.
He opened his mouth to tell Lane the deal was off.
Then he saw her hands tighten again. Ah, so that was it. Right there. The tell. A sign of weakness. He looked up quickly, expecting to enjoy a moment of triumph. But something in her eyes pulled at him. Vulnerability, where he’d expected none. Surely he wasn’t imagining that glimmer of … what was it? Confusion … anxiety … distress …? No, he wasn’t imagining it. She masked it, lightning fast, but a split second too late.
Goddammit to hell!
He tried to tell himself to ignore that look, to tell himself that if he turned her down, she’d give up—but deep down he knew better. There would be no giving up. Lane Davis would do whatever it took to get the job done. Which in this case meant finding someone else. Someone who’d be only too delighted to make love to her for the prescribed two to four nights a week. He wouldn’t put it past her to write her name on the wall in the men’s toilet at the local pub if that was what it took.
A strange sense of protectiveness clawed its way through his normally impervious psyche. He looked at Lane again, trying to reject the feeling. Her lips were dauntingly calm, saying ‘I’m invincible,’ but he’d seen that look in her eyes and he couldn’t unsee it.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Adam asked.
She blinked. He saw her draw in a deep breath, even though he didn’t hear it. And then: ‘The truth?’
‘And nothing but.’
&
nbsp; ‘All right. It’s been borne in on me that I don’t do … this … well. And I like to do things well.’
‘Borne in on you by …?’ Adam prompted.
He was intrigued to see a blush work its way up from Lane’s neck up to her cheekbones—and the fact that it wasn’t an attractive blush made it all the more powerful, more honest. More … dangerous.
‘It doesn’t matter who. What matters is that he was right about my lack of expertise. That particular experience made me see that I need a teacher. A good teacher. A hired teacher, who can be bound by a confidentiality clause. Confidentiality is very important to me—I can’t stress that enough.’
‘So it all comes down to something one douchebag said. That’s what he is, Lane. A douchebag.’
‘Yes, I know that. Now, at least. But I’m sure he isn’t the only … er … douchebag … out there, so best to be prepared.’
Douchebag. That word didn’t exactly trip off her tongue.
‘What if I can’t perform to your satisfaction?’ he asked.
‘We can terminate the arrangement. It’s all in the contract.’ She looked him over, her eyes assessing. ‘But I don’t think it will come to that. You look like you’d be good at it.’
His eyebrows shot up. What the actual fuck? ‘Thanks for the compliment.’
She was still blushing. He enjoyed that at least. ‘Well,’ she said, and cleared her throat. ‘Well. I— Well.’
Oh, he was certainly enjoying this part. Discomfiting her. Finally, a bit of joy in an otherwise ghastly evening.
Then she snapped out of that momentary incoherence. Back to cool, calm, collected. ‘It’s your alleged experience that makes you so valuable to me. That’s what I’m paying for. I’ve found in the past that the right fee will usually attract the commensurate skill level.’
Alleged? Adam felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise—a sure sign his infamous temper was on the ascent. Good God! The look on her face. Questioning. A little uncertain. Was she wondering if he was going to be worth the outlay? Alleged? Alleged?
He half rose from his seat, longing to haul her uptight backside out of her chair and shake her. The thought that she’d still be giving him that ego-deflating look at the end of it, however, checked him.
He sat back and tried to calm the hell down.
Found that he couldn’t quite manage it.
And made a decision.
Lane Davis was going to get what she was asking for, but on his terms. She wasn’t the only one who knew how to write a list. By God, he was going to draw up a lesson plan that would get her so hot and bothered she’d end up begging for him. His jaw clenched. His nostrils flared. Very caveman, but what the hell—he felt very caveman.
‘When do we start?’ he asked, and could hear the quiet danger in his voice.
He saw an expression—something like fear—cross her face. Good, he thought savagely.
‘You have to sign first.’ Her voice was steady, but her fingers tightened. ‘Both copies.’
He held out his hand and she gave him her copy of the contract with what he considered a fine show of bravado. It had to be bravado; he was scaring himself, for God’s sake. He flipped to the last page, scrawled his heavy black signature without even glancing at it.
He reached for his own copy, and Lane cleared her throat again. ‘You understand about the blood tests, right? That you have to use—’
‘Yes, yes, condoms for two weeks,’ he said, cutting her off before she could even think of backing out. It was too late for that. ‘You’ll have the pill in hand by then, won’t you?’
‘I’ll have the prescription filled in the morning.’
‘Excellent work.’ He smiled—a dangerous, wolfish grin—even though he wasn’t remotely amused. ‘You know you’re blushing, right?’ He shook his head in exaggerated amazement. ‘I’m relieved to know something can get under your skin.’
Lane raised her chin and Adam couldn’t help a flash of admiration. She had a goal and she was going to tackle it. Embarrassed, uncertain, almost certainly nervous—because how could she not be?—but she was forging ahead. Amazing.
‘I’m very conscious of the fact that this is an unusual proposition,’ she said. ‘It’s not going to be easy for either of us, but if we keep things businesslike, I’m sure we’ll get through it.’
‘Ah, businesslike sex. Who wouldn’t want that?’
She raised one eyebrow, as though he wasn’t worth the effort of raising two. ‘I was under the impression you had more women flinging themselves at you than you could handle. Someone with a less desperate approach should be a welcome change. Certainly less exhausting.’
‘Oh, a change, definitely. I can honestly say I’ve never met anyone like you. But less exhausting? I don’t think so, Lane.’
Another clear of her throat. ‘While we’re on the subject of desperate women flinging themselves at you, I should reiterate the importance of the fidelity clause. In the interests of health, you understand.’
His smile widened, but didn’t warm. ‘Reiterate away. Wouldn’t want to catch anything after going to the trouble of a blood test.’
He shot his signature across the second copy of the contract then looked at her. ‘But we’d better get you up to speed pretty quickly.’ No more smile. ‘A stud like me needs it pretty good and pretty regular.’
CHAPTER THREE
Lane stared at the forlorn-looking smoked salmon on the now-stale rounds of rye bread and groaned. Smoked salmon! Thank God she hadn’t ended up putting the bottle of champagne she’d bought for tonight on ice as well. Just thinking about the look on Adam’s face if he’d caught sight of a champagne bottle was enough to make her wince.
Ah, well, the evening may not have been a success exactly, but it wasn’t a total failure, either. Because he’d signed. That was all that was important for now.
She stretched, as much to release tension as to ease the ache in her back after hunching over the paperwork all night, then she threw out the food, wiped down the glass tabletop, and headed for her bedroom.
Normally, preparation for bed involved a rapid undressing, a quick shower and vigorous towel-dry, moisturizer slapped on without looking, a scramble into pyjamas and a dive under the covers.
But tonight she was obsessed with her appearance, so she lingered, looking at herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. At what Adam had seen. A tall, pale, pencil-thin woman. Oval face. Nondescript nose. A mouth that was neither full nor thin. Arctic blue eyes that looked too village-of-the-damned for comfort. No laugh lines. Not one.
Lane untied her hair and ruffled her fingers through it. The hair quality was good—thick and shiny, hanging in a straight curtain past her shoulders. But the colour belonged to someone altogether more fiery than she would ever be! It was like a confidence trick, her hair.
Last year, Lane’s mother had asked her to dye her hair any colour but red, because the memories of her dead husband—who’d shared his daughter’s unrelenting hair shade—became more painful for her to bear with each passing year. ‘Just a small thing to bring me some peace,’ her mother had said, and Lane would have gladly obliged her if Erica—her staunchest defender—hadn’t hit the roof.
Lane could still recall Erica’s scathing words, the fury in her voice, the merciless look on her face. ‘What the fuck will she expect next, Lane? That you cut twelve inches off your legs so you’re not the same height as he was? There’ll be something else; there always is. Well, you tell Jeanne-the-Martyr that you asked me what colour hair would suit you and I said red. Tell her that I’ll be ready to give her a piece of my mind, the nastiest piece, if you change it. So think about that before you reach for the L’Oréal because it won’t be pretty.’
To say Jeanne Davis’s mournful eyes and trembling bottom lip left Erica chronically unimpressed was an understatement, so Lane was pretty sure Erica wasn’t bluffing. So far, Erica hadn’t ‘Jeanne-the-Martyred’
Lane’s mother to her face, but the fear of her doing so was ever-present—and that was enough of an incentive for Lane to keep her hair red for the foreseeable future, even though her mother had taken to looking at Lane’s hair then biting the knuckle of her index finger in a very tragic fashion.
Ah well, Lane thought as she retied her ponytail, her hair colour was a problem for another day. At least she had one consolation prize she could offer Adam: her breasts. Their size was disproportionate to the skinniness of her frame, but guys liked breasts for their own sake, didn’t they? Not that Adam could have figured out she had breasts under her navy suit. She frowned as she remembered that he’d left two buttons of his own shirt undone, which was an incredibly sexy look. That had to be worth a try.
She unbuttoned her top two shirt buttons and checked the result in the mirror. Hmm. Nothing special to see there. She removed her jacket and undid one more button. She caught a hint of cleavage, but it didn’t seem an especially alluring inducement to her. Maybe the way she was frowning was detracting from the overall look.
Easily fixed. She smoothed out her forehead, raised her chin, added a half-pout to her lips, examined herself in the mirror again—and burst out laughing. There was a touch of booby-beanpole-meets-Bride-of-Frankenstein about that look. Maybe no pouting around Adam Quinn, then.
Okay, enough.
She turned her back on the mirror, undressed quickly and got under the shower.
She’d long ago accepted the fact that although she was attractive enough, her coolly patrician features gave her an untouchable air, characterized by a distinct lack of smoulder. All Erica’s determined artistry—and Erica was brilliant with make-up—had failed to put the sex in Lane’s appeal. It would be interesting, academically if nothing else, to see if Adam Quinn had enough skill to tease a hitherto hidden kernel of sensuality out of her despite her lack of obvious assets.
And academics aside, it would be such a relief to have an experience, any experience, to help put to rest the memory of what had happened with her ex-colleague DeWayne Callaghan four months ago. An utter, utter disaster. Clothes half-on, half-off. Inept fumbling. Pain. Bleeding. A rushed two-minute-forty-seconds—she’d counted every unpleasant second in her head—which had ended with DeWayne orgasming with a loud and somehow comical groan and collapsing on top of her; Lane, having gone nowhere near an orgasm, pinned beneath him.
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