by Joan Reeves
"Yes. It's nothing to be ashamed of. I'm sure you could probably quote me some statistics on it better than I could. I want to help you."
What on earth was he talking about? She wondered, relieved that he hadn't remembered her from high school.
"You of all people know that one has to first admit there is a problem before help can be given. Isn't that right?"
Cautiously, Jennifer nodded, wondering what he was leading up to.
"Now, I want you to remember that I'm a doctor. I'm concerned with your health. And that's all I'm concerned with. If you have some sexual inhibitions related to being examined, you need to talk about them with a professional."
"What?" Jennifer straightened as if she'd been zapped by a lightning bolt. She couldn't believe what he was saying.
"It's nothing to be ashamed of. If you're extremely modest or have some kind of hangup and don't want a male doctor examining you, then I can accept that. The important thing is that you not neglect your health because of it."
The only thing that kept Jennifer from dashing her champagne in his face was that she had already drained the glass. "What on earth are you talking about?"
"About your reasons for running away the other day. You don't have to pretend with me."
"I did not run away," she lied. "I had, uh, appointments to keep. I simply couldn't wait any longer."
His eyes told her that he doubted her statement.
"I did," she insisted, wishing her face didn't feel as if she had a third-degree sunburn on it. How dare him! She stood. "Look, Dr. Penrose, I'm a respected psychologist. I didn't get that way by faking my way through. I am not some repressed old maid."
"Now, Dr. Monroe, Jennifer. At the risk of offending you, I must say your body language, your clothes, even that severe hair style, state otherwise."
"What are you blathering about?" She demanded crossing her arms and holding on tight to keep from smacking his patronizing face.
"Look at you standing there hugging your body. Your physical expression screams don't touch me."
Jennifer dropped her arms. Her hands curled into fists as she stood rigidly. Between clenched teeth, she said, "And I suppose you think wearing my hair combed back in this simple style is indicative of my frigidity? And that a conservative evening gown rather than a strapless cocktail dress hollers that I'm sexually repressed?"
"You said it, not me."
If he had smirked or even cracked a smile, she'd have wiped up the floor with him. But he hadn't. He just looked concerned and serious and interested in her. As a patient! He hadn't a clue as to who she was, and that incensed her as much as it relieved her.
"Jennifer, please don't take offense. I just wanted to tell you that I rescheduled your appointment so you could see Sylvia when she returns. I want you to think about getting help from someone. As a good therapist, you'd be the first to recommend a woman with a similar problem should find someone to help her with it."
"Ooooh!" Did he really think she was some frigid old spinster so scared of men that she wouldn't submit to a medical exam? Jennifer ground her teeth at his denseness. She'd show him how wrong he was. Fingers trembling, she began to unhook the tiny silk-covered ball buttons.
Finally, triumphantly, she yanked the jacket off. With it clenched in her hands, she faced him, her ample breasts heaving beneath the tight strapless silk bodice.
If she hadn't been so angry, she'd have laughed at his stunned expression. "Why don't you take your psychoanalysis and . . . and . . . ." She was at a loss for anything original. "Stick it where the sun don't shine." She whirled, then turned back and hissed, "By the way, Dr. Penrose. You are not my doctor. Sylvia Haddad is. So get off my case."
Matt watched her stalk away. For the first time, he watched her as a man watches a woman. A voluptuous body, curved in all the right places, had been hidden beneath the boxy gray jacket. Wow. What a body. He hadn't even suspected that she looked like that. He remembered the filmy black panty hose she'd left in the examining room. Like a lot of men, he thought hosiery was sexy as hell. Especially when he stripped them off a woman. Had she worn anoher black sheer pair tonight?
She wasn't his patient, huh? Good. A slow grin spread across his face. Maybe he had been off base. She certainly seemed to think he was. But why had she acted that way in the office the other day? Jennifer Monroe was an enigma. She was a puzzle he'd enjoy solving. And she wasn't his patient, as she'd angrily reminded him. His grin widened. Now if he could figure out a way to get her to speak to him again. As mad as she was, she was more apt to strangle him with that jacket she was twisting between her fists than talk to him if he came within fifty feet of her again tonight.
Matt rose and discreetly followed her as she stopped to speak to different people in her trek across the ball room. When she finally stopped next to an extraordinarily beautiful woman, he strolled over to one of the bars that dotted the room and ordered a Chivas and water. He stood there, sipped his drink, and watched Jennifer.
"She's an eyeful, isn't she?" a drunken voice slurred near him. "She usually covers those beauties up, but I saw her once at the pool. We live at the same condominiums. Wowee. Those boobs are enough to make your mouth water."
Matt glanced at the overweight man who swayed near him. It was a wonder that white collar around the drunk's florid neck didn't asphyxiate him. "I beg your pardon?" he asked, his voice icy.
"The little do-gooder with the big knockers."
Matt straightened, suddenly feeling very protective about what he himself had been ogling. He wanted more than anything to knock the guy's block off. "Since you're drunk, I'll pretend I didn't hear that."
"What are you, her father?" the drunk blustered loudly. People turned and stared.
Jennifer glanced around to see what everyone was looking at. She saw Matt in conversation with her neighbor Lucas Wyman, the biggest lecher in all of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Strike three. The final nail in his coffin, she thought, mixing metaphors with angry abandon. She shuddered just thinking about her neighbor who couldn't keep his eyes, or his hands, given a chance, to himself.
Suddenly, she knew Matt and Wyman had been talking about her. Knowing Wyman, they'd been discussing his favorite part of her anatomy. Her temper flared. She thought she'd grown as a person. That she was too mature to be upset over such juvenile male behavior. But Matt had stirred up all the old feelings. All the hurt.
A waiter passed, and she swiped another glass of champagne from his tray. Matt wasn't any better than Wyman. Maybe that woman comedienne was right. Maybe all men were pigs. How many times had she endured their stares at chest level when they'd been introduced to her? Her breasts heaved in agitation as she took a ragged breath.
"Jen, are you all right?" Alva asked, following her line of sight. "Gross. Lucas Wyman. You'd think they wouldn't let men like him in to an event like this," Alva said in disgust.
All her life from the age of twelve, Jennifer had been plagued by this attention to her body. She'd altered her entire life because of it. She dressed to hide her body so she'd be accepted as a professional. Even tonight, she'd worn a dress that was everything Matt Penrose had said, damn him.
Just once, she'd like to teach men how it feels to be a sex object. To be ogled endlessly.
"Jen? Do you know that man with Wyman?" Alva asked.
As she watched, fuming and sipping her champagne, Matt headed toward them. "Yes, I know him."
"I'm sorry if I was out of line." Matt smiled easily at Jennifer. When he looked into her stormy gray eyes, he was struck again by the feeling that he should know her. His brow wrinkled as he searched his memory.
Jennifer held his gaze. Without looking away from Matt, she said, "If you'll excuse us, Alva, Dr. Penrose and I have something to talk about."
"But, Jen," Alva began.
Jennifer ignored Alva's protest. "This way, please, Dr. Penrose," she said, leading him out of the banquet room and into the hall.
Maybe she couldn't teach all men a le
sson, but one man. This man. Hmmm. She'd worry about scruples later. She sank onto a couch and reached up with her hand, beseeching him without words to sit beside her. Earnestly, she spoke, her voice deliberately husky. "Dr. Penrose, I've hidden this for so long. How did you know?"
"Know? Know what?" Matt asked, sitting next to her.
"Oh, doctor, you were right. I feel as if my masquerade is rendered useless." That was really laying it on too thick, she thought. She cleared her throat.
"What I mean is that I have a confession to make. What you said about me is true. Oh, doctor, I'm a fake. A charlatan. I'm scared to death of men. Completely repressed. Sexually frozen." She took a deep breath, knowing her breasts would swell dangerously over the strapless bodice.
While he stared at her cleavage, Jennifer planned how best to set him up. She'd teach him a lesson he wouldn't soon forget.
By the time I finish with him, she vowed, Matt Penrose won't know a stethoscope from a telescope.
Chapter 4
Matt tried to shift gears at Jennifer's revelation. The trouble was, he didn't want to step back into the role of a doctor. He wanted to keep thinking of her as a woman. A very desirable, appealing woman he'd like to get to know better. His eyes strayed to her breasts. He opened his mouth to speak but couldn't form a coherent thought, much less a sentence.
His mouth snapped closed as he considered the situation that confronted him. By her confession, Jennifer had placed herself off limits to him.
Jennifer chose that moment to inhale again. Noisily. He eyed her breasts, the creamy curves overflowing the fitted bodice of the evening gown he'd thought dowdy. He half-expected them to burst the restraints of gray silk. He forgot what he was going to say.
Then she exhaled loudly, the breath sighing from her body as if it hated to leave the confines of such a lovely vessel. He didn't blame it. His hands itched to trace the pale blue veins barely visible beneath the perfect ivory skin.
Did she have to make such a production of the simple act of breathing? His own respiration sounded unnaturally loud to his ears as he strained to catch his breath.
"Doctor?" She asked in that husky voice she'd been using since they'd slipped away from the ballroom. "Are you all right?"
He wrenched his eyes from her shapely body and focused on her face. Big mistake. Her enigmatic gray eyes mesmerized him, drawing him into their depths. Alarm bells clanged inside his head. Now, he was the one who drew in one agitated breath after another. His exhalations were more a loud sigh of frustration than a release of carbon dioxide.
"Sure. I'm fine. Uh, aren't you cold, Dr. Monroe? Would you like my jacket to cover your, uh, your shoulders?" He asked in desperation.
"Why, no, I'm fine. I have my jacket right here in my lap if I do get cold. I feel so safe with you since I know you have nothing but my best interest in mind. So I don't feel the need to hide behind my clothes."
"Right. Sure. Of course." After a frozen moment in which he did nothing but watch her breathe, he asked in a strangled voice, "Are you sure you don't want to put your jacket on?"
"Positive." She smiled and settled back against the sofa, wriggling a little as if making herself comfortable. With each movement her breasts thrust out, bouncing a little. "But thank you for asking."
She waved a hand in front of her face. "In fact, it seems rather warm in here, don't you think?" She laid her hand on her chest. "Why, you should feel my skin. I'm simply radiating heat."
Eyes rounded, she peered at him. "Dr. Penrose. Matt. Are you all right? You look kind of flushed."
Flushed? That didn't begin to describe the way he felt. "It does seem rather warm in here, doesn't it?" He tugged his collar away from his neck.
"Well, maybe not that warm. Perhaps you have a fever?" Jennifer reached over and laid her hand on his forehead, treating him to a closer view of her remarkable cleavage.
Matt groaned and closed his eyes tight. Didn't the woman realize her effect on him?
"Perhaps, you're ill, Matt? You do feel rather warm."
Matt reached up and removed her hand, carefully placing it in her lap. Warm? He felt as if his tuxedo trousers would split any minute beneath the force of his erection. He took a deep breath and tried to sort through his erratic thoughts.
The woman had turned him inside out in the space of an evening. He looked at her and tried to tell himself to forget that she was a woman. Yeah, right. He might as well try to forget he was a man. Still he attempted to focus on her as a patient with a problem. He scolded himself for his carnal thoughts. She had approached him as someone needing help. She didn't mean anything by her actions. She couldn't know that with every breath she took, he became that much harder. She couldn't have any idea that her glowing skin made him yearn to touch it. That her lips made his mouth water to taste them.
"Let me see if I have this straight." He leaned forward in an effort to camouflage the immediate problem of his hard-on. "I was right about your being sexually intimidated. In fact, you say it goes beyond that? You think you're frigid. You're scared of men, not just a male doctor, but all men?" Depressed by the recitation, he watched her closely.
Jennifer ground her teeth together and nodded agreement with his assessment. "That's right. Do you know how hard it is to counsel people with sexual problems when I feel as if I don't know what I'm talking about? I'm such a fraud." A mournful sigh escaped her.
Her voice trailed into a whisper as she concluded pitifully, "It's destroying my self-esteem. I've never had the courage to tell anyone about this. Won't you help me, doctor?"
Matt took a deep breath and sighed as mournfully as she had. Forcing himself to view her as a patient, he nodded. "Of course, I will, Jennifer."
In as avuncular a manner as he could manage, given his rampaging hormones, he reached over and patted her hand. The feel of her skin seemed to zap him with a gazillion volts of electricity. Heart pounding, he jerked his hand back. His fingers clenched to keep from reaching for her.
In a rush, he said, "The first step in solving any problem is admitting there's a problem. You've done that. So now we can go about finding solutions. I can make a list of some good therapists who specialize in sexual problems."
"Oh, no, Matt. I could do that, but, don't you see? I can't possibly go to one of my colleagues. I can't jeopardize my career in any way. That's why I've never talked to anyone before." She practiced a little deep breathing since it seemed to have such a dramatic effect on short-circuiting his logical thinking.
"Well," he paused and removed his handkerchief from an inside pocket and blotted his forehead. "I can see where that might be a problem. But I'm sure you have nothing to worry about. No one will know that you're seeing a therapist. I'm sure they would maintain patient confidentiality"
"Oh, yes, they would, but you're new to Dallas. You don't know how much like a small town this city is," she lied. "Word would leak out. My secretary would probably find out. So would the staff in any therapist's office. Someone would talk. I can't risk that. I've worked too hard to build my career to have it destroyed like that."
"Well, Jennifer, if you're really worried about that then perhaps you could see someone in Fort Worth."
She shook her head vigorously, almost ready to deliver the coup de grace. "No, that won't work even if I had three hours extra in my day to make the drive over there, spend an hour with a therapist, and drive back. Everyone knows me in Fort Worth too."
Matt blotted his forehead again then put away his handkerchief. "If what you say is true, I'm at a loss as to what to suggest."
"I've given this matter a good deal of thought since our earlier conversation." Jennifer paused and dropped her gaze so he couldn't see the gleam of amusement in her eyes. She hoped he interpreted her action as shyness and uncertainty.
"Yes, have you come up with a plan?"
Have I ever, Jennifer wanted to crow. Instead, she spoke softly so he had to lean closer to hear, "I think so. I thought if you could, shall we say, mentor me, then you co
uld help me overcome this problem."
"You want me to what?" Matt stared at her as if he thought she was insane.
Well, maybe she was, she thought, but she persisted. "Please, keep it down. I don't want everyone in the hotel to hear."
"What do you mean?" He asked, clearly agitated by her suggestion.
"I just mean that if you could help me get in touch with my sexuality, strictly in a therapeutic manner, of course, that you'd be performing a great service, doctor."
"But, Jennifer, that is, Dr. Monroe, what you're asking is, well, it's highly irregular."
"I know, but I just know you can help. And I can't ask anyone else. Oh, please say you'll help me. After all, you're a doctor who's familiar with female sexuality."
"Yes, but not in the way you mean." He shifted uncomfortably on the couch. "I don't think this is a good idea. I mean, what if you have some deep-seated emotional problem that's the root of your inability to, uh. . . ." He shrugged.
"But, I don't. Honestly. If it were something like that I'd know. It's just that I never had the chance to experiment the way other people did in their teens and young adulthood. It all kind of passed me by. Now, because of lack of opportunity, I can't seem to connect. I get all uptight and . . . and," she paused and thought of what Alva constantly complained about and embroidered her plea. "And I seem to have become a workaholic. It gets worse with each month that passes. I realize that life is passing me by. I never have a date, and I've never had a real relationship with a man."
"But, Dr. Monroe, Jennifer, what you're asking me to do is professionally improper."
"Not really, Matt, because I'm not really your patient, am I? Neither of us is committed to anyone so our lives are our own." Jennifer could see by the stubborn set of his mouth that her words weren't swaying him. Damn, she thought, she was going to have to haul out the big guns and see if they had any effect on him.
"Oh, Matt," she quavered, "Please don't turn me away. You're my only hope." She bit the inside of her mouth hard until tears stung her eyes. Then she launched herself into his arms, pressing her breasts to his chest. She managed a gulping kind of sobbing sound. "I'm just so miserable. I can't keep feeling this way. Please, please say you'll help me."
