Denys, Jennifer - Friendly Seduction [Friends and Acquaintances 2] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Jennifer Denys

  “Why not? I’m not the only person in the world that could help you, surely.”

  “It’s not like that. It’s different. Oh hell.” He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it even more as was his usual wont when anxious.

  “What’s different? I’m confused,” asked Gina, crossing her arms and frowning.

  “My book’s different. That’s what. My editor has told me to write sex into the story. And I don’t know how.” He closed his eyes in embarrassment as he blurted it out.

  Peals of laughter suddenly burst out around the room as the women laughed uproariously at his predicament. Gina was the first to recover. “Um, sweetie. Are you trying to tell me you are a virgin?” she teased him but knew full well he wasn’t.

  “No no. It’s just, I tried to write sex into my last story, and it didn’t go well. In fact, the story bombed, so I’m trying again. Sam suggested I read a few women’s erotic romances to give me some ideas, which I did. But I’ve still no idea what works in them for people like you. Women that is.”

  More shrieks of laughter followed this comment as they all fell about in various states of abandonment. He turned to walk out, clearly humiliated, when Gina held him back again. It wasn’t easy as she was little, and he was fairly well built. She saw he was getting flushed with anger.

  “Ladies, please. We’re embarrassing him,” she commented sternly as he struggled in her grip. As the women fought to hold back their giggles, she said firmly to Matt, “Sit down. Come on, sit down and we’ll fire some ideas at you.”

  Looking at her as if she had suggested he run naked up and down the street, he stood unmoving and stiff. But she smiled at him encouragingly, indicating that he sit on a dining chair. As he hesitatingly sat on the chair, he pulled out a notebook. The women all looked at him enthusiastically. He let out a deep breath of resignation. “Christ! Okay, I’m here, so throw those ideas at me.”

  Silence.

  He looked at them expectantly. They glanced at each other with perplexed faces.

  “Um, what exactly do you want to know?” asked Rebecca, the first to broach the subject.

  “I hoped you could give me an insight into what you like in those types of books. I’m guessing you all read them? Sam said Jessie did.”

  There was a moment’s silence when no one denied this. Then Ellie piped up, “You expect us to tell you why we’d rather read an erotic romance than go out on a date.”

  “Speak for yourself,” retorted Kat, throwing a cushion in Ellie’s direction in derision. For the next few moments some cushions got thrown around the room before they settled down.

  “Chocolate.” This came from Lissa in the following calm.

  “I beg your pardon?” queried Matt, looking at her with a mystified expression.

  “She’s right. Food must be included in any erotic story, in particular, chocolate. It’s a really important part of any erotic romance,” came another comment.

  “You’re kidding me!” He stopped writing to stare at the women in astonishment. Gina chuckled at his expression.

  “Actually, she’s right. Chocolate came in very handy when Sam and I were starting our relationship,” said Jessie. They all turned to look at her in amazement, not just Matt. She grinned and shrugged.

  “I’m not even going to ask.” Rebecca shook her head. “As for me, I like cuddling.” The girls giggled. “Well, I do. I love it when Jon takes me on his lap. So intimacy is really important. And I mean cuddling on his lap, not sex!” she emphasized loudly when they made rude noises at her statement.

  “It’s all right for you two girls, you’ve got guys,” said Kat with a despairing note in her voice. This was despite being drop-dead gorgeous.

  “So what about those of you who don’t have a partner, what do you look for?” asked Matt, writing furiously, his previous embarrassment seemingly forgotten in his quest for information as Gina knew it would be.

  “Apart from tall, good-looking, and hunky?” she asked.

  “You mean short, ugly, and fat guys don’t get written into stories,” he responded jokingly.

  “Exactly.”

  “What!” He turned from his notebook to look at his cousin, who was lounging on the arm of the sofa. She giggled at his expression of surprise.

  “I haven’t read one erotic book yet where the hero is short, ugly, and fat,” replied Gina, looking around at the other women for their agreement. She was rewarded with emphatic nods.

  “That’s prejudice,” he replied.

  “That’s erotic romance for you.” She chuckled. “The guy has to be alpha male.”

  Comments of “hear, hear” and “too right” followed.

  A quiet voice came from the girl on the floor. “D–Don’t forget he also has to have emotions and feelings. And I am not talking m–masculine emotions of anger, fighting spirit, dominance—unless he is d–dominating the girl. He has to be caring, gentle, kind, protective.”

  Everyone turned to look down at Lissa in wonder. She blushed at their sudden attention and ducked her head.

  “She’s right,” responded Ellie after a moment.

  Matt cleared his throat and seemed unable to tear his eyes away from Lissa.

  Gina saw him swallow nervously and grinned at his discomfort. Maybe things were picking up and he was finally noticing Lissa. She turned to see how Lissa was taking his deliberation and caught Jessie’s eye as she did. Jessie raised her eyebrows briefly in response. The two women shared a silent look of understanding.

  Frowning as he finally looked back at his notebook, Matt continued, “What about the women in these stories? What are they like if the guys are George Clooney look-alikes?”

  The response was immediate. “Beautiful.”

  “Gorgeous.”

  “Stunning.”

  “Even if they don’t think so themselves as long as the hero does and tells her. He has to do this often.” Everyone nodded, agreeing with Kat’s analysis.

  “Christ, do I have to?” he groaned.

  “Yes,” was the loud reply from all of them.

  He wrote this down hurriedly and then paused, nibbling the end of his pen as he considered his next query. “This is probably a stupid question, but I am sure you lot can answer it.” He took a deep breath.

  They all looked at him expectantly. Gina chuckled to herself—they were all enjoying this.

  “Um. What about the sex in these books? What is that like?” He got the question out but was somewhat flushed as he did.

  “Apart from always fabulous?” Rebecca queried.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of positions and technique.”

  After the initial giggles, replies came thick and fast from all the girls. The word missionary was never mentioned, Gina noticed, but bondage was, as were sex toys, butt plugs, nipple clamps, unusual positions, outside the bedroom, on the table, in public, spanking, whipping.

  “Ménage.” That came from Lissa when everyone else had finished. They all turned to gape at her again.

  “Good Lord, Lis—you are a dark horse. Even Matt thinks so by the way he is staring at you,” noted Gina deliberately. He swallowed and looked away. He seemed to be nervous but kept darting his eyes back to Lissa, she saw.

  Lissa meanwhile just blushed and ducked her head again so her strawberry-blonde hair fell in front of her face. “Stop it, you lot. I know you like ménage stories, Jessie in particular.” She pushed her bobbed hair out of her eyes and turned to Jessie, trying to pass the buck onto someone else. She was equally red-faced but laughing.

  Then Jessie’s phone rang. Everyone paused while she answered. “Gina’s den of iniquity.”

  Everyone laughed after a moment’s stunned silence, but they correctly guessed it was Sam. He wanted to talk to Matt, who stood up to take the phone from Jessie’s outstretched hand. They all listened unashamedly as Matt agreed to meet Sam at the bar he was supposed to have been at earlier since Sam was bored sitting by himself.

  Handing the phone back to
Jessie, he stood, fidgeting, seeming unsure what he should do next. “Look, ladies,” he started, slightly hesitantly, looking down at the notebook still in his hand with an anxious frown. “This has been great, but I think I need more. Um, do you think we could meet again and this time you bring your favorite erotic romances and tell me what you particularly like about them?”

  After an initial hush, they all looked at each other, silently ascertaining what the others thought of this idea.

  Gina took the lead, shrugging her shoulders. “Fine with me.” The rest nodded their acceptance, and it was agreed he would come around on Tuesday—the first day that all of them could make it.

  As soon as he left, they joked about his visit and his reaction to their rather honest answers. Lissa was teased for the comments she had made.

  Jessie rose to pull Gina into the kitchen, pretending to get some more drinks. “Am I mistaken, or does Lissa have an extremely big infatuation with Matt?” she asked, quietly glancing over her shoulder at the object of her thoughts.

  “You’re not mistaken,” Gina responded, equally softly so that Lissa didn’t hear. She looked clandestinely out of the corner of her eye. Lissa was chatting animatedly to Ellie. Her high color was fading now that Matt had left. “I’ve tried several times to get the two of them together, without success unfortunately. One of these days I am going to take him in hand and spell it out for him, demanding that he ask her out!”

  Jessie mused for a moment biting her bottom lip. “I’ve a plan that might work,” she started hesitantly.

  “Really? Out with it. I’ll try anything. I’m desperate.”

  “How about I phone the girls explaining the situation and tell them to make excuses on the night not to turn up, leaving Lissa alone with Matt, and you make yourself scarce suddenly, like having to work late or something?”

  Gina grin broadened slowly. “Hey, cunning plan. Sneaky—but I like it. As long as the ‘or something’ means we meet up in a bar so I’m not left sitting by myself all evening.” She turned to study Jessie more closely with narrowed eyes.

  “What?” asked Jessie in a worried voice.

  “You know, I remember meeting you at a party the guys had before you got together with Sam, and you never said a word. You cringed in the corner. You have changed so much since then.”

  “For the better I hope!” The two women smiled and returned to the room, the object of their discussion being none the wiser as to the plan involving her.

  Chapter 2

  “Don’t worry, Kat, I understand. You get the dog to the vet. Hope Merlin feels better soon.” Lissa put the phone down with a dejected sigh. That was the fourth person to pull out of tonight’s book session with Matt. Jessie had a stinking cold, even though she sounded perfectly okay to Lissa. Rebecca said she had to go to a meal with Jon’s family. However, she thought her friend had just had a meal with her in-laws the other day. Ellie had to work late, and if she had to, why didn’t Rebecca, who was her partner?

  If she didn’t trust them all implicitly, she would think something fishy was going on. At least Gina would be here as this was her home. Having said that, Gina hadn’t turned up yet, and Matt was due very shortly. She looked at her watch for the umpteenth time and groaned.

  The phone rang, startling her. She picked it up so violently she nearly hit herself with it. Bringing the phone back to her ear more gently, she said breathlessly, “Hell—o.”

  It was Gina. “Hey, it’s me.”

  “Where are you?” she practically screamed down the phone. “Your cousin is supposed to turn up any time now.”

  “Sorry but the car’s broken down. A guy from work is looking at it, but he doesn’t seem very hopeful. Give my apologies to the others. I’ll be there when I can.”

  “What others! No one else can come…” The phone was dead. Gina had turned her phone off. “Damn.”

  The doorbell rang. It had to be Matt. There was no one else.

  “Double damn.” Lissa took a deep breath. It was one thing to be in a room with the devastatingly handsome Matt when others were around, and—truth be told—she had been looking forward to it. But it was quite another thing when it was just the two of them. Normally he didn’t bat an eye in her direction while she was tongue-tied in his presence. She wasn’t a gregarious person like Gina, confident like Rebecca, or even stunningly beautiful like Kat, but this didn’t normally happen when she was around men—just Matt.

  She went to answer the door. It was indeed Matt, looking even more dashingly handsome than usual if that was possible. “H–Hey, come on in,” she stuttered and groaned at herself for having done so. She moved back to let him in.

  “Oh. Hi, Lissa.” He moved into the room and stopped short so suddenly she nearly bumped into him.

  She moved back a step, clenching her fists to avoid reaching out to touch him. She knew she’d never be able to stop herself caressing his body.

  “Um, what have you done with the others, or are you the first? And I thought I was running late.” He looked at his watch.

  Flushing hotly she took a deep breath to avoid any more stutters and explained, “I hate to tell you this, but it’s just you and me.”

  “Sorry, I don’t understand. What do you mean just you and me?”

  “W–Well, Gina was just on the phone to say her car has broken down. Kat has to go to the vet. Rebecca, Ellie, and Jessie all phoned earlier with other reasons they couldn’t come. If I’d known it was just us, then I would have contacted you, but they’ve been phoning with their excuses only in the last half hour.”

  “Oh. Hell. I was relying on them to give me ideas.” He seemed disappointed.

  She bit a thumbnail, wondering how she ended up in this situation. She could kill the others for putting her in this position. “I’ve got my favorite books out. We could go through them, if you like?” she offered reluctantly.

  He hesitated, studied her face for a moment and then shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

  “Terrific.” She gestured to the table where she had put her books. “Can I offer you a drink?”

  “Coffee would be great. Black, please.”

  Lissa blew a sigh of relief to herself at the respite and hurried into the kitchen to get them some drinks while Matt settled down at the table, examining the cover of one or two of the books she had put out. It was suddenly embarrassing to have him see the types of books she was reading. Somehow it would have been less awkward if the others had also been present.

  “So how many of these do you read?” he called out, not looking up.

  “A week or a month?”

  “Say, each week.”

  “About eight.”

  He did glance up then with a surprised expression on his face. “A week!”

  “Yeah. I like reading.” She shrugged and turned away, embarrassed, then finished making the drinks and brought them over to the table.

  “Okay—so clearly I’ve picked the right person to discuss what you like about them then.” He looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time.

  She was startled by his direct stare and felt herself going red again. “I guess.”

  After she sat down, he handed her one of the books he had picked up. “This one looks vaguely sci-fi. Tell me about it.”

  Glancing at it, she giggled, glad he’d stopped his assessment of her. Taking the book he held out, she confidently summarized it as it was one of her favorites. “Okay—this is a fairly typical plot whereby most of the women on this planet have died off, so the remaining men are desperate for female company. Sometimes in these stories a woman lands or crash-lands on a planet. In this one she comes looking for her kidnapped sister from another country on this world and is taken hostage. Of course, the person taking her hostage is a prince—as they usually are—that or a king, or leader of some sort. You never have the man cleaning out the sewers getting the girl.”

  Matt laughed loudly. “Typical. I might have known it from what you all told me the other day.”


  Pleased she had made him laugh, Lissa smiled, her previous stutters over now they were bantering. “Quite often the woman is expected to be in a ménage relationship in this situation.”

  He goggled in surprise, his humor gone.

  Noticing his expression, she stated, “Well, there are hardly any women left remember.”

  “I know you mentioned this previously, but we didn’t go into it fully. What happens if she doesn’t like one or more of the guys? Surely that must happen.”

  She sighed. “I have clearly failed to explain that all of the guys in a ménage have to be extremely good-looking and muscular or manly at the very least.”

  He chuckled. “What about other virtues—kindness, compassion, gentleness, generosity, et cetera?”

  “Oh, the hero shows those as well but throughout the story. In the first instance she is attracted by his or their looks and their ability to dominate her. And don’t forget the importance of chemistry. Also, he never shows negative attributes like cruelty, laziness, picking his nose, having a hairy back, and so on. Those are reserved for the bad guys.” She finished the last three words with great emphasis.

  Matt fell about laughing. “Okay, I can see there is no hope for the human race if women have such a high standard. We men won’t be able to supply it.”

  Lissa giggled and, leaning forward to cup her face in her hands, said with a melodramatic sigh, “I’m afraid so. World population levels will fall.”

  “So you’re telling me you like reading about ménage?”

  That comment was unexpected, and Lissa jerked back, her hands dropping to the table. “Yes. Actually, Jessie is the lover of those books. She’s the person who gave that book to me.”

  “Jessie!”

  “Yup—surprising, huh?”

  “How does Sam take that?” Matt wondered. “I can see I need to have an in-depth conversation with him.” He shook his head bemusedly.

  “As I understand it, he is amused but refuses to let her have a ménage in real life. Not that I think she’d ever do it.”