Getting It Right! (3 page)

So he’d kept up with her then, April thought, ridiculously heartened by that insightful little tidbit. “They wouldn’t have minded.”

His gaze caught and held hers. “I’ll keep that in mind next time.”

April nodded and moved on to another topic. “So…how’s your dad doing?”

A shadow moved across his face and for a split second, he became unnaturally still. On guard, she realized, intrigued. He tossed the pen aside. “Fine, I suppose,” he said, watching her closely. “I haven’t spoken with him recently. How’s yours?”

“The same.” She shifted and looked away. “I,
uh…I haven’t spoken to my father recently, either.”

But not for lack of trying, she didn’t add. Most of her calls were avoided and rarely returned. A part of her longed to confide in Ben, to tell him about accidentally outing her father, but the time for that had passed. They hadn’t shared a secret in years. Odd that sharing her body with him would come easier, but…
c’est la vie.

Ben let go a pent-up breath. “Look, April, is that what you came here for? To talk about our fathers? Because if it is, I can tell you that I don’t—”

Impatient with herself, April squeezed her eyes shut, shook her head. “It’s not. I—”

He blinked, seemingly surprised. “It’s not?”

“No,” she said.

He bit the corner of his lip, looking curiously relieved. “Then why did you come? Why are you here?”

Here it was, she thought. Truth or consequences time. She’d never been one to mince words, yet summoning the wherewithal to have this conversation with Ben was proving exceedingly difficult. She’d known it would be, but…Aw, hell. The fact was, she wasn’t accustomed to
asking
men to sleep
with her. Ordinarily, it was the other way around. They came to her. Furthermore, if she wanted someone, she’d never had to
tell
them. A loaded glance, a secret smile, an innocent yet promising touch.

Body language. Not the English language.

She hesitated, looked up and saw him waiting expectantly. Her heart began to pound. She couldn’t believe she was going to do this, that she was actually going to
ask
him to have sex with her.

But she was.

Desperation had prodded other women to do worse, she told herself. And she was desperate.

Eighteen months
.

Eighteen miserable, horribly unsatisfied months of unrelenting sexual agony. Frankie was right. If Ben couldn’t pull an orgasm from her apparently comatose libido, then nobody could. She’d simply have to resign herself to a lifetime of sexual dysfunction. The idea was so abhorrent she had to smother a maniacal laugh. Hell, she’d probably go crazy. Turn into a cat-loving, batty old shrew who screamed at little children and collected empty butter tubs and bottle caps. She glanced nervously at him again.

“April?” he prodded. Concern had replaced ex
pectation, pricking her conscience. “Is something wrong?”

She smothered a snort. “You could say that,” she said, determined to go through with this. She pulled in a bracing breath, then let it go with a door-die whoosh. “I’ve got a personal problem…and I think you can help.”

“A personal problem,” he repeated.

“Yes,” she managed to whisper over the litany of
Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!
screaming in her head.

He hesitated for a moment. “Er, what sort of personal problem?”

“An
intimate
sort of problem,” she confided with evidently just enough misery for him to make the connection.

A fleeting flash of surprise registered before he masked it with a less-jolted expression. In a nanosecond, though, a predatory gleam flared in his golden gaze and she suddenly felt as if she’d been caught between the crosshairs—
his
. “Of a sexual nature then?”

“Yes.” She licked her suddenly dry lips and cleared her throat. Tried to look calm though she felt as though her intestines were going through the spin cycle. “For the past year and a half, I’ve
been unable to—That is to say, I haven’t—I can’t—”

“Come?”

April nodded again. He could have said “reach orgasm” or “climax”—the more clinical term, she supposed—but “come” would work. “That sums it up nicely, yes,” she replied.

Ben leaned back in his seat and bit his bottom lip, presumably to keep from smiling, the wretch. There was absolutely nothing funny about her condition. He regarded her with droll, brooding humor, his eyes a compelling combination of smoky arousal and intrigue. April lifted her chin and resisted the pressing urge to squirm.

“And you think that I can help you?” he asked in an infuriatingly calm voice. “Is that why you’re here?”

“It is.”

“Because you think that I can make you—”

“I do,” she interrupted before he could finish, then resisted the urge to grin. “Provided your skill is in keeping with your reputation, that is,” she added wryly.

Ben chuckled. “My reputation?”

April poked her tongue in her cheek, felt her lips quiver with a smile. “That’s right. By all ac
counts—and I’ve heard many—you’re quite a lover. You’ve even got a nickname. Haven’t you heard it?” she asked innocently.

Ben leaned forward, let his elbows rest on his desk and steepled his fingers together. “A nickname?”

“Yep.” She paused, purposely torturing him.
“The Vagina Whisperer,”
she shared dramatically. “Supposedly, you can make even the most reluctant kitty purr.”

Ben’s eyes widened, then he cracked up. “You have got to be kidding me.”

I wish I were,
April thought. Hearing about Ben’s particular abilities, his legendary sexual prowess over the years had been a source of pain for her. To this day the idea of him touching another woman made her belly flip in a nauseated roll.

April had never been the jealous type. She’d always been secure enough in her own ability to attract and keep the opposite sex that she’d honestly never let jealousy get to her. Naturally she’d felt a twinge of it now and again—she’d hardly be human, otherwise—but frankly, she’d never been invested enough in another relationship to warrant jealousy.

And yet the mere thought of Ben with someone else made her heartsick and absolutely wretched.

An unhappy truth lurked in that realization, but April determinedly refused to look for it. She’d mine her feelings later. Right now she had more pressing needs to take care of. Like eliminating the
someone elses
from Ben’s bed and planting herself there instead.

“I’m not kidding,” April finally told him. “That’s why I’m here. Given the situation, I need someone with your particular brand of expertise to, er…remedy the situation. In exchange, I’ll build you a Web site.”

She felt ridiculous saying it—bartering her body for Web services, of all things—but it made it feel like more of a business proposition than a personal favor. Twisted reasoning, she knew, but it was the best she could do. If he could fix her—if he could give her the joy of a toe-curling, back-clawing, tingling tornadic orgasm—she’d gladly exchange services for services. He was good at sex. She was good at Web design. Different areas of expertise, but she’d work with what she had. It was better than feeling beholden.

Ben studied her, then after a prolonged mo
ment, scrawled something on a piece of paper and handed it to her. “Seven o’clock,” he said.

She frowned, looked at the piece of paper he’d handed her and discovered an address. His address, she realized belatedly. She glanced up with what she expected was an embarrassingly hopeful gaze. “Is this a yes, then? You’ll help me.”

The corner of his sexy mouth quirked up into a sinfully promising smile, one that told her he planned to help her until her eyes rolled back in her head and she sang every note of the Hallelujah chorus. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “It’s
definitely
a yes.”

B
EN LACED HIS FINGERS
behind his head, leaned back in his chair and let a huge sigh balloon from his lungs as April closed his office door.

Sweet mother of God
.

That had to be one of the most bizarre encounters he’d ever experienced in his life. In fact, he was still having trouble believing it. There were so many intriguing elements to their strange conversation that he had a hard time deciding where to start.

Eighteen months without an orgasm?
Ironically, her climax had left town about the same time he’d started showing up at the Blue Monkey, Ben noted absently. And
The Vagina Whisperer?
Another silent chuckle bubbled up his throat. Still stunned, he didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended. Ah, hell. Who was he kidding? He was damned flattered. After all, that nickname and
what it implied was evidently what had brought April Wilson to his doorstep.

Looking for a sexual cure, no less.

From him.

When he’d been systematically running through every available woman in Louisiana trying to get her out of his head?

Suffering from a severe case of shock, he passed a hand over his face and laughed again. Had anyone told him when he’d rolled out of bed this morning and made his usual trek to the office that April would show up and
ask
him—
ask him—
to have sex with her, he would have never believed it. Instead, he would have told them to ditch the hallucinogenic drugs and seek professional help. Things like this just didn’t happen to him. He’d always had to make his own luck.

Given the thin-lipped expression she’d adopted when the irony had all but gotten the better of him and he’d nearly laughed, Ben knew that his initial response—apart from shock—had annoyed the hell out of her. Not that he could blame her really. It couldn’t have been easy to make the decision to seek his help, and frankly, he admired her for being both mature and blunt. That, in and of itself, was wholly refreshing. No games, no guesswork.
She could have just as easily made a play for him—which, given his recent behavior at the Blue Monkey, she knew he’d accept—and kept her motives to herself.

But she hadn’t.

Instead, in a ballsy no-bullshit move, she’d leveled with him and suggested a mutually beneficial deal. And a deal was good—it leveled the playing field and encouraged emotional boundaries. Furthermore, he’d put off the effort and minutia involved with pulling together the necessary content for a proper Web page because, in truth, he hadn’t found anyone whose work he admired as much as he did April’s.

Her page was the perfect combination of professionalism and whimsy, gave the visitors and prospective clients an organized, aesthetic glimpse into who she was and what she could accomplish. She was damned good at what she did, Ben thought. She had an uncanny ability to interpret a theme and make that come together in a graphics format for her clients. She, too, was an artist. She merely worked in a different medium.

Ben paused considering. If April hadn’t had an orgasm in eighteen months—
eighteen mind-boggling months
—then there had to be one helluva
reason. Something more than just a string of subpar lovers. Hell, even a premature ejaculator knew how to work his fingers. A grin tugged the edge of his mouth.

Or at the very least, she did.

He couldn’t see her spending eighteen months in the equivalent of sexual purgatory without trying to tend to her own needs. Ben felt a smile tug at his lips. Not little Miss I-can-do-it-myself, he thought. That would be completely out of character. Her mother might have been a bona fide—quite frankly
disturbed—
bitch, but April could thank her for that my-way-or-the-highway attitude, if nothing else.

Thwarting her control freak of a mother had made April one of the most self-sufficient, stubborn and determined women he’d ever known. That trait, coupled with her inherent goodness—and the goodness she could detect in even the most undeserving people—her wicked sense of humor, a sure sense of herself and an innate sexuality that oozed from every pore, made her one of the most interesting, compelling women he’d ever been around.

Simply put, she charmed him. She always had.

And knowing her the way he did, he was
damned certain that she’d only considered asking for his help as a last-ditch effort to put an arc back into her evidently flatlined libido. He’d be willing to bet his left nut that she’d tried everything else, and when those options had failed, she’d decided to come to him.

Call him an opportunistic bastard, but he was glad.

And where others had failed, Ben thought with a slow smile,
he
would not.

The Vagina Whisperer rumor notwithstanding, he knew how to please a woman. As with anything, the desire to perform combined with the old “practice makes perfect” adage could turn even the most mediocre man or woman into a competent partner, but in Ben’s opinion good lovers were born, not made.

Being a good lover involved more than knowing how to find a G-spot or administer the perfect kiss. A good lover had the inherent ability to seduce the mind, understood that planning a seduction went well beyond the traditional candles, wine and roses. Attention to detail, investing time, learning to listen, essentially picking up on her signals until a man knew her well enough to morph into
her
fantasy.

Most men had a tendency to rush the attraction, to hit the high spots for a mediocre payoff, when maybe just a few more days of patient consideration—priming, if you will—could result in a coupling so combustible the sheets all but set fire.

That was the kind of sex he specialized in.

He didn’t waste his time with “dumbed down” sex. When he did it, he did it right. Clearly, April had been getting the dumbed-down variety for so long that her poor, confused libido had finally said “screw it” and gone into voluntary hibernation. That, or it had merely rebelled, waiting for the right guy to come along. Whatever the reason, she needed him, and simply knowing that made several organs swell, both north and south of his zipper.

Without warning, her plump, pouty mouth materialized too readily in his mind’s eye and he felt a flame of heat lick his groin. God, he couldn’t wait to kiss her again. Couldn’t wait to push his tongue into the warm cavern of her mouth, taste the addictive combination of hot spice and sweet innocence and something else, something far more wonderful and bittersweet than either of the previously mentioned two—the flavor of being wanted.

Truly wanted.

Ben was accustomed to being desired, to being the object of a woman’s lust. A come-hither smile, a bed-me look. Frankly, he got them all the time. He’d been blessed with decent good looks and a hefty dose of sex appeal. He couldn’t deny it and wasn’t above capitalizing on it when the urge struck. Which was often. He was a man, after all, and there was nothing politically correct about baser needs, the drive to procreate. He liked sex and didn’t intend to apologize for it. But there was a huge difference between being
desired
and being
wanted.

Desired—which was admittedly nice—was commonplace. But wanted was rare.

Wanted implied a familiarity, a longing despite flaws and imperfections. Wanted meant I’ll take you warts and all. Ben swallowed. Wanted was just a hair shy of love, and the only time he’d ever felt that sort of connection—that sort of unconditional yearning—was with April.

She’d
wanted
him.

To know that she merely desired him now was a bit depressing, but when it came to her, he’d settle for whatever he could get. A bark of dry laughter erupted from his throat.

He’d willingly—gladly—be her whore.

Guess that didn’t make him much different from his father after all, Ben thought as his lips twisted with bitter humor at the unwelcome insight.

Speaking of which, that raised another question. Did she know that her dad and his had become roommates? He’d wrongly assumed that had been the reason for her visit, and yet other than one awkward moment when she’d asked about his father, nothing else had been said about them. He’d sensed some tension, but if she’d known about their respective sires making the move to cohabit, she would have said something. Odd, then, that she hadn’t.

He stilled. Surely to God she knew Marcus was gay, Ben thought, struck by the notion. He paused, mulling it over. Yeah, he scoffed. She
had
to know. How could she
not
know? Her parents had divorced years ago. He snorted. But considering who Marcus was married to, that argument wouldn’t necessarily hold water.

April’s unfortunate father could have cited any number of reasons for his belated departure from Morgana’s evil side. Honestly, he didn’t think he’d ever known another woman he disliked more. She was a cold, heartless, manipulative harpy and—

His mental tirade abruptly stopped and a slow dawning smile slid across his face.

—and she’d undoubtedly shit when she found out about April, Ben realized, unable to suppress the burst of vindictive glee that expanded in his chest.

And she’d definitely find out. Unless things had changed vastly over the years—and he highly suspected that they hadn’t—April had never been able to make a move that her mother hadn’t known about first. Ben chuckled again, rocked back in his chair once more and savored the idea of her chilly, furious face. Petty? Yes. But after the hell that selfish, vengeful bitch put him through, he didn’t care.

What was it she’d said again when she’d warned him away? Oh, yeah.
“I’ve already lost a husband to your cracked-up white-trash father. I’ll be damned before I’ll lose my daughter to his filthy son.”

A regular little ray of sunshine she’d been, Ben thought, his insides churning with old unabsorbed hatred. Let her try to warn him away this time, dammit. He was ready for her.

“I
DID IT
.”

Frankie whooped excitedly, forcing April to
momentarily pull the cell away from her ear. “Oh, thank God!” she said. “I’m so proud of you. One giant step for you, one small step for womankind. Way to buck that double standard, babe.”

April smiled and carefully negotiated traffic. Ah, yes, the sexual double standard. Frankie’s
biggest
pet peeve—though she had many—which made her a fantastic advocate for Chicks In Charge and a huge success as the movement’s Carnal Contessa. Anything that smacked of a double standard or sexual repression made Frankie’s blood boil. Of her three best friends, Frankie had been the most concerned over April’s inability to reach climax.

“So how did it go? Did he
whisper
to you in his office?” she murmured with a wicked, suggestive purr. “Are you cured?”

April chuckled. “No and no. I’m supposed to meet him at his house at seven.” Goose bumps erupted on her skin at the mere thought. To think that after all this time she was only hours away from a guaranteed orgasm. It almost made her light-headed.

“Oooh. So he’s taking you to his lair, his den of iniquity, allowing you into the inter sanctum. Very, very interesting,” she said, doing a comical
Einstein impression. “I figured a house call would be more in keeping with his style.”

April would have, too, come to think of it. She couldn’t be certain of course, but from everything she’d heard, Ben customarily guarded his personal space. He’d happily share another woman’s bed, but if one had managed to actually share
his,
April had never caught wind of it.

“Or
multiple
house calls,” Frankie continued. A wicked laugh bubbled up her throat. “What do you wanna bet that he prescribes more than one treatment?”

Would that she would be so lucky, April thought. After a year and a half with no conclusive action, she was due for more than one
treatment,
thank you very much.

“So tell me everything,” her friend finally demanded. “What was he wearing?”

April laughed. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“You’ll see,” she said. “Indulge me.”

“Er…Okay. Let’s see.” April paused, easily pulling Ben’s image to the forefront of her mind. He was never very far away anyway. “He was wearing a dark almond handwoven wool sweater and a pair of khaki slacks.” Both of which had
looked fantastic on him. Very European. Very hot. The sweater had draped over those broad shoulders and muscled pecs, competently displaying the beautiful manly shape underneath.

“Any jewelry?”

“Aside from a designer watch—a TAG Heuer, I think—none that I could see.”

“Looking that closely at him, eh?” Frankie said knowingly.

Aha, April thought, letting go a quiet laugh. She had been looking closely, evidently even more closely than she’d realized. But then again, Ben was hard
not
to look at.

Aside from being remarkably handsome—flawless bone structure, angular jaw, hollow cheeks, heavy-lidded soulful eyes and a slightly imperfect nose to add character—Ben had that whole mysterious
dark
thing going on. He could have easily stepped onto any gothic movie set and played the part of a sexy vampire or elusive shape-shifter…and she could just as easily see herself playing the role of his devoted familiar. He was…magnetic, April decided. God knows she’d always been drawn to him. Ben had that “It” quality, that certain charisma that put him leagues above the average guy.

“Well, now that Operation Orgasm is under
way, would you like me to tell you about some good news I heard this morning?” Frankie asked.

Operation Orgasm?
She’d named it? Sheesh. April shook her head. “Sure. What’s up?”

“Carrie got a call from the producers of
Let’s Cook, New Orleans!
this morning.”

April squealed as a bolt of glee shot through her. “Oh, you’re kidding!”

“I’m not,” Frankie assured her, laughing herself. “She’s meeting them next week. And she’s a nervous wreck.”

April guessed so. It wasn’t every day that a person interviewed for their own television show. But with Carrie’s looks—she had the face of an angel, the soul of a saint—which had been a plus considering she’d had to have the patience of one to work for that nitpicking bastard Martin, April thought—and a body that put every man who looked at her in the mood for sin. Between her good looks and incredible talent, the network would be foolish not to hire her.