Читать книгу A Taste Of Fantasy - Isabel Sharpe, Isabel Sharpe - Страница 8

From: Erin Thatcher

Sent: Thursday

To: Samantha Tyler; Tess Norton

Subject: re: Love

How do you know when love is real? Is that the question of our generation or what? A year ago I’m not sure I could’ve given you an answer, Sam. I’m still not sure I can tell you anything you don’t already know. As amazing as things are with Sebastian, I’m still no expert on love and relationships.

For what it’s worth, though, here goes.

The thing with Brendan wasn’t all right and perfect or you would still be with the bastard. I guess all I can say is that it takes two people to make it real and maybe, from this distance now of several months, you can look back over the last few years and see where Brendan may not have been on board for the long haul. Or where he may have taken a different fork in the road halfway through the journey. I never knew him. I only know what you’ve told us about him.

Just don’t let this one failure turn you off men or relationships. Because it was not your failure. It was his.

Love you! Erin

From: Tess Norton

Sent: Friday

To: Samantha Tyler; Erin Thatcher

Subject: re: Love

Sex is good. Sex is fun. In fact, I think instead of an apple a day, doctors should prescribe a lay a day. However, sex is not love. Now that I think about it, I think there should be two different words for sex…one when you’re in love, and one where you’re not. Both of which would be positive, affirming, with no derogatory elements.

Sex (the one without love) and perhaps Slovex (the one with). Hmm. I gotta work on that.

As for the whole question of how you know love is real…um, gosh. That’s tough. Because it’s totally experiential, and not at all objective. (Am I helpful or what?) I think I fell in love with Dash that first night out. Something shifted inside, and it had nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with sex. I was hit by Cupid’s arrow, I guess, which makes as much sense as any other theory. The thing is, there’s no way to know if it’s everlasting love unless you go through everlasting. Or read the Cosmo love horoscopes. I’m not sure which. <g>

Trust your heart. Trust your instincts. Give yourself permission to love freely, and accept love in return. In the meantime, go get laid.

Love, Tess

SAMANTHA HUNG UP the phone and frowned, swiveling back and forth in her office chair, tapping a pen to the side of her cheek. Another sexual harassment case. On the one hand, the accuser, Tanya Banyon, admittedly a rather…obvious sort of female. On the other hand, Rick Grindle, the accused. Samantha had only gotten a glimpse when she visited Eisemann, Inc. but by all accounts, including the one she’d just gotten from a female colleague of his, he was charming, intelligent and thoroughly professional.

Usually in these cases it was only a matter of a few interviews before Samantha could tell either of two things. One, that there had simply been misunderstood personal boundaries and communications, or two, one party was lying. Rick Grindle had been unavailable for a personal interview so far. She’d go that route next.

“What’s doing?” Her assistant, Lyssa, poked her head into Samantha’s office.

Samantha shrugged. “Just wrapping up before I go home.”

Lyssa pushed the door open with her shoulder and marched in, carrying an armful of files which she dumped onto Samantha’s desk. “I come bearing gifts.”

“Oh, joy.” Samantha gave her a wry grin. Lyssa was tall, blond and curvaceous. She exuded a fresh sweet sexual quality that had men hurling themselves after her as she walked down the street. The kind of woman who made any other woman near her feel old and stale, like recycled airplane air. If Lyssa wasn’t a genuinely grounded, warm person, Samantha would hate her.

“Anything exciting on the agenda tonight?”

Samantha lifted an eyebrow. “Is there ever?”

Lyssa smiled, showing, of course, perfect white teeth—a smile Samantha had seen reduce cold, cocky vice presidents to blushing beings from Planet Idiot. “You could change that, you know.”

“I know, I know. But I’m not—” The word “ready” got as far as the inside of her teeth before her brain stopped it. Hadn’t she just decided last night that she was ready?

“Bill and I are going out to Excalibur tonight. Want to come along?”

Samantha hid her wince. If she was going to play third wheel, at least she’d like to play it to someone other than Bill. Lyssa had this amazing, unerring ability to fall for unattractive, selfish, annoying boy-men. “Thanks, I’m pretty tired. Long week. I think I’ll finish here and go home. Maybe another time.”

“Suit yourself. But I think it’s high time you started bestowing that gorgeous bod on deserving men again.”

Samantha rolled her eyes. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

Lyssa laughed. “Okay, so I’m intruding. You need anything else before I go?”

“No, no.” Samantha waved her off. “Go have fun, eat chicken wings, drink, go deaf. Enjoy it.”

She watched Lyssa leave the room, ready to go out and have a ball on a Friday night, even if it was with a selfish, annoying boy—man. While Samantha would go home, dump her briefcase on the already cluttered dining room table, feed the cats, eat bad food and end the evening cuddled up with a book about someone else having sex.

A sudden restless rebellion swelled in her chest. She couldn’t face that tonight. Closed in with her loneliness and her confusion and her cats and her work and those damn frozen dinners.

Enough. Tonight she was going out.

She turned impulsively to her computer, logged into her home account and hit “Create Mail.”

From: Samantha Tyler

Sent: Friday

To: Erin Thatcher; Tess Norton

Subject: Readiness

Newsflash. I know I’ve been a wimp. I know I’ve been hanging back. I’m not even sure what changed my mind, except maybe that I had a totally hot dream last night.

But as of this date, Friday, August ninth, my Man To Do hunt has begun in earnest. Chances are I will go sit in a bar tonight and look available and pathetic, but there is always the hope that someone and something will happen that will involve nudity and sweaty writhing and many many orgasms. It’s been too damn long.

I have spoken.

Samantha

P.S. I’ll let you know details tomorrow.

She clicked the send button, shoved her chair back and stood, grabbing her briefcase. She wasn’t usually this spontaneous, but then her life hadn’t been usual in a while. It would be great to be out, surrounded by her fellow Chicagoans, noise, energy and life.

Chances she’d find someone and then actually go for it tonight were slim, but the fantasy of being with someone deliberately unsuitable was delicious. Men to Do Before Saying I Do. After a bad marriage, divorce, and all the angst that went with them, a fun-only fling was exactly what she needed. To indulge attractions for types of men she could no more get serious about than enjoy shopping for feminine protection.

And speaking of protection, she still had the condoms she’d bought on a particularly rebellious day last spring after the divorce, when she thought she was ready for a wild night.

Not.

She’d met a guy, a sweet, overly earnest type, well over six foot and solid. At the time she’d been so angry and grieving that she’d practically thrown herself at him. After two hours of beer and innuendo they’d gone outside together, ostensibly to drive to his apartment. She’d kissed him twice, burst into tears, sobbed violently for half an hour and completely freaked the poor guy out.

Okay, so divorce did not leave her at her most rational.

But that wouldn’t happen this time. She was ready now. She felt peaceful and stable, rather than manic and confused. She was acting out of genuine need this time, making a strong deliberate choice, not reacting to pain and fear.

She closed her office door and strode through the building to the underground garage, calling good night to a few fellow employees. The Blazer started up; she backed it out of her reserved space and headed into the still-blazing day. She was in the mood for a fun place with a bar, but also decent food, not the packed-to-the-gills meat-market type places. P.J. Clarke’s in the Gold Coast would do it.

She found a parking place in an adjacent lot and walked toward the restaurant entrance, wishing she’d gone home to change out of her business suit and into something more casual, maybe a little funky. Maybe even a little sexy. Except if nothing happened when she was in her suit, it was easier to look like she was out for a nice lone-woman dinner and to heck with everyone else. There was something sad about sitting at a bar decked out in hot-to-trot finery and striking out. A situation that would have her imagining all the other bar patrons whispering and shaking their heads.

Poor thing. Out to get some and no one biting.

She swung open the door, letting cool confidence take over her body, though she was shaky inside, half nerves, half excitement. No problem. Move forward and chant the mantra: Samantha Tyler does this kind of thing all the time. Take me or leave me. I’m here.

She squared her shoulders and walked with deliberate indifference toward the bar, avoiding eye contact. Her senses registered the buzz of conversation and the stink of cigarettes, the measuring eyes of guys turning to see who had walked in. The row of round-topped wooden stools mostly, but thank God not all occupied, beckoned. Her mind raced as she calculated which seat would be best. Not next to the creepy middle-aged guy. Not next to the ponytailed artsy-looking guy. Not next to the twenty-something sexpot girls. That comparison she could do without.

There. Three people leaving. She could sit in the middle seat and avoid choosing someone to be next to.

She ordered a draft ale and concentrated on gazing at the bottles behind the counter, keeping her expression neutral. Someone was watching her. She could feel it. A shiver of excitement went through her for no apparent reason. What was that? For some equally unapparent reason, a vision of tall, dark and hunky rose in her mind, when the eyes on her could just as easily belong to a transvestite admiring her outfit.

Who? She turned her head slightly; no one on that side. She scanned with peripheral vision behind her. Nope. But the feeling was increasing, a shivery dangerous sexual sensation. Someone was coming up to her, about to speak. She’d never sensed anyone’s presence as powerfully as she did this person’s.

Who?

She turned the other way.

Oh. My. God.

He was sitting two seats from her on her left; she hadn’t noticed him arriving. She certainly would have noticed if he’d been there when she walked in. Talk dark and hunky, uh huh. And with this sort of bad-boy Jimmy Dean quality about him, as if he’d been orphaned as a young boy and fought his way through to adulthood on grit, determination and muscle.

Okay, so maybe that was a bit much to deduce after one glance. But oh, my, he was someone she’d be happy to talk to. The only strange thing was that after meeting his eyes, that strong sense of being approached by something exciting and dangerous had faded. She felt safe again. Still excited and…very excited. But safe.

“Hi.” One side of his mouth twisted up in a crooked smile, while the other side stayed emotionally neutral and seriously sexy.

She studied him, her head tilted to look as if she was deciding whether he was worth responding to, while her heartbeat was telling her in rapid and certain terms that he was.

“Hi.”

He kept that sly smile on, leaned toward her and extended his hand. “I’m Jack.”

She looked down at his hand, then up into his eyes before she took it. “Samantha.”

His grin widened to include the other side of his mouth and he chuckled.

She raised an eyebrow. “That’s funny?”

He shook his head, still smiling.

She tightened her lips, not really annoyed. The same old joke had gone beyond annoying. “I know, I know, Samantha on Bewitched, and am I a witch, and if I wiggle my nose can I make you disappear?”

“Nope.”

“No?” She smiled, curious, and frankly unable to keep from smiling back at him. Something about the way he looked at her made her feel strangely happy. Maybe it was just that he seemed interested, but plenty of men had been interested, and she didn’t recall it necessarily involved this kind of…uplift, for lack of a better term.

His eyes were brown, lighter than dark deep endless brown, but full of life, full of male confidence and messages that he knew that she knew and that if they both wanted it to, something could happen.

This could be a really, really outstanding evening.

“I was thinking of another Samantha.”

“Okay, let me guess. The character on Sex and the City who falls into bed with every man she meets.”

He laughed and gestured forward to the seat next to her. “Is this taken?”

Samantha swung her legs back under the bar and shrugged. “Nope.”

He slid off the stool and moved closer. She hadn’t realized how tall he was—well over six feet—nor how imposing. And boy, did he smell good. Male and sophisticated—what was that scent? She hadn’t a clue but she wanted to roll in it like a dog and smell it on her own body later.

He settled himself onto the stool next to her and smiled. “That’s better.”

Close up he was even more magnificent. His hair was thick and slightly wavy, cut short so the muscles in his neck were visible when he bent his head forward. The back of men’s necks and their shoulders, that powerful broad expanse, was a turn-on to her.

“Samantha.”

He said her name as if he was contemplating the taste of it, sliding it around his tongue and mouth before he swallowed it and made it part of him. The sound did shivery schoolgirl things to her insides, so she kept her face rigid, since it was silly at her age to be feeling this light-headed over the sound of her name.

“Samantha was the name of a very, very special…female.” He took a sip of his beer and turned to look full into her eyes, his softening as if the memory was taking him over.

Samantha narrowed hers. Something lurked in the back of those eyes. Something extremely mischievous. A very, very special…female?

She shook her head and turned back to her beer. “Your dog.”

He burst out laughing and slapped his hand on the bar. “Damn, you’re good.”

She bit off the obvious line. A bit too soon to be agreeing, even playfully. She knew where that would lead. And even if she ended up wanting it to lead there, now was too soon to start in with the serious flirting.

He angled his body toward her and leaned one elbow on the bar. “So what do you do, Samantha?”

“I’m a lawyer.”

“Corporate.”

“How did you know?”

He tapped the side of his head. “I’m brilliant.”

She snorted. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He took a sip of beer, straight out of the bottle— Leinenkugel’s Red, brewed up north in Wisconsin. Drinking out of the bottle was sexy on men. Samantha approved.

“What kind of law?”

“I’m corporate counsel for ManForce temporary agency. I handle discrimination cases mostly, racism, sexism and sexual harassment.”

“Uh-oh.” He held up his hands. “I better watch what I say.”

She lifted her brows acknowledging his statement, but not responding. Never hurt to get that information on the table. Men were usually pretty wary after they found out what she did. Nice little weapon, one she wasn’t afraid to use, not that she got herself in situations like this often. But by the way his eyes warmed at the sight of her, she was starting to be damn glad she’d gotten herself into this one.

“And what do you do for fun, Samantha?”

He spoke softly, suggestively. Samantha started to roll her eyes, but then it occurred to her that if he kept up this kind of macho pickup-line crap, he might qualify as the Swaggering Butthead and then she’d get to see him naked. “Define fun.”

“Nonwork activities.” He winked. “You don’t strike me as the type that sits in bars for excitement.”

“Oh?” For some reason that stung. As if she had Desperate Divorcée written all over her instead of Confident Woman On the Prowl. “What type do I strike you as?”

“Beautiful, classy, elegant.” He looked her over as if he was thinking about having her for dessert. “More at home at the opera, or the symphony or in a five-bedroom split level with hubby and lovely children.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to charm or insult me?”

“I’m trying to be honest. How you take it is up to you.”

Samantha gritted her teeth at the same time she was starting to get seriously excited. Mind games. Just what a true Swaggering Butthead was into. Keep his prey off-balance, subjugated. “I’m not into opera, I go to the symphony maybe twice a year, no kids and…” She gave a nonchalant shrug, though it was still hard to say. “I’m not married.”

“Divorced.”

She shot him a look. Yup. He had her pegged. One deep to-hell-with-you breath and Samantha regained her composure. “It happens.”

“You didn’t think it would?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Of course not.” He tipped the beer back into his mouth and put it down on the bar with an emphatic thud. “If you ask my opinion, which you didn’t, marriage is a fairy tale force-fed to us from birth.”

He paused for her reaction. She gave him none. “It’s unreasonable to expect two people to be able to stand each other’s neuroses for all eternity. But there you have it every day.” He gestured with his hand and let it slap onto the bar. “People standing at the altar, sure that mindless infatuation bound to deteriorate is something special and mystical and everlasting. Am I right?”

“You’re right.”

He looked surprised, as if he’d only been baiting her in his best Swaggering Butthead manner, and was anticipating a surefire reaction of hysterical female outrage. “You agree?”

“No. You’re right, I didn’t ask your opinion.”

He blinked once, then clutched his chest as if she’d shot him. “You got me.”

“Easy target.”

“I guess.” He signaled the bartender, pointed to their glasses and held up two fingers. “Can I buy you another beer?”

She rolled her eyes, secretly enjoying his high-handedness. Swagger on, baby; you’re doing just fine. “Apparently you can.”

A couple moved away from two stools behind him at the bar; a trio of thirty-something guys wedged themselves into the space. Jack Hunter slid off his stool, pulled it closer to her and slid back on, acknowledging the thanks of the men behind him.

“So.” He grinned, his knee nudging the side of her thigh.

“So.” She gave him an offhand look, hoping he’d think the flush on her face was from the warm bar and the beer. “What do you do?”

“Guess.”

“Hmm.” She pretended to look him over carefully, as if she hadn’t been doing that already from the second they met. Nicely dressed, linen pants and a loosely woven cotton shirt. No jewelry, early thirties she’d guess. But describing his clothes didn’t begin to capture his real look. The male confidence, the killer eyes that were so magnetic it looked as if they were lit from inside….

“You’re a male stripper.”

He burst out laughing. “Now how did you guess that?”

Samantha shrugged, trying to contain her own laughter. God this was fun. Beat the hell out of staying at home with Blanche and Fudge. “It’s written all over you. Jack the Stripper.”

He laughed again, this time letting his eyes linger on hers after the chuckles died. She held his gaze for a few seconds, then looked away. Holy heat wave. The chemistry was astounding.

“I’m a photographer. I shoot commercial stuff primarily, but I’m also working on a series for a gallery on Carpenter Street.”

“No kidding.”

He grinned, a slow charmer’s grin that made her grab her beer for a long sip. “No kidding.”

Samantha put her glass down and ran her finger around the rim, not at all mystified by her sudden need to touch. “One feeds your pocketbook, one feeds your soul?”

“Yes.” His eyes shifted from lazy sex to sudden alert focus, as if she’d surprised him by being in possession of a brain, lawyer or not. “Exactly.”

“Very nice.”

“I’m glad you approve.” He sat watching her, drumming his fingers on the bar as if he was considering something carefully.

Samantha shot him a look. “So, have you decided?”

He cocked his head in a question. “Decided?”

“Whether to say it or not.”

The same surprised awareness flickered through his eyes before he laughed and leaned his chin on his hand, looking at her like she was a piece of his very favorite chocolate cake. “Yes.”

“And?”

“It’s a go.” He grinned, still watching her intently. “Have you ever done any modeling?”

She let one eyebrow slide halfway up her forehead, while her insides started to jitterbug. Oh. Wow. This could be it. “No.”

“I think you might be right for a project I’m starting soon. Interested in doing a test?”

She let her lids lower suspiciously. “What makes me right where a professional model wouldn’t be?”

“Hard to say. Call it instinct, call it artistic selection. I could easily be wrong, but I think a camera would love you. I think you have exactly what I want.”

His voice was smooth and low, his eye contact direct and no-nonsense. Samantha shrugged and took another sip of her beer, which was pretty amazing considering she felt like gasping and slumping onto the bar. Wow. Unless she was totally wrong, this was the photographer’s equivalent of asking her to come see his etchings. What were the odds she’d find the perfect Man To Do the very night she was finally ready? If she wasn’t so cynical, she’d consider another attempt at believing in Fate.

“I see.” She tipped her head to the side and pushed her hair behind one ear in a consciously seductive gesture, pleased when his eyes followed the movement. “What kind of project?”

“I’m doing a series of photographs of women as pieces of furniture.”

Samantha nearly burst out laughing. Ha! What could be more Swaggering Butthead-y than that? Women as objects! He was getting better all the time. “Furniture?”

“Chairs, dining tables, that kind of thing.” He grinned an I-know-what-you’re-thinking grin.

“Charming. Do you seat men on them? Smoking cigars and flicking burning ashes on their skin?”

“Hmm. No.” He tilted his head and rubbed his chin. “But now that you mention it…”

Samantha rolled her eyes. “Oof.”

“It’s a concept. It has no bearing on how I feel about women. I could just as easily use men.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Because women’s bodies are more interesting to me. A man’s body impersonating a wooden object is less of a draw. But take the soft strength of a woman, her beauty, her living grace, and transform that into something without life, something utilitarian. That’s such a clear contradiction, a clear paradox. And beautiful visually.”

“I see.” She swung her legs toward him and away on the bar stool. Something about that furniture thing bothered her. And something about hearing him talk about women’s bodies really bothered her. But in an entirely different way. One that had her wondering if his etchings might be something she’d really like to see.

“So…”

She turned toward him again. “So?”

“Are you interested?”

“In being your dining table?”

That slow grin spread itself across his face. “In coming to the studio for a test.”

She knew what that meant. Knew what it would mean if she said yes. And staring into his dynamite eyes, that were sending signals she didn’t need a translator to decipher, she thought maybe Jack Hunter, Swaggering Butthead extraordinaire, was exactly what she needed. “I think I might be.”

“You think?”

She looked back down at her beer and hooked a finger through her necklace, moving it back and forth. Men were lucky. Fatal Attraction type psycho-females aside, they could generally rely on their physical power to stay safe. Women were more vulnerable. “I just don’t know if you…I mean I don’t know you.”

He nodded. “Understood. Here’s my card. The studio is on West Walton street, not too far from here.”

She accepted the card and studied it. Nice address. If he was legit, he was probably doing well for himself.

“My clients include Henderson, Algram and Cairns, Stoering Medical Systems, the French designer Paul Justin and Watson Sports.”

Samantha tried not to look impressed in spite of the fact that she was. Henderson, et al. was one of the biggest if not the biggest advertising agency in the city; Paul Justin was sweeping the nation designing everything from watches to socks, and the other two companies were just shy of the Fortune 500 list.

Of course successful people could be creeps, too, but somehow in her book it made him less likely to be into tying her up, torturing her, and dumping her into Lake Michigan. Maybe it was false security, but she liked the feeling. And he was definitely the sexiest guy she’d encountered in a long time. Or ever.

She threw him a sidelong glance, designed to get him hot and bothered, which boomeranged unexpectedly off his mega-male presence and got her hot and bothered instead.

To hell with security and common sense. When was the last time she’d encountered chemistry like this? Not since she met Brendan. Maybe not even then.

She was going to do it.

She tucked the card into her purse and smiled at him, pushing back her hair again, as if she thought it had any hope of staying behind her shoulder. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ll do it.”

He thumped his fist on the bar and laughed as if he’d been holding in tension waiting for her answer and was finally able to let it out. “Good. I think you’ll be perfect for the project. How does next week sound?”

Samantha determinedly kept the smile on her face while her stomach bottomed out. He really did want to photograph her? It wasn’t just an excuse to get her alone tonight?

“Uh…”

“You should know, though—” He rubbed his chin again. “I can’t do this on regular studio time or use my staff, so it would have to be kind of late. Say eight o’clock.”

Samantha’s determined smile started to feel more natural. “I see.”

“And I should warn you ahead of time…” He quirked an eyebrow and leaned closer as if to whisper. “That the women in these pictures aren’t suffering from an overabundance of clothing.”

Samantha’s stomach resumed its regularly scheduled functions and poured in an extra dose of adrenaline. Late evening shoot. No staff. Barely any clothes.

All was not lost.

He could still be her Man To Do. Just not tonight. Which was actually okay. Guys with true evil on their minds would be more likely to jump on her right now, not wait until a convenient time slot turned up. This way would feel a lot safer, even if it lost something in the passionate spontaneity department. And she could put in some serious fantasy time over the next week.

“I think I could handle that.”

“I think you could.” His grin spread extra slowly; his eyes held hers until she had to look away and fish clumsily in her purse for a business card. “Here’s my work number.”

“Good.” He accepted her card and turned it over in his strong-looking fingers. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Not even a fraction as much as she was.

“So am I.” She grinned back at him and lifted her second beer in a private toast. To Samantha: on her way to moving on from Divorce Hell. To Jack Hunter: Swaggering Butthead and possible Man To Do.

She smiled as an absurd thought struck her. And to whatever and whoever he was doing tonight—Johnny Orion.

RICK DROVE HIS Jeep Cherokee into a space opposite Samantha’s driveway and shifted into park. Good. She was home safely. The guy in the bar hadn’t followed her. And she looked much happier than when she left. He’d driven by her house earlier in the evening, wanting to see the space she lived in, to get more of a feel of the kind of person she was, then driven to her office and followed her impulsively when he saw her come out of the garage. Then he’d followed her home—to make sure she was safe and because she enchanted him and he didn’t want to break the connection until he had to.

He turned on his car radio. An obnoxious pop song came on; he frowned and changed the station to WFMT. The noble music of Bach and Beethoven was better suited to thoughts of Samantha than some prepubescent boy band.

Tonight had been good. He’d approached her at P.J.’s when she first came in and sat at the bar, not to speak to her, to let her sense him. She had. He could tell by the way her body tensed, by the way she turned her head to see behind her. She was looking for him. Wanting him without even knowing she did. Then that guy had intervened. Jack, he called himself. That was okay. Rick was nothing if not patient. He’d had competition before. It complicated things, yes, but also made them more interesting.

Lights went on in her house, indicating that she’d gotten safely inside. The overture to Wagner’s Tann häuser swelled on his car radio as if celebrating that fact. Rick smiled at the glowing windows, at the glimpses of Samantha moving from room to room, closing the curtains. He felt like a Peeping Tom, but if ever there was a woman worth peeping at…

I am not to speak of you—I am to think of you When I sit alone or wake at night alone

I am to wait—I do not doubt I am to meet you again

I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

“To a Stranger,” by Walt Whitman. Maybe he should write the poem down and send it to her. She’d like it. But not yet. Sending notes was tricky, risky. If he sent them too soon, she might panic and think he was creepy. He’d know when the moment was right. And he needed to extricate himself from this mess with Tanya, his accuser, first, so Samantha would know he wasn’t some sleazeball. He’d simply miscalculated. He knew how to treat women; he loved and respected them. Tanya was the first one he’d ever read so wrong.

Whatever. Samantha would see his side. Then they could be together. For now, he’d keep up her sexual interest with the calls for Johnny. Then segue into the deeper, more powerful aspects of their inevitable relationship.

When the last fabric wall shut her away from him, he gave a long sigh, shifted into drive and pulled away from the curb. After tonight, after interference by that Jack guy. Rick needed to pick up the pace, go into higher gear, find out that much sooner everything he could about her likes and dislikes, her passions and tastes and turnoffs. Difficult, yes, but he relished the challenge. Because he knew in the end he’d win.

He grinned and beeped his horn in an impulsive farewell salute as he sped down her block. Johnny Orion always got the girl.