Baring It All

Just as she slid out of the green dress and flopped down on her bed, plumping the pillows behind her head, the phone rang. Who would be calling her so late? “Hello?”

“This is Ryan Malone. I’m watching your story.”

Damn him, she hadn’t recovered from the last sensual onslaught. It wasn’t fair of him to invade her private sanctuary without warning. “How’d you get my number?”

“From the guest list. Your employer must have filled out the form for you.”

“Remind me to tell them not to do that again.”

“Doesn’t matter. I have it now.”

The camera was sweeping the reception, panning the mayor and his party, then, it moved across the lobby to the two people standing near the exit, a tall redhead in green and a dark-eyed, intense man in a tux.

“That’s some dress,” he said.

“Best free air time could be traded for,” she quipped. “I suppose your tux is custom-made, isn’t it?” Dumb, Sunny. It wasn’t the tux, it was what was underneath it that made her quiver like an adolescent.

“It is. Does that bother you that my tux is custom fitted?”

“Of course not. It’s just that like you, Lord Sin, this kind of thing isn’t the real me. I’m not accustomed to dealing with men like you.”

“We’re just men, Sunny.”

“Yeah, and I’m just a woman, a woman who never owned a dress like that.”

“Personally, I think the green dress was the real you. Of course, I don’t know what you’re wearing now.”

She glanced guiltily down at her nude body, at nipples dusky rose and erect and felt a hot flush spread across her cheeks. “And you’re not going to. Have you called Lord Sin?”

“I’m working on it.”

“I wasn’t sure you were really serious,” she said.

“Oh, but I was. I can see that I’m going to have to teach you how to play the game.”

“And this is a game?”

“Of course. We’ve already set the stakes. I have two weeks to get you in my bed.”

“No, you have two weeks to try. In the meantime you’re going to set me up with Lord Sin and I get to interview you along the way.”

“I’m going to try, but only if you’re trustworthy.”

“I’m trustworthy. I was a Girl Scout and Girl Scouts never tell a lie.”

“Then tell me we have a deal.”

There was a long silence where nothing but the sound of breathing filled the phone lines. Finally, she took a deep breath and said softly, “I won’t say okay to you taking me to bed, but if that’s your offer, I’m willing to let you try.”

“Good. Now, tell me what you’re wearing.”

“I will not.”

“In that case, I’ll create my own fantasy. I’d say your bed is covered in white satin sheets and, since you just got home, you’re still wearing what you were wearing underneath that green dress.”

She smiled, allowing herself to enjoy his teasing. “Oh, and what is that?”

“Nothing. Nothing except a suntan. How am I doing so far?”

She swallowed hard. “Missed by a mile. My bottom sheet is burgundy stretch knit and there isn’t a top sheet, just a comforter.”

He laughed. “You’re wrong, darling. It’s my fantasy and I’ll create it any way I like. Don’t you want to know what I’m wearing?”

“I do not. I’m going to hang up now, Mr. Malone. Phone sex isn’t my thing.”

“Nor is it mine, but it’s as close as I can come to experiencing the real thing tonight. But that will change. Tomorrow I’m going out to buy knit sheets and a comforter. Just tell me what you like. As a lover, I aim to please.”

Forget the telephone and modern conveniences like beds, she thought. They might as well have been alone in the tent of some Bedouin sheikh. Obviously Malone was a man who let nothing come between him and what he was doing. And what he was doing was seducing her, word by word, image by image. Even if the words weren’t whispered in that erotic, spellbinding rasp of Lord Sin, the husky timbre of Malone’s voice set her breathing aflutter. She sucked in a deep breath and turned off the television. The silence was worse.

“Tell me, Sunny, what do you want?”

“I’d like to meet Lord Sin.”

“You’re impatient, too, aren’t you?”

“Always,” Sunny agreed. “You can never count on having enough time later. So for me, there is no later—only now.”

“Oh, but there’s always later. There has to be. A person needs the promise of tomorrow. You use today to fulfill that promise.”

Sunny shifted the phone to her other shoulder, glad to substitute a good argument for the sex talk Malone seemed intent on engaging in. “Not me, Mr. Malone. I’ll take today. It’s right here. I can touch it, feel it, use it. Tomorrow? I don’t trust the hussie.”

“You have an interesting philosophy,” he said. “One that gives a reporter permission to expose, to bully, to abuse, even to be dishonest.”

“Sometimes you have to. Otherwise, given enough power and time, the truth can be withheld.”

There was a long pause. “And sometimes there are reasons to withhold the truth,” he said in a low voice. “But for now I’m going to take a page out of your book and use today—tonight—to get started.”

“Get started? On what?”

“On getting you into my bed.”

The man had a one-track mind. “That is not a done deal. I told you, you can try.”

“But you’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you?”

She squirmed and held her breath. She’d thought about little else. Even caught up in his fantasy, a tiny grain of logic still held. How could she be so acutely responsive to two men? Lord Sin was the fantasy, the unknown dream lover. But Ryan Malone was real. Thinking about him? If he could see her, the color of her cheeks would be a dead giveaway. “No. I’ve been busy,” she lied.

“I don’t believe you.”