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 accounts—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 moment, 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.”
2
BEN 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.
