Lucy Monroe - Satisfaction Guaranteed

She knew some people saw lust as a purely physical reaction and maybe it was…for them. But there was a reason she’d only ever had one lover. Sexual desire went hand-in-hand with an emotional connection for her. And the way she’d felt last night-talking to Ethan and touching herself-had almost been spiritual. Which was really silly.

How could something as earthy as phone sex be that affecting? Maybe she was imbuing it with more than what it really was. Was it possible that because she’d always connected emotions with sex that she was doing so again now, but it would be possible not to? She was twenty-nine years old, not a starry-eyed teen. Surely she should be able to control her emotions while having wild-monkey sex with Ethan.

If she was going to make love with him, she would have to. Not to do so would be to court disaster of a magnitude that could outstrip her aborted wedding three years ago. One dose of that kind of humiliation and pain in a lifetime was enough.

And unlike Alan, who had wanted her for herself, Ethan’s motives were murky at best.

The more she thought about it, the more certain she became that he was pursuing her sexually for the sake of the case. He’d never made an overture before and now all of a sudden, he wanted her naked. She couldn’t be sure that the attraction was even for her. It wasn’t that she doubted her sexual desirability, only his timing in discovering it.

He said he got a hard-on from going through her sexy lingerie, but he could have been fantasizing about someone else. He was a professional…he’d know how to do whatever it took to get the job done. Including how to project a façade of sexual desire when he was actually indifferent. He’d as much as said so the night before.

Certainly, she’d always perceived his reaction to her as more indifference than attraction. Why after two years was he suddenly breaking thermometers in his sexual pursuit of her? The most logical answer was that he was using it as a way to guarantee the viability of his case.

If the sexual need on his side was manufactured for the sake of the case…did she want it?

Would that make it better or worse for her? Would she be less likely to fall in love with someone who she knew was using their intimacy as a way to do his job better? Or would it matter? Love wasn’t exactly a rational emotion, but she was a rational being. For the most part.

Could her own innate streak of emotional realism protect her from making the same mistake with Ethan that she had made with Alan? Did she even want to take the risk?

One of the kittens meowed and she jumped. It was time to get ready for the day and feed her furry friends. Only with the plaintive quality of the mewling coming from the kitchen, she’d better reverse the order of those actions.

She padded naked into the kitchen to put out their food, her mind twisting with thoughts she could not tame into any semblance of order.

She was no closer to a sense of certainty by the time she sat down at her desk at work an hour later and started going through her e-mail.

“Good morning, Beth.”

Her head shot up and she gave Alan a weak smile. “Good morning. How is your first case coming along?”

“Fine. It’s more research than anything else. No sweat. You look peaked this morning. Stressed about your upcoming assignment?”

“A little.” Which was the truth, if not all of it.

His hair gleamed almost blue-black under the fluorescent lights, his gray eyes narrowed under dark brows. “I was surprised your dad pushed you into it. Are you sure it’s something you should be doing?”

She manufactured a smile, not sure at all, but unwilling to back out of a commitment she’d made. Keeping her promises was one of the things that Beth insisted on for her personal sense of honor. She’d had too many promises broken to her as a child, and then later, to ever dismiss her responsibilities for the sake of even roiling emotions.

“I’ll be fine. It’s not like I’m pretending to be something I’m not. Only something I used to be.”

“What about the relationship with Ethan? That’s pretense…isn’t it?”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She wasn’t sure how to answer. Did the visual intimacy they had shared in her apartment and the wild encounter on the phone later constitute a relationship, or mistake?

“Not anymore.” The words were Ethan’s and his voice carried a warning note that made Alan’s expression tighten and Beth’s heart rate increase.

Her gaze jerked to Ethan, who had approached silently from his office. He was dressed in his signature dark jeans and a body-hugging, ribbed knit silk T-shirt. His blond hair was in its usual sexy style and his features did not show any of the ravages of lack of sleep. His eyes were filled with the warning his voice had implied as he met Alan’s gaze.

Ethan must have come in early because he had not walked by her desk since she’d arrived. She’d been so caught up in her thoughts, she hadn’t done her usual check to see whose computers were active when she arrived. She clicked a shortcut to a macro she’d created to do just that, while her mind grappled with his presence and what his words and attitude implied.

Alan’s frown was more thoughtful than accusatory. “If that’s true, you move fast.”

Ethan shrugged and Beth felt a betraying blush climb up her skin. There was such a thing as keeping a private encounter private. He was from Texas…didn’t they teach gentlemanly discretion down there?

Alan’s eyes assessed Ethan and his expression turned forbidding. “Or is it that you move with necessity?” he asked in a tone that could have stripped paint.

“Not your business, old son.”

Which was practically an agreement in her opinion. And an unnecessary one at that.

Alan faced Ethan head-on, his entire manner aggressive and borderline threatening. “Beth is a friend. I don’t want to see her hurt.”

“Don’t worry…I have no plans to leave her standing at the altar,” Ethan said with derision.

Alan flashed a look of surprise at Beth and then looked back at Ethan. “You do move fast, but you’re smart enough to know that the past is going to make me more protective of her, not less.”

Ethan shrugged in acknowledgment of a fact that Beth found highly suspect herself. What gave Alan the right to play her protector? He’d abrogated all rights in her life the day he left her standing alone to face three hundred wedding guests and try to explain the inexplicable, all the while wondering if her groom had been killed in the field.

“I am a grown woman and I can make my own decisions and fight my own battles when the need arises,” Beth said acerbically. “I don’t need, or want, a protector.”

Alan’s eyes filled with concern that grated. “Honey, you don’t have experience with men like Ethan. You’re twenty-nine, but you’re still so damn innocent. He’s not above creating a sexual relationship to give a sense of reality to your role in the case.”

“I’m aware of that and I’m not that innocent.” Especially after last night.

“I repeat, this is not your business,” Ethan said to Alan, his drawl pure ice.

But she could not miss that he had not bothered to deny the accusation.

“Patently, I don’t agree.”

Beth stood up and leaned forward so she could speak low enough her voice would not carry down the hall to any interested listeners. “I don’t really care what either of you think. You will stop talking about me and any potential relationship between myself and Ethan publicly and as if I’m not even here right this second.”

They both looked at her like she was speaking in ancient tongues.

She could feel her facial muscles stiffen as her glare went sulfuric. “I mean it.”