“So, Professor Smith, what do you want to know about my sex life?” Zane’s bass voice sizzled through her like a lit Fourth of July sparkler.
She whirled to find him staring at her with intensely interested eyes. His hands were holding two glasses of milk.
“Milk?” she asked, looking at him sideways, suppressing a grin.
“I need to revitalize my body for your sex test,” he said, almost as if he was slightly embarrassed.
That little-boy quality captured her. But she couldn’t help being very, very aware of him as a full-grown man. Without thinking, her eyes wandered down his very vitalized muscular frame. Her gaze stopped dead center on his tight jeans that accentuated his generously manly bulge. She quickly diverted her focus to the masterpiece paintings on the wall.
Why, oh, why, hadn’t she fought harder against participating in this sex research project? It wasn’t for her, oh no, not for her.
“We don’t have to jump right into the interview,” she quickly told him.
“From your phone call, I got the idea you want some major erotic details,” he began. “Like the way I—”
“Before we get into any specifics,” she conveniently cut in, “I’d like to get a solid sense of your male identity.” Her fingers were trembling as she searched through her briefcase for his résumé. “I believe you received your master’s degree from—”
“Harvard,” he filled in.
She finally found his résumé and frowned. “But your curriculum vitae lists Yale University.”
“Right, right,” he said. “I always get those two places mixed up.”
“Really?” she asked. “I thought a semi-genius like you would hold your university affiliations in high regard.”
“Nah,” he said. “I tend to file away my past and concentrate on current pertinent data. Like, for instance, your being here with me to examine my sexual need for the female species.”
“Ahh—why don’t you show me your house?” she suggested, avoiding his twinkling direct gaze. That’s it, she told herself. Keep the conversation safe, neutral, and on more wholesome topics.
But how long could she delay her sexy questions?
Zane studied her for a long moment. “Maybe I’m dead wrong,” he began, “but am I making you nervous, Professor Smith? Because if I am—”
“No, no, I’m fine,” she insisted. “I have no problem with—”
“Asking what turns me on in bed?” he boldly finished. His eyes were playing with her, teasing her, daring her.
Why, he was definitely getting pleasure from her uncomfortableness!
“I knew this would happen,” she blurted out, shoving his résumé back into her briefcase.
“What?”
“Men don’t take the university sex study very seriously,” she went on, unable to control herself the way Kim had advised. “One anonymous male wrote on his volunteer form that he made love one hundred times a day, eight days a week. By any chance, was that you?”
She was not going to let this man with the soaring IQ challenge her ability to competently complete her first interview.
Zane’s grin came slow and easy. “Sex can make a man say wild things,” he said. “Like when I have sex with a woman, she can make me forget where I am, what day it is, or even who I am. Does sex with a man do that to you, Professor?”
“Me?” she asked, taken aback. “I—I—” How could she tell him that sensual pleasure was like a fever to her—hot and dangerous. And that it was sex that had destroyed her future marriage to Kent.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Zane quickly added. “You don’t have to answer.” There was a sudden caring in his voice that she couldn’t help noticing. “How about I give you a tour of the house?”
“Sure,” she said, relieved. Though she couldn’t completely figure him out, for that second, Zane had somehow tuned into a painfully vulnerable place in her that no one had ever been aware of but her.
She felt a sudden closeness to him that she hadn’t felt with a man in a very long time.
Zane led her through a long Mexican-tiled hallway. She heard his footsteps echo beside hers as though they strolled through a huge cathedral.
“Do you live here all alone?” she heard herself ask. That question was not a requirement on her study list. “I mean—this place is so huge.”
“It’s just me,” he replied. “What about you? Do you live by yourself, Rachel?”
Hearing his deep-toned masculine voice utter her first name sent a warmth of intimacy through her. Suddenly he stopped walking and leaned against the hallway wall, watching her with greater interest than that of an ordinary interviewee. Was he thinking of asking her out? She caught herself secretly hoping he was.
She immediately straightened her spine and tightened her grip on her briefcase. What was she thinking? She was a professor on an interview. She couldn’t let herself get personal with him.
“Actually, my non-professional life is irrelevant to the study,” she told him.
His eyes held hers. “Maybe to the study, but not to me.”
She nervously bit her bottom lip. At that moment, she yearned to share with him whatever he wanted to know about her, things she’d never told anyone else. Somehow, she felt that maybe he’d understand. But she knew her job didn’t permit it.
She cleared her throat. “I don’t see how my living condition affects this research study.”
“It’s very simple,” he explained. “You want me to get relaxed enough to reveal myself to you, right?”
“Yes,” she hesitantly replied, wondering what he was leading up to.
“How can I?” He leaned a little closer to her. “I need to get to know you better, don’t I?”
She swallowed. “I see your point.” She was trying very hard to act cool and professional, but deep inside, oh, how she wanted him to get to know her better. “I live alone just like you.”
“Ah-ha,” he mused aloud. “A single woman interviewing the sex life of a single man. Could hold a lot of intriguing possibilities. Like, what if—”
“The tour?” she reminded him, to get his mind off that train of thought fast.
“Of course, the tour, Professor,” he said, very mannerly but obviously getting a kick out of all this.
But no matter how much she tried, Rachel could barely concentrate on his house. In his spacious hi-tech kitchen, sunlit breakfast area, elegant dining room, floor-to-ceiling library of books, and movie screening room, she saw only Zane.
Because Zane Farrell didn’t seem like a man she’d just met. She felt as if she’d known him for aeons.
“What do you think of the gym?” Zane asked, breaking into her reverie.
The shiny hardwood-floor gym had blue floor mats, weight machines, treadmills, StairMasters, rowing machines, barbells, and stationary bicycles. Small red dumbbells were carelessly strewn on the floor, and she had to sidestep a couple to avoid tripping.
“This place is bigger than my local health club,” she commented.
“It’s unreal, isn’t it?” he agreed.
“You sound like an amazed visitor rather than the owner of this place,” she noted.
“Can’t