“The same.” She shifted and looked away. “I, uh…I haven’t spoken to my father recently, either.”
But not for lack of trying, she didn’t add. Most of her calls were avoided and rarely returned. A part of her longed to confide in Ben, to tell him about accidentally outing her father, but the time for that had passed. They hadn’t shared a secret in years. Odd that sharing her body with him would come easier, but…c’est la vie.
Ben let go a pent-up breath. “Look, April, is that what you came here for? To talk about our fathers? Because if it is, I can tell you that I don’t—”
Impatient with herself, April squeezed her eyes shut, shook her head. “It’s not. I—”
He blinked, seemingly surprised. “It’s not?”
“No,” she said.
He bit the corner of his lip, looking curiously relieved. “Then why did you come? Why are you here?”
Here it was, she thought. Truth or consequences time. She’d never been one to mince words, yet summoning the wherewithal to have this conversation with Ben was proving exceedingly difficult. She’d known it would be, but…Aw, hell. The fact was, she wasn’t accustomed to asking men to sleep with her. Ordinarily, it was the other way around. They came to her. Furthermore, if she wanted someone, she’d never had to tell them. A loaded glance, a secret smile, an innocent yet promising touch.
Body language. Not the English language.
She hesitated, looked up and saw him waiting expectantly. Her heart began to pound. She couldn’t believe she was going to do this, that she was actually going to ask him to have sex with her.
But she was.
Desperation had prodded other women to do worse, she told herself. And she was desperate.
Eighteen months.
Eighteen miserable, horribly unsatisfied months of unrelenting sexual agony. Frankie was right. If Ben couldn’t pull an orgasm from her apparently comatose libido, then nobody could. She’d simply have to resign herself to a lifetime of sexual dysfunction. The idea was so abhorrent she had to smother a maniacal laugh. Hell, she’d probably go crazy. Turn into a cat-loving, batty old shrew who screamed at little children and collected empty butter tubs and bottle caps. She glanced nervously at him again.
“April?” he prodded. Concern had replaced expectation, pricking her conscience. “Is something wrong?”
She smothered a snort. “You could say that,” she said, determined to go through with this. She pulled in a bracing breath, then let it go with a door-die whoosh. “I’ve got a personal problem…and I think you can help.”
“A personal problem,” he repeated.
“Yes,” she managed to whisper over the litany of Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! screaming in her head.
He hesitated for a moment. “Er, what sort of personal problem?”
“An intimate sort of problem,” she confided with evidently just enough misery for him to make the connection.
A fleeting flash of surprise registered before he masked it with a less-jolted expression. In a nanosecond, 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