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Hoped shewasn’t going to be sick.

Before shecould work up any truly debilitating nerves, there was a knock on the door. Ander.Five minutes early.

“Good evening,”he said with that same urbane, sensual smile he’d showed her before. He woreblack and gray again—this evening a thin charcoal gray sweater with a sleekblack jacket over it.

“Hi. Goodevening. Thanks for coming. Come in.” She cringed at how stupid she’d sounded,but made herself push through her discomfort. She was paying a lot for thisevening. It was a business transaction. She had no reason to worry aboutwhether she sounded stupid or whether Ander knew how nervous she was. This washer deal, and she was in control of it.

All the same,she hurried back to her glass of wine.

Ander glancedaround the room as he walked in, apparently making note of the king-sized bedwith white duvet, the clean lines of the sofa, and the large entertainmentcenter against the wall. When he turned back to her and saw her taking a longsip, he asked, “How much of that have you had?”

It was anunexpected way for him to begin this encounter, but it actually made Lori morecomfortable. She smiled dryly. “This is just my second glass. I didn’t want tobe schnockered, but I thought a very mild buzz might help.”

He nodded withanother smile, this one a little less practiced.

“Do you want aglass?” she asked, sitting down on the edge of one of the chairs beside thesmall round table.

“Thank you.” Andersat down in the other chair and put the black leather case he carried on thefloor at his feet.

Lori peered atit curiously as she handed Ander a glass of wine.

Noticing herlook, he opened the case and pulled out a couple of DVDs. “Since you weren’tinterested in any particular fantasy or role play,” he explained, “I thought itmight be helpful to bring these.” He slid them over on the table so she couldsee the covers. “They’re female-oriented erotic films. I don’t think you’llfind them tacky or vulgar. And the more aroused you are, the better thisevening will go. Does this sort of thing work for you?”

“I don’t know.All I’ve ever seen is porn with big bouncing boobs. I hope that’s not what thisis like.”

The corner of Ander’smouth did that appealing little twitch. “No big bouncing boobs. Why don’t wetry one of these, if you don’t have other ideas?”

Lori nodded,ridiculously relieved that she wouldn’t immediately have to get naked andspread her legs. She took her wine and went over to sit on the sofa while Anderwalked over to the DVD player.

“Do you preferbusiness-types or manual laborers?” Ander asked, looking at her with coolcourtesy over his shoulder.

“Business-types.”She curled up her legs to get herself comfortable and idly started to imaginehow she would describe this to Sabrina tomorrow morning. It was certainlybetter than pretending to be out on a romantic date with Ander before havingsex. But still...watching porn with a male escort was definitely an atypicalexperience.

Ander slid theappropriate DVD into the player. “The film is just under two hours, so we canwatch the whole thing and still have plenty of time to move on from there. Butlet me know if it’s not working. And if you decide you want to move on beforethe film is over, just tell me that too.”

Lori nodded,swallowing an overly large sip of wine. She couldn’t imagine herself sooverwhelmed with desire that she’d want to jump up and hit the bed in themiddle of an erotic film. While her body reacted the way it supposed to whenexposed to sexual stimuli—particularly the smutty parts of well-written romancenovels—she’d never felt particularly urgent about physical arousal.

She’d readthousands of love scenes in books. Some hot and some laughable. After readingone of the purple-prose variety in college, she’d vowed she could write abetter one, even without any real-life experience. So for fun she’d written asex scene. Then she’d written a novel to go with it. Not a very good novel.She’d tried and failed to get it published. But it was a start. She wrote twomore unpublished novels in college. But it wasn’t until the year after shegraduated, working as a copyeditor at a local paper, that she actually madeprogress toward publication. She’d met a literary agent who’d asked to look atthe fourth, and best, novel Lori had written. That novel ended up, by one ofthe unpredictable flukes of the publishing industry, becoming a romancebestseller. As did the three that followed.

Sometimes, whenLori wrote her own love scenes, she became aroused. She was emotionallyinvested in her characters, and she responded physically to the pleasure shegave them.

One more ironyof her inexplicable life.

As the moviestarted to run, Lori looked over at Ander, who’d taken off his jacket and thentaken his seat again next to the table. “Are you all right over there?” sheasked, “Did you need anything? You can sit on the sofa—it’s got to be morecomfortable than that chair.”

Ander said hedidn’t need anything, but he did move to sit on the other side of the sofa,slouching down a little and stretching out his long legs.

“How many timeshave you seen this movie?” Lori asked, giving him a sidelong glance.

“Don’t ask.”

She chuckled,feeling more relaxed than she’d expected. She stiffened a little when the filmjumped right into a love scene, complete with naked, panting people. But it wasunlike any piece of porn she’d ever seen before. An actual storyline soondeveloped, and the actors and director were good.

And the sex...thesex was very sexy.

Less than ahalf-hour into the movie, Lori was aroused. But by that time she was actuallykind of into the movie, and she figured the more aroused she was the better. Atone point, Ander looked over at her and asked if she was enjoying the movie orwhether they should try something else. She told him the movie wasgood—although she was tempted to shush him for interrupting a particularly goodscene.

Otherwise, theywatched in silence. Lori was mostly absorbed in the storyline, and pleased andrelieved by her body’s responses to the erotic activities on screen. Butoccasionally she thought she sensed Ander’s gaze on her—like he was watchingher. Every time she turned to check, however, his eyes were focused on thetelevision. Eventually, she told herself she was imagining things out ofnervousness and self-consciousness. So she put it out of her mind.

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