Page 7 of In Love With a Master (Interview With a Master 2)

Instinct took over. Suddenly my feet started moving and I found myself pacing as I had so many times before. Thoughts tumbled around in my mind as I wore a narrow path in the carpet to the door and back until finally Leticia broke the silence.

“Jonah?”

I stopped mid-stride and looked up. “I’m thinking.”

Leticia let my words hang in the air for long seconds, but couldn’t restrain herself for long. “Jonah, do you have any idea what has happened in the world since the newspaper published my interview with you?”

I paused. “No.”

“Haven’t you read a newspaper? Haven’t you looked at what people are saying on the internet?”

“No.”

Leticia shook her head, and the tendrils of her hair swished in the cool light. “Jonah, there are thousands of people online who are just crazy about you. There are Facebook pages all across the internet dedicated to you and the things you said in that interview. There have been hundreds of letters to the editor. Everyone wants to know more about you. Everyone wants to know the secret things you seem to understand about women.”

I blinked. I started pacing again, and thrust my hands deep into the pockets of my trousers. “Leticia, I didn’t ask for any of that. I didn’t ask for all this attention. I simply asked for the opportunity to tell my story before I died. What is happening beyond the boundaries of my world is not my concern. Tell everyone to find a new hero. I am not that man. I am a private man, and I like my life that way.”

Leticia came across the room to intercept me. She reached out and I felt her fingers on my arm. I stared down into her face. Her desperate need seemed to spark in her eyes, shadowing the innocent beauty of her features that I could still recall with minute detail.

“Jonah, you can’t hide from this. You can’t speak to the hearts and minds of so many women in the way you did, and then turn away from them. They won’t let you.”

I grunted. “They have no choice, Leticia. This is my world – my way.”

Leticia seemed to deflate. She raised her eyebrows and made a pouting shape with her mouth like she was disappointed. The energy, vitality and urgency seemed to go from her body and her face became somber and sad. She flinched away from me, and her hand fell to her side. She blinked and her eyes glistened. “Jonah, please be willing to compromise,” Leticia implored me. “Not everything can be your way. You have to be willing to be flexible. I am sure I can speak to my editor and spin a new interview into maybe a month away from my desk.”

Her lips trembled, and as I stared at her I saw her eyes were swimming. I had not expected tears. They took me by surprise. I felt the rigid hardness of my resolve slipping away. I subsided slowly.

“You fight dirty,” I acknowledged grimly.

Leticia shook her head. “I’m fighting to give us a chance.”

I narrowed my eyes and my mind became calculating. I wanted time with Leticia – more than anything else I wanted that. I took a long deep breath, and then made a decision. “Very well…” I said. “Make the phone call, and tell your editor that you want three months leave in exchange for three interviews.”

Leticia blinked and her eyes gradually became wider with dawning realization. She started to smile and kept on smiling until it sparkled in her eyes and the tears that had threatened disappeared like a morning mist.

Leticia took her cell phone from her handbag and dialed. She pressed the phone to her ear and turned away from me, beginning to walk to the far side of the room. I didn’t move. She reached the doorway and leaned against the wall casually with her ankles crossed. The pose seemed to accentuate the narrowness of her waist and the womanly flare of her hips. Her body was all flowing feminine curves.

I heard Leticia speak quickly and quietly for several moments. She glanced over her shoulder at me, smiled, before turning her attention back to the call.

I drifted across to the table. The bottle of whisky was almost half empty. I reached for it then stilled my hand as Leticia turned suddenly and began to speak.

The words were not her own. She was relaying a message from the newspaper’s editor and then she paused for a long moment. “Hold on,” she said. She cupped her hand over the phone and began to translate. “My editor is willing to make the deal,” Leticia smiled brightly. “But he wants the interviews to be specific,” she explained.

I nodded. “Go on…”

Leticia bowed her head back over the phone, frowning with concentration. She looked up at me again. “He wants me to interview you about the art of anticipation, but he also wants your opinion about the advantages of the BDSM lifestyle… and he wants you to do a piece where you talk to men about how they can be better lovers.”

I narrowed my eyes shrewdly and began to circle the room, pacing slowly.

“Haven’t I already talked about anticipation enough?” I asked. “Wasn’t that part of the interview you recorded?”

Leticia nodded. “I wrote everything you told me, Jonah. But the fact is that women around the world can’t seem to get enough of this kind of information. One influential writer is calling you ‘The Sex Whisperer’.”

I turned my head sharply. “What does that mean?”

Leticia shrugged her shoulders. “It’s good,” she said. “It’s like you know some kind of secret language that reaches women on a very deep, emotional level.”

I frowned, and kept pacing the room. For long moments there was just the soft sound of my steps in the thick carpet and Leticia’s uncertain breathing.

“When? When does your editor want these interviews?”

I heard Leticia let out a small sigh of relief and she took two quick steps towards me. I could smell the soft lingering scent of her perfume. “As soon as possible, if you don’t mind,” Leticia said. “The editor wants to run with this story right away, while everyone is still talking about you.”

I hesitated. For long seconds, I said nothing until Leticia’s expression became worried and then desperate.

“Jonah…?” She still had her hand over the phone, her editor holding on the end of the line.

&nb

sp; “I am thinking,” I said.

Leticia gasped. “Jonah! Please be logical about this…”

I blinked at her and suddenly laughed. “Now you want me to be logical?” I shook my head at the irony and sighed. I stared up at the ceiling before locking my eyes on Leticia’s. “Tell him he has a deal,” I said.

Leticia made a squealing sound of delight. She spoke in an excited, staccato of words to her editor. She ended the call with a stab of her finger and threw the phone down. It skittered across the table.

She threw herself impulsively into my arms.

Leticia’s eyes were alive with excitement. I felt her hands entwine around the back of my neck and she smiled up into my face with an expression of pure joy.

“Now the kiss?”

Leticia nodded. “Absolutely, Jonah Noble!”

I pulled her body close to mine. There was a split second pause – an instant when we both realized that this moment would forever change our lives. And then I kissed her.

Leticia’s body was slim and toned and trembling. I lowered my mouth to hers and the kiss smoldered on our lips. I felt her tongue flutter against my own. Leticia moaned – a throaty, husky sound of desire – and my senses became enveloped by the scent and the textures of her.

My arms went from around her waist, one hand sliding up her back and the other reaching between us until I cupped the firm weight of a breast. Leticia leaned back a little within my embrace to make it easier for me. With the tips of my fingers I teased her body through the thin fabric until I felt the swell of her nipple, hard and urgent, between the stuff of her bra. Leticia writhed in my arms. She moved her weight, shifting it from one foot to the other so that her pelvis brushed against me and I felt the first instant of my hardening arousal. I broke the kiss for a moment and Leticia was giddy and gasping. There was a fathomless distance in her eyes, glazed and unfocused. Her lips were wet and glistening.

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