Call Me Irresistible

on an abandoned wooden wine crate she’d turned into a coffee table.

She took the paper from him and glanced down at the letterhead. TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. He didn’t usually share the more mundane aspects of his mayoral job, and she sat on the arm of a wicker chair with faded tropical print cushions to read. Within seconds, she’d shot up only to discover her knees were too rubbery to hold her weight. She sank back into the cushions and reread the pertinent paragraph.

Texas Law requires that any person who tests positive for a sexually transmitted disease including, but not limited to, chlamydia, gonorhea, HPV, and AIDS, must provide a list of recent sexual partners. This is to notify you that Meg Koranda has listed you as one of these partners. You are urged to visit your physician immediately. You are also urged to cease all sexual contact with the above named infected person.

Meg gazed up at him, feeling sick. “Infected person?”

“Gonorrhea is misspelled,” he pointed out. “And the letterhead is bogus.”

She crumpled the paper in her fist. “Why didn’t you show me this as soon as you got here?”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t put out.”

“Ted . . .”

He eyed her casually. “Do you have any idea who might be behind this?”

She thought of the message on her bathroom mirror. “Any one of the millions of women who lust after you.”

He ignored that. “The letter was mailed from Austin, but that doesn’t mean much.”

Now was the moment to tell him his mother had tried to get her fired, but Meg couldn’t imagine Francesca Beaudine doing anything as vile as sending this letter. Besides, Francesca would almost certainly have checked for spelling errors. And she doubted Sunny would have made the mistake in the first place, unless she’d done it deliberately to throw them off track. As for Kayla, Zoey, and the other women holding on to fantasies about Ted . . . Meg could hardly throw

her legs and then inside her. She groaned, pulled her heels high on the bed, and shattered.

As she lay helpless in the aftermath, his lips brushed her earlobe. “I thought you’d have a little more self-control. But I guess you did your best.” She was dimly aware of a tug at her lace chastity belt, then the slide of his body down over hers. He caught her legs and parted them wide. His beard stubble brushed the inside of her thighs. And then his mouth covered her.

A second cataclysmic explosion claimed her, but even then he didn’t enter her. Instead, he tortured, comforted, tortured again. By the time her third orgasm hit, she’d become his sexual rag doll.

He was finally naked, and when he entered her, he did it slowly, giving her time to accept him, finding the perfect angle, nothing clumsy, no groping, no accidental finger scratch or elbow jab. He delivered a steady angled stroke followed by a hard thrust, flawlessly orchestrated, designed to deliver maximum pleasure. She’d never experienced anything like it. It was as if her pleasure was all that counted. Even as he came, he supported his weight so she didn’t have to bear all of it.

She slept. They woke, made love again, and then once more. Sometime during the night, he drew the sheet over her, brushed her lips with a kiss, and left.

She didn’t fall back to sleep right away. Instead, she thought about what Lucy had said. Every woman should have Ted Beaudine make love to her.

Meg couldn’t argue with that. She’d never been loved so thoroughly, so unselfishly. It was as if he’d memorized all the sex manuals ever written—something, she realized, he was perfectly capable of having done. No wonder he was a legend. He knew exactly how to drive a woman to her maximum sexual pleasure.

So why was she so disappointed

He dropped the paddle on the brown chair, as if the temptation to use it was becoming too strong to resist. “It kept you out of jail, didn’t it?”

“And you made sure I was paid less than the other maids.”

He played dumb. “I don’t remember that.”

She nursed all the injustices. “That day at the inn, when I was cleaning . . . You stood in the doorway and watched me nearly kill myself trying to turn that mattress.”

He grinned. “I have to admit, that was entertaining.”

“Then, after lugging your bag of clubs for eighteen holes, you gave me a one-dollar tip.”

She shouldn’t have brought that up because he still held a grudge. “Three holes you cost me. And don’t think I haven’t noticed that all my new head covers are missing.”

“You were my best friend’s fiancé! And if that’s not good enough, don’t forget that I basically hate you.”

He hit her full force with those golden brown eyes. “You basically like me, too. Not your fault. It just happened.”

“I’m going to make it un-happen.”

His voice turned to smoke. “Now why would you want to do that when we’re both more than ready to take the next step? Which I highly recommend we do naked.”

She swallowed. “I’m sure you’d like that, but maybe I’m not ready.” Coyness wasn’t her strong suit, and he looked disappointed in her for making the attempt. She threw up her hands. “Okay, so I’ll admit I’m curious. Big deal. We both know what that leads to. Dead cat.”

He smiled. “Or one hell of a lot of fun.”

She hated that she was seriously thinking about going ahead with this. “I’m not seriously thinking about going ahead with this,” she said, “but if I were, I’d have a ton of conditions.”

“Such as?”

“This would only be about sex—no cute pet names, no nighttime confidences. No”—she wrinkled her nose at the idea—“friendship.”

“We already have a kind of friendship.”

“Only in your twisted mind because you can’t stand the idea that you’re not friends with everybody on the