Ivy Secrets (58 page)

She was deep in a discourse about the differences between the sexes. Basic med-school stuff, he thought, but with a twist. He half listened,
more intrigued by her low, throaty voice than by what she was saying.

“We’re going to try a class exercise this morning,” she announced, “one that will loosen you up and get you in the right frame of mind for what you’ll be learning over the next few days.”

He flashed one quick glance at the wall, certain the words displayed there had something to do with this loosening-up process she spoke of.

“The title of this course is Sex Talk,” she went on, “and the aim is to learn to communicate with your patients in whatever words they choose to use in place of the terms you see posted. For example, a patient having a physical problem involving his … male genitalia may not use the anatomically correct term but resort instead to a colorful euphemism such as …”

Joel clearly got the picture.

As she spoke, she moved up and down the aisles, handing out marking pens to each attendee. When she came to him, she smiled. “Still expecting
boring
, Doctor?”

A corner of his mouth edged up. The other members of the class were clambering out of their places, all too eager to record each and every dirty little word they had knowledge of
beneath the corresponding medical one. “Boring? Hardly boring, Ms. Springer.”

She handed him a pen. “Feel free to try a word or two, loosen your inhibitions.”

The woman didn’t know what she was asking. He had damn few when it came to her. “Is this what the well-trained psychologist is teaching these days?”

She met his amused smile. “My methods of teaching may be a little unorthodox, but they’re highly effective.”

They were that. As unorthodox as those earrings she was wearing, small silver coils that looked suspiciously like IUDs. He watched them bob with each tilt of her head. She obviously enjoyed her teaching role, enjoyed unleashing minds with the outrageous, the novel, the unique. Maggie Springer was a surprise in a small package—and too damned tempting to ignore.

“The word list, Doctor. You’d better hurry before all the best ones are taken.”

Joel glanced around the room. He’d seen more polite scribblings on subway walls, not to mention public rest rooms and telephone booths. A few of the more creative ones in the group were even illustrating their words with crude drawings. “I think it’s already too late.”

Maggie smiled. “Ah, now, Doctor, I’m sure if you put your mind to it, you can come up with a word or two that would knock the socks right off this class,” she baited him.

“Maybe.” Joel hadn’t exactly led an angelic existence growing up. He’d sowed more than his share of wild oats. But these days he didn’t go along with the crowd; he’d given that up with his adolescence. Still, he wanted to keep Maggie there—talking to him, close enough to touch, her husky, whispery voice brushing across his nerve endings. “What if I don’t do the exercise—will you keep me after class?”

Maggie sucked in a breath. She wasn’t quite sure how to handle Joel Benedict. Keeping the man after class did hold a certain appeal. Too much appeal. She had a course to teach, and getting her thoughts derailed by this big, sexy man was not the way to do that.

Her three-day seminars were very popular, with a waiting list to get into them. She deliberately kept the class size small, no more than fifteen students at a time, so she could take an individual interest in each attendee.

Her gaze glided over Joel’s broad shoulders and disarming male grin. She had the feeling that taking a personal interest in
him
could get her into trouble.

“Tell me,” she asked, “why are you resisting what I’m trying to do here?”

He gazed up at her and shifted in his seat. “Believe me, the last thing I want to do is resist you.”

Maggie was taken aback momentarily. The man made her a little crazy. “Participation is an important part of my course. It opens up our lines of communication, empowers us to reach our patients on a new level.” Joel would think she sounded like a textbook, but when she was nervous, she fell into the habit of intellectualizing—and Joel Benedict definitely made her nervous.

“By scratching graffiti on walls?”

If he noticed her nervousness, he made no mention of it. “Yes—if that’s what it takes to release us from our inhibitions, become comfortable with our sexuality. Whatever it takes to be able to talk to our patients.”

“I’m comfortable with my sexuality, and I have no trouble talking to patients about anything.
Including
sex.” He paused for a brief moment as if to think back on his bedside manner. “At least, my patients don’t complain.”

Maggie felt her temperature rise a notch. She had little doubt his women patients had
no complaints—as long as he smiled at them the way he was smiling at her.

“No complaints about my inhibitions either,” he added. “They’re wide open, lady psychologist.”

She swallowed hard. “Then have a go at the word list.”

He handed her back the marking pen. “Oh, no—I’m having much more fun observing.” His eyes raked over her, raising her body temperature another notch.

Why did she think she was losing the battle with this man? Did his women ever win? “Fine,” she said, deciding retreat was the better part of valor—at least at that moment. She added, however, one last parting shot. “Maybe the afternoon exercise will be more to your liking.”

She turned and paraded back to the head of the classroom then, leaving him with a frown between his bold, dark brows.

She knew she shouldn’t get discouraged. Male doctors were the most resistant, not to mention stubborn, particularly the good-looking, I-believe-I-am-omnipotent type. But the harder she resisted, the harder they fell.

And there was something she would look forward to—Joel’s tumble.

The rest of the students began to drift back to their seats. She knew she should concentrate on the day’s agenda rather than on the rugged silver-eyed man who was there in her classroom.

She could feel his gaze on her still, but she denied that was the source of the shivery thrill permeating her.

“Well now,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. “Are we having fun yet?”

A rousing round of cheers, mingled with a few wolf whistles, reverberated through the room.

She smiled.

At least the exercise had been deemed a success by most of the class.

“Who would like to be first to read one of the lists?”

Writing the words was one thing; reading them aloud to the group was another. She glanced around for volunteers and found a few, though those few were avid.

Joel was not among them. He leaned back in his seat, looking as though he believed her course was just one step away from a charlatan’s act.

She skipped over him to a more willing student, and then another. The word lists were
read off to a chorus of easy laughs and giggles. The class discussion was open and free, which was the effect she’d hoped for.

The only one she had left to reach was Joel.

Joel listened to all the gab, all the energy being wasted on chitchat. There was even some male posturing, more than one trumped-up tale of sexual prowess designed to impress the teacher.

He supposed he couldn’t blame a guy for wanting to impress pretty Maggie Springer. He’d do handstands on her doorstep himself just to see her break out that wide, sexy smile of hers.

“Dr. Benedict, perhaps you’d like to give us your opinion.” Maggie’s voice vibratingly low and sultry called him back. Her eyes held a slightly taunting glint.

She wouldn’t be happy until she’d drawn him, kicking and bucking like a mule, into her class discussion.

“My opinion?”

She swept him with her gaze, making his pulses pound. Her lips looked full and pouty, as if they were just begging to be kissed.

He shifted in his seat, trying to recall what the hell the group had been talking about. He hadn’t heard a thing since some drivel about
men being more reluctant to talk about their sexuality than the female of the species.

Why talk about something that could be worked out in the bedroom? It got down to the nitty-gritty fast—and it was a whole lot more enjoyable.

But that was before the macho Sam had tried to wow Maggie with his “positive sexual experiences.” More drivel. The man thought he had bragging rights.

But where had the discussion gone since then?

“Dr. Benedict, would you please stay for a moment after class? I think we need to talk.”

“Talk?”

But Maggie had moved on to another attendee, leaving him to ponder just what the hell he’d done to get her riled.

And she was riled.

He could tell by the slight flare of her nostrils, the small, faint crease that had appeared between her velvety eyebrows, the squaring of her shoulders.

When class was finally over for the morning, he waited until most of the students had straggled out of the room, each pausing for a special word with Maggie as they filed past her desk.

It was clear she was a big success in her
students’ eyes. They all had a smile or a word of praise. So did Maggie for each of them.

She made everyone feel special.

He leaned back in his seat and lazily watched the golden lights that brightened in her brown eyes, the way she tilted her head as she listened, the animation in her face and body language as she spoke.

It seemed an eon before the last one had drifted out the door and Maggie glanced up to lock those wide eyes on him.

Why did he feel like a delinquent high school kid asked to report to the principal? He had a little remorse now for the times he’d ordered his daughter to stay in on a school night. Kimberly was sixteen, just entering the dating scene—and that had him plenty worried these days. It wasn’t easy for a parent, especially a single parent.

He slid his tall frame out of the small chair. His white doctor-coat felt glued to his backside, and he was sure he had permanent kinks in his knees.

Maybe he’d take the afternoon off for a sail. He’d miss out on three hours of observing the sultry Maggie sashay back and forth across the front of her classroom, but on the other hand, he could supplant that with a few very male
fantasies of her as he soaked up the rare autumn sunshine on the deck of the
Sail Away.

He was a little surprised at how far his feelings had gone in so short a time. It worried him—more than a little bit.

“Thank you for staying, Doctor. I thought we should talk.”

He sauntered toward the front of the room and met her gaze. “Don’t you think you can call me Joel after a whole morning of … intimate discussion?”

She arched one eyebrow eloquently at him. “
What
discussion? I didn’t hear you add a single word.”

“Yeah, well, I was listening.”

She let out a sigh. “That’s not true, Doctor.”

“Joel,” he reminded her. She was right. He’d been so absorbed in her that the words hadn’t registered.

“Joel.”

Just then his beeper sounded, a loud blip-blip-blip in the quiet room. “I, uh, have to get that. Maybe we can talk another time?”

Maggie wasn’t about to let him off that easily. She
should
just chalk him up as a man who couldn’t be reached, one stubborn male doctor, but she still had a lot more fight left in her—and she wasn’t ready to give up on him.

Not yet.

“Another time would be fine,” she said. “How about over dinner tonight?” A discussion away from the classroom setting might be more effective, she reasoned to herself. She wasn’t sure just how she would handle her attraction to him, but she’d think of something. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No, of course not. Tonight. Dinner.”

Just then his beeper sang out again.

Read on for an excerpt from Adrienne Staff’s
Spellbound

Slowly the clouds moved across the bright face of the full moon. Mysterious shadows cloaked the building where Jamie Payton tried to paint. For an instant it was as though the stage was purposely being dimmed; the scene was being set. Jamie felt a chill walk across her skin. She had the strangest feeling that something was about to happen, something unexplainable, something unforeseen. Something …

The lights went out. One minute Jamie was staring at her half-finished painting, brush in hand, and the next … total darkness.

“Damn!” She felt her way over to the wall near the door and flicked the light switch once, twice. Nothing. What was going on? Moving cautiously, she walked around the
wall to the windows, covered with heavy oilcloth to keep out the distractions of the city while she painted. She slid a fingernail under the rim of a thumbtack, the cloth sprang up, and light poured in.

The street lamps were on outside and there were lights in the row of storefronts across the way. Jamie frowned. She opened the window, leaned out, and saw that lights were shining from the windows in her own building as well. Damn! Wouldn’t you know? Just when she thought she was finally getting somewhere with her painting, something bad had to happen. It was probably the wiring in her loft or a blown fuse. But why now? Why her?

Tugging her fingers through her uncombed hair, she turned back to the darkness of her own room. For a moment she stood there immobilized by a childhood sense of dread, feeling the old ghosts closing in. But she shook them off and moved quickly through the loft, pulling open one drawer after another in search of candles. Her elbow hit the corner of a box, the vase on top teetered, and an entire still life crashed to the floor.

Jamie screamed. She didn’t mean to; it just happened before she could control herself.
Biting her lip, she bent and began picking glass shards off the worn wood floor. She was just reaching for another when there was a knock at the door.

“Now what?” she groaned. She was tempted to ignore it, but whoever was out there was very persistent. Setting the broken glass down in a neat pile, she walked over, checked the chain lock, and opened the door a few inches.

“Yes?” she said, peering out into the corridor. The guy standing there looked familiar, a neighbor most likely.