Lord of Rage & Primal Instincts (21 page)

I
AN GRIMACED
. H
E STUDIED
his hotel room. Already he had done all he needed to do. And still he felt restless.

So what else was new? Seems he’d battled restlessness for as long as he remembered. Why stay in the same place when something else beckoned around the corner? Hell on relationships.

But then, he wasn’t much of a relationship kind of guy.

So then why did the doc get to him?

She was just another woman. Same as any woman from any other part of the world. Granted her parts were naked and covered with paint…but still.

Ian paced toward his window. He needed outside. He needed the sun on his head and a breeze against his face. Sixth-story windows in hotels did not cut it. He pushed himself away from the glass. He’d walk back to Ava’s apartment, and skip all elevators. That should burn off some energy.

Like Ava’s place, the hotel faced the winding canal of downtown Oklahoma City, and so the walk to meet her wouldn’t take long.

He hiked down the stairs and emerged into the sunlight, giving in to the restlessness. The canal waters rippled bluish-green a few feet away from him. Trees and flowers flanked the stonework path beside the water. He weaved among the mothers pushing strollers who
seemed to be the predominant occupants of the walk during the middle of the day.

Old warehouses being turned into stunning homes had renewed many an old downtown area suffering from urban blight. Oklahoma City obviously reaped the same benefits. Restaurants bracketed the walk, so he suspected couples would be replacing the moms and joggers once the dinner hour arrived.

A bright yellow boat floated below him, passengers waving to the pedestrians. They waved back. His lips twisted. Flyover country. People didn’t wave to one another in the places he’d been.

He found Ava waiting for him outside the entrance to her building.

A blonde.

Ava was a blonde. He hadn’t been able to tell earlier. All the paint was gone, and her hair was still damp from her shower. Natural highlights from the sun streaked her hair. He’d never gone for blondes before, preferring the dark and exotic over the coolness of many fair-haired women. And those green eyes of hers were anything but cool.

He felt anything but cool around Ava. She smiled and came toward him, and his eyes were immediately drawn to her body. His normal life felt a world away from the utter temptation that was this woman. His days and nights were filled with the exciting challenges of chasing down people who did not want to be found, rough terrain and hanging out with guys who smelled like something rotten.

So on the blessed, and lately, more rare occasions when he was with a woman, he wanted soft curves, sweet scents and her dressed in pure glamour. When they weren’t naked, that is.

None of that remotely described Ava. Oh, he liked her curves, but there was nothing sweet about this woman. And nothing wrong with the casual jeans and animal-print top she wore.

She hadn’t bothered to put on any makeup, and he liked her natural like this. A light layer of freckles dusted her nose and cheeks. Like him, Ava was apparently a woman who’d spent some time in the sun.

She also smelled like cinnamon.

And he loved the smell of cinnamon.

“I found the Mexican place on my way over here. You ready?” he asked her. Ready to get back on the move. Bad things always happened when you stayed in one place.

Ava nodded. “At night they cook their tortilla chips, and I can smell it for hours in my apartment. Sometimes I wake up craving Mexican food, and I didn’t even do that when I lived there.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go.” He adjusted his larger steps to hers. Her head just reached his shoulders. The scent of cinnamon surrounded him once more.

“How’d you wind up in Oklahoma?” he asked, digging up a way to get his mind off the smell of her hair. He was a reporter. He asked questions.

“My grandparents live here. In fact, that was their building. I wouldn’t have been able to afford this many square feet. My parents were always moving us from one place to another, but we’d always spend our holidays in Oklahoma. It seemed natural to set up a home base here when I returned from overseas.”

“Was that often?” he asked. Talk. Talk was good. It took his mind off wondering what she wore under her
shirt. Wondering whether she preferred animal print in all the clothes that touched her skin…

Hell, it’d been a while since he’d been with a woman, but usually he could go longer than ten seconds before imagining her naked.

“From my earliest memories. The longest I can remember staying anywhere was two years. It feels kind of weird to be opening boxes instead of packing them. Some of these things I haven’t seen in years.”

Her apartment had been filled with statues, masks and pictures. It didn’t feel like a home base to him. A home base was more like his apartment, a place to sleep and watch football until the next assignment put you in harm’s way. There was nothing permanent about a home base, and Ava’s apartment felt very permanent.

“Were your parents anthropologists like you?” He did not need to know this. Knowing her background wasn’t important for the writing of this book. He’d only meant to talk, to pass the time, to distract himself. But he found himself curious about her answers. He’d met a lot of different people during his travels. Why did he care?

A smile touched her lips, and she laughed softly. He liked the sound of her laugh. “I’m not laughing at you. It’s just that it isn’t very often people don’t know who my parents are, but then, I’m mainly hanging out with a bunch of academics. My parents, Carol and Alex Simms, uncovered a temple to Isis in ancient Greece and set the archaeology world on its ear.”

“Oh, really? And how would one do that exactly?” During his flight to meet Ava, he couldn’t have imagined anything more boring than having a conversation about archaeology. Now he was intrigued.

“One would do that by saying that that temple proved
the ancient Greeks patterned their gods and goddesses on those of the Egyptians, in the same way that the Romans took over the Greek gods and goddesses. It’s not even too far a stretch to get from Horus to Zeus.”

He whistled. “Wow, pretty radical.”

“And pretty controversial.”

“So why anthropology?” There was the curiosity again. He didn’t need to know anything personal about her to make this book work.

“It wasn’t too far a stretch. Apparently, wanting to uncover something is in the genes I inherited from them. But on the digs, I was always more interested in the people who’d evolved from the particular culture my parents were studying. How many of the same practices they kept, and which they didn’t. That kind of thing.”

They rounded another corner and found themselves standing in front of the Mexican restaurant. A hostess quickly took them to a balcony table overlooking the canal water.

Ian cut a glance in her direction as she silently perused her menu. His reporter instincts reappeared. There was something interesting here about the doc. Ava had a degree most people only used for teaching. Also, she wasn’t out in the field—another possibility with her degree. And she hadn’t followed in the family tradition.

Forget about her. Write the book, then move on.

“What do your parents think of you writing this book?” he found himself asking.
Subtle, you jerk.

She lifted an eyebrow. “The sex research? Well, as they, too, were researchers, sex was pretty much part of the dinnertime conversation with my parents.” Sex
never
figured into his family’s dinnertime conversation.

“Just look around a Roman coliseum or inside a pyr
amid, and you’ll see sex everywhere. Both Mom and Dad were very matter-of-fact about it.”

That explained a lot. Ava could talk about sex the way some people talked about their laundry. And yet, her voice took a husky dip when she said the word
sex.
Maybe prancing around nearly naked in front of him had affected her, as well. Now
this
was starting to go somewhere.

“You’re not answering the question. Do they like what you’re doing?”

Her eyes met his, and she pushed a strand of her drying blond hair behind her ear. “They hate it. They think I’ll never be taken seriously in the academic field.”

“You’re writing a book.”

“A pop-fiction book. That’s like intellectual prostitution in their opinion. Oh, don’t get me wrong, they’re not snobs, they’re just…”

“Academics?” he suggested.

Ava nodded, and that lock of hair fell forward again from behind her ear. He itched to touch the strands. To let them fall through his fingers. “They don’t think anyone will ever take my research seriously after this.”

“Will they?” he asked, and wondered why he’d be concerned about that. Cole Publishing was in the business of making money, and although he wasn’t sure about it on the plane, he knew they could make a lot with this book…with the proper execution.

“Probably not,” she said, her tone rueful. “But then, no one has really taken my work seriously. More like facts to parade out at Valentine’s Day. Colleges prefer professors who get published in professional journals, and bring in grant money. Groundbreaking—not titillation.”

If they didn’t take her seriously before, they certainly
wouldn’t now. Maybe he should give her one last warning. He’d hate for her to regret writing the book. The enthusiasm had faded from her voice, and a line formed on her forehead.

Then her face brightened and she stunned him with a beautiful smile. His pulse quickened. “Screw ’em. That’s why I’m doing the book.”

“Beat them at their own game.” He liked that about her. He was beginning to like a lot of things about her.

“So why call the book
Recipe for Sex?
That title is all wrong, by the way. I’ll brainstorm a list tonight, and give you a heads-up in the morning.”

“Why don’t I brainstorm a list and give you the heads-up in the morning?”

His lips twisted for a moment, then he grinned. “Going to be like this, is it? Fight me every step of the way?”

“As the writer, I should make the final decisions.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I was brought in to fix some of those decisions.”

“And I’ll take your suggestions under advisement,” she told him.

Ian laughed. “Glad to hear it,” he said in the tone of a man confident he’d get his way. “The title still won’t work. It sounds like a cookbook.”

“Well, originally I thought I’d just include the foods that put couples, and particularly men, in the mood.”

“Why men?” he asked.

“It’s been my experience, and I can document this with culture after culture, that men don’t often use food in their seduction.”

Now wait a minute, he made a mean lasagna. He’d be happy to make it for her. And if they managed to get a little messy and needed to clean up together…so be it.

“I can see by your face you don’t agree. In cultures where couples routinely push back marriage and family, then yes, the male will cook. In fact, most men have one ‘signature’ dish they believe is the ultimate key to the hookup.”

Ian cleared his throat. Okay, he made other things besides lasagna. “That’s ridiculous.”

She smiled then nodded. “Research only gives us generalities. Individuals can always surprise you. One thing that is a fact is a man’s sense of smell. It’s very powerful. A potent scent can stimulate blood flow to the extremities, including the penis, and can evoke all sorts of feelings.”

“In the book, we’ll use another word other than
feelings
for the male readers.”

“You know, straying from gentler emotions isn’t universal among men.”

“It will be for the men we’re trying to sell this book to.” And if he had to hear the word
penis
from her lips again, he’d have to resort to phoning this book in.

Change the subject.
“Let’s get back to this smell thing. Why is it women are always wanting to smell flowers? I could care less.”

“Because that’s the wrong smell for a man. Believe it or not, the scents more attractive to men are food-related. There’s something to be said for that old saying about the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Pumpkin, for instance, elicits very strong responses from men. And the smell of doughnuts.”

“We can keep a running list of places for women to meet men. The pumpkin patch. The doughnut shop.”

“I can see you’re not taking this seriously. Let me do a demonstration.” She signaled the waitress. “Can we have some of those churros, please?”

If the waitress thought it strange Ava was asking for dessert before they’d even been served their entrées, she didn’t show it.

Ava returned her attention to him. “Have you eaten one of these? They’re delicious. Sugar and cinnamon. Mmm.”

The way she said
mmm
with such a level of carnal enjoyment made his stomach clench.

A moment later the waitress dropped off a platter of churros, as well as a basket of chips, salsa and queso.

“Cinnamon is another scent men respond to on a primal level. Plus the food has the added bonus of being somewhat phallic.” Her voice had turned husky, as if her very words aroused her.

She cleared her throat, her green eyes never leaving his.

“I think it’s most effective when a woman teases her face with the food a bit, running it along her chin. Her lips. Makes men think of a woman running her lips along his—”

Her words didn’t drift off. He cut them off in his mind. He knew exactly what seeing a woman with something like a churro, seeing Ava do with that churro, made him think. It made him think of her lips on his erection.

“The key is to keep the man in a steady state of semiarousal at all times.”

Semiarousal?
He’d just gone from zero to performance status in about half a second.

She dropped the churro onto the platter. “You see? Food is one very important ingredient for sex. You show me a man whose mind doesn’t immediately turn to a blow job at the sight of a woman eating a banana or carrot— I’ll show you a man whose balls haven’t dropped yet.”