Bedroom Therapy: A Hot Romantic Suspense Novel Read online

  Bedroom Therapy

  A Hot Romantic Suspense Novel

  By Rebecca York

  Ruth Glick writing as Rebecca York

  Chapter One

  Dear Esther,

  I have a problem, and there’s no one I can talk to about it. My husband is in the Navy, and he’s on a three-month cruise. Sometimes I get so lonely that I don’t know what to do. And sometimes I get so hot for him that it pushes me over the edge. I mean, I have to make myself come. It feels good when I do it, and I always pretend he’s making love to me. But afterwards I feel guilty. What should I do?

  Sincerely,

  Lonely and Hot in Norfolk

  Amanda O’Neal put down the letter she’d been reading and ran a hand through her shoulder-length blond hair. Standing up, she paced to the window of her office and looked out at a motorboat speeding up the Choptank River. Through the clear glass, she could see a man and a woman, laughing and enjoying the bright summer afternoon.

  A pang of envy shot through her. They were outside on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in early summer, having a good time, and she was cooped up in her little rented house, reading sexually explicit letters.

  She glanced back at the laptop computer on her desk, then down at her pale skin. She could take the little machine out on the patio and get some tan on her legs while she worked.

  The prospect was tempting, but she knew in her heart that she wasn’t going to get much done out there. She’d just be adding one more distraction.

  Her gaze flicked to the letter she’d put down. It was one of a stack that the postman had delivered this week—all in plain gray canvas sacks. Should she answer Worried in Norfolk or tackle a different question?

  Experimentally, she tried a few phrases aloud, thinking about her own father and mother. “Probably your parents drummed it into you that masturbation was evil. Or was it society that taught you it was unhealthy? Not very long ago, they used to tell kids that touching yourself ‘down there’ would make hair grow on your palms,” she said, then grimaced, wondering if talking to herself was a sign of softening of the brain.

  But it was a habit she’d gotten into while writing her scholarly papers—reciting key phrases to make sure they didn’t sound too stiff.

  She glanced back toward the letter lying on her desk. Should she talk about masturbation in the animal kingdom? No, that was going a little too far, she decided. It wasn’t relevant. And maybe the sentence about hairy hands was just a sidelight.

  But she was going to be honest and to the point in her answer. She wanted to help that young woman who had poured out her heart to Esther Scott.

  Of course, there really was nobody named Esther Scott, the woman whose pseudonym appeared at the top of the widely read sexual advice column in Vanessa, one of the country’s leading women’s magazines. There never had been a real Esther Scott.

  Until last month, the much-talked-about column had been written by a distinguished sexual therapist named Esther Knight. Because she had wanted to keep the identity of her patients confidential, she had picked a pen name when she’d started writing articles and then the column.

  Unfortunately, Esther was dead, the victim of a hit and run accident. The editor of Vanessa, Beth Cantro, was an old college friend of Amanda’s. And when she’d needed an emergency replacement for the author of the column that got more than a hundred letters every week, she’d turned to Amanda.

  “But writing the column is a big responsibility. How can you use somebody who’s never done this before? I see Vanessa on every newsstand.” Amanda had protested. “Women from their early twenties to their fifties read your magazine. You’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

  “Well, we do have that reputation—now. When Vanessa Summers put two million of her personal fortune into the first issue, she didn’t know it was going to be such a hit. But we’ve got the right mix of sex, fashion, food, entertainment, sex, decorating, hair and makeup advice, the diet of the month, sex, and meaty articles on women’s issues, sex, and relationships.”

  Amanda had laughed. ”Okay, I get the picture.”

  “I know how you feel, actually,” Beth admitted. “When Vanessa retired to her Montana ranch with her new husband and picked me to replace her, I felt like I couldn’t fill her shoes. But I found out I have excellent editorial judgment. I’ve followed your career since college. Really, this job requires the same skills you’ve learned teaching your graduate seminars in human sexuality,” Beth had argued.

  “It’s a lot more public forum than a graduate seminar. What’s the circulation of your magazine?”

  “A couple million on paper. Plus our Web edition.”

  Amanda groaned.

  “I’m not trying to scare you off. I’m trying to convince you that taking the job makes sense. It will be good practice for that book you keep telling me you want to write. You worked for Esther when you were a graduate student. That gives you a leg up. And I want a PhD for this job—to give the answers authority.”

  “Yeah. Right,” Amanda muttered aloud as she paced back across the office and sat down in the desk chair again.

  During an afternoon of arm twisting and wine coolers on the patio, she’d found it hard to decline Beth’s offer—partly because she was on a leave of absence from the psychology department of Harmons College, and she couldn’t use the excuse of a full teaching schedule. Plus, the money was excellent.

  Now the deadline for her first column was looming, and she wondered why she’d been crazy enough to take the job.

  “You’re not alone in your distress,” she murmured, speaking to herself as much as to the woman in Norfolk.

  Flexing her fingers, she poised them over the computer keyboard. The trouble was, giving sexual advice was such a big responsibility. But she had the courage of her convictions, she thought as she opened a file and started typing. She knew her subject. And she knew how to make women feel good about themselves and their sexuality. At least, that had been true of her students.

  “Dear Lonely and Hot, stop feeling guilty. Masturbation is a perfectly normal sexual outlet. You love your husband; but he’s away, and there’s nothing wrong with taking care of your own sexual needs. You live in a world full of sexual stimuli, and denying your response is suppressing part of your personality. Whenever a woman is without a partner, self-pleasuring is an excellent alternative to making love with a man. And, incidentally, it’s a good way for a woman to learn about her own sexual responses. If she finds out what she likes when she’s alone, she can better convey her likes and dislikes to her sexual partner.”

  She leaned back, reading over what she’d written, moving restlessly in the chair as she considered her advice.

  Was it a little warmer in the room?

  She pulled at the neck of her tee shirt as she considered the letter and her answer. The woman in Norfolk was married. Should she go on to talk to single women—who might feel guilty about taking care of their own needs? Should she point out that masturbation was really the only kind of safe sex?

  Probably that was going too far in this context. But maybe she could find a letter from a single woman who had asked a question about pleasuring herself. Maybe she could make masturbation the whole theme of the column.

  She had already opened a bunch of envelopes. They’d been sent to her in U.S. Postal Service bag, directly from the Vanessa mail room. Had there been another one on the subject? She couldn’t remember.

  Ignoring the annoyingly full feeling in her breasts, she began to shuffle through the letters, looking for another one she could use. Or maybe she should scan through the e-mail queries. No, the e-mail format seemed less perso
nal. She liked seeing the readers’ different handwriting and notepapers.

  After going through twenty-five letters, Amanda hadn’t found what she wanted. There were over two hundred more, some unopened and left over from Esther’s tenure. And there was another batch in her e-mail from the magazine. But reading them all was going to take a lot of time.

  Could she just write another masturbation question herself? She was a single woman. It had been a long time since she’d been with a man. Not since Bob Burns, who had joined the faculty at Harmons last year.

  She repressed a small shudder. Bob was the chief reason why she was taking a leave of absence.

  Getting mixed up with him had been a mistake. The trouble was, she’d thought he was a nice guy, and it had turned out that he was jealous of her position in the department and willing to go to the chairman with tales about her that weren’t true.

  But lord, at the beginning, he’d been a good lover. She closed her eyes for a moment, digging her bare toes into the medium-long fibers of the rug as she remembered the man’s practiced sensual touch. He knew the secrets of a woman’s body. Knew how to tease and tantalize and build anticipation—and then deliver what he’d promised—a mind-blowing orgasm.

  She hadn’t made love with him in nine months. She hadn’t been with any man, actually. She’d had the opportunity, of course. But she was being more cautious about relationships.

  Still, that didn’t mean she had to forgo sexual pleasure. Eyes closed, she reached up with one hand and stroked the side of her breast. When she felt her nipple bead, she used her thumb to find the edge and stroke it lightly through her tee shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She never did around the house. There was only one layer of soft fabric between her finger and her aroused flesh.

  When she realized what she was doing, she lowered her hand and squeezed it into a fist. Bob Burns was the last man on earth she wanted to think about when she was turned on. And besides, she was supposed to be working. She had a deadline, she thought as she rocked back in her seat. The movement sent a little jolt of heat to the lower part of her body.

  Damn, this was a heck of a job. And at the moment she was having trouble focusing on what she was supposed to be doing. At least she wasn’t sitting in one of the cubicles in Vanessa’s plush New York offices pretending to be working. When she’d visited, Beth and her fifty staffers—mostly women but a few men—had been in an uproar getting ready for the next issue of the magazine. And she’d watched writers and copy editors and art department personnel scurrying around—conferring with each other and getting Beth’s final approval on various articles and fashion layouts.

  Better that she was down here. Where nobody could see her slogging through the humiliation of not being able to put two coherent sentences together.

  With her teeth gritted, she reached toward the pile of correspondence again just as the landline rang. The caller ID told her it was Beth, of all people, but she didn’t pick up right away.

  Since her problems at Harmons College, she’d started using the answering feature as a way to screen calls.

  She waited through several rings, until the machine picked up.

  “This is Amanda O’Neal. I’m not here to take your call right now. Please leave a message.”

  “Amanda. Amanda.” Beth’s voice came at her several levels too high. “What’s wrong with your cell phone? Did you forget to charge the battery again? If you’re there, Amanda, pick up.”

  She flexed her fingers, but kept them away from the phone. She’d been thinking about Beth, and here she was on the phone! And yeah, not charging her cell phone was another habit she’d gotten into.

  “I’d like to see what you’ve written on your first column, to make sure you’re on the right track.”

  Amanda groaned. Sometimes she’d thought that Esther’s answers weren’t . . . She searched for the right word and settled on professional enough. Now that she was sitting in the dead woman’s seat, she was finding it wasn’t all that easy. She had one letter and one answer, but she hated telling her friend that was all she’d accomplished.

  “And I’d better warn you about Zachary Grant. Well, not a warning, actually. He’s coming to interview you. He’s a real dish. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Tanned skin. Sensual lips. A blade of a nose. Thick, sooty lashes. Think black Irish. He looks like a mountain climber or something. He’s perfect for you. Or I wouldn’t have given him your address.”

  Amanda swore under her breath. A stud muffin mountain climber. Just what she needed. Beth wasn’t supposed to give her address or phone number to anyone. And now she was sending a reporter? She reached for the phone to ask what was going on, just as Beth’s tone changed.

  “Oops—got to go. Editorial crisis. I’ll get back to you later.”

  By the time Amanda got the receiver to her ear, she was listening to dead air.

  Great! Beth was sending her some guy who was perfect for her. Like she’d know, when Amanda didn’t even know herself.

  ###

  Zachary Grant, pulled his car onto a side road hemmed in by cattails on one side and a lazy looking river on the other. After cutting the engine, he put away the computer directions that he’d been following. He was always very methodical about his work. And now that he was right around the corner from Amanda O’Neal’s house, he wanted to check his notes before ringing her doorbell.

  He’d driven down from New Jersey early that morning; his mission was to talk to the woman who was now writing the sexual advice column in Vanessa.

  She was a far cry from Esther Knight, a woman he’d never heard of until a few days ago. She’d been an old bat in her sixties. But she’d written some sexual stuff that would curl your hair. Her career of telling people what to do with their private lives had been cut short by a hit and run accident—an accident that the family thought was murder.

  He blew out a breath, pushed back the seat, and stretched out his long legs. Then he flipped open the folder with his notes and the material he’d collected. First he reviewed what he knew about Esther Knight. Then he got out his notes from Beth Cantro, Vanessa’s editor.

  One thing he’d picked up on was that Cantro seemed pretty protective of Amanda O’Neal. When he’d talked to her on the phone, she’d been reluctant to give him the new advice columnist’s address. She’d insisted that he come to her office, where she’d grilled him as though she were the woman’s marriage broker, not her editor.

  Really, what did it matter that he was thirty two, single, and well-established in his chosen profession?

  But he’d dutifully given her the information—then run a background check on Dr. O’Neal. She’d gotten herself in a bit of trouble at Harmons College. In fact, from what he could gather, it looked like they weren’t going to give her tenure. Which meant that she’d needed this job.

  He shuffled through the folder and found her photograph. According to her bio, she was thirty-one. Although she was blond and blue-eyed, with a heart-shaped face and nicely curved lips, nobody would ever mistake her for a dumb blond. The way she looked out at the camera conveyed a kind of no-nonsense approach to life.

  He picked up a copy of Vanessa that Beth Cantro had given him and opened to the sexual advice column. Because Amanda O’Neal’s work hadn’t appeared yet, he assumed these letters and answers were from the Esther Knight era.

  My boyfriend and I get along pretty well. We’ve been together for six months, and he’s asked me to move in with him. I’m thinking seriously about it. But one thing worries me. His penis is small. Does that make a difference in our sexual relationship?

  He grimaced, wondering how the chick who had voiced the complaint would rate his cock. He’d always thought he was pretty average in that department. Well, maybe a bit above average. But were there women who only wanted guys who looked like stallions?

  Esther Knight’s answer began with a sentence he didn’t much like. “A big penis is a turn-on to a lot of women.” He skimmed the rest, put off by the tone of Dr. Knight’s an
swer. Really, he was more comfortable with the man-to-man advice in the Playboy Advisor.

  Was Amanda O’Neal as flip with her responses as the dead woman? Again, he looked at her publicity photo. It was easy to imagine her as a prude. But would the magazine hire someone who would seriously alter the tone of the column? If they did, wouldn’t readers notice?

  He opened another magazine. And another letter caught his eye.

  Dear Esther, My boyfriend and I keep having the same argument about what we do when we’re making love. He wants me to do oral sex on him. But he hates doing it to me. So I feel like I’m getting—um—the short end of the stick.

  Selfish bastard, he thought, without checking out Esther’s words of wisdom. Really, reading this right now was a mistake. He wanted to be calm, cool and collected when he met Ms. O’Neal. And the sexually explicit material was making him anything but. How did O’Neal deal with this stuff on a daily basis?

  Either she had to be a cold fish. Or she must be in a constant state of arousal. It would be amusing to find out which.

  And maybe she’d like to help him with the little problem he’d been having since his divorce.

  Yeah sure! No way was he going to talk to her about anything intimate.

  He sighed. Too bad he couldn’t step into a cold shower before the interview. Or take a quick dip in the river.

  Unbuckling his seat belt, he heaved himself out of the car and turned toward the shoreline. A little breeze was blowing—enough to cool him off a couple of degrees. He walked across the street, staring out at the water. A white van was parked not far away. Apparently the people inside wanted their privacy, because as he walked toward the vehicle, the engine started and the van pulled off the shoulder of the road, the tires throwing up a shower of gravel as it sped away.

  He looked after it, his nose for trouble twitching. He’d walked casually across the street, and the vehicle’s driver had immediately left. Either that was a big coincidence, or—

  Or what?

  Had he disturbed a drug deal—or something else?