Private Practice (Private Pleasures 1)

“Any preference, Doc?”

“Um, something small”—which eliminated the hoods—“simple to put on”—which nixed any options with complicated fasteners, laces, zippers—“and breathable?” Good-bye leather, rubber, latex, and, jeez…pleather. Everything about his face appealed to her and she didn’t want whatever they chose to conceal too much of it, especially not his very talented mouth.

“Again with the classics, then.” He selected a black silk scarf from the display and added it to their bag. “Let’s look over here.” Taking her hand, he led her to a perimeter aisle mysteriously named “Ever Ready,” but when she saw the display he stopped in front of, she laughed and backed away.

“Oh, no, really

. That’s not on the shopping list.”

Undaunted, he picked up a black box. Hot-pink letters announcing “The Bunny” slashed across the top, and a transparent window revealed an equally pink phallus with a pearl-filled shaft and a bunny-shaped “clit teaser” extending from the base.

“You’re the one who wants to expand her horizons. Don’t you think you should own”—he read from the box’s back panel—“‘the indispensable sex accessory for today’s sophisticated woman’?”

She shook her head and took another step away, vaguely aware she was entering the archway to one of the special interest rooms. “No impulse buying. I made our shopping list based on the items recommended by my manual, and a vibrator’s not anywhere on… Whoops!” She accidentally backed into someone. She turned to apologize to the victim of her hasty retreat, but the words died on her lips. “Oh, my God… Roger!”

“Um… Hi, Ellie.” Stunned blue eyes shifted to Tyler, who’d moved to stand beside her. “Hey, Tyler.”

She’d never seen someone’s color rise so quickly. Roger looked as if he might throw up, or pass out, or both. While he stood there, clearly at a loss for words, a cute, athletic-looking guy stepped around him and extended a hand. “Hi, I’m Doug.”

She leaned forward and shook the offered hand. “Roger’s friend from law school?”

His smile deepened. Humor danced in his beautiful gray eyes. “I like to tell people I spent those three years in a Turkish prison, but yes, I went to Georgetown with Miss Manners here.” He shoulder-checked Roger as he said it, provoking another slightly seasick look. “It’s nice to finally meet some of Roger’s friends from home.”

“Good old Bluelick,” Tyler said, returning Doug’s handshake. “You never know where we’ll turn up.”

“In all the best places, obviously,” Doug replied, clearly unperturbed to be caught shopping in an adult toy emporium.

Roger didn’t share his friend’s nonchalance. “We were just…ah…”

“Shopping for a friend’s bachelor party,” Doug interjected, aiming an impatient look at Roger.

Ellie latched onto the excuse with both hands. “Us, too! Well, a bachelorette party, actually.” Then she silently prayed Roger wouldn’t ask whose, or she’d have to speed back to Bluelick, point a shotgun at Junior, and force him to propose to Lou Ann.

He didn’t ask. He gripped Doug’s arm and tugged his friend down the aisle. “We should get going. Let you two get on with your shopping.”

“Bye!” Doug called.

“Nice to meet you,” she replied as they disappeared around the end of the aisle.

“A bachelorette party?”

“Would you have preferred I let them think we were shopping for ourselves?” she whispered. “They had a perfectly innocent excuse for being here, so I…borrowed it.”

“You lied, Doc,” Tyler drawled with the superior air of someone standing on the moral high ground—which he somehow managed despite standing in the aisles of a sex shop.

“I lied to save everyone from embarrassment.”

“I wasn’t embarrassed. In fact, I found the whole situation pretty interesting.”

She rolled her eyes and spied a restroom sign in an alcove at the far end of the aisle. “I have to use the ladies’ room.”

“Take your time.” Smiling smugly, he sauntered away.

Alone in the restroom, she dissected every nuance of the encounter with Roger. At first, the pleasure of seeing him had blinded her to the embarrassing predicament of being caught shopping at the Slap & Tickle with Tyler. Sooner or later Roger would figure out there was no bachelorette party and then he’d probably decide she was some kind of kinky nympho. Which, come to think of it, was exactly what she wanted him to believe. Maybe the whole awkward incident was actually a blessing in disguise?

The thought cheered her until she factored Tyler into the equation. Would Roger assume they were seriously involved? No. Everyone in Bluelick knew Tyler Longfoot and “seriously involved” went together like schnapps and pickles. Roger would assume she was the latest in the long line of women Tyler passed the time with. The likelihood he’d think there was anything serious between them hovered somewhere between hell and no.

All of which should have been a major relief. So why did the thought of being a woman Tyler passed the time with leave her feeling hollow and depressed? She shook her head at her reflection. Tyler specialized in careless fun and didn’t pretend otherwise. Hoping for more from him would be like hoping for a display of fatherly interest from Frank—stupid and futile.