Sex Drive by Susan Lyons Page B

with privacy, time, a comfortable bed. Oh yeah, he had to persuade her to overnight in Honolulu. That is, if she didn’t freak out entirely when she realized who he was.
    Damien was awake now, so decided he might as well do some work. He cranked his seat up from its reclined position, turned on a reading light, then glanced at Theresa. She didn’t move.
    Soon he was engrossed in proofing the galleys for Gale Force . The galleys were his last chance to catch mistakes, so he always concentrated hard on them. He might write superficial crap, but damned if he was going to let any inconsistencies or typos slide by if he could help it.
    He was in the middle of Chapter 2 when Theresa exclaimed, “Oh my God, you’re Damien Black!”
    Startled, he jerked, then turned to her, a finger to his lips. “Sshh. People are asleep.” Well damn, he’d thought she’d be out for another couple hours. Now, here she was awake, and she’d figured out his identity.
    She had shoved the sleep mask to the top of her forehead and was glaring at him. Her face, illuminated by his seat light, was a study in embarrassment and horror.
    “Writer of superficial crap.” He held up his hand like a kid at roll call. “Yeah, that’d be me.”
    “I…I…”
    “Don’t know what to say?” he teased.
    “I’m so embarrassed.” Her voice was low now. “I had no idea, in the bookstore. But that’s why you looked familiar; I’d seen your photo before.” Then she scowled. “You knew I didn’t know, and you let me keep on thinking—Oooh! And that’s why Carmen was so—Oh, you really are slimy.” Her voice had risen again as her annoyance built.
    “Sshh,” he repeated, getting ticked off himself. “So, what was I supposed to say? Hello, I’m the guy who writes those books you think are so glib and superficial?”
    “You let me…I thought…”
    “Okay, maybe it was a little scummy not to tell you who I was before we, uh, fooled around. But I wanted you to give me a chance. I figured, if you knew I was the writer you hated, that’d prejudice you against me.”
    Her eyes were still narrowed. “I didn’t say I hated your books. I read one and it wasn’t bad. Just…”
    “Yeah, I heard you the first time.”
    “What you did wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.”
    “What? Letting you get to know me before you judged me?” He struggled to keep his voice low, but damn it, this was one of his hot buttons. “Let me tell you, I’m damn tired of people making assumptions about me just because I’m ‘that writer.’”
    As he spoke, her gaze had gone from angry to troubled. Her eyes softened with comprehension and maybe sympathy. “I always hated it when everyone saw me as ‘the brainiac’ and didn’t get to know me.”
    “Besides, you did know my name. Carmen addressed me as Mr. Black and I told you my name was Day.”
    “You told me it was Chinese,” she protested.
    “Nope. You told me it was Chinese. I didn’t correct you.”
    “You’re not the most principled person in the world, are you?” But the rancor had mostly died from her voice. Then she frowned. “Wait a minute, I thought you were part Aboriginal Australian. Isn’t that the hype? That you write about an Aboriginal police officer?”
    “That’s another quarter of my ancestry, through my mom’s mother.” He twisted around in his seat and shoved up the sleeve of his T-shirt to display the tatt on his other arm. It was his own totem, done in the x-ray style of Aboriginal art, showing the skeleton and internal organs.
    She stared at his arm, then reached out to trace the design. “An eagle?”
    “Sea eagle.” Her soft touch sent whispers of arousal through him, reminding him of the intimacies they’d shared, and he shivered.
    She jerked back her hand and focused on his face. “A Chinese dragon on one arm. A Chinese grandmother. You’re born in the year of the dragon, yes?”
    He nodded, feeling a smile begin. No one would ever call Theresa stupid.
    “And a