The Sex Solution by Kimberly Raye Page A

her long fingers playing at the doorknob as if she weren’t standing there tempting him in a sexy little red number and a pair of white bunny slippers….
    His gaze dropped and, sure enough, her feet sported pink bunny ears, a pink nose and long black whiskers.
    “Nice shoes.”
    “What?” Then she looked down at her feet and her cheeks fired a bright red.
    “Do those stimulate the five senses?”
    “Yes. No. Sort of.” She ditched the shoes behind the door, revealing delicate feet and red-tipped toes. “They, um, relax me.”
    “Meaning you’re nervous?”
    “Why would I be nervous?”
    “Because I’m here and you want to have sex with me.” Funny how the word came easier when he took the offensive.
    “Sex does not make me nervous.”
    “But I do.”
    “Once upon a time, maybe. But not anymore.” He had the feeling she said the words more for her own reassurance than his. “I’m just tense because of work. I’ve got a lot riding on this new product.”
    “Then let’s get to it.” He referred to the testing, but damned if the word it didn’t bring to mind a completely different image.
    One of Madeline all soft and sweet with her sexy red dress bunched around her waist. Madeline reaching up, sliding her arms around his neck, her silky thighs parting, welcoming him inside her wet warmth for a hard, deep stroke.
    His eyes locked with hers and it was as if she read his mind. Her eyes rounded and he glimpsed the old Maddie. Even more, he heard her in the sudden tremble of her voice.
    “After you.” She pulled open the door and motioned him inside. With a quick “Be right back,” she disappeared into a doorway leading from the foyer.
    He walked into the small living room, his boots slapping the hardwood floor. He stared at the wall of photographs, and his eye caught on a large framed portrait of two small girls, one holding a beat-up brown teddy bear. In the photo, Cheryl Louise had the same white-blond hair she still had. Her older sister Sharon was a direct contrast, with her thick, dark hair and even darker eyes.
    His focus shifted to another picture, the girls a few years older. Then another and another before zeroing in on a small photograph of two teenage girls, books clutched to their chests as they stood in front of the science building. He’d seen Sharon hundreds of times while growing up. They’d attended the same elementary school. The same junior high. The same high school. She’d been a permanent fixture, just like the brown-haired girl who stood next to her.
    He stepped closer, peering at Madeline in one of her familiar flower-print dresses. She had the same dimples she had now, the same expressive eyes, the same full lips. The package was the same, but the force inside seemed completely different.
    Bolder.
    More provocative.
    Dangerous.
    At least to a man who’d vowed off one-night stands and gone without sex for over six months. For him, there’d be no more hot, sweaty, forget-your-name sex. Like the sort he was sure to have with sweet Madeline.
    Easy there, Hoss.
    He drew in a deep breath and tried to ease the sudden pounding of his heart. “Nice picture,” he said when he heard her moving around the dining room to his left.
    “Sharon’s mom took that right after we won the science fair our freshman year,” she said as she walked up beside him. “We made glue out of all-natural ingredients—honey, flour, cooked sugar. It wasn’t such a big deal except that it formed a nearly unbreakable bond of atoms when the concoction reached a certain temperature.”
    “Like superglue?”
    “Supercement. I bet Mr. Vincent is still trying to get that stuff off his counter. Anyhow, we made a mess, but we also won. We actually had a write-up in the national science journal because of it. I was thrilled about the discovery, but Sharon was more jazzed about the picture that went with the article. Exposure, she called it.” At his questioning glance, she added, “She liked getting all