"And I'm writing the thirteenth chapter now, the happily-ever-after chapter about the perfect man. His name is Raoul."

Nina stared at the phone in disbelief. "Raoul? You don't know any Raouls."

"I've always loved that name," Charity said. "I'm making him a combination of Antonio Banderas, Harrison Ford and Alex."

Nina blinked. "Alex?"

"Yeah, Alex," Charity said. "Alex is a great guy. I still don't understand why you haven't jumped him. I would have long ago."

Nina made her automatic reply. "That's easy for you to say. You don't have a forty-year-old body."

"No, I have a thirty-eight-year-old body," Charity said, her impatience clear even over the phone.

"Charity, parts of me droop," Nina said. "I don't think naked is a possibility here."

"You vastly overestimate how picky guys are about naked women," Charity told her. "A little droop is not going to bother Alex."

"Well, it bothers me," Nina said. "Now, about the book-"

"Then wear the Incredibra," Charity said. "That's about as anti-droop as you can get without surgery. I cannot believe that you haven't made a move on that man."

Nina thought about being brave and not discussing her previous night's trauma, and then she remembered it was Charity she was talking to. This is what best friends were for. "Actually, Alex made a move on me. He kissed me last night."

"Great," Charity said. "So how was it?"

Nina slumped against the couch, remembering. "It was phenomenal. I almost had a heart attack when he took off his T-shirt. He has a beautiful body, Char. Really beautiful."

"Wait a minute," Charity said. "How'd we get from a kiss to naked?"

"I don't know." Nina thought about it. "He kissed me, and the next thing I knew, I was under him on the couch ripping at his shirt. I've never been that hot in my entire life."

"Wow. Maybe you'd better rethink seducing him and dumping him. If he's that good, he might be worth keeping around for the long haul."

"Charity, he's a kid-"

"He is not." Charity sounded exasperated. "He's darling and he's fully grown, and he's obviously got all his moves. You have to get over this age stuff."

"Would you date somebody who was twenty-eight?" Nina demanded.

"Probably." Charity's voice was unsure. "It would depend on the twenty-eight-year-old."

"My thirty-year-old was wearing Daffy Duck shorts," Nina said.

"Well, that's unfortunate but not unfixable," Charity said. "Rip them off him."

Nina had a flash of Alex naked. He looked wonderful. "Absolutely not."

"How did he ever manage to get you to kiss him, anyway?" Charity asked. "For that alone, he should get some kind of seduction badge. You're so uptight about this guy, you've practically put up an electric fence."

"I was trying to make Guy jealous."

"That was very mature of you, dear. Did it work?"

"I don't know. He left while I was kissing Alex."

"You want my advice?"

Nina thought of Charity and her twelve chapters of romantic disaster plus one romantic triumph with the fictional Raoul. "No."

"Here's what you do," Charity told her. "You take off all your clothes, and put on your trench coat, and climb down the fire escape and into his window, and when he says, 'Excuse me?' you take off the coat."

"Not in this lifetime."

"Do it," Charity said. "Trust me."

"Right." Nina tried to imagine herself naked in Alex's living room. It was too humiliating to contemplate. "Even if I could do that, I wouldn't know what to do next."

Charity snorted. "You won't have to do anything. He'll take it from there. In fact, from the sounds of things, he'll take it from the minute you climb in the window. Trust me-this is going to be the easiest seduction you've ever done."

"I've never done any seduction at all."

"Well, then it's time to start. Now let me tell you about Raoul."

Nina hung up the phone five minutes later, trying to distract herself with the knowledge that her career was going to be over as soon as Jessica got a good look at Jane Errs. It didn't work. All she could think of was Alex, and Alex's body, and his heat, and his hands, and his mouth, and the weight of him against her, on top of her. Making love with Alex. The thought was so overwhelming that her mind shut down and her body took over, swelling with heat as she closed her eyes and imagined him the way he'd been the night before.

She needed him. It wasn't just gee-wouldn't-it-be-nice lust anymore. She wasn't going to be able to eat or sleep or think if she didn't have him soon.

And he wanted her. She was pretty sure that Charity was right: all she'd have to do would be crawl through his window and take off her clothes. Except she couldn't possibly do that. Not possibly.

But, oh, Alex. She closed her eyes and thought of him again, lovely and loose-limbed and broad and strong, and the heat in her thickened and became a clawing in her veins. For months she'd been wanting him, trying not to think about him, thinking about him anyway, and then last night, he'd touched her and made all her fantasies reality. She wrapped her arms around herself, pressing hard, trying to stop the itch, but it was everywhere and the only thing that could save her was touching Alex.

All right then.

She walked into her bedroom, stripped off her clothes and looked at herself naked in the mirror as positively as she could.

Gravity had betrayed her when she wasn't paying attention. Looking closely, she could see the damage. Cellulite. Fat. Bulge. Droop.

She drew a deep breath. Well, okay, so nothing was the way it used to be. But it wasn't bad. And it was all real, no gelatin molds. So she wasn't Cindy Crawford. Big deal. Without the airbrushing, Cindy Crawford probably wasn't Cindy Crawford, either.

Nina crossed her arms over her breasts and closed her eyes. It was irrelevant anyway because if she didn't have Alex, she'd die, and this was the only body she had to take him with. So her choices were either to take her clothes off and let Alex see her naked or never to sleep with him ever. And she had to sleep with him.

Maybe she wouldn't have to take all her clothes off.

"I could wear the Incredibra and keep the lights off," she said to her reflection, and went to paw through her underwear drawer. There at the bottom she found her red lace Incredibra, the one she couldn't return since Fred had dragged it down the fire escape. "This is it," she told Fred, who'd followed her into the bedroom. "I'm really going to wear it this time." She put on the bra and the red lace underpants, cut high enough to at least disguise the fact that her stomach wasn't flat and then squinted at herself in the mirror.

Her breasts had never been this high. Nobody's breasts had ever been this high. Incredibras had so much lift they could get Fred off the ground. Well, that was good. And all that red confused the eye.

She could get away with it.

She went into the living room and dug her black trench coat out of the closet. "You stay here," she told Fred while she put it on. Then she took a deep breath and pulled the screen out of the window and went down the fire escape.

Alex's window was open, and she climbed through into his darkened living room, only to freeze when she heard voices in the lit kitchen.

Oh, great. He had a date, and she'd just crawled into his living room in her underwear. She turned to escape back through the window and knocked over the floor lamp. Hell. She grabbed the lamp and righted it, and then turned to go, but Alex was there in the lit doorway in his T-shirt and Duffy Duck shorts, looking more desirable than any man she'd ever seen in her life.

"Hello?" he said, and turned on the living-room light, blinking when he saw her.

Nina backed toward the window. "I was just leaving."

"No, you're not," Alex said, and then another Alex, this one black-haired, came out of the kitchen carrying a can of beer. "This is my brother, Max," Alex said, not taking his eyes off her. "He was just leaving."

"No, I wasn't." Max looked at Nina with interest.

Alex glared at him. "This is Nina."

"I was just leaving." Max turned toward the door. "In fact, I'm already gone." He opened the door, looked at Alex and said, "I told you to get rid of those damn shorts," and left.

Alex turned back to Nina. "Hi."

"Hi," Nina said, feeling like a fool.

Chapter 7

Alex seemed hesitant. "I'm glad you're here. I thought maybe you weren't talking to me because I'd, uh, kissed you."

Okay, this was it. If she wanted him, this was it. She was going to have to do it.

Nina took off her coat and dropped it on the floor, and stood there with nothing but red lace between her and Alex.

Alex blinked. "On the other hand, talking isn't everything. Is that the Incredibra Fred brought me?"

Nina nodded.

He exhaled slowly and walked toward her. "It's very nice. Take it off."

Nina felt dizzy as he reached for her, and then she went into his arms, wrapping herself around him, almost crying out because he felt so good and she needed him so much. "I need you to make love to me," she said in his ear, and her voice came out thick with lust. "I need you now. I don't care about anything else. I just-"

His mouth closed over hers, and she moaned into him, tasting him with her tongue as his fingers dug into her back and then her rear end, pulling her tight against him even while she arched into him and bit his lip.

"Bedroom," he gasped when they came up for air. "We move now, or I take you on the floor."