IllicitImpulse

Alexa
Day

Years of research have led
neuroscientist John March to the creation of Impulse, an experimental drug that
suppresses the bonding hormone oxytocin and would allow women to enjoy sex
without commitment. Now he just needs a test subject who’s willing to put
Impulse through its paces, a woman who’s not afraid to indulge all her sexual
desires and then go on record with her experiences. He needs a woman like his
best friend Grace. She and her boy toy could solve all John’s problems. If only
he didn’t want her for himself…

Grace Foley’s dreams have just come
true. Her sex-without-strings arrangement with Tal Crusoe has started to feel a
bit complicated. Thanks to Impulse, Grace can keep things friendly while making
the most of Tal’s abundant benefits. Too bad she can’t have John too. She’s
aching for a little experimentation of her own with the sexy scientist, but
wading into those waters could ruin their friendship. Besides, he would never
want a girl like her.

An
Exotika®
contemporary erotica
story from Ellora’s Cave

Dedication

For Terri, Eleanor, Cynthia and Mom.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Nara, for encouraging me to enter the pitch
contest with this story, and to Grace, for waiting so patiently until the story
was actually finished. Thanks also to Amorette, for teaching me the power of
Facebook, and to Denise, the best critique partner ever. Finally I want to thank
Delilah and Rose’s Colored Glasses for their help in putting this story
together. All of you made this solitary job an adventure and I’ll always be
grateful for your assistance and support.

Don’t be
afraid to make him wait a few minutes.

Grace Foley didn’t like to call it a rule. Rules were no
fun. This was more of a guideline, a helpful hint for surviving and thriving in
the world of men.

John would probably call it something else. Every time she
thought she’d come up with a way to handle the male species, he would say her
supposedly new strategy had actually been around as long as Adam and Eve. Only
John could tell her what was going on in a man’s brain and back it up with
science. Apparently neurobiology had more to do with the mating game than she’d
ever imagined possible.

Good thing he was such a good friend. Not that they’d ever
be more than that. John knew her too well. He’d want the sort of woman who had
cookie recipes memorized and invited people to tea, not the kind who was on a
first-name basis with every takeout place within ten miles of home.

Grace hurried up the busy sidewalk to the imposing brick
building that housed Bank. She took the marble steps to her favorite bar two at
a time, no simple task in her barely businesslike shoes. It might be okay to
make a man wait a few minutes, but she was more than a few minutes late.

As the name suggested, Bank occupied a converted bank
building. The heavy doors that shut behind Grace enclosed her in a cavernous
space beneath lofty ceilings that had once sheltered an expansive lobby.
Austere marble floors and columns made the place noisy during happy hour
despite the bright artwork on the walls. Young professionals stood three deep
at the bar, their ties loosened and voices raised as they watched the
television mounted above harried-looking bartenders.

She scanned the bustling room, looking for John. Her
pathologically punctual friend wouldn’t choose a spot this close to the door.
He knew how much she hated the chill that washed in every time new patrons
arrived. The wintry weather and happy-hour crowds had forced them to move their
weekly ritual of drinks and people-watching from the bar, which dominated the
center of the room. Now they usually met at the tables near the back, where
they’d be away from most of the traffic until the downstairs dance club opened
in a few hours.

Where was he? She continued her search around the corners of
the room, where still more of the business crowd had gathered in parties of
three or four around the small tables. A dark-suited gentleman emerged from his
group of drinking buddies and approached her, his hands in his pockets, his
gait almost sheepish.

“Looking for me?” he asked. “I’m right over there.” He
nodded toward his friends at their table, all of them trying a little too hard
not to watch.

Grace smiled at him. At least he hadn’t used one of those
worn-out lines, and he wasn’t hard on the eyes. She looked over his shoulder,
trying to come up with a response that wouldn’t discourage him too much, and
caught a glimpse of John waving coyly at her from the other corner of the room.

“Looking for him,” Grace said. She pointed at John, who
looked for all the world as if he were enjoying the show. “Sorry.”

The businessman snapped his fingers in mock disappointment
and returned to his companions. Grace made her way to the corner, where John
rose and removed his coat from the chair he’d saved for her. “Should I hug
you?” he asked.

Grace slid her coat from her shoulders and arranged it on
the back of her chair. “Of course you can hug me.” She laughed and slipped her
arm around his waist before quickly tucking her head beneath his chin. “I told
that guy I was looking for you.”

He released her and they both took their seats. “You did?”

Grace nodded. “Yeah. I
was
looking for you, wasn’t
I?”

“Yeah, it’s just…that guy started checking you out the
minute you came in.” John gazed deeply into his drink. “I don’t want to be in
the way, you know.”

Grace couldn’t help laughing. He might be Mr. Genius
Research Scientist, but sometimes John didn’t have a clue. “You’re not
cockblocking. I’m not looking, remember? And even if I were, how am I going to
choose some dude in a bar over my best friend?” She flagged down a waitress,
ordered an Irish coffee and turned back to John. “This place gets more crowded
every week.”

“Yeah, I think every lawyer and banker within a five-block
radius has discovered it.” He took a quick drink from his glass. “Maybe we
should start coming in right after work on Fridays instead.”

Grace ran her finger along the edge of the frame holding the
happy-hour menu. “Friday’s no good. I’m doing something on Friday.”

John raised an eyebrow. “Really? You and your boyfriend must
be getting pretty serious.”

She tried to smile. She’d led them into this minefield, and
if she now had to tread carefully, she had no one else to blame. “Tal is not my
boyfriend, and I wouldn’t say we were serious. He just wants to get together on
Friday nights too.”

“From one night to two sounds serious to me.”

“Actually, it’s two nights to three. Not that I’m counting.”
Her drink arrived and she wrapped her hands around the glass, letting the
warmth and fragrance settle her nerves.

“Three nights definitely sounds serious,” he said.

Grace inhaled deeply, careful to keep it from looking like a
sigh. “It’s not serious because Tal’s not interested in a long-term
relationship. He just wants to see where this goes. I told you all that.”

John took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose
between his thumb and forefinger. She didn’t know anyone under the age of fifty
who still wore glasses, but she couldn’t imagine John without them. On another
man, they’d scream “computer dork”, but on him…they made him look like the hot
professor on every college campus who always had a huge class filled with blushing
girls. They also drew attention to his warm brown eyes, soft and bright and
intense, all at the same time.

One night, a lifetime ago, he had led her, swaying and
tipsy, to her door, and in the hallway she’d stood on her tiptoes and pressed
her lips to his. The world had twirled away beneath her feet and she’d had to
steady herself against him, her hands on shoulders that were stronger than
she’d imagined. He’d started to return her kiss, his long fingers stroking the
small of her back, drawing her closer. Then his hands were on her hips, pushing
her away. He’d been so gentle, touching her as if she were a priceless antique
when he kissed her forehead and said goodnight.

They’d both been drinking, he’d said the next night. Taking
the next step would have been a bad idea, he’d said. And he was right.
Something about him still captured her imagination, but he was right.

Good thing they were still friends.

John was quiet next to her, studying the melting ice in his
drink. Grace patted his hand and smiled. “You know, Tal’s not as patient with
my tardiness as you are.”

“I was late today too,” he admitted. “I only got here a
couple of minutes ago.”

Grace took a sip from her glass mug, savoring the slow burn
of the mingled coffee and spirits. So this wasn’t about Tal, at least not
entirely. “What happened? Trouble at work?”

“It’s the project I’m working on.” He put his glasses back
on and sighed. “It’s going to kill me or get me fired, and I can’t decide which
one would be worse.”

“The secret project? I thought that was done already.”

“Just the initial trials. This part’s harder.” He knit his
fingers together and rubbed one thumb against the other. “I wanted to talk to
you about that, actually. I need a favor.”

From anyone else, those four words would have sent her
defenses into overdrive, ready to deflect requests for money or a place to stay
or a ride around the block that would stretch on for hours. But this was John.
Even if he did have issues with her personal life—specifically the part of her
personal life who now wanted to see her three times a week—John was still her
friend. The friend who had stayed when the others disappeared with her last
“real” boyfriend.

“Anything for you,” she said. “Name it.”

The cool scientific
detachment John March had spent a career building melted into a spreading pool
of unease. He’d practiced making this request over and over on his way here,
and while he waited for Grace, he’d done it a few more times. Now his heart
thundered against his ribs and icy sweat moistened his palms, just like the
first time he’d met her.

She’d stolen his breath then, the woman introduced to him as
“Brian’s girlfriend”. Glossy black hair, eyes like the rarest and darkest of
chocolates, and lush lips that inspired a host of fantasies. And her skin. In
all the time he’d known her, from the party where they’d met, through the dark
time after Brian, up to now, he still couldn’t find the right word to describe
the rich, vital, warm color of her dark skin.

Easy. You’re friends now. Just ask her.

John took a deep breath and as he exhaled, said, “I need you
to help me with the testing on the secret project.”

Now that he’d gotten it out of his mouth, what would she
say? Grace’s genuine curiosity about his work had always set her apart from
other women, and her engaging questions had put him at ease the night they’d
met. But would Grace want to be involved in the research herself? There was,
after all, a world of difference between enjoying a good steak and wanting to
work in the slaughterhouse.

Might not want to put it to her that way, March.

Grace leaned toward him, her brown eyes growing wide. Her
lips curved up in a smile. “You want me to help you?” she asked.

He lowered his voice and tried to ignore the faint scent of
her, minty and herbal and wild. “I
need
you to help me.”

Excitement brightened her face. “Okay,” she said in a near
whisper. “What’s the secret?”

John reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the
pills, eight plump red gelcaps in a blister pack. They shuddered a little in
their packaging when he laid them on the table, as if he had the winning hand
in a game of poker. Grace stared at them.

“They look like cold medicine,” she said.

“This is the world’s first oxytocin suppressant.”

She frowned. “Why would you want to suppress a painkiller?”

John chuckled. “You’re thinking of oxycodone. Oxytocin’s a
hormone. It’s released in a woman’s brain at the moment of orgasm.”

“Really?” She shifted in her chair and crossed her long
legs. “That doesn’t sound like something I want to suppress.” She poked the blister
pack with a manicured finger. “So what does oxytocin do?”

“Well,” he said, “in pregnant women, it causes the uterus to
contract. In lactating mothers, it causes the letdown reflex, when the—”

Grace stopped nudging the pills. “We weren’t talking about
pregnancy, and we weren’t talking about lactation.” She pointed at him. “You
were telling me about the woman’s brain at the moment of orgasm.”

Heat prickled over his face. Was he blushing? What an absurd
response—it wasn’t as if they’d never discussed the female orgasm before.
“Right, right. In the female brain, it creates feelings of attachment.”

“Attachment to what?”

“To her sex partner. Oxytocin is one of the reasons women
find it harder to have one-night stands.”

“
Some
women.”

“More women than not,” he said, and before he could stop
himself, he added, “It’s probably happened to you too.”

“Oh, no, no.” She shook her head emphatically. “Not me.”

“Grace. Are you saying that you have never, ever made more
out of a sexual relationship than your sex partner did?”

Slowly she straightened in her chair and he wished he could
pull the question back. He’d opened his mouth to apologize for it when she
spoke.

“Okay. Okay, let’s say I have done it once or twice.” She
bit her full lower lip and wrapped her hands around her glass. “How are these
pills supposed to help?”

“Basically, the pills prevent oxytocin from being released,
but only inside the brain.” John grinned, trying to contain his excitement.
“Outside the brain, oxytocin can still do the stuff I was talking about
before.”

“But if it’s not inside my brain, attachment never forms?”

He nodded. “Attachment never forms. You could have a weekend
fling or a vacation affair or even…”

“Even a fuck buddy?” She met his gaze with a satisfied
smirk.

John’s scientific detachment returned, just in time to keep
him from rising to the bait. “That’s right. You could always decide if you want
it to be more than just sex, but your hormones wouldn’t make that decision for
you.”

“Thinking between your ears and not between your legs, as my
grandma would say.”

He smiled. “That’s a colorful way of putting it, but yes,
that’s the idea.”

Grace picked up the blister pack and stared at it for
several long seconds as John watched her. “You know, I think I like this idea.
Women would have the same freedom as men. It would level the playing field.”

John nodded but said nothing. So far, he’d come damn close
to pissing her off by mentioning her un-boyfriend—twice. Tough to get into
trouble by saying too little.

Grace turned to him. “You must have plenty of people to test
that.”

“Not really. I mean, we did the initial trials, so we know
it actually blocks oxytocin and that it won’t kill you. The testing we’re doing
now requires a little more.”

“How so?”

“If we can’t prove that these pills do everything our
marketing department claims, we open ourselves up to huge legal consequences.
We really need to know that attachment is not forming in the way that we say
it’s not.”

He’d understated the risks. The legal consequences wouldn’t
just be huge. They’d be catastrophic. They’d destroy corporate reputations and
bankrupt the company. His career would go up in flames, and once the fire died
down, the lawyers would mix salt with the ashes.