Indecent Suggestion (5 page)

If one could pardon the pun.

And Dorcas was confident it would only need to be spoken or heard once, because after the Feders made love that first time, their inhibitions and shyness would most likely disappear, regardless of whether they had been hypnotized or not. Once they experienced sex with each other, they wouldn’t need a stimulus like the word
underwear
for it to happen again. Because after that first time, they would realize there was no need for shyness or inhibition, and they would respond to each other naturally. Until that happened, however, the trigger word would do the trick.

So Dorcas told the Feders that any time either of them heard the word
underwear,
he or she would be completely overcome with desire for the other, and would initiate lovemaking with complete and uninhibited abandon.

“Upon hearing the word
underwear,
” she said softly as the couple sat still and silent, “each of you will think of or look at the other and will immediately want to make mad, passionate love. You will feel no inhibition about sex whatsoever. You will feel no shyness, no guilt, no shame, no worry. You will be eager to explore any sexual impulse, fantasy, act or position either of you wishes to try. You will each respond to your partner without fear or reserve or modesty. Whenever you hear ‘underwear,’ that’s your signal to forget your inhibitions and turn to each other with all the desire and passion you feel for each other. When
ever you hear that word you will stop whatever you’re doing and be as sexual together as you want to be.”

Dorcas paused for a moment, thinking she should also give them a turn-
off
switch for their passion, too, just in case they found themselves in a situation where they heard the word but weren’t together, or where having sex wouldn’t be possible. No reason to make the two of them wander around in a state of constant arousal, after all.

So she said, “The only thing that will assuage your desire will be to engage in sex, or to sleep.”

Now if one of them had to travel without the other, they could at least feel better in the morning about not having been able to have sex when they wanted it.

That should do it, Dorcas thought. Now the Feders could go home and do it, too. Over and over again. To their hearts’ content. And with that escape valve of sleep, they shouldn’t have to go around in a perpetual state of wanting without being able to have. Her work here was finished.

Gradually, she brought Becca and Turner back to consciousness, reminding them before total awareness recurred that they would consciously remember nothing of what they heard while under hypnosis, and that they would feel rested and relaxed upon waking. And then, with a slow, steady count to five, Dorcas woke them.

Their eyes fluttered open in unison, almost as if they were of one body. Becca smiled a dreamy little smile as she brought her hands out in front of her, threaded her fingers together and stretched. But Turner immediately jumped out of his chair and stood, frowning as he looked around at the office.

“I don’t think it worked,” he said. “You never even got me under.”

“Yes, I did,” Dorcas replied easily. This wasn’t an un
usual response for people, especially men, to have. “You won’t remember it, because I told you not to. But you were most assuredly under hypnosis, Turner.”

“Did I bark like a dog?”

Dorcas grinned. “No. And I didn’t make you flap your arms like a chicken, either.”

“I don’t feel any different,” he told her.

“That’s not unusual,” she said. “You’re not supposed to feel any different.” Well, not yet, he wasn’t, she added to herself. Just wait till he heard the word
underwear
. “Unless perhaps it’s to feel rested and relaxed, since I told you to feel that, too.”

“I don’t feel rested or relaxed,” he said.

“I do,” Becca said. “I feel very rested and relaxed. Like I just had a nice, long nap.”

She was going to feel even better after she heard the word
underwear,
Dorcas thought, still grinning.

“Well, regardless of how you feel at the moment,” she told the Feders, “I gave you both a posthypnotic suggestion that should help you with your problem. If you’re still having trouble this time next week, call me, and we can try again. But you were both well under, I assure you. Do you remember anything that I said to you?”

The Feders exchanged a glance, then shook their heads and turned back to look at Dorcas.

“Then I think you’ll see some results,” she told them. “As I said, if not, do let me know, and we’ll see if another session will take care of it. But I think the two of you will be pleased.”

Oh, Dorcas did so love being able to help people. And the Feders seemed like such a nice couple.

“Now go home and relax,” she told them. “Take the rest of the day to yourselves and see what develops. Maybe you could do a little laundry,” she suggested helpfully. “A load
of lights. See what happens when you go to put it away. You can settle up with my receptionist on the way out. She should be off the phone by now.”

The Feders gazed at her with obvious confusion about the laundry recommendation, but Dorcas only smiled and showed them out. She needed to get them close to some underwear as soon as possible. Whatever it took to get these two lovebirds in the sack going at it. As often and as long as possible.

Becca and Turner Feder were in for a pleasant surprise, she thought as she watched her office door close behind them. And with any luck at all, it would be soon.

T
URNER KNEW THE HYPNOSIS
hadn’t worked on him as soon as they hit the street. Because not only did he not feel in any way rested or relaxed—though he had to admit Becca seemed more mellow at the moment than he’d seen her for a while—he was craving a cigarette more than he’d ever craved anything in his life.

Well, except for Becca, natch.

But he
was
craving a cigarette. Something fierce.

“It didn’t work up there with the Amazing Dorcaso,” he said after they exited the building and began the walk toward where they’d parked her car.

“What do you mean it didn’t work?” Becca echoed, halting in her tracks, forcing Turner to stop walking, too. He turned to face her as she added, “How do you know it didn’t work? It’s too soon to know that.”

“I know because right now, I want a cigarette real bad,” he told her. “Don’t you?”

She thought about that for a moment, then frowned. Dejectedly, she confessed, “Yeah. I do.”

“I told you hypnotherapy was a load of crap,” he said.

They started walking again, more slowly this time. “Well, Dorcas said we could try again,” Becca reminded him. “Maybe we could go back up right now. It’s ten o’clock, when our original appointment was scheduled. She’d have time to see us again for another session.”

“No way,” Turner said decisively. “I’m not going through that hoodoo again. If it didn’t work once, doing it again won’t make any difference.”

She eyed him thoughtfully for a moment before asking, “What do you think she meant by all that ‘go home and do laundry’ stuff?”

“Got me,” he replied.

Becca’s disappointment was obvious. “I was so sure it would work,” she said. “Now what are we going to do?”

Turner glanced up the street, at a drugstore on the corner. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going for a pack of smokes.” He started off, but Becca’s hand on his arm halted him.

“Wait,” she said.

“What?” he asked, turning around to face her.

“Maybe we could still try to quit on our own. Cold turkey.”

He expelled an irritated sigh. “We tried that already, remember? Back in college. It was pointless.”

“But we were kids then,” she reminded him. “We’d do better now. We’re grown-ups. We have more stamina.”

Oh, she had to use a word like
stamina,
Turner thought. Yeah, he’d love to show her some stamina now. Except not where it came to quitting smoking. On the contrary, he wanted to
start
smoking with her. And there wouldn’t be a cigarette in sight when he did. Screw the statistics that said college boys had more stamina than guys his age.
Turner could prove it all night to Becca if she gave him half a chance.

Oh, yeah, baby. I got your stamina right here.

“Turner?” she said, bringing him out of his reverie. His daydream. Fantasy. Lurid desire. Whatever.

“What?” he asked, unable to curb his irritability.

“You look kind of…”

“What?” he demanded again, even more grouchily this time.

But instead of answering him, Becca began to nibble her bottom lip worriedly. Oh, hell. He hated it when she did that. Because it made him want to nibble her bottom lip, too. And still she had her fingers curled so tentatively—and so temptingly—into his forearm, making him want to curl his fingers less tentatively—and more temptingly—into parts of her.

Dammit, why did she have to value their friendship so much? Why couldn’t she dislike him enough to become sexually involved with him? Life was so freakin’ unfair.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, gentling both his voice and his attitude. “I just get a little irritable when I go too long without smoking.” And he wasn’t just talking about cigarettes there, either. It had been too long since he’d smoked up the sheets with a woman, too. Which, now that he thought about it, could also be contributing to his need for cigarettes lately. Not to mention compounding his need for Becca.

“Well, since you’re already irritable,” she said, “what’s the harm of trying to go longer between cigarettes? We don’t have to go cold turkey yet. Just cut back. How about that?”

God, she was so beautiful, he thought, scarcely hearing her question. Behind her, a streetwise maple tree was still clinging to what was left of its reds and golds and oran
ges, and the sun overhead lit reddish-gold fires in Becca’s tawny hair. The cool autumn breeze danced with the silky locks, nudging a few errant strands over her shoulder and into her eyes. His fingers itched to reach up and tuck the wayward tresses behind her ear, but she beat him to it, carelessly flipping her hair back on her own.

He’d touched that hair himself, he recalled, had sifted it through his fingers and buried his hands in it. And he’d touched other parts of Becca, too. Parts he wouldn’t mind exploring again, though years had passed since the last time it happened. He’d touched his lips to hers, had tasted her deeply. He’d held her breast in the palm of his hand, and his fingers had been slick with the damp heat of her. Maybe it had only happened a few times, and maybe only because they’d both been under the influence of either raging hormones or holiday spirits of the alcoholic variety. But he had tasted and touched Becca once upon a time. And he remembered every single moment of every single time.

Someday, he hoped, he would touch and taste her again. Only the next time it happened, the sole influence they’d be under would be their feelings for each other. And their need for each other. Someday, he told himself again. He just had to be patient, that was all. But it would happen again.

Someday.

“Look, we have the whole day off from work,” she reminded him. “Let’s do something fun. Something that will distract us from smoking. Let’s go to a movie. I’ll even let you pick which one. And then I’ll cook dinner for you at my place.”

“We should probably talk about the new account at some point,” Turner told her, deliberately replacing thoughts of their personal relationship with thoughts of their profes
sional one, since that was so much easier to think about. “We may have taken the day off from work, but we still have a lot to do on our presentation before Saturday.”

“We’ll do it tomorrow,” she told him. “We have the rest of the week before we have to present it, and we don’t have that much more to do. And, all modesty aside, I think we both realize how brilliant our pitch is. If we don’t land that account for Englund Advertising, nobody can.” She smiled with much satisfaction as she looped her arm through his and began to walk leisurely up the street. “By Monday morning, Turner, you and I will be working on the ad campaign for real. I just know it. By Monday morning, the account for Bluestocking Lingerie is going to be
all
ours.”

H
IS AND
B
ECCA’S PITCH
might be brilliant, Turner thought the following evening when everyone
else
at Englund Advertising was packing up to go home, but it wasn’t finished yet. Which was why everyone
else
at Englund Advertising was packing up to go home, and he and Becca were still seated in her cubicle working on their pitch. Yeah, they still had two more days to perfect it, but he knew they’d both feel a lot better if it was perfect
now
. And since neither of them had any plans for the evening, neither had seen any problem with hanging around a little longer to do some more work on it.

Except for the fact that he, for one, was craving a cigarette something awful.

Damn hypnotherapy anyway, he thought. What a racket. By day’s end yesterday, he and Becca had both succumbed to their need to smoke, a half-dozen times at least. Whatever the Amazing Dorcaso had said to them while they were under, it hadn’t worked worth a damn. Not that he was surprised. Yeah, looked like it was going to be an early, stinky grave for the two of them, after all.

“We just need a catchier slogan,” she was saying now from her seat behind her desk.

Her cubicle, like his, was a perfect square, eight feet by
eight feet, which was by no means large, but was larger than most of the Englund Advertising employees had. That was because Turner and Becca were next in line for promotion to account managers, something that would net them an honest-to-God office. Interior, without windows, at first, but eventually, if enough of their colleagues quit or retired—or, you know, died—they’d have the breathtaking view of the Indianapolis skyline visible from the best offices and the boardroom.

In the meantime, Becca, at least, had created her own view for her cubicle. Among the requisite calendar and phone list attached to the beige fabric walls, she’d tacked up pages pulled from magazines of print ads that the two of them had worked on together. There were glossy shots of everything from a local microbrewery and its assorted ales, to a local vineyard and its assorted wines, to a local five-star restaurant, to an exclusive condominium high-rise recently added to that breathtaking view of the Indianapolis skyline. Only in the past couple of years had Englund Advertising expanded into markets beyond Indianapolis, but in that short time, they’d won a number of high-visibility national accounts. Turner and Becca, however, had continued to work with local clients.

Until now.

Bluestocking Lingerie would be Englund Advertising’s biggest client yet, if—no,
when,
Turner immediately corrected himself—they landed it, since the underwear company was fast becoming synonymous with expensive, expertly fashioned, very sexy female underthings. It was Turner and Becca’s job to create a campaign that would turn that
fast becoming
into a fait accompli. If they had their way, any woman worth her weight in Belgian lace
would want to own Bluestocking products, and every woman would know to head to a Bluestocking boutique when it came to shopping for her wedding night. Or any other night when an enormous amount of gratuitous, unbridled sex was on the agenda.

Because most of the pieces Bluestocking had sent over to Englund Advertising for Turner and Becca to inspect weren’t exactly the sort of thing a woman would wear for comfort and-or function. Even Turner could see that. When Becca had dumped the box of lingerie onto her desk, there had been things in the lacy, silky—and in a few instances, leather-studded—mélange that Turner had never seen before. And he’d always considered himself a connoisseur of what women wore under their clothes, so that was saying something.

Inescapably, though, as he’d picked through the assortment of barely there attire, he had found himself wondering if Becca owned any of Bluestocking’s products herself, and if so, which ones? At the moment, however, he was trying very hard
not
to wonder about that. Unfortunately, it was with dubious success.

He had wheeled his own chair into her cubicle for the after-hours conference, and now sat wedged between the cubicle’s wall and the side of her desk, his khaki-covered legs propped negligently on its surface as he leaned back. He loosened his psychedelically colored Jerry Garcia necktie and rolled the sleeves of his white oxford shirt up to his elbows, not so much because he wanted to get down to work, but because it was a little stuffy in the tiny space.

Becca seemed restless, too, because she leaned impatiently back in her chair, then reached up to undo her tortoiseshell barrette. She scrubbed her hands absently
through her hair, then gathered it together again in a tidier ponytail than before and clipped it back into place.

Turner watched her with veiled interest, noting the way her breasts surged against the creamy fabric of her blouse as she completed the task, and how that blouse gaped open just enough for him to glimpse the champagne-colored lace of her bra beneath. He bit back a groan and forced himself to glance away. But that left him looking at the slender length of leg encased in smoky black silk that extended from the hem of a brief black skirt.

At least she’d kicked off her spiky high heels, he tried to reassure himself, telling himself stocking feet couldn’t possibly be as erotic as he suddenly found Becca’s to be. Nevertheless, the images of hair and breast and leg and foot had all lodged firmly in his brain, and together they generated a PowerPoint presentation of other images that grew steadily more graphic.

Oh, yeah. Turner could definitely use a smoke right now. But it wasn’t the cigarette kind of smoking that overwhelmed him just then.

“We need something short, but memorable, for a catch phrase,” Becca continued efficiently, oblivious to Turner’s state of agitation. “Something that will strike a chord with the upwardly mobile, professional woman that Bluestocking Lingerie wants to target for their line of products.”

“I still like my suggestion,” he said, not quite able to keep the petulance out of his voice in light of her having so resoundingly denounced what he thought was an extremely catchy slogan.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Gee, color me skeptical, but I’m not convinced that the women of America would re
spond in a positive manner to Bluestocking Lingerie—Put it on, and put out.”

“No, not that one, the other one,” he told her.

“Bluestocking Lingerie—When your fling is the thing?” she asked.

“No, no, the one after that.”

“Bluestocking Lingerie—He’ll get a big shock and you’ll get a big cock?”

“No, the other one after that.”

“Bluestocking Lingerie—You’re in luck, you, when he wants to—”

“No, the
other
other one after that.”

She thought for a minute. “Oh, right,” she said, remembering. “Bluestocking Lingerie—When there’s boffing in the offing.”

“That’s the one,” Turner exclaimed.

“Actually, I think that’s not the one,” she stated.

“Well, it
is
short and memorable,” he pointed out.

“I don’t think it’s what the client is looking for,” Becca replied evenly. “Come on. There’s got to be something. This is usually the easiest part of the campaign for us. Maybe we should focus on a handful of the designs instead of the collection as a whole,” she suggested.

She sorted through the scanty garments littering her desk, the items Bluestocking seemed to be most interested in promoting. To Turner, it just looked like a bunch of bras and panties that had little to distinguish themselves from each other.

“They all look alike to me,” he said. “I think we should stick with the collection as a whole.”

“Alike?” she repeated, clearly aghast. She laid out a few pairs of panties and a few assorted bras. “They’re not
all alike. It says so in the Bluestocking portfolio they sent along. Look at the panties, for instance.”

Turner did. But he still didn’t see any notable differences aside from color and fabric. “Yeah? So?”

“So,” she said. She directed her attention to the first pair, and reading the tag attached to it, added, “Here, you have your briefs.” She moved on to the last pair and flipped up that tag, too. “And here, you have your string bikinis. In between,” she continued, moving back to the other garments and reading their tags, “you have your hemi-brief…and then your semi-brief…and then your, ah, your demi-brief. And then your bikini, and your mini-bikini, and your micro-bikini, and your mini-micro-bikini.”

He narrowed his eyes as he followed the movements of her hand. “What’s the diff?”

She opened her mouth to tell him, then shrugged. “I don’t know. Those in the middle all look pretty much the same to me. But the briefs and the string bikinis are totally different. And the thong…” She pulled another garment—though it looked like it was little more than a remnant of black lace to Turner—from the others.

“Oh, now with
that
one I can certainly see the difference,” he said enthusiastically. And he would have loved to see more of it, too. Especially on Becca.

“Mmm,” she said noncommittally.

“What about the bras?” he asked, warming to the subject matter now, and wondering how he might broach the subject of having Becca model each and every article of clothing there. Because, ya know, that could be really helpful. It would totally inspire him to do his best work. On the campaign, he meant.

Becca seemed not to notice his preoccupation, because
she was straightening the assortment of bras, flipping up and reading their tags, too. “Full cup,” she said, pointing to the first one. “Hemi-cup.” She continued on to the second. “Then…semi-cup. And, um, demi-cup.” She moved to the next row and continued, “Mini-cup. Micro-cup. And then mini-micro-cup.”

“This sounds vaguely familiar,” Turner said. “But I want to know where the thong cup is.”

He looked up to find her rolling her eyes at him again. “There’s no such thing as a thong cup.”

“Well, why the hell not?” he demanded.

She bit the inside of her cheek. “Just a shot in the dark, but probably, it would be kind of uncomfortable to the wearer. Not to mention offer no support whatsoever.”

“Oh, and a scrap of lace lodged between your butt cheeks isn’t uncomfortable?” he countered. “Never mind supporting. Here’s a news flash for you, Becca. Women don’t wear stuff like this for comfort and support. They wear it because they want to turn on their guy.”

“Not always,” she said. “Some women like to wear frilly, girlie stuff under their clothes because it makes them feel sexier and more feminine.”

He eyed her thoughtfully. “You talk like you’re speaking from experience.”

Which, of course, he knew she was, having just glimpsed what she was wearing under her own business attire. He was just trying to bait her. Though why exactly he was trying to bait her, he wasn’t sure he wanted to think about.

She gritted her teeth, but said nothing more, only scooped up all the pieces of underwear and piled them into an untidy heap that she pushed to the side of her desk.
“Okay, so then maybe we should look at the collection as a whole,” she conceded.

Turner did his best to stay focused on the matter at hand after that, but his gaze kept straying to the buttons on Becca’s blouse, and his mind kept straying to how much he wanted to reach across the desk and undo every last one of them, to get a better view—among other things—of what lay beneath.

Okay, so maybe that was why he had been baiting her….

Man, he had to do something about his preoccupation with Becca. Ever since the two of them had started working on this pitch for Bluestocking Lingerie, he’d been way too in tune to his feelings for her. Normally, he could ignore his attraction to her and be around her with fairly little discomfort. He’d gotten so used to his feelings for her over the years that he no longer had trouble dealing with them. He’d decided a long time ago that he’d rather pine incessantly for her than lose her completely. Eventually, it had just become second nature to him to want Becca and know he couldn’t have her.

But for the past few weeks, being faced every day with such incredibly sexy lingerie, and watching her fondle it, and fondling it himself, and thinking about how it would look on her, and how unbelievably erotic it would be to take it off of her… Being confronted on a daily basis with the intimate tools of a woman’s trade when it came to seducing a man… Turner had just been in a perpetual state of arousal, that was all. And Becca’s constant nearness had been almost too much for him to bear. There hadn’t been a single day in the past couple of weeks when he hadn’t succumbed at some point to fantasizing about being naked with her, cupping his hands over her bare ass, sucking on her ripe breasts, burying his head between her legs to run his tongue over and into the melting center of her….

Oh, God, not again….

He should just go out, find a willing woman and get laid, he told himself, not for the first time. That new redhead Englund had hired last month had made clear her interest in doing the horizontal boogaloo with him. What was her name again? he wondered. Linda? Laura? Louise? Lucy! That was it. Maybe Turner ought to try thinking about her instead of Becca when he started feeling randy. Hell, who knew? Maybe Lucy could make him forget all about Becca. And how those skimpy bras and panties would look on Becca. And how it would feel to have Becca’s smoky-stockinged legs braced on his shoulders while he rammed himself into her….

Oh, dammit. Here came the PowerPoint presentation of all of Becca’s parts again….

He rubbed his eyes wearily as he leaned back in his chair, trying to put thoughts of her out of his mind. “Man,” he muttered irascibly, “I can’t believe all the trouble we’re going to just to sell some stupid underwear.”

He dropped his hands back into his lap and surrendered to his urge to look at Becca. To his surprise, he found her gazing back at him with much interest, as if she were studying him in an effort to discover what made him tick.

“What?” he said, still sounding irascible. Still feeling irascible.

“What did you just say?” she asked, her voice soft and low and sounding strangely…aroused? Oh, surely not. That was just wishful thinking on his part. He was aroused, so naturally he’d think everyone else was, too.