“I got to design this house from the ground up. And I, uh, didn’t have anyone telling me she hated my ideas this time around.”

He handed her the wine glass and said, “That’s probably a whole heck of a lot more than you wanted to know, isn’t it?”

She laughed and patted his hand. “Trust me, I know exactly how you feel.”

But as she felt a tremor pass through her from simply touching his hand, she immediately pulled back and said, in a shakier voice than she intended, “Should we get started with things, Mr. Mentor?”

He nodded. “I’ve set things up in the guest room. Follow me.”

She followed him out of the kitchen and down the hallway. When he opened the door to the guest bedroom she was overwhelmed with the sweet scent of roses. Her heart started to beat double time so she joked, “Are we going to write a story about the florist and—”

Her words stopped altogether as she rounded the corner and stepped fully into the room.

She gasped. “This is amazing!”

Candace wanted to rub herself on all of the luxurious fabrics draped across and above the bed. She wanted to feel the rug under her toes. She wanted to wrap herself in rose petals.

Turning to Charlie, she said, “Did you do all this for me? For our lesson? You shouldn’t have gone to all the tr—”

He smiled at her and cut her protest off. “I really enjoyed creating this room. And now that I’ve seen the effects of if myself, I think I’m going to leave it as a nice surprise for my house guests. Although, I probably won’t see much of them ‘cause they’ll be so busy going at each other.”

Candace forced a laugh and started worrying in earnest as Charlie sat down on the chest at the foot of the bed and motioned for her to sit next to him.

“I think you need to take off your shoes and socks to fully appreciate this bedroom.”

She knew he was right and she was certain that he wasn’t the least bit interested in her, so she set her wine glass down on the mantle of the fireplace, then sat down next to him and removed her shoes and socks.

Playfully she said, “Should I take anything else off?”

Charlie’s eyes got wide for a moment and then he grinned wolfishly. “I suppose you’d better, otherwise, how are you going to write about the feel of the material brushing across your heroine’s skin?”

“Oh, do you really think I should?” Candace said, some panic creeping into her voice. But then, as she looked around the room at the candles and the fire and saw the velvet and silk beneath her, she decided, what the hell.

Not giving herself the chance to think, she pulled her v-neck sweater over her head, leaving only a skimpy tank top covering her torso.

“Okay,” she said impishly, vowing to let herself be carried away by the mood for once in her life. “I’m undressed.”

Charlie looked her up and down. “I’m not sure I’d call you undressed, but it’s certainly a start.”

Suddenly, something inside Candace clicked into place. Or broke down completely. She wasn’t sure which. But the new voice inside her was loud and clear.

She spoke quickly, before she lost her courage. Before she came to her senses. “Charlie, you know how we agreed that everything that went on during on mentoring sessions was going to be strictly professional?”

“Yeah?” he said, drawing out the word as a question.

“Well, it has just occurred to me that it’s one thing for me to appreciate this room as a writer.” She paused and then said, “But it’s another thing entirely for me to experience it as a woman.”

She saw Charlie’s Adam’s apple move in his throat and clenched her hands into tight fists at her side. She didn’t know how she was going to manage it exactly, but she wasn’t going to be a wimp and back down. Not here. Not now.

For the first time in her life, Candace was going to go for what she wanted. She reached for the button on her jeans and Charlie’s hand shot out to grab hers.

“What are you doing?”

She half-grinned at him, but she knew she was far too nervous for it to look like a smile. More like she was baring her teeth at him.

“I’m taking off my clothes.”

He blinked at her in confusion. “Oh.”

Candace tried not to let his utter non-reaction to the idea of her taking off her clothes bother her. She wasn’t here because he thought she was a sexy woman. She was here to learn about the art of erotic writing. And if she had to do it on her own, by god, she was doing it.

She stood up and unzipped her pants. As she lowered them to the ground, she looked up at Charlie, who was still sitting in stunned silence on the edge of the chest.

“The fact is, I have never experienced the sensation of silk sliding against my skin. I’ve never lain naked in front of a roaring fire. I’ve never rubbed my ni**les against satin.” She looked at him imploringly. “These are all things that I have to do or I’ll never be able to write about characters who know what these physical sensations feel like. Can you understand that?”

Charlie nodded.

She stood in front of him in her skimpy tank top, knowing her ni**les were jutting out and she forced herself not to flinch, not to run, and not to cover up. She hooked her thumbs into the thin straps of her silk thong undies and said, in a soft but firm voice, “I won’t pressure you into joining me, Charlie. I’m sure this is all pretty old hat to you, but it’s all brand new to me. So I could sure use some help if you were willing to instruct me.” Lowering her eyelashes to cover her eyes, she licked her lips and then made eye contact with him again. “In a purely professional way, of course.”

“Whatever happens inside the classroom stays in the classroom?” he asked in a calm, detached voice.

A little shiver worked itself up Candace’s spine. Trying to sound as unaffected by her near-nakedness in an incredibly romantic room with the most potent man she’d ever met, she said, “You got it.”

In the blink of an eye, Charlie replaced her hands with his on the sides of her thong.

With a new gleam in his eyes he pulled her closer to him, so that her muff was mere inches from his mouth.

“Let the lessons begin.”

Chapter Five

Charlie hooked his thumbs under her panties and slowly pulled them down to her thighs. Her pu**y was pink and so hot he could feel the heat emanating from it, practically scalding his face. Her auburn bush had been waxed and trimmed into a Brazilian style—mostly smooth and glistening skin with just the barest patch of hair in the middle. Her lips were plump and he was more glad than he could ever say that she had just given him permission to touch her, to taste her, to spread her legs wide open and plunge into her until he had quenched the sexual need that had ridden him hard from the moment he’d met her.