“Josh, what if someone comes in?”

“We’re only slow dancing,” he murmured, pressing her against the wall on the dark side of the room. “What is it about you that has this effect on me?” His tongue touched Lauren’s earlobe and she closed her eyes. Heat shot through her.

“My razor-sharp intellect?”

“Mmm. That’ll do for a start.”

If it were possible for a man to seduce and worship at the same time, Josh was doing it.

When one hand slid up and cupped her breast, she was ready to erupt. She was so ready, in fact, that if he even—

His other hand slid under the hem of her short black chiffon skirt. He touched her thigh, then caressed her bare bottom. “A thong.” His voice held pleased discovery. “What color?”

“Peach,” she managed to say. “Josh, someone’s going to come…”

“I certainly hope so.”

Dear Reader,

Writers are notorious for picking bits and pieces from people, news, events and their own experiences and turning them into stories. So when three writers get together to pack a whole lot of ideas into a miniseries-—look out! I hope you enjoy the LOCK & KEY trilogy!

It was a blast working with Jamie Denton and Carrie Alexander to come up with three heroines who overcame their beginnings to unlock their own possibilities. It took some doing to imagine heroes who could give Mikki, Lauren and Rory a run for their money—but imagining sexy, no-holds-barred men who are a worthy match for our heroines is half the fun of writing for Harlequin Blaze.

I learned a lot about collaboration during this project. Writing can often be a solitary pursuit, but in this case it was more like an online party as we wove story threads and compared notes and talked over scenes from three (or six!) different points of view. The result was a strengthened bond between me and my sister writers—and, I hope, three stories you’ll remember for a long time.

Drop by my Web site, www.shannonhollis.com, to see what’s coming up next….

Warmly,

Shannon Hollis

On the Loose
Shannon Hollis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

An Evening To Remember… Those words evoke all kinds of emotions and memories. How do you plan a romantic evening with your guy that will help you get in touch with each other on every level?

Start with a great dinner that you cook together. Be sure to light several candles and put fresh flowers on the table. Enjoy a few glasses of wine and pick out your favorite music to set the mood. After dinner take the time to really talk to each other. Hold hands and snuggle on the sofa in front of the fireplace. And maybe take a few minutes to read aloud selected sexy scenes from your favorite Harlequin Blaze novel. After that, anything can happen….

That’s just one way to have an evening to remember. There are so many more. Write and tell us how you keep the spark in your relationship. And don’t forget to check out our Web site at www.eHarlequin.com.

Sincerely,

Birgit Davis-Todd

Executive Editor

For Jamie and Carrie, with thanks,

and to Jen, for inviting me to the party

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank Karina for her knowledge of modern Chinese-American life and for the correct way to make shui jao. Thank you, Maddie, for your sense of humor and Lorelei’s tag lines. And thank you, Lynn and Karen, for all the work and love you pour into enabling our habit over at IBD.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

From Lorelei’s blog

http://www.sfinsideout.com/lorelei/blog/

Do you have your tickets yet for the Baxter House benefit? If not, better hurry. The buzz around town is that this is the “don’t miss” party this spring. Think women with locks and men with keys. Think Deerfield Jewelers, ladies. Think prizes up the wazoo—donated by restaurants, wineries and theaters from here to Mendocino—for every couple whose lock and key is a match.

I won’t even go into what else you might find a match for. There’s a reason the tagline is “Unlock the possibilities,” know what I mean? Use your imaginations!

While you’re doing that, think about the cause. Your ticket price goes straight to the building fund for Baxter House, a transitional home for girls coming out of the foster care system. This is social worker and activist Maureen Baxter’s pet project, and now she’s made it ours. She’s made it fun.

Deerfield white gold, girls. What’s not to like?

Lorelei

1

“THE NEXT TIME I get the urge for something hot and hard between my legs, I’m going to buy a motorcycle.”

Lauren Massey tossed back the last of the White Knight in her glass and considered heading to the bar for another, then decided against it. The crowd waiting for drinks was four people deep, and besides, she was supposed to be snagging interviews for a story for her column. With two drinks in a row, she’d be more likely to giggle or flirt rather than ask meaningful questions…or ask questions way too personal to put into print.

Her column, “Lorelei on the Loose,” ran in a paper called San Francisco Inside Out, a left-wing cross between for-real street reporting and the tabloids you got at the checkout counter. Oh, they didn’t report on alien babies and celebrity divorces—unless the celebrities were local or the aliens had agreed to appear on the Channel 4 News. Inside Out was about entertainment, with a little activism thrown in, and for now, it paid the bills.

In the snarky, no-holds-barred persona of Lorelei, Lauren also ran a Web log, or “blog,” connected to Inside Out’s Web site, where she commented live on everything from clothes to politics to local charity events like this one. Her identity was a secret closely guarded by the paper, partly because she had a knack for stirring up controversy and partly because readers couldn’t resist a mystery and were always trying to guess who she was. They also couldn’t resist writing in and taking her on in public, which meant that Lorelei got the highest number of hits on the Inside Out site. You’d think this would make the Queen of Pain give her a raise, but it just made her managing editor demand more content, more trend-setting commentary, more everything.

So, like any good columnist, tonight Lauren was going to be multitasking—doing her part for charity and hunting a story like a basset hound.

“A vibrator’s cheaper.” Lauren’s foster sister, Aurora “Rory” Constable, was still smiling over her motorcycle crack. Lauren glanced at the drink on the table in front of her, illuminated by a little Victorian lamp that tried to compete with the colored spotlights and the glittering bling-bling of the twentysomething crowd all around them. Rory would nurse her drink for the next hour on the principle that the calories in it would get burned off in proportion to her activity—which, at this charity event disguised as a key party, could amount to anything from casual conversation to sex in the broom closet.

“A vibrator doesn’t have that ‘mess with me and I’ll kick your butt’ appeal,” Lauren pointed out.

“Bad date, sweetie?” Michaela Correlli, the middle of the three foster sisters, slid an arm around Lauren’s shoulders and gave her a quick hug. She was also the clever so-and-so who had slipped Lauren an éclair during their regular Saturday-morning gabfest at Lavender Field last week and who, when her defenses were down, had talked her into coming tonight.

To survive in the foster care system, Lauren had learned that when life tossed you a lemon, you made lemon chiffon pie and invited other people to eat it. So, even though a key party wasn’t her usual scene, she could use it to further her career and to help out a good cause at the same time. But she was the lucky one. Poor Rory had had less than a week to come up with the donation of baked goods for five-hundred-plus people that Mikki had recklessly promised on her behalf in exchange for the tickets. It was a good thing Rory’s staff at Lavender Field, her chain of bakeries, all possessed the California attitude that considered goodies for five hundred a “challenge,” never a problem.

Mikki was good at talking people into challenges. Nobody messed with her. In high school, nobody had messed with Lauren, either, once they’d found out Michaela was her foster sister. Even now, after one look from those merciless blue eyes, deputy D.A.s and social workers alike dropped to their knees, begging.

For a lot of things.

“The worst,” Lauren replied over the canned pop music that was playing until the band was ready to start. “Remember that really sweet guy I met online about four months ago? The wealth-planning advisor?”

“Didn’t you show us some of his messages?” Rory asked. “And his picture? I thought he looked nice.”

“Oh, he is nice,” Lauren assured them. “His mom told me so during our date.”

Mikki set her diet soda on the table with a clank. “You’re at the meet-the-parents stage already? Is there something you didn’t tell us about this guy? Should we be looking at poufy pink bridesmaid dresses?”

“God forbid. There’s a lot of stuff he didn’t tell me.” Lauren glanced longingly at the bar again, then back to her sisters. “Such as the fact that he isn’t a wealth planner at all. He’s a finance major at San Francisco State and a permanent student. As in thirty and still living with his mom.”

“So how did she get into this?” Rory wanted to know.

“He brought her on our date. In fact, she was a lot more interesting than he turned out to be. He writes beautiful e-mails, but in person?” Lauren waved her hand, shooing away the memory of her brief foray into online relationships that had started out as research for a story and had ended as…well, as dinner with an entertaining fifty-year-old archaeologist. Oh, yeah, and her son.

“As of tonight, I’m going to be like you, Mikki. I’m putting men on hold and focusing on important stuff, like nailing down this story.”

It was clear Michaela was trying not to laugh at the sad state of her love life. “Are you sure you want to do that?” She fingered the white-gold locket on the chain around her neck, a little suitcase-shaped charm identical to the ones worn by Lauren and Rory and half the crowd at this fund-raiser. “What if Johnny Depp shows up with the key to your suitcase and you win the getaway for two?”

“He wasn’t invited. But even if he was, I’d swap with you and you could have him, Mikki Mantis. I’m here to mingle and interview people. That’s all.”

Mikki swatted her on the arm for using the nickname she hated, and while Lauren got the last laugh on her sister, Maureen Baxter pushed aside a burgundy-velvet curtain and grabbed the microphone. The music faded and when she said, “Welcome to Clementine’s, everyone,” the noise level in the crowded club dropped by a couple of decibels. “I’m Maureen Baxter and I’m your hostess this evening.”

She paused while the crowd hooted and whistled. Maureen knew everybody here, and if she didn’t know you, she had a contact who did. Tall and elegant, with dark hair cut in a bob, her taupe chiffon gown hugged her curves and its sequins caught the spotlights trained on the stage. Mikki and Rory both knew her better than Lauren did. Maureen, too, had been one of the kids at the old house on Garrison Street where Emma Constable, Rory’s real mother and Lauren’s and Mikki’s foster mom, took in the teenage hard cases from the foster care system.

Where Lauren had finally found her mismatched but true family.

“You’re probably wondering what the deal is with the keys and lockets you were given at the door. Well, here’s how it works. All the men have keys. All the women have locked suitcase charms.” Maureen dropped her voice. “Yes, girls, these are white gold, from Deerfield, and we get to keep ’em.” More hooting and some applause. “Guys, your job is to find the woman whose lock fits your key—and I mean that strictly in the practical sense. Every couple who gets a match gets a prize and a chance at the grand prize for tonight’s charity event—a getaway for two. Best of all, you get to meet new people and have some fun.”

Cheering from the crowd. Maureen waved a hand for quiet.

“And let’s not forget why we’re really here. Tonight’s event is incredibly important to me because it will make the building fund for Baxter House healthy again. So far we have the land, which I inherited, the planning cycle is complete, the foundation has been poured and a couple of contractors—among them a wonderful guy who is actually here tonight—have donated their services.”

Lauren glanced at Mikki and Rory and made an “I’m impressed” face.

“Good on you, Maureen,” Mikki said in the direction of the stage, then turned to her sisters. “With land at a premium around here and contractors booked a year in advance, you’ve gotta believe she worked her butt off for this.”

“I wonder who the guy is?” Rory said.

“Our little suitcase charms mean something, as anyone who has ever been in the foster care system knows,” Maureen went on. “Sometimes all you have is what fits in a single duffel bag. Your whole life, all your memories, everything that is unique to you, stuffed inside a single suitcase. Some of you here know what I’m talking about.”

The three women glanced at each other again. Some kids came with a lot of stuff. Some came with nothing. Lauren had been one of the one-bag kids—a gangly fifteen-year-old with nothing to her name but a picture of herself as a baby with her parents, a pair of jeans and a couple of T-shirts and a battered copy of the Norton Anthology of English Literature that she’d lifted from her last school.

Mikki’s face told her she remembered the same thing and she slid an arm around Lauren’s shoulders.

“Your fifty-dollar cover is not paying for the club or media coverage,” Maureen assured them. “It’s going toward the building fund, to purchase rebar and beams and drywall. This may not seem very glamorous, but I can’t tell you how much it will mean to an eighteen-year-old girl who has just been released from the system and has no idea how to go about starting her life other than taking it to the streets. Baxter House will mean a new start for that girl, and I’m grateful to each of you for coming out to support it.”

Maureen grinned at the crowd and waved behind her at the band, who had been quietly filing onto the stage while she was talking. “But now, we’re going to have fun. So go out, find your key partner and have a good time!”

The band launched into a dance number with a great beat and Lauren’s foot began to tap. Somewhere in the crowded club was a person who had the key that fit her locked charm, but Lauren just couldn’t bring herself to go from person to person, allowing them to try out their keys. Some were having a lot of fun with it. She had work to do.

And she’d better get on with it.

She leaned over to Rory. “I’m going to go talk to people. Are you going to see what’s going on in the kitchen?”

Lavender Field specialized in a dazzling array of breads, rolls and other sinful things. They were so good that rumor had it you could tell how well a company treated its employees simply by the presence of a box with the green-and-lavender logo in the coffee room.

White-gold charms and rolls and pastries from Lavender Field? Maureen knew how to treat her guests—and potential contributors to her project.

Rory tossed back the last of her drink and draped her lavender shawl over the back of her chair. “Hell, no. I’m going to dance.”

Lauren watched her sister tap someone on the shoulder and, on the pretext of trying out the man’s key, invite him to dance. The light from a gold spotlight slid over Rory’s graceful, generous body as she passed under it, and then she and her partner disappeared into the crowd on the black-and-white-checkered dance floor.

Music blasted from the stage, lights flashed and swooped, and from somewhere in the back, a woman screamed with laughter. People laughed and talked over the beat as they danced, the whole crowd bobbing up and down in time with the music.

Lauren scanned the room for her first victim.

She’d already picked Maureen’s brain about the background of the key party and the logistics of setting one up. A woman as driven for her cause as Maureen was didn’t waste her time on angles that didn’t succeed—and a key party was pretty much guaranteed to succeed. But what Lauren needed was the voice on the street who, let’s face it, came to these things not because they were as passionate about the cause, but because deep down they believed—hoped—they’d find true love.

Or at least a date for the evening.

She zeroed in on an Asian girl in turquoise silk sitting in one of the dining alcoves, partially hidden by sound-absorbing velvet drapes. She blinked as the girl turned her head and she recognized the glossy fall of blue-black hair and the sloe eyes of her own roommate. Well, why not? Vivien’s opinions were as valuable as those of a stranger, and it was an easy way to start.

“Sorry, I’m straight,” Vivien Li deadpanned as Lauren slid in beside her on the padded leather-look bench.

“Sure, you are. You’re not getting away from me that easily.” Lauren grinned. “Nice dress, by the way. You didn’t tell me you were coming to this shindig.”

She and Vivien had been roommates since their junior year at Berkeley. Once they’d graduated—Lauren with a degree in communications and Viv with one in computer electronics—both of them had concluded there was no reason to give up a comfortable living arrangement. Besides, Lauren often thought, what sane woman would let go of a roomie who could cook as well as Viv did? So they’d moved across the Bay and Lauren had gone to work while Viv slaved at her post-grad degree and worked part-time to pay her half of the rent.

“Someone at work couldn’t go at the last minute, so he gave me his ticket. It said ‘Unlock the Possibilities.’ What does that mean, exactly?”

Lauren laughed. “That’s what I’m trying to find out. How about I interview you for Inside Out?” She took her minirecorder out of her evening bag, turned it on and put it on the table between them, next to the red glass lamp with dangling crystals that propped up the wine list.

“How come I always have to be your lab rat?” Viv complained. “You know ‘Lorelei’ scares me silly. I always picture her looking like Cruella De Vil. The cartoon one, not Glenn Close.”

Lauren shook her head. “Nope. She looks like Alicia Silverstone crossed with Maggie Gyllenhaal in Secretary.”

“Ai-ya,” Vivien moaned. “A demented blonde who wants to pick my brain. And probably eat it.”

“No, that would be the Queen of Pain. To her, the word freelancer has no meaning. Every time I go into the office she has her people locked up in meetings, and she tries to suck me into the vortex with them.”

Other than having to endure her editor, working on the Lorelei column and blog for Inside Out was fun. And a regular paycheck, no matter what its size, was nice, too. Realistically, Lauren knew blogging was a phase that, like Bennifer and platform shoes, wouldn’t last. What she really wanted to do was to work for a high-profile magazine, and not just as a contributing freelancer, either. Someday she’d be on the staff at Left Coast, which was based here in San Francisco and ran the kinds of stories that were nominated for major literary prizes.

However, “Lorelei” wasn’t going to get her noticed there. In fact, she was probably more of a liability than an asset. But her press pass got her into more events than not, and it all gave her material she could use.

“I need some insight into this whole key thing,” Lauren said. “I value your opinions. Besides, you’re in my demographic.”

“What’s that? Lesbian Chinese-American master’s candidates?”

“No. Singles. It’s a very broad demographic. So, what brought you out tonight besides the fund-raiser? What’s the attraction in it?”

Vivien considered the question. “It’s more personal than want ads and doesn’t have the commitment factor of dinner and a movie, you know?”

“Commitment factor?”

“Yeah. Do I sleep with her because she had to pre-order the duck à l’orange? Or did we go to Korean barbecue when I was expecting the Top of the Mark, so all she gets is a kiss and some garlic breath? With a key party, you don’t have to ask yourself questions like this. Your key fits, you like the person, you hang around and talk for a while.”

“What if you don’t like the person? What if they have garlic breath?”

“Then you go put your ticket in the prize-drawing thing, slip them a mint and move on. Everyone knows the drill, so there’s no hard feelings.”

“It’s like a giant mixer.”

Viv nodded. “Only cooler.”

Lauren turned off the recorder. Cool was good. Inside Out liked cool, though Left Coast would probably turn up its nose at it. “Thanks for the insight.”

“Mind you, this event is set up for hetero mixing,” Viv said. “I have to work a little harder.”

Lauren looked out over the twisting, laughing crowd. “What you do is swap your lock for a gay guy’s key. That way both of you are lined up to get the right partner.”

“Oh-oh.” Viv’s face, a perfect oval with the kind of fine complexion that needed no makeup, brightened. “Good plan. I’m all over it.” She leaned over and gave Lauren an affectionate peck. “Gotta go unlock some possibilities.”

Lauren followed her out into the crowd and, for the next forty-five minutes, did her best to circulate and talk to people.

“Mind if I try you on for size?”

Oh, please. She’d heard at least five versions of that one. Lauren pasted on a polite smile and turned to the man—well, kid, really—in the scuffed leather jacket and presented her chest to him. Just how many variations of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” could people come up with? By the end of the evening the odds were good she’d find out.

The backs of the kid’s fingers brushed the peach silk of her tank top as he lifted the tiny suitcase. He jumped. She didn’t. Lauren gazed at him thoughtfully as he flourished his little key and tried to fit it into the lock. He looked familiar. Where had she seen him before?

Her lock didn’t open.

Oh, good.

“Nice to have met you,” the guy said cheerfully, obviously not that cut up that he wasn’t going to be spending the rest of the evening with her. He moved on to Rory, who was standing ten feet away. She topped him by a couple of inches, but he, evidently, was a brave man. He reached for her cleavage.

Lauren looked out over the crowded dance floor. The guy was in her reader demographic. She should have interviewed him while she’d had the chance. But she’d already talked to six or seven people and so far hadn’t found one who presented an opposing view. Everybody seemed to think a key party was a good thing. But then, if you hated them you’d probably just put a check in the mail to Maureen’s office, wouldn’t you?

She glanced around the room in an attempt to locate Michaela, who had gone to get more drinks. Those who had found the person with the key to their suitcase were crowding the stage, where Maureen was busy handing out prizes and putting the numbered slips from the lockets into a big rotating basket like the ones the lotteries used.

Lauren moved her stool closer to Rory’s when her sister sat down. “Is there a reason that kid looked familiar?”

Rory always knew stuff like this. A woman who had subscriptions to People and Variety and who hosted movie-and-dinner parties where people actually came in costume had to know.

“Alien Bodyguard.”

Lauren snapped her fingers. “That’s it.” He’d played the hapless younger brother killed off on the first episode of Alien Bodyguard, one of the midseason TV shows Lorelei had ripped to shreds. That had started a lovely big controversy about turning science fiction novels into TV shows that had made her blog traffic peak at ten thousand hits a day. She’d better go interview him before his key fit someone’s lock. A celebrity quote wasn’t something you lucked onto every day.

“No sign of Johnny Depp?” Michaela swiveled around a good-looking jerk who was making graphic hand motions and put their drinks on the table, including a soft drink for herself.

Good girl, Mikki. Every time her sister resisted temptation meant a victory in a long chain of victories that took her further away from the alcoholic darkness of four years ago, which had peaked after her breakup with her husband.

They chatted for a few minutes and then Lauren said, “Why do they pair the women up with men, anyway? My perfect date is a little old lady with an early bedtime.” She scanned the room for a leather jacket. “Then I could go home and start on this story.”

Michaela bumped her shoulder as she sat. “Don’t be so focused, honey. Have some fun with this. Your partner could be tall, rich and gorgeous.”

“I hope he’s tall, rich and gay, and I can give his key to Vivien. Don’t forget, I’m in the market for a motorcycle, not a man.”

“What about the fun part? You’re like a laser beam, tracking your target.” Mikki looked half-amused, half-exasperated. “Come on. Let’s get out there and dance.”

But before Lauren could reply, Rory nudged Michaela and her sister froze at the sight of a man approaching them.

“Oh, my God,” Lauren murmured. As if her thoughts had conjured him up, Mikki’s ex, Nolan Baylor, approached them with those bedroom eyes and that same confident grin, both trained on her sister. But how could this be? Wasn’t his law practice in Los Angeles? What was he doing here, looking all buff and casual in his charcoal polo shirt? And what business did he have spoiling Mikki’s night by showing up?

But as anyone in her family could tell you, Mikki Correlli could take care of herself. “What the hell are you doing here?” she snapped.

In answer, Nolan grinned and flourished a small, white-gold key.

2

LAUREN COULDN’T DECIDE whether to leap up and claw his eyes out, or let Michaela do it. Something seemed to combust in the air between her sister and former brother-in-law as he practically taunted her with the key. Her eyes flashing with anger and contempt, Michaela made a big show of ignoring him and introducing his friend, Tucker Schulz. Tuck’s eyes signaled interest, but that was the last thing Lauren could deal with amid all this sudden tension. Her options seemed to be sticking by Mikki’s side for support and fading into the wallpaper. Neither was very appealing.

Thank God there were no serious men in her past to reappear and mess up her life. She’d had enough trouble keeping it on an even keel on her own. After she’d come to live at Garrison Street, it had taken years for her to figure out that there were people in this world who would actually love you and stick around when you said you loved them. Her childhood had taught her the opposite, after Dad had taken off when she was ten. When she was fourteen, Mom had looked at the choice between her habit and her daughter—heroin or the kid? Hmm, that’s a hard one. Let’s pick heroin. And the choice had killed her.

That was why love—the kind of love that meant picket fences and permanence and kids—was one helluva scary proposition, one that both attracted and repelled Lauren.

Not that she was against picket fences in principle. She was looking thirty-one in the face, after all. But she seemed to have a knack for picking guys who already had something in their lives she had to compete with. Like Carl, who loved programming games for Lucas Arts more than doing things with her. Or Luis, who had wanted kids and picket fences as long as his mom and most of his extended family could come and share them, too.

Then she’d gone out on a limb and tried online dating with one of those nifty interfaces where you filled out your wish list of the perfect man’s qualifications. What had she wound up with?

An interesting archaeologist—oh, yeah, and her son.

Feeling like a coward, Lauren excused herself as gracefully as she could and got back to work. Circling the room, she ran a hand over the mass of curls Rory’s clever fingers had coaxed into her taffy-colored mop, and got her mind back on a safer track.

She needed to decide on a theme for her article. What did it say about society when you could surf for a partner in the same way she surfed TV channels, searching for something that looked good enough to spend some time on?

Hmm. That would make a good lead. Then she could follow it with—

“Excuse me,” said a baritone voice behind her. She turned and looked straight into a crisp shirtfront. Her gaze traveled up a row of buttons, one by one. Here was the stuff dreams were made on, or it would be if her subconscious ever thought to cast men like this.

His hair, which was on the long side, flopped into his left eye in a way that should have made him look messy but instead made him look intriguing and mysterious. He grinned, and she dropped ten years from her first estimate. He had the kind of grin that made a woman do a double take—all little-boy mischief on the one hand and pure male appreciation on the other. What was it about dimples in a male cheek that could make a woman’s knees go all soft and wobbly? And check out the way the overhead light made hollows under his cheekbones. His eyes were dark as sin, with long lashes that managed to look sexy instead of feminine.

“May I?” He held up his key.

A miracle. No tired one-liner. The man was not only yummy, he was so classy he’d achieved originality.

“Sure.” She should be so lucky.

No, luck was a lady tonight. An old lady with an early bedtime. A frisson of sensation tiptoed across her skin as his long, sensitive fingers brushed the shallow curves of her breasts. Not for the first time, she wished she were a little deeper in the keel, like Rory. Enough to make this charmer focus on her instead of on the little suitcase he held.

Never mind, Cinderella. You’re not at the ball to find a prince. Not unless he’s willing to give you a quote.

He inserted his key in her lock and turned it.

Snick. The two halves of the suitcase sprang open the way women probably welcomed him all the time.

Oh, my. Lauren hadn’t been expecting anyone to open her lock; she’d kept herself so focused on interviewing people that she’d sidestepped most of the possibilities. It was one thing to ogle this guy and appreciate him the way she did good food and beautiful scenery. But now that he had the key to her lock, she either had to let herself go and enjoy whatever he had to offer, or—or what? Leave?

Suddenly escape looked much less appealing than it had a few minutes ago.

“I finally lucked out.” He smiled down at her. “I have to admit I was here more for the benefit part than the key part. But now it looks as if the benefit is all mine.”

“We’ll have to see, won’t we?” Lauren sounded a lot more casual than she felt as she fished out the paper slip her suitcase held. “We turn this little piece of paper in to Maureen and get a prize, then she enters us in the big drawing. But you go ahead. I have to talk to someone.”

“Oh, no. We’re in this together.”

He offered her his hand and, instead of murmuring the excuse that fluttered on her tongue, she found herself taking it and allowing him to lead her to the stage. His fingers were warm and very sure as they wrapped around hers.

“I’m Josh, by the way.” He glanced down at her, one eyebrow raised. She’d thought only English actors could pull off that lazy, inquiring brow. It managed to transmit both interest and inquiry in one movement.

Sigh. No, you have to work tonight. Don’t you? “Lauren.”

Since he was already holding her hand, he couldn’t exactly shake it. He squeezed her fingers instead. He might have been about to say more, but behind a knot of people, Lauren caught a glimpse of the Alien Bodyguard kid’s leather jacket. Aha!

“Josh, I don’t mean to be rude, but I really do need to speak to someone.” She tried to disengage her hand. The part of her that loved forties swing music and bought antique clothes wondered why she was giving up a chance with a gorgeous, interested man in favor of a kid who didn’t even know who she was. “I’m a journalist, and I’m after that kid over there in the jacket.”

“Kit Maddox? No problem, I’ll wait.”

What circles did he move in that he knew the actor’s name? Maybe he was in the movie business. Maybe she should introduce him to Rory. But then, it was a safe bet he wouldn’t be there when she got back. Mentally, she kissed the delectable Josh goodbye and headed off across the floor.

Five minutes and one dance later—did anyone have any idea how hard it was to hold a recorder while someone was dipping you?—she had her celebrity quote. Now she could go home and make Lorelei eat some crow in public about her treatment of Alien Bodyguard, and go into a snit about it, which would make people respond on the chat board, which would make traffic spike, which would make the Queen of Pain happy.

She detoured around a couple who looked as if they were doing gym exercises to “Hot, Hot, Hot,” and found Josh standing right where she’d left him.

The impact hit her under the ribcage. Had he been watching her dance with Maddox? Had he liked what he’d seen? What presence the guy had. He stood there, one hip cocked and one hand in the pocket of his black jeans, in a pose straight out of GQ or Esquire.

The appealing thing was, he seemed to be completely unaware of both pose and the fact that women were ebbing and flowing around him like a crowd of interested muses. Lauren liked that in a man. Not that she thought everything should be all about her—except when it came to competing for the bathroom mirror.

He strolled over, parting the disarray with effortless ease. “I saw you caught Maddox. Did you get what you needed from him?”

He had been watching her, just the way she was watching him. “Yes, and now I need something from you. How do you do that?”

He looked around, a charming little wrinkle between his brows. “Do what?”

She shook her head with a smile. “Never mind.” If he didn’t know the effect he had on women, all the better. Though why she was thinking about sharing the bathroom mirror at all was something she didn’t want to go into at the moment.

“So tell me what you need from me,” he said. “Before I make a few suggestions myself.”

Lauren swallowed. His voice, even with a hint of a rasp around the edges, was as alluring as dark chocolate—and no doubt just as bad for you. But…her research was done and he was here and after all, it had been a long time since a man had looked at her like this.

“I need—” I need you to go somewhere dark and quiet with me. I need you to unlock my possibilities.

No, you can’t say things like that to a stranger. Mikki can, but not you.

“I need you to give me an interview,” she blurted. “I’m working on a piece about key parties and you’re gorgeous. I mean, perfect. I mean, perfect for my demographic.”

Oh, God, could she just die now and get it over with?

But when he threw back his head and laughed, she realized he wasn’t laughing at her. He had the same kind of let-it-all-out humor that Emma Constable, her foster mother, possessed. The kind that attracted people to her the way people always walk to a fireplace when they enter a room.

“Is that all you want me for?” Josh said at last, when his amusement had simmered down to a smile. He smiled with his whole face, eyes included, which were crinkled at the corners. “I was hoping for a little more than that. Such as a prize. And a drink. And a dance, too. To start.”

The smile took on another dimension, something hot and focused and filled with meaning.

Whoa. Lauren tried to take a breath and found she had to work at it. “Demanding, aren’t you?”

“Not demanding.” His eyes sparkled. “But when a woman tells me she needs me, I like to give her options.”

Oh, there were definitely options here. Excitement and anticipation began to beat in her blood. “Why don’t we start with the prize? That’s the easy part.”

“And the rest of it’s hard?”

Lauren gave him a sideways glance as she led the way to the stage, a glance filled with humor and invitation. “That depends on you, doesn’t it?”

He laughed again as they reached the podium. Maureen looked from Lauren to her companion and Lauren could swear the other woman physically restrained herself from reaching out and stroking him.

Lauren could hardly blame her, since she felt like doing that herself. Josh was incredibly touchable. The fabric of his shirt draped his shoulders and chest in a way that made you want to find out what was underneath. Most men wouldn’t have worn black jeans to a semi-dressy event like this, but then, she didn’t hear any of the women complaining about the way those jeans hugged him at thigh and hip. Or the way they accentuated his long stride.

Josh took the pair of tickets Maureen handed him and gave one to Lauren. “Dancing in the Street.” He glanced at her. “I can’t remember the last time I went to the theater. The way my work schedule has been, I think it was 1999.”

Uh-oh. Shades of Carl the programmer.

The jungle beat of anticipation in Lauren’s veins faded to a four-finger tap of disappointment. She knew the type—they romanced you just because they could, and then on Monday it was back to work in the corporate castle, where they felt safe and in control, and people were paid to do what they said, and they forgot to call.

Sure, he might be interested. God knew she was. But not enough to risk her self-esteem yet again with a guy who would put her on his scale of priorities somewhere between the office and his daily workout at the gym.

She needed to get out of this gracefully, with her pride still intact. Behind Josh’s back, Lauren raked the sea of people with a hasty glance. Where were her sisters when she needed them?

GETTING THE LOVELY LAUREN to stay in one place long enough to talk to her was proving to be as difficult as pinning down George Lucas for an interview.

Josh had succeeded with Lucas, mind you, and the resulting story had been in the issue the magazine’s readers had voted “Best of 2004.” But so far tonight, all he’d managed with Lauren was to launch her at Kit Maddox—thereby losing a dance—and to win a theater ticket, after which she’d promptly vanished.

So she’s not interested. Write it off.

That was the problem. He could swear she was interested. Part of it was the way she said outrageous things and then let her hazel eyes lock on his mouth while she waited for him to respond. Part of it was the way she’d looked at him after she’d come back from her dance with Kit Maddox—she’d lit up like a kid at Christmas when she’d seen him waiting for her at the edge of the dance floor. It was pretty hard to resist a woman who looked at you like that.

Not that Josh had any intention of resisting. Until now he’d poured his concentration into work, into making enough money so that he’d finally feel safe. He had a knack for analyzing popular trends and seeing what consumers were going to need a few years down the line. That, combined with a business confidence that appealed to fellow venture capitalists, had made him a success in the oak-sheltered enclaves along Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley.

However, it didn’t do a damn thing for his social life. Which brought him back to this club and Maureen Baxter’s charity bash. She was a friend of one of the other investors in Left Coast magazine, who had talked him into coming after the last quarterly forecast meeting. It hadn’t taken much to convince him. It was time to put some serious investment into the opposite sex.

Both women and entertainment hadn’t been on his agenda much in recent years. He was—he admitted it—rusty. He was going to change all that.

Okay. But there are a lot of beautiful women here in short black skirts with fabulous legs. Pick one of them.

Nope, he thought, obstinate even with the voice of reason in his head. I have the key to Lauren’s lock. That’s supposed to mean something.

The adventurer in him enjoyed a challenge. The logician figured the odds were pretty good she was as attracted to him as he was to her. And the male underneath it all wanted to know how those legs might feel wrapped around his waist, what that generous mouth would taste like under his, wanted to test the weight of those small breasts under her fragile silk top.

If things progressed that far. He was going to do everything in his power to see that they did.

Fifteen minutes later he found her sitting alone at a table near the dance floor, speaking rapidly into a minirecorder. The music had slowed down, and colored spotlights circled the floor, illuminating her skin and then leaving her in the muted glow of the table lamp.

He folded himself into the spindly gilded chair next to her and waited for her to finish dictating her thought. “No rest for the published,” he said, indicating the recorder.

She didn’t apologize for losing him earlier. Nor did she look unhappy to see him. Either she had social Attention Deficit Disorder or she was focused in a major way on her story. He liked focus in a woman. But selfishly, he wanted that concentration turned on him for a little while.

“I still have what you need,” he went on. “We haven’t gotten around to that interview yet. Who do you write for?”

She put away the little unit in an evening bag that, from what he could see, didn’t have room for much more than the recorder, a credit card and a lipstick. As she concentrated on the mundane task, her hair tumbled forward and hid most of her face. “I’m a freelancer. Anyone who will pay me, basically.”

“I know how that goes,” he said with sympathy. In his view, it wasn’t important that he owned a thirty-three percent interest in the magazine. What mattered was the writing. He’d been submitting stories on spec since he’d been in high school, and his progress toward acceptances by Left Coast put him, in his opinion, at the top of his game. “Some months I could barely come up with the rent, much less pay the bills.”

She shook her hair back. “Are you a journalist, too? I thought you might have been in the movie business.”

He made a face. “Not me. The closest I get to movies is interviewing the odd producer or actor, which is why I knew Kit Maddox. No, I write for Left Coast.”

Something flashed in her eyes before her lashes came down and veiled them. “Lucky you. I’m not sure Left Coast is in the market for a piece on key parties.”

“You wouldn’t think so,” he said easily. “Depends on the slant.”

“Oh, come on. They only buy the kind of stuff that wins prizes. And I hardly think the Pulitzer panel would consider something like this.”

From her tone, he couldn’t tell whether that was a good thing or a bad one. “Well, I don’t write my stuff with the Pulitzer committee’s opinions in mind. Talk about a way to shut down your creativity.”

To his relief, she smiled and the light came back into her face. For a moment suspended in time, he gazed at her. Her skin was smooth and tinted with color, her eyes the color of tea in the warm light from the lamp. Hair like spun taffy cascaded around her shoulders in an uncontrolled way that gave him an involuntary picture of how it would look tumbled on a pillow.

His pillow.

Tonight.

The band launched into the sensual, minor chords of an old blues song. At the same moment Lauren raised her gaze from where it had settled on his lips and met his eyes. He’d wanted that look turned on him. Oh, yes. Josh felt a shower of heat.

“Why did you run away from me?” he heard himself say.

The music wrapped around them, insinuating itself into his heartbeat, pulling them together. “Because you’re a menace,” she said softly.

A menace? Had he misheard her? He leaned in, close enough to hear. Close enough to smell her perfume. “How can that be?”

“The way chocolate is. The way it’s so bad…and tastes so good.” Her voice was low, her gaze locked on his mouth in a way that excited him past bearing.

“Would you like to dance?” His words came out involuntarily, a knee-jerk reaction to physical stimulus instead of the result of actual thought.

In response, she rose and held out her hand. He took it and led her onto the dance floor, feeling her fingers, cool and slender, in his. A pianist’s hands. Or a journalist’s, made for keyboarding. Touch typing.

Touching.

Would you relax? It’s just a dance. Keep this up and she’ll have you arrested.

She was too tall to fit under his chin, but she fit pretty nicely everywhere else. Her cheek brushed his as she settled into the rhythm of the music, their feet sliding into a lazy rhumba step.

“You’ve had some experience at this,” he murmured into her hair, trying to make small talk while he got his equilibrium back.

“You like the way I move, do you?”

So much for small talk. In the space of eight words she turned the dance inside out so that all he sensed was the feel of her, the scent of her hair that combined something herbal with lemon, and the way her thighs brushed his with every step. He was pretty much in sensory overload, with no cycles left to initiate speech, so he settled for a noise in his throat that meant he agreed.

Yes, sir. His whole body agreed.

“I never thought of dancing as a social activity,” she murmured. “Everyone should just admit that it’s the opening act to something much more fun.”

“Like what?” he managed to ask.

“I’ll give you one guess.” Her smile told him he wouldn’t need more than that. But that smile, up close and personal, scrambled his brain.

Get a grip. Maybe you’re misreading her. “An interview?”

She giggled against his shoulder and he closed his eyes in sheer pleasure at the movement of her breasts against his chest. So much for getting a grip. Try again.

“I’m still working on my original list. I’ve got the dance. We can have a drink afterward. And then it’s up to you.”

He hoped that she opted for “full speed ahead.” His body, her body, the gypsy-blues music—all three combined in a heady mix that was going to set off fireworks any minute now.

Hell with it—maybe he should just think about getting Lauren out of here.

“About that interview,” she murmured in his ear. Her lips moved against his earlobe and made desire spike through him. “I’m trying to think how I might describe you.”

“Hardworking writer? Owns his own condo, paid off his car, definitely interested in the author of this piece. How’s that?”

“Mmm, I was thinking of something more descriptive. Like a dark chocolate truffle. Sinful and rich and everything I know I shouldn’t want, but that I crave.”

She craved him? Josh gave up on trying to talk his body out of doing what it wanted to do when hers obviously wanted to do it, too. He glanced over the heads of the crowd. Where the hell was the door?

“I’m not sure I want you to think of me as food,” he murmured. “Teeth are scary to a guy.”

Again, her breasts bumped his chest gently as she muffled a laugh in his shoulder. And again, sparks of heat flared to life in his blood.

“I never use teeth on a truffle. I like to lick them on the outside until they melt. Then explore their lovely rich centers with my tongue.”

Breathe, before your lungs collapse. “Suck them dry, do you?”

“Oh, yes,” she purred in his ear. “And they love every minute of it.”

Need sang through every vein and he forgot dance steps, propriety, everything but getting her alone. Then he remembered the private dining rooms, big enough for half a dozen—or two. With any luck, one of them would be empty. He slid his arm closer around her waist so that her hips ground against his and danced her over to the dark side of the room.

THE UNIVERSE WAS LAUGHING at her, Lauren thought, trying to talk sense to herself when her body and her runaway mouth definitely did not want to be sensible.

Yes, she was dancing to something very sexy and slow with a man who turned her knees to butter. Yes, her deprived libido had taken over and given him a shameless come-on.

She was behaving like the notorious Lorelei, the woman who chewed social commentary and pop culture for lunch, the woman the male sports writers loved to hate. Why, oh, why, did she have to be unlocked by a staff writer from Left Coast magazine, the very place she’d give her eye teeth to write for?

She’d laugh about this with Rory and Mikki tomorrow, over a latte and at least two of Rory’s blueberry-cheese croissants. But for now she was going to steal these lovely moments and enjoy the heck out of them for as long as they lasted.

Because of course they wouldn’t last. She couldn’t afford to keep him around, looking gorgeous and sounding sinful and jeopardizing her career with every breath he took.

The music merged into something just as slow and sexy, some Latin love song that picked up where the gypsy blues left off. Josh’s arm tightened around her and their haphazard direction took on purpose. Lauren brought her mind back from the hazy place where it was thinking about truffles and sex to the clear place where it thought about danger and realized that Josh had danced her into one of the club’s private dining rooms.

“Now, then,” he murmured, and pulled her flush against him. They might have had to be socially acceptable on the main dance floor, but in here, it appeared, all bets were off.

Yes, it was dangerous. But, oh, Lord, it felt so good. The two White Knights she’d consumed earlier had made her low opinions of key parties and her determination to work go all blurry and insubstantial. And who wanted opinions, anyway, when reality had eyes like this and a mouth to die for? What she wanted was Josh, and he was pressing against her at this moment as though he meant business. She slid her arms around him and let her body melt into the hardness of his.

Really hard.

Her knees, which had begun to get their strength back, weakened as her body welcomed the bulge behind the button fly of those black jeans. Desire spangled her blood with tiny little rockets, all going off at once.

“Josh,” she managed to get out, “what if someone comes in?”

“We’re slow dancing,” he murmured, his lips brushing her ear, his hips suggesting illicit things against hers. “Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

She shivered. If his mouth could make her body react like this when he spoke, what would happen if he actually kissed her? And those hips—they promised paradise. “Not as long as you stay between me and the door over there.”

“What is it about you that has this effect on me?” he whispered. His tongue touched her earlobe and she closed her eyes as the little rockets went off again, trailing fire from her ear to her belly.

“My razor-sharp intellect?”

His hands slid over her skirt. “Mmm. That’ll do for a start.”

She couldn’t stand it one more second. Leaning into him, she backed him against the wainscoting and took his mouth with hers.

He made a little sound of pure male pleasure in his throat and his lips opened. His mouth wooed, his tongue seduced and, before she knew it, it was she who was backed against the paneling, hanging on to him for dear life, because by God, if she let go she’d fall. She put everything she had into kissing him because he demanded no less.

Somehow he knew when to release her and let her breathe, dropping his lips to the neckline of her tank top and tracing kisses over her collarbone, working his way along her throat.

If it were possible for a man to seduce and worship at the same time, Josh was doing it.

When one hand slid up and cupped her breast, Lauren was sure she would come just from the fire of sensation in her nipple under his teasing thumb. She felt barely contained, ready to erupt. She was so ready, in fact, that if he even—

The other hand slid under the hem of her short, black chiffon skirt. Her thigh muscles, which under any other circumstances would have tightened in preparation for fending off the attack, relaxed and said, “Oh, yes.”

“No stockings,” he whispered in her ear, setting off a host of goose bumps. He touched her thigh, then cupped her bottom again, with no fabric between her skin and his bare hand this time. A brief exploration gave him his answer. “A thong.” His voice held pleased discovery. “What color?”

What color? The color of flushed skin, the color of ripe fruit…oh, that was it. The color of her tank top.

“Peach,” she managed to say.

“I love peaches.” He slid one finger under it in back.

“Josh,” she sighed, “someone’s going to come…”

“I certainly hope so,” he said, and slid the finger over her hip under the satiny cord, then down the front. His hand flattened against her pelvic bone while his finger found what it sought.

She moved her feet apart just enough to give him access and hung on as his finger slid into her folds, soft and swollen and wet, waiting for him. In three slow strokes he had her whimpering for release, and with one more it happened. An urgent orgasm exploded under that clever fingertip and spread through her belly, legs and all the way out to her fingers.

Silently she convulsed against the wall, head thrown back, body a river of sensation, while he dropped her skirt and pressed her against the wall in a hot, demanding kiss.

Seconds later Maureen Baxter walked in with half a dozen investors.

From Lorelei’s blog

Before I went to the key party at Clementine’s, I wasn’t keen about just any random guy opening my lock. After all, how realistic is it to expect that you’d find the person who’s right for you that way? The chances of winning the lottery are better. But now I’m reconsidering. The bash itself was a smashing success, and I don’t just mean Baxter House, which now has enough in donations to commence building again. I mean that I met someone. Maybe it’s only reasonable to expect the love of an evening. Or an hour. But, as the tag line on the tickets said, I unlocked a few possibilities, and for fifty bucks you can’t ask for more than that.

For more on key parties, speed dating and other postmodern social customs, pick up San Francisco Inside Out and check out Lauren Massey’s article in the Scene section. She was at Clementine’s, too, in the company of the beautiful and scary Michaela Correlli, local child advocate, and the divine Aurora Constable, proprietor of Lavender Field. Did I mention the blueberry-cheese croissants?

Lorelei

3

AT THREE IN THE MORNING, Lauren uploaded “The Key to a Girl’s Heart” to Inside Out’s FTP site so the production team could transfer it into layout for this week’s issue. Lorelei’s blog was already posted, ready and waiting for the regulars on her bulletin boards to sign on with their morning latte and read about her experience at the key party. Having Lorelei reveal something as personal as not only going to a local party, but meeting someone there, was an unusual enough event that a couple of thousand hits and some lively traffic were guaranteed. And if even a small percentage of those people went out and bought the paper to read her article, the Q of P would leave her alone. Maybe for as long as a week.

It was a good article. She might even be able to use it in her clip portfolio if she ever landed an interview at Left Coast.

Left Coast.

Josh.

Lauren’s concentration shattered. Again.

The locks rattled and Vivien slipped through the door, looking a little disheveled. Lauren glanced over her shoulder and smiled.

“Hey, girl. Want a nightcap? Rory scored me some of the Chardonnay left over from the party. Not to mention two boxes of yummies from Lavender Field.”

Viv smiled weakly. “No, thanks. I’m going to hurt enough in the morning as it is.”

“It is morning.”

“I rest my case.”

“Poor baby.” Lauren shut down her laptop. “How’d it go?”

Viv kicked off her high heels and reached around to unzip her dress. “I met someone.” She stepped out of the little turquoise-silk number and padded into her room to hang it up.

“Did you? Your key partner? Damn, I should have waited. I could have used you for a before-and-after scenario.”

“I did what you said.” Viv came back wrapped in her bathrobe and sank into one of their retro kitchen chairs upholstered in yellow vinyl. “I found someone who wasn’t looking for a female partner and traded my key for his lock. But it took some doing.” She sighed and cocked an eye in Lauren’s direction. “Life would be so much easier if you were a lesbian.”

“Sweetie, you know we’d make a terrible couple. I’m hardly ever here, for starters.”

“I know, I know. But my grandma likes you.”

“One of these days you’re going to have to tell her.”

Vivien laid her flushed cheek on the cool Formica-topped tabletop. “I can’t. She was born in Shandong province, as she never misses an opportunity to remind me. They don’t have gay people there, apparently. She’s still very traditional, and all her friends do nothing but talk about marrying off their kids and grandkids. The disgrace would kill her. Not to mention there’d be no hope of a great-grandson to make up for me being such a flop as a granddaughter.”

Viv had come out in their senior year, a miserable year during which Lauren stuck by her through a heartbreaking romance, idealistic campus activism, and her growing inability to communicate frankly with the matriarch she both adored and feared. In Lauren’s view, good friends were a rare commodity. Once she gave her loyalty, it was given for good, and she and Vivien had come out on the other side of that year as women instead of girls.

“It would end your having to go to the Saturday night suppers she sets up with eligible Chinese boys from good families,” Lauren pointed out gently.

“Those dropped off after I started school again,” Viv said into the table. She lifted her head. “Grandma doesn’t want me to be a software geek like Dad, but it’s going to happen anyway. I think she’s giving up on that part.”

“But you came out to him last year and he was fine with it. Maybe he could do the deed.”

Viv sat up and leaned her chin on one hand. “It’s not Dad’s problem. I have to do it, and I can’t. But the alternative is waiting for her to die, and she’s in way too good a shape for that. She teaches Tai Chi to old people, for God’s sake.”

“Seventy-two isn’t old?”

“Not in her book.” Vivien sighed. “Maybe I’ll have some of that Chardonnay after all.”

While Lauren uncorked the wine, Vivien told her about the girl she’d met and how they’d gone somewhere else for a quiet supper. Vivien took the glass and sipped gratefully. “So what about you? I saw some tall guy with a terrific butt move in on you but didn’t see the end result. No pun intended.”

Lauren sank onto their secondhand couch with a sigh. The wine was excellent—much better than she could usually afford. Bless Rory’s heart for keeping an eye out for her.

“The end result was orgasm. And a fine example of its kind, too.” The corners of her lips turned up in a smile at the memory.

“What?” Viv clutched the lapels of her robe together and looked around a little wildly. “He’s not still here, is he?”

“No, no.” Lauren waved her into her chair. “He’s never been here.” She grinned. “We never even left the restaurant.”

Her roommate stared. “Tell all. And quick.”

When Lauren finished the story, Vivian grabbed what was left of her glass of wine and drained it. “Do you mean to tell me—”

“Yup.”

“Right there in the—”

“Yup.”

“And then Maureen—”

“Oh, yeah.”

“But then what—”

“All she saw was two people kissing in an empty room, and she took it as a personal triumph. Big success for the key party idea and all that.”

“Do your sisters know about this?”

After a moment Lauren admitted, “No.” Mikki would think it was a hoot, but Rory, though she embraced life with gusto in other ways, was cautious to a fault about relationships. Lauren wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what Rory thought of a man who could literally make a woman come with a kiss.

“I tried calling her earlier, but I think I’m going to wait until things are a little further along before I say anything,” she said at last.

“Speaking of a little further along… So that was it? He lights your rocket and then kisses you good-night? Where is he? Or maybe I should ask why you’re here?”

Lauren had been asking herself that for the past two hours. The left side of her brain had been busy writing copy while everything else had been permeated with Josh—the scent of him, the heat, the way his hands had felt on her skin. Everything added up to one grand, orgasmic total. Lord only knew what would happen if they actually managed to make love somewhere horizontal.

Vivien was still waiting for an answer.

“I had to get this story in.”

One of Viv’s eyebrows rose. “And this is a reason to not go home with someone you’ve actually had a chance to test drive first?”

Lauren made a face at her. “Does your grandmother know you talk like this?”

“Don’t try to distract me. Come on. ’Fess up.”

She tried to arrange some words that would make sense and finally gave up. “I don’t know. I kind of freaked and took off afterward. I mean, he was like this tidal wave of sensation and when it was over it left me feeling kind of…”

“Washed up on the beach?”

“Nice metaphor. What am I, a whale?”

“Nah. One of those little transparent things that wiggle.”

“A jellyfish. Thank you so much.”

“No, not a jellyfish. Those little silver fish you can never catch because they’re too fast. An apt metaphor, I would say, for someone who runs away and chooses work over doing the horizontal boogie with Mr. Come As You Kiss.”

“Ow.” Lauren winced. “I hate when you do that.”

“What, tell the truth?”

“You and Mikki. Between the two of you, I can’t get away with a single thing.”

“My purpose in life is to keep you honest,” Viv said virtuously. “You’ve got to stop doing this, you know.”

“Doing what?”

“Backing away when things get interesting.”

Lauren was beginning to feel a little cornered, but if she showed it, Viv would pounce. “I had to work. Besides, it puts me in control. Leaves him wanting more.”

“Leaves him wondering what the hell happened, you mean. What are you going to do now?”

“I’ll call him, of course.”

“He gave you his number? That’s a step in the right direction.”

“Not exactly.” She’d been so dazed by what they’d done and had had such an attack of second thoughts that she’d dashed off. “I left before I got it.”

“That’s okay. He’s probably in the book.”

“I didn’t get his last name, either.”

Viv raised her eyebrows. “Geesh. And here I thought you were the detail girl. The one with all the sources and resources. The one who follows up her follow-ups. What happened?”

Josh had happened. Like a tsunami or something that had tossed her around and thrown her up on a strange beach, with no footprints on it to guide her.

“I was busy coming,” she said airily. “Besides, he works at Left Coast. I know exactly where they are. How hard can it be to find him?”

MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, Josh didn’t know what to do with an in-between kind of day like Saturday. As a venture capitalist, he’d scheduled them much the same as he might a regular weekday. He’d rent a boat and take a client sailing out of the Santa Cruz yacht harbor, or he’d book a conference room at an airport hotel and catch an Asia-Pacific exec between flights to negotiate funding. Sundays were reserved for family, such as it was. His mother cooked a roast beef on Sundays, with regal disregard for heat and mad cow scares alike. But Saturdays were still a loose end.

He’d come home from the party horny and unsatisfied, but with the same sense of triumph as when he’d inked a deal. Call him kinky, but making lovely Lauren come in public had been one of the high points of his life. He wanted to do it again. Well, maybe they could choose their locations better, but a repeat was definitely on the agenda.

As soon as he could find her.

He couldn’t remember a single day in his life when emotion had gotten in the way of rational behavior. Getting a name and phone number would have been rational. But amid the laughter and noise of Maureen Baxter and her crowd surprising them in the private room, Lauren had taken the opportunity to disappear. And though he’d hung around for an hour afterward, trying to find her, he’d had no success.

Yes, it was clear he was rusty in the romance department. It wasn’t that he hadn’t had his opportunities. In fact, Elena Vargas had made it more than clear that she and her winery had no problem taking him on as a partner in both business and love.

He had thought she was “the one,” and given that relationship his best, but he’d been wrong. Still she had taught him what his limits were. And when it came down to giving all you had only to have a woman as emotionally exhausting as Elena demand more time, more money, more attention, more sex, he’d realized that there had been nothing left for him. After that he’d found himself pulling back when he started to get to know someone better. He’d been briefly interested in one of the developers in a little company that he’d funded, but even though Maddie was smart and fun to be with, it seemed that Elena had sucked out of him all the desire to get close to a woman again.

Until Lauren. He hadn’t felt this sense of excitement and anticipation in a long time. Maybe never.

He stretched in his chair and tilted up his coffee cup, only to find it empty. The fog that shrouded the windows of his condo told him it would be sunny later, but he didn’t mind fog. It helped him focus, and he needed to do that if he planned to put together three thousand words for Left Coast.

He poured the last of the coffee into his mug and rinsed the carafe, dumping the old grounds into the trash. Then he padded back to his desk and the laptop that hummed happily on it.

Buying an interest in the magazine had been easy. Being one of its contributors was not. His managing editor had told him once that part of what made him successful was his voice—a little cynical, a little deadpan, like Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show.” Readers ate it up, and he was proud of the stories under his byline.

This one was a little different, though, probably because it was turning out to be permeated by a certain long-legged blonde in a black skirt. Oh, he wasn’t telling tales or anything. But the key party was a kind of test case for a pet theory he had about a society with what he thought of as “Social A.D.D.” A society that went for short-term solutions such as speed dating and Internet clubs instead of good, old-fashioned relationships that took a long time to develop.

Right, his inner cynic scoffed. That little interlude with Lauren sure took a long time to develop.

He still could hardly believe he’d done it. Maybe that was why he was thinking about her so much. She’d driven him into behavior that was so unlike him it was almost freeing. And the problem with things that set you free from your own constraints was that sooner or later you landed with a thud.

But he wasn’t going to think about the thud. What he needed to do was to finish up this story, ship it and break out his research skills to find her.

At noon he saved the file up to the magazine’s server in John Garvey’s review folder. His managing editor had a blurry definition of “weekend,” too, and would appreciate having a look at the copy in advance. Then he picked up the phone.

“Garvey.”

“Hey, it’s me. I just put my story on the server.”

“That’s what I like about you, McCrae. You, like me, have no life.”

“I have the perfect life. And it just got better.”

“What? I heard the lottery was up to eight million.”

“Nah, not that. You should have come to Clementine’s last night.”

“Oh, right. A meat market by any other name is still a meat market.”

“It isn’t a meat market. It was a charity function with benefits.”

“And you got some, from the sound of it. I heard they were giving away some nifty prizes. Maureen hit me up for a year’s subscription as one of them.”

“We got theater tickets.”

“‘We’? This is not a pronoun I usually hear you use. Wasn’t there some kind of goofy matchmaking thing going on?”

“It was a key party. My key unlocked the lock of the most beautiful girl you ever saw.”

“So why are you uploading articles and calling me? Why aren’t you spending this fine foggy morning with this girl?”

It would sound pretty lame if he said he’d lost his head and lost her.

“I lost my head and lost her.”

John was silent. “Lost her like she had a boyfriend already or lost her like she dumped you on your head and left?”

“Neither. I think she got cold feet. But I’m hoping you’ll call Maureen and get the guest list out of her. Lauren’s a freelance reporter. That should narrow down the possibilities.”

“I’ll say you lost your head. Jeez, Josh, getting the girl’s name and number is like Dating 101.”

“Yeah. So I was in detention the day they had that class. Are you going to help me out or not?”

“Of course I’ll help you. I needed to do a good deed today anyway. Call you back in ten minutes.”

Josh hung up and gazed out at the view. The fog was lifting. He’d get the number. And then he was going to see if lovely Lauren wanted to have a repeat of last night.

At a party just for two.

From Lorelei’s blog

Do you believe in love at first sight (LAFS)? I don’t, either. If you go for the romantic theory, two people can meet at, say, a key party, feel an instant connection, and somehow know that they fit together as well as his key fits into her lock. But if you’re not a romantic, you laugh at LAFS. Love, you say, is a series of chemical connections and neural synapses and is built up over time, so it’s pretty much impossible for LAFS to be real.

Sure, Man sees Woman and says, “Ugh. Must have sex.” Woman sees Man and says, “Hmm. Lots of tools and good cave. Make strong children. Possibilities there.” But LAFS? Uh-uh. Not gonna happen. Feel free to disagree with me.

Lorelei

4

“OKAY, SO IT ISN’T LOVE.” Lauren poured herself another glass of orange juice and offered the ceramic jug to her foster mother, Emma Constable, who smiled and shook her head. “But damn, the guy gave me an orgasm with our first kiss. I have to follow up.”

Michaela and Aurora exchanged amused glances. Contrary to what Lauren had expected, Rory made no wry comments about her instant lust with Josh. Was she too preoccupied with an unexpected attraction to her own key partner? With Rory, it was sometimes hard to tell.

“So what are you going to do?” Michaela cut a piece of their mother’s amazing tourtière from the ceramic pie dish and dug into it. Mikki enjoyed food the way she consumed life—with enthusiasm and complete disregard for such consequences as weight gain and cholesterol. “You don’t even know his last name. Honestly, girl, maybe you’d better stick with motorcycles.”

“Research—the journalist’s primary tool. As soon as the magazine office opens tomorrow I’m going to call and find out if he’s there.”

Michaela scraped pastry from her plate with the back of her fork. “I think you need a cooldown period before you go jumping into this.”

“I agree.” Emma drained her herb tea and got up to put the kettle on the stove for another pot, detouring out of habit around an eight-foot macrame sculpture that had hung from the beam that divided the open kitchen from the living room as long as any of them could remember. “If it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen.” Her sage-green linen skirt swirled around her ankles as she moved, and the tail of her long auburn braid, threaded now with strands of silver, brushed her hips. There was something very graceful about Emma Constable, as if every movement, every moment of living, were valuable and therefore should be made as beautiful as possible.

Emma made art out of living. Only one of the many, many reasons her foster kids loved her. One of the other reasons was her slightly unorthodox way of managing them. Lauren knew from experience that you hardly knew she was doing it until you found yourself doing the right thing in spite of yourself. Look how she and Michaela had turned out, after all. Now Mikki fought for other kids in the foster care system and Lauren had gone from being a silent, sullen teenager who viewed even a smile with mistrust to the most talked-about woman in San Francisco. Even if no one knew who she really was.

“If it’s meant to be, no one will mind me helping it along a little,” Lauren said.

“Yes, but what if things have changed in the light of day?” Rory speared a tomato in her salad and pointed it at Lauren. A drop of homemade dressing slid off it and back onto her plate. “That’s the problem with giving in to a moment of passion. You always have to deal with the morning after. It’s a cosmic rule.” She glanced at her mother with a fond smile.

“Tea?” Emma brought the kettle to the table and filled the teapot. The fragrance of smoked jasmine filled the air.

“No, thanks.” Michaela lifted a paper cup with a lid. “I’m still working on my venti latte.”

“You are so addicted to that stuff,” Emma said. “And check out the nonbiodegradable packaging.”

“But it tastes so go-o-o-d,” Michaela sighed, and winked at Lauren.

“I’ll have a refill.” The strong Indonesian tea wasn’t terribly high on Lauren’s list of faves, but she drank it because she loved Emma and she’d do almost anything to bring a smile to her face.

“So you guys think I should back away.” She brought the conversation back to ground. “Thanks a lot for your support.”

“We just don’t want to see you get hurt, honey,” Rory said. “After all, you only just met the guy, and he didn’t go out of his way to give you important details like his number. You don’t know anything about him. Well, except about the orgasm part.”

Lauren thought about Josh. About the sin in his eyes and the strength in his shoulders. About the sure way his fingers moved to bring her pleasure and the control in his body when they danced. About the way he smelled—clean and yet compelling. And yes, about the orgasm. She’d thought about that practically nonstop since the key party.

The fact was, she knew quite a lot about him. That was why, despite her sisters’ advice, she was going to come out of the bushes tomorrow and launch a full-scale attack.

WHEN SHE WASN’T IN CLASS, Vivien worked part time as a clerk/receptionist/minion at one of the venture capital firms in Palo Alto. Three weeks into her contract she’d discovered that Benjamin, Roy and Simons Company, or BrasCo for short, had masterminded the funding for Left Coast. As a courtesy, the magazine always sent over an early edition of that month’s issue. When Viv called as Lauren was driving back to their apartment on Monday after doing some research for an upcoming column, it was to tell Lauren she’d gotten her hands on the May edition.

“You’re not going to like it,” Vivien warned.

“Why not?”

“Because Vivien Li, girl detective, has solved the case of the mystery man.”

“Viv, if you confuse me any more I’m going to get dizzy and miss my exit. What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about this two-page spread under a byline by Mr. Joshua McCrae, with a very nice picture, I might add. Speaking strictly from an aesthetic point of view.”

A pickup blared at her as she swerved onto her exit ramp in the nick of time. “Josh McCrae? The Josh McCrae? The one that got that award last year for his interview with George Lucas?”

She needed to pull over. Fast.

“Well, your guy’s name is Josh and this article happens to be about key parties, speed dating and other social disorders, so by using my highly developed skills of deduction, I would say yes, they’re one and the same.”

“Read it to me.”

“Sweetie, I have twenty trunks and four of them are ringing. I have to go. See you at supper. I’m making shui jao.”

“Vivien!” Lauren wailed, but the line went dead.

There was no point dashing to the nearest newsstand because the issue wouldn’t be there yet. And Palo Alto was half an hour away, not to mention the fact that she couldn’t very well bust in on Vivien in her professional capacity. There was nothing for it but to wait.

When Lauren was nervous, she cleaned. Cleaning was the ultimate therapy—it imposed order on chaos. Usually cleaning was like writing articles—she preferred having done it to actually doing it—but in times of crisis, cleansers and scrub brushes were what she turned to.

She didn’t know what the article said, but from Vivien’s tone, she’d better not expect castles in the clouds and happy-ever-afters. What had he done? Surely he wouldn’t mention…no. Impossible. A decent man wouldn’t air his personal laundry in public for the sake of selling copies.

Not even the famous Josh McCrae, who could take anybody’s dirty laundry and sell it for more money than she made in a year.

By the time Lauren heard Viv’s key in the lock at six o’clock, she’d vacuumed all the floors, dusted, cleaned the bathroom and taken out the garbage. The apartment had had order imposed on it with a vengeance and Viv’s eyes widened as she put the bag of groceries on the counter.

“What brought this on?” She peered into the sink. “Wow. You even polished the icky crap-catcher thing.”

“That is a drain trap. Nothing brought this on. I’ve already poured the last of Rory’s Chardonnay to prepare myself, so give me that magazine.”

“Uh-huh.” Viv pulled Left Coast out of her briefcase with a flourish. “Don’t mind me. I’ll just cook.”

Lauren had already found the pages—128 and 129—and yes, the formal photograph next to the byline was so damn fine there was no doubt that the author was Josh. How had she not connected the first name with the photograph as soon as he’d said where he worked? She’d been reading his articles for at least a year, probably more.

Chalk it up to lust. In person, Josh was much more touchable and yummy than he was in the black-and-white photo with the tie, and besides, his hair was at least four inches longer now.

She skimmed the lead, then the first couple of ’grafs.

Tiffany—a fake name—is a case in point. At twenty-five she has given up on meeting eligible men in the conventional ways—at work, at church, in a group of people with similar interests such as hang gliding or Victorian architecture. That takes too much time, she says. Time away from what? I wonder. “At a key party you don’t sit around waiting for someone to approach you,” she says, her eyes leaving mine once every minute or so to scope the field behind me with the attention of a general checking his troops before battle. “With the lock and key idea, you get straight to it.”

But what if you don’t like the person? Are you locked into the date for the evening? “Of course not,” Tiffany assures me. “You can turn in your lock and get another one. Meanwhile, you’ve already met six other people who are trying you out.”

I feel like a size-eleven shoe. This is not how I want to feel at a social event.

OKAY, SO THAT WASN’T SO BAD. A little negative, but not the stuff of which social nightmares were made. Lauren took a sip of wine, gave herself a moment to wonder who “Tiffany” had been, then read on.

Lacey—again, not a real name—seemed atypical of the demographic. A professional in her late twenties or early thirties, she wasn’t there to find a possible partner. A worthy cause needed support, so she’d turned out to support it. But when the opportunity presented itself, she wasn’t above grabbing it—in the fullest sense of the word.

Ever heard of flash fiction—the telling of a story by the shortest possible means? How about a flash relationship? In the span of about two hours the relationship progressed through all the stages—meet, attraction, commonality, courtship and sex—and was over.

Is this what Social A.D.D. has brought us to? Right back to wham, bam, thank you, ma’am? I hope not—but at the same time, you have to wonder if the need for speed is worth it.

A sound that Lauren hardly recognized erupted from her own throat and Vivien turned from the counter, where she was putting dumplings in a pot of boiling water, an expression of alarm in her eyes.

“You all right?”

“Flash relationship—wham, bam—he’s got some nerve! Flash this!” Lauren fired the magazine across the room, where it slapped the apartment door and fell on the floor like an exhausted bird.

Vivien held the pot’s stainless-steel lid in front of her face like a shield. “I take it there was someone you know in there?”

“You know perfectly well ‘Lacey’ was me. I could kill that man. Making it sound like I was the one—when it was he who made me—ooh!”

Viv lowered the lid. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“Talk to Michaela.”

“Oh, there’s a good strategy. She’d just tell you to feed him into a wood chipper.”

“That’s a damn good strategy.”

“Effective in the short term, but fraught with consequences.”

“Don’t say that word!”

“What, fraught? I like it. It’s so Elizabethan.”

“No, short term!”

“Short term is two words. Come on. Think about this. I suppose it’s too late to get them to print a retraction.”

“Not gonna happen.” Lauren was silent for a moment. “But I can do the next best thing.”

“Which is…?”

“Get him to print an amendment. Another article, changing his tune.”

“And you’re going to do this how? Come on, these will be ready in a couple of minutes.”

While Lauren helped Vivien slice vegetables for the stir-fry a plan took form in her mind.

When dinner was on the table, she popped a dumpling into her mouth and took a breath to speak, then chewed instead. “Man, I wish I knew how to make these things the way you do. Anyone ever tell you you’d make a fine wife someday?”

“Yeah,” Viv said glumly. “My grandma. At least once a month. But we were talking about you. So you’re going to lambaste him publicly on your blog? That has possibilities.”

“No, I can’t do that. What if people put one and one together and figure out that Lorelei, who was going all dreamy in public, is actually Lacey the Flash Relationship? I can’t let someone get the better of Lorelei. The dope, at least he could have given me a better name.”

“It’s not our names that define us, it’s our behavior,” Vivien said philosophically, selecting a few more pieces of bok choy.

“Who said that? Confucius?”

“No. Li Ming-mei. Grandma.”

“She’s no dummy, your grandma. But that’s it. It’s the behavior I’ll change.”

“Whose? Yours?”

Lauren shook her head. “No. His. He doesn’t know I’ve seen the advance copy. But by the time it hits the stands next week I will guarantee you he’ll be in so deep with me he’ll never climb out again. And that will make him change his tune.”

“What about you? Are you going to get in deep, too? Actually do the dirty deed and fall in love?”

“With a guy who would stab me in the back like that in public? Not a chance. I’m going to teach him a lesson. Lorelei is definitely going to be on the loose.”

“God help us all,” Vivien said.

JOSH HAD BARELY hung up the phone from yet another voicemail to Maureen Baxter when the in-house Caller ID system told him the receptionist was on line one.

“Someone to see you, luv.”

The lunchtime relief went by the name of Jillian and affected an accent that was a weird mix of California and London. She also had a crush on Josh and made no bones about the fact that she’d like to jump his.

“Did they give you a name, Jillian?”

“What’ll you give me if I tell you?”

“Professionalism, Jill,” he reminded her with a private grimace. “Remember who you work for.”

With a put-upon sigh, she said, “It’s Lauren Massey.”

Josh ran through the list of people he had calls out to and requests for appointments with, and came up empty. “Ask her what she wants, will you?”

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