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  Love Doctor

  Mari Freeman

  Love Doctor is a stand-alone sequel to Beware of the Cowboy .

  Just call Becky Cooper the Love Doctor. Everyone else does. What else would you call a woman who dates men, fixes their relationship issues then sends them off to find love and marriage? Her stellar record is nine for ten. Well, technically ten for ten…the tenth is in a relationship not yet recognized by the state of Texas. As far as Becky’s concerned, she’s providing a much-needed, super-fun service. She’s up for more fun and games during a business trip to New York, where she lets a sexy stranger control the remote to her vibrator. What follows is a night of heat to rival the Texas sun. Then she learns Craig, her nightlong stud, is actually E.C. Hill—

  attorney for the festival her company is hosting. Craig’s reputation as a workaholic precedes him. He’s precisely the sort of man in need of her services. It’s Love Doctor to the rescue!

  Craig, however, is less in need of therapy than Becky suspects…and has his own brand of medicine for the Love Doctor.

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Love Doctor

  ISBN 9781419927997

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Love Doctor Copyright © 2010 Mari Freeman

  Edited by Kelli Collins

  Cover art by Syneca

  Electronic book publication March 2010

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  LOVE DOCTOR

  Mari Freeman

  Dedication

  Thank you, Kelli, for all your patience and all your pushing. This book wouldn’t have been the same without you. (Just like all the rest.) I continue to learn and grow from your dedication. To Michael, for reading, caring, and nurturing the fun and the romance.

  Acknowledgements

  My friend Holly endured “the spill” in real life. Her retelling of the tale made me laugh until I snorted and I was unable to do her actual experience justice in this book. She’s let me use her humiliation to entertain you. And I shut down her email with my non-work-friendly stories. She’s a good sport.

  Mari Freeman

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  2nd Avenue Deli: 2nd Avenue Delicatessen Inc.

  Calvin Klein: Calvin Klein Trademark Trust

  CNN: Cable News Network LP, LLLP

  The Muppets: Muppets Studio, LLC

  Oprah: Harpo, Inc.

  Perrier: Nestle Waters Société par Actions Simplifiee

  PETA: People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Inc. Shout: S.C. Johnson and Son, Inc.

  6

  Love Doctor

  Chapter One

  “You owe me an appletini, Becky.” Tanisha snapped her cell phone closed. “I just got confirmation of the last payment from Mrs. Anderson. I told you I would collect from them. Now you pay up.” She tipped her head to indicate the direction of the bar. Becky huffed. “Do you see how crowded it is over there?” Everyone in the place was under twenty-five, she noted. The sight of all the super-skinny girls in ultra-short skirts was beginning to make her feel old. One more reason to dislike this place. If the club hadn’t been located inside their hotel, Becky wouldn’t be here. She needed to keep it short tonight. A drink or two, a couple of dances and she needed to hit the hay. They had a big meeting in the morning.

  “I’m getting thirsty and I’m starting to feel the need to shake my groove thing.”

  Tanisha shooed Becky with her hands. “Go on. I want the good stuff too. None of that cheap vodka.”

  Becky shook her head. “Okay. Okay.” Tanisha had collected an unpaid invoice, adding about six grand to the bottom line for the month. Becky definitely wouldn’t skimp on her. And since Becky was now a full partner in Main Event Party Planning, she had a vested interest in the company’s bottom line. Her partner, Liza, would be pleased.

  As she headed in the direction of the nearest bartender, she realized the crowd had eased. A popular song must have coaxed many of the kids on to the dance floor. The drink retrieval wouldn’t be such a difficult task after all. She’d thought Dallas, her home base, was an expensive city, but the prices in this New York club made Becky swear. Out loud. She reached into her pocket to fish out enough cash to pay for the twenty-one-dollar martini, pulling out her bills, her driver’s license—and a little remote fob. It was black with a bright pink heart on it. 7

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  Becky surreptitiously pushed the first button and the vibrator in her pussy started up on a smooth, low setting. A push of the second button and it added a very slow, pulsing sensation against her G-spot. That’s the ticket. With her little friend, the bullet vibe, she could now handle the teenybopper bar and its distorted sound system. Tanisha loved the retro-disco scene, but Becky looked around without much enthusiasm. To her, the atmosphere felt thick with desperation. It passed for a night of dancing with her friends, but the men crowded into the room all looked overeager, grungy and unappealing. Evidently, an eagle printed on a distressed T-shirt was cool. She guessed there weren’t this many eagles left in the Pacific Northwest. She spotted maybe two men in the room over twenty-five. And they were the lingerers you find in every dance club. Those slimy guys who were stuck desperately trying to live out their glory days. They wanted nothing more than to hang out in the hip clubs and chase twenty-something girls. Not the kind of man Becky was interested in. None of these guys even qualified for her fixer-upper program. She was the Love Doctor at home. She dated guys long enough to find out what their relationship issues were then tried to help them break their bad habits. Once a guy remembered to pick up his dirty underwear from the bathroom floor and understood women need more from weekends than watching hockey games and sports news, she broke it off. Things were tidy that way. It had become her method of operation. Besides, Becky was only in her early thirties. She felt no need to rush into marriage. The bartender reached over the line of multicolored drinks in front of her to hand back her change. Drink and remote in one hand, Becky attempted an ill-advised onehanded sort through the bills and coins in the other, trying to leave a tip. In the process, she dropped the remote control to her vibrator.

  “Shit.” Becky scattered her change in an attempt at a quick retrieval, but only managed to slide the fob off the wet, slippery bar. It hit the floor and both the pulse and the vibrations stopped. Shit!

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  Love Doctor

  Becky recovered her money, shoving it in her pocket. She reached for the fob—but it was no longer on the floor.

&nbs
p; It was in a hand. A male hand.

  Still crouching, she glanced up to see the owner of the hand and found herself noseto-nose with a good-looking man crouching beside her, his eyes as green as hers. Becky smiled politely. He glanced down at the remote in his hand and back at her without straightening up. She could easily read the recognition on his face. He knew what he was holding. It wasn’t as if her car remote would have a sparkly pink heart on it. They straightened together and she found herself still looking him right in the eye.

  “I would think you’d want to keep a good hold on something like this,” he said, still not breaking eye contact. He was smiling. It was a genuine smile that reached his eyes, the kind of smile that reassured frightened puppies and old people. His hair wasn’t standing up and spiky like that of most of the kids in the bar and his sideburns showed a hint of gray. In the sun, she was sure it would be almost salt-and-pepper. Becky chanced a look down at his hand. It was gently holding the remote, his thumb brushing back and forth over the controls without applying enough pressure to change the settings. She felt herself tingling, wondering if he would push a button or not. Her heart was thumping as hard as the music. She wanted him to do it. She squeezed her muscles in anticipation. There were several settings on the bullet vibe inside her. She wanted to be surprised when he pushed her buttons. The suspense of the moment made for a very sexy cocktail.

  The man’s expression changed. One eyebrow rose and a crooked little grin crossed his lips. Was he trying to determine what she wanted? She thought so. The stranger glanced down to his hand again. He tapped the bottom button with his thumb, but not hard enough to actually restart the vibrations. Slowly, his gaze shifted back to hers. Becky gave him a tiny shrug.

  His eyes widened momentarily and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He wanted to play. But did he have the nerve? Did she, really? She watched several 9

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  expressions move over his handsome face as he seemed to be trying to decipher the situation. She wondered just how much was showing on her own face. At some point she would enjoy spending time analyzing this moment, but not now. This guy was a complete stranger. She should in no way be tempted to let him control her vibrator. It would be outrageous, slutty.

  And it would be oh so much fun.

  She was out of town. No one here knew her from Eve. It would be a little game for an hour or so. No harm. Right?

  She knew her answer. What would his be? She licked her lips before speaking.

  “You have a license to use one of those things?” she asked without a hint of shame in her voice. She was doing her best to keep her cool. Her mind made up, her body was screaming for him to push the button. Any button. Now.

  His eyes widened slightly once again and then he tilted his head to the side. “I let it expire last year. It’s been awhile since I’ve had my finger on a trigger like this. Is it locked and loaded?”

  “I like to keep one in the chamber. Always prepared, I say.”

  He gave her a satisfied grin and nodded a slight bit. He was willing to play. Becky stood firm, trying hard not to show the degree of excitement coursing through her. He had the next move. He took a sip from his glass and set it slowly back on the bar. No rush. A cool character, this one.

  It was turning out to be a very interesting evening after all.

  “Are you drinking that thing or are you just going to stand there holding it all night?”

  He gestured to the martini glass in her hand. Tanisha’s appletini. Becky had forgotten all about it. She’d spilled half of it as she’d fumbled to retrieve the remote and her change. Oh well. She’d buy her friend another one. Which reminded her…

  She glanced across the room and, indeed, all the girls were watching. 10

  Love Doctor

  Tanisha had spent her childhood summers in New York with her grandmother, and she’d called two of her cousins to join them tonight. All the women were several years younger than Becky, but she had needed to get out for a bit. She looked back at the green-eyed man holding her remote.

  “I’m here with some friends. I should take Tanisha her drink.” She looked over at the table and back to the guy again. He looked so smugly confident standing there with that remote, poised to fire.

  “I suppose you should.” He pushed the top button. “See you around,” he said—and walked away with the remote.

  Becky let out a small gasp as the vibe roared back to life. The burst of pleasure caused her to break her concentration for a slight moment and she lost her grip on the top-heavy martini glass. It bounced on stained flooring, but didn’t break. She reached down to retrieve the glass and her mystery man was gone from view when she turned to order another drink.

  If she had any reservations, it was too late. The vibrator was humming on the lowest speed. The whole situation had her so wet she could feel the slickness of her thong. The urge to reach down and rub her clit was almost overwhelming. The act of ordering and replacing the drink proved to be enough of a distraction to allow her to shake it off, gain a bit of composure.

  That little incident made the drink in her hand a forty-two-dollar martini. Worth every penny.

  She thought about the stranger again as she made her way back to the table. This could be a long night. She scanned the room, not finding him. He could have decided she was too much of a slut and left the building with her remote. Remembering the spark in his deep-green eyes, Becky was confident he was still around and it was merely a matter of time before she would feel his presence. Or maybe she was certifiable.

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  “You can’t pick one up here. You don’t have time to fix him,” Tanisha quipped when Becky reached the table, making bunny-ear quote marks in the air. “Even you can’t fix one in two days.”

  “You never know.” Becky handed her the drink. “I’m that good.” And she was. She didn’t mind Tanisha poking fun at her, either. She liked playing the Love Doctor role. Helping guys get over their relationship hang-ups and move on to find true love was just fine with her. She found ’em, fixed ’em and sent ’em on their happy little way. Usually they landed directly in the arms of a wife. Her record was nine and one. Nine had gone on to happy marriages and one was, well…in a committed relationship the state of Texas did not yet recognize.

  “Yeah. But two days?” Tanisha took a sip of her overpriced beverage. Becky wiggled as she sat, adding to the pleasing hum of the vibrator. “Remember Paul?”

  Tanisha rubbed her finger to her forehead. “I don’t think so.”

  “The piano player with the inferiority complex.”

  Tanisha sighed. “Lord yes. You’re right. One weekend with you in that dungeon place and he was a new man.”

  “Actually, it was less than two days. He thought no woman would ever look past his rather large nose. It only took one night before he realized his fingers were far more talented than even he knew. And I’ll tell you what—those fingers could make any woman see past his nose. Those digits were a delight.” She looked around for the gorgeous man with the green eyes. “But that guy at the bar was just a friendly flirt. We have work to do in the morning.”

  Becky thought of the Peanuts cartoon she had pinned up on the wall by her computer. It featured Lucy in her little wooden stand with the sign that reads, “The doctor is IN.” Today, the Love Doctor was OUT. She had a festival to put on.

  12

  Love Doctor

  Craig watched from the shadows. He’d taken up residence in a dark corner that wasn’t very far from her table of friends. She was still trying to get the bartender’s attention to replace the drink she’d dropped. He hoped the remote had enough range to work from this position, at least to start with.

  Questions rumbled through his mind. Who was this woman? What kind of sexual confidence must she have to give him control of her toy? How far did he think he could push this little game?

  Very far. He hoped.

  After adjusting his swelling
cock so his jeans weren’t mashing it, he decided he’d better calm down a bit. This beautiful woman may be inclined to play “surprise me”

  with the remote for a while, but that would probably be as far as it went. There was no sense in getting too worked up.

  He told himself that a couple of times, but his cock and his imagination were still thinking about the vibrator in her pussy.

  As the redhead left the bar, he realized he hadn’t even asked her name. He watched her move and wondered how she managed to return to her table, second drink intact, with a vibrator humming away inside her. Her friends were chattering away—no doubt asking about him and why she had taken so long. She laughed, letting her head fall back. He loved to see a woman who enjoyed laughing. What an intriguing creature this lady was, and that long, curly hair was simply irresistible. He wanted to run his fingers through it.

  She leaned forward to say something over the music, very close to the ear of the equally beautiful black woman sitting beside her. The woman’s face lit up and she laughed.

  No way had she told her friend about the game…

  He pushed the top button on the remote once more, and then the bottom, looking for a reaction. His target closed her eyes, her hand slid under her hair and she rubbed the back of her neck. He held his breath as she squirmed in her seat a little. 13

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  He wished he had a better knowledge of the remote and the levels. He’d played with one of these at a party. His friend had bought one for his wife and had been showing it off. Craig knew that one of the buttons varied the speed and one varied the pattern of the vibrations. He had no clue which button had which effect—only that it appeared to be doing something to the woman at that table. Whatever it did, it was working just as well for him as it was for her. The whole situation was driving him insane. He wanted to feel her pussy right now, wanted to know how wet he was making her, wanted to know how much she could take before she gave up or changed her mind and walked up and smacked his face. He was expecting her to rush off to the ladies’ room to take the thing out any second. Instead, she opened her eyes and looked around the room. She wasn’t panicking at all. Her lips pulled back into a secret, sexy smile that was just for him. It didn’t matter if she could find him or not. She knew he was close enough to watch her. He pushed the bottom button, still not knowing if he was changing the speed or the variation of the blast. She straightened and reached for the drink she had given to her friend. She slammed down over half the martini. The woman protested but his little redhead laughed it off and leaned away to talk to one of the other women. He scanned the room. Never would he normally have come to this place on his own. He’d met his cousin in the coffee shop in the lobby tonight and, for the third time, Tina had begged him to represent her animal-rights group. Craig had turned her down yet again. He’d managed to dance around the rejection without too much damage to his familial ties. He was a litigator after all. In the end, she seemed happy with the referrals he’d suggested but he’d sorely needed a drink.