Indecent Suggestion - By Elizabeth Bevarly Page 0,4

“But it is a good time to quit smoking.”

“Becca…”

They’d had this discussion before, a million times, in fact, about how they needed to quit smoking if for no other reason than that it was unhealthy. True, they were only twenty-seven and feeling immortal, but they’d both be better off if they quit. And now, with their jobs at stake, they finally had the motivation. If they took the vow to quit smoking together, maybe they’d be successful this time. They could do like in those twelve-step programs and call each other whenever they were at risk of falling off the wagon. Lighting up the wagon. Whatever.

“Turner, this is a sign that’s it’s finally time for us to quit,” she said. “The habit is unhealthy, it’s expensive, it’s socially unacceptable these days, and now it’s about to cost us our jobs. We have nothing to lose by quitting, and everything to gain. And if we both make a pact to do it together, we can succeed this time. I know we can.”

“We’ve tried before without success,” Turner reminded her. “We’ve tried going cold turkey, we’ve tried the patch, we’ve tried the gum. Hell, we’ve even tried smacking each other upside the head every time we saw each other light up. But none of it has worked, Becca.”

“We haven’t tried hypnosis,” she said tentatively.

He gaped at her and for a moment said nothing. Wow. She’d never seen him speechless before. But maybe this meant he was at least considering it.

Then, “Oh, no,” he said. He shook his head forcefully, settling his hands on his hips. “No, no, no, no, no. No way. No how. Nuh-uh. Nein. Nyet. Non.”

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t at least considering it.

“I am not going to let someone hypnotize me,” he added unnecessarily. “That’s a load of crap.”

“It could work,” Becca said, a bit less tentatively this time. “It’s worked for other people. My aunt Louise stopped biting her nails after she was hypnotized.”

Of course, what Becca didn’t add was that Aunt Louise went in to be hypnotized for her phobia of eggplant, and these days she still broke into a sweat whenever she saw ratatouille. Even as a side dish. Hypnosis had been beneficial for her aunt in one way. Just, you know, not the right way.

Becca repeated, “It could work for us. We won’t know unless we try.”

Turner covered the short distance between them in three long strides and dropped into the chair beside hers. He sat the same way now that he had in high school, all sprawling limbs and masculine confidence. These days, though, he took up considerably more room than he had back then. Funny how he’d gone through that second puberty while they were in college at IU. He’d always been so skinny as a kid. Now he was solid rock.

Becca shook off the observation, almost literally. “We could at least try it,” she said more softly.

He met her gaze levelly for a moment, and Becca thought again what nice blue eyes he had. Maybe she couldn’t blame Loosey for being such a tart around him. The tart.

“Right,” he said tersely. “We let ourselves be hypnotized, and the next thing you know, we’re on a stage in Vegas with some guy in a red, crushed-velvet blazer, named the Amazing Mesmiro, and he’s making us bark like a dog and flap our arms like a chicken. Is that what you really want?” Turner dipped his head lower, smiled a seductive little smile and gazed at her through hooded eyes. He dropped his voice an octave or two as he added, “Because ya know, Becca, I can make you bark like a dog if I use the right words and touch you a certain way….”

His voice held just a hint of sexual innuendo, enough to bring that wet, naked-dream business rushing to the fore, and she made herself ignore the tremor of heat that splashed through her midsection. It always made her uncomfortable when Turner acted as though he wanted sex, even when she knew he was only joking. Those few occasions when the two of them had kissed and stroked and groped had ended awkwardly, and it had taken days, sometimes weeks, for the two of them to feel comfortable together again. Turner, especially, had seemed to have trouble getting back to normal. But because of their reactions to each other after getting even remotely sexual, they knew they weren’t suited to it. They were much better as friends than lovers. And Becca