Tender, Loving Cure

by Gayle Kasper

Genres: Women's Fiction; Romance; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

He’s a know-it-all doctor not interested in learning new tricks. She’s a powerful professional who can hold her own with any man. Class is in session in this sexy comedy of manners from beloved romance author Gayle Kasper.
 
Dr. Joel Benedict is a proper Bostonian, more likely to be caught daydreaming about sailboats than supermodels. He insists he doesn’t need to take the hospital’s Sex Talk seminar. Then he sees the temptress leading the class. Instantly enamored of the so-called sexpert, Joel soon feels a stirring passion he thought was long dead. Could she teach him to take the only chance that matters?
 
Maggie Springer’s provocative seminars are all the rage, except with the prudish problem student who dismisses her course as psychobabble. She sets out to free Joel’s inhibitions, to break through his cool facade—but Maggie finds that Dr. Benedict’s bedside manner could make a lady blush. And if Maggie gets too close, her private lessons may ignite a desire she never expected in her wildest fantasies.

Includes a special message from the editor, as well as excerpts from these Loveswept titles: Spellbound, Lightning That Lingers, and Legends.

Release date: October 10, 2011

Publisher: Loveswept

Print pages: 240

Sample

PROLOGUE
 
Dr. Joel Benedict glanced up from the thick patient chart on his mahogany desk to see his friend and partner sweep through the doorway of his office without even the courtesy of a preliminary knock. She had every appearance of a tank commander geared for battle, which Joel suspected could only mean trouble—no doubt with him on the receiving end of it. For the moment, at least, he’d let her think she was in charge, but that was a position he always reserved for himself.
 
“Would you like to come in, Lydia?” he asked with a wry smile as she seated herself in one of the maroon leather chairs in front of his desk as if she intended to stay until the next ice age.
 
She crossed one leg over the other. “Don’t be cute, Joel. I’m already in.”
 
“So I see. Well then, maybe you’d like to tell me what you came for, so I can get back to my work.” He waved a hand at the never-ending stack of papers that perennially collected on the far left corner of his desk. He hoped to clear it off early that day, along with the phone calls he needed to return, so he could get in at least an hour of sailing before the sun went down and he lost the breeze.
 
“I’ll be happy to.” Lydia slapped a brochure down in front of him, then tapped her surgeon’s index finger sharply against it. “I took the liberty of signing you up for a little continuing education, Joel. A class that’s guaranteed to … broaden your horizons.”
 
Joel arched one wary dark brow at her, then at the pamphlet she’d parked on his desk. His receptionist scheduled his seminars—not Lydia. What the hell was she up to? he wondered as he picked up the glossy item and scanned it for a clue.
 
His eyebrow rose a notch higher, and a slight mocking grin joined it on his face. “Sex Talk—presented by the renowned sexologist Margaret Springer. Sensual and lively—” He stopped reading and glanced at Lydia curiously. “The course or the woman?”
 
“Both—since you ask,” she answered with a slightly mysterious smile. “But I signed you up for the course, not the woman.”
 
Joel tossed the pamphlet back at her. “Why would I want to take some class that squeezes the life out of a topic like sex by discussing it ad nauseam? You like that kind of psychobabble, Lydia. You take the course.”
 
“I already have. And it’s not psychobabble, as you call it.”
 
“Yeah … sure. Well, you can count me out.” Joel preferred his sex in bed, not in the classroom, dissected and overanalyzed by some so-called expert with owlish glasses and an androgynous frame. Despite Lydia’s favorable depiction of this sexologist, he had his own image of Margaret Springer that he’d bet was a whole lot more accurate.
 
“Too late to avoid it now, Joel. You’re already registered,” Lydia informed him sweetly. “I’m on the hospital board this year, and I’m recommending it for all interns and staff doctors alike—especially the male ones.”
 
Her comment smacked of reverse discrimination. He should point that out to her, but there was a sailboat out there that was calling his name. And he still had work to finish.
 
“Look, Lydia, I don’t have the time—or the desire—to take this cockamamie course you’re promoting, so you can just unregister me.”
 
A frown insinuated itself between Lydia’s brows. “I don’t know why the male of the species is so reluctant to admit there’s a thing or two he could learn about sex, but it’s a fact. Add a doctor into that equation, and you have a man who knows it all.”
 
Joel had always worked hard to keep the aura of omnipotence out of his personality. He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m all for learning, Lydia, but that doesn’t include sitting through boring intellectual prattle about something that’s meant to be lustily enjoyed.”
 
“Oh, Maggie’s class won’t be boring, I can assure you of that.” She smiled dangerously. “And it’ll be lusty.”
 
 
ONE
 
Joel gave the exercise bike in the hospital fitness room extra leg action. He wasn’t entirely sure if that was what had his heart rate soaring, or if it was the tempting beauty doing her noon-hour workout in stretchy blue gym garb opposite him.
 
With blatant interest he watched her trim bottom move up and down as she worked out on the stepper, each well-formed buttock flexing in tempting sync, in perfect rhythm. Up, down. Up, down. Up—
 
Get a grip, Benedict, he told himself. There were any number of other women in the room, but for some reason he didn’t follow their movements as avidly. What was it about her?
 
He pumped faster as she raised a hand and lifted her wild mane of curls off her neck to cool herself, then let it fall again, tumbling to her creamy shoulders in a spill of red-gold color. The action was sexy, and totally unconscious on her part, which made it all the more provocative.
 
Joel was certain he’d never seen her around the hospital before. Where had she come from? he wondered with definite curiosity.
 
He’d bet big money the sexpert teaching that seminar Lydia expected him to take didn’t look anything like this woman. He’d managed to successfully sidestep the class by assigning one of his first-year residents to sit in on the sessions that started the next day.
 
Priding himself on his quick thinking, he went back to enjoying the view in front of him. Poetry in motion. His gaze swept down her petite, curvy frame, then slowly back up. Wispy spiral curls framed her dewy-damp face, and a hot blush heated her cheeks. Her mouth was generous, kissable, her eyes big and brown and earthy.
 
He sucked in a breath as she moved off the stepper and bent to dig in her gym bag for a towel. Yes, one damn sexy derriere, he thought.
 
She straightened, and with the towel blotted the rosy skin above her breasts. Those were nice, too. A ripe handful.
 
With a groan he moved from the exercise bike to the rowing machine, where she would no longer be in his direct line of vision. A few more moments of watching her and he’d have to head for the showers—to take a cold one.
 
He squeezed off a half-dozen pulls, his shoulder muscles flexing and bunching, his thighs tautening and relaxing. He was just getting into the rhythm when the hospital intercom spewed out a series of pages. The first one was for him, the last one for … Margaret Springer.
 
By the time he got to the phone to take the page, the tempting beauty in the stretchy blue gym garb was there ahead of him, her hand on the receiver.
 
“This is Maggie Springer,” she said. “I believe you have a page for me.”
 
Joel knew he was staring, but he couldn’t help it. This siren was the dried-up, androgynous prune Lydia had lined up to teach him about sex?
 
It took a moment or two before her call came through. Joel was still trying to control his erratic breathing when she turned and smiled at him. “I’ll be through with the phone in a moment.”
 
“No hurry,” he returned. “I’ll just stand here and kick myself all the way to the other side of the room.”
 
“Pardon?” She gave him a puzzled glance, then returned to her phone call.
 
Joel watched the expressions that played across her face as she listened to her caller. She was even more beautiful up close, and definitely a whole lot sexier. Her sultry scent wafted intimately around him, the disturbing essence torturing his senses, making him think of dusky nights and hot caresses beneath cool sheets.
 
“My class is nearly full,” he heard her say into the receiver, “but I might have one more seat avail—”
 
Click.
 
Without thinking, Joel severed her connection.
 
No one was taking that last seat in her classroom but himself.
 
She turned, spearing him with darkening eyes. “You don’t have a lot of patience, do you? I told you I’d be only a minute. Here—if your page is that important, be my guest.” She thrust the phone into his hand.
 
Joel hung it up and gave her a wide smile. “I’m taking that last seat in your class.”
 
Her mouth gaped, and he fought down the most powerful urge to kiss it, savor the taste, feel it open under his, but he doubted at the moment the woman would be receptive. Later, he promised himself. Later he’d enjoy it to full measure.
 
“And who are you, might I ask?”
 
“Joel Benedict.” He offered her his hand, but she refused it.
 
“Ah, Doctor Benedict.” A smile curved her lips. “The man who referred to my course as psychobabble, I believe.” She folded her arms across her pert breasts that rose and fell with her every breath. “I think you also mentioned something about ‘boring, intellectual prattle’ as well.”
 
“Lydia has a big mouth,” he barked.
 
“Lydia is a friend of mine.”
 
“She still has a big mouth.” And he was going to enjoy making her take call on every weekend and major holiday for the coming year. Revenge was sweet.
 
Just then he heard his hospital page again. “Uh, excuse me,” he said, reaching for the phone behind her. He would make this quick. Damn quick, he decided as he saw her sashay off.
 
Maggie Springer gathered up her gym bag. Her friend Lydia had been right about one thing—Joel Benedict was gorgeous. She flung her towel over her shoulder and aimed one last admiring glance in his direction.
 
He was sleekly male in his snug gym shorts, his muscles taut under a faded red T-shirt. There was a hint of silver in his black, slightly curly hair, with a thread or two at the temples to make her curious about what life experiences had put them there. His eyes were an incredible silver-gray, cool, but they had exuded a definite heat when his gaze settled on her.