What other shocking things could Everett encourage her to do? She recognized that the answer was a lot.
And what does it matter? she asked herself as she took Everett’s hand a moment later and he led her out of one of the rear doors of the restaurant. He could be with any woman on the planet, but he chose to be with her—if only for this brief moment of time.
Joy was a realist, that much could be said about her. Life had taught her again and again that escape from an often harsh world was not a possibility. But life could be beautiful, too, and exciting, even if those moments were ephemeral.
She followed Everett into a warm summer night. The long, black limousine glided up to the curb like a magical carriage. Everett glanced back at her. A lock of hair had fallen onto his forehead. He smiled, and she smiled back.
She might as well enjoy the fantasy while it lasted.
Six
“Would you like to eat together, or would you rather just call it a night?” Everett asked when Kenny brought the limousine to a halt in front of her apartment. He’d had his arm around her the entire ride home. She’d been a little stiff at first—did she imagine he was going to try to screw her in the back of the limo? After what he’d done at the restaurant, that may have been precisely what she’d thought.
Still, he couldn’t regret it. Seeing Joy so aroused that she’d forgotten caution and wisdom and taken a risk had been important to him for some reason. Only when they were a few blocks away from her brownstone did she lower her head and snuggle against his chest.
She lifted her head now. He tried to make out her expression in the dim light, but once again, he felt as if the gate had been closed. It was hard to believe she could be skittish around him after the way she responded to him sexually. Was she just cautious, or was Joy reserved to the point of shyness? He thought the answer might be both.
“I’d like to eat, if you would. I mean, if you’re not too tired,” she said.
He brushed her bangs off her forehead. Her face looked still and mysterious, cast in bluish light from the streetlights and shadow.
“I’m not too tired,” he said.
“Then why don’t you come up?”
He paused to tell Kenny and Roger he’d take a cab back to the hotel and then exited the limo with Joy. Once they were inside, he set the bag the Capital Grille had packed for them on her dining room table.
“I’ll set the table. Where are your plates?” he asked, removing the jacket of his tux and hanging it on the back of a
chair.
She glanced around from where she’d been setting her purse down on the counter. She looked surprised. Obviously, she hadn’t thought he’d been serious when he asked her if she wanted to eat with him.
“In there,” she said, pointing to one of the cabinets.
“The lobster smells fantastic. It should still be hot.”
She stood by the counter, her wrap clutched around her waist. Her cheeks still carried the telltale signs of arousal. Her lips still looked swollen from the way he’d ravaged her mouth. He forced his mind onto his task and opened the cabinet she’d indicated.
“Do you want to go change?” he asked as he loosened his bow tie. He opened a couple drawers, looking for silverware. “Might as well get comfortable.”
“Okay. I think I will, if you don’t mind.”
“I’d prefer that you were as comfortable as possible,” he replied as he found the silverware and grabbed a couple forks and knives. From the periphery of his vision, he saw her waver for a split second before she headed toward the hallway.
She really couldn’t figure him out, he thought wryly as he set the plates and silverware on a couple placemats on the table. He couldn’t imagine why. His feelings on the matter seemed a lot more clear-cut and obvious than Joy’s.
“Try some of the lobster tail,” he told her a while later, holding up a mouthwatering-looking bite of perfectly poached lobster coated in butter. She’d come out of her bedroom a few minutes before looking like a summer day in a simple peach-and-white cotton dress that tied at her shoulders. She parted her lips and he slid the fork between them. He stopped himself just in time from sharing in her groan of appreciation. She smiled as she chewed.
“The kind of thing that really makes you understand the phrase I could die happy. I hate to think of what it’s doing to my arteries, but it’s delicious enough to make me forget,” she said after she swallowed. She cut a slice of her salmon and offered it to him. He held her gaze as he accepted her offering.
“Hmmm. I taste fennel in the relish.”
She shook her head and took a sip of the chardonnay he’d poured for them. “There really isn’t much you don’t know, is there?”
He shrugged. “I took a six-week cooking course in Spain once.”
“You like to cook?”