by BETH KERY
He shook his head mutely.
“There’s more than one statue at United Studios?” she asked, understanding dawning.
“If there is, I didn’t know it until now. I was talking about the statue of Leon Schuster,” he said, referring to the founder of United Studios. “The one in that little park area by the café?”
“I was at the statue of the seven muses. By the front entrance.”
“I’ve never seen it.” Something about the flat incredulity of his tone told her he was telling the absolute truth. She exhaled shakily. Of course. Superstar Everett Hughes wouldn’t use the visitor’s entrance to the large studio.
“But you were there,” he murmured. “You went to meet me.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “And you went to meet me.”
Joy swallowed thickly. She’d been more affected by that heated encounter with a stranger than she cared to admit. Her behavior on that afternoon had bothered her deeply, as had being stood up in the aftermath. But in the weeks and months that followed, she’d been too caught up with treatment, too focused on survival to dwell on an uncharacteristic moment of sexual promiscuity for long.
Now all of it came back to her in a rush. Her embarrassment. Her attraction. The mesmerizing quality of Everett Hughes’s eyes.
“It was a misunderstanding,” Everett said, his nostrils flaring slightly.
She lowered her head. “All of it was.”
He touched her elbow and waited for her to meet his stare. “Not all of it.”
She swallowed thickly.
“Will you go with me to the premiere tomorrow night?” he asked.
She grimaced. “Everett, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t have anything to wear.” It’d been the lame excuse she used with her uncle because she didn’t feel up to a huge public spectacle, but it was technically the truth, as well.
He glanced down at her figure appraisingly. “Katie and you are about the same size, even if you are a little taller. I’m sure she brought more than one dress—she usually takes the contents of a walk-in closet with her for an overnight stay.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t even know her.”
“Wear what you’ve got on then. We’ll make a pact. I won’t change clothes, either. I hate dressing up for these stupid things.”
She studied him for signs that he was joking, but no . . . he was completely serious. She even got the impression he was hoping she’d agree with his proposal.
“If I go, I’m not going like this,” she assured him, thinking how out of place she’d feel going to such a high-profile event on Everett’s arm. She’d melt in embarrassment if she appeared under the microscope of the world wearing jean shorts and a T-shirt.
“Whatever you want. Just say you’ll go.”
“I don’t know,” she hedged, her thoughts swirling around her head like a jerky Tilt-A-Whirl ride. His fingers tightened ever so slightly on her arm.
“Please?” he murmured.
Her mouth dropped open. She knew it was foolish, but it was difficult to deny an entreating Everett Hughes. She dared any straight woman on the planet to try.
“Okay,” she whispered.
His mouth tilted into a grin. Warmth flooded her. She’d forgotten the impact of seeing that smile up close and personal. She found herself smiling back. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.
“First things first,” he murmured, tapping his thumb. “Give me your phone number. There’s no way in hell I’m going to take the chance of your disappearing for another fourteen months.”
* * *
Forty-five minutes later, Everett stood in the shadowed entryway of a brownstone that was up for sale. He watched the entrance of Harry’s Brew and Bake unblinkingly. Katie and he had left with their coffees almost immediately after he’d won Joy’s consent to go out with him tomorrow night. He’d walked Katie to the Wicker Park townhome where Rill and she were staying with a friend this weekend. He’d told himself he’d catch a cab over to his hotel, but found himself retracing his steps back to the coffee shop. One surreptitious glance in the window told him that Joy was still in there with her friends.
After the hot, oppressive day, a storm brewed. Dark gray clouds on the southwestern horizon rushed toward the city. Thunder rumbled ominously. He took a step back in the entryway when a hot wind rushed down the street, bending some of the young saplings lining the sidewalk until he wondered if they’d snap. The air—his very blood—felt charged with electricity.
Joy walked out of the café with her friends when the dry squall remitted slightly. She planted her long, bare legs as she shouted a cursory good-bye. The Weismans did the same, clearly as intent on getting home before the storm hit as Joy appeared to be. He heard Max’s deep voice before it was carried away by another gust of wind. Joy’s short hair whipped around her head, and the T-shirt she wore plastered against her breasts. She nodded, waved and hurried in the opposite direction from the couple.
He sprang out of the entryway. He ran down the street holding his hat in his hand, hurling himself against the wind like a running back against a monster defensive line, keeping Joy’s pale T-shirt in the center of his vision the entire time.
He was behaving purely on instinct.
It started to rain when he got halfway down the block. Thunder cracked, and a second later it started to pour so heavily he was blinded. He flopped on his hat, the bill providing his eyes the chance to blink out the water so he could see. Joy opened a wrought iron fence gate and dashed between it, her head ducked against the torrent.
“Joy!”
The rain pounded on the pavement so hard, she couldn’t hear him. She raced toward the front steps of a brownstone. He was about to lose her . . . again.
“Joy,” he bellowed, running down the wet sidewalk, holding his hat in place.
She still didn’t appear to hear him. She opened the heavy wooden door and ducked her head out of the downpour. His heart dived. He opened his mouth to give one last desperate shout, but she paused suddenly on the threshold and hesitated. She turned and looked back. The wind whipped water into his eyes, but even in his half-blinded state, he felt her stare on him. For a second as he ran, he held his breath.
Would she turn away?
She backed into the doorframe, her front facing him, waiting. Electricity made the hair on his forearms stand on end. Lightning split the gray sky, and thunder boomed. He raced up the front steps, squinting to see her. Her exquisite face gleamed with moisture. Water dripped from her lips. Her hair spiked onto her cheeks and clung to her head. Her new haircut emphasized her elegant neck and the graceful shape of her skull. Earlier, when he’d been talking to her at the café, he’d felt an urge to cup the back of her head in his palm.
“Come in,” he thought he heard her say when he stomped up the last step.
He entered a stuffy foyer with a hallway to the right and a flight of stairs to the left. Joy shut the door behind him, and the roar of the rain became a muffled hum. He took off his hat and wiped his face of dripping water before he turned to her. She was watching him, her arms crossed loosely beneath her breasts. He read the question in her large eyes.
“I’m not usually so impatient,” he explained, swiping his hand over his wet hair. “But tomorrow night started to seem like an awfully long time when I’ve been waiting since last year.”
Her lips quivered. He found himself longing to witness her full-out smile. There was something a little sad about her . . . poignant. Lovely. Looking at her was like glimpsing a crack in the matrix of the universe. The world really was a larger, more incredible place than he’d ever considered. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She dropped her arms, and his gaze dropped to her breasts outlined in clinging, wet fabric. He felt his body stir.
“I’m upstairs,” she said, pointing, her voice tickling in his right ear. She had a low, melodic voice that reminded him a little of the actress Kate Winslet’s, whom he admired greatly. B
ut Joy’s voice was even sultrier . . . sexier.
“You’re sure it’s okay?”
“Yes.”
She walked in front of him and headed up the stairs. Her legs looked smooth and damp, well-muscled and slender. When she got to the landing, she dug in the pocket of her jean shorts, the action tugging wet fabric against the juncture of her thighs. He stared at the numeral 3 on the front of her door and made himself consider the Dodgers-Mets series opening in New York today.
The door swung open and he followed her inside. Cool air hit his wet body.
“Oh . . . I’m sorry,” she said, kicking off her sandals and rushing through the foyer. “I left the air-conditioning on high. It was so stifling when I left this morning.”
He stood there, dripping. He could see Joy straight ahead of him, standing in a hallway, fiddling with a thermostat. She turned to him, shivering.
“Come in,” she said, beckoning.
“I’m going to get your floors all wet,” he said, nodding at the gleaming hardwood.
“I already did. It’s nothing a towel won’t dry up.”
He entered a large expanse, consisting of a living area to the right and a kitchen and dining area to the left. Three windows at the end of the living space had a long, cushioned window seat beneath them and were bracketed by two well-stocked, built-in bookshelves. Water pounded against the windowpanes and on the roof above them.
“Come on,” she said with a wave, sounding breathless. She led him down a dark hallway and took a left. She flipped on a light. He poked his head through the doorframe and saw her pulling out towels from beneath a bathroom sink. When she stood, towels in hand, her gaze ran over him dubiously.
“I’m not sure I have any dry clothes that would fit you,” she said.
“That’s okay,” he assured her, wringing his soaked hat out in the sink. He took one of the towels and started to wipe off. “I’ll be fine. You get into something dry. Get in the shower. You’re shivering,” he said, gesturing toward the tub while he rubbed the towel over his wet head. “I’ll go to the kitchen and drip on the tile there.”
She laughed, and he paused in his toweling motions. She really did shine brightly in his eyes.
“No, I’ll find something for you. That was some downpour. We’re both soaked. Hold on.”
She disappeared down the hallway. He continued to dry himself off, feeling the cotton chafe against his oversensitive skin. He glanced around her tidy bathroom. The fragrance from Joy’s earlier shower still hovered in the air, teasing his nose.
“What about this? I think it’s the best I can do,” she said apologetically from behind him a moment later. She held up a dark blue bathrobe. “It was large on me, so I never wore it. It’ll be small on you, but it’ll . . . cover you up.”
“Sure. It’s great, thanks.”
She seemed relieved that he hadn’t turned down her offering. “Feel free to jump in the shower, if you need to.”
“You should get in the shower. You’re freezing,” he said quietly, noticing the pebbled skin on her upper arms.
She shook her head and took a step back, but lingered in the doorway. “I’m fine. I’ll just go dry off and change.”
He supposed you would call her eyes hazel. He didn’t know what else to call them. They were singular. A cobalt blue ring enclosed brown, blue-green and amber shards of color. Similar to when he’d looked down at her while she gave him the tattoo, he saw a mixture of desire and wariness in her eyes.
“Sorry to be such a pain. All because I couldn’t be a little more patient at the idea of finally being able to talk to you.”
“Talk about a buildup. I haven’t got much interesting to say, Everett. I’m bound to disappoint you,” she said, donning a rueful smile.
He chuckled. “I’m very easy to please.”
She gave him a half-incredulous, half-amused glance. “Everett Hughes—easy to please?”
“When it comes to you, it’ll be easy as breathing.”
A delicate pink color spread in her cheeks. He watched the puffy flesh of her lips part. A vivid image popped into his mind’s eye—unwanted, but uncontrollable—of arrowing his cock between her lips while she was restrained and her cheeks were flushed with desire. A tingling sensation flickered across his cock and segued into an ache. He blinked and glanced away.
“The washer and dryer are in there,” she said, pointing to a double folded door a few feet down the hallway. “Go ahead and put your clothes in to dry them off. I’ll meet you out there in a minute,” she said, waving vaguely to the living area.
He nodded and closed the door. He accepted her offer and took a minute-long shower, waiting for his unwanted erection to dissipate. How was it that Joy Hightower managed to remind him of a living, sacred poem and raw, elemental sex all at once?
So much for the existential not being sexy.
Three
She changed into a cotton, floral print summer dress that was pretty without being overtly sexy. Joy didn’t want to send the wrong impression, although she was so confused about Everett being in her apartment, she wasn’t precisely sure what impression she wanted to give.
She passed the hall bathroom quickly. The sound of the shower curtain being whipped back struck her pitched ears. She came to an abrupt halt.
She couldn’t believe Everett Hughes was standing in her bathtub at this very moment, stark naked. The graphic memory of holding his heavy, shapely penis in her hand exploded into her mind’s eye.
Had it really happened? It seemed so unlikely and strange . . . so compelling.
She entered her kitchen and filled the tea kettle. A moment later she heard the bathroom door open over the sound of her heart beating loudly in her ears.
“Would you like some hot tea?” she asked without removing her gaze from an opened cabinet when the wooden floor creaked behind her a moment later.
“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” he said. She glanced around and did a double take when she saw him in the robe. He grinned and double-pumped his eyebrows.
“Sexy, no?” he said. The robe was gender neutral enough, but his shoulders were too broad for the fabric, leaving a V shape of his chest exposed.
She suppressed a laugh and turned away to fill the teapot. “I understand you’re known for a . . . colorful style of dressing,” she said tactfully after a pause, “but I don’t know how well this getup would go over with your adoring public.”
“Colorful, huh? I thought the magazines said I dressed like a slob,” he said distractedly as he noticed some of the artwork she had displayed in the dining and living room.
She smiled to herself as she opened a box of tea. “Those same magazines also seem to name you the sexiest man of the year for I don’t know how many years running, so I guess dressing like a slob works.”
“Do you mind if I have a look at your paintings?” he asked, pointing at a collection of three canvases arranged in her dining room.
“No, of course not,” she said, her torso twisted so she could look at him. Had she offended him with the sexiest man of the year comment? No, it wasn’t that, she realized as she watched him wander away. He just hadn’t considered the topic vaguely worthwhile. His entire focus had shifted to her paintings.
“They’re yours,” she heard him say once he stood before them.
“Yes.”
She approached him a few minutes later in the living room, carrying two steaming cups. He now studied the oil mounted above the fireplace, his focused attention almost tangible. Her gaze ran over him from behind. How could he possibly appear so comfortable—so masculine—while wearing a woman’s bathrobe? His strong-looking calves were dusted with light brown hair. The fabric outlined muscular buttocks. The artist in her wanted to remove the robe and memorize every inch of him with her brush. The woman in her longed to make the study using lips and fingertips.
He turned as she approached and blinked.
“I love your stuff. Reminds me a little of Rousseau—meticulou
s, primitive, yet dreamlike—but your femininity civilizes it,” he reflected, taking the cup she offered him. “What?” he asked, pausing when he noticed her small smile.
“Do you ever do or say anything without total confidence?” she wondered aloud, taking a step back and setting her own tea on the table behind her couch. She walked around the couch and sat down.
“Does that mean I sounded like a pompous ass just now?” he asked, a grin twitching his mouth as he followed her around the couch.
“No, not at all,” she assured him. She stiffened slightly when he sat down on the cushion next to her. She swore he noticed—did he miss anything?—but he said nothing. “I wasn’t being sarcastic. I studied Rousseau extensively while I was at art school in Paris.”
“Did you study undergraduate there?” he asked, taking a sip. His wet hair waved around his temples and on his forehead, a glorious mess.
“Just my junior and senior years.”
“I studied art history for undergrad at UCLA,” he said, surprising her.
“Really? I would have thought acting.”
“Nah, I just fell into that by accident. I needed some cash for Christmas presents for my family senior year, and did a walk-in audition for a commercial.”
“And your fate was sealed,” she murmured, picking up her tea to take a sip. He glanced at her and they shared a smile. “What did you plan to do with your art history degree?”
“I thought I’d travel the world, collecting art for a gallery or museum. Turned out, the part that appealed to me the most was the travel, not the art collection. No offense.”
“None taken.” She set down her cup and settled back on the couch. Did one ever become accustomed to his sexuality? It was like a third person in the room, a guest Joy wasn’t sure if she should ignore or welcome. Her gaze skittered over the opened portion of the robe he wore. The hair on his chest wasn’t a pelt, by any means, but it emphasized his potent masculinity. Hollywood golden boy Everett may be, but he was the polar opposite of an effeminate fop. He seemed about as aware of his looks as he was his own skin.