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.”