Silver Fox (Silver Shifters 2)

Go to her, his fox yipped frantically.

She must make the next step.

Doris flicked a puzzled, wistful glance his way. “I guess I’m off-balance because, well, I’m nothing to look at. As well as old. Not just middle-aged. Sixty-two in our culture is old. Though men—you—look great at pretty much any age,” she said quickly. “I like . . . I feel . . . I don’t see what you can possibly see in me.”

Joey reached to take her hands. “I see beauty. It’s not the conventional beauty that is so common and so forgettable, the type we see in magazines and movies. I see how laughter has shaped your eyes, how

humor has framed your kissable mouth. Everything about you delights me, excites me, and makes me long to get closer. It’s the real beauty, the kind that lasts a lifetime. It’s the beauty that I hear in your voice that is so much a part of you, the generosity with which you look at the world. I see honesty, so rare, and so lovely and that is more than merely beautiful to my eyes.”

She gave him a tremulous smile. “I think . . . I’m afraid this is too good to be true,” she admitted. “People like me just don’t get . . . people like you.”

“People like me?” he repeated. “What do you see in me?”

She took in an unsteady breath, the round curves of her breasts moving beneath her loose, practical sweatshirt. Oh, how he longed to bring her the pleasure they both deserved!

But he waited, and she said, finally, “In you . . . I see the sun.”

“Sun?” he repeated, startled.

“Your smile is like sunlight. It’s bright, and free, and . . . and kind. As kind as spring. And you’re smart, and you love cooking, and you’re good with kids—but now I sound like a job interview,” she said desperately. “I’m no good at this.”

“This?” he prompted, staying where he was, though every muscle, every nerve, longed to touch her, caress her.

“This . . . whatever it is between us. I like it, but I’m scared of it.”

“Because?” he asked, as softly as possible, as his fox stilled within him.

“Because I guess I’m afraid I’ll wake up. It’ll be just a dream, and the reality you’re stuck with is spinster Doris Lebowitz, who only got noticed by boys and men for all the wrong reasons. And not many men,” she added with a wry twist to her voice.

“That,” he said, “is because you and I hadn’t met yet.”

She gave an unsteady laugh, and he went on. “I see that you and I are alike in good ways, we’re different in good ways. That makes you more interesting every time we talk. You’re attractive—”

She smothered a disbelieving snort, but he could tell she was pleased. Even if she didn’t quite believe him. That was okay. He intended to tell her the same thing for the rest of their lives, in as many ways as he could think of.

Starting now.

“Outside of television,” he said, “the world is made up of people of all sizes and shapes and ages, and they find one another. In each other’s eyes, they are Apollo and Aphrodite. To me, you are made of entrancing curves my hands long to explore—but I’ll stop if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“It does . . . and it doesn’t,” she murmured. “It’s just that this territory is very new for me. I thought I was so far outside the magic boundary of attractive that I couldn’t even get into the parking lot. And I don’t know what to do with hearing it.” She added quickly, “But my life is perfectly okay. If you change your mind. I was fine with being single. But since I met you, well, everything is different. Everything.”

“Is different a good thing?” he asked.

Her smile was both wistful and transcendent. “Oh yes. Oh, yes, so much that, well, like I said, it’s new.”

“Then that makes it more fun for us to explore,” he said. “Learn each other together. Shall we try again? Last night we were tired, and full of Queen Esther’s best. Shall we try again now?”

She stilled, stiff, then pressed her lips together, her gaze appealing and determined and soft all at once. And she walked into his arms.

The air in the attic, peaceful and warm moments ago, crackled suddenly with electricity. Though he could feel the doubts deep within her, she still met him with a brave sweetness that overwhelmed him with tenderness—and something else, as the softness of her breasts pressed up against his chest. He kissed the sweet spot under her ear. Along the soft skin of her jaw.

When her breath hitched, he slid his hands up her arms, pausing to caress the delicate skin above the collar of her sweatshirt before cupping her face, one hand sliding under her hair to the base of her skull.

And then he kissed her, sweet and friendly at first, but at her tentative, exploratory response the kiss changed to firm and demanding and hungry. Slowly her hands came up and moved from his shoulders to lock around his neck—

“Doris!” Elva’s voice echoed up the stairwell.

Doris jumped as if she’d been shot. “Mom?”