Giving up, I threw my napkin beside my plate, donned my jacket, and went in search of someone to call a cab.
I was trying to find a waiter among the sea of black jackets when I heard a familiar voice. Its rich, brandied tones sent heat prickling across my scalp. "There you
are,'it
said.
I turned slowly, girding myself. Despite the warning, the sight of my former lover made my stomach do the foxtrot. He was tucking a wafer-thin cell phone inside his dinner jacket. A slim gold watch flashed at his wrist. He seemed taller than I remembered, and broader. He'd put on the kind of flesh you get from working out, and his skin - always fine - had the smooth, buffed look that comes from regular facials.
The sheer force of his beauty intimidated me. I could hardly believe I'd once been intimate with such a creature. Cheryl was right. He was better-looking in person.
He met my gaze calmly, seemingly unmoved by our reunion. Of course, I didn't look as if I'd just stepped off
'Yes, here I am,' I said, praying my face didn't betray the wild palpitation of my heart, 'right where I've been for the last forty minutes.'
His face winced in apology. 'I am sorry, Kate. The limo broke down and had to be towed. It'll take days to fix, according to the garage. I caught a cab here as soon as I could.'
The two vodkas combined with six months of hurt to make me lose all self-control. 'Liar,' I said.
'Kate.' His hands lifted, palm out, in the age-old gesture of innocence.
'Liar,' I repeated. This time I smacked his chest and, when that failed to satisfy, stomped on the toe of his thin Italian shoe.
'
Ow
,’ he complained, jumping back. He held me off with both hands. 'Jesus, Kate, get a grip on yourself.'
The supreme rationality of his voice pulled me back from making a scene - even if I did doubt his veracity. I wanted to doubt it, really, because if he was telling the truth, I'd just made an even bigger fool of myself.
'Look, Kate.' He pulled a folded yellow paper from his pocket. 'I've got the garage receipt to prove it.'
I snatched it from his hand and read it. 'Well, it looks real,’1 grudged, and handed it back.
He laughed. 'Of course, it's real. Now can we have a nice dinner and talk?'
Seeing I'd calmed down, he tucked my arm through his and led me back into the dining room. Before he could guide me to the Table of Doom, however, I dug in my heels.
'No way. I am not sitting centre stage in my trousers and trainers while people stare at me as if I'm a circus freak.'
He lifted one dark brow. I expected him to tell me I should have worn the dress he sent, but after a brief silence he switched direction and escorted me through the crush towards a table in the back. People hailed him as we passed, slapping his shoulder, lifting their glasses in salutation. Two of the women winked. I might have been invisible for all the notice anyone took of me.
'Later,’ he said, when his guests tried to ask him questions. 'After everyone's had time to enjoy the food.'
He held my chair for me, leaning so close a whiff of
Aramis
tickled my nose, not to mention my hormones. I felt his hand gather up my curls for an instant before he withdrew, as if touching them was a temptation he couldn't resist. I tried to hide my shiver of response.
'Your hair is longer,’ he said. He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over the back of his chair. 'I like it.'
'It grew,’ I said brusquely, sensing danger in his flattery. A waiter whisked two covered silver platters to our table. Amazing. I'd waited forty minutes and no one asked me if I wanted to eat. Limo breakdown or no, I suspected that wasn't an accident.
Joe ignored my prickly attitude. He rolled his sleeves to his elbows and tipped the lid off the first platter. Clouds of fragrant steam billowed out. He sighed with pleasure.
That sigh I
recognised
. Joe must have been sighing like that since the very first time he blasted off. Annoyed with the sharpness of my memory, I flipped my napkin into my lap. 'Do you want to tell me what this is about?'
He set the lid aside, revealing medallions of veal and steamed asparagus, both swimming in juice. He slid a portion on to my plate. My stomach growled.
'I'm thinking of establishing a recording studio,’ he said, serving himself just as deftly. I watched the tendons shift in his forearms and the fine, dark hair that veiled them. "This party is to take the local temperature, to find out who else would use the studio, who'd back it, and who'll help me get a permit. Now that my career is somewhat established, I plan to return to serious composing.'
'And you wanted me here because ...?'
'Kate.' His eyes sad, he covered my hand with his and caressed my wrist with a flush-inducing sweep of his thumb. I couldn't help noticing what nicely manicured nails he had. 'I asked you to come because I haven't seen you in half a year. I thought it was time we made peace.'
I tried to retrieve my hand but he wouldn't let go. My thighs were sweating. 'I didn't make war on you,' I said. I didn't want it to happen but my eyes filled with tears. Damn those vodkas, anyway.
'Kate,’ Joe said again. He tugged my hand closer and turned the palm for a soft, lingering kiss.
Unfortunately for my composure, he didn't stop with one kiss. Over and over, he pressed his warm, mobile lips to the sensitive skin,
travelling
the length and breadth of my palm as if its print held not just my future, but his. Chills broke out in waves along my limbs. My lungs stalled. When he reached my wrist, he closed his eyes and ran the tip of his tongue slowly, sinuously up and down my veins. The longing that tautened his face was so intense, I could have sworn it wasn't feigned.
'I know you didn't make war on me,’ he said, his voice whisky rough. 'I'm the one who needs to make peace.'
I didn't trust myself to speak; I didn't dare caress the smooth line of his cheek, mere inches from my hand. If he wanted to punish me for rejecting him, if this was all a trick... I curled my fingers back towards my palm.
He set my hand down, on his thigh this time, and leant so close his cinnamon-scented breath warmed my ear. His lips whispered down my hairline. 'I haven't slept with anyone for the last two months.'
I shivered. 'Is that supposed to impress me?' I said, though in truth it did. This was Joe, after all, the fellow who could take it two, three times a day and still be up for more.
Then the emotional half of my brain ticked the other way. Why only two months? He'd been gone for six.
Joe spied my involuntary frown. He chuckled, a sexy, confident sound, then caught the back of my neck so I couldn't pull away. The way he massaged the knotted muscles made me forget I'd wanted to.
'For the first few months I did what you expected,’ he said in that same intimate murmur, 'or what I thought you expected. I slept around - young and old, gorgeous and plain, women I liked, women I didn't like, plus a few men for variety's sake.' His shoulders lifted and dropped philosophically. 'Some of it was fun. A lot of it was awkward. None of it was the same. I didn't love any of them. And I still loved you.'
I pressed one fist to the sudden ache in my chest. I reminded myself how deeply he'd hurt me, and how changed he was from the boy I knew. 'If you loved me so much, why did you stay angry so long?'
He stroked my cheek the way I'd wanted to stroke his, following the curves and hollows with the back of his fingers. 'I wasn't angry.' He smiled. 'Well, maybe at first I was. Mostly I was humiliated. That's why I left the way I did and broke off all contact. Call it the
Heathcliff
Syndrome. I couldn't come back until I'd made something of myself. Problem was, back then I didn't know what that something was.' 'And now you do?'
Fine lines crinkled around his eyes, brought to life by an infinitely gentle smile. His expression
mesmerised
. I saw the old Joe in it, and the new. I couldn't decipher all the separate parts, not in my current state of mind, but I knew the combination frightened me in some deep, atavistic way. I put my fork down, certain I'd never swallow the bite it held.
Joe drew his fingertip down the valley beneath my nose, then continued across my lips and over my chin. 'Now I know I don't have to make myself into anything at all. Now I know everything that really counted I had all along. I just wasn't smart enough to see it - and neither were you.'
I tensed at the sureness in his eyes. "That sounds like quite a revelation.'
His smile turned wicked, a thousand watts of devastating Capriccio charm. Even though I'd seen that trademark smirk a hundred times on Manhattan Nights, I found I was not immune.
'Believe me,
darlin
',’ he drawled. 'The revelations are just beginning.'
But there weren't any more revelations over dinner. The quartet began to play again, more softly this time, romantic saxophone pieces - plus a decent cover of an old Robert Cray tune, 'Little Boy Big', I think. I hadn't listened to his music since Joe left. Some of the guests stepped on to the dance floor. Joe and I had never danced together.
I wished that hadn't occurred to me, and that I really were relieved he didn't ask me now.
With music greasing the wheels of nostalgia, Joe told me about his work and asked about mine and made me laugh and kept my wine glass consistently topped. Now that he'd backed the pressure off, I warmed to him. I couldn't help it. He wasn't the old Joe, but he was still a man who knew me well and liked what he knew and obviously found me attractive. Of that I had no doubt. The banked heat of his gaze proved it, the way he used any excuse to touch me, the way he hung on my every word.
He kept my palm cupped to his inner thigh, urging my little finger against the solid swell of his cock. I quickly perspired through his trousers, or he did, but he didn't seem to care. His seam-straining erection never faltered, not for the whole hour-long conversation. Nor did he seem to mind that all I did was press the outer edge. I was the one squirming in my chair.
Anyone who saw us would have thought we were lovers. By the time I swallowed the last sip of coffee, I almost wished we were.
'I have to work the room now,' he said, with seemingly genuine regret. He lifted my hot, damp hand from his lap and kissed my fingertips. 'I'm afraid it'll bore you. Why don't I get my driver to take you home?'
My driver. What a funny thing to hear Joe say. Not so long ago his primary means of transportation had been a ten-speed bike. He escorted me down the stairs to the car park. Even in my trainers, I wobbled a bit. I'd drunk more wine than I
realised
- enough not to care very much, or to remember why a shiny Cadillac limo should not be idling in front of the awning.
Joe helped me into the passenger compartment and leant on the open window. We stared at each other. The streets were quiet.
Halloran's
was the only place open here. I looked at his lips and remembered how soft and gentle and clever they were.
He muttered something under his breath.
'What?' I asked.
'Lean out so I can kiss you,’ he said.
Amazingly, I did.
He clasped my face in his hands and brushed his nose against mine. Our breath mingled, silent and warm. His tongue touched one corner of my mouth, then the other, then the centre. He pushed lightly, delicately penetrating the barrier of my lips until we both moaned low in our throats. Our mouths opened to each other, then closed, commingled. Oh, his reined-in hunger tasted so good, his heat, the assurance he'd grown like a sleek new skin. * ran my hands over his shoulders, testing the hard, rounded muscle. I wished I could rip his shirt off and ravish him where he stood.
The kiss grew deeper and wetter. Our tongues slid together like lovers coupling, quivering with six months of
unassuaged
yearning. My emotions seethed like heated oil as my desire for him fought my need for self-protection. Was this kiss merely one of a long procession of kisses, or did it mean what his half-choked moans implied it meant? Was it special? Did it make him sing from soul to sinew?
Ultimately, my sinews didn't care. I clutched his shoulders. My nails pricked him through the starched cotton of his shirt.
At the tiny injury, he exhaled slowly, as if he'd set down a heavy load. He turned his head and kissed me harder until the back of my head met my own shoulders. His hand bracketed the arch of my throat. He swept it lower, crossing my collar bones and dipping into the warm, scented valley between my breasts. He counted the ribs there with the pad of his thumb, up and down, down and up, as though he dared not stray from this track but could not force himself away.
Touch me, I thought, my nipples a stony pain, my blood thundering in my ears. The strength of my attraction to him dizzied me.
Then he broke away.
My only consolation was that he was breathing as hard as I was.
'Now.' He gave my cheek an little smack with the flat of his palm. His eyes glittered coolly under the street-lamp. "That wasn't so bad, was it? Maybe next time you'll do what I tell you to.'
He couldn't have shocked me more if he'd slapped me senseless. I closed my gaping mouth with a snap. In a flash I remembered the supposedly broken-down limo, the very limo whose engine purred so smoothly through the quiet night.