by C. C. Wood
LATER THAT EVENING, after Carolena had gone to bed, I was in my kitchen, putting together the finishing touches on a couple of snack platters. Charles insisted that he would eat dinner before he came over, but my mother would have a coronary if she ever discovered that I had a guest and didn’t offer nibbles or beverages. It just wasn’t done.
I also needed something to do with my hands. Up until last week, spending time with Charles made me nervous because he was handsome and he smelled incredibly good.
After our three dates, Charles now made me nervous for very different reasons. As I spent more time with him, I realized he was not only handsome and funny, but he was also generous with his time and love for his family. My infatuation was rapidly morphing into a deeper emotion, and it had the potential to become something special. In less than a week, he’d managed to get past my defenses.
It scared the hell out of me. It took Cooper almost a month to convince me to go out with him. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember why I resisted him. Maybe my subconscious saw through his facade. Charles, even with his rude behavior when we first met, only had to ask once. Even I had to admit how different the two of them seemed. On our first few dates, Cooper went to a lot of trouble to impress me. He opened all my doors, always paid, and never groped me. However, by the second month of dating, his old-fashioned manners disappeared and he began to get impatient with my unwillingness to let him do more than kiss me. Maybe I was old-fashioned, but I didn’t like the idea of having sex just because I was attracted to someone physically. I didn’t have to be in love with the man, but I definitely wanted to be in intense like.
Inanely, I wondered how women emerging from significantly longer marriages made their way back into the dating scene. The arc of my relationship with Cooper Stevens spanned little more than two years and I’d been dealing with the aftermath for a year now. That meant I had only been off the dating merry-go-round for three years. I couldn’t imagine how a woman who had been married for ten or fifteen years handled the transition.
I shook my head. As it was my tendency, I was obsessing. I took several deep breaths and remembered what Judith had said to me the day she found me sobbing in my office.
Focus on what you can control. Worrying about anything else is just a waste of your time. Worry and regret steal our happiness and, unlike goals and actions, they are fruitless.
Her pragmatism was tempered with compassion, which was one of the reasons I appreciated Judith so much. While she was practical, frighteningly efficient, and expected the best from her employees, she also remembered that her subordinates were people too, and thus imperfect.
The echo of her words freed me from the confines of my whirling thoughts. All I could do tonight was talk to Charles about my expectations and then listen to his thoughts.
My phone went off and I saw a text from Charles, letting me know he was here. I appreciated that he was considerate enough not to ring the doorbell since he knew Carolena was already asleep. I carried the two plates of food into the living room and set them on the coffee table before I went to the front door.
I opened the door and smiled. Charles was wearing a blue sweater that made his eyes seem even deeper and darker than usual and a pair of faded jeans that hugged his lower body lovingly. He hadn’t shaved and the shadow of hair on his jaw line and cheeks didn’t look unkempt. Instead he looked like he belonged on a yacht in a Ralph Lauren ad. I imagined him dragging that scruff all over my body and I felt the muscles of my thighs tremble. I’d never had such a visceral reaction to a man before. It was disconcerting.
“Hey,” he said, a small smile hovering on his mouth.
“Hey. Come on in.”
He came through the door and waited for me to shut it behind him before he pressed a whisper soft kiss on my lips.
“I’m glad you invited me over,” he said softly.
Between the gentle kiss that still had my lips tingling and the low, intimate tone of his voice, I didn’t understand a single word he’d said. “Huh?”
His eyes lit up as though he understood exactly what distracted me. “I said, I’m glad you invited me over.”
I felt my cheeks warm. “Oh. I, uh, I’m glad you came.” I cleared my throat. “Do you want a beer or some wine? I just opened a bottle of pinot noir.”
Red wine wasn’t my favorite, but, last night, I’d noticed that he seemed to prefer it.
“Wine sounds good.”
I felt my cheeks flush again, but this time with pleasure. “Great. Go ahead and make yourself comfortable in the living room and I’ll bring the wine. I put out some snacks if you’re hungry.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
I shrugged. “It’s no trouble.”
He chuckled. “You sound exactly like my mother and sister. God forbid anyone come over and there’s nothing to eat or drink. The sky will fall.”
I made a face at him. “Deal with it. Southern hospitality was drilled into the very fiber of my being by my mother.”
He tilted his head. “Yes, ma’am.”
I pointed to the living room. “Go sit or I’m going to forget about my manners and kick you out.”
I heard him laughing as he went one way and I went the other. I grabbed the open bottle of wine and a couple of glasses and headed back into the living room. I saw Charles pop a grape into his mouth.
“This is great, Yancy. Thank you.”
I poured the wine and set the bottle on the coffee table. “You’re welcome.”
Charles ate a cube of cheese and sipped the wine I handed him. We sat in silence for a few moments, drinking wine and basically staring at each other.
Feeling awkward yet again, I broke the silence first. “I, uh, wanted to talk to you about what you asked me last night. About spending more time together.”
His eyes stayed on mine, yet somehow his gaze sharpened with expectation and something else. “Okay.”
I set my glass on the coffee table and leaned against the back of the sofa, hitching my leg up so that I was mostly facing Charles. “I’m not ready for you to spend a lot of time around my daughter but I do want to see you more than once or twice a week.” I took a deep breath. “What I was thinking is that you could come over after Carolena goes to bed. Just to, um, watch TV or have a late dinner, you know, get to know each other better.”
Charles leaned toward me slightly, resting a hand on my bent knee. “I could handle that.”
“There’s another thing I’d like to discuss with you, though,” I said.
He nodded. “Shoot.”
I sucked in a deep breath. This is where I worried that he might not be so understanding. “Well, without getting into too much detail, my marriage didn’t end well and I would like to take the….” I paused because I wasn’t sure what words to use. “Physical aspect of our relationship very slowly.”
He turned, mirroring my position, so we were facing each other on the couch, both of us resting our elbows on the back of the sofa. “Can you be more specific?”
He didn’t seem annoyed or even disappointed, just curious.
“Well, uh…” I trailed off. When I couldn’t think of a delicate way to say it, I just let the words tumble from my lips. “Shit! Look, I like kissing you and holding hands and I would probably like cuddling on the couch while we watch a movie, but I’m definitely not ready to have sex with you and I don’t know when I will be.”
Charles nodded, amusement lighting his blue eyes. “That’s perfectly reasonable.”
Now that I was on a roll, I developed verbal diarrhea. “I mean, I know some women have the whole three date rule, but it’s been a long time since I’ve dated and I don’t want to create expectations or cause resentment.”
His blue eyes were serious and sincere when he squeezed my knee again. “Yancy, I want something more meaningful than a quick bang. I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t interested in sex with you, but there are some things worth waiting for and I’m thinking that you’re one of them.
”
I blinked at him, feeling my heart melt at his words. “Really?” My voice cracked slightly.
Something flashed across his face and I didn’t recognized it. “Yes,” he said firmly. “You let me know when you’re ready. I’ll be here.” He winked and my chest felt tight and my skin hot.
I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his for a short, almost chaste kiss. “Thank you.”
His hand cupped the nape of my neck under my hair and he pulled me in for another kiss. “There’s nothing to thank me for.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and tugged me closer.
I rested my head on his shoulder and breathed in his scent as we sat in silence. Something small shifted inside me, but somehow I knew the twinge I felt in my heart was the beginning of something much bigger. For the first time since I realized that Charles returned my interest, I wasn’t scared and plotting my escape route. Instead, I relaxed further into his embrace and enjoyed the sweetness of the moment.
Chapter Twelve
A FEW DAYS later it was Wednesday and I was on another lunch date with Charles. While he made it clear that he would be happy to go to lunch with me every day I was in the office, I wasn’t prepared to skip my lunches with my girlfriends. I looked forward to them as much as I looked forward to lunch with him.
We were enjoying the first warm day of March. Charles had ordered sandwiches for us and, to my surprise, his aunt delivered them personally with a smile and encouragement to come back to her restaurant soon. I said as much to Charles and he laughed, saying that his aunt liked me more than she liked him, so she made an exception to her no delivery rule. He suggested we go to the open area between our building and the next and eat while sitting on a bench in the sunshine. I immediately agreed.
The weather was lovely and in the mid-sixties, with only a light, intermittent breeze. It was a perfect early spring day. As we sat on our bench, devouring our sandwiches, I memorized the way the sun gleamed on the golden streaks in his hair and the way his eyes seemed more green in the sunlight. Something about the early afternoon sun seemed to sparkle and, for some reason, I wanted to remember this day with as much detail as possible.
I took another bite of my superb BLT. “Your aunt is a culinary genius with sandwiches. This is the best BLT I’ve ever had.”
Charles grinned. “She is that.” His eyes lingered on my mouth. “You have just a little…”
His hand came up and he ran a finger along the side of my mouth. My breath left my lungs in a whoosh as I watch him put his finger in his mouth.
“You had a little mayonnaise on your lip.”
I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
His grin widened. When I realized I was staring at him with my eyes half closed, I shook my head.
“Um, I had something I wanted to talk to you about,” I said.
“Okay.”
Again I was distracted when he took a big bite of his sandwich. How could a man look sexy while he was chewing? I watched his jaw muscles work before his throat rippled as he swallowed.
“Yancy? Are you okay?”
I blinked and looked down. Maybe I could focus if I didn’t look at him.
“I was wondering if you had plans tonight.” I sipped my latte and risked a glance at him.
Charles smiled slightly, but not enough to have his dimple popping. “No, I don’t have plans.”
“Well, uh, would you like to come over for a late dinner and maybe another movie?”
“That sounds great. What time should I be there?” he asked.
“8:30.”
“Then I’ll be there at 8:30.”
As we finished our lunch, I was aware that Charles was staring at me.
Finally, I asked, “Is something wrong?”
He shook his head but didn’t say anything. Still, he was watching me closely and it was beginning to make me feel weird.
“Okay, you’re beginning to make me uncomfortable with the staring,” I said, smiling to soften the words.
Charles blinked. “Sometimes, I forget.”
Now, I was really confused. “What?”
“I forget how beautiful you are. Here in the sunlight, you just glow.”
My heart turned over in my chest. This intense pull I felt was reciprocated. It was hard to believe that he could be feeling what I felt. I leaned forward and placed my lips on his jaw. I knew if I kissed him on the mouth, I would forget that we were sitting out in the open for everyone to see and try to crawl into his lap.
“Thank you,” I said simply.
Charles lifted his hand and threaded his fingers through my hair, but he didn’t try to pull me closer. We sat in the bright sunshine, faces close, for a long moment. Again, I somehow felt this slice of time held weight, importance.
Finally, he released my hair and took my hand. He rose and helped me to my feet as well. “We should get back to the office.”
I hated that the moment was broken. I watched as Charles grabbed the bag that held our trash and gave me the remnants of my drink. Though we had only been dating a short time, he knew I would never waste a single sip of a caffeinated beverage. His attentiveness made me smile.
As we walked back to our building, hand in hand, I looked up at him. “Thanks again for lunch.”
“You’re welcome. Thanks for agreeing to lunch.” I giggled.
This time we didn’t stop in the stairwell on our way up to the office. I glanced at Charles, wondering why, but didn’t say anything. The rational part of my mind reminded me that making out in the stairwell wasn’t exactly professional behavior and we shouldn’t have done it to begin with, but I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.
Somehow, Charles seemed to know exactly what I was thinking because he stopped me just before we exited the stairs.
He slid his hand beneath my chin and lifted my face to his. After placing a light kiss on my lips, he said, “I can’t trust myself to kiss you today. We might never make it back to work.”
I swayed forward, my body resting lightly against his. He grinned and placed his hands on my shoulders, gently setting me away from him.
“Tonight,” he murmured, his voice low and full of promise.
I felt goose bumps break out on my skin. While my brain tisked at me, reminding me that impulsive behavior hadn’t worked out so well for me last time, my body was ready to jump Charles’ bones right here in the stairwell.
I exhaled and took another step back, putting more space between us. “Tonight.”
His hand was still on my chin and he ran his thumb across my bottom lip, making my nipples harden. Then he dropped his arm and opened the door, allowing me to enter first. Behind me, he leaned down, putting his mouth close to my ear. “I’ll see you at 8:30.”
I shivered. “8:30.” Without looking back, I walked down the hall toward my office. The end of the day couldn’t come fast enough.
I EXPECTED THE work day to drag on after my lunch with Charles and the insanely intense response I had to him in the stairwell that afternoon. Instead, it flew by. I had several projects hit my desk about an hour after lunch and I was swamped.
The next time I looked up, it was ten after five and I had to quickly save my work and shut down my computer. I needed to stop by the grocery store and pick up a few things for dinner that night. Wednesdays were Spaghetti Night at home and Carolena looked forward to it every week.
I winced when I realized that all the garlic wasn’t exactly make-out friendly food, but I didn’t want to disappoint my little girl. If we both ate it, maybe the garlic would cancel itself out. I rolled my eyes, knowing that was a ridiculous thought, but I still bought everything I needed to make spaghetti and meat sauce, garlic bread, bagged salad, and a tiramisu from the bakery section.
I made it home a little before 6:30, quickly changed out of my work clothes, and immediately began to make the food. One good thing about the menu, it was quick, simple, and I could boil a small portion of the pasta for Lena, then make the rest when Charles came over. Forty-fiv
e minutes later, I had Carolena fed and ready for a bath. By 8:00 p.m. on the dot, I had her bathed, lotioned, and dressed in her pajamas. I rocked her in the glider for a while, humming under my breath. Ten minutes later, I kissed her forehead and laid her in her crib, where she immediately rolled onto her belly, grabbed her favorite blankie, and passed out.
Grateful that my daughter was cooperating tonight, I grabbed the baby monitor and headed downstairs to pour myself a glass of wine while I waited for Charles. At exactly 8:30, he arrived. Considerate as usual, he texted me to let me know he was here rather than knocking or ringing the doorbell.
When I opened the door, he quickly stepped inside and grabbed my waist, yanking me close and kissing me thoroughly. My knees buckled as his tongue tangled with mine and one of his hands cupped my butt. I should have been angry at the manhandling, but every hormone in my body went on red alert and shut down the logical part of my brain.
A few minutes later, he lifted his head and stared down at me. “See why I didn’t kiss you on the stairs this afternoon?”
I blinked up at him, my mind blank for a moment, before I realized what he’d just said and laughed. He released me and shrugged out of his jacket.
“Something smells great,” he said.
I took his coat and hung it on the coat tree by the front door. “I made spaghetti and meat sauce for dinner. I thought we could eat on the couch while we watch the movie.”
He wrapped his arms around me, simply hugging me. “That sounds perfect.”
I rested my head against his chest, soaking up the contact. How long had it been since someone just held me? Carolena hugged me all the time, but it had been years since a man wrapped his arms around me and held me just for the simple enjoyment of it.
I blew out a breath and straightened. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
Charles smiled down at me. “Me too.”
