The Trouble with Angels (Angels Everywhere #2)(62)

"It seems a shame to dirty your jacket.”

"There’s nothing here the dry cleaners can’t remove.”

Fumbling with her hands to find her way, Joy lowered herself onto his suit jacket. She sat with her legs scooted to one side and her weight leveled onto one arm.

Sitting, she soon discovered, meant being close was unavoidable. She didn’t need their shoulders to touch to feel his presence. He was there, bigger than life.

"I apologize for snapping at you,” she said, regretting her earlier behavior. It wasn’t his fault the electricity had gone out, although she would have been happy to blame him.

"My temperament wasn’t any better,” he admitted, and then with regret added, "What’s happened to us, Joy? We used to be friends, remember? Good friends. I’ve never enjoyed an evening more than the one I spent at the Lakers game with you.”

"Yes, well—”

"When I’m with you,” he said, cutting her off, "I feel everything more intensely. Hell, I don’t even know what I did that was so terrible. Okay, okay, I know it has to do with Blythe—”

"I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to talk.”

"Not talk?” He sounded incredulous.

"About us,” she clarified. "I can’t see beating the subject into the ground, can you?” Any further discussion would lead to more hurt, and she’d been miserable enough the last few days. In her heart of hearts she’d accepted that he was going to marry Blythe Homes.

"I see.” His words were pensive. "If you’d give me an opportunity, I’d like to tell you about Blythe and me.”

"Please, no,” she said quickly before he had a chance to drag the other woman between them. Not that Blythe wasn’t already there, as bold as could be. She had been since the beginning: suave, sophisticated, reminding Joy of everything she would never be.

Other than being strikingly beautiful, Blythe Holmes was sober faced and serious minded. One couldn’t look at the woman and not speculate at her importance. She was the perfect wife and professional for an up-and-coming engineer. Ted’s future was bright. Catherine had bragged about her grandson’s achievements often enough for Joy to know he was considered brilliant.

"All right, we won’t talk about us,” Ted agreed reluctantly.

Joy wasn’t sure if it was by accident or design, but they seemed to be moving closer to each other. Sitting side by side as they were, their shoulders touched. Then, without her being sure how he managed it, Ted positioned himself behind her.

It was difficult to keep her back straight, and then gradually, almost without conscious effort, she found herself using his broad chest for support.

His hands cupped her shoulders and eased her back even more. Joy closed her eyes and against her better judgment allowed herself to be drawn into the warm, welcome circle of his arms. His nose nuzzled the side of her neck, and his hot breath fanned her cool skin.

Unable to raise so much as a token resistance, Joy decided she was weak, much weaker than she ever realized. For the first time in days she felt warm and content. It was cold outside Ted’s arms, cold and lonely. She knew his attention was temporary, fleeting at best, but she needed his touch and his tenderness.

Joy, a willing participant, maneuvered their positions so they faced each other. His hands framed her face, and his thumb skidded across her lips. She knew he intended to kiss her long before he brought his mouth to hers. Knew it and welcomed it.

His mouth was warm and moist when it settled over hers. Joy sighed at the simple pleasure his touch produced. They’d kissed before. This keen sense of satisfaction shouldn’t have come as a surprise, yet it did.

He wove his fingers into her hair, bunching it up in his hands as his mouth glided over hers. He molded the shape of her lips with his, with a heat and a need that seared her senses.

A frightening kind of excitement took hold of Joy, and she opened her mouth to him. Ted’s tongue went in search of hers, and she moaned aloud at this new level of intimacy.

Joy wasn’t sure where they would have progressed from there if the lights hadn’t suddenly gone back on and the elevator hadn’t abruptly jolted them back into the real world.

Ted muttered something under his breath that she couldn’t fully decipher. What she did manage to hear, she agreed with entirely.

"I have a dinner engagement with my grandmother,” he told her. He continued to hold her, although the elevator had started to move. "Can I come see you afterward?”

"Ah.” It shouldn’t be this difficult to decide.

He kissed her again with a hunger that sent her world spinning off its orbit. "Okay,” she agreed, sounding weak and unsure. At the moment she was both.

"Joy,” he said, helping her to her feet, "you’ve got to trust me. I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. Trust me, all right? That’s all I ask.”

The elevator arrived, and Ted stepped off reluctantly. He backed out of the elevator and raised his fingers to his lips in a gesture of farewell.

"Said the spider to the fly,” Joy murmured.

Trust him. That was all he’d asked. Her heart told her she should, and her head, her know-it-all head, insisted otherwise. Joy grinned and decided to believe her heart.

"What happened?” she asked the first person she saw when she stepped off the elevator.