Chapter 7: A Deepening Desire
Ev knew he had shocked Maxine with his boldness, and he was glad of it. He didn’t want to go through the expected steps. He wanted her to know that he was interested, and though he knew he would respect her decision, whatever it turned out to be, he was not backing off unless she told him to. As she had done when he’d been unable to deny himself a taste of her flesh earlier when he’d kissed her palm. Feeding her had been all he’d wanted to do, so he could watch her mouth close around the fork, and listen to her moans of pleasure at the tastes exploding on her tongue. Touching her had become his highest goal, and though she had pushed him away, she couldn’t take away the feel and the taste of her from him. They were etched in his memory now, and would have to tide him over until the next time she allowed him near.
He knew she’d be cautious from now on, but he was willing to pay the price if it meant she would keep seeing him. They finished the rest of the meal without any further physical contact, and he answered the other questions she had asked him. Yes, his parents were still alive and currently away on a cruise. They lived in Florida and he rarely saw them, because they were always jaunting off somewhere. Yes, he had one sibling, currently on active duty in the Air Force. He saw him whenever he was home on leave. His favorite color was purple, he had no favorite food, and he enjoyed hiking and playing board games among other things.
Once back in the car, he turned the same questions back on her. “It’s only fair that I know the same things about you as you do about me,” he told her as he drove towards the concert hall.
“My mother died when I was a junior in high school of ovarian cancer. She had been ill for some time before. My parents had been divorced for a while before she died. My dad is still alive and lives here in the city. I don’t see him much, and that’s my fault.”
Ev noticed she looked pained when she spoke of her father. There was a story there, and he hoped he could coax it out of her one day. For now, though, he let her continue.
“I’m an only child, my favorite color is red, and I love fried chicken. I do yoga to relax.”
“Yoga? Nothing else? Because you know, that’s exercise, not a hobby.”
“So is hiking,” she retorted.
“Ah, but I take pictures when I go on hikes and preserve them in albums, both digital and physical.”
“Well, I like to bake,” she said, “but I don’t have a lot of time to do that.”
They arrived at the hall and once again he handed over his keys to the valet and escorted her into the teeming front lobby. He removed the tickets from his inside breast pocket and once they had presented them, he led her into the hall where they were shown to their seats, in the middle of the auditorium. He was pleased to note that they had the end seats, and he let Maxine sit on the inside, happy to have no one next to him but her. They only had to stand once to let people in to their seats, and then he settled in to wait for the first note to be played. He didn’t speak to Maxine again until she turned to him to say,
“May I see the program?”
He handed her one of the two he’d been given and she bowed her head to study it, reading it inside and out, front and back. Her neck was exposed, and his mouth watered for a taste of her where it met her shoulder.
“They have some pieces here that I love,” she said, looking up at him with a smile.
He returned it just as the lights dimmed and the concert began. Ev was caught between listening to the orchestra play and listening to the woman next to him humming along with the music she knew. Maxine humming was fast becoming his favorite sound. During the intermission, he accompanied her out to the lobby and waited while she went to the ladies room. When she returned, it was time to go back to their seats.
“I take it there was a line?”
“A line that seemed to go on forever,” she answered with a laugh.
The second half was rousing and engaging, and Ev watched as Maxine almost danced in her seat to the music coming from the stage. He wished there was room to dance. He’d take her in his arms and hold her close and move with her to the rhythms beating against him. It made him remember that he also loved to dance. But once Dani died, he hadn’t gone dancing again…the memories had been too painful. Dani had been such an excellent dancer.
He waited for the usual pain to strike his heart at the thoughts of his dead wife, but there was nothing. Only an aching need remained to hold Maxine in his arms and swing her away to the music. He wanted to forget that his heart was still broken, and he wanted to do it with Maxine. Of all the women he had been with in the last year, she was the first to make him want to dance again. And that gave him an idea for their third date.
“Wow! That was brilliant!”
Maxine’s enthusiastic applause and excited words brought him back to the moment and he rose with the others, clapping although he had not heard the end of the concert. The applause went on for a few minutes, and then the lights went up and people began to leave. Ev put his arm around her and walked with her out to the front, presenting his ticket to the valet. Within minutes, his car was stopping in front of them. He tipped the young man and was walking around with Maxine to help her into her seat when a flash of light blinded him for a second. Then a second and a third went off as he helped her in and then walked around to his side of the car. He gritted his teeth. He had been out of the limelight for the last three months or so, and he had even managed to avoid any paparazzi at the Hope For All event a week earlier. The only pictures of him that had appeared in connection with it had been the ones they had all posed for at the end of the event, before the dancing began.
He put the car in gear and drove off without speaking, willing the chill of the encounter away. Maxine knew he had been living like a playboy, and he worried that this unexpected and unwelcome photo op would sour her on trying for even a friendship with him. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want to be stalked, and he certainly didn’t want to bring that madness into her life. But he didn’t see how he could avoid it, if they were going to be seeing more of each other. He could see the headlines proliferating about his relationship with a new woman. And the longer he stayed with her, the more speculation would become rife about the seriousness of that relationship.
He didn’t know what would happen between him and Maxine, and he was not in love with her. But he knew he wanted more than a couple of dinner dates with her. He knew he wanted to give her more than chaste kisses on the cheek. He didn’t want uninvited press to destroy the fragile thing he was trying to build with her with their unwanted intrusions.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said as they drove along. She had been silent so long that he felt an unaccountable hit of nerves.
“Why? I would think you’re used to being stalked by the paparazzi.” She sounded aloof, almost cold, and Ev hated it.
“I wouldn’t say I’m used to it exactly, but even if I were, you’re not.”
She laughed ruefully. “I guess I’ll have to get used to it anyway, now that I’m in this high profile job. Thanks for my initiation.”
She didn’t sound particularly grateful, but at least she wasn’t railing at him. He decided to play it cool, like she was doing.
“Anything to help,” he said lightly.
Like an inexperienced boy, he wanted to invite her to go dancing with him, but given the current tenor of the conversation, he would wait. Unless she gave him some hint that she was in a better frame of mind, he’d hold off on any further invitations. He could distract himself in the meantime by doing his homework and finding out everything he could about the woman sitting next to him. He had a feeling he would enjoy his research.
He walked her up to her apartment when they got to her place, and opened the door for her as he had done the night before. Then he handed her the key and said,
“I had a good time tonight, Maxine. Thank you.”
She looked him in the eye for a long moment before asking, “Why don’t you call me ‘Max’?”
He smiled. “That’s easy. Aside from the fact that you don’t look like any Maxes I know, in my head you’re Maxine…or Minx, depending on the day.”
She smiled shyly, and Ev found himself once more holding on to his control by a thread. It seemed he would never be normal around this woman. He waited for her response, not wanting the evening to end but knowing he had to go eventually.
“Since I am very rarely naughty, any more than I am confrontational, I guess I’ll have to get used to Maxine, then.” She held his gaze for a moment more, adding, “I had a wonderful evening, Ev. I haven’t been to a concert in eons. It was lovely. Thank you.”
Her still-pink lips were slightly open, and he could see a hint of teeth. He wanted to kiss her so badly his jaw ached with the suppressed need. He stepped away, plastering a fake smile on his face.
“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, Maxine. But if I don’t leave now, I’m afraid you won’t accept my next invitation when I make it, because I’ll do what I’ve been dying to do since our last date. So I’ll say goodnight.”
He stood still, even though he had just declared himself about to leave, because her eyes held him captive there, pinned like a butterfly.
“What could you possibly do at my front door that would make me refuse to go out with you again?”
“Let’s just say it would involve more than my tongue on your palm.”
Her eyes widened, and then he saw the desire she was trying to hide slip free. God, she wanted him as much as he did her! But neither of them was ready to cross the line. He cleared his throat.
“Say goodnight, Maxine, and go inside. Please!” he begged her.
“Goodnight, Maxine!” she said cheekily, chuckling at his delighted grin. Humor and heat shone in her eyes.
Then she went in and closed and locked her front door. Ev walked away shaking his head, a real smile on his face, and a lightness in his step that had been missing for far too long. When he got home, the house was silent. He checked in on Danny first, and found him fast asleep, his little body wrapped around his newest favorite toy…a boy-sized Mufasa that Jeff had brought with him when he came to stay those first two nights. Ev remembered the interview, conducted via Facetime, because he had had to stay home with Danny, but he had wanted Jeff to fill out some important forms that were in the office. Ev had had to come clean about the last nanny, though he hadn’t told Del all the reasons that he had fired her. When he had asked if Jeff had any question, the young man had only one at the time…“What’s Danny’s favorite movie?”
Danny loved The Lion King, and Jeff had brought the stuffed animal with him as a hello gift. It was a pretty smart move for him to make. Between talking about the movie, singing the songs and admiring his new toy, Danny hadn’t had any time to feel uncomfortable with his new nanny. In fact, Danny seemed to take to Jeff rather quickly, as though the young man had put some kind of spell on him. But Ev wouldn’t complain. He’d had his new nanny a week, and he could only find fault with one thing, and it had nothing to do with how Jeff cared for his son, but with how Jeff looked after himself.
Satisfied that his son was fine, he went into the kitchen and found everything immaculate, and a note asking if it was okay for Jeff to take Danny to the Children’s Museum the next day. Ev’s heart swelled. This was exactly the kind of person he wanted to be with his son. Since his arrival, Jeff had also managed to squeeze in a trip to the zoo, specifically to the lions’ enclosure, so Danny could indulge in one of his favorite pastimes…watching the big cats lie about, or stroll around like masters of all they surveyed. And Jeff had recorded their roars, because Danny had said he wanted to listen to them at home.
He smiled as he left a hundred dollar bill on the table under the note. He’d talk to Jeff in the morning about his plans for the upcoming week, including interviewing the two women who were looking to fill the day hours that Jeff left vacant when he went to therapy. Ev marveled at the strength the young man showed in the face of the terrible accident that had left him temporarily paralyzed, and that would require him to continue with physical therapy for at least another year as his body knit itself back together. That he was also seeing a psychologist, because he had lost his lover in that crash, was something else that drew Ev to him. They both shared an understanding of loss.
Ev walked into his study and poured himself a drink before he went to sit at his desk, and pulled his tablet to him. He’d begin his research into Maxine on Google, and move on from there if he needed to. He typed her name into the Search bar and began with the newest entry. It told him that she was a licensed social worker with a Masters of Social Work and a Ph. D. in psychology. She also had a Masters in Public Policy. She was more than qualified to run Hope For All, and he felt great pride in her achievements, as though she was his to be proud of.
She was thirty-six years old, was unmarried, was an only child, and had worked on both the East and the West coasts. There were very few photographs of her outside of official events, like the seminars she used to run at the hospital, or the benefits she attended as part of her job in the hospital and in another non-profit in California. Ev couldn’t find a picture of her with any one man for more than one occasion, and there was no mention of any attachments that were not professional.
He sat back at last, more curious about her than before he had unearthed all these new facts. Why would a woman with Maxine’s obvious charms and stellar resume be without a partner in her private life? She was the kind of woman any man would be proud to squire around, the kind he would love to boast of as his woman. So why was she gun shy? Something must have spooked her when she was still young enough for it to matter. Did it have anything to do with her parents? She had mentioned them being divorced before her mother died. And she had said she wasn’t often in touch with her father.
He sat forward again, searching for information on her father, and found out he was Dr. Timothy Cousins, psychiatrist to the rich and famous. He was a handsome man, tall and lanky, and Ev could see where Maxine got her sharp bone structure and gorgeous smile from. There was little mention of her mother, aside from a note that he was divorced and then she had died. There was talk of him with several women, and pictures of him with many of them. Was this the reason Maxine was without a man? Did she think all men were like her father?
He sighed heavily. He wasn’t exactly a poster boy for trustworthy men after this last year of rampant womanizing. He couldn’t blame any woman who steered clear of him with the reputation that he had. And until this point, he hadn’t really cared what anyone thought of his behavior. He was a red-blooded male with needs, and if women threw themselves at him, who was he to refuse their advances, especially when they could scratch his itch while he scratched theirs? He wasn’t up for sainthood, and he wasn’t trying to be any woman’s ideal of a forever love.
Until now. In only a week, and after only two dates, he wanted to be something more than the man whore he had let himself become. He wanted to be more than he suspected he had ever been. Before he married Dani, he had been too busy building his business to be interested in messing around with women. He had had only two love affairs in all those pre-Dani years, and they had petered out from lack of interest on both sides. And after Dani died, when he permitted himself to feel anything again, all he allowed was lust.
He looked at the time on the laptop…past midnight. Maxine would be asleep by now. He imagined her tangled up in her bedsheets, naked skin warm and inviting his touch. He could spoon in behind her, wrap his arms around her and listen to her breathing. Did she talk in her sleep? Was she a dreamer? Would she like to be wakened by a hand caressing her breasts, or…
His body hardened, and he cut off the thought. It didn’t do him any good to dwell on thoughts that only made his desire for her rise like the ocean at high tide. He had to pace himself, let his desires simmer while he got to know her better. Shutting down the tablet, he pushed up from his chair and went to his bedroom, stripping and sliding naked beneath the sheets. The soft cloth touching his semi-hard cock was set to drive him crazy, so he turned to his side and prayed for sleep to take him away.
“Danny, we should let your papa sleep, baby!”
Jeff’s voice woke Ev. It wasn’t that the young man was loud so much as that the house was quiet, and he could hear a pin drop. He rolled over. Apparently Danny wanted to come in for a morning hello and Jeff was hindering his progress. Ev smiled. It appeared that the young man was taking care of him as much as he was of Danny. He rolled over, and slid out of bed, stepping into his ensuite bathroom and starting the shower. While he brushed his teeth, he tried to decide what to do with his day. Maybe he’d hang out at the museum with Danny and Jeff. It would give him a chance to observe his new nanny in action, as there had been little chance to do that in the week he’d been working for Ev.
The shower woke him up completely, and he slid on a pair of sweatpants over his boxers and a t-shirt before heading out to the kitchen. Jeff was at the stove cooking something that smelled frankly mouthwatering and Danny was kneeling on a chair at the table, working on the woodblock puzzle Jeff had put there for him to play with. The radio was on a channel that played soothing instrumental music, and the whole atmosphere was tranquil and cozy.
“Morning!” he said cheerfully, walking over to the coffee pot to start it.
Jeff swung round and smiled at him. “Good morning, Mr. Morgan! I hope we didn’t wake you. Danny wanted to come in to give you a kiss, but I know you got home late so I figured I’d keep him away.”
Ev laughed. “Thanks. I appreciate it.” He walked over to where his son knelt, absorbed in the puzzle, and ruffled his hair. “Good morning, buddy!”
“Daddy!” Danny lifted his arms and Ev picked him up and gave him a smacking kiss on each cheek.
“How is my big boy today?” he asked, and chuckled when Danny blew a raspberry on his cheek.
“Good. Can we go to moo…moose…”
Before Ev could say the word for him, Jeff interrupted. “Museum. Say it after me. Mu-se-um.” When Danny repeated it dutifully a few more times, Jeff said, “Okay, now say it again without me.”
“Myoo-zee-um,” Danny said proudly, and Jeff, who had come to the table with a huge omelet on a plate, reached over and ruffled his hair.
“Good boy!” he said. “I’m so proud of you.”
Ev took the opportunity to study at the remarkable young man who had just spent the last few minutes teaching his son a little lesson in patience and perseverance. He couldn’t stem the admiration that had him saying,
“You’re really very good with him! I know I wasn’t this good with kids when I was your age.”
Jeff blushed, making Ev smile. “My mom and my friends all tell me the same thing. I dunno…I just feel a connection to kids, so it’s easy for me to be patient with them, you know?”
Ev nodded and went to pour himself a cup of coffee. “Want some?” he asked Jeff. He already knew the answer, but he asked anyway.
“I’ll get it later,” Jeff said. “Would you like some omelet?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Ev said. “What about you?” He waited, hoping the young man would not refuse to eat again.
Jeff looked at him and something must have shown in his face, because he said, “Okay, I’ll just have a small piece with a slice of toast.”
Ev breathed a sigh of relief. He hoped he wouldn’t come back out later to find the toast and omelet still in a plate in the microwave.
“Would you like toast or a bagel?”
“I’ll toast a bagel, thanks, Jeff. You sit and eat.” He wanted to make sure Jeff got something inside him before they went traipsing off with Danny to the museum.
After breakfast, as Jeff was packing the dishwasher, Ev asked, “What time do you plan to go? I might come along for the ride.”
“I figured I’d wait till around noon,” he said. “I have some things I need to do before we go.”
“No problem. Call me when you’re ready. I’ll take us down and back.”
Jeff turned away to put the last plate in and then said, “Oh, by the way, I put the newspaper on your desk.”
“Thanks, man.” Although Ev enjoyed the ease that technology brought into his life, he still loved the feel of the Sunday paper in his hands. He took a second cup of coffee with him into his study and sat at the desk reading the headlines, and the articles that caught his eye. And then he saw it. In the Lifestyles section, in an article about the Boston Pops tour, a picture of him with Maxine leaving the concert hall. He was helping her into the car, and though half her face was hidden in that picture, the one that came after, in a second article about notables at the concert, showed the world exactly who he had been escorting to the event.
He wondered if she got the Sunday papers as well, and if she did, what she thought about the article. The first one was fairly innocuous, although it did seem to suggest that she was his newest conquest.
“After disappearing from the public stage for over three months, the very eligible Everett Morgan was spotted after the concert leaving with Maxine Cousins, new Director of the city’s largest non-profit, Hope For All. Dr. Cousins and Mr. Morgan were last seen together at the Hope For All holiday gala a week earlier. Could this be the beginning of a new relationship?”
Ev shook his head. Why couldn’t he go out with a woman without it being the start of something new? Was it impossible for a man and a woman to just be friends? He sighed. In this case, he wanted to be more than friends with Maxine, but he would settle for that if it was all she could give. Better friendship than nothing at all. His eyes went to the second article.
“Mr. Everett Morgan, the wealthy philanthropist, is also well-known as one the city’s most sought-after partners, and has been seen out and about with a number of highly desirable society women. His name has been linked to more than one such beauty in the past year, with speculation riding high that he was re-entering the dating pool two years after the tragic death of his wife, artist Danielle Morgan. So far none of these women have had the staying power we would expect from a consort of the eligible bachelor. All eyes will no doubt now be focused on Dr. Maxine Cousins, new director of the Hope For All foundation, with whom Mr. Morgan was spotted last evening at the Boston Pops concert.”
Knowing what he wished to have with Maxine, and knowing that she was apparently wary of men, he couldn’t imagine her being happy with the article. But as she said, she’d have to get used to the paparazzi now that she was a bigwig in the city. And he’d be happy to stay at her side, helping her to navigate these uncharted waters. He picked up his cellphone. He would call her, find out if she had seen the article, and listen to her speak into his ear, before he went out to spend the afternoon with his son.