“Yes?” He was still holding her hand, waiting for her to join him. Hoping the apartment wasn’t too spartan or messy. He’d been rushed and focused on his upcoming interview the last time he’d been home. But along with his blindness had also come a touch of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Most of the time he put things precisely where they belonged. His place couldn’t look too bad. What didn’t she like?
“Umm, lights?”
Oh, that. Smiling to himself, he flicked the switch on the wall and instant—nothing. But he was used to the dark. “I don’t buy many lightbulbs. Did it come on? Can you see better now?”
“Wow. Very nice,” she said as she stepped across the threshold and into his tidy world. “Who’s your decorator?”
“Mom. Sometimes Dad.” Jameson closed the door and locked it. “They come up from Williamsburg at least once a month to check on me. I do okay on necessities, but Mom’s the interior decorator. She made sure the walls aren’t bare, and that my towels are all the same color. Dad’s a professor at William and Mary. I’m their only child, so they can be a little overprotective.”
“He’s a professor? Really?”
Founded by King William III and Queen Mary II of England in 1693, William and Mary was one of the oldest universities in the United States, second only to Harvard.
“Sure. He teaches American History. It’s no big deal. You’ll like him.”
“My dad owns a bar.”
“Oh, yeah?” Jameson asked as he made his way into his kitchen. “Where?”
“Brentwood. Crabby Rocks, that’s the name of it. Don’t guess you’ve ever been there. Me either. It’s a rough neighborhood.”
“Can I get you anything to drink? Coffee maybe? A beer?” he asked, not wanting her to dwell on comparisons that didn’t matter. “That’s all I’ve got unless you want ice water.”
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Maddie was at his elbow by then, hip-checking him. “I’ll get drinks and fix us something to eat. You’re the one with stitches. Go sit down.”
“Works for me,” Jameson breathed as he granted her control of his kitchen.
The sofa was a welcome relief after one helluva nerve racking operation. He tipped his head back and let the weariness of one damned long day ease out of him. His first two days working for Alex had left him bone-tired, and whatever the ER doc used to deaden the stitching had worn the last of his defenses down. He didn’t want to zone out before Maddie made it back into his arms. But he was fading fast.
“You never mention your mother.” He made that quiet statement, there in his oyster shell of a bachelor’s apartment, where the only feminine touches until tonight, were his mom’s. She’d always been there for him.
“That’s because she deserted me when I was three. I have no memory of her.”
“I’m sorry.” He couldn’t imagine growing up without a mom. What kind of woman deserted her only daughter? “What’s your dad’s name?”
“Rick. Richard Bannister.” By the sound of cupboards and drawers opening coming from his kitchen, Maddie was doing more than just filling two glasses of water.
“And your mother’s?”
“Christina, only it’s spelled K-r-y-s-t-y-n-a.”
“Who was she before she married?”
“I don’t know. Why? Are you going to look her up?” Maddie snorted. “I don’t even know if she’s still alive. Don’t know if I care.”
“Why would you say something like that?”
A glass or bottle landed a little too loudly on the kitchen counter. “Because if she were, or if she’d ever cared, she would’ve reached out to me. Don’t you think?”
Jameson made a mental note to look into Krystyna Bannister. “Never mind, babe. It’s none of my business. What are you fixing?”
“A midnight snack,” she piped up, her voice even now that he’d dropped the subject. “Ham-and-cheese sandwiches. Want yours toasted?”
“I’m a guy. Whatever you want to fix, I’ll eat,” he replied as the delicious aromas drifted into the living room. Wasn’t that the most heavenly smell? The woman he loved making a meal for the two of them? A homemade meal. Not fast food or take-out.
Jameson didn’t mean to fall asleep. But suddenly he was waking up, and Maddie was murmuring somewhere over the top of him, “Hey, you. I’m going to take a shower. Want to join me?”
“Sure.” Guess he’d missed that midnight snack. Knew he needed a shower. Wanted to jump her bones in the worst way. But…
The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back in his bed, undressed down to his boxers, with the loveliest smelling body snuggled under his arm. Maddie’s freshly showered, damp head rested on his chest, and her sweet breath was in his face.
“I’m tired,” she told him. “Let’s just get some sleep.”
Thank God. Jameson closed his eyes and let the drama of the last forty-eight plus hours fade.
Sometime later, he woke with a start, blinking at the welcome warmth of Maddie in his bed. She’d stayed. Man, she smelled good. Squeaky clean and feminine. Sound asleep under his arm. Her hand on his chest.
Jameson eased out of his boxers. Once they were on the floor, he skimmed one hand down her back and found her seductively naked beneath the sheet. Despite the tenderness in his side where he’d been wounded, everything inside of him sprang to attention. Jameson turned his forehead to hers. With his free hand, he cupped her cheek, then threaded his fingers into her long, lush hair. She’d showered, smelled like his shampoo and body wash. Somehow his spicy scent on her stoked the fire in his gut to an urgent crescendo of raw, animalistic need.
Tipping forward, he pressed a fervent kiss to the tip of her pert nose, then let his fingers and thumb roam over her face, mapping the fine contours of her brows, the smooth satin expanse of her forehead, and the exquisite luxury of her plush lips. A pronounced philtrum, the sexy eye-catching indentation between the end of her nose and her upper lip, drew the two peaks of that lip
