Overnight Male by Elizabeth Bevarly Page A

And the spicy scent of the sandalwood shaving soap he used was more than a little sexy. But it was the act of standing there talking business in such a personal setting that really seeped into her awareness. In all the times she’d opened her eyes in the morning after a sexual encounter, she’d never hung around any longer than it took to get dressed and bolt. There had been times—rather a lot of them, actually—when she hadn’t even woken her partner to say goodbye. Sex and intimacy had nothing to do with each other as far as Lila was concerned. But she hadn’t realized that something as simple and nonsexual as this could be intimate, either.

    When Joel finally emerged from the bathroom capping his toothbrush holder, Lila was tossing the last of his things into his bag and getting ready to close it. She paused long enough for him to toss the toothbrush into the bag, then finished with a soft zzzzip that punctuated their race for time quite nicely. They both seemed to realize it, chuckling as one at the sound.

    “Nicely done,” she told him.

    “Couldn’t have managed it without you,” he conceded.

    She didn’t say what should have been the obvious next remark. So Joel took it upon himself to say it.

    “We make a good team.”

    Lila said nothing in response to that, either. The team thing remained to be seen. So she drove her gaze around the room, looking for something that might change the subject. Ultimately, her gaze fell on the collection of childishly executed artwork. There were primitive sketches of stick people and stick animals, a few more progressive ones of houses and trees and suns, and a handful of portraits that actually weren’t half-bad. Provided they’d been drawn by someone under the age of fifteen. Which, judging by the rest of the exhibit, they most likely had been.

    “Who drew all the pictures?” she asked, jutting her chin up toward the one nearest them.

    Joel’s features softened at the question in a way that made his entire face seem as if it was smiling. That should have diminished his masculinity, too, she thought. But somehow it just made him even more potent.

    “My sister’s kids,” he said. “She sends me a lot of their work. Since she became a mom, she thinks everyone needs the influence of children in their lives. Makes them more human, she says. The grown-ups, I mean,” he hastily qualified. “Kids, any kids, she thinks are already pretty much perfect.”

    “Well, except for the part about them being odious little miscreants,” Lila said.

    He laughed at that, as if she’d made a joke. Funny thing was, she hadn’t been. She didn’t much care for children. She supposed they had their purposes—mostly to serve as warnings to always use birth control—but she didn’t want any in her own life. She studied Joel more closely, trying to discern if he was being sarcastic or maudlin when he talked about the alleged perfection of his nieces and/or nephews. Neither, she finally decided. Weird as it seemed, he was just being matter-of-fact. He actually agreed with his sister.

    Huh. How about that.

    She asked, “So are you one of those people who doesn’t think life can be complete without the Dutch Colonial in the suburbs, the two-point-five kids and the dog named Sparky?”

    He smiled in that should-have-diminished-his-potency-but-didn’t way again. “Well, the house could be a Tudor and the dog could be named Pal and life would still be complete, but…” He left the sentence unfinished, but the gist of his feelings came through just fine.

    Lila was surprised by the little stab of disappointment that jabbed her chest when she heard him voice the sentiment. So what if Joel Faraday had bought into that suburban myth of home, hearth and riding mower? she asked herself. So what if he was the settling-down kind? So what if he wanted a traditional life with a traditional partner in a traditional community? What did she care? If that was the sort of thing he