Amelia leaned one elbow on the metal table and stared at Marcus, studying the nuances that crossed his handsome face as he watched the people passing them by on the pavement. For all she knew, Marcus was Mr Right for someone already. It wouldn’t surprise her. He had looks, a fabulous body, was quick to defend women, and had proven himself intelligent in the brief conversations they had shared. Her younger sister would have taken one look at him, with his dark tousled hair that caressed the nape of his neck and sometimes fell down to brush his forehead, causing him to sweep his fingers through it to groom it back, incredible pale blue eyes, and scorching hot body, and declared him ‘smexy’. Smart and sexy apparently. Her mother would have taken one look at him and told her that he was a keeper and not to give up on him.
Someone else was probably already keeping him.
Maybe that was why he had taken his hand back so quickly.
Marcus looked across the table at her and Amelia felt cold inside from the emptiness in his eyes. Where had the nice Marcus gone? Had she chased him away? A sense of impatience surrounded him, as though he didn’t want to sit with her anymore, and he couldn’t hold her gaze for more than a few seconds.
Amelia mused that he was always detached from everyone and distant. She shouldn’t be so surprised that he had withdrawn from her.
“I wouldn’t be any good for you,” he said, his deep voice as devoid of emotion as his face, and Amelia held her hands up, desperate to shift the course of conversation away from her feelings. “You are better off keeping away from me.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” She had but he didn’t need to know that. Her heart ached as he crushed it in her chest with just a glance and a handful of words. She blushed, her face on fire, and stuttered, trying to get an excuse into order.
She couldn’t find the words as he stared at her, his expression gradually turning from awkwardness towards anger, and she knew in her heart that she couldn’t have been more wrong about him.
His appearance now was a harsh contrast to how he had looked just a few minutes ago and last night. The heat that had touched his handsome features then, warming them and giving her the impression that she stood a chance with him, and the undeniable spark of desire that had lit his eyes, made her feel as though she had met a different person in that moment and not the real Marcus.
Perhaps all her thoughts about him were wrong, even last night, and he was right. She really didn’t know anything about him. Her white knight might just be another black one in disguise and she really didn’t need that on top of everything else. What would she do if Marcus turned out to be another wrong choice when he looked so much like a good man? It would certainly compound the growing notion inside her that she was doomed to spend her life with a string of Mr Wrongs in an impossible search for one Mr Right.
“Did I thank you for last night?” Desperate times called for desperate measures. All she could do now was try to deflect his attention away from what she had done in some dire hope of easing the tension mounting between them.
He nodded. Silent treatment was it? He was the first man to do that to her, but it wasn’t going to deter her. Once they were back on steady ground, she would make her excuses and leave, and hopefully things wouldn’t be too awkward between them whenever they met in the hallways of their apartment building.
“Was your coffee good?” Amelia looked at the white mug. He had barely touched it. In fact, he hadn’t done or said much since sitting down with her. He really didn’t want to be here. Had he only agreed to coffee out of politeness?
Marcus lifted his broad shoulders in a shrug. He had looked so good in only his deep grey sweat pants, his bare upper body on display as a midnight feast for her eyes. She tried to keep her focus on the more pressing matters of her present situation and failed, ending up picturing him as he had appeared last night instead. He had an athletic physique, toned and powerful but not overly built. The sort of body she would love to run her fingers over and had fantasised about. The sweat pants had barely hidden the muscular shape of his thighs and had rode low on his hips, revealing a V line that had stirred all manner of wicked thoughts in her head, as well as a treasure trail of dark hair that her lips and fingers ached to follow. When he had punched Mike, his entire body had come alive with movement, fascinating her. The way his muscles shifted and moved with him, tensing or stretching beneath his pale skin, had been mesmerising. It had taken her a moment to realise that Mike was flat on his backside and that she should react to it in some way other than gawping at Marcus.
When she had taken him into her apartment and iced his knuckles, she had put his body to memory, including the beautiful tattoo of angel wings he had on his back. She hadn’t figured him as a tattoo type so the swirling blue-grey elaborate wings that decorated his shoulder blades had surprised her. She had wanted to ask him about them but hadn’t been able to find her voice at the time, and asking him about them now certainly wouldn’t help her cause, not when she wanted to ask him why such an elementally masculine man had such beautifully delicate tattoos. They seemed like a strange choice.
Unless he was gay.
Was that a possibility?
Amelia’s gaze darted to his face and her eyes widened when she caught him staring at her chest. He quickly looked away, turning his right cheek to her and taking in the people walking along the street, lending her a view of his noble profile. Bi? He was gorgeous, clearly looked after himself, and also kept to himself. Was that a bad sign? Amelia frowned at her thoughts. She was overanalysing things. Just because he was good looking and not interested in her didn’t mean he was gay or involved in a relationship, or any of those things that she wanted him to be so she would feel better about his rejection.
He just didn’t find her attractive.
He had said it straight. Stay away.
Maybe she would do just that.
Amelia went to pick up her black leather handbag and then hesitated. Flushed with bravery and unwilling to give up so easily, she fixed Marcus with a hard look and was surprised when he turned his head and looked at her, as though he had felt her staring.
“Is something wrong?” Not a trace of a tremble in her voice. Her heart pounded, adrenaline thundering in her veins, but she held her ground. It was a horribly personal question to ask him but she had to find out whether his reaction to her touch was because he didn’t want her or because he did but felt he wasn’t good for her, as he had said.
Marcus stared at her for almost a full minute, the fading evening light reflecting off the windows and his white shirt, illuminating his face and chasing the shadows away. The edge of darkness his expression had gained lifted to reveal something that wasn’t quite warmth, but wasn’t icy cold either.
“Why?” A slight frown pinched his black eyebrows together.
“You… it’s just you seem more out of spirits than normal.”
He gave her an odd look. It was the truth. He never seemed very happy and now she couldn’t help wondering why. His warning to keep away from him had brought back all the previous times she had seen him and the distance he maintained between him and everyone in their building, and now she wanted to know whether the man sitting opposite her was more similar to her than she had thought possible.
Did he go from one bad experience to the next too?
He had to have a reason for wanting to keep his distance from everyone and not letting anyone in. Was he afraid of being hurt or feeling something for someone? She feared that too, entered into relationships believing that eventually they would end and she would be hurt, but as much as she tried to live alone and be the independent woman she wanted to be, she couldn’t help feeling lonely and wanting to share her life with someone.
For a brief moment, Marcus had seemed like someone she could do that with, and this time she had felt it wouldn’t end in tears.
He could have been her Mr Right, but such a man wouldn’t have told her to keep away from him. That hadn’t been in her dream of what would happen t
oday when she bumped into him. She hadn’t anticipated that response at all. She couldn’t blame him though. Chatty old Mrs McCartney next door had probably told him all about her poor choice in men and he was telling her to keep away because he didn’t want to get sucked into her miserable life.
Amelia jumped when her mobile phone rang, the jaunty tune breaking the heavy silence as it buzzed on the table. Marcus frowned, his blue eyes darting to it. She wanted to ignore it, knowing that it would be Mike calling to chew her ear off about last night and make her feel wretched for the rest of the weekend, but the ring was so loud that people around her were staring.
Instead of answering, she picked it up, put her handbag on the table, and dumped the phone into it, muffling the annoying ringtone.
“Why didn’t you answer it?” Marcus stared at her bag. Amelia tapped the table, cringing inside and wishing the phone would stop ringing.
“It’s my ex.” Ignoring him was preferable to speaking with him.
Marcus surprised her by reaching across the table, fishing the phone out of her handbag, and flicking it open. Amelia could only stare as he brought the phone to his ear, his face set in grim dark lines, and glared at the table as though he wanted to kill it.
“I thought I told you to leave Amelia alone?” He paused, his expression darkening further and the muscle in his jaw tensing. Amelia’s heart pounded hard and she wished she could hear what Mike was saying to Marcus, because he looked close to going ahead and breaking something. Anger radiated from him in strong waves and everyone stared as he barked into the phone, “Stay away from her because the next time you dare to go near her, I’m not going to be so kind as to let you walk away.”
Amelia’s hands shook, her limbs trembling with them, and she joined everyone in staring at Marcus as he clicked the phone shut and dropped it back into her purse. What had just happened?
He had defended her again when she had been convinced that he wanted nothing to do with her.
His eyes met hers across the table and the trace of compassion in them only confused her further. He blinked slowly, dark lashes shuttering his pale blue irises, stealing them from view before lifting again to reveal the full extent of their beauty. Warmth shone in them, a softness that reached out and curled around her, filling her with a sense of safety even as her whole body quaked with the fear that Mike wouldn’t heed Marcus’s warning and would come after her again.
“I won’t let him near you, Amelia. You don’t have to worry about him. I will keep you safe.” Those words, so softly spoken in his deep voice, weren’t a lie. There was truth in his eyes and his open expression, and she believed him.
She just wasn’t sure what to make of him.
What sort of man told a woman to stay away from him and then promised to keep her safe?
Marcus was an enigma and something inside her was telling her to take his advice and keep away from him, because if he turned out to be another black knight and broke her heart, she didn’t think she would recover from it.
She gathered her things, rose from her seat and hesitated only long enough to catch the confusion surfacing in his eyes before making a swift exit.
CHAPTER 5
There was no doubt about it.
Marcus had put his foot in it.
Everything had been going well yesterday until Amelia had taken hold of his hand and he had quickly withdrawn his, and rather than making an excuse as planned, he had warned her away.
Instinct had pushed those words from his lips.
He had no desire to get any closer to her than was necessary.
Marcus raked his fingers through his overlong black hair, combing it away from his forehead, and stared into the distance across the rooftops of London.
Who was he fooling?
Not himself, that was certain.
The spark of desire her touch had reignited in him, bringing his hunger to caress her in return back to boiling point, and the warmth that travelled through his flesh, spreading outwards from the point where her fingers rested against his skin was unmistakably a sign of him harbouring an attraction towards her.
He paced the black tarred roof of his apartment building, scouring the horizon for an answer to his troubles. The problem of gaining Amelia’s trust had been all but solved until he had foolishly told her to keep away from him.
He had always been aware that his instinct to protect her ran deep in his veins but had never suspected that it had corrupted his heart too and that he would even deem it necessary to protect her from himself. She’d had her share of pain and suffering, more than such a pure kind soul deserved, and he couldn’t bring himself to add to it. When his mission was over, he was leaving Earth and Amelia behind him for good. If he used her desire against her, her heart would break when that happened. She would never understand. She would blame herself, just as she did whenever one of the vile men she involved herself with decided to leave her or did something that forced her to leave them.
He couldn’t be like them.
Amelia deserved better.
Far better than him, that was for sure.
One day, she would meet the man who would become her world and who would treat her right and make her happy.
A flash of her smiling at him yesterday cut into his thoughts and deep into his chest.
He had made her smile.
Truly smile with happiness and warmth.
And then she had looked wounded, leaving him at the café alone to ponder what had possessed him to say such things to her and why he had decided to once again intervene in her destructive relationship with her ex-lover.
Duty.
In part it was a lie to say he did these things out of his sense of duty, but it was also his shield and he would not cast it aside.
The dying rays of the sun warmed his skin, the lingering heat of the day cocooning him in a soft breeze that stirred his soul as he watched the sun set over London. It was growing late. Time had passed quickly while he had been lost in his thoughts, hidden away from the hustle and bustle of the mortal realm far below him, and he still hadn’t found the answers to the questions that plagued him. Questions about his mission had been joined by ones about Amelia and her feelings for him.
Why would a beautiful mortal female look upon him with such desire?
Marcus looked down at his hands and turned them palm up. These hands had killed many in the line of duty, harvesting souls of sinners and detaining them for judgement. In times past, when wars had been frequent, he had reaped battlefields and cities alike in the name of Heaven, following orders to the letter to assist the angels of death in their mission, never once feeling remorse over his actions.
Until now.
He had told her to keep away from him.
She deserved better than a man who had killed so many of her kind without flinching.
A role he would gladly resume once his current mission had come to an end.
He was no better than those men who had hurt her.
If anything, he was worse.
For all their noise and disgraceful behaviour, none of them had ever taken the life of another mortal. Amelia believed him good and kind, thought that he was different to the men she had previously been intimate with, but she would never see him that way if she knew the things he had done in his past, in the time before he had lost his wings.
Since being cursed, he had led a different life. Wars had become less frequent and the angels of death had no longer required outside assistance from the other branches of angels in Heaven. His kind, the guardians, had returned to their normal duties, shepherding souls and protecting Heaven, or watching over the mortals, both in the present and in the future.
He had never seen the single pool which held the future. Only a few angels were allowed entry to the room containing it in the grand palatial house of Heaven, and those angels were sworn to silence, allowed only to speak to their superior, who in turn relayed necessary information on critical events to other high ranking angels.
His superior included.
Which led Marcus to believe that he was aware of what fate awaited Amelia.
Marcus curled his fingers into fists and frowned at the vambraces protecting his forearms, watching the way the sunlight danced across the blue armour and reflected off the silver raised edges and the silver buckles on the leather straps against his underarms.
There was something freeing about changing out of his mortal appearance and donning his armour. He felt closer to home again and distant from the goings on of the mortal world around him. He shrugged his shoulders, raising the blue breastplate of his armour and exposing his bare stomach, and then stretched his arms out at his sides and closed his eyes as he unfurled his wings.
Warm summer air tickled his silvery-blue feathers, teasing his senses, and he basked in the sunlight, absorbing the heat and allowing it to relax him and chase away his troubled thoughts.
He was a soldier.
Soldiers followed their orders.
He didn’t have to think. He just had to follow orders and his mission would be over.
Marcus opened his eyes and looked at the infinite sky. The pale blue dome turned to green and then hues of orange near the horizon, scattered with ribbons of cloud that caught the fading sunlight and burned gold and pink. It was beautiful and this evening it would be his playground again, his world in which he would immerse himself to escape the mortal realm and find peace for a few brief hours. He would fly until he ached from the exertion, until he couldn’t beat his wings one last time, and then he would return to his apartment and sleep until morning finally came.
Free of this world.
Five centuries without wings and every day had been torture.
Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Complete Series Box Set Page 5