by Kahlen Aymes
She leaned into his touch, rubbing her face into his hand, and the harshness of the day melted into nothingness. Her eyes burned as emotions threatened to overflow. This man was the only thing that mattered, and she would allow herself to get lost in him, even if only for an hour or two. “Then don’t wake up.”
“Your voice is different.”
She flushed. The screaming and the running had left its effect. Her throat felt sore, but in the spontaneity of the moment, she hadn’t even noticed. “Shhhh…” Angel murmured. Her hand smoothed along the strong line of his jaw; it was lined with stubble that poked gently at her fingertips. “Just, shhh…”
Alex pulled her forward, his lips finding hers. The kiss was gentle, yet hungry and urgent, his other hand running down her body, over her hip and to her thigh, finding her naked. He wasn’t surprised. She was always like this in his dreams.
Angel did her best not to wince when his hands came across some of the tender flesh now marred by bruises. She couldn’t let him know she was hurting or he’d wake up for sure.
He pulled her down beside him, shifted until she was half beneath him, when his mouth reluctantly pulled from hers, but still hovering, to glide like hot silk over her cheek and down the side of her neck. He inhaled the scent of his own shampoo, his nose finding the subtle dampness at her hairline as his hands continued to explore her willing body. “Your skin is like velvet.”
“Touch me,” she begged in a whisper. “Kiss me, Alex.”
Alex loomed over her, his eyes searching her face. She seemed vulnerable, aching, needy, and demanding all at once. “These last two weeks have been torture. I’ve been so worried.”
The frown on his face and the look in his eyes made her heart ache. “So have I.”
“I want to look at you.” He had a hard time articulating exactly what he wanted, but he knew that he wanted something from this woman, dream or no, that he’d never wanted. “I want…”
Her forehead leaned into his jaw and her hands slid up his chest over his shoulders to thread through his hair. He groaned when her fingers tugged gently, urging his head down to hers. Angel’s chin lifted and she licked at his top lip, then pulled his bottom one between both of hers and let her teeth tug on it gently. The heat pooling in her body wouldn’t be denied; the familiar ache that settled in the pit of her stomach and around her heart whenever she was with him grew more intense. She didn’t care if she had to beg. “What? This is your dream. Anything you want, it’s yours.”
His heart beat furiously under the fingers of her hand, and his full erection throbbed and pulsed against her thigh, yet he was hesitant, studying the apparition before him.
“I don’t want anything between us, dream or not, Angel.” His hand flattened out on the smooth plane of her belly and moved lower, his fingers parting her flesh, seeking the warmth between her legs as his mouth traced the swell of her breast. She arched her back as her breath left her. God, she loved his mouth on her, his fingers as they pushed inside her, seeking the place he knew would drive her wild. She understood what he was asking. But the last time, they hadn’t used protection in the heat of that moment either. Angel hadn’t been concerned because she was on the pill. But apparently, Alex was.
“I’m safe, Alex. We’re safe.”
“Then you trust me?” he asked softly, his lips finally closing around her nipple and sucking gently as his fingers worked in and out of her body, his thumb pressing against her most sensitive flesh with a purposeful rhythm. He enjoyed the panting breaths and soft mewling moans, her hips gyrating as her body begged for his.
“With everything I have,” she breathed.
“Then I want to make love to you. Slow, languid love. I never want this to end.”
Angel’s heart felt as if it would fly from her chest; her hands roamed lovingly over the smooth skin, hard with the strength lying beneath it. Her eyes squeezed shut, forcing the moisture to leak from the corners as her mouth found purchase against his bicep. “Oh, God, Alex,” she cried even as her body came around his fingers. “Uhhh, Uhhh!”
Alex’s mouth skimmed her skin, tasting the soft, salty sheen on her shoulder as he rolled her beneath him. The aftershocks of her orgasm were still rocking through her when she felt his hardness push against her, his pelvis rocking into hers, seeking entrance. Both of his large hands closed around the sides of her face. He was moving gently, his arms holding his weight, his mouth taking hers in a hungry kiss.
“You have to know what you mean to me,” he whispered urgently, softly licking and then roughly forcing his tongue inside to war with hers. She lifted her knees to curl around the side of his torso, and he slipped inside her tight, moist heat. “Beautiful, Angel. Ahhhhhggggh,” he groaned, pulling out almost completely to fill her again in a deep thrust.
Over and over, he repeated the action, pulling out slowly and thrusting in with a deeper force, letting her feel every inch of his length, the fullness of the head opening her up, and each ounce of his possession of her. She clenched around him, unsure if she wanted to prove to him he belonged to her just as much as she did him or whether it just felt too fucking good to stop the reaction of her body or her heart.
They kissed hungrily, their bodies moving in sync and with slow purpose, clinging to each other, pulling and grasping to get closer, even if it wasn’t possible. Alex stopped suddenly, fully embedded in her flesh, as he fought for control of his own release. Angel didn’t need words to know why he stopped or that he would begin the delicious dance again in a few seconds time.
Even if it was a dream, Alex made love to Angel until his body was pushed to its limits.
When she cried out his name and heaved against him as he made her come for the third time, her fingers raked painfully down his back. Alex let himself give in to his own release, his muscles tensed as he finally burst inside her and her name was forced from his lips like a prayer. The magnitude of it rushed over him in waves as Angel’s body closed around him, milking the fluid from his body and pulling it into her own.
Alex couldn’t stop kissing her, even as his body calmed and their breathing evened out. His fingers stroked her hair back from her temples, and his mouth worshiped hers—his lips slanting and sucking, giving and taking what he needed in return. Angel was just as unwilling to end the connection; her arms and legs still caged him in, her hips still heaving against his.
His heart exploded like a firework of light. His chest ached, his eyes burned, and his throat refused to allow him to swallow the tightness. The pain was enough that he thought it would kill him. The mixture of pleasure and pain was the most amazing, confusing, incredible feeling of his life.
He rolled over and gently pulled her with him, and she curled easily into his arms. His hand moved up to stroke down from the back of her head to smooth her hair down over her spine. Over and over, Alex soothed her, wondering if she were real, and if she was, would she be as fucked up by this as he was? Her little arms tightened around him, and her lips pressed into the pulse at the side of his neck.
Angel’s face turned into his neck as her shoulders started to shake, and he felt the hot sear of her tears run over his skin as she nodded against him. Her fingers curled around his neck as she gasped.
He sucked in a painful breath. “Oh, Angel. Jesus Christ, it hurts so fucking bad! It hurts… so fucking bad.”
7
Upon the Rising Sun
Alex started violently and sucked in a deep breath. He was lying sprawled diagonally across his king-sized bed, one leg hitched and both arms wrapped around two of the six pillows. “Angel?”
His eyes adjusted to the sunlight streaming through the cracks in the vertical blinds as he rolled over and scrubbed his face with both hands. “Angel?” He called again and sat up, the sheet all but falling away from his naked body while he looked around the room.
She wasn’t there.
He closed his eyes again as disappointment crashed into his conscious mind. It was all a dream. He told himself he s
hould be thankful that he remembered every second of it: unlike most dreams when he was left with hazy remnants, unable to piece them together in the morning.
“Goddamn it!” He threw a pillow across the room, and it knocked his reading lamp off the small side table by a big leather chair. It landed in a loud crash of glass breaking against the wall.
His chest ached. He fell back and rolled over, burying his face in the pillows again, inhaling, in search of her scent. His fist pounded the headboard causing it to bounce back against the wall in another loud thud. “Angel!” he shouted into the empty room as his body uncoiled in defeat and sagged against the mattress; his blood was thick as molasses and heart working overtime as it struggled to pump it around his body with sickening, hollow thrums.
He felt unhinged by her absence, emptiness eating a tangible hole in him from the inside out. Alex hated feeling helpless, but there was absolutely nothing he could do to ease it. His chest burned with something horrible and completely and utterly breathtaking at the same time, and it filled him up to the point of bursting yet left him empty and consumed. She was present in every waking moment, haunted his dreams, and drove him to lose his preciously guarded control. The feeling was unbelievable and amazing, incredibly wonderful and agonizing as hell.
Bzzzzzz! Bzzzzzz! Bzzzzzz!
The sound had Alex bolting off the bed and rummaging through a drawer for something to wear. Banging began after a series of impatient buzzes, followed by his brother’s bellowing voice.
“Alex!”
Alex scrambled to don the black silk pajama pants before running down the hall into the great room and finally the entryway. “Alex! Are you here?”
“Yeah! Hold on!” he shouted back as he deactivated the security system and locks fell away. He finally pulled the door open. Cole stormed past his half-naked brother and into the apartment.
Alex’s heart tightened as fear flooded through him. “What is it, Cole? Is Angel okay?” he asked anxiously.
“Why in the hell haven’t you been answering your phone? The security desk can’t even let you know I’m here when I’ve been trying to call you for several hours!”
“Forget the phone,” Alex dismissed with an impatient wave of his hand. “Just tell me what the hell is going on!”
Cole paused, unsure how he would break the news without Alex going ballistic. He decided there wasn’t one and blurted it out. “On the way from the station last night, something happened.”
“Cole! What?” Alex’s lungs constricted painfully.
“Angel had a flat tire, and Sid and Wayne were watching her from about 200 yards back. While she waited for a tow truck, two men in a black van took a crowbar to her car and tried to take her away.” Cole registered the panic on Alex’s face and put up a hand to stop him from speaking. “She’s okay, she got away.”
“I’m going to kill that motherfucking bastard! Where is she now? Was she hurt?”
“Angel is at her place, and Bancroft is monitoring, along with one of the others. She was moving a little slow when I saw her, but from what Sid said, she ran from the scene like hell was on her heels. They threw her in the van, so yeah, she’s probably beat up a little. There’s no way of knowing for sure.”
“How in the hell did you let this happen?” Alex’s expression twisted with fury. “The two guards were with her, weren’t they?”
“They maintained their distance as instructed. When they radioed in, Bancroft decided that stepping in might compromise our cover. If she saw their faces, they couldn’t trail her anymore.”
Alex’s whole body tensed up. He’d never been so incensed and scared at the same time. “Her safety is first and foremost! I don’t give a fuck about anything else! If you need to hire different men, do it!”
“Alex, be reasonable! If you want her protected, we don’t have time to do that!” Alex began to pace in front of him like a caged animal. “Bancroft… Well, we both thought we might be able to catch the asshole in action. Both of the new guys are PIs and can make arrests. It was the right way to handle it. She’s okay! She got away on her own.”
“How?”
“When they intervened, she ran off. Sid tried to stop her, but then one of them pulled a gun.”
“If she’s hurt in any way, I will fucking kill Bancroft! I’ll kill him!” He took off down the hall, rushing into his room to search for his phone. “I ask for one thing. One fucking thing, Cole!” Alex shouted angrily over his shoulder.
“Are you gonna kill me, too?” Cole’s voice followed but Alex ignored it as he pulled the sheet from the bed. The last time he remembered having his phone was right before he fell asleep. He’d thrown it on the bed beside him.
“I might,” he muttered as he finally found it lying on the floor on the far side of the bed, the battery lying next to it. Alex shoved the battery back in place and swore at the length of time it took to power up. “Why in the name of God didn’t you come and get me before this?”
“I thought you’d prefer if I found your girl, and what would you have done?”
Alex walked back into the other room, stopping dead. “You better not be telling me that you lost her.” His skin was on fire, and he was dangerously close to losing it, but his voice was cold as death. “Answer me, Cole!”
“Yes, okay! The men fought off the bad guys, Alex, but Wayne got shot in the process. Sid was able to call the ambulance and capture one of them, but he couldn’t keep Angel there. The guy with the gun fled the scene. I was worried he followed her, so I tried to find her. I called, but you didn’t answer. We knew locating Angel was the most important thing and what you’d want.”
Alex’s legs were shaking, refusing to take his weight, and he sank down onto the couch. “Angel’s okay? You’re sure?” His voice was quieter now.
“Sid said she kicked one of Swanson’s men in the head during the struggle. The guy they arrested has a black eye and a broken clavicle!” He chuckled, but Alex found nothing funny in the situation. Cole couldn’t help himself. It seemed absurd that such a small woman would kick the shit out of a man twice her size. Alex scowled and Cole continued, his hand moving up to try to disguise the smile still playing on his mouth. “That girl has balls of steel.”
The thought of Angel being alone and vulnerable, probably scared to death in the middle of the Chicago night, made Alex’s chest constrict. No matter if she appeared tough, he knew the vulnerability that lay beneath. “How do you know she’s safe?”
“I waited for her, and she returned home a couple of hours ago. Her Lexus was towed to the impound lot; it’s in pretty bad shape. I’m not sure if it’s worth saving.” He thought better of telling his brother that it took them three hours to find her. “What are you doing?”
Alex rested his elbows on his knees and dialed Angel’s number. “What does it look like I’m doing? I want to make sure she’s okay.”
“Don’t let her know you know what happened, Alex. Our cover will be blown.”
Alex pressed send on the phone and lifted it to his ear. “Right now, I don’t give a flying fuck about your cover. I’ll protect her even if she hates me for it.”
“You do care, Alex.” Cole reached out and wrenched the phone from Alex’s hand and turned it off. “Think about it! Why are you keeping it a secret if she’d agree? I’ll just go knock on her door. Hi, I’m Alex’s brother, Cole. I’m here to follow you around!”
“Don’t be a smartass!” Alex yelled, jumping up to rush toward Cole. “Give. Me. The. Fucking. Phone!”
“Having her hate you is the last thing you want. You’re totally screwed over this, and I’m not sure how you’re gonna fix it but don’t fuck it up even more.”
“I need to see she’s okay with my own eyes!” Alex reached for the phone again, and Cole’s hand came down on his shoulder and squeezed.
“Man, you need to calm down. Bancroft and Sid are watching her, and she’ll probably be filing a police report today. Sid already did, as will Wayne when he is well enough, b
ut they’re just gonna say they were passersby who stopped to help. We still don’t have proof Swanson is behind it, and we won’t unless the guy in custody cracks. We need to catch him red-handed. Give us more time to get this prick, Alex. His business is almost flushed.”
“It’s not enough anymore. I’ve never wanted anyone dead so much in my entire life, Cole. I can’t sit by and wait until Angel gets hurt or worse!”
Cole pushed Alex back down on the couch with both hands on his shoulders. “Alex! Who are you right now? Where is the cold, level-headed bastard I know and love?”
Alex shook his head. “Shut up! I can’t risk her safety.”
Cole sat down next to Alex. “Angel’s doing a damn good job of risking it on her own. For once, it’s not up to you.”
“Arrrghhhh!” Alex let out a frustrated yell. “She’s too reckless. Swanson all but admitted he was behind the security breach at the estate and that he was after her. He knows Avery Enterprises is taking his business down, too. He’s like a rabid dog now, fighting for his life.”
“He has nothing to gain, anyway,” Cole said, scratching his head. His dark hair was mussed and the plaid flannel shirt he wore over his jeans was wrinkled. “Unless… you’re willing to negotiate.”
Alex looked at Cole in disgust. Nothing would be gained by showing weakness. “Not a snowball’s chance in hell.”
“There are a couple more things you still need to know, Alex. Yesterday, Gant’s office dropped the case… but I guess that wasn’t enough for Swanson to lay off Angel.”
“Watch her twenty-four seven, Cole. Tell Bancroft I want a meeting, and I want more guards on Mom, Dad, Allison, and Josh. Oh, and Angel’s friend, Becca and her daughter, and Angel’s dad in Joplin, Missouri. No loopholes. Nothing left to chance. Understand?”
“Completely.”
“What else?” Alex asked.
“The guy who got arrested is Swanson’s nephew, the one who lives in Angel’s building, remember? He’ll probably get out on bail in a couple of hours.”