Alex and the Angel (Silhouette Desire)

by Dixie Browning

  “So you think I’ve overdosed on health food? You may be right, princess.”

  “No, I mean sex.”

  Sex?

  “I mean, it’s not like you’re dead or anything.”

  Huh?

  “I mean, sure, you’re past your prime and all that, but my biology teacher says even old people need sex. It has something to do with—um, feeling close and all that junk? So if you don’t want to do it with Carol, and boy, I can understand that, then maybe you ought to go cruising. I know some places where old guys hang out. They could prob’ly tell you where to find safe women.”

  Alex could actually feel his face turning purple. He managed to escape before he strangled, calling to Mrs. Gilly on his way out the door to tell her she was in charge until he got back.

  Nine

  Shocked right down to his toenails, Alex raced across town, swearing at red lights, nearly causing an accident when he passed a double-parked delivery van.

  Old guys? How the hell did she know where old guys hung out?

  He would wring her neck.

  No, dammit, he would ground her for the next ten years, and then let her out only on a leash!

  Cruising?

  Oh, God.

  Yeah, but safe women? If she meant what he thought she meant, then maybe she still had one or two functioning gray cells under all that butter-colored hair.

  The area in front of Angel’s establishment that had so recently been ruined by tons of water and a fleet of heavy fire trucks had now been graded and regraveled. Alex roared in through the open gate, displacing a few yards of gravel as he swerved over to the far side.

  “Angel!” he roared before both feet had even hit the ground. “Get on out here! This is an emergency!”

  Half in and half out of the old claw-footed bathtub, Angel craned her neck toward the small, badly placed window that looked out on the side yard. She could have sworn she heard Alex’s voice.

  But then, she’d been hearing his voice, not to mention seeing his face, ever since she’d moved back home. She had tried her darnedest to relive his kiss again, but how does one relive a taste?

  She heard the front doorbell ring and tried to remember whether or not she had locked it.

  She hadn’t. She’d been functioning with half a brain for so long now, it was a wonder she hadn’t locked herself out.

  “Angel? Where the devil are you?” She heard his footsteps cross the pine floor in the living room, the vinyl in the kitchen.

  He wouldn’t.

  “I know you’re in here somewhere, because your van’s parked outside and the greenhouse is locked.”

  Oh, fine. She remembered to lock the greenhouse but forgot to lock her own front door. It figured.

  She heard the back door hinges squeak, hopped out of the tub and lunged for the bathrobe hanging on the back of the door just as the door swung in.

  Lunged and missed.

  The towel was on the opposite wall. There was no shower curtain, because when you had a window right over the middle of the darned bathtub, you could hardly have a shower, could you? And besides, she preferred long, hot soaks—even in the summertime.

  Alex stared. His mouth opened once or twice, but no sound issued forth. His eyes moved slowly over her dripping wet body—the broad hips, vestigial breasts, callused, bandaged thumb, where she’d worn a hole in her work gloves and gone right on working—sun-blistered nose where she’d forgotten to smear on a layer of SPF 30, and all.

  “I—I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “You’re sorry!” Angel was sorry, too. Sorry he hadn’t caught her lying on the sofa, peeling a grape, wearing something wispy and expensive and seductive—something that hinted at hidden treasures while, at the same time, disguising certain shortcomings. “Would you mind giving me my bathrobe from behind the door and then getting the hell out of here?”

  He fumbled behind the door for the faded old striped bathrobe that had belonged to Cal’s father. They had bought it for him after he’d had his heart attack, but he’d never worn it, and Cal hadn’t liked robes, so Angel had fallen heir to the thing.

  Waste not, want not.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Then wait in the living room.”

  “Where—”

  “Across the porch, through the kitchen, and you’re in it. I only have five rooms, for heaven’s sake! Now, get out!”

  Alex got, carrying with him the indelible image of a small, incredibly female figure, her small, milk-white breasts tipped with brown puckered nipples that excited him more than any breast he could remember since he’d seen his first one at the impressionable age of thirteen.

  As for the thatch of dark russet hair nestled at the apex of a pair of sweetly rounded thighs...

  He swallowed hard, feeling something akin to panic.

  He had come here because...

  Why the hell had he come here, anyway? To seduce her? To convince her to come home with him again?

  Oboy. He was too old for this kind of thing. There’d been a time in his life when he’d been led around by his gonads. Most guys between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five were. It had something to do with nature’s determination to propagate the species, come hell or high water.

  Only this was different. He was years past his sexual prime, if the experts could be believed—not that he put much stock in the kind of self-styled experts that spouted off at the drop of a hat simply to justify some grant or other. And anyway, the last thing on his mind was propagation of any sort. All he wanted was plain, old-fashioned sex.

  All he wanted was Angel.

  “Now. What was so all-fired important that you had to break into my house to tell me?”

  At the sound of her voice, he spun around, guilt written all over his bony, patrician features. She was standing in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest, that foot of hers going like an air-hammer.

  “It’s Sandy.”

  The foot stilled. The arms fell to her sides. “What’s she done now? Is she all right? For heaven’s sake, tell me, don’t just stand there!”

  “She’s all right,” he managed to say. He was losing it, Alex decided. It was bad enough that she could punch his buttons wearing red flannel pajamas or a pair of shapeless green coveralls with a name patch on the front and Perkins Landscaping & Nursery scrawled in acid green on the back.

  In a brown-and-white seersucker bathrobe that was at least ten sizes too large, she was lethal. The thing lapped around her twice, and still gaped open down the front, too close to the danger zone for comfort.

  His comfort, at least. He was fully aroused and there wasn’t one damned thing he could do about it. Except try to keep her eyes above his belt until he could manage to bring himself under control.

  “Down, boy,” he murmured.

  “What?”

  “I said—” God, he was actually blushing! “It’s Sandy—she’s got me really worried this time, Angel. I, um—I want you to talk to her. Please?”

  She dropped down onto a rocking chair that looked as if it had racked up about a hundred thousand miles. One bare foot lapped earnestly over the other and the robe fell open over her knees.

  She had a bandage on her knee, too.

  “What is it this time—Arvid?”

  “Who?”

  “Kid Corvette.”

  “Oh. No, it’s, uh—it’s me.”

  Angel set the chair into motion. She’d found it helped drain nervous tension away when she had a problem. And boy, did she evermore have a problem!

  Alex was careful to keep Mrs. Perkins’s precious velvet love seat between them, but Angel was no fool. She’d seen the condition he was in right off. The truth was, she was in pretty much the same shape, only women had the advantage over men. She could play it cool, and he’d never even suspect.

  “So—what’s up?” she quipped brightly.

  I didn’t say that, I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t.

  He leaned over the back of the love
seat, bracing his arms on the rosewood carving, and stared down at the newspaper she’d left open to the comics.

  Oh, for pity’s sake, why the comics? Why couldn’t she have left it open to the editorial page?

  “Like I said, it’s Sandy.”

  “You said it was you.”

  “Yes, well—in a manner of speaking.”

  “Look, do you want to tell me what’s wrong, or don’t you? I mean, I do have other things to do.”

  He looked stricken. “You’ve got a date?”

  She would dearly love to lie and say she had, only she’d never been any good at it. Her skin was too thin. She turned red, and her eyes, according to Gus, got glassy, so she’d learned to tell the truth and suffer the consequences.

  “I had planned to start peeling off the wallpaper in my bedroom. It smells of smoke, and it’s at least two shades darker since the fire.”

  “She said if I need sex, I should go cruising.”

  Now it was Angel’s turn to gape.

  “She also said she knows of a place where a lot of old guys hang out, who might be able to help me find—I think her words were—’safe women.’ Could someone please tell me what the hell goes on with kids these days?”

  Angel took a moment to digest the problem, and then said calmly, “Not a whole lot that didn’t always go on, I reckon. Only more of it. In some quarters, at least.”

  “Not in my quarters!”

  “Yes, well—I didn’t think so.”

  “You mean you think she’s just blowing off?”

  “I’m not sure, I just said I didn’t think so. What brought up the subject, anyway?”

  “My disposition.” He could have done without her knowing grin.

  “Well, don’t blame me. I did all I could to help fix what ailed you.”

  “You did what?” She was what ailed him, didn’t the fool woman even realize it?

  “Didn’t I tell you that along with a low-fat, high-fiber, low-caffeine diet, you need to exercise more? Sitting behind a desk all day—”

  “Let’s leave my unhealthy life-style out of this, shall we?” For a minute there, he’d thought she was talking about something else entirely. Something he knew damned well she had done nothing but exacerbate.

  “If you insist, but even you ought to realize that if you wore yourself out physically, you wouldn’t explode so often.”

  “Even me? I? What the hell does that mean?”

  “Just what you think it means. Look at you, you’re ready to explode, and we’re only having a simple conversation, not even an argument. Didn’t you ever read about geology? Plate tectonics, gas rings, volcanos and stuff like that? It’s all about pressure, you know. Hidden pressures that search out hidden weaknesses, and then, ka-boom!”

  “That does it,” he said flatly, coming out from behind the love seat.

  Angel rose and adjusted the folds of her voluminous bathrobe. “Good. I’m glad I was able to help out.”

  She lifted her gaze to his face and stepped back uncertainly. “Alex—?”

  He moved forward, stalking her as surely as if he were a hungry lion and she were a skittish lamb. “Alex!”

  Sandy had been right, he told himself. What he needed was sex. It had been—God, it had been years! The trouble was, he didn’t want sex with just any woman, he wanted sex with Angel Wydowski. The same Angel Wydowski he had lusted after so guiltily twenty years ago.

  “Stop backing away from me, dammit, I won’t hurt you,” he said. “I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to do, but Angel—you have to tell me.”

  “Tell you what?” she whispered helplessly.

  “That you don’t want me. That you want me to leave. That you—”

  “Alex?”

  “What.”

  “Shut up,” she said softly, stepping forward an instant before he opened his arms.

  Somehow, they made it as far as her bedroom, with the smoky wallpaper and the ivory-painted iron bed that had belonged to Aunt Zee. Angel had gotten rid of most of the original furniture in the house after Cal had been killed. Yard-saled all but a few pieces and then brought in the few things she had saved from her own family.

  Now she was glad she had. Practically all her life she had wanted Alex Hightower, but she could never have made love to him in the same bed she’d slept in with Cal.

  “You’re sure?” he whispered, his hands and his voice unsteady as he ripped off his shirt.

  “I’m sure.” She was sure she was probably going to be sorry, but she’d be even sorrier if she’d had the chance and hadn’t taken it.

  She was sure she would never love another man, but that was her problem, not his. Alex tolerated her. He even liked her—when he wasn’t furious with her. He definitely desired her.

  Sometimes, she mused—on rare, Camelot occasions—Cinderellas who wore combat boots really did get the charming prince. If only for a little while.

  She tugged at the sash that held her robe together, flushed with a feeling of something more heady than triumph. She was finally going to know what it was like to make love with Alex Hightower.

  “Angel—I didn’t bring anything. Are you, uh—are you protected?”

  She turned off the light, leaving only the greenish glow from her security light outside, and told a bald-faced lie. “Don’t worry about it, everything’s taken care of.”

  But in a way, she rationalized, it truly was. This was her safe period, and besides, she’d never managed to conceive with Cal. She had wanted a baby. He hadn’t.

  As for any other risks, there’d been no one for her since her marriage had ended. Since several months before her marriage had ended, in fact, and she’d gone in for tests the day she’d first learned that Cal had been sleeping around.

  As for Alex, he’d always been fastidious. It was only one of the things about him that appealed to her. He was the exact opposite of Cal.

  “Oh, my,” she breathed as he stepped out of his slacks and briefs in one motion and stood before her in all his naked splendor.

  And splendid he was. Oh, my, yes. She had seen him in bathing trunks and in tennis shorts. She was prepared for the sight of his surprisingly wide shoulders, the broad chest dusted with dark hair, the narrow hips and long, muscular legs.

  Her eyes skimmed appreciatively over all that and homed in on the other.

  “Oh, my,” she whispered again as her bathrobe crumpled soundlessly about her bare feet.

  Embarrassed, she gestured awkwardly to the bed. “Do you—that is, shall we—?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  Smooth, Hightower. Really smooth.

  Alex hardly recognized his own voice. He was trembling! If he lost control now, he’d never be able to face her again. With an unsteady hand, he turned back the covers. What was that she’d said about pressure? He was under so much pressure right now he was aching, and there was only one type of exercise that would cure it.

  Ka-boom!

  She slid into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin, and it occurred to him for the first time that in some ways she was still as self-conscious as she’d been as a kid.

  But then, so was he. Where she was concerned. For reasons he didn’t dare dwell on, it was important that he do this right, make it memorable for both of them. Maybe then, he wouldn’t walk away with that old empty feeling that sex had always left him with. That was part of the reason he’d avoided it for so long. The depression that settled in afterward. The feeling that something vital was missing.

  He came down beside her and wrestled her briefly for the covers. “Don’t tell me you’re nervous?”

  “Of course I’m not,” she denied too quickly. “Yes, I am, too.”

  “So am I. Kind of silly, isn’t it, at our age?”

  But neither of them felt like laughing. All Alex wanted to do was fold back the covers and turn on the overhead light and look his fill. And then he wanted to touch her everywhere and see how she felt, sample the texture of her skin with his hands, hi
s lips—savor the taste of her on his tongue, and then, when he couldn’t hold off another instant, he wanted to put himself inside her and die there, while she shouted his name and her hot little body convulsed all around him.

  “You could kiss me again. That’s always a good way to start,” she suggested, and he began to chuckle.

  “Are you telling me you’re an expert on this, too?”

  With a lopsided little grin, she said, “I’m in the nursery business, remember? Propagating is propagating.”

  “Don’t even think it,” he growled, but as he leaned over to bury his face in her sweet, soap-scented throat, he pictured a small, redheaded Hightower, ruling his roost with that go-to-hell charm that had always been a mark of the Wydowskis.

  From her left ear, he kissed his way down her throat, down the gentle slope of her breast, until he found what he was seeking.

  She shuddered and squirmed. She reached for him, her firm, capable little hands working their way down his body, driving him wild.

  “Careful there—” His breath was coming in shivery gasps between his teeth.

  But Angel didn’t want to be careful, she wanted everything, all at once, on and on, with no end. And she wanted it now. Arching her back, she offered him her breasts, not even embarrassed because they were so very small. He made her feel beautiful. He made her feel as if she could fly!

  “Ah, sweet, sweet Angel,” he rasped against the flat of her belly. “You don’t know how long I’ve dreamed about this.” He nuzzled her navel, causing her whole body to stiffen.

  Pillow talk, she told herself. Pillow talk doesn’t count, it can’t be held against either party.

  I love you, I love you, I— “Oh, Alex—please!”

  He moved over her then and hovered, gazing down at her with passion-glazed eyes. A film of moisture covered his body, making it gleam in the eerie light. Slowly, almost as if he were afraid of hurting her, he came into her, and for one brief, delirious moment, she possessed him completely, body and soul.

  Slowly, tentatively, he began to thrust, and she met him halfway. More than halfway. As the sweet, mystical tension began to build, began to sing, they moved faster, racing to meet it headlong. Just when she thought she would die, he slipped his hand down and found her, and she hurled over the edge, shuddering, crying out, clinging to the only thing in the world that mattered.