Angela's Affair (Pacific Waterfront Romances, #13)

by Vanessa Grant

  She had never ached for a man like this before, her body pulsing so heavily, hot with need. She twisted in his grasp and he caressed the long curve of her back, the tender trembling of her midriff, the aching of her aroused breasts.

  She closed her hands around his shoulders to keep herself from falling. Then she heard his low demand. “Touch me,” he groaned, and she moved to fumble with the buttons of his shirt.

  His chest was lightly covered with hair. She slid her palms over it, feeling the tickling of his chest mat against her hands, the hard buttons of his male nipples, aroused. His palm cupped her hip and he pulled her close, her breasts against his chest, her lips to his. This time, the kiss was hard, deep and demanding, leaving her shaken and trembling at the invasion that penetrated to the tight, aching core of her woman’s center.

  “I need you, Angela.”

  “Yes.” She could not deny what her body had already told him. She felt the hardness of his shoulder muscles. He was wound up tight, aching with what they had stirred in each other.

  He lifted her easily, as if she were no weight at all. Oh...

  She closed her eyes and buried her face against his neck. He was tense and hard there, too. He moved and there must have been light enough from the moon to guide him.

  The stairs.

  The fourth step creaked as he stepped on it.

  Harvey. Oh, God! Her blouse back there on the carpet somewhere, and her brassiere. And this man, touching her, claiming her body while Harvey slept only feet away.

  “We can’t,” she whispered.

  He took her into her own bedroom. The door was open and he walked in. The whole house seemed half-lit with moonlight through the windows. She could see his face, all hard planes and angles, as he bent to lay her on the quilt that covered her bed.

  “Not here,” she begged. She would never be able to sleep in this bed again without feeling his touch, his lips. She should be able to push him away, but...“Not with Harvey in the house.”

  He sat beside her. The door was open. She could see the doorway behind him, lightness against shadow. He bent over her and his mouth seduced the curve of her neck. She put her hands up to push him away, but he bent lower, taking the peak of her breast into his mouth, drawing it in, sucking gently and turning her into a mass of trembling need.

  When he lifted his head, her fingers were tangled in his hair, clenched tightly.

  “Kent...”

  He moved to the other breast, but teased lightly this time, his tongue drawing across the hard nub. She could feel it in the pit of her stomach. Then he lifted his head and there was no contact, no touch, only the heavy pulse of passion through her arteries.

  Silence, except for her breathing, and his. Then he touched her, his hand shaping her hip intimately, his touch burning through the cotton skirt. His fingers moved to her inner thigh, stilled, curved to the shape of her leg, only an inch from the heated center of her trembling need.

  He bent to kiss her lips then, his fingers still. Her body was frozen with waiting, knowing that any second his touch would move to that most vulnerable part of her.

  “Just to help you remember,” he muttered hoarsely, his mouth leaving hers, then returning. “I don’t want you to forget what it is we both need.”

  Forget? As if he were leaving. She shuddered and he felt how she trembled for his possession. He said, “Tomorrow, when I bring Harvey back from San Francisco.”

  She swallowed something hard in her throat.

  “Be ready. Just a small bag. Something for the weekend.”

  “What?” Was he leaving her like this? How could he, if he felt what she did?

  “We’re going away.” His fingers tightened into the soft flesh of her inner thigh. “You and I, seductive Angela. For the weekend.”

  He moved and she heard the click of the light switch. The overhead light was glaring, too bright. She blinked and stared up at him.

  “I wanted to see you.” His eyes were almost black, the blue lost in some emotion. He stared down at her and she could feel her breasts exposed, her lips swollen from his possession. Harsh light, and she had lain in those arms, those lips on her, as if she needed him with desperation beyond anything possible. She wanted to say something, to deny something, everything, but his arm reached out and the darkness returned.

  “Tomorrow,” his voice promised.

  When he was gone, she lay very still. She heard the sound of the door across the hallway, opening, then closing. His movements around the room, then silence.

  Finally, she sat up. There was no sliver of light under the door across the corridor. Her hands went up to cover her breasts in the darkness, and she could feel the aching fullness.

  She shuddered and went to her closet, covered herself with the long shield of her dressing gown, still in darkness. Then she stood very still for long moments, but there was no sound from across the hall.

  Was he asleep? She was standing, trembling, blood still pulsing through her body although sanity was returning now. She did not turn on any light, just slipped silently out of her room, along the hallway, down the stairs, missing the step that creaked.

  She had to turn on the light to find her things. Her blouse was lying in a pile beside the chair, the brassiere jumbled with it. She grabbed them and stuffed them inside her robe. If Harvey had seen that—

  No one was going to know. How had it happened? So fast. She had been standing there, by the window, and he had come close, just touching. Just light touches, mesmerizing her. She could have pulled back. She could have run, turned on lights and the television, distractions to break that seductive pull.

  But she had stood, as if she knew what was coming and wanted it. He had touched, kissed, and she had been in his arms, wanting him to hurry, to bare her flesh and take her body...to love her.

  Love. She shuddered. No, it had not been love. He had come for her, for her body. A weekend, he said, and he would be back. He wanted her, had wanted her from that first contact on the deck of Misfit. He did not care who she was, what she was. What she wanted. He was going to have her, possess her. He had stamped his touch on her tonight. To be sure she knew what they both needed, he had said. A weekend.

  A few minutes ago, whether Harvey was sleeping down the hall or not, if Kent had not left her room, she would have given him anything, everything he asked.

  Hot, passionate, shuddering need. Physical satisfaction, because if he could do this to her, just touching and kissing, then when they made love she would come to the end exhausted, fulfilled. Empty, because it would be the end. Possession. A weekend. What else would be possible between Angela Dalton and a man like Kent Ferguson?

  Nothing.

  She searched for the cord that had tied her blouse together, but could not find it. She got down on the floor to look under the chair, but it was not there. This was terrible, sneaking around like a teenager trying to hide things from her parents. But she did not want Harvey to know what had happened here, did not want anyone to know...wanted to erase it.

  Her glass was on a coffee table near the chair. She could not remember how it had got there. She had been holding it, standing there, then Kent had been close, brushing her flesh with soft, seductive caresses. She had been seduced so easily. Just like the crazy impulsive teenager she had been back when she met Ben Dalton, but Ben’s touch had never stirred the kind of explosion that had happened tonight.

  She was a grown woman, should have herself under control. She had thought, until tonight, that she did. Until Kent touched her and something inside had recognized that touch and everything had reached for him, yearned for him.

  What had Charlotte said about always picking the wrong men? Angela must have the same problem, because getting involved with Kent Ferguson had to be the most self-destructive thing she could possibly do. He did not belong in her life, and she had no place in his.

  She was no young girl dreaming of a knight on a white charger, a Mr. Right. She was old enough to have her dreams sternly a
ttached to reality. She wanted stability, not danger. A man who would be there for her, for their children. She had gambled once on impulse, on passion, and had lost terribly. She would not gamble again. Next time she gave herself, it would be the right man. Maybe the dream was impossible, because she supposed it was a kind, loving knight she wanted. Or nobody.

  Kent Ferguson was no knight. He would take what he wanted of her, without giving anything more than physical satisfaction. Then he would be gone. Mr. Wrong.

  She drank the glass of flat ginger ale, then took the glass into the kitchen. She did not want to go back upstairs, but if she prowled around here all night he might come down again. Tomorrow, he said, and a weekend together. She was not going away with him, but she was not fool enough to believe that she could hold out against him in an empty room with only the moon to see, and his touch on her flesh.

  She went silently back upstairs. She found a cotton bra and canvas slacks, a warm sloppy sweater to go over the slacks. She hung the blue skirt and blouse up on the hangar, but without the tie to hold the front together, the blouse wanted to slip off the hangar onto the floor.

  Just as it had slipped off her, onto the floor, Kent’s hands sliding over her skin, hard yet gentle. She shivered and closed the closet door quietly. Let it fall. She would not wear it again.

  She remembered her keys when she was halfway downstairs, went back to her room and rummaged in her drawer for the spare keys. The van was at the shop, but the night was quiet and she did not mind the walk at all, needed the night air to clear her head.

  She went into the kitchen and wrote a short note for Harvey. “Gone to the shop early. Say hello to Charlotte for me.” Harvey would wake about seven, and by the time he saw the note he would think she had gone out around dawn, waking early and eager to get to work. It wouldn’t be the first time she had done that, although if he knew that she was going to work at three in the morning, he would wonder what was going on.

  In the empty shop, she brewed a pot of coffee. With the lights on, the doors locked and the world dark outside, she was alone in the universe. She moved about, setting her mug down here and there as she picked up scraps of Sunbrella and canvas, bits of thread. By five in the morning, darkness outside still, she had the place looking as tidy as if she were going away for a week.

  She poured another cup of the coffee, faintly bitter now, and went upstairs to where she had her pattern paper and a dressmaker’s model. Last month, a woman who owned one of Angela’s fisherman’s shirts had gone to great length to find a pair of slacks to match in Seattle. Since then two of the woman’s friends had been into the shop, asking if she could make them something similar. There was obviously a market, and Angela suspected several of the boating women would quite willingly shell out for a complete matching outfit, Sailing Rags, slacks and shirt and matching carry-all bag.

  The problem was, it was much easier to design a shirt that would fit everyone in one of three sizes than it was slacks. A design that would look good and feel comfortable.

  When she looked up from her paper and pins and scissors, there was light streaming in through the window. Another sunny day, probably with yesterday’s blustery wind. A good day for flying.

  She was not going to think about him. All that mattered was Harvey’s meeting with Charlotte, and she hoped that went well. Kent was Charlotte’s—just a relative of Charlotte’s. That was all he was! Damn it, she was not going to spend the day remembering last night, Kent’s voice low and seductive, his touch, his lips...

  She jabbed a pin viciously into the paper. She had already gone in circles with her mind, walking to the shop in the dark, trying desperately to think of an airtight way of dealing with Kent when he returned. Thinking in circles. Be ready. Just a small bag. We’re going away for the weekend.

  She was not going away with him. He certainly could not force her, but he could make it very awkward, walking in here and saying let’s go, as if he had a right and of course she was coming. Knowing that he was bloody near irresistible.

  Damn it! He hadn’t even asked her! Just assumed, said pack a bag, and then he’d walked out, leaving her lying there like a fool. Wanting him.

  She was realizing just how clever he was at manipulating people, and she knew she did not want to face him down. She wanted a foolproof way to avoid the whole issue.

  She had no idea how long it took to fly to San Francisco, but it had to be at least a couple of hours, perhaps more. Even if they left at dawn, there was no way they’d be back until mid-afternoon, probably much later. She would work on the design for the canvas slacks, and sometime between now and mid-afternoon, the answer would come to her.

  She hoped.

  Barney came in at eight. She heard the door downstairs, tensed because it could be Harvey, and Kent might be with him. Then she heard the tuneless whistle and called out, “Up here, Barney! I’m in the loft.”

  He came up the stairs, noisy in his boots. “At it early, aren’t you? In a creative rage?”

  She leaned back on her heels and stared at the paper pattern hanging on the model. “What do you think?”

  “One good rainstorm and they’ll fall apart. Can’t make pants out of paper.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. “How are Sally and the baby? Where’s Jake?”

  “I left Jake with the sitter today. Sally’s coming home Monday.”

  Too bad it wasn’t today. Angela could have used that as an excuse to leave the shop, to help Sally settle in home with the new baby. She muttered, “Dad’s gone to San Francisco with Kent Ferguson,” managing to say his name as if he were a stranger. Maybe she wasn’t quite so badly rattled by him as she had thought. She tried to ignore a flash of memory, herself lying half-naked on her own bed, staring up at him, seeing him looking at her, his eyes claiming what he saw.

  She had thought she knew what physical desire was, but intimacy with Ben had been tame compared to what had happened to her blood last night under Kent Ferguson’s eyes.

  Barney’s smile was fading. He pushed his hands through his hair, said, “He’s going after the bombshell? Jeez, Angie, don’t you think Dad’s better off without her?”

  “I don’t know.” She sighed. “It’s Harvey’s decision, isn’t it? Are you sure you’re not just worried because you don’t want anyone in your mother’s place?”

  “Ouch,” muttered Barney. “Casting me as the selfish son?” He kicked at a scrap on the floor.

  She shrugged and half-smiled. “If the shirt fits.”

  “Yeah.” He prowled through her cuttings of paper. “Maybe there is some of that, but I just figure about the time Dad thinks he has hold of her forever, she’ll disappear again.” Defensively, he added, “She’s nothing like Mom.”

  “Maybe he has to have someone different. A woman like Anna would always be competing with her in our minds, in his mind.”

  He wandered off into the shop, thinking about it. A moment later he shouted up, “I’m throwing out this coffee! It’s terrible. I’ll make another pot.”

  Then the customers started coming and Angela had to leave her pattern. Through the morning, in between customers, she worked on making half a dozen sheet bags out of the scraps from the last dodger job. The bags were tough and lined with plastic inside, made to snap on cabin sides and hold the coil of rope from the sails. She could have sold more of them, they were always in demand, but she used scraps to keep the price down, limiting her production by the amount of scrap cuttings available.

  A scraggy, bearded man burst into the shop just before noon. “I’ve got a torn mains’l. Can you fix it?” He stood, looking at the assortment of products around him, not looking at her, but waiting for an answer. “From leech to luff,” he grumbled. “Got caught in a gale out by Cape Flattery, running. She gibed on me, tore it all to hell.”

  She left the machine and reached for the ringing telephone as she told him, “You’d better take it to the sail-makers. There’s a loft down at Point Hudson.”

  Charlot
te’s voice on the telephone, breathless and panicked. “Angie?”

  “I’ll have one of these,” said the scraggly beard. He dropped a blue sheet bag onto the counter.

  “Just a minute,” she told Charlotte, then gave the sailor the price. He dug through a battered, salt-stained wallet, digging out wilted bills while Charlotte’s voice hurried on in her ear.

  “He’s here, Angie. He—Oh! I don’t know what to do. The two of them together. Kent phoned up from the lobby. Kent! And Harvey’s with him.”

  “Thanks,” she told the sailor.

  “What am I going to do?” wailed Charlotte.

  Angela bit her lip. “Couldn’t you see them?”

  “Together?”

  “Charlotte, look...Well, why don’t you just come clean with them both. Get it over with.” Lord knew where she got off, giving advice. It seemed to Angela that Charlotte was creating her own problems, but after last night, Angela was in no position to criticize.

  “How can I, Angie? I—there’s just no way. For one thing, Mom would kill me. I thought—I thought when I took off—I didn’t think Harvey would come after me!”

  Charlotte was fifty-one. Angela would have thought it was high time she stopped feeling afraid of her mother. It wasn’t all that surprising, really, that Kent had sounded exasperated when he came to take the boat home. Picking up Charlotte’s messes could get tiresome after a few times.

  Charlotte said, “If Harvey would just forget me...”

  Angela sighed. “You don’t know Harvey very well if you expect that.” Her father-in-law might be a quiet, gentle man, but he could be stubbornly persistent when it suited him. “If you want to get rid of him, you’ll have to tell him so yourself.”

  There was a pause on the telephone, silence with sounds filtering through from the background. “Charlotte, where are you? In your hotel room?”