Not Quite an Angel (Harlequin Superromance No. 595)

by Bobby Hutchinson

  She’d winked at Sameh during one of her vivid descriptions of sexual passion and remarked, “It’s a lucky thing Tyrone never reads any of my books, huh?” She thought for a moment and added with a rueful twist of her mouth, “Or maybe it’s a shame he doesn’t. Maybe a good dose of jealousy would do him good once in a while.”

  Sameh hadn’t commented. The relationship between Delilah and Tyrone troubled her, but it wasn’t her role to lecture her employer. After a quiet moment or two, Delilah had sighed and then gone on dictating. “I never regretted that love,” she’d said in a slow, certain voice, “even though it came near to destroying me. As I grow older, I find the only real regrets I have are for the things I didn’t do along the way.”

  Her words stuck in Sameh’s brain, and late that night she finally admitted to herself that she understood exactly what Delilah meant. When the time came to return to her own era, would she regret not having explored the physical desire that sparked between her and Adam like electricity?

  In her attempts at retrocognition, she’d managed to examine two of her past lives in detail, and she knew that sexual excess had played a major part in the wasting of those lives. In one, she’d been professionally promiscuous. She’d been absolutely zealous about physical joining, and some of the sexual details still made her blush when she recalled them.

  So maybe that was why she’d gone overboard in this life in her desire to progress spiritually and avoid such excesses—or could it be that a man hadn’t come along till now to tempt her the way Adam did?

  In her own age, because of the extended life spans, there was none of the urgency she sensed here—the feeling that one’s life went all too quickly and one should snatch at happiness when it presented itself. Her own era was more relaxed, she decided. But it wasn’t half as exciting, half as vital as the nineties were. And the longer she stayed here, the more she found herself absorbing the customs and the attitudes, reacting to the tumultuous emotions that swept over her.

  And the longer she was around Adam, the more she found herself wanting him. She ached and burned at his casual touches, and during the long nights she fantasized about having him make physical love to her.

  Ironically, for the past several weeks he’d stuck with dogged determination to the boundaries she’d drawn for their relationship, while she’d begun to wonder, feeling unreasonably exasperated with him, if he was ever going to really kiss her again. Her damned fantasies were all too vivid because of those wretched retrocognitive memories.

  Tonight, all her defenses were down. She was emotionally battered by the disappearance of Troy and Cougar, physically tired from evenings spent searching for them, drained from the effort necessary to revive Tinker, and more than anything she longed for the comfort of Adam’s arms, the sensual oblivion that she knew would come with his lovemaking.

  Tonight was the right time to turn fantasy into reality…if only she could get Adam to stop acting like such a perfect gentleman.

  THE BEACH HOUSE WAS DARK when they pulled into the driveway, and it was only then that Adam realized how much he’d been hoping for lights, for loud music, for the chaos that would have signalled the return of Troy and Cougar. He was grateful for Sameh’s warm hand, clasped tightly in his, as he climbed the steps and opened the door to an empty house.

  The night was windy, the nearby ocean restless. Adam had left windows open, and the small house was cool and welcoming after the heat of the day. He walked over to the desk and turned on a small lamp, and when he looked back at her, Sameh was still standing where he’d left her, just inside the door. She’d slipped off her sandals and was looking down at her feet and frowning.

  “I’m dirty, Adam. Do you think I could have a shower?”

  “Sure. I’ll find you clean towels.” He hurried down the hall to check on the state of the bathroom, aware that she was padding along close behind him.

  The bathroom wasn’t too bad, considering. He stuffed several dirty towels and some underwear into the hamper, used a washcloth to wipe out the sink, and then rummaged through the cupboard for towels, thrusting them at her and making a hasty exit.

  Back in the kitchen, he heard the shower start. His graphic mental picture of her standing naked in his shower was delightful, but not very comfortable. It was tough to have her in his bathroom, in his shower. He went to the liquor cabinet, intending to have a quick drink of Scotch to bolster his good intentions, and then remembered it was empty. Feeling sorry for himself, he thought that the damn kids could have at least left him one half-empty bottle for emergencies.

  Muttering under his breath, he went into the kitchen and filled the kettle. Maybe Sameh would want tea. He opened the cupboard door and started a rambling search for anything that resembled a tea bag.

  The shower stopped after what seemed a long time, and he heard the bathroom door open, then the patter of light footsteps. He turned around. She was standing in the doorway, wrapped in his navy blue towel. Her hair was wet and rumpled, her skin was rosy and a great deal of it was bare, except for the strategic areas the towel almost covered.

  Heat flooded over him. He wasn’t used to celibacy, and the past few weeks had put a strain on his self-control. “Are you trying to drive me stark, raving nuts, Sameh?” His voice was harsh, and it took immense effort to stop himself from crossing the area that separated them.

  She shook her head, and drops of water flew from her hair and shimmered in the light. “No, Adam.” She met his eyes with her forthright blue gaze. “I’m trying to show you that I’ve changed my mind.” The pink color on her cheekbones intensified. “I’ve decided I want to physically join with you after all.”

  At first he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. It took an instant for her words to register, another instant for the towel she dropped to slide in slow motion down her body and hit the floor. Then she was naked for him, and he drank in the sight of the long, supple curves of her body, the lush fullness of her breasts with their pink, rosy-tipped nipples, her narrow waist and taut hips with their nest of golden curls at the notch of her thighs.

  He moved toward her slowly, devouring her with his eyes. Her skin was soft and vulnerable when he slid his arms around her rib cage, and a shy smile flitted across her mouth. “I’ve surprised you, Adam.”

  She had the most marvelous gift for understatement.

  “Sameh,” he breathed, holding her against him, arching her delicious nakedness into the aching hardness of his body. “God, Sameh, you’re beautiful.”

  Go slow, he counseled himself despite the sweet, intense pleasure pulsing through his loins. One hand on the back of her head, he tilted it up, and her lips were parted for him by the time his mouth claimed hers. His tongue explored her, and he felt her body quiver as the kiss deepened.

  He drew back a little, drunk with sensation, and began nuzzling her jaw, exploring her ears with his tongue, cupping her breasts with his hands. Fierce joy surged in him as he felt her lower body press, and press again, against his erection. He allowed himself to taste her breasts, groaning as the tender nipples hardened and peaked between his lips.

  “Put your arms around my neck,” he demanded, his voice thick. She did, and he slid an arm down, his hand cupping and exploring the curves of her bottom and then sliding down to her knees so he could scoop her up and carry her into his bedroom. She gave an exclamation of surprise when he lifted her, and then a small, delighted giggle.

  “Don’t fall,” she whispered.

  It was dark in the bedroom. He lowered her onto his bed and switched on the small bedside lamp. She lay just as he’d placed her, on her back with her arms spread slightly to either side, her body naked and breathtaking in the warm light. Her legs were slightly parted, one knee raised, and he could see where the tender pink flesh began beneath the golden bush of hair. She was smooth and warm and glorious, relaxed in her nudity, and he was on fire, the hunger he felt for her bordering on savagery. His breathing wasn’t steady, and he knew he was dangerously close to losin
g all control.

  “Adam? I can tell by your colors how much you want me.” Her deep, husky voice resonated in every pore of his body as he shed his clothes, clumsy with the need to hurry. Her eyes were blue stars, shining in the soft light, watching his every move, approving of him as he tossed away socks, shirt, pants, and finally briefs, until at last he sank onto the dark spread, covering her body with his, propping himself on his elbows so as not to crush her, leaning forward and claiming her mouth in a drugging kiss that unleashed a wild and terrible hunger.

  Go slow, the practiced lover in him cautioned as his body surged against her softness, dangerously near completion before the act had properly begun. Go slow, make it last, make it good for her.

  But for once, technique was forgotten. There was only Sameh and the overwhelming need he felt to brand her as his woman in this most primitive of dances.

  SAMEH WAS UNPREPARED for the surge of desire that coiled in her lower belly as she watched him undress. He was a breathtaking male animal, lean and strong and powerful, his chest matted with thick dark hair. She was even less prepared for the delightful heat of his body, the sensual shock of his naked flesh against her own and the primal fierceness of his embrace.

  She raised her arms and stroked his shoulders, running her hands over his muscles, glorying in the steely strength under the warm skin. She caressed his sides and tangled her fingers in the thick mat of dark, curling hair that covered his broad chest. She let her hands travel down the length of his back and learn the shape of his narrow, hard buttocks, and exalted in the tremors that rippled through him at her slightest touch. This was a different kind of power.

  He groaned and bent his head again, devouring her with his kiss, drawing her into his wildness until her entire body responded, breasts aching, pelvis arching up instinctively to rub against the hardness of his erection. Heat and need spiraled inside her.

  He abandoned her mouth and instead closed his lips around her nipple, drawing it into his mouth with a persistent, gentle suction that aroused a frantic craving low in her belly. His hand slid down to touch her wet core, circling and rubbing until she became frantic with desire.

  “Sameh.” His voice was raspy and rough. “Sweetheart, open your legs for me. Let me inside you.” It was less entreaty than desperate command, and she obeyed, wrapping her legs around his hips. She whimpered as he entered her. “Am I hurting you?” He paused, and she could feel his entire body tremble with the effort it took him to stop.

  She shook her head, unable to put what she was experiencing into spoken words. Instead she reached out with her mind and found his, showing him her pleasure, embracing and caressing him mentally with the same unabashed and total intimacy her body offered him, turning the very essence of her reality free to meld with his soul.

  At last she found the center of his passion, and she added her own to the inferno, and it was impossible to tell what portion of the rapture that exploded through them was hers and which was his.

  NOTHING COULD HAVE prepared him for the sensations she created in his mind or in his body. The numberless, faceless women Adam had made love to over the years might never have existed, the slate now wiped clean of acts that were only profane echoes of the ecstasy he shared with Sameh.

  He couldn’t get enough of her. She grew sleepy after a while, and he turned off the bedside light and shifted her under the bedclothes, sliding the sheet up over her shoulders, her body still cradled in his arms.

  Throughout the long night, he held her close, dipping in and out of sleep, loath to waste a single moment in oblivion. Again and again he grew hard and woke her, whispering the sweet and raunchy phrases of lovemaking, teaching her what her body was capable of, finding out what things delighted her, learning as never before the full extent of what was possible between man and woman.

  Toward morning he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  He woke at seven, reaching out for Sameh and finding himself alone in the bed. A sound from the kitchen told him where she was, and he got up and pulled on a pair of jeans. She’d already showered, and she was wrapped in his white terry robe, her face shiny and feet bare, crouching in front of the open fridge and swiping with a paper towel at an egg she’d dropped on the floor. A trace of smoke and the acrid smell of burned toast still hung in the air, although she’d opened both windows and the sliding door to the deck. Water dripped off the counter and onto the floor beside the coffeemaker, and steam was pouring out of the top.

  She looked up at him. Her cheeks flamed when she met his eyes. She stood up and dumped the towel and the eggshell into the sink, and in the process banged her elbow on the open door of the fridge. She rubbed at it absently, and the smile she gave him was shy. “Good morning, Adam. I’m making you breakfast. I’m afraid the toaster stuck down, but I think I’ve fixed it. How exactly do you work that coffee machine? I think there’s something wrong with it—the water spilled all over the counter.”

  He looked at her as she wrecked his kitchen with the very best of intentions, and like a fist in the gut, the realization hit him. He was in love with her. He’d been in love with her for some time already without recognizing it. It hadn’t dawned on him because in his entire adult life he’d never thought of a woman in terms of love.

  He’d had countless arguments with Bernie on the subject, insisting that love was simply a euphemism for sex. But he’d fallen in love with Sameh before sex, without sex, when she was intent on being just his friend, long before she’d changed her mind.

  And now that last night had happened, he wanted her here, in his house, in his bed, not just for a day, or a year, or ten years. He wanted her for always. For the first time in his entire life, the concept of marriage made perfect sense to him.

  “Would you like a glass of juice, Adam?” Before he could answer, a pitcher of orange juice sitting on the table tipped to the side and filled a glass that had floated effortlessly off the shelf and over to the table. It then sailed across the kitchen toward him without spilling a drop, and in a reflex action he reached out and grabbed it. Sameh hadn’t moved.

  She grinned at his openmouthed astonishment and gave him an exaggerated wink. “I’m not good at coffee and toast, but I can do orange juice pretty well. This morning, anyway.”

  He recognized her action as a playful gesture, but it hit him with all the ferocious impact of a runaway freight train. Here he was thinking marriage with a woman who couldn’t make toast but could use her mind in ways he didn’t begin to comprehend. If she was to be believed—and he realized he was coming closer to believing her every single minute he was around her—she’d been born hundreds of years after he must inevitably have died.

  She insisted she had to return to her own time. She’d told him that marriage wasn’t part of her vocabulary. Out of all the hundreds of women he might have chosen to love, it was a real joke he had to choose the one woman who was absolutely unattainable.

  The trouble was, he didn’t find it even remotely amusing.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “BERNIE, WHEN YOU WERE with the LAPD, did you ever use psychics to help with murder investigations?”

  Adam had dropped Sameh off at Delilah’s half an hour before. On the drive to the office, he’d tried to apply some rational thinking to the whole issue of Sameh and the abilities she had. He needed to figure out whether there were other people who could do what she did. For all he knew, her talents weren’t so strange after all. And if that were so, maybe his earlier ideas about her delusions as to where she was from and where she was heading back to were right.

  It would be such a relief to know that she was just a little wacky. A person with mental problems could be helped these days. He’d get the best shrinks in the business for her, he’d… Damn it to hell, he didn’t know what to do.

  The trouble was, he no longer really believed his own rationale about Sameh’s mental instability, and he found that trying to be objective about her was hopeless. He needed help with this whole mess, and the onl
y person he trusted enough to talk to about it was Bernie.

  As usual, when Adam walked into his partner’s office, Bernie was focused on his computer screen. Adam could tell by his distracted tone of voice that he wasn’t really listening. “Bern? I said, did you ever—”

  “Yeah, I heard. Psychics, you were asking about? Yeah, there was one guy we called in on a homicide. San Diego PD used him a couple of times, too. Mezzner, I think his name was. Weird dude.” Bernie sat back in his chair, eyes still on the screen. “Say, Hawk, remember those women I told you about, the old ones who got duped on investment schemes? I’ve been watching the daily occurrence log, and I think maybe two more cases have surfaced. If I’m right, that makes five now, and if five old ladies have given some lowlife their money thinking he’s investing it for them, there’s no telling how many more are out there. I’m tellin’ you, Hawk, this investment thing is well organized. I talked to a guy I used to know, a detective from fraud. He’s interested but so far he’s got zilch to go on. I still say it’s too bad we can’t—”

  Adam walked over and pulled the plug on Bernie’s computer.

  “Jeez, Hawk, what the hell are you doing? I could lose a whole file that way….” He scowled at Adam and then really looked at him. In a much quieter tone, he said, “Okay, so what’s going down?”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  Bernie swung his feet up onto the desk and reached for the ever-present coffee mug. “So talk. I’m listening.”

  “It’s about Sameh.”

  Bernie nodded. “I kinda figured. You’re in over your head on this one, and you want me to put in a good word for you, right?”

  “I don’t remember needing you to do my talking for me, Bern.”

  “I don’t remember you being this touchy about a lady before.” Bernie dropped his bantering tone. “You serious about her, Hawk?”

  Adam swallowed. “Deadly.”