Trust? Anger flamed within him. Why would he trust any woman?
But the reassuring touch of her hand drained away his anger and filled him with a strength he’d never known he lacked. Strength to face the words his mother had written—and not be hurt by them.
Reluctantly, he drew the envelope from her hand. He noticed it had ‘Return to sender’ written across the bottom in his father’s handwriting. He opened it. Inside was a smaller envelope addressed in neat feminine handwriting. To Nicky.
Angelique watched as he read the first letter, his face expressionless. Then he read a second, and a third.
Last night, she had been touched by his pain. She hadn’t known he hated his mother. Angelique knew his mother had loved him very much. Every Christmas she had written a letter to him, and had cried over the absence of her little boy.
One year, Angelique had seen her slip a bundle of papers into a compartment in the old grandfather clock that had stood in the hall. The same one that now stood in the corner of Nicholas’ living room. Peter must have sent him the clock when he left for Australia.
When Nicholas finished the stack, he returned his gaze to Angelique.
"My mother tried to contact me for years, but my father returned every letter without ever showing them to me."
His eyes, although sad, had lost an edge of sorrow that had been there from the moment she’d met him. Now, he seemed at peace with himself and her heart swelled with joy.
She squeezed his hand. "Your mother really did love you."
He drew her to his side on the couch. She entwined her fingers with his.
"How did you know about the letters?"
"I have known Peter for a long time. Your mother, too."
"She told you about them?"
"Not exactly. But I knew she wrote to you, and one day I saw her hide a stack of envelopes inside the grandfather clock. She did not know I was there."
His arms encircled her, drawing her close to his body. "Thank you, Angelique."
Nick had never known such closeness with another human being. Hadn’t believed it was possible to feel this tender toward someone. To need someone this much—a need that had absolutely nothing to do with sex.
He kissed her. Gently. Tenderly. "Thank you so much."
When he finally released her, she smiled and touched his cheek with delicate fingertips.
"You are welcome."
He smiled. Now it was time to ask her. He picked up her gift from the coffee table.
"It’s your turn." As he handed it to her, the phone rang.
He suppressed his disappointment at the timing as he strode to the corner desk and picked up the receiver.
"Oh, Peter. Merry Christmas."
Angelique froze.
"There’s a friend of yours here visiting." Nicholas glanced toward her and smiled. "Angelique."
She stared at him, then glanced away quickly as his smile faded.
"Yes, I should have realized." He stared at the small, wrapped gift still in his hand. "No, don’t worry about it."
He talked for a few more moments, then promised to call his brother back the next day. She heard the soft click as he replaced the phone in its cradle.
"Just tell me this."
She turned to face him, afraid of seeing hatred in his eyes. Instead, she saw nothing.
"Are you here to rob me?"
She shook her head.
"Are you here to hurt me in any way?"
She hesitated. That had been the plan. She had been sent to turn him into an inanimate object. To steal his life and his humanity. But she knew she wouldn’t do it. Not to save herself. Not to save his family.
For the first time in over a century, peace settled within her.
She could not hurt Nicholas Berringer. The man she loved.
She shook her head.
"Okay."
He sat down beside her, then slipped his arm around her waist. "Then let’s forget it and get on with enjoying this wonderful Christmas together."
She stared at him in disbelief. "But … why?"
He smiled. "Because, Angelique, I trust you."
Tears welled from her eyes. Trust was the greatest gift he could give her.
Aside from his love.
"Thank you," she murmured.
He kissed her.
"Merry Christmas, sweetheart." He handed her the gift.
She tugged off the ribbon then lifted the lid to reveal a dark green, velvet box. When she snapped it open, her heart leaped with joy, then froze and shattered.
A solitaire diamond, marquis cut, with a beautiful gold band decorated with raised vines. The same ring Bertrand had offered her two hundred years ago.
Nicholas watched her hesitation and apprehension seized him. What if she refused? However it had happened, he truly loved this woman, and no matter how much that terrified him, he had to convince her to stay in his life.
He cupped his hands around hers. "I want you to marry me."
Her flat expression did not encourage him.
"I thought after last night … and the letters …" His throat constricted painfully. "Do you love me?" he asked.
She nodded.
Relief surged through him like a tsunami.
"That’s all I needed to know."
He plucked the ring from its velvet bed and slipped it onto her ring finger.
Panic gripped Angelique.
"No," she cried as she snatched her finger away before he reached the knuckle.
Chapter 11
He stared at her in shock. "What is it, Angelique? What’s wrong?"
"I cannot accept." She felt a strange stirring through her limbs. "If I do …" She shook her head and gulped back a sob. "If I do, you will be turned into a tree-top angel."
He took her hand. "Angelique, that doesn’t make any sense."
"Listen, Nicholas. I do not have much time. I was a tree-top angel for over two hundred years. The one you put on your tree a few days ago."
Nicholas glanced at the empty place at the top of the tree, wondering when the angel had disappeared, then he glanced back to her. "That doesn’t make any sense."
Then he remembered the angel costume she’d worn the first time he’d seen her. But it didn’t make sense.
Angelique knew he didn’t believe her, but soon enough he’d have the proof right in front of him.
"If I accept your ring, the curse will be reversed and you will replace me as the angel."
Her blood temperature seemed to be dropping. "I cannot do that to you." She took his hand. "I love you too much."
Those words rang through her ears as she felt her flesh harden and her body shrink.
"Angelique! Good Lord, what’s happening?"
Nicholas stared in horror as Angelique shrank and … transformed.
"No, it can’t be true." His heart compressed as he picked up the angel that stood where Angelique had been a moment before. The hair, the eyes, it looked just like her. He couldn’t believe this tiny, lifeless angel had been the warm, vibrant woman he’d held in his arms.
Something deep inside him knew her words were true, that she was under some horrendous curse.
Oh, God, he had lost her.
Worse, she would be stiff and lifeless forever. And, from her words, he knew she had been like this for centuries.
He couldn’t allow her to go on like that. She’d already suffered so much.
He stared at the ring. The cursed ring. It was what had caused this. He threw it into the flames of the fireplace, like a bullet aimed to ease his pain.
But it didn’t. In fact, pain encompassed him, and he felt himself shrinking.
A moment later, he was an angel standing beside Angelique. The two stared at each other with inanimate eyes.
Rejecting the ring. Somehow he knew that was what had caused his transformation.
A vision of himself as another man, named Henri, flickered through his mind. He’d loved a woman, more than life itself. Her name had been C
eleste, but he knew in his heart it had been Angelique in another life.
He stared at Angelique’s stiff form in front of him, and saw her as both Celeste and Angelique, the beautiful woman he had held in his arms moments ago. He had lost Celeste at the birth of their child. He remembered holding their infant son while crying over Celeste’s stiff form. He had raised that son to adulthood with pride and love.
When their son had fallen in love, and then died of a broken heart on Christmas day, after being abandoned by his uncaring wife, Henri had desperately wanted to protect his grandson, and all following Berringers from the pain of love. He had taken the ring Celeste had worn and made a special Christmas wish, that his son’s sons would be protected from such pain.
He had been the one who had cursed the ring and his offspring! But he had meant to protect them. He realized that without the risk of pain, they had lost the triumph of joy, as well.
Now Angelique must pay the price.
He remembered being Bertrand Berringer, and loving Angelique, but the feeling had been a shadow of what he’d felt as Henri, as though decades under the curse had dulled his ability to feel. When she’d refused the ring, she had transformed—and he had forgotten her.
He saw a lighted shadow hovering in front of him. An angel. The one who had granted his misguided wish.
"Do you understand now, Nicholas?"
"Yes." He stared at Angelique. "Must we both suffer in eternity?"
"Not at all. You are the one who caused this, not me. It is your power."
Hope trickled into the emptiness of his soul. "You mean, I can change us back?"
"All you have to do is believe in yourself. And in her. Are you willing to face the potential pain of love?"
"Yes."
He realized a moment more in her arms would be worth a lifetime of pain without her. He also realized that he would never really be without her. Because one lifetime was only a fraction of existence and love truly lasts forever.
Nicholas concentrated and a shimmering light encompassed both he and Angelique. Tremors arced through him as their bodies glowed, then expanded to normal size. A moment later, they stood before each other, transformed, both physically and emotionally.
He took Angelique’s hands. "Angelique, I am the one responsible for the curse. I—"
She closed the distance between them. "I know." She kissed him. "Dear Bertrand. Dear Henri. I know."
"We have loved each other for more than two centuries."
He stared at her beautiful face in awe. Love penetrated every cell of his being, no longer impeded by the curse. Deep, profound love. Heart-rending and painfully sweet. His soul ached with it.
He took her in his arms and tenderly brushed her lips with his. Her arms curled around his neck and she returned his kiss with a rising passion.
Still clinging to her, he lifted her from her feet and carried her to his bed. She stripped off her clothes and he followed her lead, watching her, remembering her in two previous lifetimes. He remembered losing her as Celeste. The mind-numbing pain splintered through him.
But he had found her again. His heart swelled with the joy of knowing he would never lose her again. She would be with him through eternity.
He caressed her breasts with reverence, then tasted their sweetness.
"Oh, my darling, Nicholas."
He stroked and caressed her silken skin, which felt like heaven under his fingertips.
Angelique smiled at Nicholas, her beloved, reveling in the knowledge they would be together. Forever.
As he drew her nipple deep into his mouth, she cried out in pleasure. This lifetime together would be heaven on earth. She stroked the length of his glorious erection with the tip of her finger and it twitched under her touch.
Her vagina ached with wanting him. She arched her pelvis upward and he trailed a hand down her stomach and dipped into her moistness.
"Ohhh, yes."
She opened her legs, inviting.
"We have a lifetime for slow languorous lovemaking. Right now, I want you inside me."
He smiled broadly.
"It’s my pleasure to oblige."
He kneeled between her legs and nudged his cock against her smooth, wet opening. The intense pleasure sent her pulse racing.
He leaned forward and kissed her, then his penetrating gaze locked with hers.
"Angelique, I love you."
She felt cold, then a flash fire raced across her skin.
He loved her.
Joy spun through her, knocking every cell topsy-turvy.
He had admitted his love, to her and to himself.
"I love you, too, Nicholas. I always have."
He pressed forward, sliding inside her. Long and hard. Giving her incredible pleasure.
They moved as one. Forward and back. He thrust deeply and she moaned in pleasure.
"Yes, my love. Yes," she cried.
The passion of love, long suppressed, rushed through them, overwhelming them both with urgent need. Time and space compressed around them, flinging them to a place of intense, exhilarating joy. She could feel his body thrusting into her, driving her ever closer to orgasm. At the same time, she felt rapture surround them both, assimilating them, expanding to infinity then contracting to a single point. She clung to him, riding the roller coaster of bliss, until they both cried out in a blistering, mesmerizing release.
He drew her close to his body, holding her tightly.
She glanced up at him. His eyes glistened with unshed tears.
"Angelique, I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused you. I’m sorry—"
She grasped his face and smothered his words with kisses.
"Nicholas, my darling. Do not regret the past. It has made us what we are."
She gave him a long, lingering kiss, then stroked the hair from his face.
"I love you, Nicholas. I always have. And I always will."
As Nicholas held her, enjoying the thudding of their very human hearts pressed together, he realized he had truly been blessed with a Christmas angel. And his Christmas wish really had come true.
Peace in his heart. Joy in his life.
And love everlasting.
###
If you’d like something steamier, watch for Opal’s new serial novel
HIS TO POSSESS
Coming from St. Martin’s Press
December 24, 2013
Find out more at OpalCarew.com
If you would like to hear when Opal has a new release, you can sign up for Opal's newsletter. Or you can follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/opalcarew or Facebook at http://facebook.com/OpalCarewRomanceAuthor
Also, check out Unraveled, another great boxed set by authors such as New York Times bestsellers Sarah Fawkes and Julia Kent.
And here is an excerpt from one of Opal's short erotica stories, The Office Slave...
The Office Slave
By Opal Carew
Her ultimate sexual fantasy brought to life…
Sylvia loves to read erotica, and after her latest read, she's developed a sizzling fantasy about being forced to submit to the sexual whims of four incredibly hot business partners. Never in her wildest dreams did she think she'd have the opportunity to live out her fantasy... until her friend decides to make it happen. Now she's about to become an office slave… to four hunky men she's never even met. But faced with the reality, can she actually go through with it??
Excerpt
Sylvia walked to the entrance and opened the glass door, then crossed the lobby, her high heels clicking on the marble floor. She glanced at the directory near the elevators, then walked down the hall to the end and stopped at Suite 105. A sign said to ring the bell, which she did. Becca had told her that these four men ran a software business, programming games. This office was where they developed the games. Also, Becca had told her the guys were extremely good-looking. All but one of the men used to work with Cal as strippers before they graduated from college and started this business, so sh
e didn't doubt it.
The door opened and she gazed up at a totally hot hunk wearing a suit, his long, black hair tied back. He had startling blue eyes that twinkled when he smiled at her.
"Are you Sylvia?"
She nodded.
He pulled the door open. "Please come in."
She stepped into the office. There was a large table in the center of an open space with a big window overlooking the city below and several doors to offices along the wall behind it. There was a hallway off to the side. The space had a lot of character, with red brick walls and a curved arch around the window.
"I'm Mike Bairn. Come on into my office."
She followed him across the central area to the leftmost office. One man was working in the far right office, but he didn't glance up.
"Am I early?" she asked as she sat down in the chair across from his desk.
"No, not at all. The others will meet us in the conference room in a few minutes."
She nodded, starting to feel a little nervous. Would her fantasy begin in the conference room? Would they order her to take off all her clothes, then… other things. She'd been looking forward to this fantasy for over a week—ever since Becca had told her she wanted to set it up, and that it would be acted out by some of Cal's ex-stripper friends—but now that the reality was here, she had a case of nerves.
This man Mike was extremely masculine, and sexy, and he set her hormones humming, but could she really just strip down and become his sex toy. Along his three partners, too?
Don't freak out now. This is your fantasy!
Mike leaned forward, his hands folded on his desk. "So Cal told us what you were looking for. As I understand it, your brother cheated us out of a sizeable amount of money and you agree to be our sex slave in return for not prosecuting him."
Sylvia felt her cheeks heat as she nodded. In her head, especially after reading that book, it seemed extremely sexy, but laid out blatantly like that made her feel brash and… well, maybe a little slutty. And… maybe she was being… uh…brash. But both Becca and Jan had lived out their fantasies, and both were pretty wild. Why shouldn't she?
A Naughty Little Christmas (Cowboys, Cops, and Kilts: 8 Seasonally Seductive Romances from Bestselling Authors) Page 28