by Kim Lawrence
‘It turned out all he was carrying was a bracelet.’
‘What did you think he was carrying?’
‘A knife,’ she admitted, adding with an embarrassed grimace, ‘What can I say? I watch too many cop shows on telly.’
‘You thought I was a knife-wielding maniac?’
She moved her head in a negative motion. ‘You surprised me, that’s all. And he didn’t have a knife and he wasn’t really a maniac, though obviously not entirely right in the head.’ She accompanied the explanation with an illustrative tap on her own head, thinking as she did so that perhaps she was in no position to throw stones.
After all, sane did not exactly describe her own reaction when she had seen him as being that of someone in full possession of all her mental faculties. Her stomach muscles were still quivering. She had spent the best part of the evening calling him every name under the sun, inside her head of course, but the moment she had seen him her throat had thickened and her traitorous heart had started to thud.
‘A person who serves you coffee and decides your smile means you are soulmates has issues. Obviously if I’d realised it was just another of his presents I wouldn’t have hit him over the head with the plant pot, though maybe it was a good thing I did,’ she mused. ‘Because the plant pot actually proved a lot more effective than a police warning and he decided that I was not his soulmate after all.’
‘Plant pot?’ he echoed, struggling to wade through this information.
‘It was the only thing there.’
The note of apology drew a choked sound from his throat and he realised it was impossible to judge Angel by the other women he knew. She was clearly a creature who acted on instinct.
Combine that sort of reckless impetuosity with youth and a passionate nature and it wasn’t hard to see how she had ended up pregnant. But then the mystery was how he had been the first. He still struggled to get his head around that knowledge.
Alex had no excuse, which was why he was here and he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted.
‘The things you said this afternoon... You were right. You were not telling me anything I don’t already know.... I just wasn’t ready to hear it.’ She watched as he dragged his hand through his dark hair, which, she noticed, was already tousled. He was still wearing the same clothes he had been in earlier that day, though they were a lot more creased, and for the first time since that night six years ago she was seeing his jaw shadowed with dark stubble.
‘From me?’ She anticipated a savage rebuttal and got instead a thoroughly and totally disarming tip of his head.
‘This is your call and I will abide by your decision. The threats I made were...selfish. I’m sorry, you were right. You have every reason to hate me. I slept with you, I took no precautions, it was thoughtless, I’ve never...’ He just stopped himself producing the classic ‘I’ve never done it before’ line. After all, why should she believe it? Actions, he reminded himself, spoke louder than words. ‘I want to make things right.’
Angel was shaken by the depth of self-loathing in his voice, but she forced a laugh and framed her ironic rebuttal in a voice as cold as she could make it. ‘You want Jasmine.’
The goad made the lines bracketing his mouth tighten but he managed to hide his frustration, well aware that once already today he had barged in like the proverbial china-shop bull, issuing threats when he should have been asking questions, building bridges.
‘It’s true, I want to be a father to my child. But you were right—I’m in no position to call the shots.’
Not being in a position to call the shots, as he termed it, had to be a new experience for him. But Angel was not totally trusting of this new Alex, and she refused to be lulled into a false sense of security. She would not lower her defences just yet.
‘That’s a pretty big U-turn for someone who was talking custody battles not a few hours ago.’
‘I told you about Lizzie...’
‘Your half-sister?’
He nodded. ‘She was ten before she knew who her father was, before she knew she was wanted.... I want Jasmine to know she is wanted.’
The soft addition sliced through her determined stance of wary hostility. There was no question of his sincerity. ‘She does!’ Angel rushed to protest earnestly. ‘I know what it feels like to think you’re nothing but a nuisance.’ Feeling awkward at the admission, she dodged his glance and added, ‘I’ve never let Jas think for one second she isn’t wanted and loved.’
‘I’m sure you’re a great mother, but that isn’t the issue.’
He thinks I’m a great mother? ‘What is the issue, Alex?’ It was pretty obvious that the superficial similarities had dredged up some old issues for him. ‘This isn’t about your relationship with your father. You can’t allow the things that happened in the past to colour the present.’
He emitted a laugh of disbelief. ‘So it’s purely accidental that your mothering style is the complete opposite of your own mother’s? That’s not a criticism, it’s a fact. It’s what people do. We try to avoid our parents’ mistakes. Some of us fail....’ He gave a snort of self-disgust. ‘Talk about history repeating itself.’
‘That’s not true! The situations are totally different,’ she protested.
‘In as much as Lizzie’s mother chose not to tell my father she was pregnant because she knew he was married. You didn’t even know my name. My dad had always been my hero. He made a real effort with me, maybe to compensate for the fact he’d been estranged from his own father. We did everything together, then afterwards... It was never the same between us. I didn’t hold back. I let him know I despised him. I never lost an opportunity to twist the knife. Pretty ironic considering that I ended up emulating him.’
‘But you didn’t!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re not—!’
His blue eyes lifted and Angel could see that they blazed with self-contempt in the half-light. ‘Married...? My wife had been dead weeks! Tell me how that makes me any better?’
The pain in his voice made her wince. ‘People do things when they’re grieving that they wouldn’t do normally.’
A sound of astonishment escaped his lips as he moved towards her out of the shadows. ‘You’re trying to excuse what I did...?’ He swallowed, the muscles in his brown throat visibly working as he finished on a note of raw incredulity, ‘You of all people!’
‘You’re not being fair on yourself, Alex. You loved your wife, you were hurting, grieving... You had been for a long time....’
‘I knew it was going to happen.’
‘And is that meant to make it easier? For goodness’ sake, Alex, cut yourself some slack.’ She registered his startled expression but didn’t let it faze her or allow him the space to protest. Some things needed saying, especially when they were so obvious, and he was too close to it. ‘You were there when your wife needed you, weren’t you?’
‘I think so.... Yes, I was, but I couldn’t...’
‘I know that’s hard, but you tried and you did your best. And when she was gone you did something out of character, not because you loved her any less, but because you wanted to stop...thinking.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘I don’t know what your wife was like, but I’m willing to bet she would have understood what you did and not considered it any sort of betrayal. I wouldn’t, if it had been me.’
She was displaying a generosity of spirit that made him feel humble. ‘I think you are a better person than me.’
‘I wish I was. You lost yourself in one night of sex and I...I...’ She choked with a bitter laugh. ‘I was kind of in love with the idea of being in love. Relax,’ she added, seeing his expression. ‘I have grown up.’
‘Being a single parent will do that to a person.’ She might have relieved some of his guilt over that night but not over the repercussions. ‘I want my child to know she is wanted, Angel.’ He d
oubted very much he could be as good a father as Angel was a mother, but he would try.
‘So why didn’t you just say so instead of... It’s obvious your sister had a tough time, but Jasmine knows she is wanted, Alex.’
‘She doesn’t know she is wanted by me.’
The words made her heart give a heavy thud of empathy. In the fast-falling dark she struggled to read his expression. Now his figure was little more than a dark outline, backlit by the moonlight reflected off the silvered ocean surface.
‘You wanted me to listen.... Angel, I’m listening. I want to help, I want to be involved. Is that selfish? I don’t know....’ He took a deep breath, a soft sibilant hiss escaping through his teeth before he said quietly, ‘No threats.’
‘I wasn’t threatened.’ Not true—she had been. But not nearly as much as she would have been had she not had the security and the confidence of a brother with all the ruthlessness and resources to face Alex on equal terms. To fight on her behalf, should she ask him.
‘I need to be part of her life...whatever it takes.’
Angel’s restless covetous glance was drawn and then lingered on the sculpted contours of his wide, sensual mouth.
There was a big difference, she reminded herself, between wanting and needing. She needed to rediscover that mouth about as much as she needed a boil on her nose, but, God, she wanted it so much it hurt.
Angling her chin defiantly, she cleared her throat.
‘I suppose you think all you have to do is kiss me and I’ll agree to pretty much anything?’ she challenged. ‘Your problem is you think you’re irresistible!’ she tacked on, realising as she spoke that she was halfway to believing he was!
Maybe more than half, she thought. She recalibrated as she lost the ability to move, actually to breathe, as he surged towards her, taking the shallow steps of the bungalow veranda two at a time. He was at her side before she had an inkling of his intentions and then it was too late to stop him.... Did she actually want to?
He framed her face between his big hands. His stare had a soul-piercing intensity and she couldn’t look away, afraid that a blink might break this spell.
‘Kiss...?’ The flash of his white grin was predatory as he bent his head and kissed her slowly, extending the erotic pleasure, taking his time as he slid his tongue deep between her parted lips, tasting her. There were no words to describe the sweet, hot ache between her thighs.
Angel was left gasping, open mouthed, for air when his head finally lifted. She felt his hands at her waist supporting her; her knees sagged; her legs felt as though they belonged to someone else.
‘I’m planning to do more than kiss you, Angel,’ he rasped, the promise making her tremble in anticipation. Still holding her eyes, he ran his tongue across the plump, trembling outline of her lower lip before tugging it gently with his teeth and asking, ‘You have a problem with that?’
His problem is he thinks he’s God’s gift!
My problem is he’s right.
In her head Angel saw herself pushing him away, defusing the situation with a few well-chosen words interspersed with the odd acid barb.
Outside her head, she was melting into him, pushing her aching breasts up hard against his chest, absorbing his heartbeat, his heat and the sheer maleness of him. She drew his head down so she could take the initiative and move her lips slowly across his, sampling the texture, breathing in his scent as, with eyes half-closed, she whispered into his mouth, ‘No problem.’
His eyes flared and the primal incandescence made the breath in her lungs catch and burn. She stood trembling and passive, her heart thudding like a drum as he pushed his fingers deep into her lush hair so that they cradled her skull, dragging her head back to expose the long line of her throat.
Her eyelids squeezed tightly shut as he pressed his mouth to the pulse at the base of her throat. Her deep sigh became a long moan, the sound slipping past her clenched teeth as his tongue and lips progressed up her neck until he reached her mouth again. By this time her skin was slicked with a layer of moisture and she was panting short, shallow gasps as if she had just run a marathon.
Alex was breathing hard too as he brought his face in close. His nose grazing hers, she wrapped her arms around his neck, conscious of the rasp of each laboured inhalation. He was close enough for her to see the faint pinpoint marks left by sutures running either side of the thin white scar that was almost hidden by his hairline. His forehead was creased in a frown of intense concentration as he stared into her upturned features; the skin of his own face was drawn tight, pushing against the perfect bones, emphasising each individual plane and angle. He was breathtakingly beautiful, but it was the raw, rampant hunger stamped on his face that sent a fresh, explosive surge of sheer need coursing through Angel’s body.
Struggling to articulate what she was feeling, simultaneously frightened and helplessly excited by the desire roaring like an out-of-control forest fire, in a voice that was hers, yet not hers, she whispered, ‘I need this. I need you.’
Not her voice, but it was definitely his mouth that came crashing down on hers. Her body arched as she kissed him back, responding to the pressure with a wild frenzy of need that drew a deep, throaty moan from Alex.
‘Hell, I don’t have... We need to be careful.’
‘No, it’s fine. I’m on the pill.’
‘Thank God!’
Still kissing frantically, they stumbled backwards. Angel was dimly aware of the sound of the door closing behind them a split second before she lost her footing and stumbled. Before she fell she was in his arms, swept quite literally off her feet, and being carried, a novel experience for a woman who was five-ten in her bare feet! A woman who had never before wanted to feel weak or helpless and out of control... That so wasn’t her.
In the bedroom he rested one knee on the bed before he sat her down in the middle of the soft downy quilt. She rested there looking dazed and so beautiful that the box he had locked his feelings away in cracked wide open.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he said, looking into the luminous, passion-glazed eyes lifted to his. He touched the side of her soft cheek with his thumb and felt her shiver. Her eyes drifted closed as she turned her head and, catching his wrist, pressed her lips to his palm.
The speed with which she had gone from hating him to feeling his pain and then wanting him more than oxygen was disorientating. Actually it was scary. ‘This is me, not the airbrushed version.’
The warning drew an amused grunt. Alex abandoned the pretence he was in control as a wave of emotion moved through him. Instead he decided to enjoy it...and her.
‘I have seen you naked before.’
Her eyes opened as he rose to his feet. She grabbed the front of his shirt and, falling backwards, pulled him with her.
She felt rather than heard his throaty chuckle as he raised himself on one arm and warned in a voice thickened by passion, ‘I’ll crush you.’
Still holding his shirt, she tugged—hard—smiling as pressure caused buttons to fly in all directions across the room. Hands flat on the delicious, warm golden skin of his chest, she leaned up to kiss him, tugging at the flesh of his lip with her teeth as she whispered, ‘I’m kind of hoping you will.’ The torrent of need he had awoken in her was elemental, out of control... She was out of control. The raw passion left no room in her head for any thought. She was driven, focused on one thing: to lose herself in him, to be totally consumed by his raw power.
Kneeling over her now, he didn’t take his eyes off her face as he fought his way out of his shirt before flinging it across the room.
Her skin was so sensitised that even a light shiver made her conscious of every point of contact between her and her clothes. They felt heavy; she felt too hot.... She tugged at the neckline of her dress and tried to smooth the fabric bunched around her middle, barely able to breathe now as h
er eyes drifted hungrily over his naked torso and her quivering stomach muscles cramped. The heat crackling under her skin burned as she absorbed the details. He was utterly perfect: lean, hard, gold-toned skin gleamed with a slick of sweat; his broad chest had power and strength and was marked by whorls of dark hair and sharply defined with slabs of muscle; his belly was washboard flat and bisected by a directional arrow of dark hair. Her chest lifted in a deep, voluptuous sigh of appreciation.
The shirt long gone, moving quickly and urgently, Alex reached for the buckle on the narrow belt that was threaded through the waistband of the linen trousers he was wearing. But Angel was there before him, driven by an all-consuming need to feel him, see him, her fingers shaking but surprisingly nimble as they unclipped the belt.
Before she could follow through with the action, he took her hands and lifted them high above her head. He kissed her with slow, erotic thoroughness before he took hold of the thin top she wore and, taking the hem, lifted it over her head.
She was wearing a tiny pair of panties and a bra that was little more than a couple of triangles of lace in a matching pink.
Alex gave a low appreciative growl in his throat and reached for the catch on her bra.
The underwear was gone before her head hit the pillow and he was bending over her, stroking her, his hands moving down her sides and over her ribcage and up to cup the quivering flesh of her breasts. Her body arched up to meet him, her arms wrapping themselves around his neck, as she struggled to anchor her aching core to him, all the while pressing increasingly ardent kisses to the strong brown column of his neck.
Angel squeezed her eyes closed and sank her fingers into the deep lush pelt of his hair, extracting and relishing every individual sensation, but somehow it wasn’t enough.
She wanted more; she needed more.
Maybe if she said it?
‘I know.’ His breath was moist and hot on her cheek, on her neck then her breast, and the air left her lungs in one open-mouthed gasp. His hands were moving up over her ribcage as his tongue traced the outline of her areola, before drawing the engorged peaks into his mouth first one, then the other.