His eyes widened in alarm when his wings pushed for freedom and he concentrated hard in an attempt to contain them and stop them from tearing through his navy shirt.
“I’ll be just a minute.” He rushed into the bathroom, slammed the door, and turned to face the white vanity unit and the large rectangular mirror above it on the wall.
Marcus set his glass down and fumbled with it, almost knocking his wine down the sink, and then turned the cold tap on so fast that he had to dash to his right to avoid the spray of water that bounced off the porcelain, threatening to douse his crotch. With a grimace, he turned the tap down to a steady flow and splashed the water on his face. His wings pushed again and he ached with the desire to strip off his shirt and unleash them for a moment, to surrender to his desire to beat them and shed his mortal appearance.
He couldn’t.
Not only could Amelia end up seeing them, ruining any chance of gaining her trust, but he might not want to put them away again. He couldn’t spend the whole evening in the bathroom.
His stomach growled and he pressed his damp hand against it.
If tonight was going to be anything near to a success, he needed to eat and soon, but there was nothing in his apartment. He had promised Amelia dinner. Even if she was kind enough to offer her own groceries, he wouldn’t know how to cook her anything. He had never used a stove for anything other than warming basic foodstuffs, such as soup and other items that came in neat little cans with clear instructions on the labels.
This whole plan was ridiculously flawed.
His head turned again and he reached for his wine, taking a greedy gulp of it in the hope that it would dull his senses enough that his wings would relent and he would forget his desire to fly off somewhere.
With Amelia.
That was a thought.
He looked into the mirror at the reflection of the white door behind him. Water dripped from the tip of his nose and rolled off his jaw. His heavy breathing filled the silence.
How would a human react to the sight of his wings and the knowledge that angels existed? If she knew what he was, he wouldn’t be deceiving her and there was a chance that he could convince her that his reason for being here was to protect her. Would that gain her trust?
He laughed at himself.
Any sane mortal would run a mile if they saw an angel.
She would never trust him.
“Are you feeling alright?” The sound of her voice, soft through the door, roused a different sort of hunger in him. He stared at the door, picturing her on the other side, how concerned she would look and how that caring edge to her expression would only add to her beauty.
If forced, could he seduce her?
Could it be called deception if he wanted her too?
It wasn’t going to happen.
Marcus dried his face on a hand towel, opened the door and smiled at her. “Never better.”
She gave him a hesitant and unconvinced smile in return, and looked past him at the bathroom, her eyebrows raised high. What was she looking for? It dawned on him that she thought the wine had made him sick. He could laugh at that. The one time he had turned to drink, it had taken close to a barrel of mead to render him unconscious, and even then he hadn’t thrown up.
He picked up his glass of wine, sipped it again to prove that he could handle it, and then smiled at her. Crimson spread across her cheeks, a delightful rosy tint that his smile had caused, and she held her own glass up, revealing that it was already empty.
Marcus took it from her and went into the kitchen to top it up. He took another swig from his own glass to give himself a little Dutch courage and then filled it too. When he walked back into the living room, Amelia was perched on the arm of his pale couch, her slender legs crossed at the knee, smiling at him. A different urge struck him, one that would definitely give her the impression that he was out to seduce her should she notice the effect it had on him.
He handed her the glass and stood in a way that wouldn’t reveal the growing bulge in his jeans, waiting for it to pass.
Amelia toyed with the glass, delicately running her right index finger around the rim, mesmerising him and filling his head with images of her stroking him in such a fashion. She looked up at him. “So what are we eating?”
Marcus grinned. “About that… you see… I don’t actually have any food that is edible and even if I did, I am not a good cook.”
The expression that settled on her face looked decidedly like relief.
“Something I said?”
A smile teased her lips. “I half expected you to be this incredible cook and to show me up. I’m atrocious.”
Marcus felt her relief sweep through him too and remembered how often she ate take away food. His gaze dropped to the bare slip of a dress she wore. Take out didn’t look bad on her. She had to work out more often than he knew. He had watched her jogging around Hyde Park before and had even jogged there once or twice himself before giving up the pretence and flying above her instead, invisible to mortal eyes.
“How does Chinese food suit you?” She took another sip of her wine before picking up the black cordless phone from the coffee table. “I know a great place that delivers.”
Marcus nodded in approval and then listened as she recited what sounded like the entire menu. He didn’t care what he ate as long as it got here fast and gave him some defence against the wine so he let her order some of her favourite dishes for them to share.
He paid for the food when it arrived twenty minutes later and Amelia helped him arrange the dishes on the long wooden coffee table between the sofa and the entertainment centre in the corner of the room. While he went to top up their drinks and get some plates and cutlery, she found a movie in the small collection of DVDs he had acquired in his short time on Earth, and put it into the player.
It felt far too much like a date as he sat beside her on the couch. He wasn’t sure what a date felt like, but in all the movies he had watched on Earth and couples he had observed during his time in Heaven, this sort of thing was frequently classified as one. Dinner. Movie. Wine. Man and a woman. Date.
Marcus finished off the remains of his food and leaned back into the corner of the couch, bringing his wine with him. He crossed his legs and stretched his right arm out along the back of the sofa, settling his hand close to Amelia, and rested the bottom of his glass on his knee. He paid little attention to the movie playing on the large flat screen television. Amelia held it too firmly, keeping his eyes locked on her face as she laughed, oblivious to his watching her. She was beautiful, and it wasn’t the wine talking.
A pure soul, full of kindness and warmth. Her internal beauty shone through, enhancing her external looks and leading him to wonder how such a pretty woman could fall for such disgusting men. She couldn’t see the damage to their souls, so it was understandable that she would occasionally fall for males who were beneath her, but to always find the bad seed amongst the many decent men in the world? He had at least expected her to get rid of them the moment she realised they were no good for her, but she persevered, attempting to change their ways, as though she hoped that she could make them into a good man if she tried hard enough.
Impossible.
Men were resistant to change.
As were angels.
Amelia looked at him over her shoulder, her laughter dying away when she caught his gaze and her expression turning serious.
“Do I have something on my face?” she said with a hint of a smile and a blush.
Marcus wanted to say that she did and use the excuse to reach across and sweep the backs of his fingers across her cheek. He wanted to see if his touch could affect her with the same intensity that hers affected him. He shook his head instead, expecting her to go back to watching the movie. She didn’t.
She turned and leaned over him, kneeling on the couch seat, and pressed her hand against his chest.
Marcus stared at her mouth, everything good in him screaming to break away and stop her.
He didn’t. He stayed stock still and let it happen.
His first kiss in this lifetime was a tentative sweep of soft lips over his followed by the press of her body into his. The feel of her against him sent a flood of feelings surging through him, setting his blood aflame with desire and the need to clutch her to him and possess her. It overwhelmed him and his restraint, crushing the good part that was still struggling to resist, and while he stopped himself from sliding his arm around her back and pulling the full length of her body flush against his, he couldn’t stop himself from kissing her.
She moaned softly when he responded, grazing his lips against hers in a gentle caress that fanned the flames within him until he burned for her and for more. Her tongue brushed along the seam of his mouth and he brought his to meet it, tangling softly and luring it into his mouth where they danced. He couldn’t remember kissing in his past lifetime but he certainly would have if it had felt like this. Warmth suffused him right down to his bones and every breathy little moan he elicited from Amelia turned the heat up another notch, until he was close to grabbing the nape of her neck and holding her mouth against his.
He breathed hard when she broke away to kneel on the sofa in front of him, her grey eyes wide and hand coming up to cover her mouth. She touched her lips, drawing his hungry gaze there, and he was ravenous all over again, starving for the sweet taste of her on his tongue.
“Shit… I’m sorry,” she said, instantly deflating his desire, and scrambled from the couch.
She was leaving?
Not good.
Marcus was off the sofa and had his hand locked around her wrist before she could reach the door.
“Wait,” he said and wasn’t sure what to do when she looked back at him so he pulled her into his arms and kissed her again.
And damn she tasted just as good as she had the first time.
And damn he needed more.
She moaned when he backed her into the wall beside the door, pressing the hard length of his body against hers, and grabbed his shoulders. For a moment, he thought she would push him away, and then she dragged him closer still and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her fingers into his hair.
Part of him was vaguely aware that alcohol was responsible for his current situation and that he was going to regret it come the morning but the rest of him didn’t care. He had wanted to release his inhibitions and he had. He just hadn’t expected that this would be the result, and right now he didn’t care that he was on the verge of doing exactly as his superior had ordered.
All he cared about was satisfying his hunger to taste Amelia.
The part of him that was chanting about deception wouldn’t shut up and the more he listened to it, the more he felt like a demon.
Marcus stepped back, leaving Amelia sagged against the wall, panting so hard that her breasts rose and fell with each breath, presenting him with a glorious view that had him reconsidering what he was about to say.
She slowly opened her grey eyes and smiled shyly before raking her gaze over him. It lingered on his groin and her eyes widened, pupils dilating until her irises turned dark with desire. There was a wicked edge to her eyes when they met his again and she inclined her head, her pouty come hither look almost luring him in. Desire wasn’t the only thing written plainly across her face. There was expectation there too, and that alone pushed him into saying what he needed to.
“I think this is a bad idea.”
Her sultry temptress look immediately dissipated, leaving the Amelia he was familiar with standing before him.
“You really don’t like me,” she whispered and the hurt in her heart beat within his.
He wasn’t saying anything of the sort. But what could he tell her? He was halfway to drunk and not only did he need to get his head on straight so he was certain that he wasn’t doing this because he was subconsciously following orders but he was hardly going to produce the stellar performance she expected of him.
He had been celibate this entire lifetime.
And he was damned if his first time was going to be under orders.
If something was going to happen between them, it was going to happen naturally. He wasn’t going to seduce her and use her feelings against her.
“I do… but… I think the wine has gone to my head and I think it might have gone to yours too.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” She glanced at the empty bottle and his half-full glass on the table.
“It is.” Marcus ventured a step towards her and brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek, sweeping her straight dark hair from her face. Her skin was as smooth as he had imagined it would be and the way she closed her eyes, slowly inhaling at the same time, empowered him. He opened his hand and cupped her face, resting his fingers along her jaw and bringing his thumb close to her mouth. Such soft lips. He wanted to dip his head and kiss her again but he wasn’t sure he would be able to stop at just kissing if he did. “It is all a little quick and I don’t want you waking tomorrow feeling like crap because of what we did tonight.”
“I doubt I would feel crappy.” There it was again. Blatant expectation. Why? Because he was handsome to her? That instantly made him Casanova?
No pressure then.
“Amelia… how about we take it slow and steady?”
Her eyes lit up and he realised there could be another meaning in his words but he didn’t bother to correct her because he wasn’t about to let things get that far. His final task was coming. Everything that had happened tonight would satisfy his superior and his orders to gain her trust. He would date her a few times, keeping a suitable distance, and once his mission was over he would leave.
She nodded, tiptoed and kissed him.
Resisting was impossible.
He swept his lips over hers, tasting her again and savouring this brief contact between them. When she broke away this time, he led her back to the couch and settled there with her, his thoughts weighing him down. He watched her again, fascinated by the amusement she got from the movie and how she curled up next to him, her bare knees brushing his thigh. A deep ache to slide his arm around her shoulders and draw her closer still beat in his bones but he resisted.
He couldn’t use her feelings against her.
Not when he was starting to feel something for her too.
CHAPTER 6
Amelia ambled along the hot pavement, her head already home in her flat or, more precisely, next door to it with Marcus. He had been a gentleman last night when she had wanted to take things further, and while it had irritated her at the time and made her doubt his attraction towards her again, it had taken on a certain appeal as her day had progressed. In the morning when she had gone jogging, she had done so out of frustration at how the night had ended on what could only be described as a very chaste kiss. By the time she had made it to lunch with her friends, she had been replaying their more passionate kisses in her head, so much so that her friends had commented on her unusual silence. She had made her excuses and not mentioned Marcus. Her friends would think she was rebounding.
Did Marcus think that?
She didn’t want him to see himself as just a rebound guy. He was more than that. She couldn’t put her finger on it but there was something different about him. Something that set him apart from the average man.
Amelia had never had a man treat her in such a gentlemanly fashion and wasn’t sure what to make of it. All of her previous boyfriends had been as passionate as she was and at times she wondered if that was part of their appeal. Because of her attraction to Marcus, she had expected him to be similar to the previous men in her life in that respect. That expectation couldn’t have been more wrong.
The moment he had said that he wanted to take things slowly, she had realised that Marcus really was nothing like her exes, and was everything like the man she had always hoped to meet.
Maybe he was right and they should take their time, if only so she could prove to Marcus that he was more than a rebound to her. She real
ly did like him. Her mind had been stuck on him since the night she had paused to take a good look at him and even now she was itching to see him again. She wasn’t good at going slow. Once something seized hold of her, she generally forgot everything else in a passionate pursuit of what she wanted.
In this case, Marcus naked and pressed against her.
He had been hesitant and strangely polite to her after their kiss, and his sweet goodnight played on her mind, filling her head with doubts.
He had kissed her though.
And it had felt good.
Really good.
She could do the softly-softly thing with him any day of the week. She wouldn’t care how slow things went between them if he just kept kissing her like that.
Amelia was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t realise that she had gone the wrong way until she heard three men addressing her. She quickly scanned her surroundings, eyes darting around for an avenue of escape in case things took a turn for the worse.
“Lost?” The innocent expression on the face of the man in the middle didn’t fool Amelia.
It wasn’t dark yet but the sun had already set and she had wandered into the quiet side streets behind the apartment buildings. She looked around again, hoping to spot someone other than the three men, but she was alone.
“Not really.” Amelia turned to walk the other way but another man was there.
No, not another man.
The same man. His dark hair hung in messy threads across his eyes, obscuring his face enough that she wouldn’t be able to describe him well to the police if it came down to that. God, she hoped it didn’t. She hurried to get a good look at the other two men. Both around the same height as the first, tall and with slim figures, and both sporting dark jeans and jackets, clothing that seemed far too warm for such a hot summer evening. She was sweltering in her small pale blue dress.
“I don’t want any trouble.” She clutched her leather handbag closer to her, holding it in front of her stomach. Could she use it as a weapon? She kept so much junk in it that it was probably heavy enough to knock someone out if she swung it hard at their head.
Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Romance Series Complete Series Box Set (Books 1-5) Page 7