Dark Admirer (3 page)

Eve coughed and waited for a response.
Nothing
. Taking a cautious step forward, she bent at the waist, trying not to get too close to the guy. There were homeless in the area, most of them were harmless, but you never could be too careful.

But this guy didn’t look like any of the street people who frequented her rubbish bins. She would have remembered a homeless guy who was that tall, that built.

“Hey,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. “You okay there, bud?”

Nothing. Gripping the edges of her sweater together to ward off the frigid blast of wind that raced down the alley, Eve took one step closer and glanced down at the still body. God help her if he was dead. What a drag that would be. She’d never get to Gemma’s before the storm hit if she had to call the police. And how damn insensitive was that towards the guy lying frozen at her feet?

“Hey,” she said again, gently toeing his hand with the tip of her shoes. She glanced at the pale hand. Clean nails and manicured, too. Not homeless, then. Maybe someone just down on their luck? Too much H or a bad batch? It wasn’t like it was difficult to find drugs in this area of the city. This guy wouldn’t be the first OD of the year, and certainly not the first one to be found in this particular alley. But he just didn’t look like the druggie type. Maybe he’d been ringing in the New Year early and had gotten sidetracked on his way home from the bar.

Whatever was up with this guy, Eve felt compelled to do something. As long as the something wasn’t getting too close to him.

There was no movement when she nudged the pale hand again. “Okay, let’s do this,” she muttered. It was time for the cops.

When she stepped away, she nearly toppled backward, her shriek of surprise echoed off the bricks. Her arms flared out, striving for balance before she landed her ass on the cold asphalt. She wondered if she’d slipped on some black ice, but when she looked down, Eve saw that the lifeless hand was now wrapped firmly around her ankle.

Holy shit!

Her heart leapt up to her throat, and she fought the urge to vomit. Oh, God, he was awake—semi alert, and holy mother of God, he was moving towards her, using her ankle as leverage as he dragged himself closer, his shoulders heaving and rolling beneath the wool coat.

Eve swallowed, wanting to back up and away from the guy, but she was afraid to move, afraid she’d fall back, and then what would she do? The guy was huge—at least six five—maybe even taller. And while she was a sturdy girl, she had nothing on him. And to make matters worse, Lizzy had turned tail and run back into the shop. She was all alone in an alley during a snowstorm with some half conscious stranger.

Not good.

The man made no sound has he heaved his upper body up from the cold ground. Slowly, his dark head rose from where he was looking at her shoes. Up his face came until she caught a glimpse of strong pink lips and a masculine jaw. Up to a pair of breathtakingly beautiful green-blue eyes, the kind of colour you’d see in a travel brochure for an island in the Caribbean. Holy cow, she’d never seen eyes that colour. But then she saw something else as the wind gusted yet again, blowing his long black hair away from his face.

She swayed. Okay, this was so not normal. What the hell was this freak and what frickin planet was he from?

Eve swallowed hard and took a step back just as he got to his feet and unfurled his tall body. He was now standing before her, his stance a little unsteady, but his gaze focused and totally fixated on her. She gulped, taking in his face and the beautiful eyes that were glistening down at her. He studied her as if he were stripping her and seeing her beneath her clothes. His head cocked slightly to the side, and she saw his gaze slide down along her throat, to her breasts, where it lingered. Her nipples beaded under his gaze, and she saw his pupils turn from a perfect circle to an oval slit.

Eve pulled her sweated tighter across her breasts, but he didn’t take the hint, and instead just kept staring, then suddenly peeked up at her from a set of indecently long and thick dark eyelashes. That gaze, so direct and penetrating made her take a step back. His lingered for a second longer on her ample breasts then slowly descended to her belly, then lower, where she was certain he was staring at the zipper of her jeans.

What was he going to do to her? Rape her? Beat her? There was no way she could outrun him, or out-muscle him. He towered over her with his tall frame, and somehow Eve knew it wasn’t the coat making him look so broad. Somehow she knew he was ripped and built beneath the black wool.

And the way he kept looking at her, as if he were going to eat her whole, made her shiver and take another cautious step away from him.

She had never seen anyone like him before. Never seen someone with more than half his face tattooed with strange symbols. The sprawling marks covered his forehead, the lid of his left eye and down to his mouth, where the corner of his lips bore the same strange marks.

She stepped back again and felt the bricks scrape against her back. She was cornered, unable to hide or disguise the whimper of fear that escaped through her pinched lips. Something in his eyes flickered, the pupils changed again, and Eve wondered if this guy got off on a woman’s fear? His eyes flashed once more, as if he could hear her thoughts, but he said nothing, just stepped closer to her as he looked down into her face with those gorgeous eyes of his. A shadow shifted against the brick wall at the back of the alley and her gaze darted to it. She gulped again and stiffened. No frickin way. No way was she seeing…she squinted and felt her pulse speed up to a dangerous rate and her head began to feel funny, as if she were going to black out. She glanced again at the wall, and saw the same thing.
Oh, hell no
, those were
so
not wings she was seeing.

The man’s shoulders shifted, and so too did the shadow behind him. It was the lack of oxygen to her brain that was making her see things. There was no way she was seeing wings. This guy was
not
an angel. But then the familiar scent of musk and exotic spices swirled around her, and she somehow knew that what she was seeing was not the result of anoxia. No, that scent was too familiar. And the way her body was heating, that was familiar, too.

Well, holy shit.

Eve did the only thing reasonable for a God fearing woman to do, she fainted, hoping that when she woke up, she could pull a Scrooge and chalk this whole thing up to a bad bit of beef.

Chapter Two

Clearly he was at the wrong address
.

The figure that lay unconscious in his arms was not that of a male, but a female. A very soft, very curvy woman, whose scent seemed to wrap itself around him in a heady cloud.

Anael looked down at the female, whose long tendrils of golden hair whipped around her face as the frigid wind blustered through the alley. She didn’t stir when he brushed his hand over her cheeks, pushing her hair away to reveal the contours of her face. The pink in her cheeks were gone, replaced by a white that was nearly translucent; it made him think of fragile porcelain and pretty china dolls.

So delicate and soft. So…
perfect
.

An animal whimpered behind him, and Anael turned with the woman still cradled in his arms to see the black and white dog cowering, its ears pressed back and its head hung low, studying him.

“She’s in no danger from me”
, he silently told the animal. As all animals did, the dog listened to him. No longer cowering, the animal turned tail and ran along the frozen asphalt to a side door recessed in from the bricked side of the building. Jumping up, the dog pawed it until it opened.

Icy droplets were now intermixed with the snow. Anael heard the pellets as the wind drove them into the brick walls and the shoulders of his coat. Knowing he needed to get the woman inside, he followed the dog, never allowing himself to take his gaze off the sleeping woman.

She would be terrified of course, when she awoke to find him gazing down upon her. Just like she had been when she’d seen his face. Even though she’d think him a monster, he could not stop himself from running a finger along her cold cheek and down to the dark red of her bottom lip.

The skin was plump and soft.
Succulent
. Meant to be savoured and licked; to be pulled into a man’s mouth as he made love to her with kisses.

A deep sigh escaped her mouth as he brushed the pad of his thumb along the seam of her lips. Her warm breath bathed his finger, moistening his skin. He pulled his thumb away and brought it to his lips and licked away the humid heat on his flesh, bringing her breath into his body, tasting her, imagining it was her sex he was licking away from his finger.

The image of him between her thighs should have alarmed him, in fact, with his past, he should not have even thought of such a thing. But it didn’t matter. The seed of thought had taken root. The thought, indeed, the image of him drawing his mouth along her wet sex was not like having a blast of frigid water thrown at him. Instead, it was like a fire, flaring to life, heating his blood and his flesh until he felt his cock straining against his clothes.

She was beautiful this human woman. She was temptation. An enticement of the flesh that felt so right in his arms, tasted so right on his tongue.

How had he landed here, on her doorstep? He hardly remembered the events. One minute he’d been falling from Heaven, the next he had lost all control of his body and landed face first in the alley.

Never had he felt the electrical-like current that had staked through his body as he fell down through the clouds. He had felt the current, like a lover’s touch, traversing over his skin. He’d lost all control then, all ability to think and command his wings to take him to the human who had summoned him.

Instead, he had been at the mercy of the electricity that had coursed through his body, awakening sensations in him that he had had never, ever felt. As he plummeted to the earth, knowing he was off course, knowing he would land in a heap of pain, he could do nothing but slide deeper into the sensation of being touched, of being drawn into someone.

And that someone had obviously been the woman whose warm body was lying still against his chest. Even now he felt the lingering effects of the strange sensation flickering along his skin. He sensed, as he looked down into the woman’s sleeping face, that it had been her touch that had awakened the lust he had once possessed, but that had lay dormant inside him for so long.

A lust he could not indulge in. A passion that was only his to give. Never his to receive.