Forever My Angel (13 page)

While I was lost in thought, Angel and Eva have gone on to explore the interior of the building. It only takes me a few moments to catch up and fall into place at Angel’s side. “What do you think?”

She smiles. “I like it. Are you going to put the bar on this floor, or up there?” She points to the balcony that wraps around the second level.

“I’m thinking the bar here, not far inside the entrance, so people can get drinks right away before going through the dancing area. Then, at the back, I want to tear out that staircase and put in a beautiful grand stairway, sort of like what you’d see in a Southern mansion, but more modern and spectacular.” Maybe even with lights on each step in different colors.

Angel’s nod is enthusiastic. “And what do you want to put up there?”

“I’m thinking about a full-service restaurant, but I haven’t figured out what kind. And a few private party rooms. I want to turn this into the place to be, and to be seen. Part club, part bar. But I’m at a loss on how to truly make it different from anything else that’s out there.”

Angel cocks her head to the side for a moment, thinking. Her eyes roam the upper level. “What about making it into a fondue restaurant?”

“Fondue?”

“Yeah, I’m serious. There are very few of them, but they’re lots of fun. The only ones I’ve been to are more for a fancy sit-down meal, not for a ‘stay and party all night with your girls’ type of evening. You could call the place Melt.”

“Melt,” I try the word on my tongue, and I think I like it.

“How are we doing?” Eva interrupts, walking closer to us. “Still want to put in an offer?”

“Absolutely. Fax the paperwork as soon as we leave here, please. Send it to my father’s number at Chadwell Farms. We’re headed there, and I’d like to sign this evening.”

Even though this will be my project—mine and Angel’s, once she agrees–I need my father’s signature on the financial paperwork because I’ll be buying it through one of our business accounts.

Eva gives me a sharp nod. “I’ll get started at once.”

“You named it, so you know what this means, right?”

Angel turns a skeptical look in my direction as we get back into my truck. “What?”

“You’re going to have to help me develop and run it.”

Her expression immediately turns stricken. “I don’t know anything about running a business! No way.”

“Guess you’ll learn, just like I did.”

“No. This is all you. I’m just involved enough to make sure Eva doesn’t get any more ideas.”

I decide to let it drop for now, but this discussion isn’t over. “Speaking of Eva, when she was talking about her father, I realized I don’t know anything about yours. Are you as close with him as you are with your mother?”

“What?” She turns to me, a puzzled look on her face, then sort of shakes her head. “Sorry, I feel like you’ve been a part of me for so long that sometimes I forget we don’t know
everything
about each other. My mom was actually a surrogate for her older sister and her brother-in-law. While she was carrying me for them, they were killed in a head-on collision. But my mom is my mom, and that’s just all there is for me.” Angel shrugs.

I reach over and take her hand in mine, giving it a squeeze. “Your mom rocks.” I mean it. From my few conversations with her, I know she has a very giving heart, and Angel’s story only makes that more clear. I can’t wait to get to know her better when she comes out to visit us.

Angel’s quiet the rest of the way to the farm, and I can’t help feeling like I’ve said or done something to upset her.

We’re almost there when I ask, “Is everything okay?”

She stares out the window, and at first I’m not sure she heard me. Then she sighs, and my chest tightens with worry. “It’s just that sometimes I wonder if we’re moving too fast. Do we really know each other as much as we think we do? I don’t ever doubt our love, but sometimes I can’t help wondering if we’re going to wake up and realize we’re strangers. Or worse, wake up like your parents and realize we can’t make it work.”

—-♥—-

I
t takes me less than two seconds to throw on the brakes and ease the Denali to the side of the road. The farm is visible up ahead, but clearly this cannot wait.

“Arion! What the hell are you doing?” Angel peers at me in the darkness, her eyes wide and reflective as I throw the gearshift in park and climb out of the truck. My stride is determined as I march around and throw open the passenger door.

“What the fuck!” Her eyes are flashing. My Angel is awake and paying attention now. Good. I take just enough time to skim her face with my gaze to make sure she’s not afraid of my erratic behavior, and when satisfied, I unsnap her seatbelt.

“Out,” I bark, sharper than I mean to be.

She doesn’t move until I narrow my eyes and she realizes I’m completely serious. I cup her elbow, making sure she doesn’t lose her balance as she hops to the ground. “If you think you’re going to leave me by the side of the road—”

I silence her protest by pressing my lips to hers. Just about every time I touch or kiss this woman, there’s a part of me that holds back, afraid to scare her with the intensity of my need for her, but not this time. My tongue furiously probes her mouth until her lips are swollen and heated against mine. Pinned between my unyielding body and the metal side of the truck, Angel writhes in my arms. “Arion,” she breathes against my lips when I finally let her catch a breath. “What are you doing to me?”

“Making it abundantly clear that you and I are the real deal. I may not know what color the paint was in your bedroom when you were a kid, and I may not know how old you were when you learned to tie your shoes, or when you had your first kiss, but I know that I’ll be your last. I know that whatever color you paint your next bedroom, and the one after that, and the one after that, they will be the walls I sleep between every night. And I know that when you’re old and can’t tie your own shoes, I’ll kneel down and help you, even if it takes me five minutes to get my old and decrepit body back up off the floor. Because you and I, Angel, we’re forever. And I want to make damned sure you know it.”

Her body melts against mine as she loops her arms around my neck, clinging to me. “How am I supposed to think clearly when you say things like that?” she whispers.

“Who said I want you thinking? Baby, I love nothing more than driving you out of your ever-loving mind.” I shift my hands to grab her ass, hoisting her up until she’s braced against the side of the truck. Her legs wrap around my waist and lock together behind me.

Supporting her with just one hand, I lightly roll my thumb over her nipple, and her head dips back against the truck. She shudders, then lifts her head to beg me with her eyes. I’m just not sure whether she’s asking for me to stop or keep going.

She’s got on a skirt that’s easy to push up and out of my way, and her underwear offers little resistance. Angel gasps as the fabric rends with an audible rip. “Tell me you don’t want me to do this.” I plunge a finger into her warmth, and she instantly rewards me with a moan.

“What if someone sees?” she squeals between erratic breaths.

“Then they’ll know you’re taken,” I growl as my finger goes slick with her need.

“We can’t!” Her legs squeeze tightly around me as she pants beneath my fingers.

“We are, baby.” I remove my hand, unzip my pants, and press my eager cock against her entrance. “Tell me you want this, Angel.”

She buries her head against my shoulder, but I feel her nod.

“Words, baby.”

Her hips grind against me, searching, desperate for me to fill her.

“You’ve got to tell me what you want.” I’m an evil bastard and I know it. But I also have to be one hundred percent sure I’m not pushing her too far.

“Please,” she begs, and I can't deny her any longer. “Ahh!” she cries out as I sheath my entire length inside her. The intense pleasure of her tight walls pulsing around me makes my knees tremble as I thrust in and out with long, desperate strokes. It doesn’t take long for her release to quake around me, and I answer her with my own. I grab a handful of napkins out of the glove box and clean us up the best I can, then just hold her in my arms on the side of the road.

A car flies past us, tossing gravel in its wake, but they don’t even give us a second glance. Once they're gone, Angel gives me a withering look. “Glad they didn’t come by a few minutes ago.”

I shrug, but secretly I agree. She rests her head on my shoulder, and I feel her sigh.

“Trust in me, Angel. Trust in us. I won’t lead you wrong.”

I feel her nod, but worry is still nagging me. If she thinks I’m moving too fast, should I call off the plans to propose, and give her more time? I don’t want to push her, but I also don’t want to wait another moment to begin the rest of our lives. She said she was ready, but did she mean it? Suddenly I’m not so sure.

“Babe, my parents didn’t work because neither of them were willing to fight for it. That, and I don’t really think they were compatible. I was young at the time, but I remember them arguing a lot. I’m not sure if they even liked each other. You’ve never seen two people so wrong for each other: Dad was all business and logic, Mom was whimsy and imagination. Oil and water. You get the idea. You and me? We’re milk and cookies. We just go together.”

Angel laughs as she opens the passenger door of my truck so she can climb in. “Chocolate chip?”

“Pfft. Peanut butter. Ready to go do the paperwork with my dad?”

We get back in the truck and quickly cover the remaining distance to the large farmhouse I was raised in. I expect to find my father in his study, not in the kitchen, and I sure as hell don’t expect to find my mother with him, happily doing dishes while Dad sits at the table finishing off his lunch.

Neither one of them have the damn courtesy to look the least bit ashamed.

I’m fucking speechless. Even Angel seems a bit tongue-tied, though she does manage to choke out, “Hello, Mr. Chadwell. And, um, Mrs. Chadwell.”

“Tucker, please, Tess,” my father reminds her at the exact moment my mother says, “Call me Joyce, dear. How are you feeling today?” Then, realizing they spoke in tandem, they look at each other and laugh.

I’ve entered the fucking twilight zone. I briefly wonder if we came as close to catching them doing something as the car on the road came to catching me and Angel. Then, when I realize what I’m thinking, I want to punch myself. No. Just no.

“Dad? Where’s Vanessa?” Never thought I’d care to know the answer to that question.

Dad wipes his mouth with a paper towel, then places it neatly beside his plate as if he’s not in any hurry and doesn't have a care in the world. I stop myself from growling at him in frustration, just barely. “The Four Seasons, I imagine.”

“Huh?”

“She’s unhappy with your mother’s re-entry into our lives, and she’s decided to go to a hotel while she evaluates what role she’d like to take going forward.”

What the fuck, Dad? Does he realize his marriage isn’t a merger? Not that I can say I’d be sad to see Vanessa go, but what would that do to Chelsea? I lift my eyes to my mother, who is washing dishes like this conversation isn’t even happening. “Well, you know, I can’t imagine why she’d not like your ex-wife standing in her kitchen like she still lives here.”

“Don’t use that tone with me, young man.” Dad pulls off his glasses, his version of rolling up his sleeves, preparing to duke it out.

Wait just a damn minute. “Mom.
Are
you living here?” I think my brain is about to explode. I feel Angel’s hand on the back of my shoulder, offering silent reassurance.

Mom turns and grabs a dish towel. “No, Axel. I’m staying with the Ferrons down the road. But I have been over here some, discussing things with your father.”

Some.
Right. “And just what do you two have to discuss?”

“Axel.” She gives me an exasperated look I haven’t seen since I was a child. “We
do
have two children together.”

Nice of her to remember that. “Ever heard of phones?” Dammit. I’d been coming around to trying to work on things with Mom, but seeing her in our kitchen, where she should have been all these years, is throwing me. I feel my walls going up.

“Axel! Enough.” Dad’s gaze is hard, and I know I’m on thin ice. “Apologize to your mother.”

“Sorry,” I mumble. Why does he think he can talk to me like I’m five? And why the hell am I listening?

“Why don’t we sit?” Angel nudges me toward two open seats at the table. Numbly, I let her lead me over, taking the seat farthest from Dad, near the wall. Angel sits next to me, keeping her hand on my leg, a constant reminder that she’s right here. I don’t have to face my parents alone.

Mom looks at me. “May I?” Her hands are nervously kneading the cloth towel.

I wave an open palm toward another chair. Not like it’s really up to me, anyway.

She flashes a grateful smile, though I try to ignore it. I don’t want her to think permission to sit means something it doesn’t. “As I was just telling your father, I believe that Vanessa is testing his commitment to her and their marriage. Surely my showing up with Warren was quite a shock to her as well, and she’s feeling insecure. If your father were to go to her and demonstrate that he wants her to come home immediately, so that they can face this as a unit, well, I have to imagine she’d come scurrying back.”

Like she would have.

I don’t know if Dad hears it, if he’s even ready to, but I hear Mom’s message loud and clear. She’s suggesting that if Dad doesn’t fight for Vanessa, the way he never fought for Mom, he’s going to lose her too.

“Dad?”

Dad closes his eyes and rubs the bridge of his nose. “Don’t worry over it, Axel. I’ll handle it. I’ll go up there this afternoon and let her know the time for this foolishness is over, and she needs to come home if she’s going to. I refuse to be in a marriage where one person has a foot out the door.” The way he looks at Mom while he’s talking implies there’s more to his words as well. But there’s a softness that begins at the corner of his eyes as she meets his gaze with a smile.