In A Heartbeat (23 page)

“I think this is the part where I turn back into a char woman,” she said. She held out her hand for a handshake. “I had a wonderful time.”

He looked briefly at her outstretched hand. “I think you may have your fairy tales mixed-up.” His arms closed around her back and pulled her close. “I’m the bewitched one.”

His lips met hers, softly, inquisitive. The tip of his tongue slid along the seam of her closed lips. Her arms reached around his neck at their own volition. He pulled slowly back.

“Now I can return to my former handsome state,” he whispered, then arched an eyebrow. “I was handsome, wasn’t I?”

She nodded slowly, still dazed by the kiss.

His hands slipped to her waist. “I had a wonderful time tonight, Angela.” He kissed her softly on her cheek. “Thank you for coming with me. I’m in your debt.”

He stepped back and took all that glorious warmth with him. She shivered in its absence.

“Good night,” he said, before turning toward the waiting cab.

“Wait.” She had to stop him, but she wasn’t sure why. She wrapped her hand around one of the posts, feeling the need for support. “Maybe you’d like to come in for some coffee or something?”

He smiled. She barely saw the flash of his dimple in the porch light. “Coffee would be nice,” he said, signaling to the cab. He returned to the porch.

She led the way to the kitchen, mentally scolding herself for not buying some fancy gourmet coffee, the kind he had served her last weekend. But then, she hadn’t considered anything beyond the ball itself. After silencing the insistent answering machine and putting Oreo out in the yard, she retrieved a mug from a cabinet. Standing on tiptoe, she tried to reach the tin of coffee her mother kept on a shelf. Her fingertips barely grazed the side of the tin.

“Here, let me get that for you.” Hank reached from behind her, but her wings were in the way. “Tell you what,” he said, stepping aside. “Why don’t I make the coffee while you go change out of that contraption.”

“As much as I love this costume, even sitting is difficult with these wings,” she admitted, feeling her cheeks warm. “I’ll be right back.”

Leaving him in the kitchen, she climbed the steps, slipped out of her costume, then stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror. No matter how magical the evening, a seven-inch scar still bisected her chest. No amount of fairy dust could change that reality. Disenchanted, she reached for a T-shirt.

Just as well. As much as she might dream otherwise, Hank had clearly said that this was not a date. He already had a “normal” girlfriend, one without hideous scars. The scent of freshly brewed coffee drifted up the stairs reminding her that he waited below. She reached for her jeans. He would need her to drive him home anyway.

She laid the discarded costume on the bed, reliving for a moment all the emotions she’d experienced as a fairy. Now that she’d experienced the thrill of Hank’s body pressed to hers, the thrill of his kiss, the very vibration of his close proximity, could she go back to her plan of living by herself, alone without someone to desire? Was this what it was like for normal people? For the first time in her life, she wondered if just being alive was enough.

“Just in time,” Hank said, pausing in his arrangement of biscotti on a plate. “I hope you don’t mind, I raided the pantry and found this.”

“Sure, no problem.” She picked up the plate and a glass of water. “Shall we go into the sitting room? It’s more comfortable there.”

She sat near the arm of the couch, expecting him to select the nearby chair. Instead he sat next to her, his weight on the cushions shifting her body closer to his.

“You were beautiful tonight.” Her face warmed under his compliment. “And witty, and charming, and graceful— “

“Not graceful,” she protested, thinking of her leg brace. Her brace! She’d forgotten to put it back on when she’d changed upstairs. Was that why she felt lighter than gauze?

“Definitely graceful,” he said, looping his arm around the back of the couch behind her. “But you look much more comfortable in this.” He tugged at the short sleeve of her T-shirt.

Looks can be deceiving
, she thought as his fingertips raised excited goosebumps on her forearm.

He was so close, intimately close. She put her glass on the table, afraid to risk exposing her shaking hands.

“Thank you for inviting me for coffee,” he said. “I wasn’t ready for the evening to end.”

“You too?” she said, surprised to hear her own thoughts echoed. She twisted a little to face him. “Tonight was like magic.” She closed her eyes to recall every delicious moment. “It was—”

His lips captured her unspoken words and transformed them into pure sensation, eliciting responses more powerful than words could allow. Her body reacted instinctively, as if to an awakened memory of internal urging. His tongue played along the seam of her mouth and, this time, she opened, giving him access. The tight spring of tension uncoiled beneath her ribcage, sending warm rippling waves of desire along her nerve endings. A deep groan rose between them. She didn’t know who initiated it, but the sweet vibrations from the sound resonated through her body like a tuning fork.

He tugged on her arm, loosening it from around his shoulders, then guided her hand on a slow path down his chest. She only had a moment for a brief tactile exploration of the ribs and muscles that she had fantasized about before he led her hand to the hard bulge at his crotch.

Sweet Jesus!

She’d read of this phenomena, of course, but she never expected such a close experience. She pressed and stroked the thick hardness, then felt more than heard his groan. He pushed, straining against the hand that cupped him.

“Angel, you know I want you.” He kissed her neck, just below her ear. “You can feel how much I want to bury myself in you.”

Was it possible? She pressed, just to see if she was interpreting his words correctly. His eyes closed and he swore. Thrilled with her newfound power, Angie wanted more. She’d never experienced this transformation with a man before and most likely she wouldn’t have the opportunity to do so again.

“I think I’ve wanted you from that first time you attacked me in the woods.” His lips pulled into a slight smile. “But we have to talk.”

“No, we don’t.” Instinctively she knew talking was bad. There were better things he could do with those talented lips. Her body cried for more of his caresses, for the friction of skin on skin.

“But Angel.” His fingertips brushed stray hairs behind her ear. He kissed her neck. “I have to explain.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” She pushed on his chest so he could see her face. Hopefully, he would see her sincerity for what she was about to ask. Her throat thickened.

“Hank, you’ve given me so many firsts these past weeks. Can’t you give me one more?”

He looked drowsy, dazed, not at all like the controlled, self-possessed executive she knew him to be. She resisted the urge to kiss him again. He needed to understand what exactly she wanted, needed.

“One more?” he rasped.

She stroked the inside of his thigh. His eyes widened.

“You want me to make love to you?”

Yes! Yes! Yes! Every inch of her body answered. She nodded slowly.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. There are things about me you don’t understand.”

“I understand that I want this.” She struggled to keep the pleading out of her voice. “I may never have another opportunity.”

“Angie, I’m sure there’ll be lots of—”

She covered his mouth with her hand, knowing what the rest of the sentence would be. Too many times her mother, her brother, and her doctors had offered that same assurance. She knew better than them all that every opportunity was a gift, not to be dismissed. She wanted this moment of shared physical intimacy more than she had ever wanted anything before. “Please, do this for me.”

He hesitated. She watched a battle play out in his eyes, then he pulled her fingers aside and kissed her softly, gently. A goodbye kiss, she thought dismayed. Already his hands had pulled back, away from where she longed for them to be. What must he think of her?

“It’s not that I don’t want to make love to you. Lord knows there’s nothing I want more right now but—”

If her words hadn’t convinced him, her actions would have to. She pressed her body full against him. She sucked hungrily at his lower lip, then with desperate bravado, she slipped her hand inside the waistband of his pants.

He drew back and studied her face. Did her eyes reflect that hungry intent the way his did? If so, he had to know how much she wanted this.

“Okay,” he said softly. “You win. But if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this right.” He scooped her up in his arms. “Just tell me where.”

Her mother had a bed large enough to accommodate them, but that seemed sacrilegious. Her own room held too many childhood memories for comfort. Stephen’s bedroom had been turned into a storage room not long after he moved out. “Here,” she said after her quick analysis. “We can put the quilt on the floor.” She pointed to the Tree of Life quilt her mother had pieced together when Angie had her transplant.

Holding her securely in his arms, Hank glanced first at the quilt, then the floor, then at her. “Where are your car keys?”

“In my purse in the hall closet. Why?” she asked. He carried her into the hallway. “Where are we going?”

“To my place.”

“Why?” she asked, trying to peer around his determined jaw to his eyes.

“Beds.”

Chapter Nineteen

HE’D ONLY GIVEN her part of his reasoning. Even though rug burn was a small price to pay for fulfilling a fantasy he’d carried since that day in the woods, the real reason for returning to his house was far more practical. He’d only anticipated a stirring good-night kiss or two at the end of the evening, nothing that would require the kind of protection he kept bedside. Judging from Angie’s inexperience, she wouldn’t be able to produce condoms on a moment’s notice. At least this way he could love her the way she deserved to be loved. She’d be isolated enough that she could scream at the intense pleasure he intended to give her. Heck, they both could.

“What are you smiling at?” she asked from the passenger side of the car.

“I was just thinking…planning,” he answered.

“I was talking to Oreo,” she said, scratching the furry dog head that poked between the front seats. “Thanks for letting me bring her along. I hated to leave her alone tonight after having been gone earlier.”

“As long as she stays out of our room,” he reminded her.
Our room.
He liked the sound of that. It had a permanence that felt right.

“You’ll be good, won’t you, girl?” She rubbed under Oreo’s furry chin.

Hank turned into the long driveway and parked Angie’s car in front of the garage. “We’ll go in the front,” he said. No need to spook Angie with the sight of Elizabeth’s corvette. He’d tried once again to explain that even though he didn’t love Elizabeth, he still had that commitment until he could speak to her father. But Angie stopped him again before he could begin.

She was determined to do this. He’d give her that. He smiled watching her direct her pet to the front of the house. Yes, he’d give her that and much more.

Angie lingered in the great room to give Oreo time to settle in. Meanwhile Hank hustled to his bedroom to make sure everything was ready. He pulled some emergency candles out of one of the drawers. Tonight they would serve a less utilitarian purpose. He placed them in front of the mirror to maximize a romantic glow. Slipping out of what remained of his troll costume, he tossed it, along with a couple of shirts and a pair of jeans into the closet. That left him in his T-shirt and boxers. It would have to do. He looked around.
Music
, he thought.
Angie likes music.
What did he have that would set the mood? Too late. Her light step sounded in the hall outside his room.

The door between the office and hallway closed with a soft click. God, he was nervous. Hard and nervous, not unlike those teenage years when Elizabeth first initiated him in the secrets of intercourse.

Angie appeared. Cool, confident, determined. She had to be a little scared, this being her first time. But she didn’t show it, not his Angel. She paused in the doorway that led into the office.

“I have one condition.”

“What’s that?” He aimed for nonchalance but suspected that he failed miserably. He walked toward her, enjoying her look of discovery when her glance drifted to his crotch. He stretched even further.
Damn!

“No lights.”

She flicked the light switch, but the candles cast shifting pools of illumination across her hair, her cheekbones, her lips. He wrapped his arms around her, loving the way her arms reached around his shoulders in response. He lifted her in his arms, enjoying the weight of her.

“That’s fine with me. You look beautiful by candlelight.” He nibbled on her earlobe as he carried her to the bed. “I’ve wanted to see what you look like under those power suits for weeks. Tonight I get to see all of you.”

He placed her on the bed, but she forced space between them.

“You can’t see me. That’s part of the deal.”

“Why?” He pushed her hair back behind her ear. God, he loved the feel of her hair. Soft as silk, shiny as the moonlight, it flowed beneath his fingers like a woodland stream over sun-drenched stones.

“Tonight, I want to be beautiful,” she said.

“But you are beautiful…” He slid his hands down her sides, feeling the lithe body beneath her clothes. Didn’t she know? Hadn’t she ever looked in a mirror? How could she miss the freshwater blue of her eyes, the infusion of pink that spread on her cheeks whenever someone paid her the slightest compliment, the sweet lushness of her lower lip that teased and beckoned. Even now—

“Trust me,” she said. “You wouldn’t say that if you saw my scar.” The delicate wings of her eyebrows lifted in a plea, she worried her bottom lip for just a moment. “I need all the lights out, even the candles.”

“But if we do that, you won’t see me either,” he teased, half in jest, half in earnest. He wanted to watch her, see pleasure shudder through her body, see if that sweet blush extended to other parts of her body.