Chapter Six
Trey
T hat brief moment with Angelica in my arms was heaven and hell all wrapped into one. The beast inside of me wanted to throw her to the bed and drive away all that worry with the weapon of exquisite pleasure. But the more intelligent, less instinct-driven part of me, was thrilled that she was trusting me to see this vulnerable side of her. Angelica was always in control, strong and impenetrable. She never let anyone see the soft heart underneath the hardened mask. But in that moment, she trusted me enough to strip her soul to me.
I had no idea what made her retreat. Was it something I said? Was it just being around her children, reminding her of the man she’d once loved?
When she came down for dinner, she acted like nothing had happened, laughing with her grown kids, listening to them. But she avoided me completely. We sat at different ends of the table, and her eyes skated over me like I wasn’t even there. We even drove to the bar in different cars. No one said a word about it, though I did catch Alexis and Tessa giving each other a look that said they had noticed and were just as confused as I was.
By the time we arrived, I was a coiled spring of tension and hurt. It was one step forward, two back with her all these years, and the time away from her had done nothing to make me more patient. If anything, I was even more anxious to make her mine.
When we stepped into the bar, I was caught off guard by how laid back it was. Maybe because it seemed that Nathan had planned this and his comment about being a nightclub owner made me expect something more refined. But the place we walked into was…humble. The floors were a dark wood, worn but clean. A long bar sat at the back, and to the right, along the wall, was a glass display case with shelves, showing off their hundreds of bottles of whiskey. There were ribbons next to a few bottles that I couldn’t quite make out. Every stool at the bar was taken and three bartenders were busy filling drink orders, all of them tatted and pierced, one sporting a rockabilly style with a red bandana and tight top showing off a voluptuous figure.
The dance floor cut through the middle of the place, a sunken part of the room that was full of couples and groups dancing to a modern style of country music. Tables surrounded the dance floor on the raised portion of the floor, people sharing baskets of wings, and other fried pub fare.
I could smell jalapenos, and hot sauce intermingled with several different kinds of beer and a myriad of liquor. Under the food and drink smells was sweat, perfume and arousal. It was overwhelming at first and I wrinkled my nose at the onslaught before pushing magic through my veins to mitigate it.
“We’ll get drinks,” Max offered over the din of laughter and music.
“Beer!” Alexis said. “And wings!”
We’d just eaten a huge meal, and Alexis wanted food?
Where the hell does she put it? She can’t be more than a hundred pounds wet .
“Champagne,” River said with a wide grin.
“Here?” Nathan asked, looking around with an arched eyebrow.
Tessa smacked him on the arm.
“Don’t be a dick.”
“I’m not! It just doesn’t seem to be a champagne kind of establishment, that’s all.”
“Rae has some for me,” River said, nodding toward the Rockabilly woman behind the bar.
Once everyone’s orders were taken, the women went to find us a table while we went to bar to order. I expected Derek to follow them since, with his cane he really couldn’t navigate the bar and carry food very well, but then I realized he hadn’t brought a cane. I glanced down and the sharp smell of magic hit me as he walked with only a little limp toward the bar with us.
When he caught me looking, I was worried he’d be upset, but instead he turned to me after we’d ordered and pointed at his right leg.
“River can give me temporary mobility for times like this. It’s a rune we’ve tattooed on the hip and knee. It has some bad effects if I use it too much, so I do it sparingly.”
I nodded.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened? I would’ve thought your Celestial side would heal you.”
His jaw tightened a little and Max glanced at us, a deep crease appearing above his nose.
“It’s a long story,” Derek finally said, “but to save my life, River had to separate my Celestial side from the rest of me. Turns out, after a lifetime of fighting and being injured, when you don’t have the Superhuman side of you anymore, all those injuries decide to make themselves known. I’ve had half a dozen surgeries to repair my shoulder, and back, but the leg…well there’s nothing more anyone can do. I’m lucky I can walk at all, actually.”
“To being lucky,” Nathan said, handing shots to us.
The brothers and I threw the shot back and I coughed as it burned its way down my throat.
I stared at the shot glass and then at Nathan with wide eyes.
“That’s—”
“Dragon Fire wine,” Nathan said with a wicked grin.
“How the hell do you have this? It’s rare. I’ve only had it a few times in my life.”
“The perks of being a rather wealthy club owner and Celestial,” he said. “I have connections all over the world. Not all of them legal. I sometimes procure things for those that have protected my family in the past. Rae is one of these, a good friend, and a good protector of my brother and his family.”
Rae nodded at us and raised her own shot glass before drinking it without so much as her eyes watering.
I should’ve been a bit angry; Dragon Fire wine was hard to come by outside of Dragon settlements for a reason. It was hard to produce and magical in origin, even if it didn’t do anything but quickly inebriate Mundanes. Instead, I saw the drink for the gesture it was and thanked him.
“Now,” Max said, grabbing two pitchers of beer in his giant paws, “can we go to the table?”
He looked deeply uncomfortable and I assumed it was the three women standing too close and eye fucking him. Max didn’t strike me as the type that liked being in close quarters with crowds.
The brothers nodded and I followed them to the far corner where the women had combined two tables. As we got closer, my breath stalled in my throat and my skin hummed at the sight of Angelica. Her wavy blond hair was loose around her shoulders, which were covered by the thin straps of a loose cream and pink sun dress that she’d paired with light brown cowboy boots. The most casual thing I’d ever seen her in was jeans and button up, but even then she projected an air of professionalism that closed her off to anything more intimate than being her coworker.
Like this, however, she was light, her smile relatively relaxed and her laugh silvery. It cut through the loud music to drift to me like a siren’s call. My hands curled a little as I watched her, angry that she’d shut me out when I hadn’t done anything wrong. At least not that I knew of.
She’s scared. She let her guard down and I know that’s not something she does often, if ever.
And even now, with as relaxed as she was around her family, I could see all the little ways she held back, the ways she protected herself. For once, the beast and the male in me were of one mind: obliterate those walls of protection and make her see that she didn’t need them with me.
And it would start tonight.
The rest of the drinks and food came swiftly to the table and I found myself sitting across from Angelica as her family laughed and filled her in on all she’d missed. I noticed that the one subject that was carefully skirted around was her work with the Archive. It was a giant elephant in the midst of us, yet no one seemed bothered by it.
Except Angelica.
A few times, when talk would’ve naturally gone in the direction of her life in London, someone changed the subject. She kept the smile on her face, but it was tight, her hands tense around her Manhattan. She never pushed, never tried to tell them what little she could about her work saving the world.
I could guess that it was because of what Francesca had done to her family, perhaps to Derek in particular. I wondered what kind of missions he’d been sent on to age and wreck his body to the degree it had been once his Celestial powers had been removed. It must’ve been hell. And yet, Angelica took the position, filled that space that Francesca had left.
To protect them…she risked being ostracized by them to protect them.
It made me love her all the more to see what she’d done, how she’d sacrificed parts of herself for those she loved. But it also made me ache. The loneliness, the pain she must’ve endured all this time. I had guessed, but I hadn’t known.
“Didn’t we come here to dance?” Alexis asked, after downing her second beer.
“We did!” River said, her dark eyes sparkling from the champagne.
“I suppose that’s our cue,” Nathan said with a twinkle in his eye as he stood and took his wife’s hand.
Max let out a heavy sigh but there was a grin behind his beard, and Derek simply stood with a look of pure adoration on his face and swept River into a kiss before ushering her out onto the dance floor. In seconds, Angelica and I were left alone at the table. I stared at her, willing her to look at me. But she kept her gaze down, her smile faded and sad.
For all my determination before, I had no idea how to draw her out. When the song changed from a quick, fun tune to something slower, I rose from my chair slowly and walked around the table to her. Without a word, I took her hand from around her damp glass and gently pulled her to her feet.
I didn’t ask, and she didn’t refuse to follow me down the steps to where other couples were swaying in one another’s arms. I didn’t care if her children saw, or if she was trembling as I drew her to me. This moment was between the two of us, no one else. I would soothe her nerves and give her a space to let everything go, just as I had tried to do in the room earlier.
Her hands went to my shoulders and I placed mine on her hips as we moved. Her scent, like sunrise in an orange grove, invaded me, heating my body in ways that hurt so very good. Angelica’s eyes were on my chest, but mine stayed glued to her face.
All the things I wanted to say and do, the moments we’d come close to crossing that line from friendship to something more, they pressed on us, phantoms of what could’ve been. Yet still, my mouth was dry and empty. What could I say that would cross the divide she kept between us?
Instead of searching for words, I let my body say the things I didn’t have the ability to articulate. I stopped the swaying and slipped into a kind of two step. Angelica followed my lead, our bodies moving in unison though we had never done this before. I spun her away and back to me, holding her hand to my chest as my other arm went around her back, bringing her even closer. Our hips grazed just a little, and then a bit more. Closer and closer until there was barely a breath of space between our bodies. I didn’t try to hide the way my sheath bulged in its attempt to contain my ever-hardening dick. Her thighs parted just a little, letting me feel her heat. There was no place to hide what I was doing to her and what she was doing to me. It was then, with all that truth hanging between us, that she looked up at me.
There were glimpses of pain and longing in those blue depths, things I’d known were there, but she’d never let me see. I let my own barriers down, let my inner fire flare in my gaze, all the hopes and fears. I could bare my soul to her, if she was willing to start opening up to me. The passion that had haunted me from the day I’d seen her face in the pool of Fates when I’d fulfilled the trials and became an adult. The one hundred years of waiting was nothing, a blip of time compared to the last four years having her within my grasp but not mine.
In spite of how much I loved feeling her hips against mine, I turned her in my arms, her back to my front, and wound her arm up around my neck as my other held her around the waist. She closed her eyes, our bodies still flush, moving as one. Her back side slid against me, and I grit my teeth to keep my cock sheathed but it was nearly impossible. My eyes never left her face, her lips parted just a little, the blush on her cheeks had nothing to do with the heat in the bar. No, I was the one affecting her, making her panties wet and her thighs clench as we moved. This woman who was always in control, never letting anyone see anything except exactly what she wanted, was losing her restraint.
Because of me.
I brushed my lips along her temple, my fingers curled into the fabric at her waist as heat ripped through me. I’d never noticed the softness of her stomach before, how the flesh gave way in my hands under the dress. But I did feel her tense for a second, maybe uncomfortable with what I’d discovered?
So I soothed her by letting my mouth travel lower, to her cheek, her jaw, until I was bent over, hugging her tight to me.
“Angelica,” I rasped, becoming utterly lost.
The song ended, and the electric guitar strains of another broke the moment and her eyes flew open. Her body, so pliant and willing a moment ago, went stiff and she tore my hand from her waist. But I kept my grip firm on her hand, not letting her shut me out again.
Angelica whirled around and stared at me with wide eyes as I stepped up to her.
“How about we get some fresh air?” I asked.
The tip of her tongue wet those lips that I’d devoted far too many hours to picturing on different parts of my body.
“Alright,” she said, her voice firm but just breathy enough to let me know that she was barely hanging on.
She looked over my shoulder and nodded. I turned to see her sons eyeing us, none of them looked very happy. I met each of their hardened gazes and nodded as well, wanting them to know that I wouldn’t hurt their mother. The only one that returned the gesture was Derek and it was very slight. Max looked like he wanted to traverse the dance floor and rip my head off. Nathan’s frown was cold, calculating.
None of it mattered. They could try to keep me from her and it wouldn’t work. Angelica was my mate, and it was her choice, not theirs. As long as I had even a small seed of hope, I was staying by her side.
I put my hand on the small of her back and ushered her out the door. The parking lot was gravel and packed with cars but most of the people were inside. There was an outdoor seating area I hadn’t seen before, but it was also crowded. So I maneuvered her around to the other side of the bar where the glaring lights of the parking lot didn’t reach. It was a small garden of succulents and rocks, a path led to a wide open space with a sign that said ‘No parking any time’.
We walked along the path in silence until it ended at a fence that over looked a vast expanse of desert drenched in moonlight. Out this far, the music was faint and we could hear crickets and frogs. A slight breeze carried the faintest hint of wood smoke, maybe from the kitchens or a camp fire somewhere. And overhead the sky was a clear, dark expanse dotted with stars.
Angelica leaned on the fence with her forearms, staring out at the desert. But I kept my eyes on her, drinking in the way the moon sent silver streaks through her gold hair, the tease of wind lifting the hem of her sun dress. Her skin shone out here and I couldn’t help reaching out to run my fingertips over the elegant slop of her shoulder, to her neck and down. She shivered and closed her eyes at my touch so I did it again.
“This is impossible,” she whispered.
“What is?” I leaned toward her.
“You, me, working together.”
“No, it’s not.”
“You know what I mean,” she opened her eyes and turned toward me. “This…whatever it is between us.”
“Lust?”
Or love.
Angelica hesitated before nodding.
“Yes, exactly. It’s getting in the way of us being able to work together.”
“It hasn’t yet,” I said, trailing my fingers along her shoulder again.
And again she shivered.
“But it will,” she breathed, and captured my hand. “This is too important for us to be distracted by…”
“Say it,” I teased, leaning closer now so that our noses almost touched. “Say what’s distracting you.”
“What’s distracting us.”
“ You , Angelica. I know what I want, and I’m not distracted in the least. I can have my feelings for you and focus on the mission because I’m not fighting myself the way you are.”
She scoffed and pulled her hand free.
“Someone has a high opinion of himself. What, you’re so irresistible that you think I’m lying awake at night thinking of you?”
I tilted my head to the side, knowing that her fast breathing wasn’t just annoyance.
“Are you?” I asked. “Are you lying awake, thinking of me?” I ran a finger over her collar bone, down the neckline of her sun dress. “Are you touching yourself while you picture my hands on you? Wondering if you should just give in and find out if the real thing is as good as your imagination?”
She swallowed hard and batted my hand away.
“Stop winding me up,” she said through gritted teeth.
I stepped further into her space so that she had to crane her neck to look up at me.
“No.”
Angelica paced away from me and grunted before charging back to me. With fury sparking her eyes to a deeper blue, she shoved a finger in my face before declaring, “You are infuriating!”
“Only because you want me, and you hate that.”
“Yes! Alright, yes, I do want you! Yes, I think of you! I have an entire toy box dedicated to the times I can’t get you out of my mind.”
Heat flooded my system and the head of my dick extruded at the image she just planted in my head.
“How many times?” I asked, crowding her again and maneuvering her so her back was to the fence. “How many times have you made yourself come on a dildo instead of letting me do it for you?”
“Jealous of an inanimate object, are we?”
“Yes,” I growled, my hands caging her in as I leaned on the fence.
The air was suddenly not so cool out here. Our bodies were so close but not touching, electricity charging everything between us. I couldn’t look away from her face, from the way I had her pressed against the fence, her legs open, her scent calling to me. I wanted to fall to my knees and worship her cunt. My mouth watered with the thought and talons extended on my fingers, digging into the wood.
“I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you,” my voice rumbled in my chest. “You’ve haunted my dreams, plagued my waking hours by being so close and yet off limits. The number of times I’ve come to the thought of you could fill craters. So yes, I am deeply jealous that you chose to use those objects without me. That you would even prefer them to me. Do you truly hate me that much? Is the thought of letting me in that terrible?”
“No,” her voice hoarse, her body vibrating with energy. “It’s not terrible at all and that’s…that’s the trouble. I don’t want a relationship, Trey. I want a good fuck, no strings attached. But the way you look at me…I don’t think you’d be able to let me go at the end of it.”
She was absolutely right, I wouldn’t.
I’d fight until there was nothing left of me just to hold onto one scrap of her.
But if it was a choice between having some or none at all, I’d take the crumbs she offered and consider myself blessed.
I leaned in, keeping my body separate from her by the slimmest margin of self-control. When our noses, once again, were nearly touching, and she couldn’t look away from me, I spoke.
“I asked you for something before I left, do you remember what it was?”
Angelica hesitated, swallowing before nodding.
“You asked for one kiss, and if I felt nothing, then we could forget it.”
“I’ll make you a new offer. On this mission, I’ll be the no strings attached fuck you want. And if at the end, you don’t want anything else, then I’ll accept that.”
“Trey—”
“Do we have a deal?”
She frowned, examining my face with those intelligent eyes I couldn’t get enough of. She was looking for a hint of a lie, for a reason to refuse me. I knew she was telling me the truth, at least in part. She did want me, she had for a while. It was just a question of how to get her to let me in so I could show her how good we’d be together.
“You could do that? Walk away if I ask you to?” she asked.
No.
“Yes. For you…I would do that.”
She shook her head with a sharp laugh.
“This is reckless.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s been so long since you did something for yourself, you don’t know the difference.”
That got her attention, and I smirked at her deep frown. No one saw her like I did, but there was no way in hell that Angelica would admit it.
Not even to herself.
At least not yet. I have this mission to make her see it .
“Come on, Angelica, let me show you what your fantasies were missing.” I leaned close to her ear, letting my warm breath elicit a shiver from her. “I’ll make it so good, you’ll wonder how you ever came without my mouth,” I brushed a kiss to her lobe, “my fingers,” I ran them up her bare arms, “my cock.” I grazed the apex of her thighs with the painful bulge in my pants.
Her answering gasp, her long fingers grasping my shoulders was nearly enough. But I was greedy, I wanted as much as I could wring out of her in the short time we had.
“Words,” I demanded. “I want to hear you say it.”
“Yes.” The word broke from her lips on a cracked breath.