“Wrong number,” Marc said, then stared at her, daring her to challenge him.
Yeah, right.
“What else do you want us to put on the table,
cara
?”
Angelina glanced from one to the other, knowing they’d ignored her request. Damn them. If her brothers found out, there would be hell to pay. “I told you, I’ve taken care of Allen.”
Marc’s expression grew solemn, “No more mention of him tonight,
cara
. I forbid it.”
His order sent a funny sensation through her. She hadn’t taken orders from anyone other than her Mama and oldest brother, Rafe, for a very long time. Her other brothers had given her lots of orders, too, she just hadn’t taken them.
Yet those stern words coming from Marc produced a strange, but definite, sexual response in her. Unbidden, images of the culinary bondage he’d mentioned placing her in last night returned. Her brain must have gotten rattled in the assault, because just as she’d closed the book on Allen Martin, she’d done the same thing with BDSM.
Shaking her head, she remembered what had brought her back to the kitchen in the first place. She turned her back to them and asked, “Could someone unzip me, please? I’m afraid I can’t perform any contortionist moves at the moment.”
“Love to.” Marc’s fingers felt warm against her skin as he glided the zipper latch down her spine. He sure took his time as fingers grazed her skin in the wake of the zipper, sending a delicious shiver through her body. When his warm lips pressed against the nape of her neck, she fought to keep from melting against him. Her nipples hardened, making her thankful he couldn’t see them.
“Thanks,” she said, voice raspy. Without turning to gauge his response to the sensual contact, she hurried back to her bedroom in half the time it had taken moments before.
There would be no seduction unfolding here tonight. She’d get through dinner and send them on their way. Then she’d curl up in bed and nurse her wounds—both those on her bruised body and those inflicted against her battered spirit.
* * *
Luke watched her leave the room. “She’s on to us.”
Anger bubbled to the surface, an emotion he hadn’t felt in a long time. Thoughts of what her ex-boyfriend had done to her churned in his gut. Men didn’t hit women. Period. Luke vowed the man wouldn’t get away with it either.
“No way is Asshole laying another finger on her. He needs to be locked up.”
“What did you find out?” Luke asked. While Marc called the sheriff, Luke had been retrieving the roses from the porch. Memories of her battered face and tears twisted his gut into a knot.
“Not much, but the sheriff promised to do a background check and see if there’s anything on him.”
They had met the sheriff during the rescue operation for the lost hikers this week. Despite being in a small, rural outfit, he appeared to be well trained and professional.
Marc picked up the hot pad. “He’s going to get a judge to issue an emergency protection order and will serve Asshole as soon as he finds him. After what Angelina said she did to him, I told them to check the local hospital first.”
Luke felt bile rise in his throat when he remembered seeing blood drops and smears on her porch and worse on Angel’s dress. Thank God the blood hadn’t been hers. Still, that red spot on her cheek was going to result in one helluva bruise, maybe even a shiner, by tomorrow.
What kind of man would hit a woman? Hell, Asshole wasn’t a man. He was a slug. If he came within a mile of her again, there would be hell to pay.
“I’ll check back with the sheriff later,” Marc said. “Now, let’s see if there’s anything else we need to put on the table.”
Marc opened the enormous refrigerator and pulled out a tossed salad in a covered bowl. “Ah, here’s the antipasto.” He handed both to Luke, who carried them to the dining room.
Angel had set the table with colorful stoneware dishes in shades of rust, blue, and yellow. He’d placed the roses at the end of the table so they wouldn’t obscure anyone’s view. Maggie had loved only red roses, but Luke thought this off-white color would complement Angel’s olive skin and chocolate-brown eyes.
Remembering how her eyes sparkled when she laughed, his balls tightened. How had she gotten to him so fast? Was it the dream? Maggie’s telling him she was sending him an angel. Or her vulnerability, which just pulled at his heart.
Last night, he’d fought the attraction, but she kept tackling his defenses anyway. Since Maggie’s death, he’d barely looked at another woman. Yet, last night, he’d lain awake thinking about a woman he’d first seen in a hazy dream who’d come to life.
Returning to the kitchen, he found Marc leaning against the counter waiting on the meat dish.
“I see you’ve taken off your ring.”
Or maybe he was waiting for Luke. Looking down at the white strip where his ring had been worn for more than nine years, Luke said, “Yeah. It’s time.”
“
It’s time. I’m sending you an angel
…”
“Wouldn’t have anything to do with Angelina, would it?”
Luke met Marc’s gaze. “Yeah,” he smiled. “I’d say it has a lot to do with her.”
He couldn’t help but feel Marc sizing him up. Luke wasn’t blind. He knew his partner had strong feelings for Angel, too. They’d never competed for a woman before, but Luke had never been interested in dating since Maggie’s death.
“The night before we met her in the bar, I dreamed of Maggie.” Luke shuffled his feet and looked down. He’d never told Marc about the visits he’d had from Maggie over the years on their rescue missions. “I know it sounds crazy if you don’t believe in this kind of stuff, but she said she was sending me an angel. That it was time to move on.” He glanced up at Marc. “When Angel walked up to our table and looked just the way she did in my dream, I knew she was the one Maggie was talking about.”
He didn’t mention that he’d dreamed of Maggie again last night and she’d repeated that she was sending him an angel. That confused him a bit. Angel had already come into his life. She’d added that he shouldn’t worry about her anymore; he still had the rest of his life to live.
Other than during rescue missions, he hadn’t felt that close to Maggie since the weeks after her funeral. Marc had tried to get him back in the game and even dragged him to the club a couple of years ago, but the thought of restraining anyone but Maggie just didn’t appeal to him. He’d never even told Marc that he and Maggie had experimented with bondage in the bedroom, because Luke just didn’t feel all that confident at the BDSM club level. He didn’t need to be in control to get off either, like Marc did. He and Maggie each had played both the top and bottom roles.
But for the first time in seven years, he was ready to put Maggie behind him and develop a relationship with another woman, with or without ropes. He smiled. He had no doubt Angel was that woman. Maggie had as much as told him and she sure had an inside track on these things. Luke couldn’t help but hope selfishly he’d win the jackpot this time and Angel wouldn’t be hardcore into BDSM, though. He couldn’t compete with Marc in that arena.
He watched Marc’s face, but couldn’t read him. If any kind of rivalry developed between him and Marc, how would the tension affect their being able to count on each other during a mission? They’d worked well together the past four years. Hell, Marc had been responsible for Luke’s going into SAR training in the first place.
Marc had been on the squad a couple of years longer, having joined soon after being medically discharged from the Navy. The man had been decorated for saving Damián’s life at the risk of his own. Luke respected the hell out of him for making a difference like that. All three of the club owners were heroes in his book. But Marc had been Luke’s partner since soon after he finished his training and their bond was tightest.
Marc cleared his throat. “I won’t let a woman come between us.” He grew uncharacteristically serious. “I made that mistake once. I can live with her choosing either one of us—or neither of us.” He shrugged. As if the two hadn’t just come to a monumental understanding concerning Angel, he turned around to open the oven door and pull out the pot as she’d instructed them.
Marc might have tried to look nonchalant, but Luke knew they’d both been affected by her tonight. Nothing brought out a SAR worker’s emotions faster than rescuing someone. Still, knowing he wouldn’t lose Marc’s friendship if he pursued Angel tonight, helped him relax a bit. Marc had become like a big brother to him over the past four years—or what he thought a big brother would be like.
Oh, what was he worried about? Marc’s women came and went. Surely he’d see that Angel deserved better than that. Luke didn’t want to see her get hurt. She was too special.
Marc opened the lid of the pot. “I’ve been transported to my Nonna’s kitchen.”
Luke’s stomach growled. “Damn, that smells good!”
Luke was going to make his best play for her tonight. Angel seemed too innocent to go for whips and chains anyway. She needed a good ol’ boy who wanted nothing more than to please her. Time would tell.
* * *
After her shower, Angelina pulled on the white peasant blouse and green handkerchief-hemmed skirt. The ruined dress lay on the floor because she hurt too badly to bend over and toss it into the laundry—or the trash, which might be more appropriate.
She waved the blow drier at the mirror to clear the steam, then looked at her cheek—swollen and red. No sense masking it with makeup; they’d already seen the damage. After drying her hair, she started to pull it up into a clip, but the effort was too painful, so she let her hair loose and brushed it as best she could to fall over her shoulders and down her back. Marc had preferred it loose last night, anyway.
Bending over to put on panties caused her muscles to riot, so she decided to skip them altogether. Who would know the difference? Angelina pulled the elasticized neckline of her blouse off her shoulders, slipped barefoot into her flats—choosing comfort over sexy this time—and took a deep breath. Time to rejoin the guys.
As she entered the kitchen, Marc uncorked the bottle of Pinot Noir he’d brought. He looked up and gave her an appreciative once-over. She felt her insides warm, then melt into a puddle in her lower abdomen, as if she’d already downed a glass of wine too fast.
Luke came in from the dining room and smiled at her, as well. “You look beautiful, Angel.”
She smiled back at them both. “I guess I clean up pretty good.”
Marc crossed the room and handed her a glass of wine. He then poured glasses for Luke and himself and raised his in a toast to her. “Like a ray of light, you have brightened our day.”
Angelina looked away, a little embarrassed, and then took a healthy sip of her wine. She set the glass on the counter. “Now, out of my kitchen so I can finish getting dinner on the table.”
“Dinner’s already on the table,” Luke wrapped an arm around her waist, short-circuiting her brain. He placed her glass in her hand again, then steered her toward the dining room. Marc followed.
When she saw the table, the waterworks nearly started again. Not only had they brought out the dishes she’d stored in the fridge, but the roses she’d seen Luke carrying earlier had been placed in a vase at the opposite end of the table.
“Thank you so much for rescuing our evening and for bringing these beautiful flowers.” She walked over to breathe in their delicate fragrance. “Mmmm. And for the wine, Marc.” Angelina held up her glass and took another sip. “
Delicioso
.” He smiled.
When she thought about how close she’d come to canceling their evening, her lips began to tremble. She brought her fingers up to still their quivering. Marc put his wineglass down and came to stand in front of her. He tipped her chin up and searched her eyes. “The rest of the evening is just about the three of us. No more unhappy thoughts are permitted in this house tonight.”
He pressed his fingertip against her lip to still her trembling. She leaned back and felt Luke’s body pressing against her. He wrapped his arms around her, cradling her, his hands resting below her breasts, warming her to her core.
Angelina felt protected, but in a good way. She pulled away from Marc, whose eyes smoldered. For her? His breathing sounded erratic. Or was that hers? Or Luke’s? She turned to Luke, reached up on tiptoes, and kissed him on the cheek. She gave him a quick hug and broke away.
Feeling awkward all of a sudden, she announced, “Um, I think we’d better eat before everything gets cold.”
Not that she’d be able to cool down for a very long time.
Chapter Seven
When Luke pulled out the chair for her at the head of the table, he noticed the red smudges where Asshole’s fingertips had dug into Angel’s shoulders. Those shadows would turn to bruises by morning. Damn that bastard for putting his filthy hands on her. If only he and Marc had arrived earlier, they could have made him suffer instead. They shouldn’t have gone back to Denver today. If they’d been holed up at the motel, they’d have gone stir crazy and probably come over earlier.
Well, he and Marc would pay the slug a visit before they left town. The thought of leaving her unprotected burned his gut. Chances were high the jerk would come back—and be even more pissed. He wondered if they could talk Angel into going back to Denver with them until they could convince her to press charges. If not, he’d get in touch with her brothers and make sure they kept an eye on her.
Marc took the seat on Angel’s left and Luke moved to her other side. After they’d finished their salads, Angel cut and served the…he couldn’t remember what she’d called it, but it looked like beef rolls stuffed with ham, salami, cheese, and hard-boiled eggs, of all things. Strange thing to do to a perfectly good piece of steak, but then he took a bite and thought he’d died and gone to heaven. Just melted in his mouth.
“Mmm, that’s fantastic!” Luke said after he swallowed. Marc added his praise, as well, with moans and gestures. Then Luke noticed Angel had cut a very small portion for herself. Not that the size mattered, because she wasn’t eating it anyway. Surely the salad hadn’t been enough to fill her up.