“Okay. Thanks. So…” She gestured to the cupcakes. “Need anything today?”
He leaned on the case. “Actually, yes. I need something today.”
“Oh.” Beautiful pink spread over her face as she caught his meaning. “We’re out of that.”
“Really. Hmm. I got the impression last night you had plenty in stock.”
Her color grew higher, her lips softened into the beginning of a smile she didn’t let spread farther. “Not on the schedule today.”
“No? Want to tell me why not?” He let the silence build, hoping she’d either tell him what was going on, or drop some hint he could figure out.
“It’s just…I don’t…I’m not…”
Daniel’s eyebrow went up. His heart started squeezing painfully. She couldn’t pull back now. Not after what they’d shared the previous night. “Just tell me, Angela. What’s going on?”
“I can’t do it now. Not yet.”
Did she mean… “You’re, uh, indisposed this week?”
“No. No, not that.” She shook her finger, as if she needed to make very sure he got the negative nature of her statement.
He got it. The sick feeling was now spreading through his heart and into his stomach. “Okay. Then what’s the matter?”
“It was too much. Too fast.”
Daniel flashed back to last night, Angela feeding him the cookie, her gaze pointedly sexual, telling him her favorite part of baking was giving people pleasure. “I am pretty sure you set the pace.”
“Yes. Yes, I did. I’m not trying to dodge responsibility for that.”
Dodge responsibility? Were they talking about tax payments? “I’m not holding you responsible, Angela, I just want to understand. You wish it hadn’t happened? That we hadn’t been together last night?”
“Yes. No.” She let her shoulders slump and looked down. “No, I don’t. I can’t quite wish that.”
Thank God. “Tell me more? I’m still not getting it.”
“I don’t want to be vulnerable to you. I can’t be.” She raised her head and he was shocked by the agony in her face and voice.
“Oh, honey.” He reached over the counter, touched her chin briefly. “Can we go somewhere and talk about this? Somewhere there’s not a counter between us?”
“I need a counter between us.”
He laughed. “You’re afraid I’ll attack you?”
“No.” She peeked up at him, smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “Afraid I’ll attack you.”
The lead ball in his stomach dissolved, replaced by a giddy bubble of happiness. This woman had a powerful hold on him, in an entirely different and healthier way than Kate had. Power that left him paradoxically free.
“Hmm. How about I’ll give you my word that if you attack me I’ll fight you off as hard as I can.”
“Well…” Her smile bloomed. “There’s an apartment upstairs we all share. We can talk there.”
“Sounds good.” Her own place would work really well for him, but a shared apartment would be better than standing here. With the other four “senses” most likely working in their respective shops and studios, upstairs would probably be empty.
Angela summoned Scott from the back to work the counter while she was out, and they took the elevator up to the second floor.
The extra apartment reminded Daniel of a dorm room, only cleaner: mismatched worn furniture, and not much of it, prints on the walls, mugs abandoned on the counter, a recycling bin half-f of beer bottles. Still, it managed to be comfortably welcoming. And thanks, he presumed, to Bonnie Blooms, the plants in the place were thriving.
“Would you like a beer?” Angela was heading to the kitchen.
“Sure, thanks.” He chose the god-awful black-and-white couch to sit on, in case she decided she could risk sitting next to him. He’d have to work hard to keep his hands off her, but he couldn’t imagine sitting on opposite sides of the room as if they were lawyer and client at a business meeting.
She appeared from the kitchen carrying two bottles of Elysian Ale, smiling determinedly through an obvious case of jitters Daniel immediately wanted to cure with a long, slow back rub, oil making her soft, smooth skin glisten under his fingers…
Think of something else.
“I saved you a seat.”
“Thanks.” Angela pinned herself to the arm rest on the other end from his. He wanted to laugh. Hadn’t they been in a frenzy for each other’s naked bodies about twenty-four hours ago?
“Cheers.” He twisted off the cap to his beer and took a long sip. “So tell me what’s going on.”
“I want to keep this casual.” She gestured back and forth in the empty space between them. “Yesterday was sort of…intense.”
“Mmm, yeah.” He injected the words with wistful fondness, gazing off into the imagined distance. “And so hot. I was thinking about it and you all night long. When you were lying there naked, with your—”
“Ahem.” She sent him a look, amusement lurking in the back of her expression as he’d hoped. “Not helping.”
“No?”
“Not at all.”
“You’d rather I lied? Like this?” He made a sick-to-his-stomach face. “
No,
I don’t want to do that again, either. Next time we’ll skip all that disgusting touching and just wave to each other.”
“Daniel.” The beginning of laughter showed through her warning tone. “I’m being serious. I don’t want a relationship right now.”
“Define relationship.”
“Okay. For one, I don’t want to date you exclusively.”
“No?” He had to fight to keep his tone light after that punch to his gut. “Who else you got in mind?”
She frowned. “No one yet.”
Thank You, God. “But if you meet someone else, you want to be able to date him?”
“Yes. Yes. Exactly. I’m not ready to settle down. I’m not ready to assign a label to any feelings I…might have for you.”
Skittish. Afraid of feelings he suspected—hoped, prayed—she
definitely
had for him. “But you think I am ready?”
“Oh.” That gorgeous blush rose, making him want to taste her skin, as if it had just turned strawberry-flavored. “I don’t know, really. I just thought. I mean last night you were so…”
“So what?”
“Sweet. And tender, and…”
“So were you, Angela.” He lowered his voice, put his hand along the back of the couch and leaned toward her. “We both were. It was amazing. We jumped right in, wide open to each other.”
She blinked. “Oh. Well, yes, I guess so.”
“You guess so.”
“And then this morning those flowers…”
“Hmm.” He pretended to look confused. “Did Bonnie put a ring in the bouquet? I didn’t ask her to.”
“No, no.” She giggled in the midst of trying to look earnest, which was totally adorable and also managed to be sexy because he was that crazy about her. “But—”
“I sent you flowers, because I like you, I think you are amazingly hot, and on top of that, I really enjoy your company.” He dared pick up a strand of her hair, tugged it gently, let it fall and followed it with his hand, onto her shoulder. “More than that, Angela, you showed me how I was hiding behind the promise to Kate, hanging onto my grief to avoid having to start over.”
“I’m glad. I wanted to do that for you.” She took a deep breath, put her hand to her chest. He tried very hard not to focus on it. Her breasts were full and tempting him under her clinging peach-colored top. “When you told me about Kate, I don’t know, something snapped. I got angry at her, and wanted to help you in a way I wasn’t able to help myself for way too long.”
“Pity f—?” He stopped himself from saying the word.
“No, no, not like that.” She shook her head, then suddenly started giggling. “More like a freedom f—”
He cracked up, too, not because it was that funny, but because they both needed a release from this crazy tension. And while they were both laughing, it seemed utterly natural to slide his hand across her shoulder, and pull her toward him for a kiss.
And apparently it seemed utterly natural for her to respond.
He was going to stop soon. Otherwise, it would look as if he’d tricked her up here with promises of chaste talk and was now attacking her the way he said he wouldn’t.
So he’d stop kissing her.
Right now.
Or…maybe in a second.
Or maybe never.
Her mouth was warm, sweet, willing, he couldn’t get enough. His hand itched to explore, to stroke the soft swells of her breasts. But if he did that he really wouldn’t stop. He’d make love to her right here on a couch so ugly that flour sacks could only be an improvement.
Somehow he channeled superhuman powers and decelerated their kisses, ending with his lips clinging to hers for one endless moment before he pulled them away.
Her eyes were wide, dark, her color high. She was so lovely he had to turn his head or he’d reach for her again.
“I thought we weren’t going to do that.” Even her voice was sexy—low, breathless, everything about this woman turned him on.
“We weren’t.” He reached for his beer, something to distract him, a desperate attempt to cool himself down.
“We did, though.”
“I take full responsibility.”
“I didn’t exactly stop you.”
“Not exactly.” He grinned, took another sip of beer.
“No.” She was smiling now, too.
“So. Now.” He furrowed his brow. “What were you saying?”
“I have no idea.” She shook her head helplessly. “You mess up my brain.”
He reached back in his memory. Something she’d said needed explaining. “What did your ex do that made you want to get me out of my promise to Kate?”
“Ah. A sweet little story.” She took a long swig of beer. He even loved that she chugged it straight from the bottle, with a face that should always be behind a crystal champagne flute. “Let’s see. Tom was the rich golden boy, rich family, et cetera. I was the poor little Greek girl.”
“Half-Greek.”
“Half-Greek. And not really poor. Just not in his class.”
“Undoubtedly not. And I’m not talking social class, so that’s a compliment.”
“Thank you.” She beamed at him and he wondered if he’d ever felt this weird combination of being buoyed up and relaxed around anyone else. “His parents were horrified by me, which I suspect was what he wanted. God, I’ll never forget my first dinner
chez
Hulfish.”
“Fun?” He wanted to go back in time and keep her away from any and all humiliation.
“First of all, the house is a mansion. I walked into this place…you should have seen it. Marble and velvet and fine art, such incredible taste and style in every inch of it. I felt like poo on the carpet no matter how many times I went.”
“You’re much more than poo on a carpet to me, Angela.”
She giggled. “It gets worse. Tom told me to dress casual. So I show up in a reasonably decent outfit. His mother is outfitted for a freaking royal wedding, probably in a dress some designer made for her. It was absolutely stunning. And of course she has that up-and-down you-are-so-lacking look perfected.”
“What a sweet woman.” He was appalled, not only at the description of these horrible abusive people, but also at the wistfulness he wasn’t sure Angela knew she still exhibited.
“She was dragon bitch from hell. Anyway, so during the whole evening, she pointedly brings up topics she’s sure I have nothing to say about. ‘Tosca was so wonderful at La Scala, remember, Mark? You know that opera, don’t you, Angela?’ And of course I’d say, ‘No,’ and she’d wrinkle her nose and repeat ‘No’ as if the word smelled bad, and I did, too.”
“
Why
did you marry into this family?”
She pressed her lips together, lines forming on her forehead. “The weird thing is? I loved them all. That was who they were, and they played themselves absolutely flawlessly. I guess I hoped some of that sophistication and taste would rub off on me, and I’d fit in with them. To some degree that happened. I did become crazy about Tosca. But I hoped they’d eventually accept me for who I was, too.”
“How did that work?”
“Uh…” She made a face. “Not well. So anyway, we married, we honeymooned, we settled into a huge house that other people cleaned, and I thought I was happy. In retrospect I think I was still just in awe.”
“Retrospect is smarter than we are. Too bad.”
“Very too bad. Anyway, living the dream, telling myself I was happy, yada yada, then he started staying out late, blah-blah-blah and ended up leaving me for a woman so perfect I am pretty sure she never even passes gas.”
“Ah. That’s not good.” He shook his head in concern, tamping down anger at the jerk who’d hurt her, and who’d made it so hard for her to trust him now. “Eventually she’ll float away and then where will he be?”
“Ooh, I hadn’t thought of that.” She pretended to consider seriously while giggles shook her. “Maybe he’ll tie a string around her and keep the other end on his wrist?”
“She’ll be very popular around Thanksgiving.”
Her eyebrows went up. “For?”
“Macy’s Parade.”
He hadn’t seen many miracles before, but he was seeing one now. Angela, convulsed with laughter. Loud, free laughter, in waves of such beauty he wanted to videotape her so he could play this precious moment over and over again. Even better, he wanted to find ways to get her to that joy often. With him. For a long, long time.