by Ally Blake
“I’d better go clean up the mess,” she’d said before all but bolting out into the hall.
It turned out many people had hooked up that night. So many, Fitz had put out a memo saying he hoped they’d all had fun and let off some steam but now it was time to get back to work.
There’d been no recriminations. No complaints. It was the kind of work place where respect, work ethic and good nature prevailed. A couple of short-term relationships had been born before fizzling out, and a couple of long-term ones were still going strong.
While Lucinda and Angus had pretended that their “moment” had never happened.
“I thought you’d forgotten,” she said. “Or I’d dreamed it. There had been a fair lot of bubbly thrown around that night. Did I? Dream it?” Her voice was soft, husky.
Angus breathed in deep. “If not for that roll of paper towel, I’d have kissed you then and there.”
Lucinda’s chest hurt as so many feelings rushed through her body. Good and bad. Dangerous and hopeful. The ache of wasted time. The feeling that the future was concertinaing too fast for her to keep up.
“You never said,” she said. “Never even a hint. The rest of the night you were impossible to catch, then come Monday it was business as usual.”
“You didn’t mention it either. So I deferred to you.”
He’d wanted her, but he’d deferred to her. What a heady thought. To actually have a say in the affairs of her heart rather than feeling like flotsam tossed about on a great stormy sea.
She lifted a hand to rest against his heart only to find it thunderous, erratic. As if he was fighting some mighty, invisible, internal battle behind his cool facade.
And his hand swept the stray swathe of hair behind her ear, his palm resting against the edge of her jaw. “I didn’t want things to change between us.”
“I didn’t want things to change between us, either,” she said, noting they’d both used past tense.
For deep down inside it was what she wanted more than anything else in the world. When she blew out candles on her birthday cake, when people asked what she wanted for Christmas, in her head she always said the same thing.
She wanted to be cherished. She wanted to be seen. She wanted to be important to someone. More than anything, she wanted all that from Angus.
Their friendship, their working relationship, had survived so much already.
He’d seen her premenstrual more times that she could count. He’d forgiven her short temper after a week of little sleep when Sonny had had the croup. She’d seen him quietly distraught when he’d lost his grandfather’s watch. Heartbreakingly stoic when he’d lost his mother.
But never, in all the years she’d known him, had she felt this close to the man. This close to doing something truly reckless. Like leaning her cheek against his shoulder. Tipping up onto her toes and kissing the edge of his chin. The glasses dent at the top of his nose. Bussing her lips against his.
And, as her heart sent blood around her body before drawing it back again, she knew—knew right, deep down in places primal and eternal—that she wasn’t alone.
Angus’s eyes were so dark they were now devoid of colour. His jaw so tight she could make out the shape of every muscle under the skin. If he tucked her hair behind her ear again, she’d jump him. Then and there.
Six and a half years of working for the guy be damned.
She’d find another job. Agencies tried to headhunt her all the time.
But she didn’t want to walk into another job. She wanted her job. The thought of not going to the Big Picture Group every day made her heart hurt. She’d helped build that place—created connections with amazing businesses, grown a network of favours, been instrumental in helping the clients leave better off than when they’d arrived.
But it felt as though all of that was happening in another dimension as she melted in his arms. Caught as she was in the maelstrom in his eyes. Mesmerised by his thumb caressing her cheek. By the supremely male evidence he could not hide.
The only reason they’d gone no further was because he was stronger than she was. He’d practically spelled it out for her. He would never make the first move.
For he deferred to her.
Knowing she was about to leap into unchartered territory without a map, a guide or an escape plan, Lucinda wrapped her hand around the knot of his tie and pulled him towards her.
“By something stupid,” she said when his face was near level with hers, “do you think Fitz meant this?”
She lifted up onto her toes and placed a light kiss on his cheek. His skin was warm, if unexpectedly rough. He smelled like heaven.
Then she moved to the other cheek, her touch almost reverent, the grip on his tie strong.
When she moved back to her flat feet she looked into his eyes. They burned like a long-dormant volcano rumbling back to life. As if he was barely holding himself together.
“Don’t do that unless you mean it, Luc,” he said again, his voice coming from somewhere deep and private, making her feel as if she were trespassing some place in which another living soul had never been. A place she ought to think very carefully about trespassing on now.
“Never,” she said.
“Luc...” he said, his voice fuelled with warning, even as he pulled her up against him so she was in no doubt how tempted he was. The way he said her name—the longing, the history, the regret—tipped her over the edge.
With an outshot of breath, like a sigh she’d been holding onto for several years, Lucinda grabbed Angus harder by the tie, pulled him down to her level and kissed him.
She felt him still, as if he were holding the entire universe at bay, before he wrapped both arms tightly about her and kissed her like a man starved.
It was crazy. Wild. As if they’d both been clinging to civility for so long that now it had been stripped away, they were left stark, bare.
He tasted of heat. And cinnamon. Of tenderness and chance. And she couldn’t get enough. Needing more, needing to climb inside the man’s very skin, she leapt into his arms, wrapping her legs around his hips.
He laughed against her mouth.
“Luc,” he said, his hands trying to get purchase on the layers of tulle as he held her to him, “are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“Yes,” she deadpanned. “Now that I finally have you where I want you, what I really want is to put you into decommission.”
“Now?” he said, pulling back far enough to look deep into her eyes. “Now that you finally have me?”
What could she possibly say bar, “Angus, I’ve wanted this for longer than I can remember. And if you didn’t know that already then you’re not half as smart as you think you are.”
At that he said nothing. At that he leaned into her and kissed her again. Slowly this time. Achingly slowly. Sweetly, deeply. Till her lungs collapsed and her bones dissolved and she no longer cared if she came back together in one piece again.
She was only half-aware of the jolt as his knees hit the bed. As he laid her carefully on the soft mattress. There he took his time, swiping her hair from her face, first one side then the other. She ducked her cheek into his hand. Her eyes closed as she all but purred.
When her eyes opened it was to find his roving over her hair, her cheeks, her mouth, as if he was committing every angle, every freckle, every smile-line to memory.
She lifted a hand, only to find it shaking, and pressed it against his cheek. The scrape of his stubble sent shivers through her. The reverberations, she was sure, would never quite go away.
“Finally,” he said.
It was like coming home.
Only to a home she’d never known. One of ease and bliss and the sweet ache of longing.
“Don’t stop,” she said, eons later, breathless, no longer herself. “Don’t you dare stop.”
“I
won’t,” he promised. “Not for all the world.”
And he didn’t. Not until later again when, replete to their very marrows, neither of them could move, talk or fathom how it had come to pass.
Or how it hadn’t happened sooner.
CHAPTER NINE
LUCINDA LAY ON her side, the sheets pulled up to her chin, the blissful, cool, soft cotton of the hotel pillow against her cheek. She couldn’t keep the smile from her face even if she wanted to.
For after the bed there’d been the shower. Angus had joined her there and... Oh, my.
Once he’d dried her off with a big, white fluffy towel, the friction making havoc with her already overloaded senses, he’d found an old T-shirt in her suitcase—as if he knew the black, lacy ribbon thing wasn’t really her, and helped her into it. Then he’d proceeded to lift her onto the bathroom bench and... Oh, wow.
Lucinda felt the side of the bed depress as Angus sat beside her. Barely able to keep her eyes open, she managed a, “Mmm...?”
She waited for him to kiss her on the shoulder before making a stealthy exit. She’d always imagined that would very much be Angus’s MO: no sleepovers, no false expectations. But all her imaginings so far had not even come close to the reality.
Instead, he lifted the sheet, tucked himself in behind her, bare bar his black boxer shorts, slid his arm over her and pulled her close.
She was spooning. With Angus. And she decided then and there that reality was far better than fantasy.
“Angus?” she said, her voice hoarse.
“Hmm,” he hummed against the back of her neck.
“Why did you come here last night? There was something you were in an all-fired rush to tell me—”
“Right. It was Remède,” he said. “I’d forgotten... Distracted as I was by other things.”
“Really. I hadn’t noticed.”
He nipped the tendon between her neck and shoulder, and when she cried out, he kissed the spot till she was purring once more.
“I’d had a breakthrough,” he murmured.
“Tell me about it.”
“Now?” he asked, and she could hear the smile in his voice.
She turned onto her back so she could look him in the eye. “I’d like to know.”
He nuzzled his nose into her hair before lifting up onto his elbow, his head resting in his palm. That face, she thought, her heart stuttering at the sight of him. His nearness. The unusual ease of his expression, the full glory of the man behind the mask.
“Elena, of all people, said something that reminded me of something you’d said,” he murmured, his finger now tracing the edge of her arm, the curve of her shoulder, the rise of her neck. “The Japanese pottery tradition where they use gold dust to highlight the repairs, not conceal them?”
“Kintsukuroi.” She loved that fact. It had helped her through so many of the mistakes, the bad times, the regrets—imagining the mental scars healing with rivers of gold.
“Taking Remède back to its core construct, that’s what it’s all about. It isn’t about covering up a woman’s flaws. Hiding them behind a ‘dewy glow’ or fancy ‘protein bond repeating serums’.”
Wow, he really had been paying attention at the conference.
“So what is Remède about?’
“You.”
“Me?”
“You and your mother’s perfume. It’s about making a woman feel special while also feeling very much herself. Whether by way of a scent that sweeps her back to sweeter times, or a lip colour that makes her feel loved, makes her remember to smile. Remède—with its tastefulness, its poignancy, its longevity—is the gold dust, the through line, that holds their best memories together.”
It was a wonder that this big, quiet, self-possessed giant of a man could think that way. It took tenderness. It took heart.
Lucinda reached up and slid her hand behind his neck, pulled him down to kiss her.
Goodness knew how much later, voice croaky, he murmured against her mouth, “I take it that means you think I’m on the right track?”
“You, Angus Wolfe, are a wonder. When, hundreds of years from now, you finally depart this mortal coil that brain of yours ought to be bronzed. Or, better yet, studied. No, replicated. For the betterment of mankind.”
“Only my brain?”
“Well, I can think of some other parts of you that are pretty good too.”
Angus settled himself over her, his gaze boring into hers, his expression so sincere it took all her power not to burst into tears.
Then he said, “I’m not sure what I did in a past life to deserve you, Lucinda Starling, but whatever it was I’m very glad I did it.”
And then he kissed her, and held her, and cherished her. And when she finally fell asleep she didn’t dream. She didn’t need to.
* * *
Angus shut the door to Lucinda’s hotel room with a soft click. Then he closed his eyes and leaned back against the door.
The hall was thankfully quiet, the guests no doubt all enjoying a Sunday morning lie-in, as dawn only just peeked over the hills beyond.
Watching Lucinda as he’d dressed, the pre-dawn light shining softly golden over the familiar curves of her face, the urge to wake her with a kiss, a touch, a caress—to make love to her again, or simply to see that look in her eyes when she saw him there—had been so strong he’d had to breathe his way through it.
Strong feelings were not his forte. Not when it came to his private life. They confused, they encouraged bad decisions. So, he’d left her be.
Leaning against the door he took a few moments to think. To plan out what steps to take next. For there was no map for where he’d just been. No tried and true strategy to fall back on.
Only, his mind remained blank. Empty. He felt light, washed clean. The kind of clean that meant he could smell flowers from a mile away. Could see colours he’d never seen before. Like the world after a storm.
Lucinda’s I’ve wanted this for longer than I can remember ran on a loop inside his head. She’d wanted it. Wanted him. Said if he didn’t know it already he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was.
What he hadn’t said was, “Right back at you.”
From the very first moment he’d seen her waiting to interview at the Big Picture Group offices, he’d known she was different from anyone he’d ever met. Her light had been bewitching. He’d felt he had no choice but to invite her into his life.
But even as their friendship had deepened, even as she’d become intrinsic to his life, he’d held back that one last part of himself. Broken, burned and unwilling to burden anyone with his scars, he’d held back—especially from someone as light and lovely as Lucinda.
Until last night, seeing her walk towards him in that dress, he’d given in. Given up. Given over to her.
A shiver rolled down his back, landing with a hot thrum of energy in his gut, as he imagined a life in which he’d resisted. In which he’d never known the taste of her, the feel of her, the sounds she made when she was really happy.
Then he heard a noise somewhere down the hall.
Within a second he recognised the pair of people hunched over against the wall several doors down.
Cat—hair wild, barefoot, wearing what looked like a onesie—was down on her haunches, her hands resting on Sonny’s knees as he sat leaning against the wall. Crying.
Without thinking, Angus jogged their way, calling out, “Cat?”
Cat stood, groaning as her knees cracked.
Sonny shot Angus a wet glance before wiping his eyes with a sleeve.
“Everything okay?” he asked Cat as he neared, keeping his voice down.
“He took off out of the room while I was in the bathroom,” Cat said, looking chagrined. “Bad dream. Not like him. Could be something he ate. The strange room. Or the dinosaur movie marathon we watched last ni
ght.”
Angus shot her a look.
Cat shrugged. “Either or.”
“Mmm... Hey, bud,” Angus said, crouching down but glancing past the kid, trying to look as casual as all get-out. For he’d hated being fussed over when he had been upset at that age. It had only made him feel as if he was under a spotlight. As if showing how he felt had been wrong somehow.
Sonny sniffed.
“Bit early for a hike, don’t you think?”
A quick glance saw Sonny’s mouth doing its best to turn down. “I wasn’t hiking. I was looking for Mum.”
“She’s asleep, bud. But you know she’ll come see you the minute she’s awake.”
He glanced up at Cat to find she was glaring down the hall in the direction whence he’d come. She then gave him a swift once over, no doubt taking in the crumpled suit, the time of day. Her eyes narrowed as she put the pieces together with ease.
Then she crooked a finger at him and took a few paces away, tapping a foot on the floor till he joined her.
Her voice lowered to a hiss. “Please tell me I did not just catch you on a walk of shame...from my sister’s room.”
He slid his hands into his suit pockets. “Not sure that’s any of your business.”
Even while he could honestly have said no. For he felt no shame. No regret.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Cat asked, her voice rising.
“Cat,” he warned. “Not the time or place.” Angus looked to Sonny, whose tears had dried up and who was watching them carefully over the tops of his knees.
But Cat, who looked as if she’d had about as much sleep as Sonny, wasn’t having it. “And I thought you were smarter than this. Well, I hoped, and prayed and begged whatever gods might be listening that even if she drank the Angus Wolfe Kool-Aid, you were experienced enough to make sure nothing ever happened. Why couldn’t you have just left her the hell alone this weekend?”
Wasn’t the first time Angus had been told point blank he wasn’t good enough, but it was the first time in a long time, and the inviolable walls that usually buffeted such assaults, had been put away for the night.
