“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-full 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.
“I like that version much better than thinking I wasn’t enough.”
His smile suffered instant death. “Angela, the guy is a total jerk who used you.”
Her mouth opened, closed. “No. He was…I wasn’t in his league.”
“You’d want to be? The Jerk League?”
“No, no, I mean he was so—”
“Untrustworthy.”
“But he was—”
“Selfish.”
“Maybe, but he was also—”
“An ass.”
“Okay, okay. He was.” She gestured and let her hand fall onto the ugly cushion between them.
Daniel grabbed her fingers and held them, wanting fiercely to let her know that whatever had happened in the marriage wasn’t her fault. She was not only enough, she was…everything. Everything he’d ever wanted. And he didn’t even know it until he met her, and started realizing what had been missing from his relationship with Kate, bless her and God rest her beautiful but rather rigid soul.
“So because your ex was an untrustworthy selfish ass it follows that I am, too?”
“No. No, no.” Her eyes were stricken. He wanted to kiss both of them, get the smile back on her face. He wanted to protect her from everything, a macho side of him he hadn’t known he possessed. Probably because Kate hadn’t needed him. Not as much as he’d convinced himself he needed her.
“Why do you have to stay away from me if I’m nothing like him?”
“Oh, Daniel.” She sighed, features bunched in confusion. “Tell you what, when human emotions become totally logical, let me know.”
“Point taken.” He brought her fingers to his lips, kissed her palm, the soft skin of her wrist. “So we slow down now.”
“Yes, please.”
He kissed her forearm, the inside of her elbow. “No more sex?”
“Not…often.”
He cupped her face with his hands, met her halfway so their lips were an inch apart. “No more kisses?”
“Some of those,” she whispered. “Sometimes.”
“Like now?”
“Well…”
He didn’t wait longer, brushed her lips with his, heard her catch her breath and deepened the pressure—only slightly.
Angela. She’d seduced him out of his stupor, out of his depression and misery and into a new life and new depths of emotion that felt so promising and so right he was half ready to tell her he was falling in love with her.
He was falling in love with her. And because of some other creep who treated her like crap, he had to pretend he wasn’t?
Daniel kissed her again, as chastely as he could manage with insides ready to burst into flames, and then he let her go.
This time.
“I stopped.”
“Yes.” She smiled wistfully and didn’t move away. “Thank you.”
Daniel did move away. Picked up his beer and prepared to settle in for a nice platonic discussion. She wanted to go slowly? He’d play along for a while. But understanding what she was feeling only mad
e it more important he act now, to do for her what she’d done for him. Free her from the hold this creep still had on her self-esteem. Seduce Angela into realizing Daniel was not her ex-husband or any part of her past.
But he was hoping to be her future.
10
BONNIE KNELT to re-re-rearrange bright tulips in a cream-colored bucket. Only two customers so far today, three phone orders and one wrong number. Not good. April was supposed to give people spring fever, make them want life and color and good fresh smells around them, especially in a year when spring was taking longer than usual. But April had been rough on Bonnie Blooms, as had been March, February, January…
Instinctively, Bonnie had started economizing in little ways. Not so much with her flowers, but in her life. Less meat, more cheap starches for dinner. Canned fruit instead of fresh. Cheaper beer and wine when she did indulge. No more fancy manicures, coloring her own hair…nothing drastic, just caution. Something would happen to turn her business around. April would turn to May and June, weddings would start happening in greater numbers. And in the meantime maybe she’d come up with an advertising gimmick to steer more flower-buyers her way. Maybe she could use the rather risqué picture Jack had taken of her, the one he’d promised would make Seth wild with jealousy, to make an ad for her flower shop. She could post it outside gentlemen’s clubs and barber shops. Hey, bay-bee, come pluck my petals. Disgustingly sexist, but it might just come to that.
Tulips looking perfect enough for her taste, Bonnie wandered back to her register. With no one around, she felt free to open the drawer under her counter and take out the picture Jack had slipped under her apartment door, probably in the middle of the night, given the weird hours he kept. She studied it, grinning. Jack had captured her in a heavy-lidded Marilyn Monroe smile that somehow worked, even with her all-American freckled face and average features. He’d posed her on an off-white drape in a way that rounded her too-skinny hips and brought out respectable length in her legs. Over her nipples, between her legs and outlining her body bloomed deeply pink moth orchids that emphasized the rosy tones in her skin. He’d even managed to make her small breasts appear lush and promising, their curves peeking out from behind the petals.
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