“When I turned twenty-one, Nonnie made Papa sign over the account to me. He said I should keep it for a wedding fund, and I didn’t commit. I invested it, and he forgot about it. I think he figured I used it for grad school. I had my money from working at the bakery after school for all those years and banked most of that, too.”
“I remember Tony on the telephone trying to talk your father into letting you go to college. It was a hard sell.”
“Yes, it was, and I’ll quote Papa, ‘I was a pretty girl who was meant to marry and raise a family.’ Why did I want to waste all that time and money? I should work in his deli or the bakery, or, if I had to, get a secretarial job and marry the man he chose for me.” She laughed and relaxed.
“I remember hearing that a few times, too,” Royce told her.
“Anyway, I didn’t, obviously. Instead, I…I wrote a book, Royce.”
He glanced back and watched her move back before the fire, while wondering if she realized how it framed her in the evening light.
“Nonnie read it and told me good, but it needed something. She decided it needed sex to be sellable!”
Visualizing the older woman who had become a surrogate mother, Royce sat back and laughed at the idea.
“She would. In the twenty years I’ve known this family, she never held her tongue.”
“She was right. I rewrote it several times and ultimately wound up with something publishable.” Angela studied his face to see if he made the connection. He leaned forward, took the thin slice of lemon peel from his cup, and chewed on it. “You still don’t get it, Royce.”
He only shook his head in confusion. “Tell me, angel. None of this makes sense.”
“All right, I was embarrassed when I realized I was kissing you and more importantly that you were in my private space. You saw the photos, didn’t you?”
“Yes, and I saw myself in a few.”
“Yes. I’m not sorry I kept them, Royce.”
The tilt of her chin dared him to confront her about them. He didn’t. And he didn’t tell her that he still carried an old snapshot of her from the christening. He’d taken it from a stack sent to Tony a few weeks after the party. Tony had never noticed it missing or, at least, had never questioned him about it.
“I’m not either, but what do they have to do with you writing a book?”
“Papa must never find out, Royce, or any of the boys. Do you understand? They wouldn’t let me live it down, and it would make my life hell with them. Papa already thinks I’m a deviant for leaving his home without a ring on my finger.”
“Oh, screw Vito, Angela. You’re a grown woman. You have a right to a private life.”
“I agree, so between us. Are you familiar with a book titled Evangeline?”
Chapter Six
His head turned toward her so quickly they both heard the light snap his neck made with the movement. He stood quickly and walked the length of the room several times while threading his fingers through his still-short military cut and, remembering the two framed posters in her office, used the time to recall the books. “Angela?”
“When I sold the first novel, I bought the house. And only a few people know who I am, Royce, a few lawyers and accounts, my editor, and my publisher. I would prefer it to stay that way.”
Her look made him recognize how important this was, that she truly trusted him to keep her secret. “But…”
She laughed and finally relaxed. For the first time since she’d known him, he was completely speechless and shaken by her confession. “I’ll start supper.” She rose and moved around the familiar space, the move shielding the growing grin on her face.
Royce let her go, his mind reeling from the information she’d given him. Sometime later, she passed in front of him and exchanged the coffee cup for a half-full wine glass. He smelled sausage and peppers cooking and forced himself back to reality. She set the table and continued her prep work as if she’d hadn’t just told him she was the author of an erotic novel, apparently a very profitable one.
“The second poster,” he said aloud, and she turned with a smile.
“Yes.”
“I never read the book, Angela. Only saw a few pages.”
Suddenly, his control snapped, and he moved into the kitchen doorway, his hands braced on either side of the frame. She paused and shut the flame from under the frying pan on the stove top.
“Royce?”
His fingers tightened against the wood, and his eyes drilled through her. “Who, Angela? Who taught you?”
“What? To cook, Nonnie, of course.”
“Don’t play with me now, Angela. I’m on a short rope, who taught you, Chad? Or was it Marco? I seem to remember hearing his name tossed around often enough.”
Realizing his reference, she turned away. His hands bit into her shoulders from behind, slowly pulling her against his chest. Her eyes closed automatically at the contact with him, and she drew a deep breath.
“Who?” he whispered, his lips so close ear, her hair moved with his breath.
“No.”
“No, it wasn’t Chad or Marco, or no, you won’t tell me the truth?”
“You won’t like the truth, Royce. Are you sure you really want to know?”
“God, help me, Angela, I have to know. It will drive me crazy not to know.” He didn’t add he wanted a face to put to his menacing thoughts.
“You did.” Angela turned around, slid her hands around his back, and explored him as she buried her face against his chest.
“Angela?”
“Only you, Royce. After that afternoon on my birthday, I didn’t want another man to touch me. The day of the christening only reinforced that. I understood any other man would be futile, no other man was you.”
Her sentence finished with the tone of defeat and she pulled from him, her hands’ sliding over her upper arms to compensate for the lack of his body heat. “Angel, we didn’t…”
“I have a vivid imagination.”
She tried to laugh, but it came out more as a strangled cry. Angela pushed past him and, with forced calm, walked through the living room and slowly up the stairs. Royce stayed where he was, unable to get his mind and body to work together. He thought to go up and didn’t.
Ultimately, she came back down, composed with her hair brushed out, and slipped past him into the kitchen as if their conversation hadn’t happened. Only she handed him a copy of her book before turning her attention back to their meal.
Royce took the novel and moved back to the living room by remote control. He settled in her club chair after turning on the pole lamp behind it, studying the black cover with just one word printed across it, Evangeline. Reading the erotic science fiction intently, he didn’t know how long she stood beside his chair before he acknowledged her.
“Supper’s ready.”
“Yeah,” he said, not wanting to stop reading.
Their meal started and stayed tense until Angela stood abruptly. She moved around the table and, without a second thought, used both of her hands to pull his face toward her and kissed him long and hard.
Royce seemed startled at first then dropped his guard, slid his hand behind her, and tugged her onto his lap for better positioning. He wound his left hand through her hair and directed her head to his waiting kiss while his right hand skimmed along her thigh and belly, his finger gently tapping at the gold. She drew a breath when it did and he knew she felt him swell under her.
Angela ended the kiss and pulled away from him. Her lips were swollen from his touch, his body heated and wanting more. Neither said a word or acknowledged the act. She grabbed her dinner plate and went about setting out Prima’s supper. He helped clear the table went back to the book. The next time he looked up, Angela was pulling on a huge down coat, fumbling with the front zipper.
“I’m going to walk Prima. I’ll be back in a bit.”
He nodded but didn’t move to go with her. He went back to his reading. Several times, he’d felt his cock twitch at a
passage and swell at others. His own body was betraying him, and he didn’t care. He knew she had returned from the change in temperature but kept reading. Royce knew she was doing dishes and didn’t offer to help. Instead, he let himself get lost in Evangeline’s world of self-exploration. He was halfway through the novel when she started turning on lights in the living room and then disappeared from the room.
Angela returned fresh from the shower, her hair still damp and her body still flushed from the hot water. She was standing at the glass wall when he realized she was there. Glancing at the mantle clock, he saw that it was after ten. The snow outside was getting deep, deeper than they’d predicted. She’d pulled on a long flannel robe, the plaid familiar. He’d seen her in it a few
times, saw it hanging on the back of her bathroom door in Brooklyn and knew the fabric was soft against her skin. What he didn’t know was what she wore under it. “Angela?”
“Royce?”
“Go to bed, angel, please?”
She turned and watched him, the look of defeat crossing her eyes before she nodded and made her way back up to the loft.
Royce shut off all the lights and, heading to his room, knew he’d lock the door to keep himself away from her. A little after midnight, he gave up and pulled on a pair of jeans. His goal was to get something to drink, something to take his mind off her sleeping upstairs. The house was dark, only the exterior floodlights lit up the outdoors.
The snow was falling heavier, and it all looked so pristine around him. With her back to the room, she leaned against the window frame. Her robe was belted tightly around her middle, thick cotton socks on her feet. Prima was sound asleep near the hearth. Royce stood in the hallway several minutes wondering what to do, what to say and was about to back track to his room when she spoke.
“I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable, Royce. It wasn’t my intention.”
His body reacted before his mind could stop him and he moved behind her, his hands directing her back against his body. “What do we do angel?” His fingers slipped up and down along her arms.
“I’d say that was up to you.”
“What I want to do and what’s right are two completely different things. Tell me, how you could write like that if you haven’t been…intimate with men?”
“I have been intimate, with one man.”
“Angel, we never finished that day, barely touched the surface of possibilities.”
“I know. I told you I have a vivid imagination. You still never told me why you’re here, besides checking on me.”
His fingers tightened on her shoulders as his cock swelled. He’d never planned on telling her his secret. If she did find out, if she recognized the bits of herself he’d infused in Agnes, she’d know he’d loved her all these years. He wasn’t willing to tell her the truth, even after she’d been open and
honest with him. He felt like a heel and hated himself for his own cowardice. “You won’t like the answer.” He didn’t add that it was only part of his private world.
“Try me. What do you have to lose at this point?”
“I came here to look at a piece of property on the other side of town. It’s an old farm with some land.” He told her the location, and she said she was familiar with it, questioned the depth of destruction since it had been abandoned. “Ten years, apparently. It needs a lot of work just to make it habitable, let alone livable.”
“Why here, Royce? You could settle anywhere in the world, why look here in upstate New York?”
“Because it was near you, and I can’t buy the place, can’t live this close to you and not want to be with you.” He didn’t add that it was a short trip to Manhattan where his publisher was located.
“Would that be so bad, being with me?”
“No, but I’m sure your brothers might think differently.” He realized the error of his teasing. “If I thought I was right for you, I’d…”
“You’d what?”
“Angela, I’m not marriage material. Never was. I don’t know if I can settle down and live in one place for the rest of my life, I’ve never tried. What if I hate it?”
“You mean what if you end up hating me?”
“No!” He moved away, and he felt cold. “I’m ten years older you, you deserve a man who’s young and not jaded, someone to spend your life with who isn’t cynical.”
“Well, I’m glad you made up my mind for me. You should feel relived. Vito would be proud of you.”
He frowned at her sarcasm. “Relieved? I don’t think so. Thursday, I thought I saw you in town walking with a man, and I felt a rage of jealousy I never knew existed inside me.”
“I don’t want another man, Royce. I’ve only wanted you since my twenty-first birthday when you touched me. No man has ever stood a chance after that.”
“What if I don’t live up to your fantasy, Angela? That’s a lot of pressure to put on any man.” His voice faded away at the idea, performance anxiety
prevalent in his mind. What he didn’t expect was for Angela to laugh out right. “Yeah, and I have so much to compare you against!”
“Evangeline does!” he shouted before he could rein back his temper.
“Evangeline is a fictional character.” She moved closer toward him, hesitant. “You and I are flesh and blood. Here and now, in this moment. That’s all I’m asking you for, this one time to hold on to.”
“Damn it, Angela. You’re my best friend’s baby sister. There’s a code about this. I’m supposed to protect you from men like me.”
“Really, where was that code on my birthday, or at the christening when you…”
He moved quickly for a large man and pulled her up in front of him. Her toes barely touched the floor as his eyes bored through her.
“If I touch you, angel, you’ll never be free, ever. And I’m not the man you’ve fantasized me into.”
“I’m not free now, Royce.”
She stood her ground, and only when he let out a groan did she dare to breathe. His mouth crushed her under him, his kiss punishing, his tongue fighting to intimidate her. Only the more he fought her, the more she came alive under him and let go of all the smoldering wants she’d apparently held inside for so long. She became hot to his touch, and the idea he could garner this reaction from her only fueled his urges to take more.
Angela surprised them both when she pulled from his grasp and shoved him against the window. The moment his bare shoulders touched the cold glass, she dropped to her knees, her hands fighting with the denim her fingers pulling down his pants to finally free his straining cock. Time stopped, and the scene to surreal.
Royce closed his eyes when he felt her fingers drawing the material down his legs and pulled a ragged breath when her warm hands slowly moved back up his thighs, her nails drawing a path to his aching center.
Angela didn’t touch him immediately. Rather, she seemed to be studying him, appraising him before slowly taking him in her palm. Royce looked down just as Angela’s lips met the glistening drop on his head, just the tip of her tongue straining to taste him. The sight overwhelmed him, and he groaned with a want that had built inside him for years.
Her unsure movements became emboldened when he throbbed at her caress. Angela’s warm breath covered his moist tip in an amazing
dichotomy of hot and cold, which sent a shiver through him. She tested his size with her lips, tasted him for the first time, and he knew he’d come home to a place he never thought to be, in Angela’s life.
He dropped his hands to her shoulders to steady him against the onslaught of tongue and teeth that followed. Royce felt his control slip and groaned her name before dragging her away from his engorged cock, up across his bare chest, and to his lips.
His kiss was different. The trace of himself on her lips emboldened him and made him twitch against her. Angela groaned into his mouth as her hands sought him and stroked the length of his cock against her center. Royce wound a hand through her hair and held her against the onslaught of his
mouth while his other hand fought with her robe and pulled it from her shoulder where his teeth found the soft skin behind her ear and the cleft of her throat. He knew he was leaving a mark and swelled again at the idea.
Any hint of composure was long gone, and Royce’s body overrode his good intentions. He thrust her away from him with a cruelty he didn’t know he could possess.
“Protection?” he managed to ask and watched her turn red as she struggled to find the pocket of her now twisted robe before finally pulling out several packaged condoms.
“Good girl, angel,” he whispered, just before he tugged the robe down her arms and off her.
“Good God,” he said aloud, not realizing the words left his mind. She stood before him in the darkened room, her little, sleeveless, white silky slip covering heaving breasts, her nipples harder than he’d ever imagined. The long length of toned leg drew his gaze down to her cotton socks. With her hair mussed, her lips full and her eyes wide, she was the sexiest sight he’d ever seen.
“Angel…”
“Royce, please?”
He knew his choice had been made long before his arrival. In his fantasy, he’d make her mindless before he’d let her come. He wanted to see how she would react to his touch, how her voice would sound with his name on her lips. She’d always been an erotic woman. He wanted her writhing under him, her using his fingers, his mouth, his cock as tools to find her climax. Just the idea let him abandon his restraint, the ideas of teasing her
for hours long gone. He’d drop his mouth over her clit and slip two fingers inside her, watching her expressions as she settled over this new invasion to her body. He’d fuck her until she found her own primal rhythm, than he’d fuck her with his cock.
———
Two simple words had empowered him, had given him permission to take what he wanted. Angela wondered if he’d understand. It didn’t matter. She’d touched him, finally, after all these years, and she knew what it was like to taste him.
Her Alpha Male Page 5
