Sensuous Angel

by Heather Graham

  The cab came to an abrupt halt. Luke helped her out, paid the driver, and started leading her along the sidewalk. All she could see before her was a gaping hole in the ground before them.

  “I’ve got it,” she teased him. “We’re having dinner at a hot-dog stand in the subway.”

  “No,” he answered calmly.

  “Then we took a cab just to get to a different subway station?”

  “No!” He laughed this time. “The restaurant is down those steps.”

  “Oh,” Donna murmured uncertainly. He gave her shoulders a little squeeze of reassurance, but Donna was still convinced that the place had to be something Andrew had stumbled on when he was slumming in the underworld.

  After they descended the murky stairway, she discovered the restaurant was very nice. The lighting was subdued. Candlelight flickered from all the tables and intimate booths. A guitar was strummed lightly, and somewhere a tenor was singing Italian love songs.

  “Great place for a seduction,” Luke whispered to her, before greeting the maître d’.

  Yes, it was, Donna thought as they were led along a weaving path through the tables. A great place for a seduction scene….

  They were seated at a booth, facing one another. Bread and small dishes of antipasto had already been served. Luke raised his glass of burgundy to her. She eyed him suspiciously, but raised her glass to his.

  “All right, Luke,” she murmured. “You promised you would do some talking.”

  “Yes, I did promise, didn’t I?”

  “Umm-hmmm. So start talking.”

  “Where would you like me to start?”

  “When did you decide to become a priest?”

  “In the service. I was in the marines.”

  Donna idly picked a black olive off her plate and chewed it, grateful that the pit had been removed. “Are you going to make me drag out all the answers?”

  Luke chuckled softly, then took a reflective sip of his wine. “No, I won’t make you drag things out.” He smiled. “I went to Catholic schools myself, you see—

  “Roman Catholic?”

  He laughed. “Yes. My parents sent us all to private schools, and the best school around was run by a group of Franciscan brothers. You don’t have to be Catholic to go to Catholic schools. Didn’t you know that?”

  “I guess I never thought about it,” Donna admitted. “But,” she added, “neither does going to a Catholic school automatically make one a priest—especially not an Episcopalian priest!”

  Luke chuckled. “No. But I think that my interest in theology was born there. My dad, who was Church of England all the way, was a great friend of one of my teachers, Brother Clement. They used to have great debates down in the cellar each winter. They’d argue until you’d think the roof was going to blow, but they always ended by deciding that God, in his infinite wisdom, came to different men in different ways.”

  “Then they were really very open-minded,” Donna said.

  “Oh, I don’t know. They could take a single line from the Bible and argue over it for nights on end.”

  “And you—let’s get back to school. Were you a model student?”

  “Far from it.” He grinned, his green-gold eyes a firebrand of mischief. “I think that my mother was despairing of me. I was continually on the carpet for something. I straightened up somewhat in college, worked awhile, and then I wound up in the marines.”

  He paused suddenly, and Donna realized that the story was about to become more serious.”

  “Go on, please,” she prodded softly.

  He shrugged, sipping his wine again. “I’d always believed in God—Dad and Father Clement, for all their differences, had thoroughly convinced me that there was a Supreme Being—and I guess that Nam was a good place to have that belief. Of course I wasn’t very sure at that time that God was terribly fond of me. Anyway, we were on maneuvers one day when a buddy of mine got badly shot up. We were out in the rice paddies in the middle of nowhere. I couldn’t get any help for him; all that I could do was stay with him. And I knew that he was going to die.” He paused again.

  “He didn’t have much of a torso left,” Luke said quietly. He smiled at her, a little sadly, a little ruefully. “I’ll never forget it. You see, the worst of it was that Joe didn’t go quickly. I can remember the day going from a blood-red sunset to a dark and humid dusk. Joe lost consciousness, then regained it. He was in a lot of pain, and wandering. I wondered if I wouldn’t be doing the right thing just to kill him myself, to rid him of his pain. But I didn’t. I think we all like to believe in miracles.

  “Anyway, Joe started to believe that I was his priest. He wanted me to pray for him. So I started trying to pray. And here I was with this poor man, stuttering out some words. And all I could think was that Joe had the worst representative in the world going for him. I thought about all the sins in my undistinguished life, and my tears were falling all over Joe because I felt so helpless—and so sure that God would never listen to a word that I had to say. But I had to try. I had to help Joe somehow. So I turned away and literally slapped myself. I turned back to him and assured him that I was his priest. I started praying again, all the nice things I remembered from all those mornings in mass. And suddenly Joe stopped screaming. He was relaxed, no longer frightened.”

  Donna felt a little chill seep through her. She moistened her lips to speak, but the sound was still a whisper.

  “Joe lived?”

  Luke smiled, shaking his head. “No, I’m not a miracle worker. But somehow…I don’t really know how to say this. He—he died easily. Almost smiling. As if he had entered a far better world. Maybe it was the last illusion of an agonized man, but it was as if he knew he was about to reach heaven. But right before he died, he opened his eyes and stared straight at me. And he said, ‘Thank you, Luke. God bless you, son.’”

  “And you decided then to be a priest?”

  “No, not exactly. It wasn’t one of those instant decisions. But it was a long night. I just sat there, holding Joe’s body, for what seemed like forever. It took until morning for the rest of the patrol to find us. I don’t know, I guess I started thinking then that my life really hadn’t been worth much of anything to anyone. And it might very well have been me rather than Joe who died. When I got back to base, I guess I was in shock. Father McKay—who is a Roman Catholic, by the way—spent a lot of time with me. He suggested that I’d be a perfect candidate for the priesthood. I told him he was crazy. But I’d begun to wonder….Then I told him again that he was absolutely crazy because if I was going to do something, I’d want to do it right. And I was opinionated, temperamental—et cetera. McKay knew I was an Episcopalian, but our unit didn’t have an Episcopalian priest at that time. So he waited, and then as we moved closer to base, he went in and found Father Austin—a very young man, by the way—who was an Episcopalian. Austin and I became good friends. He tried not to influence me—he just answered questions. And he played a great game of tin can putt-putt.”

  Luke hesitated. “I still wasn’t sure when I got back to the States, but I entered a seminary and I came out a priest.”

  He stopped speaking, smiling as the waiter appeared with large plates of lasagna.

  “The best you’ll ever taste!” the waiter assured them before hurrying away. Luke and Donna both remained silent as they bit into their food.

  “Well?” Luke asked her.

  “Well?”

  “Is it the best you’ve ever tasted?”

  “It’s very, very good,” Donna replied, smiling. “But I’m afraid my grandmother still makes the absolute best I’ve ever tasted.”

  He reached across the table and she felt the feather-light caress of his fingers over her hand. “I’d just love to taste your grandmother’s lasagna, you know.”

  Donna flushed slightly. Oh, no, she thought. She wasn’t so sure that he would because it would be served in the midst of pure chaos, with her grandfather there like a reigning monarch. And he’d probably drive Luke to m
urder because to him, anyone who isn’t Italian isn’t civilized, and anyone who isn’t Catholic is a pagan.

  But she didn’t withdraw her fingers. She smiled weakly and changed the subject. “I’d like to ask you something else,” she told him.

  “Shoot.”

  Did he mean it? She could have sworn a thin veil of wariness had descended darkly over the golden glitter in his eyes. They seemed to say ask…ask all the questions you like and I’ll answer them, exactly as I choose….

  Donna hesitated. She set down her fork and at last withdrew her fingers from his, folding her hands in her lap. Then she grimaced. “When I wasn’t worried about the fires of hell and eternal damnation for the way I was feeling about you, I was…uh…worried about something else.”

  “Oh?” He arched one of his brows high. Donna decided that he was still very capable of looking diabolical. The devil’s own, sinfully attractive temptation.

  “Yes,” she murmured, and then she laughed. “Luke, I don’t know how to say this, but I feel there’s something about you that I don’t know, That…oh, I don’t know. I saw all those books in your study about E.S.P. and the occult—”

  He smiled, lowering his head quickly. Then his eyes raised to hers, filled with mischief once again. “I see. You had me performing virgin sacrifices upon the altar and worshipping an inverted cross?”

  Donna blushed. “No!”

  “I’m relieved, although I’m quite sure you’d make a gorgeous sacrifice. The largest library on the occult in the world is at the Vatican, you know. A lot of it is reading material that any student of theology should read.”

  “I know, I know. That’s not what I mean.”

  “Then what do you mean?”

  “I just feel that you’re…a lot deeper than I’ll ever know,” she finished lamely.

  “Aren’t we all?” he replied lightly. “I imagine, Donna Miro, that you’re a deep lady yourself.”

  “Not at all the same way,” she murmured, lowering her lashes again, flushing. The way he was looking at her….“Luke…” Her voice was incredibly husky. She sipped her wine so quickly that it dribbled down her chin, and she was fumbling for her napkin, flushing with embarrassment. But her napkin never reached her chin. He reached across the table again in a fluid and natural movement. He touched her chin with his finger, catching the wine. Then he grazed that finger over her lips, following its path with his eyes. It was a slightly rough touch. His fingertips were calloused. But it was tender and gentle, and it suddenly made her shiver despite the hot flash of desire that engulfed her. His lips curved into a wistful smile, and his voice was as husky as hers.

  “I wish I could look at you with that wine on your lips and dribbling down your chin and think that you were a klutz. Instead I look at you and think that I’d like to take the full glass of wine and dribble it all over your body and then taste it.”

  “Luke!” Donna gasped, and she knew that the color of her cheeks could be no lighter than the tomato sauce in the lasagna.

  He chuckled and regretfully settled back into his side of the booth, removing his touch. She felt horribly bereft and a little bit ashamed of herself, because it was so easy to follow his line of thought—imagining the two of them together with a whole cask of wine to kiss from one another’s flesh.

  “I’ve told you how I feel,” he said with a touch of amusement along with the sound of a sigh.

  “I—I just can’t seem to get accustomed to the idea of a priest…”

  “Being lascivious?” He offered.

  “Exactly,” she replied, laughing nervously.

  He smiled. “We’re not doing much justice to this lasagna.”

  “You’ve ruined my appetite,” Donna accused him.

  “I’m sorry. That was never my intent.”

  “You have my stomach in knots.”

  He leaned close to her once again, arching a satanic brow. “Ah, that’s exactly how you’re supposed to feel. Quivery…confused. Hot one moment, riddled with chills the next. And very, very hungry…but not for food.”

  “And if I do feel like that,” she whispered, unable to resist the temptation to reach out and brush her knuckles against the masculine texture of his freshly shaven cheek, “what do I do?”

  “You come to me, and I put my arms around you…and you just trust me to take it from there.”

  She chuckled again uncertainly. “Luke, I like you. You know that. It’s just so new, and I still feel so very unsure….”

  He took her hand again, lightly, between both of his. “I understand that,” he told her softly.

  “So what do we do?” she whispered, aware that the question was a beseechment.

  “I could turn into a mad rapist,” he offered.

  Donna pursed her lips in a wry smile and lowered her eyes. “I don’t think that would be in character.”

  “You don’t? Watch out, then, Ms. Miro. Dark secrets lurk in the hearts of the best of men. Umm…what do we do? I might be an unorthodox priest, but I am one. I think that I’m falling in love with you. That means a lot of things. It means I want you. To hold you, and to love. And more. It would mean marriage. To have and to hold, et cetera, until death.”

  “I know,” she whispered.

  “And?”

  “It frightens me.”

  He smiled. “I’d be insulted if it didn’t.”

  Donna returned his smile, but weakly. “I’m not sure we know one another well enough for this discussion.”

  “We can keep getting to know one another.”

  Donna’s smile became suddenly strong and sincere. “That may be difficult. Haven’t you realized that I’m afraid to be alone with you?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I have. But I don’t intend to let it stand in my way. You can keep trying to slip by me, and I can make sure that you don’t always succeed.”

  “That’s just what I’m afraid of.”

  “But you won’t be. Because once I have you, I’ll try very hard to see that you aren’t thinking at all.”

  “Not a mad rapist, just a mad seducer?”

  “Half seducer. Just enough to convince you that I am a man, very capable of loving a woman.”

  “Oh,” Donna murmured, finding safety in turning her attention back to her lasagna, “I never doubted your capabilities.”

  He allowed it to rest at that and took a bite of his meal.

  Donna suddenly stared at him again. “You managed to evade my question,” she accused him.

  “I did?” He asked innocently.

  Or was it so innocent? Did a wary shield once again cloud the golden warmth of his eyes.

  “I said that I think that you’re hiding something from me.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then maybe there isn’t anything to know.”

  He smiled, as if teasing her. Perhaps she deserved it.

  “Okay, Luke, I’ll let that pass—for now.”

  He sighed, setting down his fork. “Donna, if you’re still referring to my books, I read a lot of things. I like to read. And I teach a class each spring at Columbia on theology. A nonsecular class. We go back to the roots of man, superstition, and all that. Are you satisfied?”

  She nodded but wondered at the sudden edge to his voice. “Did you major in theology at college yourself?” she asked him.

  “No, theology was my minor.”

  “What was your major?” She queried, very curious.

  The edge left his voice as he laughed. “Criminal law. My mother was dying to have a son become an F. Lee Bailey.”

  “Law?”

  “Yes. I passed the bar and I practiced for a year, but then I wound up in the marines, and after the marines—well, you know that story. I studied theology—and kept up with the law—at the seminary. And now, well, I teach a few law classes at Columbia too. Only in the spring.” He grinned. “God can be a very demanding employer. I teach only in the spring, because it’s the season when I’m given an e
xtra man from the seminary.”

  “You’re very irreverent for a priest,” Donna told him.

  “That, Ms. Miro, is a point I could debate with you all evening.”

  “I’m sure you could.” Donna pushed her dish away; she simply couldn’t eat any more. She frowned suddenly. “Luke, what about your family?”

  “What about them? You’ve met Andrew.” He said it dryly, but she felt a little warmed by the affection in his voice for his brother.

  “Is it just the two of you?” She asked.

  “No, I have two sisters. And my mother and father, of course.”

  “What do they think of you being a priest?”

  Luke, too, pushed his plate aside. He leaned back in the booth as he lit a cigarette. “Cappuccino?” He asked her. “It’s excellent here.”

  She nodded. He raised two fingers to the waiter, and Donna decided he was well known there. Their plates were taken away, and two cups of steaming cappuccino were set before them.

  “Okay,” he said once the waiter had left them again. “Although I think you’ve had more than twenty questions answered. My mother wasn’t quite certain what to think—she was worried about my temper too, I guess. But once she knew that I had made up my mind and was determined, she must have decided that it was a vocation that would keep me off the streets. I don’t think that my father was ever surprised.”

  Donna couldn’t keep her lips from twitching into a smile. “Your poor mother!” she commiserated. “And she wanted an F. Lee Bailey!”

  “She may still get one.”

  “Oh?”

  “My sister Jean is a wonderful attorney.”

  Donna tasted her cappuccino. It was delicious. It made her think of a warm fire in a darkened room, leaning against the man she loved in contentment. It made her think of all the very different ways she would like to be together with Luke.

  “Donna.”

  “What?”

  She gazed across at him. The laughter was gone from his eyes; so were all shields. They were sharp and demanding. He didn’t touch her, he didn’t lean toward her, but she felt his power of command, just as she felt his tension. He would never need to convince her that he was all male, all man.