by Donna Fasano
“Yours?” A voice screeched over him, driving his head up and out of his hands. His shocked eyes widened, while his lips opened to form a round hole of surprise and trepidation. “I belong to no man, my friend, especially not to an empty-headed, ticklish fool of a dithering idiot who’s too blind to see the pure gold in front of him because his head is full of rocks.”
That she put telling emphasis on the words gold and rocks convinced him she’d overheard his declaration. “You are mine,” he grated, standing and towering over her. “Not that namby-pamby suit I saw you with the other night.” Then his finger pointed to Johnnie lounging close now, protectiveness his agenda. “You sure as hell aren’t in love with this Don Juan. He’s not the other half of you. I am. We belong together, Angelina,” he declared, his voice lowered beseechingly.
“There is no ‘we’, you blockhead.” She pointed at herself and said, “There’s me, Angelina Serrano, blind fool.” She swung her finger and jabbed it swiftly, painfully into his chest. “And then there’s you, Joe Davidson, philanderer.” He winced. “There has never been a we.”
A harangue of Spanish followed that only a fluent speaker could have interpreted. But it didn’t take a translator to know what she was saying. Idiot, stupid, imbecile were a few of the descriptive phrases similar in both languages.
The woman was a glorious sight to behold in her righteous hissy-fit. Black curls, gathered high, whipped freely back and forth and dropped over her naked shoulders. The thinness of the satin straps on her lacy red dress, that fit her tiny physique like a glove, made one wonder if they could take the stress her flailing arms were giving them.
‘Bastardo' was the last word she hissed before she slapped her fists down on either side of her thighs. She stomped back to her table, grabbed her silver bag and coat and stormed past the revelers, who were rapt, watching her performance. Even the band, realizing they weren’t the focus of attention, had discreetly lowered their sound. Angelina in full rage was something to see.
She’d have made it right out the door, but for the blonde who Joe had discarded earlier.
“Don’t leave yet, honey. My brother is about to rip that guy apart. I called him to come and beat his lights out for treating me the way he did. No one gets away with a brush-off like that jerk gave me.” Wavering and falling over, her slurred words stopped Angelina in mid-stride.
Angelina turned in time to see a tough character waylay Joe who had started to follow her. He blocked his path and wouldn’t let Joe go around him. Angelina edged closer and heard Joe, his voice sounding mean. “Hey, man, get out of my way.”
“My sister says you gave her a hard time tonight?”
“Your sister’s mad because I didn’t give her a hard time tonight.” Joe, who only had one thing on his mind, got caught unaware. From one minute to the next, he went from standing with attitude, to prone with an angry enemy straddling him.
Angelina grabbed a tray and headed into the battle. Just as she went to smack the attacker’s head, she looked down at Joe, who shamelessly grinned up at her.
Throwing the weapon down on the nearest table, she yelled at his attacker, “Hit him for me too.” Then she stomped out the door.
Joe had a fight on his hands. They were equal in size, but he had a mission and no time to waste. He finished off his attacker by slamming him on both sides of his head. While the whimperer’s ears rang, he lifted him off and pushed him into an empty booth.
Looking around, he spotted Angelina’s group. Mesmerized, they’d waited to see the outcome. He went over and asked, “Angelina?”
“Phew,” said Johnnie understatedly. “I’ve never seen her so mad.”
“She’s furious,” Coralee agreed smirking.
“That’s my girl!” Joe grinned, foolishly. “She must care a little, or she wouldn’t have gotten that angry. Right?”
“Right!” agreed three voices, while prompting hands pushed Joe towards the door.
Son-of-a-gun! Too late! He arrived in time to see her taxi pull away from the curb.
Three voices peeled off instructions behind him.
“Grandma and Tee are in Tofino for the weekend. She’ll be alone at the house. Go!” Coralee pushed at him, sounding like an excited child who could foresee a treat.
“The all-night market near her place sells great big bouquets. Might be a good idea to go bearing gifts, dude.” Lee added his two cents.
“You hurt her again, Joe, and I’ll have to hurt you. Understand?” Johnnie wasn’t smiling.
Joe stopped dead, turned and grinned at Coralee, nodded at Lee, and put his hand out to shake with Johnnie, saying with genuine fervor, “I understand.”
Chapter 62
After Joe’s polite knocking got him nowhere, he gave up being the nice guy and literally banged on the door. Angelina wouldn’t let him in. She was still seething. The cheeky swine could rot out there all night as far as she was concerned.
Then her phone rang. She answered, unprepared for it to be him—his voice. She didn’t hang up fast enough. Once she heard his pleading, she wanted the idiot so badly it was torture keeping her anger fuelled. Every female in the world would empathize with a woman in love while her man pleaded with her to let him come close. Who could blame her for opening the door?
He bolted through and came to a shuddering stop when he saw her. She’d changed into her long sheer white cotton housecoat and a nightie that drifted as she walked. Look closely at what you’re giving up, gringo!
She’d been told that she looked the picture of virginal loveliness when her grandmother had first seen her in those nightclothes. That image suited Angelina tonight. She’d checked in the mirror, turning this way and that. It seemed when she didn’t wear a bra, her breasts bulged against the lace-and-ribbon concoction of prettiness at the neckline. Good!
Breaking out of his trance, Joe thrust a huge gathering of sweet-smelling lilies, at least a dozen long-stemmed red roses, scads of pink carnations, colorful mums and a heap of yellow-centered white daisies, all engulfed by masses of baby’s breath toward her. There were so many flowers she had trouble holding them all in her arms.
“I hate you,” she choked, glaring at him.
“You should,” he answered her with such tenderness she could hardly swallow.
Don’t let him to do this to you again!
She was a mess of suppressed emotions, while he stood there looking calm and cool, almost detached.
She turned and went to the kitchen to put the flowers into the sink and filled the tub halfway full of water. She wanted him to wait and suffer like she had waited for what had seemed like an eternity. She glanced up to the window and saw his reflection. Slouched in a way that drew her eyes to his groin, she hoped a reaction to her lack of clothing had ravaged his discipline.
Yes! His eyes didn’t lie and neither did his body. Up to now, his words had been the enemy.
For a few seconds, she stopped, watched him and wondered. Did his anxiety mean he wasn’t confident of her response?
Was he as edgy inside as he now seemed to appear on the outside?
Did the man know how many muscles rippled in his chest as he shifted his body?
With her heart racing, she led him to the living room and stopped in front of the blazing fire. He came up behind her. With him standing so close, yet not touching, he aroused luscious tingles, starting at the nape of her neck. They shot straight to her feminine hearth, scorching it with flames equal to those in the fireplace.
As his voice whispered into her flowing hair, her knees weakened. She felt the movement from his seductive breath stirring the long strands, teasing her flesh, evoking whimpers. Her eyelids closed involuntarily and tremors attacked her body. Like an animal sensing danger, she stilled—quivering.
His voice assumed a vibrating hoarseness that happened in times of stress or tenderness. It skimmed over her senses while he whispered enticingly, “Baby, I want to touch you. I’m starving for you, Angel. I need my hands on you soon, or so
help me God, I’ll go insane. You’ve bewitched my days and invaded my nights with fantasies so beautiful, I want to bring them to life with you—only you.”
Mi Dios! Her wanton body started to sway invitingly, while her muscles weakened with throbbing desire. His ravenous need to have his hands on her skin built a mindless ache within her. But she remained silent, listening, his whispers mesmerizing. Touch me, for God’s sake! Touch me now, was the overwhelming prayer clambering through her smoldering, addled mind.
~*~
But he didn’t. He waited for some sign from her. Heart-wrenching adrenaline seeped from his chest and infected his knees, leaving him as weak as a small boy, a scared little child. Why won’t she look at me? Is this too little, too late? His pulse, rapidly beating, almost choked him while his anxiety mounted.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, she fell back a step, closer to his surging, flowing heat. It was like she lost strength as the tension swelled unbearably, increasingly—intolerably.
He groaned, beckoning her to come closer. “I want to put my hands on every part of your incredibly lovely, sexy body. Then I want my lips to follow. To kiss you, touch you, press my body into yours, love you and have your precious spirit joining with mine until there is no me, no you, no time, no place, just us. That’s what I want, Angel. You have to tell me now. Is it what you want?”
Her body stiffened. But she didn’t look at him.
“For pity’s sake, turn around. Show me! Give me some sign that you feel the same way.” He all but sobbed the last word. “Please...!”
Excruciating seconds passed before she turned. Her slumberous, luminous, turquoise eyes crept upward revealing her soul, love and pride blazing proudly for him to see.
She flung herself into his waiting, desperate arms and he reacted quickly. Wrapping himself around her, he groaned, “Oh, God. Thank you.” The words seemed wrenched from his lips, his tortured voice evidence of the traumatic moment.
Hugging her was heaven, and so he just kept hugging and rocking back and forth as if to spread balm on his injured, frightened spirit.
Chapter 63
His body’s shuddering troubled Angelina’s conscience. Wanting to sooth, she reached up and kissed everywhere she could. Tiny love kisses like a parent might give to a frightened child.
“Ssh,” she whispered, at the same time tantalizing him with the involuntary rubbing of her body, back and forth, closer and harder.
Catching on, enjoying her treatment, his lips followed the same dance as hers, softly kissing her on her forehead, her eyes, then on to her neck, changing direction to slide over her lips and then her throat.
Their breath became labored, the sounds themselves stimulating.
“Enough,” she groaned. Grabbing his face, she scalded his lips with the same desires that were flooding her body. Tasting saltiness made her heart swell even fuller. He was big—yes! Strong—very! But he was also unabashedly vulnerable, exposed in his love. Her own tenderness grew miraculously and overflowed.
It was her turn to give him the same vulnerability, her gift.
“Mi amor,” she said brokenly, “I’ll die if you don’t make me yours soon, your lover and your woman.” It was obvious that her husky, accented voice affected him.
Lifting her into his arms, he laid her gently on the snowy Alpaca rug in front of the blazing fireplace, and began to make her every dream come true. Hunger invaded, overcoming gentler emotions. At first, his mouth took hers in a heated kiss so emotionally charged that the large body covering hers shuddered. Then he rocked against her, his swollen need apparent.
Little by little, his shaking hands unbuttoned the tiny pearls decorating her provocative nightgown. All the while, his hungry lips unbuttoned the last coherent thought in her functioning mind. Now released, the faint essence of Shalimar floated around them. His lips moved aside the lacy edges, and with his teeth and tongue he licked and bit his way over her throbbing, plump breasts. His hands came up and made love to the beauties, then kneaded and stroked as he lowered her filmy nightwear to her waist.
Shaking with desire, she arched repeatedly trying to get closer to him. Her whimpers spurred him on and he quickly shed his shirt and lowered his nakedness over hers. Breast to breast, they rubbed back and forth, the friction igniting more flames lower down. Her hands caressed his smooth, tapered back, holding him in place. But he never stopped moving and whispering.
“Angel, you’re so beautiful—so warm and soft. I love how you feel. Beautiful girl. Mine.”
She answered in her own tongue. Passionately whispered, her Spanish, so very sensual, sounded like X-rated music.
Driven, he kissed her again, this time deeply as if he couldn’t get enough. His tongue in her mouth licking and sucking was driving her insane. When she lost her ability to breathe, she twisted her head encouraging him to move down to her throat, where he made love from side to side, back and forth. Swollen, her breasts ached and she wanted his lips there so badly she moaned her demand.
As if her need called to him, he found her nipples once again and lathed them with his tongue and then drew them into his mouth to love them until she cried out.
Working his way down her shuddering body, her nightgown still wrapped around her lower half prompted him to slow for as long as it took him to strip her completely. Leaning back on his knees, his eyes searing with passion, he took the time to adore her. With her hair fanned out adorning her naked body, she proudly posed for her lover.
Unskilled, unsure of her moves, and entirely unwilling to let that stand in her way, she lifted her naked arms and smiled her welcome.
And… he didn’t waste any time to satisfy her demand and satiate her every cell with ecstasy.
Her provocative moans and erotic writhing were his undoing. He searched for her swollen lips with his hungry mouth and her drenched slick femininity with his swollen manhood.
With every scorching hot, surging plunge of his body, the flames in the fire leapt simultaneously in rhythm, burning the wood until soft glowing embers were all that remained.
~*~
Between the first and the second round of lovemaking, they stopped like all lovers to have the talk every woman loved and most men disliked with a passion.
They were cuddled together still in front of the fire. His back was against the sofa while he held her in front of him snuggled in his arms. Being inherently shy, Angelina had donned her nightie and respecting her naivety, Joe had slipped into his jeans.
“When did you first know you cared about me?” She was still scared to use the L-word because her memory, albeit a little rattled, was still reliable. Not once did she actually hear him say the word every woman needed to hear for total reassurance.
“From the first moment I saw you.”
“The first moment?”
“You terrified me, and I knew.”
She giggled. “I did not terrify you.”
“Oh yes, you did. I understood right from the first time I saw you that you were a woman I couldn’t mess around with. You were wife material.”
Twisting around to look at his face, she saw the fond grin plastered over his expression, and the tender look in his overly bright green gaze. “Really?”
“Yep! I wanted you right from the beginning, and it drove me crazy not being able to have you.”
“We both know that isn’t true.” Giving him her trust, she admitted. “We both know…I was infatuated.”
Suffused in a glow of tenderness, he lowered his face and nestled his cheek against hers. “Not true. You loved me,” he said softly.
With a sobbing breath, she kissed him, turning into his arms. “I did… do. So much.” Sweet kisses quickly altered, until she pushed him away and held him there. “Muy bien, Gringo. Now it’s your turn.”
His chuckle made her eyes narrow and he quickly got the hint. “Angel, I’ll love you till the day I die and then into eternity. Are you happy n—?”
Her crushing lips cut off his words. Pull
ing away, she moaned. “Querido, how many times must I show you that I’m no Angel?”
“How about for the rest of our lives?”
Chapter 64
The morning is so lovely, thought Angelina, still wrapped in a sexually satisfied glow from the weekend she’d just spent with Joe. She saw beauty in a scene that every other day would be just the norm. Sitting with her feet perched on a pulled-out bottom desk drawer, her hands wrapped behind her head, she gazed out her window and beamed.
They’d talked about their future, and while kissing her into a state of passionate frenzy, he’d pressed to marry him soon. Explaining that Lee had beaten him to the proposal and Coralee had set their date in two weeks, she promised they could tie the knot a few weeks later. Dreaming of white satin gowns, decorating her grandmother’s house and the various flower gardens where she’d promised Coralee they could hold the ceremony, she drifted.
Normally, Monday mornings tended to be her day to get an early start on a week full of projects. It was the day she eagerly anticipated during the weekend when her active mind traveled to all the tasks left unfinished the week before.
This Monday was different. Today, her mind scrolled through images of her and Joe and the time they’d spent together over the last thirty-six intensely romantic hours. Work was a four-letter word and not too important in the scheme of Angelina’s fantasies. Unfortunately, though, life did have a way of moving on.
When Adam Small, the investigator, popped in and asked to have a private meeting with Tee, everyone in the office looked concerned. That is except for Angelina. Neither Johnnie nor Coralee had been informed of what Tee was doing with her portion of the funds she’d received from finding the gold. It was a secret between Angelina, Grandma and Tee— at Tee’s specific request.
