He nipped her neck, a stinging heat jolting her into silence. His grip on her wrists was tight, determined, as his mouth continued to nip roughly along the column of her throat before sucking on the cord of her neck. Her eyes shut on their own, her resistance crumbling. She wanted him so damn much. She let out a soft sigh of surrender, prepared to do whatever Damon wanted.
And then it all stopped.
Angel lifted his head, standing protectively close, shielding her from view. Female laughter rang out as a group of women approached and then entered the ladies’ room.
She came back to herself. Holy crap. What if they’d been in there fucking in a bathroom stall when a group of women discovered them? This had gone too far.
“Taradiddle,” she said clearly.
He dropped her wrists, turned, and walked back in the direction of the bar.
She sank against the wall and let out a shaky breath. A few moments later, she picked up her purse from where she’d dropped it, pulled out her cell, and called him. “Who are you?”
“Who do you want me to be?” he asked darkly.
“Angel. And no more Damon.” Damon made her want to do crazy things. She was still reeling from how shockingly, deliciously good at role-playing Angel was. She’d been so caught up in it that she’d almost forgotten what was at stake. Their friendship was more important than a sexy game that would only end in disaster.
“All right, come out here.” His voice took on a teasing tone. “Don’t be afraid of the dark Angel.”
She hung up and shook her head at this surprising new side of him, rough and carnal, yet still teasing, as their long friendship allowed. She trusted him with her life. She could never be afraid of him, and he knew that.
She returned to the bar and took the seat next to her safe best friend. She glanced at him and pasted on a smile.
He did a double take. “Hey, where you been?”
And just like that, Angel was back.
What did it say about her that she missed Damon? She was seriously screwed up.
Chapter Nine
The next day when Julia headed to her usual lunch table in the teachers’ lounge, the women were speaking in hushed tones. Angel was smiling. Oh boy. She really hoped they weren’t talking about the Fierce trilogy again. She was in no way prepared to hear Angel talking about Damon and Mia while he sent her knowing looks, reminding her in his subtle way of their role play at the bar last night. They needed to have a serious talk about boundaries and lines that would not be crossed and how sex ruined everything.
And the importance of their friendship.
And how sex ruined everything.
And, most importantly, how sex ruined everything.
The last time she slept with Angel haunted her.
“I’m an adulteress in my dead husband’s bed,” she’d sobbed in the aftermath of an explosive release that opened her defenses and sent her into sobbing, uncontrollable tears as the grief and guilt gripped her.
“You’re not an adulteress,” Angel said.
“I am.”
“Not anymore.” Because now she was a widow. The unspoken words made her cry harder. Angel held her until she quieted and finally slept. And when she woke, he was gone. Bailing on her. Again. Just like the first time—she’d returned to campus after visiting Brad in the hospital, and Angel had disappeared.
She scowled, took out her healthy salad, and gave her lunch a good glare. She couldn’t believe Angel had forgotten the aftermath of their last explosive time together. This was a very dangerous game he was playing.
“Look!” Ally squealed, shoving her hand in Julia’s face to show off a diamond ring. “I’m engaged!”
“Already?” she blurted before quickly covering with a hasty, “Congratulations.”
Ally, only twenty-three and way too trusting, beamed. “I know it’s only been a month, but it’s true love. I really think those spicy books tipped the scales in my favor. Mark is all over me every night.”
“What spicy books are these?” a teacher at a nearby table asked.
“The Fierce trilogy by Catherine Cliff,” Ally announced to the entire room of a dozen teachers, all women. “You’ve got to read them. Erotic, but in a really sensual delicious way.”
“Very dirty,” Angel said, making Julia blush and everyone laugh.
Ally made the rounds of the lounge, showing off her ring and singing the praises of the books. She returned to the table in triumph. “I think pretty soon we can have a book club here too. Everyone wants to read them.”
“They should,” Angel said, looking right at Julia. She felt herself flush and struggled in vain to hide it. Dammit.
“Will you be my bridesmaid, Julia?” Ally asked, startling Julia from her own battle of lusty wills.
She hadn’t realized they were that close. “Oh. Of course.”
“Yay!” Ally squealed. “It was you, after all, that inspired me to read all those books.”
Julia smoothed her hair and sputtered, “I-I can’t imagine why.”
“Because you were blushing so much I knew you must’ve read the first one and thought it was really good.”
“Did you read it ahead of time?” Angel asked Julia.
Julia’s cheeks and neck burned. Just once she’d like to be cool enough not to blush when she was the center of attention. “I was just as surprised as everyone else when Hailey started off with that one.”
“And Angelo, will you be a groomsman?” Ally asked. “I know we’re not as close as me and Julia are, but we need one more guy to even out the wedding party.” Ally cringed. “That sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Never mind. Sorry.”
“I’d love to,” Angel replied. “An honor. Thank you.”
“Oh,” Ally tittered. Then she spoke in a stage whisper to the other women at the table. “Too bad he doesn’t date coworkers.”
“Too bad,” Julia muttered under her breath.
“What?” Ally asked brightly.
Julia shook her head. “Nothing.” She didn’t want to be a downer on Ally’s bright, happy day. She was just having trouble wrapping her mind around this rush wedding. And, truthfully, she knew it would be hard to be at a wedding. She hadn’t been to one since her own. One that she’d had doubts and guilt over, but had gone through with anyway.
“You should get in touch with Hailey,” Julia said. “She’d be thrilled to plan your wedding at Ludbury House.”
Ally pushed her blond hair behind her ears. “I already did! I called her before I called my parents. The couple that was going to be married on Valentine’s Day broke up, so it’s all mine! Can you believe it? I’m going to be married in just two weeks!”
“Wow,” Julia said, biting back every warning about rushing into things that immediately came to mind.
Dana, Emma, and Suzanne launched into a long discussion on the wedding gown, and Dana pulled up her wedding Pinterest board on her cell phone to show Ally all the gorgeous dresses, cakes, and flowers she’d pinned. And Dana didn’t even have a boyfriend. Julia’s own wedding had mostly been planned by her mom and Brad’s mom since she and Brad had been studying for final exams in college. She’d been finishing up her sophomore year; Brad had been a senior ready to graduate. What would it have been like to actually enjoy planning a wedding? To fuss over the details? To go dress shopping? Even for the gown, Julia missed out. Her mom had taken her measurements and had her own wedding gown taken in to fit her. Julia hadn’t wanted to turn away the sweet gesture. She and her adopted mom had finally reconciled when she’d gotten engaged. In no small part because Angel had given her some tough love after she’d told him her idea about eloping since neither she nor Brad were close to their parents.
She’d never forget how harsh Angel had been with her, in a way he’d never been before, practically yelling in her face. At least it had felt like it coming from her best friend.
He’d jabbed a finger at her, standing so close she could feel the fury radiating off him. “You know what, Julia? Yo
u’re going to act like an adult? Get married, buy a house, the whole deal, then grow up and go thank your mom for taking you in as a daughter, instead of despising her for adopting you!”
Tears stung her eyes and she recoiled, taking a step back. Angel had always been so careful of her feelings. She tried to explain. “It’s just the way she hid it from me, springing it on me at my high school graduation. You know my story.”
“So she made a mistake,” he snapped. “People make mistakes. Move on.”
He’d left in an angry rush. It physically hurt her to have Angel mad at her. But he’d gotten through to her. She realized he was right, she needed to face life as an adult now, even if she was technically still in her teens. Nineteen was legally an adult. She’d apologized to her mom, who’d promptly apologized to her, and they’d both ended up crying and hugging. They were too different to ever be very close, but things did gradually improve from there. Enough that she could truly enjoy having her parents at her wedding. Even if she was a tangled emotional mess. She knew it was far too late to back out. Her husband-to-be was going off to a war zone. He loved her. She loved him.
Julia had stood at the altar next to Brad, but all she could see was Angel, best man at Brad’s side, reminding her that love didn’t work in threes.
~ ~ ~
Julia had a meeting with a realtor early Saturday morning, who toured the house and seemed pleased with it. The woman was no-nonsense and flat out told her she’d have to empty the basement. People needed to be able to walk through the basement and imagine their own stuff there. So Julia found herself at nine a.m., girding her loins as she paced the living room before her descent into serious Brad territory. Since she had to take a trip to his parents’ house soon anyway, as he’d requested in her letter, this would be a good time to gather his boxes from childhood and give them back. She should probably donate the workout equipment too, though she’d need some help hauling it up out of the basement. She called Angel for help in hauling the boxes to her car, making sure he understood she’d be going to Brad’s parents’ house solo, and he promised to stop by after lunch after he finished tutoring. He had three students every Saturday morning that he helped brush up on the classwork they couldn’t quite grasp because of attention difficulties.
Three hours later, Julia was knee-deep in old memories, both from Brad’s boxes from childhood and from her own. She sat cross-legged on the floor in her sweater and leggings, covered in dust, her eyes gritty from all the crying she’d done. She’d found her old collection of dolls, her first day of school dresses, even her silly trading cards from a fad on ugly trolls. Brad’s old school pictures had hit her hard. He looked like the kind of kid who’d be tough to handle in the classroom, mischief written all over his face. Memories of him—his joking crazy ways, his wildness—bombarded her tender heart, each one a sharp stab on an old wound. He’d been so different from her, a golden god, larger than life, opening her up to parties and people in a way she’d never experienced before. It wasn’t until they’d dated for three months that he’d changed, really settling down and getting serious about life. Not just about her, but also serious about school, thinking about his future. She’d found it flattering that he wanted to take his future seriously because, as he said, he wanted to be the man she deserved, even as she longed for his old fun ways. But how could she complain? A golden god had put her—plain, mousy Julia—on a pedestal. She’d never felt special before Brad. Why couldn’t that have been enough? Why did she turn to Angel?
She shoved the box of Brad’s pictures and report cards (none of them good) over to the long row of Brad stuff she needed to haul upstairs and into her car. A wall of Brad. She took a deep breath and turned to another box. None of the boxes were labeled, so each one was a painful surprise. She opened it and found all of his Little League trophies. A chill ran through her, and she crossed her arms, hugging herself. She should’ve had kids of her own by now. If Brad hadn’t died, she probably would’ve. They’d talked about that. She wanted kids of her own so badly. He would’ve gotten out of the army at twenty-five. She would’ve been twenty-three. Their child would’ve been five. Maybe in their first year of Little League.
A voice spoke through the thick silence, startling her. “We should give all these boxes back to his parents.” Angel. She relaxed, knowing he’d share the burden with her. He was her rock.
“I will,” she said, giving him a grateful smile for showing up. “Thanks for coming.”
“Of course.” He crossed to her, peeked in the box that had made her falter with could-have-beens, and closed it up. “I got it. I’ll put these in your car.”
She nearly wept with relief. “Thank you.”
He made short work of it, carrying two or three boxes stacked at a time, ten boxes in all. So far, anyway. He returned downstairs with two glasses of water and handed her one. She drank greedily, parched from her work and from crying.
“I couldn’t fit it all in your car, so I put some in mine too,” he said. “I’ll go with you.”
She shook her head. “No, I told you I need to do this on my own. I’ll rent a van.” She was supposed to read Brad’s letter with his parents. She didn’t want Angel to have to go through that or deal with the aftermath of whatever it said.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Remember the letter?”
“Fucking Brad,” Angel muttered. He took a long drink of water.
She drank too, the cool liquid easing the tightness in her throat. “I just have to get it over with. I’m already worked up, going through all this stuff. I’m heading up there tomorrow.”
“You still in touch with his parents?”
She nodded. “I talk to his mom regularly. She’s still having a hard time. He was an only child. Like me.”
Angel took their empty glasses and set them on the floor near the stairs, out of the way. “So where do I start?”
She waved a hand at the mess of boxes she still had to go through. They were lined up as tall as she was in three rows. “None of them are labeled. The movers packed everything for us. Just open a box and, if it looks like his stuff, put it over there to go to his parents. My stuff I’m either going to donate or put in one of these two containers.” She pointed to the empty clear plastic boxes. “No more hanging onto the past than that. It’s one of the principles in that decluttering book.”
He opened a box. “You sure liked that book.”
“I think I just needed a push to come out of my dark little cave.”
“It’s definitely brighter upstairs,” he said, reaching into the box. “Oh, wow. Julia.”
“What?”
“You kept this?” He held up a fat peppermint stick with a small folded card. He’d given it to her early December of her freshman year. She’d never forget the simple message—Merry Christmas, Love, Angel. Back then she’d spent a lot of time reading that little card, marveling at the “love” part. She and Angel had barely spoken beyond a quick hello and goodbye at the time because she’d started dating Brad, and Brad and Angel had a big fight and weren’t speaking at all. Something about that little card wrapped around her heart and squeezed. She’d gone to his dorm room to thank him, and he’d blushed furiously, saying it was nothing, which made her blush furiously because she’d thought it meant something. She’d felt foolish and left. But she’d kept it because it gave her a warm glow every time she looked at it.
Angel’s voice came out hoarse. “I can’t believe you kept this.”
She forced a laugh. “I’m a hoarder.”
He stared at it. “It’s pretty well preserved considering it’s ten years old. Just a little bit of the red melted into pink. You remember what the card said?”
“Of course.”
Angel gave her a strange look somewhere between wary and curious. He set the gift back in the box and slowly made his way around the mess of boxes and over to where she sat on the floor. He reached for her hands and pulled her up to stand. His expression was serious, his dark b
rown eyes searching hers. “Tell me what it says.”
“Merry Christmas, Love, Angel,” she answered without hesitation.
He took a staggering step back like she’d shoved him. He plowed both hands in his hair. “If it meant so much to you that you kept it all this time, then why didn’t we happen back then?”
She felt herself flush. “I, well, you said it was nothing. Remember? I thanked you and—” her voice dropped to a whisper “—you said it was nothing.” Her cheeks and neck burned, embarrassed all over again at the silly hopes of a freshman who’d never had a boyfriend, let alone two guys she adored.
She lifted her chin and met his eyes, so tired of the way the past tortured her in so many ways, big and small. “I didn’t want to be an idiot and read more into it than there was.”
He closed his eyes as if the words pained him.
“Angel?”
He pinned her with a hard look. “You know what Damon would’ve done that day?”
She took a careful step back.
“What I should’ve done?” he asked harshly, the words scraping across her already raw nerves.
“Don’t be mad at me,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper as he crossed into her personal space and backed her up. She bumped against one of the metal floor-to-ceiling support poles for the house, and he drew her arms behind her back, capturing her wrists in one hand, pinning her in place.
His other hand held her chin and tilted her head up. “I’m not mad at you.” His lips brushed across hers, making her knees weak. “I’m mad at myself.”
This was a bad idea. She was an emotional wreck, knee-deep in murky heart-wrenching Brad territory, which was no place for Angel. And they hadn’t had that talk yet. She’d meant to broach the sex-ruins-everything topic today, but the realtor sidetracked her with all of this basement crap. They couldn’t talk here. They needed to go upstairs into the light.
“Angel,” she said softly, “this isn’t a good time or place for—”
“It never is,” he said darkly before sliding his hand into her hair and cupping her head.
A Tempting Friendship (Clover Park #10) Page 10
