She kissed him. Hard. Physically. With none of the hesitations and inexperience that she had shown a million years ago, last night. One leg brushed up his thigh, one hand caressed his hard, but sensitive abdomen. He felt an immediate reaction in his groin.
She had learned how to kiss. And he had been the man to teach her.
“Oh, no,” he protested, pulling away reluctantly but firmly. “You’re getting on a plane out of here. Come to think of it, I’ll drive you to the airport myself. Just to be sure. You have this funny habit of staying when you don’t belong.”
“My plane leaves in two hours,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“So I’ll buy you a hot dog at the concessionaire,” he replied, taking her hands right back off his neck.
“No, we have two hours, Zach. That gives us just enough time.”
“For what?”
“For this.”
And she kissed him again. This time she didn’t let go. “I’m not going back without a goodbye kiss,” she said huskily.
“No, Angel, you need to make a life for yourself,” he said, pulling her fingers out from behind his neck. He knew just how dangerous her kisses could be. “You need a husband and children and a home of your own. Don’t look for any of that here, baby. I can’t give it to you. Make your life somewhere else.”
“But, Zach, that’s the point! I haven’t made my life in the ten years I’ve been gone. I’ve been waiting for you, I’ve put things on hold for you, I’ve always had in the back of my mind an idea that you are my husband.”
“You’ve done a lot with your life,” Zach protested. “You’ve finished college, you’re a professional in a career, you’re—”
“I haven’t stopped loving you. And I can’t even stop now, when I know I should.” She stepped closer, spreading her thin, pale hands across his chest.
His skin pulsed beneath the soft fabric of his shirt. “You’ll find someone else.”
“I’ve dated a few men and I’ve thought things might become serious a couple of times. But I feel as if I’m cheating on you somehow. Besides, I always judge a man by you and then I’m disappointed when he can’t measure up to the standard you’ve set.”
“Measure up to me?” He chuckled. “Angel, tonight I sure don’t feel like anybody’s standard of what a man should be.” Then he realized he was softening. Showing a true side of himself. That’s not what she should see now. That wasn’t how to play it. “So, other men don’t measure up, do they?” he asked, tilting his chin up in a show of pride.
“No, they don’t,” she said, dropping her head to one shoulder, revealing the quickened pulse of her neck. “Maybe that’s what comes from being promised to a man on your christening day. And when we made love ten years ago, I really felt as if you were making me your wife. It meant that much to me.”
“But I abandoned you by sending you off to Vegas on your own. Abandonment is grounds for divorce in all fifty states.”
“I could stay.”
“You don’t take orders very well. This is your goodbye, Angel. Anything else would be wrong.”
Just as he would lean down to kiss the blue line that throbbed beneath the pale skin of her neck, she pulled away from him and sauntered across the living room floor.
“Zach, just this once. Please, just this once.”
“Why do you want it so bad?”
“Because I need to say goodbye. I need there to be a goodbye.”
“It would be wrong for you,” he said truthfully. It would also be wrong for him. He wasn’t sure how he could retain his self-control.
“Do you want to say goodbye to me?”
“Sure, baby,” he said. “Goodbye.”
“No, Zach,” she said, turning and wagging a finger at him. “Say goodbye to me.. Really say goodbye to me.”
“I thought that was a pretty good goodbye.”
She lazily approached him. She kissed him, drawing in his sweetness, teasing his tongue with hers. She was bold, she was sensuous, she was in charge whether he liked it or not and she wasn’t leaving him until she got what she wanted.
“Zach, just this once,” she said when he pulled away. “And then I’ll leave you. I promise. I’ll walk right out that door, get on a plane and never see you again. Because I shouldn’t see you again even if I wanted to. You’re telling me you’re a dangerous man, a man with no scruples. And I’m trying to believe you—but all I have in my head is the Zach who does his best to do what is right.”
She pulled her T-shirt up over her head. Underneath was a plain white bra. She thrust her breasts forward, making no secret of the pleasure she gained at the way his eyes slid down from her face in open appraisal. He wanted her—even as his mouth sputtered a plea that she put her clothes back on.
She was the kind of woman who had kept herself under wraps for so long that she had begun to doubt that she had the kind of feminine power that other women took for granted. But one look at Zach’s distress confirmed her hold on him.
And confirmed for Zach how much he must resist
Zach groaned. “Angel, if you take off your clothes, I’ll…”
Disobediently, she unzipped her jeans and slid them down her hips. Her stomach was flat, and had the untried quality of a woman who had never borne children. She shimmied suggestively to kick the jeans away and he moaned aloud.
“Put your clothes back on.”
“Zach, if you’re as unscrupulous as you want me to think, you should have no problem bedding me now.”
“We shouldn.’t”
“What—you have qualms all of a sudden?” Angel taunted. “You’re in business with my brothers, you’re turning your back on the district attorney’s office, you’ve rejected the law and now you’re hesitating about having sex with a woman who’s just said she wants to?”
“It’s making love.”
“It depends on what kind of man you are.”
Chapter Thirteen
For a brief instant, he saw her doubt—was he that kind of man? Sometimes he had wondered about himself. After all, he was a strong, virile, handsome man. Women were easy with Zach, and he could have his pick—glamorous women, exotic women, actresses, models, secretaries and lawyers. Still, he had turned his back on the nightlife because he, like Angel, had experienced a niggling feeling of guilt, as if he were cheating on her every time he was with another woman.
“I don’t excite you?” she asked.
But the glitter in his steel eyes betrayed him, telling her he was definitely not bored by her display. The flick of his tongue across his lips assured her that while she might be only one of many women, she was the only one he wanted.
Funny, she exhibited no modesty in front of him.
“I can’t, Angel, I can’t.”
“We did it the other night. Just what kind of man are you, Zach?”
She kicked her jeans out of the way and slid her fingers beneath the spaghetti strap of her bra. Dropping one over her shoulder and then another. Teasing him mercilessly. He slumped into the white denim slipcovered armchair and stared helplessly.
Enjoying her feminine power to entice, to excite, to entrance, Angel raised her hands and flipped her hair back from her face. A seemingly casual gesture, but instinctively she knew what she was doing. All she had to do was watch his eyes; the way his pupils dilated told her when she was doing something right.
That and the straining at his groin.
He was like an instruction manual opened to the page on how to torment a man.
She rubbed her hand across her shoulders, enticing his imagination with what his fingers could touch—if he only said the word.
Her breasts rose high, nipples taut and bloodred.
Zach growled and roused himself. In two strides, he crossed the living room and swept her up into his arms as easily as if she were a paper doll.
A stab of fear within her was immediately followed by an exhilaration she had never known. His face was close, his breath hot and sweet on her skin.
“Dammit, Angel, you can’t torment a man like this and not expect—”
“Oh, but I do expect.” She pouted.
He took her lips, a kiss brutal with longing and nothing like the tenderness of their long-ago courtship.
This was a man’s kiss and she responded as a woman—with an excitement that fired at her core like hot oil.
He carried her into the bedroom, kicking shut the door behind him. He dropped her on top of the bed, and if she was expecting a sudden tender declaration of love she got none.
He still thought he could do this his way.
He bore down on top of her, spreading her legs apart to accommodate his torso—his clothes rubbed rough against her delicate skin.
He caressed every inch of her as if desperate to mark her as his own, he suckled at her full breasts to bring the aching of her heart to fruition and he splayed his fingers possessively at the soft mound at her sex.
She should loathe him, she should reject him, she should despise him; she should get up, walk out of this apartment, out of this city, and never look back.
He wondered why she didn’t
“Now, Zach, now,” she whispered, though she scarcely knew what she was asking for.
He didn’t wait, his need for her so great. He tugged at his shirt and tie. Though she helped with trembling fingers, it was he who threw off his clothes as if he were a savage throwing off the last vestiges of an uncomfortable and despised civilization.
As he knelt above her, his thighs forcing apart her legs, Angel stared at his manhood, engorged with blood and pulsating with life.
“Now,” she repeated, and she lay back on the comforter, her hand flat against her stomach to still her breathing. “Zach, I want you.”
Assured of her readiness, he held himself above her, his sweat-slicked arms stiff like columns on either side of her shoulders.
His manhood paused at a point of resistance and then entered her in a breathtaking moment of mingled pain and momentous pleasure.
“Look at me,” he commanded quietly.
She obeyed. His eyes glinted hard like silver, sparked at each thrust into her wanting body. She felt him stir a whirlpool of sensation.
As his movements quickened, bringing them closer to the moment of ecstasy, the color of his eyes softened like a watercolor. Mingling gray and dusty blue and dappled gold.
He called out her name.
She clawed at the powerful muscles of his back.
And then in a dazzling instant, they were electrified with pleasure. A pleasure that coiled like a spiral of stars. She looked into his eyes at that moment and he knew she saw into his soul.
She had found him out. It had just taken more than a single kiss for her to know him.
THEY LAY SATED but still wanting…everything.
As their breathing quieted, Zach reluctantly pulled out of her. “You still have to go,” he murmured, laying beside her and putting his arms around her.
“What?”
“I meant what I said.”
She shook her head. “I know you lied about being in business with my brother, I know you lied about the kind of man you are,” she said. “You’ve been trying to persuade me that you’re no good to make me walk out that door and never look back. But you can’t lie to me when you kiss, when you make love to me. Now tell me what’s really going on. Tell me the truth this time.”
Zach stared up at the ceiling, watching the play of traffic lights.
“I have made a deal, Angel, but it’s not the one I told you about.”
He leaned against her spoonwise, feeling his breath touch her shoulder.
“What is the deal?”
“Why do you have to know?” he said, suddenly tired of all the balancing acts he performed to keep so many people in safety. “Isn’t it good enough for you to trust me and just go when I tell you to go?”
A dazzling pattern of red and blue light flew across the ceiling. At first Angel thought it was the aftershock of bliss. But Zach leapt to the window, separating the slats of the blinds to get a look. And then gave a murderous glance to the heavens.
“Police,” he barked. “Get dressed.”
She got up, looking back only once as he flipped the comforter over the bed.
She scampered to the living room, grabbed her clothes and slammed the bathroom door shut behind her just as the police hammered on the front door.
“Open up, Mr. Martin, we have a warrant for your arrest!”
“Coming, coming.” Zach’s muffled reply. “You don’t have to knock the door down.”
In the bathroom, Angel studied her face in the mirror. Her hair was tousled, her cheeks pink and the touch of mascara she had applied before dinner was smudged. She looked terrible, but in an odd way, she looked at peace.
She knew she would be his bride, forever, no matter what their fates. And that meant more than skillfully applied mascara or the most flattering shade of lipstick.
The barrage of sounds from beyond the bathroom door made her guess there were three policemen, maybe more.
She quickly slipped on her clothes, running Zach’s comb through her hair and wetting a washcloth to wipe under her eyes. When she came out of the bathroom, she found four uniformed cops prowling around the apartment Zach was in handcuffs. His face hung low.
She ignored the open appraisal of the police, though she knew they were speculating about the intimacy between her and Zach.
Bucking against the cuffs, Zach jerked his head toward her suitcase. “Get going, Angel,” he said. “You’ve got a plane to catch.”
“What are you being arrested for?”
Zach shook his head.
The police officer eyed her and then cruelly spat out the answer. “Murder.”
“He didn’t murder my parents.”
“Nobody said nothin’ about your parents, lady.”
“Whose murder?” Angel demanded.
“Ma’am, I was just sent down here to get him,” the officer said. “We don’t discuss charges with…hey, you’re not his lawyer, are you? I didn’t think lawyers had nighttime office hours,” the cop said, pleased with his wit.
“She’s not my lawyer,” Zach responded for her.
“Zach, are they taking you to jail?”
“Just get out. For once stop being so damned stubborn and go!”
And he was taken away, the officers not bothering to close the door behind them.
She looked at her suitcase, at her little purse and at the empty living room. The smart thing to do would be to clear out now. Head west and keep going without a backward glance.
He had actually done her a favor telling her to get out.
She grabbed his car keys from the coffee table.
THE DEARBORN STREET precinct house was a squat gray block guarding the no-man’s-land between the housing projects and the luxurious Gold Coast.
Angel parked Zach’s car across the street, worried when a gang of street punks eyed the vehicle speculatively, and then pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of her envelope purse.
“There’s more where that came from if the car’s still here when I get back,” she said.
A wide-eyed youth snatched the bill from her and shoved it into his jeans pocket
“It’ll be here,” he promised.
She stopped at the processing counter to ask for help, but the desk sergeant was having a heated conversation over the phone about transferring some prisoners, and a beat cop came in with two men in cuffs.
The sergeant glanced up, saw the two competing interests and nodded an acknowledgment to the beat cop even while mouthing off an obscenity to the person on the other end of the phone.
Using the distraction, Angel slipped down the hall, looking in every doorway for someone who knew where Zach was.
At last, she found a woman cop with a pencil stuck behind her ear who jerked her head toward the stairs when Angel mentioned Zach’s name. The second
floor was nearly empty, with only the occasional uniformed officer passing her in the gray, fluorescent-lit halls.
“Zach, Zach, where are you?”
Angel nearly gave up and. went back downstairs, and then she saw the woman on a gray metal bench at the end of the hallway. Her head was bowed, her face red and wet with tears, a fur coat around her shoulders dirty with ash and soot
“Maria!” Angel cried.
Maria looked up, a glimmer of fear and—could it be?—anger in her face. And then she. pushed herself up from her chair and came into Angel’s arms with renewed sobbing and keening.
“What happened?” Angel demanded, soothing her sister-in-law, stroking her hair. “Did you get hurt?”
Maria shook her head vehemently. “No, it’s my Tony!” she exclaimed. “My beloved Tony! He went to start the car and…”
“Oh, no.”
“Yes, it blew up. I watched my husband die! Now I am a widow!”
Angel closed her eyes to the bitter truth.
“How can so many bad things happen to our family?” Maria sobbed. “Why do we have to endure so much? I’m going to my family’s home in Italy. I can’t take this town anymore.”
“Who did this?”
“You oughta know.” Maria sniffed. “You loved that man.”
“Zach? That can’t be.”
Maria’s eyes narrowed with ferocious venom.
“The district attorney told me it was Zach. He ordered Tony’s murder and I believe him. That Martin boy is a monster!”
“No! No! No! It can’t be true. Please, it can’t be. He worked for O’Malley.”
“That doesn’t mean he was a good man.”
“He is a good man.”
“No, Angel, he’s a murderer and we let him into our home, offered him our hospitality. You were to be married to him. Your father was his godfather, his father was like an uncle to the whole family. Tony considered Zach his closest friend. I even liked him, although…” She dabbed her eyes. “Although I always had my suspicions about him.”
“He couldn’t have done it.”
“Oh, but he did. And he’s the one who killed Papa and Mama Sciopelli.”
“No, no, Maria, that can’t be true! There must be some mistake.”
His Betrothed Page 11
