Worth a Thousand Words

by Doreen Alsen

  She had nothing to say to him. He had nothing to tell her that she wanted to listen to.

  A photographer. A freaking, damn photographer.

  She was totally made of stupid. Worse than that, the stupid came with a huge side dose of gullible.

  Touching the scar on her cheek, she went to her kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. This being summer, she didn’t have to turn on the lights.

  Oh, for God’s sake! She would not sneak around in her own house when she wanted to go into the kitchen and get a damn drink of water.

  Okay. It was Lucien’s house, but the principle was the same.

  She’d been reactive rather than proactive and it didn’t look good on her. Where was the Angelique who grabbed men by the balls and squeezed them until they yelped?

  Stuck hiding out in Lobster Cove, slinging hash and cleaning up the messes of the great, unwashed masses.

  Well, okay. They did bathe. She’d picked up, among other gross things, enough of their used and discarded towels when she had to chambermaid at the inn.

  Oh, check out the word sucker in the dictionary and you’d see Angelique’s picture right next to the entry.

  No more.

  She was so done with that.

  Listening with care, she realized he’d stopped knocking. A tiny, hypocritical piece of her heart was disappointed.

  Forget it. She’d played better men than T. L. Baldwin like a fiddle. Like a freaking Stradivarius. He’d crawl to her, begging for forgiveness.

  It would be a beautiful thing.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Tim hadn’t seen her for three days.

  Day one, he’d been upset by her act of defiance. Day two, he’d started to get a little annoyed. Day three, frustration nipped at his temper in sharp little snaps.

  He owed her an explanation. She owed him to listen to it.

  Damn woman.

  She had him tied up in knots and he didn’t like it. Not at all.

  He grabbed a beer and walked upstairs to the patio off his bedroom. A brisk wind blew in from the sea, carrying the scent of the ocean with it. It ruffled the floor-length white sheer curtains covering the open doors. Thoroughly unsettled and grumpy, he plopped down onto the chaise lounge on the balcony and stared out over the water.

  He could feel a storm brewing somewhere out in the distance. Black clouds would race in soon and he welcomed them, as they matched his mood.

  Just then, he saw Angie come out onto her back deck and down the stairs to the beach. The wind whipped her flowered dress around her legs and played with the ends of her long dark hair. She raised her hands over her head and turned around and around in a circle.

  He went and got his camera and started to snap. He just couldn’t stop himself.

  She played like a child by the sea, twirling as the rain started to fall slowly, big fat drops that landed with extravagant plops on her and on the beach. Turning her face to the sky, she laughed with abandon.

  That was the money shot he thought as excitement raced through him and made his heart pound. That exact moment when she faced the sky.

  Lightning cracked out on the horizon, a long straight spear into the sea. The rain fell harder now in needle-like drops that would sting when they hit her.

  With one last longing, joyful look to the darkening sky she went back into her house.

  He had to have her. He craved the taste of her, to run his greedy hands over her soft, silky skin. He wanted to gather her hair in his grasp and learn her scent. His body got hard just imagining it.

  He took a deep breath. First, he had to get her to talk to him.

  ****

  Angelique had never, ever done anything like dance by herself in the rain. She’d just felt the urge to go out and celebrate.

  Celebrate exactly what she didn’t know. Being alive, maybe. Or the intense feeling of freedom she’d just realized.

  She finally saved enough money to replace the shoes she’d ruined when she went sailing with Tim. Nobody else gave her the money. She’d earned it.

  She laughed with the power of it.

  Then she heard the knock on the door and knew absolutely who it was. Mr. T. L. Baldwin.

  She glanced through the book he’d left in her mailbox. It moved her beyond anything else she’d seen in her life. She wept for the lives of those miserable, lonely, terrified faces, especially the children.

  What he’d seen through his camera lens humbled her. It wasn’t intrusive. It wasn’t exploitive.

  It was breathtaking and beautiful, heartbreaking and sad.

  She’d wanted to make him pay for lying to her. After seeing the pictures in his book, she didn’t have the heart for it. She didn’t have the heart to be a ball buster anymore.

  Plus, if Bobbie Darling and Sadie were to be believed, he’d been kidnapped and tortured. That kind of made a stint in a French prison look like a walk in the park.

  Emphasis on the words ‘kind of.’

  She went and answered the door. “Tim.”

  He pushed past her into her living room. She shut the door behind him and turned to face him.

  And trembled at the intensity in his eyes.

  “I saw you dance,” he said in a low growl that rasped along every nerve in her body.

  “Yes.” It came out on a breath that felt like a prayer.

  One second he was standing there, the next he snatched her up into his arms and crashed his mouth against hers.

  She made a noise of distress and he immediately stopped the kiss. “Tell me you want me to kiss you. That you want me to touch you.”

  She sucked in a small sip of air. Did she want him to kiss her?

  God help her, she did. “Yes.”

  He bent his head and claimed her mouth again.

  This time his lips were as gentle as a whisper, teasing and coaxing hers to let him in. She opened up and let him in.

  Connected by a fire within both of them, they sparred with lips, teeth, and tongue, not gentle anymore.

  With every pass, she felt the greed, the desire for this man rise up in her. So she plundered as good as she got.

  The two of them ripped at each other’s clothes, Angelique desperate to connect skin to skin.

  Tim’s hands raced up and down her back, finally landing on her butt. He squeezed each perfect peach of a cheek and hauled her against him, rocking his erection against her tender flesh.

  She moaned. This drive, this maelstrom was so beyond her knowledge and her experience. All she could do was grab the tiger by the tail and hold on tight.

  The two of them struggled against each other until he dragged both of them down to the floor. Once there, he used his teeth to nip at each tight, aching nipple one first, then the other, then back again.

  He kept on alternating like that, sucking one rosy nipple as he plucked the other with his wicked clever fingers.

  She could barely breathe for the wash of pleasure breaking over her.

  She’d never felt passion as all-consuming as this. Every synapse she had snapped, crackled, and popped at every touch of his hand.

  She fisted her hands in his hair as he ran his mouth up and down her neck. That sexy stubble on his chin rubbed and scratched against her tender skin, adding to the thrill of it all.

  Still he kissed her as he moved down her body, laving her belly button with his tongue. His hands squeezed her butt as he pulled her legs over his shoulders and brought her sex up to his mouth. He used his tongue to tickle and tease her clitoris.

  “Ohhhhhh.” All she could do was moan and ride the waves of pleasure that lifted her higher and higher. He wrapped his lips around the hard button and sucked and she came apart.

  She screamed as her body pulsed over and over. Her heart beat erratically and she couldn’t breathe.

  He brought her down slowly, kissing her intimate flesh softly, slowly, chasing each shudder to completion.

  “I need to be inside you now,” he growled. After finding the condom he’d brought he
sheathed himself with trembling hands. In one quick move, he positioned his hard, erection against her soft flesh and buried himself in her to the hilt.

  She moaned as he claimed her, the sensation of being so totally filled by him. He began to move, plunging in and out, each thrust harder and deeper than the one before. Miraculously, she felt a climax to start to rise up in her again, powered by Tim’s back and forth.

  “God, you’re so tight.” He changed the angle of his penetration and managed to make her spasms build even faster. “Come for me.”

  That pushed her over the edge one more time and she keened as she fell. While she pulsed around his driving erection, he groaned long and low. “That’s it, baby. Jesus!” He exploded in three long, hot bursts.

  He dropped his head and captured her mouth and kissed her long and hard then rolled off of her, breathing hard, his chest heaving with each labored breath.

  ****

  “God, I’m sorry! I acted like an animal.” Tim had never been so rough with a woman in his life. “My only excuse is that it’s been so long for me.” He managed to push himself up to lie on one side. “I really came over to talk to you about me being a photographer.”

  “I liked it.”

  He closed his eyes. “You’re sweet.” He tucked some stray strands of her silky hair behind her ear. “I usually have more finesse.”

  She licked her lips. They were pink and swollen from his kisses. “Maybe you can show me some of that finesse the next time.”

  His heart about stopped. “There’s going to be a next time?”

  She smiled. “I hope so. Maybe in a bed?”

  He wished for that with all his might. His stomach jumped at the thought of it. But“I have to tell you, I’m really damaged. You need to know that.”

  She rose up to her knees. “Tell me in bed.”

  He stood with her and let her take his hand.

  “Come with me. Let me take you to bed.”

  He had no choice but to follow where she led.

  Her bedroom was so feminine. A couple of big, fluffy pillows adorned the flowered, worn quilt. Lace curtains billowed at the open windows. The walls were painted a soft shade of primrose. The white wicker furniture also held soft pillows, a darker shade of pink than the walls.

  Against one wall, a high set of bureau drawers, also white, was topped with several pretty bottles, probably filled with perfume, and a vase holding a riot of wild summer roses.

  The storm raged outside, with driving rain, cracks of lightning, rolls of thunder. “You should close your windows.”

  She dropped his hand and moved to turn down the bed. “Not yet. I like the fresh air and the scent of the storm.” She sat on the bed and patted the space next to her. “The sound of the waves. Come here.”

  Who was he to disappoint a lady? Not Mama Baldwin’s baby boy. He rolled onto the bed next to her, rolled onto his back, and pulled her on top of him.

  She sat up and rubbed her soft, wet, girly parts against his still-interested cock. Then she brought her hands up and cupped her breasts, running her thumbs back and forth over her pretty rosy nipples.

  He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t dare breathe.

  “What you thinkin’ ’bout cher?” Her accent had thickened and now dripped with the music of the South.

  He swallowed hard and took a beat. “You. Just you.”

  “Good.” She leaned down and rubbed the tips of her breasts over his chest.

  He thought she was going to kiss him, but she pulled back at the last second. She swept her amazing breasts over his body in slow figure eights.

  “Like that, cher?”

  “You know I do.”

  “Hmm. That’s good. I do, too.”

  She had her eyes closed as she moved against him, a small smile on her face. “You know, Grand-mère warned me about boys like you.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yeah, all because I was too flighty and men too clever and willing to take advantage of girls like me.”

  “Is that right.”

  “Mmmmm.” One more pass of her fingers over each nipple. “She did.”

  He closed his own eyes. “We men are wicked creatures.”

  “You are! But you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I’m wickeder than ten men put together.”

  “Praise the Lord.”

  Her eyes opened slowly. “You’re a praying man?”

  “When the circumstances call for it.”

  “Then get ready to call up to your Maker.” She took her hands away from her breasts, planted them on his chest, and kissed him, smartly, right on the lips.

  She rose up, took his now massive erection in her hand, and sank down on it, covering him with her warm, wet, willing flesh.

  “Sweet baby Jesus.”

  She swiveled her hips. “Didn’t I tell you you’d find God?”

  He was beyond power of speech. He’d lost control of himself the minute she’d let him kiss her.

  Magnificent, like a dark haired Aphrodite, she caught his gaze and held it as she moved that amazing warm heat over and above, slow and sultry, in the slow, syrupy rhythm of the South, up and down his rock hard erection.

  After his imprisonment, he never thought to feel like this again. He thought he’d left his sexual self back in Iraq. Angie had certainly brought his sex drive back to life.

  In spades. Desperate, he thrust up all the way into the heart of her.

  He wanted to lose himself in her, to pour all that was good in him into her warm receptive body. He’d find healing there.

  Somehow, she was the key to solving his life. Discovering the person he was meant to be. Not solitary, not left to drift by loving, but disinterested parents, but one part of a whole.

  The other part being Angie.

  “You didn’t tell me,” she fired at him, her eyelids hooded. “Do you want to meet your maker?”

  He thrust up into her. “What do you think?”

  She swiveled again. “I think it might be an amazing trip.”

  “God, Sparky, take me there.”

  “Count on it, shoog.” She moved her hips in ways that defied human anatomy and physics.

  Nirvana was over-rated.

  This was bliss, feeling her in charge, giving himself up to her.

  Putting her in charge of the love. Could he do it?

  He had to let her call the shots, because she was intent on taking him to heaven.

  He intended to appreciate every step on the journey.

  He hoped to find another step she’d never imagined. No worries. He’d imagined it enough for the both of them.

  And then he couldn’t think at all.

  He thrust up into her, desperate for the clasp of her heat, for her invitation.

  He would take that invitation for all it was worth.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Angelique awoke to find that Tim was a total bed hog. He also was a very restless sleeper.

  The storm had passed and now the moon gilded the room through the window. Unable to go back to sleep, she studied him as he lay there bathed in the moonlight.

  His face didn’t look peaceful in sleep, more like a warrior than the man who’d taken all those amazing pictures in his book.

  His body was toned and fit, including six pack abs. His chest was lightly furred with a happy trail leading down to his penis, which was pretty impressive, to say the least.

  She smiled remembering how he’d filled her so wonderfully. She still felt little aftershocks of the pleasure he’d given her.

  He began to murmur and mumble as his arms started to twitch. In the blink of an eye, his body bowed up in a rigid curve and he screamed.

  Angelique scrambled off the bed, totally at a loss of what to do. Her heart pounded against her ribs like a bird trapped in a cage. “Oh my God! Tim! Wake up!”

  She got her robe off the peg she hung it on and threw it around herself. Not knowing what to do, she turned in a circle looking for
something, anything, to wake him up. She should shake him, she thought, but he was flailing in violent waves.

  “Noooooo!” He jerked up violently into a sitting position and didn’t seem to know where he was. Sweat poured off him as he dragged air in and out of his lungs.

  He shook his head like a wet dog and threw his legs over the bed to the floor. Bracing his elbows on them, he hung his head in his hands.

  She touched his shoulder with a tentative hand. He flinched.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “Okay.” She leaned against the bedroom wall. “Can I get you anything?”

  “In a little bit. I need to catch my breath.” His hands shook in visible tremors. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No, no you didn’t. What happened?”

  He heaved a sigh. “A nightmare. I get them sometimes. It takes me a minute to come back.”

  A minute seemed like the epitome of understatement. She bit her lip. She wanted to help him but she had no idea what to do.

  “Just give me a second and I’ll go home. I’m not real steady right after them.” He hung his head. “The nightmares, I mean.”

  “Did I hurt you?” Her stomach fell to her feet.

  “No. The panic, it goes away in time.” He twisted some facsimile of a smile on his face.

  Her hands trembled as much as his did. This was so far beyond anything she’d ever dealt with. If he’d only tell her what to expect.

  He braced himself as he stood. “I have to get home.”

  “No.” The thought of him being alone in his current condition appalled her. “You need someone to be with right now.”

  Another sigh. “Trust me, I don’t.”

  “Let me be the judge of that. You want to tell me about the nightmare?”

  “No, but I should. That way you can decide whether you want to continue on with” he waved his hand in front of him “—this. We probably should have had this conversation before we fell into bed. I owe you the truth.”

  “You do.”

  “Let me put some clothes on.”

  “Your clothes are downstairs. I’ll get them for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Angelique hurried down the stairs, grabbed his clothes, and bolted back up. “Here.”