by Holley Trent
“Maybe later.” She returned her attention him, sucking him hard and then pulling back to rim her tongue around the place where his foreskin met his head.
He wound his fingers more tightly into her hair and pushed her down. The tightness building in his pelvis had gone from a pleasurable tickle to a throbbing pain. His sac drew up tight and his shaft hardened even more as the dam broke.
He tried to pull her head up, but she set her teeth into his meat and held him still.
When his body stopped pulsing, she swallowed and let him fall from her mouth.
He lay there staring at her, breathing heavily through his open mouth. She licked her lips and sat back. “I guess that’ll hold you for a while.”
“What?” He sat up onto his elbows and adjusted his glasses. “What are you talking about?”
“Look. I don’t expect you to go through with this. I wish it were possible, but I’m a big piece of work, Angel. Hell, I think I’ve been in love with you since the first time I saw you. I was staring at you like you were a movie star or something, and you didn’t even look my way until I stumbled into you.”
“I saw you. Felt you, actually. I was acutely aware of your presence even before we teleported in, but I tried to ignore it. Most of the time I was very good at that. Women were basically white noise around me except for the ones I was charged with protecting. Before you, I’d never been tempted.”
“Why me?”
“Don’t know, though I certainly asked why hundreds of times myself.” He pulled his pants up and reached for her.
She stared at him for a long moment, then eased into his arms.
“I’m not afraid,” he said, and it was true. He’d known nothing but peace ever since he’d allowed himself to want her. There was nothing wrong with wanting to love someone and be loved back. “Does that count for anything?”
“Yeah, it does.” She put her head on his chest and her body finally relaxed atop his.
He rubbed gentle circles on her back.
“I know what I’m getting myself into,” he said. “I know what it means to be your mate. I know it’s going to be difficult for you to control your wilder urges for the months to come, and maybe longer. That little bit of time is a drop in the bucket compared to all the years we have ahead of us. I’m patient. You know that.”
“I do. You really want to be stuck to me like glue until I whelp? That could be a long time from now.”
“You keep giving me all these chances to back out, but I don’t want to. You make being with you sound like a chore, but it’s not. Well, other than the mood instability that seems to be part and parcel of our energy exchange, but that’s half my fault. And actually, I’d really like us to have some time to figure each other out. No kids for a while. I’m just not there yet.”
She lifted her head and looked down at him with a furrowed brow. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Werewolves don’t do that. We commit young, and start popping out babies as soon as we get hitched. That’s the way it’s always been.”
He knew it was truth. That was the way wolves were wired, but maybe they were long overdue for some fresh additions to the gene pool.
He nudged her silky hair from her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. “We can have as many kids as you’d like, but it’d be nice to have somewhere to live first and to get settled.”
“I like that,” she said softly. “You do realize you won’t be able to leave me for longer than a day until we do have a kid, right?”
“Still trying to talk me out of it, huh?” He gave her chin a gentle chuck. “Yeah, I do realize that. I realize more than you know, actually, because Calvin and your mother made sure I knew all the stakes. Like I said. You missed a lot when you were out there running wild.”
“Well. I’m back now.”
“Yes, you are, and the whole gang at Mortonville will thrilled. Not nearly as much as me, though.” He hauled her up and kissed her until she giggled.
“So, what’s in the box?” she asked, pointing to the Christmas gift on the floor.
“Oh. Like I said, I got it last year, so don’t take it the wrong way.”
She leaned over him and pulled the box up onto the bed.
Her expression shifted from well-humored curiosity to straight-up confusion when she lifted the lid.
“Asshole.” She held up the studded collar and leash.
“It was a joke. Keep digging. There’s more at the bottom.”
“Hmph.” She set them aside and narrowed her eyes at him while she dug through the box’s packing material. “I should use them on you.”
“Save them for our wedding night.”
“Don’t give me any ideas, because I’ll run with them and make them five times worse.”
“Remember what I said about depravity? Whatever ideas you have, I’ve probably already thought them out in lurid detail.”
“Shit, maybe I should stop calling you Angel.”
He knew exactly when she found the paper hidden in the Styrofoam peanuts because her eyes widened.
“What’s this?” She pulled out the little scroll and rolled it between her fingers.
“People like me—angels, demons, gods—go by many names. Some aren’t meant for men to know because knowing a being’s name gives you power over them. Names are secrets we like to keep because if you know them, you can summon us.”
He took the scroll from her.
“You can call me Mark or Angel or whatever you want, and I’ll probably respond because it’s your voice, but … knowing this”—he undid the ribbon from the paper—“and saying it aloud means I’ll come to you. Even if you whisper it. It doesn’t matter where I am or where you are.”
“You wanted me to have that?”
“I’ve wanted you to have it from the moment I laid eyes on you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sweetie watched Mark kick the snow off his boots and forked more leftover macaroni into her mouth as he leaned the shovel against the porch rail. If he’d been at all astonished by the amount of food she could consume during two days of being stranded, he didn’t show it. He kept reminding her that he wasn’t a wolf so she shouldn’t expect him to behave like one, but it was a hard lesson to learn.
“You should have left it piled up,” she said, pointing her fork at the snow beyond the door.
“Well, that would be inhospitable.” He shut the door and unwound his scarf from his neck. “I could teleport you in and out of here on a whim, but your mother has no such ability.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.”
“Be nice.”
“Get the collar and leash if you have to. I’m just not ready to see her.”
“I know.” He pulled her into a side-hug and ruffled her hair. “But you might as well get it over with. Then you can decide if you want to stay here until after the new year starts or head someplace warm. Personally, I’d rather use up the rest of the agency holiday someplace with warm sand and cheap liquor. Think about how much we’ll save on airfare. We can teleport to anywhere in the world.”
“I like the way you think. Speaking of teleporting … ” She set her plate down and put her hands on her hips. “What exactly are you still capable of?”
He shrugged. “Some things I won’t know until I try them; I seem to have most of my former capabilities but in diminished capacities. I do know for sure I’m cut from communicating telepathically to angels, and since I can’t slip from this body, I can no longer transport myself to certain realms.”
She could guess one realm in particular that was on that list.
“So, you’re still unassumingly dangerous,” she said.
He nudged his glasses up and grinned. “Unassumingly dangerous. I like that.”
“We’d make a great crime-fighting duo. We could call ourselves The Wolf and The Fallen One.”
He grunted. “Has a certain ring to it. Oh! Speaking of rings—”
There was a tentative knock on the
cabin door, and obviously neither of them heard the visitor sneaking up.
She rolled her eyes. “Some supernaturals we are.”
“Well, you’re distracting. Give me time to adapt, and I’ll get back to being unassumingly dangerous.”
He opened the door and let Mama in.
She stood there on the doormat, looking around the room at everything in it but the people. The cabin was as quiet as a graveyard at night, and no one moved.
Sweetie couldn’t speak for Mark, but in her case, she was afraid to. If she moved, Mama would look at her.
Mama cleared her throat. Her nostrils flared. “You smell calm, baby girl.”
Sweetie shifted her weight and moved her gaze from the gap in the floorboard she’d been staring at to Mama.
Mama pulled her knit cap down farther and covered more of her graying hair.
“You can thank Mark for it,” Sweetie said.
Mama didn’t say anything for a long while. Then she took another step into the room and pulled off her mittens. “I know. And I think he knows how grateful I am. They weren’t happy, the wolves. They were angry that I didn’t let them do what needed to be done. They’d been bitchin’ at Calvin for weeks. You know how laid back he is, and I think they forgot why he’s alpha.”
“What’d he do?”
She knew her brother was scary. His goofball nature usually covered it up, but any person that pushed him deserved whatever punishment they got.
“No need to get into specifics,” Mama said, but Sweetie didn’t miss the twitch of her jaw. There must have been a fight. Damn. Over her? No matter what Mark said, she’d never believe she was worth it.
“Everything’s okay now,” Mama said. “We needed a shaking up anyway. Got too complacent down in our secluded little holler. Lost sight of how people in the world around us act. We’re not just wolves, but people, too.”
All Sweetie could do was nod.
“I know you’re probably upset with me for pushing you and teasing you about not taking a mate for so many years, but that’s just what we do,” Mama said. “Deep down, though, I knew you and Calvin wouldn’t settle. Scared me that y’all were going to go wild, but I guess y’all are braver than me. All those fairy tales your daddy read you when you were babies must have planted foolhardy ideas in your heads.”
Sweetie nodded some more. If holding out for true love was a foolhardy thing, so be it. Maybe Mama would never understand because she’d missed her chance at it.
As if reading her mind, Mark draped his arm around Sweetie’s shoulders, and said, “I think there’s something to be said for taking a leap of faith, even if you don’t know that’s what you’re doing at the time.”
He kissed the top of her head, and she grinned, casting Mama her best take that, sucka! look.
“Well. Times are a-changin’,” Mama said to Mark, but she kept her gaze on Sweetie.
Sweetie didn’t expect an apology, because Mama was right—they were all acting as wolves did. It was innate and instinctual, but Sweetie had known from the time she was a young girl that making the wolf happy at her own expense would mean a lifetime of discontent. Animals didn’t compromise, but people did.
“So, when’s the wedding?” Mama asked. “I assume there’ll be one. Those friends of yours would riot otherwise.”
“We were just talking about that. Soon.” Mark groaned, and Sweetie grinned even bigger because she was the reason for it. Maybe he had no qualms about sex, but she’d taken that save them for our wedding night retort to heart. A guy only got one first time, and she planned to make it one he’d never forget.
“Hope I’m invited,” Mama said.
Mark opened his mouth, and Sweetie gave him a stealth pinch on the ass before he could get his justice-of-the-peace rebuttal out.
“Sure,” she said, and patted where she’d pinched. “We’ll let you know the details.”
“Okay. Well. Call me. We can talk about color schemes and seating arrangements and … ”
Sweetie left Mark’s side to hug her mother, and backed her slowly toward the doorway as she patted her back and hummed, “Mm-hmm.”
She didn’t even notice that they’d reached the porch.
“Bye, Mama. Merry belated Christmas and stuff.”
Mama sighed. “Bye, baby girl.”
Sweetie closed the door, and Mark pulled her right back into his arms.
“See, that wasn’t so bad,” he said.
“It was only easy because you were here.”
“Well, I guess you’ll have an easy life ahead of you, because I’ll always be near.”
His calming energy settled the anxious wolf in her down for a long, much-needed slumber. For now, Sweetie was just woman, and that woman was ready to surrender to her not-angel in full. She had no more protests left—only love.
“Of course you’ll always be near,” she whispered against his chest as he held her. “I know now you always have been.”
About the Author
Holley Trent is a Carolina girl gone west. Raised in rural coastal North Carolina, she currently resides on the Colorado Front Range with her family. She writes sassy contemporary and quirky paranormal romances set in her home state.
An Angel Fallen is the first story set in the Son of Gulielmus world that doesn’t feature a son (or daughter) of Gulielmus—look for more stories about not-angels, including Gulielmus himself, in the future. Catch up on other stories in the collection in the following order: A Demon in Waiting, A Demoness Matched (Melt My Heart anthology), A Demon in Love, and A Demon Bewitched.
See Holley’s complete backlist of paranormal and contemporary romances at her website, http://www.holleytrent.com. When she’s not on deadline, she boldly tweets under the handle @holleytrent.
Rhapsody
Sharon Clare
Avon, Massachusetts
This edition published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
www.crimsonromance.com
Copyright © 2012 by Sharon Clare
ISBN 10: 1-4405-6191-5
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6191-7
eISBN 10: 1-4405-6192-3
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6192-4
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © 123rf.com, istockphoto.com/skynesher
Contents
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
About The Author
Acknowledgments
I want to thank my editors Jennifer Lawler and Julie Sturgeon and all the staff at Crimson Romance who had a hand in this novella and in making each publishing experience swift and smooth.
I also want to thank my critique partners: Sherry Isaac, Urve Tamberg, Carole-Ann Vance, Siobhan Minty, Jennifer Filipowicz, Linda Cassidy and Geoff Weaver for their honesty, constancy and support.
I’m also thankful for the endearing friendships from all the talented Crimson Romance authors and Toronto Romance writers who generously share their knowledge and enrich my writing life.
And to my wonderful family and friends who listen to story problems, follow me virtually and provide endless cheer, I couldn’t do this without you all!
C
hapter One
The promise of amusement brightened Finn’s mood as he leaned against a bamboo beam where orchids hung in terracotta pots, perfuming the air at the Caribbean resort. Veiled from mortal sight, he watched a woman’s sleek black hair whip across her bare shoulders as she danced. So relaxed. So at ease. So content in her packaged life. Not a hint of suspicion her vacation would soon take a turn. Her oblivion curled his Elvin lips.
The perfect subject.
For a human, she had a body that bid his gaze to each curve, skin that shone like wet pearls. He’d watched her languish daily on a beach chair to escape into her books. Once, her cheeks had flushed when she’d read an erotic scene — a blindfolded heroine anticipating the feel of the hero’s hands on her thighs, spreading, exposing, touching. Isabelle had glanced around as if anyone other than Finn had the power to read her mind.
Enjoy your last dance, princess.
He saw her clearly. Isabelle Carson had taken a self-imposed vow of celibacy. A mindset she’d have to overcome — tonight — if she intended to stay in the human world.
Finn had chosen the male subject, another fine specimen, months ago. Jonathan Raynor, a man who didn’t acknowledge his emotional void, a man who didn’t recognize his own need for one good woman.
Before he could set the boundaries for the game, he needed Isabelle to leave the dance floor. He knew just the right prompt to send her to the beach.
The telltale wind of another elf’s approach curled against his neck. Who had found him? The waft spiraled down his back and blew through the ends of his waist-length ivory hair. Finn’s chest constricted and quashed the flow of energy through his veins.
King Oberon appeared beside him. The king, no less. Finn swallowed and forced the quivers that threatened his composure to settle down.
Formidable as always, the king pierced Finn with a gaze that would make an elf of lower caste fall to his knees. “You’ve decided to provoke the mortals despite my warning to stay out of human minds.”
