As he stood on Angelina’s porch, Marc remembered the kiss he’d given her here last night. What had possessed him to kiss her like that? He never kissed the subs he played with. Shit, she wasn’t even one of his subs. A kiss was too intimate, giving more of himself than he was comfortable sharing.
Tonight, he wouldn’t let his libido rule his actions. This evening was about Italian cuisine from the Old Country. Nothing more. He shifted the bottles of wine in his hand, along with the Hershey bar. After watching her eat the chocolate during aftercare at the club, he’d fantasized about feeding her an entire bar. Images of her naked in his arms again caused his cock to stir to life.
Shit. Reining in his wayward thoughts might be harder than he thought. If only he hadn’t kissed her. The damned kiss had changed things, for the worse.
He looked at the bouquet of roses Luke had picked up on their way here tonight. They’d actually gone back to Denver this morning so they could dress appropriately. The clothes they’d packed for the hiker rescue this week weren’t special enough for the occasion.
He glanced over at Luke as they waited for Angelina to let them in. He noticed the band of white skin where Luke’s wedding band had once been worn. Well, shit, the man was ready to move forward. About time. Knowing his friend was interested in Angelina both pleased and disturbed him. But if Luke were interested in her, he’d step back before he got in any deeper with her.
He looked at the door. What was taking her so long to answer?
“Something sure smells good, Angel!” Luke called out. “Don’t make us wait much longer!”
Luke reached out and rang the doorbell again, as Marc looked down at the porch, then stepped back. Dark droplets. He took the toe of his shoe and smeared it. Looked like fresh blood. Looking up, he noticed more blood on the doorjamb.
Marc pointed out the stains to Luke and pounded on the door. “Cara, open this door. Now.”
“I’m coming!” Her muffled voice reassured him she was alive at least, but held an edge that didn’t sound like the Angelina from last night. Her voice was strained, as if from pain. If she didn’t open this damned door soon, he was going to bust it down.
What the hell had happened?
* * *
Angelina used the coffee table to pull herself to her shaky feet. The slightest movement caused pain, even in places Allen hadn’t touched her. Overextended muscles screamed as she put one foot in front of the other and made her way slowly toward the door.
She wished she’d gone to the bedroom first to put a robe over her ruined dress. But they’d soon know something had happened if her cheek looked as bad as it felt. In addition to the burning, the skin on that side of her face was growing taut from swelling. Short of putting a bag over her head, Angelina would have to tell them what had happened. Each step took an exponentially greater amount of energy than the one before. She had no reserves left after the burst of adrenaline she’d expended fighting off Allen’s attack.
After what seemed an eternity, but was probably no more than a minute, she reached the door.
“Angel, darlin’, if you don’t open this door, we’re going to…”
“I’m here,” she called through the door. Taking a deep breath, she unbolted the lock and opened the door. Marc stood holding two bottles of vino and an enormous Hershey’s dark chocolate bar. Luke carried a bouquet of champagne-colored roses. She watched as their expressions changed from concern to disbelief as their eyes opened wider.
Safe.
Her knees crumpled beneath her. Luke dropped the flowers and caught her in his arms, carrying her inside to the sofa. Marc placed the wine bottles on the coffee table and their triage training apparently kicked in as they began examining her for injuries.
“Where are you bleeding, cara?” Marc began checking her scalp and neck for injuries.
“There’s blood on the porch, too, Angel. What happened?”
The questions overwhelmed her. Angelina dropped her head against the back of the overstuffed sofa, the effort to remain upright more than she could achieve at the moment. Her lower lip trembled as she tried to find words to explain what had happened. Someone’s thumb grazed her injured cheek and she winced as he probed gently where Allen had backhanded her.
“That sonuvabitch from last night did this, didn’t he?” Luke’s voice.
“Where did that asshole cut you, cara?”
“He didn’t.” Every word took a phenomenal amount of energy. “Not my blood.” Angelina’s voice sounded as if it came through a long tunnel. Not wanting them to worry, she smiled, then winced as even that motion radiated more pain across her cheek. Salty tears stung her eyelids. “And his name is Allen Martin.” Although “asshole” was growing on her, too. “Believe me, he’s in worse shape than I am. I think I broke his nose—and he won’t be having sex anytime soon either.”
One of them squeezed her upper arm. Simultaneously, Marc and Luke praised her in their own ways:
“Good girl.”
“Good for you, Angel.”
Angel. She was nobody’s angel, but she liked when Luke called her that anyway. And Marc’s “good girl” was equally endearing, making her melt like Marc’s chocolate bar sitting on a hot stove. Something niggled at her brain, but she didn’t know why the stove was significant.
As Luke continued to check her arms and legs for injuries, she heard Marc walk into the kitchen. He came back and pressed what felt like ice cubes wrapped in a wet linen towel against her cheek.
“Tell us what happened, cara.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You’ll need to make a police report, Angel.”
She opened her eyes and raised her head from the sofa, wincing as the ice pack Marc held against her cheek put painful pressure on the injury. “No police. If my brothers find out about this, they’ll kill him.”
“Not if we get to him first, cara.”
“Marc, no one’s going to do anything. I don’t want anyone going to jail over this. I said I took care of him. It’s over.”
Angelina wasn’t sure if she was more afraid of someone going to jail for assaulting Allen or of her brothers finding out she’d been in a kink club, which they most certainly would at some point if they got anywhere near Allen. He’d squeal like a tea kettle.
Luke sat down on the coffee table in front of her. “I don’t think anything’s broken.”
“Go take a shower and change, piccolo angelo. You’ll feel better.”
Little angel. She’d never been considered little by anyone’s standards and her binge eating for the last month hadn’t improved that condition. Allen often cautioned her to watch what she ate when they went out. Asshole. He should be very happy with Miss Blondie from last night and her size two ass.
“Stay with us, cara.”
Angelina looked at Marc and realized her mind had wandered. She looked down at her ruined dress and blinked back hot tears. “Damn him. I wanted to look nice tonight.” Why was she crying over a silly dress?
Before she started to bawl in earnest, she motioned for them to help her up. She needed to be alone. Each man took an elbow and Marc wrapped an arm around her back as they lifted her to her feet. Cosseted between them, she felt comforted. But she groaned at the effort it had taken just to stand. Her muscles were getting stiffer by the minute. How could she hurt all over when he’d only touched three places on her body? Tomorrow, she knew she’d be hurting even worse.
Brushing the hair away from her face, Marc said, “Cara mia, you are beautiful no matter what you are wearing.” Angelina half-smiled, favoring her sore cheek, as her mind filled in what Marc left unsaid—”or even if you’re wearing nothing at all.”
“That’s a brave girl,” he added.
Tears burned her eyes again. She didn’t feel very brave. “Look, I’m really sorry, but I don’t think I’m going to be much fun tonight. You don’t have to stay.”
“Nice try, Angel, but we aren’t leaving.” She looked up at Luke, who just smiled, still holding her elbow.
“Not until we’re sure you’re safe,” Marc assured her, “and we’ve had our fill of your Nonna’s dishes that smell so fantastic.”
“Oh, no!” Her special dinner! That’s why the thought about the stove was important. She’d completely forgotten.
Angelina scooted on bare feet to the kitchen as fast as she could to open the door of the stainless-steel range. With her oven mitt on, she pulled out the rack and removed the lid from the pot inside, sighing in relief. Thank goodness the wine hadn’t all evaporated.
“Don’t lift anything,” Luke admonished. “We’ll take care of dinner. You go take care of you.”
Normally, she wouldn’t let anyone into her kitchen, but if she was going to rescue this evening, she’d need all the help she could get.
“In about five minutes, could you take the braciola out and put it on that platter?” She pointed to Nonna’s oval blue-and-yellow stoneware platter waiting on the counter.
“I think, between the two of us, we can manage that, cara.” He grinned.
She smiled, then winced, her cheek hurting even more. Luke placed his hands around her waist, pulling her away from the stove. “Go, Angel.”
Looking back over her shoulder, she caught his worried expression. “Um, I’ll finish the—” What had she been doing before Allen arrived? Oh, yeah, “… the bruschetta—when I get back.”
“I’ll take care of the bruschetta,” Marc said, placing an arm around her back and guiding her to the doorway. Her body tingled at his touch. “Go. Now.”
Why the rush to get rid of her? Were they going to report the incident with Allen to the police? She pointed her finger at each of them. “Promise you won’t do anything stupid while I’m gone, like call the police.”
They exchanged a glance that didn’t reassure her in the least, but both nodded her toward the hallway, saying “Go,” simultaneously. She’d just have to trust they would respect her wishes. But would they just go after Allen themselves when they left here tonight?
Dio, save me from overprotective men!
Leaving her dinner’s fate in the seemingly capable hands of Marc and Luke, she shuffled down the hallway. The hall had never seemed so long. Inside the bedroom, she went to the closet to choose something that would be easy to get into. The peasant blouse and skirt would be perfect. When she reached up to unzip the dress, pain stabbed through her shoulder. Ow! Her muscles ached as she tried to stretch further than they’d allow.
Damn!
Embarrassed, she headed down the hallway again to the kitchen, entering just as Luke walked in from the dining room and Marc placed his black iPhone into his pants pocket.
“What are you up to, Marc?”
“Wrong number,” Marc said, then stared at her, daring her to challenge him.
Yeah, right.
“What else do you want us to put on the table, cara?”
Angelina glanced from one to the other, knowing they’d ignored her request. Damn them. If her brothers found out, there would be hell to pay. “I told you, I’ve taken care of Allen.”
Marc’s expression grew solemn, “No more mention of him tonight, cara. I forbid it.”
His order sent a funny sensation through her. She hadn’t taken orders from anyone other than her Mama and oldest brother, Rafe, for a very long time. Her other brothers had given her lots of orders, too, she just hadn’t taken them.
Yet those stern words coming from Marc produced a strange, but definite, sexual response in her. Unbidden, images of the culinary bondage he’d mentioned placing her in last night returned. Her brain must have gotten rattled in the assault, because just as she’d closed the book on Allen Martin, she’d done the same thing with BDSM.
Shaking her head, she remembered what had brought her back to the kitchen in the first place. She turned her back to them and asked, “Could someone unzip me, please? I’m afraid I can’t perform any contortionist moves at the moment.”
“Love to.” Marc’s fingers felt warm against her skin as he glided the zipper latch down her spine. He sure took his time as fingers grazed her skin in the wake of the zipper, sending a delicious shiver through her body. When his warm lips pressed against the nape of her neck, she fought to keep from melting against him. Her nipples hardened, making her thankful he couldn’t see them.
“Thanks,” she said, voice raspy. Without turning to gauge his response to the sensual contact, she hurried back to her bedroom in half the time it had taken moments before.
There would be no seduction unfolding here tonight. She’d get through dinner and send them on their way. Then she’d curl up in bed and nurse her wounds—both those on her bruised body and those inflicted against her battered spirit.
* * *
Luke watched her leave the room. “She’s on to us.”
Anger bubbled to the surface, an emotion he hadn’t felt in a long time. Thoughts of what her ex-boyfriend had done to her churned in his gut. Men didn’t hit women. Period. Luke vowed the man wouldn’t get away with it either.
“No way is Asshole laying another finger on her. He needs to be locked up.”
“What did you find out?” Luke asked. While Marc called the sheriff, Luke had been retrieving the roses from the porch. Memories of her battered face and tears twisted his gut into a knot.
“Not much, but the sheriff promised to do a background check and see if there’s anything on him.”
They had met the sheriff during the rescue operation for the lost hikers this week. Despite being in a small, rural outfit, he appeared to be well trained and professional.
Marc picked up the hot pad. “He’s going to get a judge to issue an emergency protection order and will serve Asshole as soon as he finds him. After what Angelina said she did to him, I told them to check the local hospital first.”
Luke felt bile rise in his throat when he remembered seeing blood drops and smears on her porch and worse on Angel’s dress. Thank God the blood hadn’t been hers. Still, that red spot on her cheek was going to result in one helluva bruise, maybe even a shiner, by tomorrow.
What kind of man would hit a woman? Hell, Asshole wasn’t a man. He was a slug. If he came within a mile of her again, there would be hell to pay.
“I’ll check back with the sheriff later,” Marc said. “Now, let’s see if there’s anything else we need to put on the table.”
Marc opened the enormous refrigerator and pulled out a tossed salad in a covered bowl. “Ah, here’s the antipasto.” He handed both to Luke, who carried them to the dining room.
Angel had set the table with colorful stoneware dishes in shades of rust, blue, and yellow. He’d placed the roses at the end of the table so they wouldn’t obscure anyone’s view. Maggie had loved only red roses, but Luke thought this off-white color would complement Angel’s olive skin and chocolate-brown eyes.
Remembering how her eyes sparkled when she laughed, his balls tightened. How had she gotten to him so fast? Was it the dream? Maggie’s telling him she was sending him an angel. Or her vulnerability, which just pulled at his heart.
Last night, he’d fought the attraction, but she kept tackling his defenses anyway. Since Maggie’s death, he’d barely looked at another woman. Yet, last night, he’d lain awake thinking about a woman he’d first seen in a hazy dream who’d come to life.
Returning to the kitchen, he found Marc leaning against the counter waiting on the meat dish.
“I see you’ve taken off your ring.”
Or maybe he was waiting for Luke. Looking down at the white strip where his ring had been worn for more than nine years, Luke said, “Yeah. It’s time.”
“It’s time. I’m sending you an angel…”
“Wouldn’t have anything to do with Angelina, would it?”
Luke met Marc’s gaze. “Yeah,” he smiled. “I’d say it has a lot to do with her.”
He couldn’t help but feel Marc sizing him up. Luke wasn’t blind. He knew his partner had strong feelings for Angel, too. They’d never competed for a woman before, but Luke had never been interested in dating since Maggie’s death.
“The night before we met her in the bar, I dreamed of Maggie.” Luke shuffled his feet and looked down. He’d never told Marc about the visits he’d had from Maggie over the years on their rescue missions. “I know it sounds crazy if you don’t believe in this kind of stuff, but she said she was sending me an angel. That it was time to move on.” He glanced up at Marc. “When Angel walked up to our table and looked just the way she did in my dream, I knew she was the one Maggie was talking about.”
He didn’t mention that he’d dreamed of Maggie again last night and she’d repeated that she was sending him an angel. That confused him a bit. Angel had already come into his life. She’d added that he shouldn’t worry about her anymore; he still had the rest of his life to live.
Other than during rescue missions, he hadn’t felt that close to Maggie since the weeks after her funeral. Marc had tried to get him back in the game and even dragged him to the club a couple of years ago, but the thought of restraining anyone but Maggie just didn’t appeal to him. He’d never even told Marc that he and Maggie had experimented with bondage in the bedroom, because Luke just didn’t feel all that confident at the BDSM club level. He didn’t need to be in control to get off either, like Marc did. He and Maggie each had played both the top and bottom roles.
But for the first time in seven years, he was ready to put Maggie behind him and develop a relationship with another woman, with or without ropes. He smiled. He had no doubt Angel was that woman. Maggie had as much as told him and she sure had an inside track on these things. Luke couldn’t help but hope selfishly he’d win the jackpot this time and Angel wouldn’t be hardcore into BDSM, though. He couldn’t compete with Marc in that arena.
He watched Marc’s face, but couldn’t read him. If any kind of rivalry developed between him and Marc, how would the tension affect their being able to count on each other during a mission? They’d worked well together the past four years. Hell, Marc had been responsible for Luke’s going into SAR training in the first place.
Marc had been on the squad a couple of years longer, having joined soon after being medically discharged from the Navy. The man had been decorated for saving Damián’s life at the risk of his own. Luke respected the hell out of him for making a difference like that. All three of the club owners were heroes in his book. But Marc had been Luke’s partner since soon after he finished his training and their bond was tightest.
Marc cleared his throat. “I won’t let a woman come between us.” He grew uncharacteristically serious. “I made that mistake once. I can live with her choosing either one of us—or neither of us.” He shrugged. As if the two hadn’t just come to a monumental understanding concerning Angel, he turned around to open the oven door and pull out the pot as she’d instructed them.
Marc might have tried to look nonchalant, but Luke knew they’d both been affected by her tonight. Nothing brought out a SAR worker’s emotions faster than rescuing someone. Still, knowing he wouldn’t lose Marc’s friendship if he pursued Angel tonight, helped him relax a bit. Marc had become like a big brother to him over the past four years—or what he thought a big brother would be like.
Oh, what was he worried about? Marc’s women came and went. Surely he’d see that Angel deserved better than that. Luke didn’t want to see her get hurt. She was too special.
Marc opened the lid of the pot. “I’ve been transported to my Nonna’s kitchen.”
Luke’s stomach growled. “Damn, that smells good!”
Luke was going to make his best play for her tonight. Angel seemed too innocent to go for whips and chains anyway. She needed a good ol’ boy who wanted nothing more than to please her. Time would tell.
* * *
After her shower, Angelina pulled on the white peasant blouse and green handkerchief-hemmed skirt. The ruined dress lay on the floor because she hurt too badly to bend over and toss it into the laundry—or the trash, which might be more appropriate.
She waved the blow drier at the mirror to clear the steam, then looked at her cheek—swollen and red. No sense masking it with makeup; they’d already seen the damage. After drying her hair, she started to pull it up into a clip, but the effort was too painful, so she let her hair loose and brushed it as best she could to fall over her shoulders and down her back. Marc had preferred it loose last night, anyway.
Bending over to put on panties caused her muscles to riot, so she decided to skip them altogether. Who would know the difference? Angelina pulled the elasticized neckline of her blouse off her shoulders, slipped barefoot into her flats—choosing comfort over sexy this time—and took a deep breath. Time to rejoin the guys.
As she entered the kitchen, Marc uncorked the bottle of Pinot Noir he’d brought. He looked up and gave her an appreciative once-over. She felt her insides warm, then melt into a puddle in her lower abdomen, as if she’d already downed a glass of wine too fast.
Luke came in from the dining room and smiled at her, as well. “You look beautiful, Angel.”
She smiled back at them both. “I guess I clean up pretty good.”
Marc crossed the room and handed her a glass of wine. He then poured glasses for Luke and himself and raised his in a toast to her. “Like a ray of light, you have brightened our day.”
Angelina looked away, a little embarrassed, and then took a healthy sip of her wine. She set the glass on the counter. “Now, out of my kitchen so I can finish getting dinner on the table.”
“Dinner’s already on the table,” Luke wrapped an arm around her waist, short-circuiting her brain. He placed her glass in her hand again, then steered her toward the dining room. Marc followed.
When she saw the table, the waterworks nearly started again. Not only had they brought out the dishes she’d stored in the fridge, but the roses she’d seen Luke carrying earlier had been placed in a vase at the opposite end of the table.
“Thank you so much for rescuing our evening and for bringing these beautiful flowers.” She walked over to breathe in their delicate fragrance. “Mmmm. And for the wine, Marc.” Angelina held up her glass and took another sip. “Delicioso.” He smiled.
When she thought about how close she’d come to canceling their evening, her lips began to tremble. She brought her fingers up to still their quivering. Marc put his wineglass down and came to stand in front of her. He tipped her chin up and searched her eyes. “The rest of the evening is just about the three of us. No more unhappy thoughts are permitted in this house tonight.”
He pressed his fingertip against her lip to still her trembling. She leaned back and felt Luke’s body pressing against her. He wrapped his arms around her, cradling her, his hands resting below her breasts, warming her to her core.
Angelina felt protected, but in a good way. She pulled away from Marc, whose eyes smoldered. For her? His breathing sounded erratic. Or was that hers? Or Luke’s? She turned to Luke, reached up on tiptoes, and kissed him on the cheek. She gave him a quick hug and broke away.
Feeling awkward all of a sudden, she announced, “Um, I think we’d better eat before everything gets cold.”
Not that she’d be able to cool down for a very long time.