Until Forever (26 page)

Angel never thought of himself as a hero. He was just a man with a gun and a reputation who had always walked a solitary path. But when a debt lands him in a marriage with a refined young woman who interferes in everyone’s life, including his own, the inscrutable loner finally learns what it means to need someone
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“Are we divorced yet?”

Cassie woke with a start, that soft drawl echoing in her ears. “What?”

“Are we divorced yet?”

She knew instantly who he was, she just couldn’t believe he was there. “Angel?”

His hand slipped into her hair as his body moved to cover hers. “Just answer the question, Cassie.”

“We’re not. I just haven’t had the time—”

His mouth came down to cut off the rest of her explanation. Obviously, he wasn’t interested in her excuses just now. But what he was interested in was bundled up in warm flannel.

“How come you don’t sleep naked?”

It was a question born of frustration, not one for a lady to take seriously. Cassie answered anyway. “I do in the summertime.”

He groaned, knowing full well an image of her naked was going to haunt him now. And his tongue slid in deep, eliciting an answering groan out of Cassie. It was a while before they drew breath.

“You got the sweetest, softest lips I ever did taste,” he said against them.

“Your voice makes me tingle, Angel.”

“What does my mouth do to you?”

“It makes me weak.”

His mouth moved up to suck on her earlobe. “What else?”

“Hot,” she whispered.

“Oh, God, Cassie, I’m going to burst if I can’t get inside you right now.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

He laughed and kissed her again. Then he rolled to her side to shove the covers off her. She tore the top of her nightgown open, popping off three buttons in her impatience to get it off. He yanked his shirt out of his pants and sent his buttons to join hers on the bed and the floor. In seconds he was back, pressing her into the mattress. Her arms and legs wrapped around him, locking him in place. And then he was inside, deep inside, and that familiar throbbing came so quickly, bursting on his senses, pulsing around him, drawing his own climax to mesh with hers.

Cassie lowered her legs slowly. Her toes slid against leather. Angel was still wearing his boots and his pants. She wanted to laugh, but she felt like crying.

God, how she hated the reality that surfaced after the passion was spent. She resented that. She resented Angel, too, at the moment. And she particularly resented the fact that he hadn’t taken off his boots.

She let him know it with the curt admonishment, “Next time take off your boots.”

“I’ll take them off now.”

“No, you won’t. You aren’t staying.”

“I’m not ready to leave yet, Cassie. And that was too intense. We’re going to try it again, slow and easy.”

Her stomach fluttered in response to those words. She suppressed the feeling.

“No, we aren’t,” she told him stiffly. “You’re going to get out of here before my mama hears you and comes charging in with her gun blazing.”

“Where is she?”

“In the next room.”

“Then we’ll have to be quiet, won’t we?”

“Angel—”

His mouth was back, slanting across hers with tantalizing skill. She couldn’t let that work this time. She couldn’t.

She did. She’d missed him too much, wanted him too much, to be sensible about it. And there had been the thought, haunting her ever since he’d ridden out of her life, that she’d never know his touch again.

Now his touch was breaking the last of her resistance with a slow sweep of his hand over her breasts and belly. Gooseflesh followed in wake; nipples tingled to hardness. She’d just had the most incredible explosion of pleasure imaginable, but her body was firing up to experience it again. And in no way did Angel hurry her toward that end. He’d said slow and easy, and that was exactly how he proceeded.

It was nearly dawn before Angel finally got his fill of her. Cassie was too sated to feel any more resentment. And he’d been right. The first time had been over with too quickly. The rest…Lord love him, the man was as good at loving as he was with a gun.