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“I have been in it very little, as it turns out,” Angel replied, still smiling at him. As if it were her job. Which, she reflected with a pang, it was. “From inside the house, if I squint, I can pretend I’m near enough to London.”
“I admire your dedication to remaining in your fantasy world,” he said dryly. “I’m sure it will serve you well here.”
That didn’t sit well with her, but she couldn’t address it even if she’d known how, because he was moving toward a chair and pulling it out for her. He settled her into it with a certain ease that made her feel too warm, then took the chair opposite hers, and nodded at one of the hovering, silent servants.
Dinner was a long, strange affair. Course after course appeared, each more succulent and delicious than the one before. They ate, they talked. Angel kept the conversation going, poking fun at him as much as she dared, making his gray eyes warm just slightly from time to time. She told silly stories from her many different lives, embroidering each one, dramatizing them. She felt like some modern-day version of Scheherazade, spinning tales to keep herself alive, though she couldn’t have said what she thought the threat was, here. Or what the price might be if she stopped.
Until the final plate was cleared away, and there were only the candles in their gleaming silver holders between them, the flames dancing in the sudden, airless silence.
“Have you run out of stories to tell?” Rafe asked, his voice very nearly lazy. He had relaxed his posture over the course of the meal, and now lounged in his chair, his hand propping up his chin, his face half-shadowed. In the candlelight, Angel realized with a certain shock, she could see none of his scars—only his hard, male beauty.
That, then, was the price.
She was in so much trouble.
“Of course not,” she said, aware that her voice was too soft, too pliable, telling him things she was not at all sure she wanted him to know. “I feel perfectly capable of at least a thousand and one nights of stories. Possibly twice that. You can consider it my wedding gift to you.”
He only watched her. Angel was no fool. She knew
exactly what hovered in the air then, what seemed to dance between them, making each breath feel thick, dangerous. And there was no denying the fact that she wanted him, however suicidally. He fascinated her. That darkness that moved in him, that cast him into shadows, was far more compelling to her than it should have been. She wanted to touch it. Him. She wanted to let herself fall forward into the swirl of these feelings, this tension, and who cared where she landed?
But she could not let herself do it. She was far too afraid of where she might end up, and what falling in the first place would make her.
Like mother, like daughter, that little voice whispered.
“I think that is my cue to go up to bed,” she said
quietly, her voice seeming twice as loud now in the hush of the small room, in the unwavering, patient heat of his dark gaze. “I have a very busy day of doing very little ahead of me, and must conserve my strength.”
“Allow me,” he said in that silky way of his that seemed to hit her hard, low in her belly, and tight across the crest of her breasts. He rose, his every move somehow fluid, all that repressed power making him something near graceful despite his size and strength. And Angel could do nothing but gaze at him, entranced, as he moved around the table to pull out her chair, the very picture of gentlemanly courtesy despite his casual clothes.
It was so much harder than it should have been to stand, to step away from him, when every cell in her body screamed for her to move toward him instead. To press her lips to that fascinating place where the strong column of his throat met his chest. It took more strength than it should have to turn from him and walk toward the door.
She thought she might have hurt herself somehow—tearing herself away like this—but she did it anyway, because she had to ignore this wild passion that burned so hot between them. She had to—or it would eat her alive. She knew it. She’d seen what happened to those who surrendered to this kind of heat, and she wouldn’t do that to herself. She couldn’t.
“Angel.”
She stopped without knowing she meant to do so, her body obeying him without consulting her mind. She swayed slightly on her feet, and put out her hand to the doorjamb to steady herself. She did not turn back around. She was much too afraid of what would happen if she did.
Liar, that same voice chided her. You know what would happen. And you’re not afraid at all.
Not of this moment, perhaps, she admitted to herself. But of what would come after.
