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“Nothing.” Angelina wasn’t about to tell him. But when he went to kiss her, she shied away, and his face hardened with understanding.
“You didn’t call back.” He almost bit off the words. Accusing.
“How did you know I—” she began, and then grew angry at herself for the betrayal. “You were busy,” she told him tightly. “As was I.”
“Not too busy to go jogging,” he said, indicating her sweaty clothes that were a dead giveaway. “If you’d told me, we could have gone together. If you’d waited for me...”
“I did not need a man to jog with me.”
Comprehension dawned on his face, and his eyes narrowed. “So that’s what this is all about.” His sudden anger took her by surprise. “Did it ever occur to you that I might need you?” he asked tightly. “That I might have had a hell of a day? That I might have needed the stress relief jogging brings? That I might have needed your company—not to soothe me, not to minister to me, but just to be with me? To be with someone who understands? Or don’t you give a damn about me?”
Her anger rose to match his. “I am not the one who was unavailable. If you needed me, why did you not call? You have my phone numbers—you insisted I give them to you. But you did not call, not even when you suspected I had called you. You think I have nothing better to do than wait around in case you have a free moment? That my work is not important, too?”
She pushed past him to get to her apartment, but he caught her arm and swung her around. “Damn it, Angel,” he said gratingly. “Don’t walk away from me when we’re fighting.”
She jerked her arm away from his hand. “Touch me again and die,” she hissed at him. They stared at each other for a few seconds, both of them breathing heavily. Then Alec did something Angelina never expected. He laughed.
At first, his laughter merely fueled her anger, but then he said, “Touch me and die. Christ, Angel, do you have any idea how much that makes me want you? How much that makes me want to ravage you? Force you to admit you want me as much as I want you? You have no clue, do you?”
* * *
Alec and Angelina barely made it inside her front door before they were tearing each other’s clothes off. Frantic kisses. Random words of need and desire. He managed to get a condom on just in the nick of time before she enveloped him, meeting his fierce thrusts with demands of her own—now, now, now! He plastered her against the wall, riding her fast and hard until she came in a shuddering wave of desire unlike anything she’d ever known.
She sagged against his shoulder and realized he wasn’t done. He was still rock hard inside her body, but waiting. Waiting for her to be ready for him to continue. “Alec,” she moaned, unable to prevent that needy catch in her voice. Her breasts were crushed against his chest, her nipples still aching from contact with him and from an orgasm that had shredded her self-control.
Then he moved again. Slower this time. Tantalizing both of them. But less than a minute later, his tempo increased. As if even Alec’s iron self-control had limits and they’d reached them. His mouth found hers and took possession of it. Demanding, not coaxing. And Angelina gave him everything. Willingly. Then he grasped her hips, holding her in place as his thrusts grew wild. Frenzied. And the world spun out of focus as she came again just as he did, arching into her one last time, throwing back his head in a wordless cry.
She would have slumped to the floor when her knees gave way, except he held her in place against the wall. His eyes were closed, his throat working soundlessly, and he was breathing as if he’d been running flat out. When she made a little sound and attempted to free herself, he managed to say, “Give me a minute, Angel,” so she did.
When he finally withdrew from her body, she thought he’d let her go, but he didn’t. He still held her hips, but then his hands slid up, over the curve of her waist, the sides of her breasts, grasping her shoulders so she couldn’t escape when he demanded, “Why?”
“Why?” She was too dazed to understand what he was asking.
“Why were you avoiding me?”
“I was not—” she began. Then she admitted, “You are right. I was avoiding you.”
“Did I do something? Did I not do something?”
“That is not why...” She shook her head, unable to explain the convoluted thought process that had led to their confrontation. This time when she pulled away from him he let her go.
“Then why?” As if she owed him an answer.
And I do owe him an answer, she admitted to herself. And though her answer was just as logical as his question, there were layers of complexity to it. Layers he probably wouldn’t understand. “Shower first,” she deferred. “I needed a shower even before I saw you, and now...” When she glanced down at her pile of sweaty clothes and chuckled, he joined in.
