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Hal buried his face in Angel’s neck. She was soft and squishy in the big coat, and the fur on her hood tickled his nose, but he didn’t care. He was so relieved to see her, he was close to bawling like a two-year-old.
“Hey.” She stroked his hair and kissed his temple. “Are you okay? Do you want me to go?”
“No, God no. Come in. I’m sorry.” Swallowing hard to keep his emotion in, he carried her case into the hallway and through to the bedroom while she removed her coat and boots.
By the time he came back, she was in the living room. Since leaving that morning, she’d changed into black leggings and a pink crushed-velvet sweater, and the way her breasts moved suggested she wasn’t wearing a bra. He had a hard-on immediately, and she’d only just walked through the door.
She was looking at the carpet, and he suddenly realized she was staring at the broken phone, because he hadn’t gotten around to picking up the pieces. She looked up as he moved closer, her dark eyes wide.
“Wrong number,” he said.
Her lips twitched. “Are you okay?”
Instead of answering, he pulled her into his arms and crushed his lips to hers. He poured all his passion, all his roiling emotions, into the kiss, knowing he was going from zero to sixty in seconds, but unable to control himself.
Angel didn’t move away though, and she didn’t object, as if she recognized that this was what he needed. She just gasped and wrapped her arms around him, and returned it a hundred percent.
He walked her backward to the sofa, pushed her down and pressed her onto her back, then moved on top of her, wanting to feel her soft body beneath his, needing to have someone react to him in a genuine and unconditional way. Angel wanted him, and there was no complicated history, no manipulation beneath the need, just pure desire, crystal-clear and beautiful.
He cupped her breast, stroked down her body, pulled her thigh around his waist, throbbing with need, but her hands were on his face, and she was saying, “Hal, Hal...” and it was only then that he realized his cheeks were wet.
He sat up abruptly, moved to the end of the sofa, and sat forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands in his hair as he fought to keep his composure.
Jesus. He was a fucking mess. He half expected her to get up and walk out, disgusted at his behavior.
But she didn’t. She knelt beside him and put her arms around him, stroked his hair, and murmured, “Shhh.”
“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not.”
“Hal. Tell me what happened.”
Not moving, his hands still clutched in his hair, he let the words tumble from his lips like marbles rolling from a bag, hard and cold. He told her everything about the phone call, almost word for word, not bothering to hide his anger, and his frustration.
When he’d done, Angel sat quietly for a moment as if processing what he’d told her.
She leaned forward and rested her lips on his hair. Then she rose from the sofa and went out of the room.
He waited for the sounds of her putting on her coat and boots, but instead he heard her in the kitchen, the splash of liquid being poured into glasses, and then she came back into the room and pushed a tumbler into his hand, placing hers on the table.
“Drink this,” she said. “Go on.”
He lowered his hands from his hair and looked at the shot of whisky, and knocked it back in one go. Then he leaned back on the sofa and blew out a long, shaky breath as the heat seared through him.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
He let his head fall back. “It’s the injustice of it. It’s been a tough time, and I’ve spent the best part of it being angry, and for her to suddenly say she misses me...” He clenched his jaw. “Saying now, after all this time, that it would be better for the kids if we were together... It’s so fucking cruel.”
He thought of his son, and his baby girl, waking up on Christmas morning and running into the bedroom. But it had been Charles who’d sat Brenna on his lap to watch her open her presents. Charles whose neck she’d flung her arms around when she saw their wonderful gifts he’d bought them. Even Jamie, who tried so hard to be loyal to his father, would have been overcome with excitement at the Lego kit. The thought hurt so much that it made his stomach burn. He was going to give himself an ulcer if he kept on like this.
“I don’t know why she would say things like that,” he said harshly. “Why now, after all this time?”
Angel tipped her head from side to side. “She probably is starting to realize what she’s lost. In the beginning, the affair would have been exciting, and the guy has money, which was what she thought she wanted. But maybe now, she understands there’s more to life, and more to a relationship, than getting your own way in everything. You’re an amazing guy, Hal, of course she misses you. And she’s going to feel guilty when your kids say they miss their father.”
She shifted on the sofa, taking his hand in hers. “Look, if there’s even a little chance that you think you could make this work, you should think long and hard about trying again.” She bit her lip. “Maybe she’s right and she’s changed, and the things that were so hard before might not be so difficult now. If you think it’s worth it for your kids, maybe you should get back together again.” She stopped.
He looked down at their hands for a long, long time.
Then, finally, he looked back up at her. “Is it terrible that I don’t want to?”
She stared at him. “But—”
“I love my kids, and I miss them all the time. But I don’t want to go back to Rebecca. I don’t care if she has changed. I’ve changed too, and I don’t want to be in a relationship anymore where I have to fight to be loved.”
“Aw, Hal...”
“I’ve known you less than a week,” he told her, “and yet you make me feel a hundred—a thousand—times more a man than she ever did. I know it’s probably because it’s new and exciting, but when I’m with you, I feel...” He didn’t know how to put it into words. He was so full of emotion, he felt as if he was going to burst. “I don’t want to lose that feeling,” he managed to say, clenching his jaw hard.
They stared into each other’s eyes for a long while.
Angel took the glass from his hand and placed it on the coffee table. Dropping to her knees between his legs, she leaned forward and kissed him, taking her time to move her mouth across his, to tease his lips with her tongue. He let her, not fighting her, but not really returning it either, not feeling as if he deserved her affection.
But it didn’t stop her. Her lips left his, and she kissed down his neck and chest, pushing up his sweater so she could press her lips to his bare skin, travelling down over his ribs to his stomach. Then she began to unbutton his jeans.
Hal held his breath and went to say something, but she met his gaze, and the words faded away at the look in her eyes. She undid the zipper, and then pulled down the elastic of his boxer-briefs. He was already well on the way to an erection, and with a couple of firm strokes from her hand he was standing stiff and proud, jutting toward her as if desperate for her touch.
She licked her palm, slowly and purposefully, meeting his gaze again as she did so, and then she closed her fingers around his erection and began to stroke him properly, her hand sliding slickly up the shaft and over the head.
Hal just watched her, in a daze, his blood speeding through his veins, feeling dizzy with lust. When she leaned over him and lowered her head, he thought he might come on the spot, but he managed to contain his desire, holding it in as she closed her mouth over him.
Holy fucking hell, that felt good. His eyelids fluttered shut and his lips parted in a silent groan as she slid her lips down the shaft and took him deeper into her mouth. He didn’t think about Rebecca or the phone call or the past or anything in fact—all thoughts left his brain, and he was just a collection of nerve endings and erogenous zones, his whole world centering on the amazing sensations Angel was creating in his groin.
Her hand continued to stroke him, and her tongue teased him, rasping over the sensitive skin, and he knew he wouldn’t last long. Only a few minutes later, he put a hand on her head and murmured, “I’m going to come,” wondering if she’d pull away, but she just groaned and stroked fast and took him deeper, sucking hard. He tipped his head on the back of the sofa, letting the pleasure build inside him like steam in a kettle until he came to the boil, and he erupted in her mouth, crying out with the beauty of it, feeling her swallow him down. He clutched his hand in her hair, overwhelmed with emotion at what she’d done for him, and they stayed like that for what seemed like an eternity, until his muscles had ceased to spasm, and his mind returned from the blissful place it had ascended to and drifted back to Earth.
Angel lifted up, tucked him away and zipped up his jeans, then curled up beside him on the sofa. He held her tightly, waiting for his heart to stop racing, and for his emotions to settle.
When he eventually turned his head to look at her, he found her watching him, her lips curved up at the corners, her dark eyes gentle.
“Better?” she said.
He nodded and kissed her forehead.
She leaned forward and picked up her glass from the coffee table, took a sip, then passed the glass to him.
“It’s not even midday yet,” he said.
“It’s Christmas Day, and I think you need it,” she said.
His lips twisting, he took a mouthful and let it warm him all the way down.
“I’m sorry the phone call upset you,” she said.
“I’m touched that you said to put my kids first.”
She scratched at a mark on his sweater. “I don’t want you to think it was easy. But your children are so lovely. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of their happiness.”
He cupped her face. “Sweetheart, whatever happens between us, never think that. You’ve brought me back to life. You’ve given me something to live for. Whatever has gone wrong in my marriage, it’s down to Rebecca and me, nobody else, not the kids, and certainly not you.”
“And Charles?”
“He was a vulture,” he said flatly. “Picking at the bones of something already dead. She had an affair, but the marriage was already over. No one in a happy marriage looks to cheat.”
He brushed his thumb over her lips. “We’ve been over for two years. You were right—she was just unhappy today, and being nostalgic. Tomorrow, she’ll regret what she said, and be thankful I didn’t take her up on it.”
Angel’s brow furrowed as if she wasn’t so sure, and Hal’s heart went out to her. It was Christmas Day, for God’s sake. She was gorgeous, and he’d asked her to stay with him. What the fuck was he doing, going on about his ex-wife?
He placed the glass back on the table. Holding her head, he kissed her, sliding his hand into her hair, slanting his mouth across hers, then held her around the waist and twisted so they were lying on the sofa, facing each other.
With the fire leaping in the background and the snow falling quietly outside, he kissed her and stroked her, sneaking his hands up her crushed-velvet sweater to her even softer breasts, and teased her nipples until she was sighing against his mouth. Then he unzipped her jeans and slipped a hand underneath the elastic of her panties and down into her wet and swollen folds.
Angel moaned and pushed up against his fingers, and he began to stroke her, his mouth on her breast, until she was breathing heavily, and he could feel her body taut as a bowstring, quivering, ready to let loose.
Circling a finger over her clit, he kissed her mouth again, then murmured, “Come for me,” and as he kissed her again, she shuddered and came, clenching around his fingers with short, sharp pulses, her body jerking, her hot sighs warming his lips.
When she’d done, he withdrew his fingers, then sucked them. Her dazed look turned to exasperation, and he smirked.
She lifted a hand and stroked his hair.
He kissed her. “I’m so glad you came back.”
“Me too.”
“You’re really going to stay tonight?”
“If that’s what you want.”
He nodded slowly, his emotions settling down for the first time that day. “That’s what I want.”
“Then it’s settled. Merry Christmas.” And she put her arms around him and kissed him.
