than my own.”
A talent the world would never know. What had gone wrong in the professor’s life? Why had he ended up expending his enormous gifts on “Ahn-sel in the 21st Century”? Hoping to pass his love of art on to a self-centered nothing. A talented nothing but an unworthy receptacle for the professor’s hope and dreams.
Marc looked at her; worry lines creased his forehead.
Why am I in this city? Amanda thought dully. What am I working for? What havoc have I caused? Why couldn’t I have figured it out before… before…
Marc reached for her. She turned away.
The wine bit the back of her throat, burned her gullet, its fine vintage a waste on her blunted taste buds.
She turned a flat gaze on Marc’s handsome face. His brows contracted more tightly.
Sorry, kiddo, she thought
His face saddened and his gaze drifted down. He turned away. After a moment, he straightened and his head lifted: his finely-shaped head, with the deep iron-gray blue eyes and the soft, beautifully sculpted lips set in a firm, manly jaw. He looked at her squarely, peering deep…
But she knew she wasn’t there for him to see.
“I KNOW the damn case isn’t closed.” Ace was annoyed again. “Who the hell is the big guy? Where is he now? What’s he going to do now that Cambiare knows for sure the drawings are fake? And should we care a whit?”
Marc was getting fed up with the woman.
Sure, she made him proud to be a man. She probably had taken courses somewhere in this hateful city on how to nail a guy in bed.
Well, he had done some investigating of good bed practice himself and had obviously proven he had learned his lessons well. She had seemed pretty happy. She seemed elated. He certainly…
His chest hurt. His head hurt. His groin ached. And not from that rotten kid’s punch to the solar plexus.
No matter how he tried, he couldn’t put the blame on her. No matter how hard he called her every name in the book and she damn well deserved half of them, the smart-assed, smart-mouthed, conniving corporate cookie. God help those poor suckers who wanted to throw money at her rotten little comic book factory.
He sighed. What could he do to get her back? What could he do to take away the ache in her heart, in her soul? She seemed so in pain. He couldn’t bring the old guy back.
She would be busy finding someone to take Nathan’s place, to keep turning out “Ahn-sels” to the greater glory of Double-A Communications, to keep climbing to the top.
He missed the waves. The implacable surf. He missed having nothing between him and the forces of nature. He had been down this female road before. He had survived.
What? Give up his manly P.I. life to come back to this God-awful town and hang around waiting for her to realize what a catch he was? Even his brother had found true romance. And Cissy and Jimmy, for God’s sake. He wouldn’t even have a drinking buddy.
His chest hurt even more.
He returned from the shower with a towel wrapped around his middle and with first aid cream for Amanda to apply to the vicious roadway scrapes on his back and thigh. She pushed the towel down to attend to the scrapes at the top of his buttocks.
Cissy was spending the night at Jimmy’s. He and Amanda were alone, working out the details of how to fit the final piece of the puzzle in place: how to trap the big guy.
He had said no to her involvement. She had insisted that now it was as much her mission as his. She wanted someone to pay for Angeli’s death. Dearly.
Under her healing touch, he felt the knotted muscles begin to unclench. The touch of her gentle hands spreading the soothing cream sent waves of sensual arousal through him. She might not be there but her hands were.
She had pulled her dark hair back, glistening with golden highlights matching the flecks in her melting, angry, sorrow-filled eyes. She had swept it from the sides of her face and caught it with a spring clamp made of horn- like the frames of his horn rimmed glasses, his only apparel, other than the towel.
He caught the quickening pulse in her delicate neck. Glancing down, Marc saw the tented terry cloth indicating his filling manhood. He glanced back at the shadowed nape of her neck, the exquisite flow of her ear lobe into her jaw.
“Maybe I should take a shower, too.” He seemed to detect a glimmer of life in the dead sound of her voice.
She continued to firmly stroke the ache from his shoulders and in his back. Her fingers probed the dimples at the base of his spine. Her hands continued lower to smooth over the firm swell at the top of his buttocks and he knew he was lost to her touch.
“I’m pretty grubby.” Her words dropped like falling velvet.
“I’ll help.” His voice was as musky as the scent of her body. “You’ll need somebody to un-grub your back.”
The warm water poured over them. Soothing, healing rain. Obliterating the chaos and confusion of the last few days, the last horrible hours. They were alone in the world under the gentle, showering spray.
Amanda explored his wet, muscular terrain being careful to avoid the abraded territory; Marc found no imperfection on the silken surface of her perfect skin. With his fingers and tongue he followed the racing rivulets flowing down her neck to between her full, firm breasts, pausing to press his face home between the enfolding blooms. He could lose himself in her freshness, bathe in her delicious, taunting spice and tartness, immerse himself in her beauty forever.
He moved past the puddling in her navel down to the rain-forested center of her pelvis, burying his face in the dampening depths to soothe and enrage the engorged tissues with his caressing lips. She was milk and honey to him. She tasted of purity and sense, of horseplay and undying love.
Amanda threw her head back wantonly and arched her hips. The water flooded over her face and slicked her soaking dark tresses against her back. She was elemental. A force of nature. Marc’s soul ached as much as his body rejoiced.
ALL AMANDA’S senses rejoiced. All doubts floated away, unresolved but out of mind. All questions drowned. Nothing mattered but the complete and total devotion with which Marc attended her.
She felt clean and pure and totally receptive. She needed attending to. She needed caring for.
His wide shoulders dropped, the muscles rippling as he knelt on the shower floor and pressed his head through her parted legs, his mouth stroking the inside of her thighs.
Amanda groggily smiled at the slippery, muscular frame sliding under her and chuckled as he almost toppled her. He emerged behind her and rose to bury his face in the softness of her bottom. She laughed, sputtering in the falling water, in unsuppressed relishing of his infinite physical invention.
She became whole again under his touch. She felt adored, loved and wanted. Filled with bliss. He was magic.
His traveling tongue ferried up her spine sending tendrils of delight skittering throughout her being. His head wetly nestled into the grotto of her shoulder and her backward lolling head. His hands moved possessively around to take the weight of the throbbing fullness of her breasts.
She could be held like this forever, bathed in a warm spring rain, pressed safely against the strength and urgent
