I let myself really look at him for the first time as he ran his fingers over the shredded knee of his jeans.
“And please keep the yelling to a minimum,” Sunny said. “We’re trying to make a movie out here.”
I tugged on the doorknob just to confirm that yes, we were indeed locked in like some TV episode where everything is resolved in eighteen minutes.
A sigh that sounded more like a whimper slipped from me as I rested my forehead against the door. My back burned at the feeling of Angel’s gaze on me.
But why would he even be looking at me? He certainly couldn’t bother to tell me he was skipping off to Europe with his ex-boyfriend. There was nothing he could possibly say in the next hour that would make me forgive him. The best Sunny and Graham could hope for is that I would be calm and gracious enough to work alongside him for the rest of the shoot without airing his tagged Instagram laundry.
And I was calm—without him. I’d moved on. But how could I possibly be expected to stay calm over someone who reappeared without any kind of warning or explanation?
I pulled myself as upright as I could go, as though my spine was made of steel. I turned to face him with as much aloof poise as I could manage.
He stood too, ruffling a hand through the styled curls at the top of his head. The move pulled the hem of his T-shirt up, exposing a slice of lean stomach with a trail of dark hair leading into his boxers. My eyes were pulled there, and then they lifted back to his long fingers in his hair, to his teeth digging into his lip as he slowly dropped his hand.
“Well, are we doing the talking thing?” Angel asked, his voice low and smooth.
And with my best Vivien Leigh eyebrow lift, and with all the violet femme-flavored agony I felt the night of Vanya’s party, I replied.
“I don’t talk to ghosts.”
Chapter Two
“Fine,” Angel said as he stepped closer to me. “We don’t have to talk. There are plenty of things we’re good at that don’t involve saying a single word.”
I hated this feeling. This feeling of being angry and hurt and rejected—and like I wanted nothing more in the world than to pull him to me until he was as close as my own shadow.
Angel moved toward me, his foot between mine.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit,” I muttered, as I stared down at the paint-splattered toe of his boot.
He hooked a finger under my chin, lifting my eyes to meet his.
Everything flooded back all at once, because it was never actually gone. The last two years of wanting from afar and then our frenzied Christmas romance . . . it was all there just below the surface, and now my throat was dry and my skin was warm and all I wanted was just to run my fingers through his hair.
So I did.
And that was all the permission Angel needed to wrap an arm around my waist and form my body against his.
His chest to mine, his stomach to mine. Our hips pressed nearly together, the slight difference in our heights meaning I could feel the lengthening part of him just above the lengthening part of me as his lips dropped to mine, hovering there.
I could smell him—fresh soap and the tiniest nip of turpentine, and that wonderful scent that was just him underneath it all—and I could feel his breath warm and sweet against my lips. His chest swelled against mine as he shuddered in a long inhale, and I remembered that shuddering breath from the cabin, the same breath he’d take before he pushed all the way inside me until he was buried to the hilt.
It was like music, that breath, the kind of music that inspired ten minute music videos directed by the artist and starring cute people from hit TV shows. A song that changed you the first time you heard it, and every time thereafter. If it were on Spotify, I’d build a whole playlist around it. If it were a hymn, I’d start a church, become the director of its bell choir, and ring bells to it.
His styled curls were tousled and longish under my fingers, and I couldn’t resist tugging a little as I tangled my fingers in his hair. It was Angel’s little secret that he liked things a little rough—looking at him with his giant glasses and paint-stained clothes, listening to him talk about his favorite Studio Ghibli film or the various pros and cons of 3ds Max and Maya for computer animation, you’d never think oh, this one’s a biter. But Angel fucked like he made art: like he couldn’t come up for air until he’d finished. And it was heady, being at the center of that kind of storm. Knowing that you were the one who turned a good-natured genius into a grabbing, biting wall of hunger . . .
I lifted my chin even more, licking my lower lip, and Angel groaned, finally relenting and slashing his mouth down over mine.
His kiss was hot, hard, searching, and he delved into my mouth immediately, his tongue seeking mine and then stroking against it. Unlike me, he could keep a shave when he wanted, and his face was smooth, lovely, like heaven against my lip and cheeks. His lips worked mine open until I was panting against him, and his fingers dug into my waist, pulling me closer, our dicks grazing against each other’s. He walked me back against the door, his kiss turning rough and hungry as my back hit the wood, and our feet slotted against each other’s so we could keep rubbing ourselves below as we kissed above, and then his hand slipped down to my hip, and then my ass, and a needy groan tore out of my chest. I needed him, and I needed him now, and I didn’t care about anything else—
I broke away from him, tripping back against the door, my lips burning and my chest heaving. I stared at him with wide, panicked eyes, lust and fury pounding in my bloodstream. I’d been bamboozled a second time!
“I can’t believe I fell for your mouth!” I said, and then remembered how all this heartbreak had started in Christmas Notch to begin with. “Again!”
Angel brushed a thumb against my cheek, and I could feel my body falling under his hypnosis all over again. Before I absolutely drowned in his touch, I swatted his hand away just like I’d learned in the self-defense class Bee’s moms gifted to her, me, and Sunny for Christmas the year after Bee had moved to LA.
I spun around to try the door again, but that was locked, so I shoved past him to try the adjoining bathroom door Sunny had pushed him through, but that was also locked. Of course. Sunny Palmer was many things, and thorough was definitely one of them.
Fuck me.
I eyed the huge brocade drapes covering the windows on the other two walls and tore the nearest set open.
“You’re going to escape through a window?” Angel asked, doing a poor job of hiding the laughter in his voice. “Luca, come on. We don’t even have to talk.”
I flipped the lock on the window and pushed up on the bottom, but I could only get it open a few inches. “Not talking didn’t really pan out for us all of two seconds ago.” I shoved at the window again, and the glass rattled in the frame, but the sash only budged another few inches.
“The window’s jammed,” Angel said.
“Thank you so much for pointing that out,” I said. “I thought this was just how windows worked and that they were there just to look pretty and not actually function. Who wants to actually escape a fire? Or an ex?”
The second that last word left my mouth, a knot formed in my stomach. We’d never actually defined the relationship, and there was nothing more mortifying than being the one to define a relationship that had never even existed.