Ablaze (4 page)

Relieved, she opened her eyes and found herself
looking straight at a handsome man with dark hair that reached the base of his
neck, curled on the end and cut unevenly. His bangs swept to the side were long
enough to touch his eye.
And those eyes! They looked so exotic―almond shaped with
dark thick lashes that were pointing down instead of curling up. She couldn't
quite see the color, but she was sure they were blue.
A hint of beard as if he neglected to shave this
morning added to his ruggedly handsome face.

Angel blinked. Did she fall asleep and
dreaming right now of being in Olympus facing one of the hot gods in rumpled
white shirt that he must have pulled from the bottom of his hamper and, well,
faded low-rise jeans? She lowered her gaze and sighed at the sight of his toes
peeking through his tattered hem. Nice. Was he there all this time?

She stared at the man and, dear oh dear, he
stared back with such intensity she felt like an appetizer laid out on the
table. "Wow."

Facing her, the man leaned back on his barstool, his arms resting against
the bar behind him without breaking eye contact. And then he frowned. He was
staring as if she just materialized in front of him like some kind of a ghost. Or
maybe…on no! She probably looked horrible. Consciously, she smoothed her hair.

I definitely look horrible.

Angel had never seen such an attractive face that looked devious
enough to make any woman fall in love with him instantly. Not even Willy's
chiseled face could match this man's features. He must be over six feet tall
and a big fan of green salads. Must be
,
otherwise, he wouldn't have had that super lean shape.

"Ciao, bella," he greeted.

His voice
,
soft and so masculine, caressed Angel's skin. It also
brought her back to her senses. "Oh,
God
. Please don't tell me you don't speak English. I just
had a row with the cab driver who pretended not to know English at all. Let me
tell you
,
I
offended the poor man because he kept saying no English. I insulted him. So don't
make me insult you, too."

 "Ciao--"

"Fine.
Ciao
to
you, too. I come in peace. I suppose it doesn't matter if you don't know squat
about my language. Just look at me as if I'm the most beautiful woman in the
world and I'll be fine with that. I might even stay here forever if you rubbed
my feet and lower back."

The beginning of a smile tipped the corners of his mouth. His eyes
sparkled like a dancing candlelight flame. Jesus, this man was so irresistible
she couldn't stop staring back. He opened his mouth to say something, but she
beat him first.

"I don't speak Italian. Sorry. You must know some English,
Mister Hottie. You do look exotic
,
but you're
in Seattle and must have heard the word Starbucks and Pink Door Condo. You can
just point and nod. This place doesn't look like a condo to me and not exactly what
I had in mind when I left North Carolina. Manfred owns a condo and not a restaurant.
So, Starbucks. Left or right? Pink Condo. Left or right?"

The man's brows drew together. He looked confused.

Lord, if he couldn't speak and understand English, she must have
sounded like a bird twittering in the bushes to him. "Alright." Angel
gave the man her sweetest smile. "Too bad you can't understand me. I was
going to ask you to make love with me while you whisper sweet sexy words in my
ears. But since you don't know English
,
then I
guess I'll just have to find someone else. You see, I need to prove that any
man can get satisfaction from me. Willy, the idiot, is wrong on that account
about me. Ha!"

The man's lips thinned. Now he looked displeased.

Maybe when she said idiot he thought she was referring to him. Oh,
well. "Sorry, I didn't mean you're the idiot. You don't look like one.
What you are is an ice cream anyone would want to lick." Angel sighed. "Nice.
This is the first time that I talked about my ex without getting interrupted.
Manfred would have been growling by now and Minnie, foaming around her mouth.
Manfred is my grandpa and Minnie is his sister. If you want to ruin their
moods, just say the name Willy. Anyway, about Starbucks. You know it is the
number one coffee shop in US. In fact, it is now a universal language when it
comes to coffee. I bet even the Amazon natives know the word. So I am assuming
that you, Mister Hottie
,
know it
,
too. Just point. Starbucks. Left or right? No?" Angel wiped
her forehead with the tips of her fingers. "Oh,
God
, I am dying of thirst. I just want a cold
frappuccino and maybe a big slice of coffee cake. Well, as much as I'd like to
sit here and talk to you, I have a condo to find. Nice meeting you."

 
"I'll
send someone next door to get your frappuccino and a slice of coffee cake."

Angel let out a tiny squeak.
Lord
Almighty! He knows English.
She tried to remember what she said earlier.
She called him a hottie and…did she offer to let him to make love to her? Annoyed,
she huffed
,
then
said, "You. Are. A. Fraud. What the heck is it about
you
guys pretending not to know English? That's just annoying."

"You, Miss Angel McCready, assumed that
I don't understand you. If you gave me a chance to talk I would have told you
that I could understand and speak English."

"You greeted me in Italian."

"Because Pink Door is an Italian
Restaurant."

"You look exotic. I thought--Oh, don't smile. I
assure you when I said exotic I wasn't complimenting you."

The
man gave her a whatever-you-say shrug.

"How would I--wait, you know my name?"

"Yes." He looked at her feet and
then met Angel's eyes again.

"How?"

"Manfred. Did you crawl all the way
here?"

"I was close to crawling."

"You're bleeding."

Angel looked at her knees. Sure enough
,
blood ran down her shins. "God, I hate blood."

"What happened?"

"No-ingles cab driver said streets are closed because of some
centennial celebration. He dropped me off some blocks away from here. So I
walked."

"On your knees."

Angel rolled her eyes. "I was dreaming about Frappuccino when
I tripped and landed on my knees. It was a nice dream, too." She looked at
her palms and saw that they were scraped, but not as badly.

The man stood up and went behind the counter.
"I say you really pissed the driver off."

"I know."

"I'm surprised. With a face like yours,
any man would scramble to his feet to serve you."

A face like mine?
He said the words while looking deep into her eyes as
if trying to see something more from her. She could tell he was used to staring
at women. It was his way of making them squirm. She felt like squirming
herself. What a topnotch flirt.

The man grinned. He had straight white
teeth, which added to his almost perfect image. Wow. She decided not to acknowledge
the compliment. "Like you said, I pissed him off. Anyway, you know
Manfred?"

"Yup. You're the granddaughter he told
me about."

"Oh,
God
. Please don't tell me I am in the right Pink Door."

"You're in the right place. This is
Pink Door you are looking for."

"Drat. Manfred's getting even with me
for being a pain. He said condo not a restaurant."

"Upstairs is the condo part."

"You're joking."

"No."

"And what are you supposed to be? The
bellboy?"

"No. I'm Dylan Band. Your guide."

Chapter Five

He could not fucking believe it. When Angel
walked in, he thought a real angel minus the white wings came down from heaven to
visit him. He would have fallen off the barstool if he hadn't hung on to it. Mesmerized,
he listened to her babble on while thinking about good warm thoughts, enjoying
himself as he stared at her whole package until she mentioned Manfred's name.

Dylan stared at Angel. Manfred described her
as a great beauty any man on earth should have a chance to see. He was right.
Angel had a face a man could stare at and never tire of it. But Manfred didn't
tell him she was bit high-strung. Angel reminded him of the fish vendor, Asha--a
chatterbox. He was about to say something, but she prattled on. Funny thing
was, he enjoyed listening to her. He especially liked it when she said
something about making love to him.

He'd met Manfred a year ago when they both checked
the restaurant and the rooms upstairs during its open house. Nice man. No air
and hides in his plaid shirt and old corduroys. They chatted and had come to an
agreement--Manfred would get the upstairs and he the restaurant. Dylan could
use the room upstairs in exchange of free meals. Manfred loved the area and
didn't need the whole building to himself. Of course, Dylan never mentioned why
he wanted the restaurant and Manfred never pried.

Last spring, when Manfred stayed here, he
talked about Angel all the time. Dylan had never met anyone whose life revolved
around his granddaughter. Manfred made him think that Angel was his breath, his
life.

Angel grew up around Manfred and his sister Minnie.
The McCreadys belonged to a very very small family. One of the self-made
richest men in North Carolina--this he learned through searching the Internet--Manfred
was a down-to-earth man and protective of Angel. He also expressed his disapproval
to Angel's engagement with her fiancé and wished that Angel was engaged to him
instead of the scumbag. Why Manfred made that wish, since they'd met only a
couple times, he had no idea. But the man was right not to like Willy. Fucking
stupid idiot with an equally stupid name.

The recent scandal about Angel's fiancé
played a major part in Manfred's decision to call him and send her here instead
of a five star hotel. She needs to lie-low and rest, Manfred had told him. Plus
she needed company.

Keep her entertained. Show her around, help
her forget about the fucking asshole and for chriminy sakes, help her sleep,
Manfred had said with bridled anger in his voice while
on the phone.

Oh, yeah, one quick look at her deep forest
green eyes, he could tell that she needed sleep. Dylan assessed Angel from her
high-heeled sandals to her straight bright sunshine-colored hair. She must be
five feet five inches with a small frame. If he were to compare her to an
actress, he'd say she resembled Gwyneth Paltrow except more beautiful. Her
short skirt showed her long and shapely legs that drove him crazy the moment
she walked in the door. Even in their present state, they were fucking lovely. And
those eyes…he wondered if they would change color while in the heat of passion.
His dream suddenly formed in his head. The woman in her bed, long-legged and
moving her hips in synch with his, moaned and urged him to go deeper. Except
this time, that woman had a face. Angel's face.

What the fuck!

A part of him stirred and grew. Damn. "I
talked to Manfred today. You're supposed to arrive here tomorrow and I'm
supposed to pick you up."

"I left a message on his machine. What's
the difference between coming here today and tomorrow?"

"Big." Manfred also forgot to
mention that his granddaughter was a sass. "You wouldn't have had to crawl
here if you waited until tomorrow. I know the streets around here, which the
cab driver obviously didn't."

"I didn't crawl. I tripped. Big
difference. Manfred said you are a friend so I expected to find a seventy-five-year-old
man as my guide."

"Sorry to disappoint you."

Angel looked down at her knees and picked at
the dirt clinging to the skin. "I don't need a guide."

Angel looked so miffed he thought to tease
her. "Cobblestones are all over downtown Seattle, you know."

"I'm not a klutz if that's what you're
trying to imply." Angel lifted her chin and gave him a haughty look. "You
know what? I don't like you."

Ah, there it is. What Manfred talked about--Angel
the brat.
He wanted to laugh at her expression, but
thought better of it. "That's hard to believe."

"What? That I don't like you?"

"Yup. All women like me."

"Well, not this woman. Stop staring. It's
rude."

Dylan grinned. He shouldn't find a banged-up
woman sexy, but he did. He couldn't believe it. This woman was so perfectly
made he got hard just by staring at her. And she made him think of sweet
naughty things like making love at the beach or in a meadow or under the canopy
of stars. If a few minutes in her presence could make his dick hard, he couldn't
imagine what a month would do to him. Damn. What the hell was wrong with him.
Was he really that sex deprived? Of course not. He had one night of hard
experimental sex with voluptuous Ivy last month. However, this woman sitting here,
looking lovely in front of him, made him feel like he never had a woman in
years. Oi!

"Alright, if you don't want me to look
at your face, where do you want me to look?" He shouldn't flirt with her,
but she provoked him.

"Wow. You're an ass."

"Again, lots of women would disagree with
you."

"They must be blind and with horrible taste."

Dylan raised his hands in a mock surrender. "Okay,
you must be weak because--"

"I am stronger than I look."

"Yeah, maybe you don't need a guide.
Looks like you could take care of yourself. You'd probably lose a limb if you
couldn't," he said, unable to resist the temptation to tease her again.

Angel speared him with a you're-not-funny look,
then began inspecting her knees again. "Why are you friends with my
grandpa? Oh, wait, your ages are not that far apart, right?"

"Are you always like this when meeting
someone?"

"Like what?"

"Like you want to pick a fight."

"No. Only with you. That says a lot
because I am a really nice person."

"Meow!" Catty, feisty, sassy.
Perfect. He'd rather have this woman to entertain compared to one who would cry
at the drop of a hat because her heart was broken. "I've met a countless
number of women, but no one's like you."

Angel stopped fussing with her knees. "Of
course no one's like me. I would hate to be clumped together with the women you
know. They probably tease their hair, with fake boobs and wears dark blue
eyeshadows."

Dylan laughed. "You just described my
third grade teacher."

"You know her boobs are fake, how?"

"I'd rather not say."

Angel scrunched up her nose, then gave him a
sullen look. "I believe you just secured your spot in hell."

Dylan shrugged his shoulders. He couldn't
remember having this much fun sparring with a woman. She might turn out to be
good company after all. He stared at Angel. She looked overheated, her hair
needed combing, her feet were red and she oozed sensuality. He wondered if her
lips were as soft as they look. What would she do if he stole a kiss from her? He
had done it with Shane, the woman he met while on vacation in Los Angeles, and
they'd ended up in bed. Looking at Angel though, she might claw his face if he
touched her right now. It would be nice to try though.

Dylan decided to call his cousin, whom he
bet was listening behind the kitchen door, before his mind wandered where it
shouldn't. "Tony, come out.
" To
Angel
,
he said,
"I'll send him to Starbucks to get your frap and cake."

"Oh, no. It's okay. I'll grab a cup
later. Thank you though."

"Wow. How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Switch from a sassy woman to a polite
one. I expected you to snap your fingers and tell me to hurry."

"Well, you bring out the worst in me
and obviously, you don't know me at all to say that I'm a sassy woman."

"No, I don't know you, but I do know
that you're thirsty right now. What about iced water or lemonade while waiting
for your frap."

"I'll take water, please."

"Alright. I don't want you passing out
on me. Tony?"

"What's up, Dylan."

"Angel, this is Tony, my cousin."

"Hi
,
Tony."

Angel gave Tony a sunny smile that made his
cousin's face turn red the way he did when facing a hot frying pan. Tony smiled
back
,
showing
his dimples that never failed to make women sigh and giggle. Angel didn't, however,
she kept on smiling. Dylan suddenly felt like he was all but forgotten.
Fucking
annoying.

"Hey, Tone," he snapped his
fingers. "This is Angel. Manfred's granddaughter that I told you about.

"Ciao, Angel."

"Ciao. Don't say anymore in Italian.
That's all I know. Nice to meet you, Tony." Angel offered her hand, which
Tony quickly shook.

"The pleasure is all mine. Really. I
didn't know a woman with a face of an angel exist."

"Thank you. You're not bad yourself."

Tony winked. Angel laughed. Dylan wanted to
punch his cousin.

Why didn't he shake hands with Angel, Dylan
asked himself. Now he felt like a bastard with no manners. "Tone, iced
water for our guest, please."

"Coming."

Tony disappeared again, but not before he
gave Angel another wink. His cousin was good at that--winking with briefly
shutting his eyes and not opening his mouth. Tony had managed to date popular
girls in high school because of his damn talent in winking.

"Sorry about Tony. He's into winking."

"It's alright. I don't think his wink
is rude at all. It's kind of subtle. Not like some men who winked with their
mouth wide open. You know what I mean."

"Like this," he demonstrated someone
winking and opened his mouth as big as he could.

Angel looked at him for a few seconds, then
burst out laughing. "That's disgusting."

Tony came back with a glass of water in
hand, wiggling his brows at Dylan. He knew what that expression meant. His
cousin shared the same belief--Angel was hot.

"Ice cold water for the beautiful angel."

Angel looked at Tony, then broke into an
open and friendly smile. "Thank you so much."

"Anytime."

Dylan watched Angel and Tony exchange a warm
smile. Hell, he could tell Tony was already inking Angel's name on his lists of
conquests. For some reason he didn't like that thought at all. "Tony, could
you run next door and get Angel a frappuccino. Grande," he told Tony then
he looked directly at Angel. "Angel, coffee, mocha or caramel?"

"Coffee. Thank you. I hope I didn't
interrupt whatever you're doing in the kitchen, Tony."

"Not at all, Angel. Anything you want,
just let me know and I'll get it for you."

Dylan rolled his eyes. He wouldn't be
surprised if Tony raised Angel's hand to his lips. "Classic coffee cake or
lemon pound cake?" Dylan asked Angel.

"Oh, I love the coffee cake."

"Alright. Be right back." Tony untied
his apron and pulled it over his head. "Stay put, Angel, and don't go upstairs
with my cousin."

The light in Angel's eyes disappeared and
they darted back and forth between him and Tony. "Why?"

"Dylan is crazy about blondes and he's
known here as the ladies man."

Angel's shoulders relaxed visibly and she waved
her hand in dismissal. "Oh, don't worry, Tony. I can make him go down on
his knees. I just have the right weapon to do that."

Tony let out a loud hoot. "I bet you
wouldn't have a hard time doing that, Angel. That's his favorite position."

"Leave, Tony, before I break your nose."

"Give it a try, Dylan, and I'll fucking
shove my feet in your tight ass," Tony shot back, then opened the door, and
left.

Angel's eyes widened as she looked at Dylan.
"Oh, boy. Did I just say something wrong?"

Dylan shook his head no. "Sorry. We grew
up in an all-male household. Filtering out words is not our forte."

"It's okay. I like Tony."

"Yeah. You and the other hundred women
he's charmed."

"Do I sense jealousy here?"

Dylan scoffed. "Of course not. Would you
like me to take your suitcases up in your room now?"

"No thank you. I can manage."