Somebody's Angel (#5 in a Military Romance / BDSM Romance series) (Rescue Me) (43 page)

“Making me wait another whole month to have sex the way I want it isn’t fair, Adam.”

He pinched her nose. “Anticipation is good for you.”

“But I’ve been anticipating for months and am on my last nerve! Besides, anticipation only works if I know I’m going to receive my reward for being patient eventually. Can you promise that we’ll have sex the way I need it after Doctor Palmer gives the go-ahead?”

“
If
she gives the go-ahead.”

Karla had no doubt the obstetrician would agree to it, because Karla had been very open about what type of relationship she and Adam enjoyed, both the rough sex and the D/s part. Trying to hide the man’s dominant nature wasn’t going to happen. Karla already pitied those poor labor and delivery nurses who had the misfortune of being on duty the day or night she went into labor. The man would drive them insane as he tried to cope with her going through the pain-filled experience of giving birth.

Still, she wanted a more firm commitment from the man. “So you agree to abide by what Doctor Palmer says?”

Adam already looked a little worried but nodded. “She’s the boss when it comes to this pregnancy. Whatever she says goes.”

She smiled. “I’m going to hold you to that, Sir, even if I have to jump your bones myself to get what I need.”

Chapter Twenty

A
ngelina took another sip of her margarita, feeling the frozen blend slide down her throat. Karla and Cassie were deep in conversation at her table, talking about music, art, and Adam, but Angelina couldn’t stay focused. Karla had mainly followed her home from Denver so she could see Cassie. Adam wouldn’t let her make the trip alone or go anywhere near Cassie’s isolated cabin southwest of Denver.

Despite the ten inches of snow piled onto the previously melting snow mass last night, Cassie had been able to maneuver her way off her mountaintop refuge. The two best friends had a whole season of events to catch up on, a separation caused in part by Cassie’s reclusive nature and Adam’s not allowing Karla to visit her on the mountain any longer.

Angelina was content to sit back and let them catch up. She hadn’t been in a social mood in a long while. Adam and Luke had helped move her things from Marc’s house back to her newly re-leased bungalow a week ago. The Marc chapter—
chapters
, really—in her book of love had closed with a resounding thud. She’d been content to just lay low there, unpacking and settling back in, except for her trip to Denver a couple days ago to babysit Marisol.
Dio
, she loved that little girl and hoped Savannah and Damián had gotten the cathartic healing needed to move on with their lives. Karla teared up just talking about the generalities of the scene. But the smiles on their faces when they got home this morning were well worth it. She hoped this meant they were well on their way to healing from their recent ordeal.

Having nothing fresh on hand to prepare any kind of decent meal for her friends, she’d called her high-school friend Rico and asked if they could hang out here at daVinci’s on this blustery Tuesday afternoon.

Angelina glanced around the room. Rico was behind the bar taking inventory of his liquor bottles. Three pizza boxes sat open at the other end of the bar, their contents all but polished off. Rico had kept the Closed sign on the front door so the party would remain private until the bar’s regular opening time of four o’clock.

Some party. The friendly neighborhood bar held so many bittersweet memories for Angelina that everywhere she looked she pictured Marc. No one mentioned his name to her face, but she knew they were just trying to keep her spirits up.

Moving the last of her things out of his house had been more painful than she’d expected, even though she hadn’t lived with Marc for almost two months. Before she’d arranged for a U-Haul, she’d had Brian assure her Marc would be gone all day. She didn’t want to confront him or, worse yet, succumb to his powers of persuasion and wind up in bed with him. Their relationship had ended as quickly as it had started, because they’d never been able to move from their potent sexual level to a much more satisfying emotional one.

Adam stood at the bar talking with Luke. Suddenly, Angelina wanted answers. She excused herself from the table with Karla and Cassie and walked over to the men but didn’t interrupt their conversation. She stood a few feet away, waiting to be acknowledged. Soon, the two stopped talking about the training of Luke’s newest rescued wild mustang long enough to turn toward her.

Although Adam intimidated the crap out of her, she addressed him anyway. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but when you have a minute, I wanted to ask you something.”

Adam looked at Luke, who nodded before grinning at her and excusing himself. “What is it, hon?”

Adam called everyone hon. Her face warmed under his intense stare, but she regained her focus in an instant. She hadn’t been able to find even a few minutes to ask him before but could stand the suspense no longer. “How is he?”

Adam raised his eyebrows. “He?”

The man wasn’t dense, so he must want her to say his name aloud. “Marc. How’s he doing?”

“Oh, him.”

Angelina glared at Adam. He stared back at her in silence. Was there a twinkle of humor in his eyes? Did he find her groveling for some word of Marc’s well-being amusing? She’d given up on him answering her when he motioned for her to move toward the corner of the bar, leading to the poolroom. He stopped at the last booth—not just any booth, but the same one Angelina, Marc, and Luke had shared the night she’d met them here in late September. Well, the night she’d
thought
she was meeting Marc for the first time, anyway.

Had she ever really met the real Marc D’Alessio?

Angelina scooted to the middle of the bench that had been occupied by Luke that night so long ago. Maybe the memories of sharing the opposite bench with Marc would be less intense.

Hardly. She could see Marc as if he, rather than Adam, was sitting across from her. She could almost feel Marc’s hand on her shoulder as he shielded her from Allen in such a protective way that night. Her eyes stung at the memory. How had they grown so far apart after having shared so much?

And how could she still miss him so much when he wanted nothing to do with her? She’d thought he might call after he got back from California. Luke said he’d come to some kind of epiphany after his accident on the ice just before he’d left with the team to rescue Savannah. So where was he? It had been a month since the rescue.

Maybe epiphanies were only for the characters in her romance novels.

“What did you need to know, Angelina?”

She brought her focus back to the moment and blinked. “Is he taking care of himself?”

Does he need me anymore?

“Not from what little I’ve seen of him lately. Spends too fuc…damned much time alone up in the mountains.”

Still? Marc escaped to the mountains when he needed to think. From what she’d heard from Luke, he’d been doing that for months, with or without clients from his outfitter/adventure business. Hadn’t he figured out yet he wasn’t going to solve his issues about his murky past by hiding out in the mountains? What happened to the soul-searching epiphany Luke said Marc experienced during the ice mishap?

Did he ever think about what he wanted to do about Angelina while he was out there?

“You want to vocalize any of those questions running through that pretty little head, hon?”

Oh, she’d forgotten about Adam! “Sorry. I’m out of shape when it comes to mental discipline these days.”

“You need a Dom. He’ll teach you to focus fast enough.”

“I
had
one. I don’t think I’ll ever want another.” She blinked rapidly, trying to stop the flow of tears. “What did he tell you about what happened with us?”

“Not much. I have a feeling there’s a lot he hasn’t figured out for himself—or maybe just a lot of stuff he doesn’t
want
to figure out.”

“He learned a long time ago to repress, suppress, and otherwise hide behind a mask.”

Adam raised his eyebrows as if this was some kind of revelation. Or was he simply surprised at her perception of the situation? He narrowed his gaze on her, making her squirm on the hard wooden seat.

“What are you doing about getting your Dom back?”

“Doing?”

“I hear you left him, not the other way around.”

Angelina’s heart pounded as her Italian blood began to simmer. Adam knew more than he was letting on, but she had a feeling he didn’t know the reasons behind her leaving. She’d promised not to divulge Marc’s secrets but he shouldn’t come across as a victim needing sympathy either.

“I might have left him physically, but he left me emotionally months before. He never let me in.”

Adam stared at her for a long time before taking a swig from his bottle of water.

She and Marc should have been able to confide in each other. Why hadn’t he been able to open up to her? Instead, he’d just closed himself off until there was no hope. She thought giving him a wake-up call by leaving would get his attention and make him see that running from her, even mentally, wasn’t going to fly, but he’d let her go without even a phone call to see how she was.

Well, he
had
texted when he got back from Italy. She just hadn’t been ready to forgive him yet, so she hadn’t replied.

Damn it, more than two months had passed since they’d talked with Mama without any progress in sorting out his past. How long did he plan to go without doing anything?

“I’m not going to let him keep running, Adam.”

She almost thought she detected a crinkling of his eyes, but he didn’t smile. “How do you plan to stop him?”

Angelina had no clue. Heck, she’d just moved out on him for good. Why did she want to find some way to win him back? And how did she intend to do it?
Dio,
how could she be such a loser to hang onto a man who couldn’t commit? They’d both spent so much time avoiding each other.

She leaned forward. “I’m going to go to Denver and haul his ass down off the mountain, for one thing.”

Adam did smile this time.

Emboldened that he didn’t say she was overstepping her place, she added, “Running never solved anything.”

“That’s for damned sure.”

He agreed with her. She might need him as an ally, so this was good. She knew he loved Marc, too. In fact, Marc and Adam had a lot in common. Both of them were lost little boys inside strong men’s bodies. Adam’s mother told her at the wedding about how hard Adam ran from the emotional baggage of his past for most of his life. Well, Angelina wasn’t going to let Marc run for thirty-something years. He’d run long enough.

Suddenly, Angelina realized she’d been running, too. Rather than stay and insist Marc deal with his past and their future, she’d walked away from him. No, ran. And she’d regretted it every day since, as if she’d lost a part of her own heart. Her strong, stubborn Italian heritage had led her to choose being miserable instead of just going back to him and forcing him out of his mental isolation.

So now what?

Perhaps she needed to form a plan of attack…er, action. She’d already tried the full-on attack when she’d topped him, up to a point. She needed a new strategy.

She leaned toward Adam. “I know you and Karla are house hunting. If you’d like someone to stay at the club, I’d be happy to until Marc and I get this worked out.” Staying here in Aspen Corners when her heart was in Denver already wasn’t going to work.

“We just moved you down here.”

“I made a mistake.”

“Well, I appreciate the offer to keep an eye on things at the club, but Grant’s already agreed to come into the partnership of the club as a co-owner and she’ll move in when Karla and I move out.”

“Oh.”
Darn.
Without a job, she couldn’t afford her own place in Denver.

“But there’s Karla’s old room, not to mention the one you stayed in before. I’m sure Grant wouldn’t mind the company.”

She smiled. He was throwing her a life preserver, which he wouldn’t do if he didn’t think she was right for Marc. She realized he and the others here hadn’t written her off when she’d left Marc. They counted her as a friend as well, which warmed her heart.