Stronghold (Stronghold 1) (34 page)

"Didn't tell you that
she was living with three guys, did she?"  Q asked, a little smugly.
 As if he expected Adam to turn tail and head out the door now, and that
satisfied him. 

"She'd
mentioned her housemates, I just assumed she'd be living with women."

Mark snorted.
 "Angel doesn't like other women.  Except Leigh."

"And that
Lexie chick she's started talking with lately," Sam said, turning his
attention back to the video game and unpausing it.  “She mentioned two other
girls too.”  Q cursed and grabbed up his controller.

"What do
you mean she doesn't like them?"

"Well,
more like they don't like her.  She's kind of more of a guy than a girl.
 And they get all jealous and stuff."  Mark shrugged.
 "The good ones get past it and she scares off a lot of the
possessive crazies, just by living here."

Just like Q had
obviously expected Adam to turn tail once he realized she was living with three
guys.  Okay, he didn't like it, but he could live with it.
 Especially, he realized, because all three of them talked about her like
she was a combination of little sister and just another one of the guys.
 An observation that might escape someone who had a more jealous
personality or was more insecure.

"Can you
see if she'll come down here?" he asked, realizing that he'd gotten kind
of off track. 

"Nope."
 Mark grinned as Adam blinked.  "We all know better than to
bother her when she's listening to the Dresden Dolls.  If she switches
back to musicals or country, I'd be willing to try."

"Will you
stop me from going up?"  Maybe the element of surprise would actually
help him. 

Movement out of
the corner of his eye said that Q wasn't too happy with the idea, but he didn't
answer either.  Mark just shook his head.  "It's your
life."

No wonder Adam
hadn't been sure whether or not she was a Domme when he'd met her at Chained.
 It was obvious that Angel had no problem pushing around her housemates
when she wanted to, so she had plenty of practice at being in charge.
 Personally Adam wasn't that patient.  He wanted to know what was
going on and if she reacted badly well, then, that would tell him something as
well. 

"Thanks."

"It's the
last door on the right," Mark said as he moved aside so that Adam could
past him towards the stairs.  As if Adam wouldn't have just been able to
follow the music.

Behind him, he
could hear Sam chuckle.

"Bye bye
boy.  Have fun storming da castle."

"Think
it'll work?"

"It would
take a miracle."

The laughter
that followed him up the stairs was not reassuring.

******

Music wasn't one of Angel's passions, but it
was definitely something she indulged in.  Especially when her emotions
were feeling out of control.  Maybe if she was a better singer then she'd
be more passionate about it, but Leigh was the one with the gorgeous voice.
 Angel was the one who liked to belt out country or musicals or sometimes
rock music as a way of venting her negative energy. 

And she had plenty of that, she thought
darkly, glaring at her phone.  

Adam had called this morning.  Five
times.  At first she'd thought that he must have gotten it from the club,
but then Mike had texted her to let her know that he'd given Adam her number.
 The stinker.  

Of course, it wasn't Mike's fault and she
realized that, since she knew that he didn’t know the way things had turned out
at Stronghold last night.  But right now she was just mad at the world.
 Once she worked through that then she wouldn't be feeling so pissy at
Mike anymore.  Right now she was just enjoying a nice long wallow in being
mad and once it was over she'd leave her room and be just as cheerful and happy
as ever.  

She wondered what had happened to Lexie and
the others.  So far she hadn't called them because she knew that Lexie
would ask about Angel's night and she wasn't quite ready to talk about that
yet.  Especially since she knew she wouldn't be able to stop herself from
asking what Adam had done after she'd gone home... which would lead to her
asking what he'd done after she'd gone home the last two times they'd scened,
and she needed more emotional armor before she started asking those questions.

So she was sitting in her room, working on
her sewing, which kept her hands busy, and belting out the Dresden Dolls which
was making her feel a lot better.

"Hate to break it to you but it's out of
my control,

forces go to work while we are sleeping...

if I could attack with a more sensible
approach

obviously that's what I'd be doing...

Now

Necks are cracking sideways

hit me from the backside..."

Her voice trailed off.  Was that a knock
at her door?

Worry, immediate and sharp, lanced through
her.  The guys knew not to bother her right now, which meant the only
person that might be knocking on her door right now was Leigh.  When Angel
had left the club last night she'd had the disappointing voicemail from Leigh
saying that she and Michael had talked for a long time and that she just wasn't
ready to give up on him yet.  From what Angel understood, Leigh didn't
want to think that she'd wasted years on a relationship that hadn't gone
anywhere.  Personally Angel didn't understand why Leigh would then want to
waste more time, but she supposed that that's because she didn't have Leigh's
optimism that the relationship would end in happily ever after.    

Seriously though, could the guy not hold his
shit together for 24 hours?

Practically jumping up from her sewing
machine, Angel crossed her room and yanked open the door, already ready to start
comforting Leigh and call Michael every name in the book.

Chest... look up... neck... face... slightly
amused expression...

Angel tried to slam the door on the big,
blonde jerk, but he put out his palm too fast.  Bastard had reflexes, had
to give him that. 

Stomping over to her iPod, she hit the pause
button and whirled around to see that he'd already come into her room and was
looking around.  Angel scowled.

"What the hell are you doing here?"
she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.  "And how did you get up
here?"  She couldn't believe that the guys hadn't at least warned him
to stay away.  Granted, she wouldn't pit her boys against Adam thinking they
could win if they were standing in the way of what he wanted... but then that
begged the question, what did he want with her that badly?

"I came to see you," he said,
peering at the pictures that she had tucked into the sides of the vanity mirror
on her dresser.  There were a bunch, various shows that she'd been in with
her cast mates, trips with Leigh, hanging out with the boys, and several of her
and her family.  "Michael gave me the address.  And then I
followed the music."

Her lips twitched before she could stop it.
 Dammit, he wasn't going to make her smile.  Especially since he
wasn't even looking at her.  Damn Michael too, for not giving her a heads
up.  

Having Adam looking at her personal things
was unnerving, but she told herself that she shouldn't care.  After all,
it's not like he meant anything to her.  Angel went back to her sewing
machine and picked up where she'd left off when she'd thought she was jumping
up for something
important.
  She kept the music off so that she
could keep asking him questions though.  

"Are Lexie and Patrick okay?"  That
was good.  Casual.

"Yeah, they're both fine," he said,
with a subtle emphasis on the pronoun.  Angel's lips twitched again.
 Apparently Trevor hadn't fared so well.  She wondered what he'd
done, not that she thought there would need to be much to bring down Patrick on
his head.  "I don't think Lexie helped her quest to get into the club
though."

"Well if Patrick would let her in with a
Dom who knew what he was doing then things probably would have gone very
differently," Angel said a little testily.  Sometimes the way Adam
and his friends reacted to Lexie was amusing, but only because she wasn't
Lexie.  If she were Lexie's shoes she'd be... well, she'd probably be
doing a lot of the same things Lexie was if not more.

Adam just sighed.  "I didn't come
here to talk about Patrick and Lexie."

She refused to look up as he moved away from
her vanity and walked over to where she was sitting at her work desk.  For
a long moment neither of them spoke as she finished the seam she was working
on.  When she glanced up at him, Adam had seated himself in the armchair
that she used to read and was watching her, his expression somehow both blank
and conveying his patience.

She turned the machine off and neatly folded up
the fabric.  

"So why did you come here?"
 It wasn't an idle question and definitely not one that she was asking
just because it was expected - although he obviously did expect her to.
 She truly wanted to know.  Because it just didn't make sense in her
head. 

"We didn't get to finish talking last
night.  I told you to stay put and you left."  Those blue eyes
managed to look hard and accusing without appearing cold.  It was all she
could do not to squirm in her seat guiltily, even though she knew she shouldn't
feel guilty.  Frightening how good he was at that.

After a night of contemplation and a morning
of music, Angel knew how she felt and what had upset her.  It wasn't his
fault that her perceptions of the situation had been different, and now that
she was confronted with him she felt her anger slide away.  It said
something good about him that he'd wanted to check up on her.  He was a
good guy.  She hoped they could salvage a friendship after this and that,
like Mike, her attraction to him would fade when she found someone else.

"I didn't really feel like talking last
night," she said.  "I was kind of pissed, a little upset, and I
needed some space."  Adam shifted in the chair, looking like he was
going to say something, but she kept going before he could interrupt her.
 "I liked you, not just as a Dom but I've really liked spending time
with you, and since we'd arranged for a... a scene... well, it's not like I
expected exclusivity because of that but I did kind of expect that at least I'd
have your attention for the night, so when I came in and you saw me but you
didn't seem to care that I was there because you were too busy talking to that
other woman. And then you told that other sub that you would play with her on
another night, right in front of me…"  Hearing the slight bitterness
that was creeping into her voice, Angel coughed and moderated it before
continuing.

"Anyway, it just hit me that individual
scenes aren't really what I'm looking for.  I was really enjoying scening
with you and I wasn't really thinking about it before, but I'm just not really
cut out for scening with multiple people or for scening with someone who does.
 I really appreciate the scenes we had and they were wonderful, but like I
said, I really like you and I think we could be really good friends, but only
if things don't get all confused with the physical stuff."  The way
Adam was looking at her now didn't give Angel a clue as to what he was
thinking.  And she felt like she was babbling.

Nervously she flicked her tongue across her
lower lip and then dragged her teeth across it, keeping any more words from
spilling out of her mouth.  She'd always been what her dad called a
"straight-shooter," even when it made her uncomfortable.  Maybe
it was because she read so many books, but she always felt that issues between
people could easily be solved with just telling the truth as they saw it,
rather than hedging or trying to gloss over their feelings.

Which might be why she tended to get along
better with guys than girls, because they tended to handle bluntness better.
 Although not all girls were like that obviously, it was just that Angel's
experience had found her in more friendships with men then with women.

The silence stretched between her and Adam
until she was starting to think that maybe he was one of those guys that didn't
appreciate bluntness either.  Which would surprise her, but it wouldn't be
the first time that it happened.

Finally he sat forward, resting his elbows on
his thighs with his hands hanging between them.  "I think that,
perhaps, you're working from a misconception," he said.  "I
haven't scened with anyone but you since I met you.  Even though I thought
you were a Domme at first."

"Oh."

Angel cast about after her emotions, trying
to figure out how to react to that straightforward and surprising statement.
 He was right, because if that was true then she'd definitely been
harboring a major misconception.  The amount of emotions rushing into her
- surprise, guilt, hope - along with the quick review going on in her head of
every interaction she'd had and assumption she'd made, left her feeling
surprisingly blank.  Although an embarrassing heat rose in her cheeks as
she realized some of the things she'd just implied about him that were
obviously not true and, while they might not be deliberately insulting, could
definitely be considered unflattering.