Ruthless Alpha, and his Curvy Saint

Chapter 145: Chapter 145

Angel’s POV

The shadow excuse was perhaps my least creative one yet.

I was aware of this as I stood in Terrell’s doorway delivering it - my words coming out like something that had been assembled quickly from available materials rather than constructed with care. A shadow under the door. The feeling of being hunted. The unresolved question of who had arranged the cliff.

All of these things were technically true.

None of them were the reason I was standing in his doorway at this hour in my sleeping robe, for the fourth night in a row.

After our first night together and how close I’d come to surrendering to this deep, raging desires within me, I’d insisted on sleeping in my room. But I’d returned that same night with a silly excuse of a nightmare.

Somehow I just discovered I couldn’t sleep anymore without him by my side. And my body had suddenly started craving him with deep longing. I couldn’t explain it, it just became worse after our ordeal on that cliff.

He always welcomed me in. Terrell was always somehow waiting for my arrival.

Right now he was shirtless.

I had known he would likely be shirtless, because he was always shirtless when he opened this door and I had been coming to this door enough times now that I had a reasonable sample size. Knowing this had not made it less of an experience. He stood in the doorway and the firelight from inside the room illuminated his shoulders and arms and everything else.

I stood outside the room and continued delivering my excuse with the determination of someone who had started a sentence and was going to finish it.

"...and since we still don’t know who arranged the cliff incident, the idea of someone outside my door, even if it was probably just a guard, brought back that dreadful feeling of being..."

"Angel," he said.

He took my hands.

He drew me inside and closed the door, and the words stopped because there was no need for them anymore.

He took my robe with the practiced gentleness he had developed over three nights of this particular routine and led me to the bed with care.

He settled me. Adjusted the covers. Then he lay down behind me.

And I noticed immediately that something was different.

Not wrong. The opposite of wrong. But different - the way he held me had shifted from the previous nights, from the careful warmth of someone who had established a boundary and was maintaining it. Tonight he drew me in closer, and there was something in the way he breathed. Like a passionate groan.

His face against the back of my neck. The warmth of the exhale against my skin.

I went completely still.

Not because I was frightened. Because I was not frightened at all, and I was aware that any movement I made right now was going to communicate something. It might scare him and make him stop. And I didn’t want him to stop. God, I’ve wanted this for as long as I could remember and all I wanted to do was to edge him on. Encourage him.

So I lay in the suspended stillness of someone who had been wanting something and was now in the proximity of it and was almost afraid to confirm it was real.

His fingers were light, moving along my arm with the tentativeness of someone testing the temperature of water before committing.

Please, I thought. Don’t stop.

The feeling was heavenly, and I was suddenly hot all over. Hot for him. Something inside of me screamed at me to tear off every piece clothing between us and jump on him. Something feral and possessive.

But I had been still as long as I could be still.

Then I turned towards him in one swift motion, brought my face up toward his, and I kissed him.

He made a sound against my mouth that was not a word and was not anything describable in words, and then he kissed me back.

There was nothing tentative in the way he kissed me back.

His hand came up to my face - the warmth of his palm against my jaw - and he kissed me like someone who had been keeping something contained for a long time and had been given permission to stop containing it. Not rough. Not what I might have expected from the Alpha whose voice could stop a room. This was - thorough. Patient and thorough in a way that suggested he had plans and was not going to be rushed through them.

I had no objections to this.

My hand found his chest. The warmth of his skin under my palm was - I pressed closer because the alternative was the distance between us and the distance between us was suddenly unacceptable.

I was - I was completely, thoroughly, embarrassingly ready. Ready for everything he wanted to do to me. Here, in the room, in this bed, I was completely his, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The knock came.

We both went still.

One knock. Then silence. We waited with the silent hope of two people who had just been interrupted and were silently negotiating with the universe about whether this interruption was strictly necessary.

Then: three more knocks.

Faster. Harder. The continuous banging of someone who was going to keep knocking until the door opened.

Terrell made a sound against my mouth that communicated his feelings about this unexpected interruption.

He pulled back.

He looked at me.

I looked at him.

I thought about several bad things I’d wish would happen to the person on the other side of that door right now.

"I’ll be right back," he said with an unsteady voice, then stood and went to the door.

He opened it with the energy of a man who was about to kill whoever stood outside there.

But then a voice came through from the other side. A very familiar voice.

"...got back about twenty minutes ago, the child is safe, Agnes is with him now, and I need to tell you about the Luna because she’s going to... " A pause. Footsteps, entering. "...send people after us once she realizes what happened and we need to have a plan in place before..."

Merrick walked into the room.

He was speaking and walking simultaneously, in the manner of someone who had a great deal of information to deliver. He had the look of a man who had been on a horse for an extended period and had come directly from the horse to this room without pausing for anything unnecessary like sleep or food.

He stopped.

He looked at the bed.

At me, in the bed.

In Terrell’s bed.

With Terrell’s covers and Terrell’s pillows and Terrell’s room and the undeniable look of someone who had just been thoroughly kissed written clearly enough on my face that Merrick - who was perceptive when he wasn’t exhausted - received the full information of the situation in approximately two seconds.

He looked at Terrell.

Terrell looked at him.

I looked at the middle distance between all three of us and felt unexplainable guilt wash over me.

"Merrick," Terrell said.

"I..." Merrick stopped. Started again. "I found the boy."

"I heard."

"Right." He looked at the bed again. Then very deliberately looked at the wall. "I can come back."

"No," Terrell said. "You said the Luna will send people."

"Yes." Merrick’s voice had dropped drastically. "It took us two days to ride back here at reasonable speed. But the Luna is probably on her way here as we speak. Armed with..." He glanced at me. Looked at the wall again. "Good evening, Angel."

He looked completely shaken and lost and I had no idea how to address this situation.