Sensuous Angel (12 page)

His hand slipped beneath her blouse and touched her flesh. It was a touch like no other she had ever known. Hot…so hot…and so good, she could have wept with the pleasure of it. She felt his length against her, and she knew his desire. She wanted him to go on and on to love her, to give her the heights of ecstasy. He was very much a man, one who could make love with a passion and strength that would create the wildest beauty imaginable.

But suddenly it was wrong because of her life, of all the years of a priest being taboo, of not knowing if she had the strength to be the woman he could love. Because…she didn’t really know. There were secrets. Dark mysteries. He was a man of God, but like a devil he could compel and hold, and his power over her was frightening.

She did love him, she thought with a twisting pain that knifed through her like a razor. But suddenly she was crying out his name again, and fighting his strength, and his kiss. “Luke! No!”

At the sound of her anguished voice, he released her. Shaking, Donna rolled away from him, and stared at him.

There was anger in his eyes, controlled anger, tempered with a frown of confusion. “What is it?” he asked her quietly.

“Luke—there’s something about you that I—I don’t understand,” Donna stammered.

“What!” he demanded. “Are we back to the priest bit?” Sitting up, he raked his fingers through his hair. “Donna, I think you’re trying real hard to turn me into a saint.”

She shook her head miserably. “That’s not even it,” she murmured.

“Then what?”

“I still don’t really know you. I don’t think that many people do. Maybe I will—soon. But it’s going so fast….”

He sighed, “Donna, I would have stopped…oh, never mind.” He stood up, no longer angry. “I’m really not such a mystery. And maybe…maybe I’m a little afraid of you too.” He touched the silken locks of hair that were tumbling over her forehead in disarray. “I’ve got to get back tonight. Want to have dinner tomorrow?”

Donna nodded mutely. He offered her a vague smile, collected his coat, and walked to the door.

“Luke?”

He turned around.

“At dinner…will you answer some questions for me?”

His smile became an amused grin. “Sure.”

“Promise me, Luke, please?”

“Scout’s honor.”

“Luke!”

“All right, all right—I swear to God!”

“Very amusing!”

“Donna, just what do you want?”

She lowered her lashes. “You,” she whispered honestly. “I’m just not sure I know how to have you.”

She felt his eyes on her but she couldn’t look up. “I love you, Donna,” he said softly, then she heard the door click quietly closed.

L
UKE ARRIVED AT HER
hotel room door at exactly seven. Donna had been ready for a long time. When his knock came, she grabbed her jacket and purse and slid outside the door quickly, before he could enter. If he noticed her somewhat panicked behavior, he didn’t comment on it.

But she was sure he noticed. He had that knowing gleam to his eyes, and his lips were set in a small, almost secretive smile. She definitely amused him, but at least he wasn’t rude enough to comment on it this evening.

“Where are we going?” she asked him quickly, huffing a little as she kept up with his long strides down the hallway.

“A place I think you’ll like,” he told her.

The elevator opened for them, and he ushered her in. It was crowded, and she had the choice of squeezing closely against him or squeezing against a very pregnant young woman in a plush sable fur. She was sure she’d sneeze all over the sable. So she crowded as close as she could to Luke. He glanced down at her, offered her a little grin, and slipped an arm about her shoulders to pull her against him.

She couldn’t deny that it made her happy to be with him, to have his arm about her, to breathe his pleasant scent, feel the warmth and wiry strength of his body. And he was so incredibly good-looking. Tonight he was wearing dark trousers and a beige kidskin jacket. Soft. Nice to touch. It had that enticing smell of new leather, and the feel of it against her cheek when she was tempted to rest her head against it was wonderfully sensual.

Donna took a shaky breath as the elevator slid to a smooth halt. Everyone bustled out. His arm remained around her as he led her to the main doors and managed to efficiently charm the doorman into acquiring them a taxi instantly.

“What’s the name of the restaurant?” Donna asked when she was seated next to him and the cab jerked into what she considered to be a too-speedy action.

“Caro’s.”

“Italian?”

“Of course,” he murmured, brushing her knuckles with a light kiss that fired her entire body with a disturbing heat. “Where else does one take a gorgeous Italian?”

Donna laughed. “Am I gorgeous?”

“Beyond a doubt,” he told her softly.

She turned away from him and stared at the city buildings through the neon glow of nighttime. She wanted him, cared for him, and liked him but she barely knew him. She liked his teasing banter. She liked him as a man, she was often shocked by him, but she respected his stands. And what was between them was honest; it was real. He liked her, cared for her, wanted her. She felt very feminine in his company, very much a woman.

But where did they go from there? He was a priest. To someone else, it might mean nothing. For Donna, it was a lot to handle. All of her life, a priest had been a man sworn to God never to be thought of as a
man.
Even though he was a Protestant—and she could accept it all on a
rational
level—she still felt…strange. And her family! She could just imagine walking into the old triple decker house and announcing that she was in love with a Protestant priest!

The cab came to an abrupt halt. Luke helped her out, paid the driver, and started leading her along the sidewalk. All she could see before her was a gaping hole in the ground before them.

“I’ve got it,” she teased him. “We’re having dinner at a hot-dog stand in the subway.”

“No,” he answered calmly.

“Then we took a cab just to get to a different subway station?”

“No!” He laughed this time. “The restaurant is down those steps.”

“Oh,” Donna murmured uncertainly. He gave her shoulders a little squeeze of reassurance, but Donna was still convinced that the place had to be something Andrew had stumbled on when he was slumming in the underworld.

After they descended the murky stairway, she discovered the restaurant was very nice. The lighting was subdued. Candlelight flickered from all the tables and intimate booths. A guitar was strummed lightly, and somewhere a tenor was singing Italian love songs.

“Great place for a seduction,” Luke whispered to her, before greeting the maître d’.

Yes, it was, Donna thought as they were led along a weaving path through the tables. A great place for a seduction scene….

They were seated at a booth, facing one another. Bread and small dishes of antipasto had already been served. Luke raised his glass of burgundy to her. She eyed him suspiciously, but raised her glass to his.

“All right, Luke,” she murmured. “You promised you would do some talking.”

“Yes, I did promise, didn’t I?”

“Umm-hmmm. So start talking.”

“Where would you like me to start?”

“When did you decide to become a priest?”

“In the service. I was in the marines.”

Donna idly picked a black olive off her plate and chewed it, grateful that the pit had been removed. “Are you going to make me drag out all the answers?”

Luke chuckled softly, then took a reflective sip of his wine. “No, I won’t make you drag things out.” He smiled. “I went to Catholic schools myself, you see—

“Roman Catholic?”

He laughed. “Yes. My parents sent us all to private schools, and the best school around was run by a group of Franciscan brothers. You don’t have to be Catholic to go to Catholic schools. Didn’t you know that?”

“I guess I never thought about it,” Donna admitted. “But,” she added, “neither does going to a Catholic school automatically make one a priest—especially not an Episcopalian priest!”

Luke chuckled. “No. But I think that my interest in theology was born there. My dad, who was Church of England all the way, was a great friend of one of my teachers, Brother Clement. They used to have great debates down in the cellar each winter. They’d argue until you’d think the roof was going to blow, but they always ended by deciding that God, in his infinite wisdom, came to different men in different ways.”

“Then they were really very open-minded,” Donna said.

“Oh, I don’t know. They could take a single line from the Bible and argue over it for nights on end.”

“And you—let’s get back to school. Were you a model student?”

“Far from it.” He grinned, his green-gold eyes a firebrand of mischief. “I think that my mother was despairing of me. I was continually on the carpet for something. I straightened up somewhat in college, worked awhile, and then I wound up in the marines.”

He paused suddenly, and Donna realized that the story was about to become more serious.”

“Go on, please,” she prodded softly.

He shrugged, sipping his wine again. “I’d always believed in God—Dad and Father Clement, for all their differences, had thoroughly convinced me that there was a Supreme Being—and I guess that Nam was a good place to have that belief. Of course I wasn’t very sure at that time that God was terribly fond of me. Anyway, we were on maneuvers one day when a buddy of mine got badly shot up. We were out in the rice paddies in the middle of nowhere. I couldn’t get any help for him; all that I could do was stay with him. And I knew that he was going to die.” He paused again.

“He didn’t have much of a torso left,” Luke said quietly. He smiled at her, a little sadly, a little ruefully. “I’ll never forget it. You see, the worst of it was that Joe didn’t go quickly. I can remember the day going from a blood-red sunset to a dark and humid dusk. Joe lost consciousness, then regained it. He was in a lot of pain, and wandering. I wondered if I wouldn’t be doing the right thing just to kill him myself, to rid him of his pain. But I didn’t. I think we all like to believe in miracles.

“Anyway, Joe started to believe that I was his priest. He wanted me to pray for him. So I started trying to pray. And here I was with this poor man, stuttering out some words. And all I could think was that Joe had the worst representative in the world going for him. I thought about all the sins in my undistinguished life, and my tears were falling all over Joe because I felt so helpless—and so sure that God would never listen to a word that I had to say. But I had to try. I had to help Joe somehow. So I turned away and literally slapped myself. I turned back to him and assured him that I was his priest. I started praying again, all the nice things I remembered from all those mornings in mass. And suddenly Joe stopped screaming. He was relaxed, no longer frightened.”

Donna felt a little chill seep through her. She moistened her lips to speak, but the sound was still a whisper.

“Joe lived?”

Luke smiled, shaking his head. “No, I’m not a miracle worker. But somehow…I don’t really know how to say this. He—he died easily. Almost smiling. As if he had entered a far better world. Maybe it was the last illusion of an agonized man, but it was as if he knew he was about to reach heaven. But right before he died, he opened his eyes and stared straight at me. And he said, ‘Thank you, Luke. God bless you, son.’”

“And you decided then to be a priest?”

“No, not exactly. It wasn’t one of those instant decisions. But it was a long night. I just sat there, holding Joe’s body, for what seemed like forever. It took until morning for the rest of the patrol to find us. I don’t know, I guess I started thinking then that my life really hadn’t been worth much of anything to anyone. And it might very well have been me rather than Joe who died. When I got back to base, I guess I was in shock. Father McKay—who is a Roman Catholic, by the way—spent a lot of time with me. He suggested that I’d be a perfect candidate for the priesthood. I told him he was crazy. But I’d begun to wonder….Then I told him again that he was absolutely crazy because if I was going to do something, I’d want to do it right. And I was opinionated, temperamental—et cetera. McKay knew I was an Episcopalian, but our unit didn’t have an Episcopalian priest at that time. So he waited, and then as we moved closer to base, he went in and found Father Austin—a very young man, by the way—who was an Episcopalian. Austin and I became good friends. He tried not to influence me—he just answered questions. And he played a great game of tin can putt-putt.”

Luke hesitated. “I still wasn’t sure when I got back to the States, but I entered a seminary and I came out a priest.”

He stopped speaking, smiling as the waiter appeared with large plates of lasagna.

“The best you’ll ever taste!” the waiter assured them before hurrying away. Luke and Donna both remained silent as they bit into their food.

“Well?” Luke asked her.

“Well?”

“Is it the best you’ve ever tasted?”

“It’s very, very good,” Donna replied, smiling. “But I’m afraid my grandmother still makes the absolute best I’ve ever tasted.”

He reached across the table and she felt the feather-light caress of his fingers over her hand. “I’d just love to taste your grandmother’s lasagna, you know.”

Donna flushed slightly. Oh, no, she thought. She wasn’t so sure that he would because it would be served in the midst of pure chaos, with her grandfather there like a reigning monarch. And he’d probably drive Luke to murder because to him, anyone who isn’t Italian isn’t civilized, and anyone who isn’t Catholic is a pagan.

But she didn’t withdraw her fingers. She smiled weakly and changed the subject. “I’d like to ask you something else,” she told him.

“Shoot.”

Did he mean it? She could have sworn a thin veil of wariness had descended darkly over the golden glitter in his eyes. They seemed to say ask…ask all the questions you like and I’ll answer them, exactly as I choose….

Donna hesitated. She set down her fork and at last withdrew her fingers from his, folding her hands in her lap. Then she grimaced. “When I wasn’t worried about the fires of hell and eternal damnation for the way I was feeling about you, I was…uh…worried about something else.”