Within Reach (18 page)

Desire was a powerful, powerful force. Angie wasn’t quite sure she’d ever realized how powerful before—but then she’d never been so drawn to a man and so conflicted about her own feelings at the same time.

She fell asleep with her thoughts still whirring and woke with a faint headache. She had errands to run in the morning, and it was nearly midday before she arrived at Michael’s house. She hesitated over which route to take to the studio—around the house or through it—then shook her head at her own foolishness. She would use the front door, the way she usually did, because she wasn’t ashamed of what they had done and she wasn’t afraid to face Michael again.

Just the opposite, actually. She was aware of a little spurt of adrenaline exploding like a firecracker in her belly as she let herself into the house and heard his deep voice on the phone in the study. She pressed a hand to her torso, then shut the door quietly behind her and walked up the hallway. Her steps slowed as she approached the study door. She glanced in, straight into Michael’s eyes. He was sitting at his desk, his chair swiveled to face the door, the phone pressed to his ear. She wondered if he’d turned the chair when he heard her key in the door, or if he’d been facing that way already. She very much hoped that it was the former, because suddenly she was fiercely, intensely glad to see him.

His hair was rumpled, and he hadn’t shaved this morning. His gray T-shirt made his eyes seem stormier and more serious than ever. And, of course, his feet were bare.

They looked at each other for a long, drawn-out beat. She raised her hand in greeting. Offered him a small smile. He didn’t smile, but warmth flared in his eyes. Warmth that was quickly tamped down, as though he’d just caught himself doing something he shouldn’t.

She forced her legs to keep moving, walking into the kitchen and straight to the French doors. She took a deep breath of the warm summer air as she walked onto the deck, hoping it would calm the tremulous excitement that was buzzing through her body.

All because he’d looked at her and been pleased to see her, despite what had happened last night.

She unlocked the studio and transferred the diamonds and rubies she’d just picked up to her safe. She glanced toward the door, wondering if Michael would come see her to clear the air once he’d finished his call.

She tried to anticipate what he might say, tried to decide what she might say in return. Something about the fact that she didn’t regret last night, maybe. And that she’d had a good time.

She didn’t let herself get beyond that, which was just as well because Michael didn’t come calling. Instead, she ran into him in the house in the early afternoon when she went inside to use the bathroom. He was in the kitchen making coffee. There was no way he couldn’t have been aware that she was in the house—he’d have heard the French doors opening and closing, her footsteps on the wooden floor, the flush of the toilet—which meant he’d chosen to be in the kitchen so they would run into each other. He gave her a carefully neutral smile when she entered.

“Coffee?” he asked, lifting his mug in inquiry.

“Sure.”

He poured a second mug. She crossed to the fridge for the milk, tension making her shoulders stiff. She slid the milk onto the counter and watched as Michael added some to each mug, waiting for him to say something.

“You got home okay?” she finally asked. He wasn’t the only one who could initiate a conversation, after all.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“And your mum got away okay?”

“I dropped her at the airport this morning.”

“Good. Good.”

She accepted her coffee and wrapped her fingers around the warm porcelain. “Do you want to talk?”

Michael’s gaze dropped from her face to the counter. She watched his chest rise and fall as he took a deep breath. Then his gaze found hers again.

“Can I say ‘not yet’? Is that okay? I’m still trying to get my head together. To understand…”

“Of course,” she said quickly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“But that’s okay with you? I know it was weird, me leaving so quickly last night… I lay awake half the night kicking myself for being such an asshole.”

She reached across and touched his arm, unable to stop herself. “You’re not an asshole, Michael. Far from it.”

His arm was warm beneath her hand. She wanted to hang on to him so badly, but she forced herself to withdraw.

“Well, I’ve been doing a pretty good impersonation of one lately.”

She wanted to keep talking but he’d said he wasn’t ready so she backed off and picked up her mug. “You do a really bad impersonation of an asshole, actually. Believe me, I’ve met the real thing.”

She left him standing at the counter and returned to her studio. She was distracted as she resumed work, worrying about him, about them. Thinking about Billie and how she fit into all of this. She forgot about her coffee and when she remembered it was stone cold. She zapped it in her microwave and gave herself a mental shake. Her chewing over the situation endlessly wasn’t going to change what it was. It was only going to drive her crazy.

She turned on her flexi-drive drill and began the delicate task of creating rivet points to join the three sleeves of the ring she was working on together. She was working close to the edge, using her free hand to augment the vice’s grip when a loud bang made her head jerk up. Pain bit into her hand and she looked down and realized that the drill had slipped across the surface of the ring and into the index finger of her left hand, leaving behind a nasty cut that was already welling blood.

“Shit.”

She straightened, switching off the drill and letting it drop to the surface of her workbench. She leaned across and grabbed a wad of tissues from the box on the windowsill and put pressure on the wound. The prickling discomfort in her finger confirmed her suspicion—there was metal in the wound, tiny filings from the drill.

Awesome.

All because a stupid bird had flown into the window. She’d recognized what the bang was a split second after she’d registered it, but that hadn’t stopped her startle reflex.

With the wound under control, she inspected the ring. The drill had gouged a line across its surface, but she could polish it out. Time-consuming, but doable. At least that was a small silver lining to hold on to.

Blood had soaked through the tissues and she grabbed some more and added them to the first lot before elevating her hand and standing to go collect her first-aid kit. She’d injured herself enough over the years to have a pretty comprehensive kit and she hoisted it by its handle and took it into the house so she would have access to running water.

It was awkward to work one-handed, but she managed to tear the top off some gauze and she used it to clean away the worst of the blood. The cut was a centimeter long and only a few millimeters deep. Nothing major. She used a pair of tweezers to hold it open, trying to sight the fragments of metal. She glimpsed a sliver and reached for a sachet of sterile saline, tearing the top off with her teeth.

She tried three times to flush the wound, but it was impossible for her to hold the tweezers and flush the cut with the saline at the same time. After five futile minutes she gave up and applied pressure with the tissues again. Feeling foolish, she made her way to the study. Michael was tapping away at the computer and she cleared her throat to get his attention.

“Don’t freak, but I had a little accident and I need some help flushing out a metal sliver,” she said.

Michael’s surprised gaze went from her face to her hand. He was on his feet like a shot.

“Are you okay? Do you need a doctor? Damn, there’s a lot of blood.”

He reached for her hand, pulling it away from where she had it elevated against her shoulder.

“It looks a million times worse than it is. It’s a tiny little cut, but it’s got a bit of gold in it that needs to come out before I can wrap it up.”

“You’re sure?”

His hand was warm on hers, his face creased with worry. She couldn’t help but be touched by his concern.

“Very. Can I borrow your hands for five minutes?”

“You can even have the rest of me, for as long as you need me.”

She wasn’t going to touch that one with a ten-foot barge pole, so she simply led the way to the kitchen and explained what she was trying to do. Michael looked at the abandoned gauze and the empty saline sachet and frowned.

“Why didn’t you come get me straight away?”

“Because I’m a grown-up?”

“You’re too independent, that’s what it is. Too used to doing things on your own.”

“That’s because I am on my own most of the time,” she said, amused by his stern demeanor.

“Not today, you’re not.”

He pulled out more gauze and used the scissors in the kit to open a second sachet of saline. Then he moved closer and took her hand in his.

“Let me know if it hurts, okay?”

“Oh, you’ll know.”

He took off the tissues and used the gauze and some of the saline to clean the wound. Then he picked up the tweezers and parted the cut.

“I can see it. You want me to try to pull it out with the tweezers or flush it out?”

This close, she could see how long his eyelashes were and the way his laugh lines formed a friendly bracket around his mouth. He smelled good, too, like warm skin and fresh laundry detergent and soap. Her gaze gravitated to his lips, remembering the way he’d kissed her last night, and not just on the mouth.

“Angie?”

She realized he’d asked her something and was waiting for a response. She lifted her gaze from his mouth and saw understanding dawn in his eyes. He knew what she was thinking about. He knew exactly.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be.” His voice was gruff. He shifted his weight slightly. “You want me to try to pull it out with the tweezers? It might hurt, but at least we’ll know we got it.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll be gentle.”

“I know.”

She looked away from what he was doing, not trusting herself not to flinch at the key moment. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, right?

She focused instead on his chest, on the clean lines of his collarbone and the handful of dark curls visible at the dip in his V-neck T-shirt. She knew how those hairs felt against her breasts, rough and silky at the same time. She knew how powerful and heavy his weight felt as it settled over her….

She could feel Michael probing for the fragment and she closed her eyes, trying to be brave.

“You okay?” His voice was soft, concerned.

“Yep.”

“Almost there.”

She felt him flush the cut with saline, then pressure as he pressed a pad of gauze to the wound. She opened her eyes and watched as he found a bandage, sticking it to her finger with precise care.

“You’re good at this,” she said.

“Lots of practice. You’ve met Charlie, right?”

She smiled. Charlie had never met a dangerous object he didn’t want to get better acquainted with. She’d steered him away from certain death more times than she could count.

Michael used the last of the gauze to wipe away the dried blood on her hand. Her back was pressed up against the counter, and he was still standing very close. If she wanted to, she could slide to the left or right to put some space between them. She didn’t move, and neither did Michael as he started collecting the various wrappers and sachets they had used. He kept his gaze resolutely on what he was doing, but Angie was aware of every shift of his body as he leaned past her to reach the counter, every breath he took, every flicker of his eye, and instinct told her it was the same for him. Finally he moved away, turning to drop the rubbish in the bin. When he turned, her gaze was drawn to the front of his jeans where a not insubstantial bulge signaled his arousal. His expression was half sheepish, half frustrated when she lifted her gaze back to his face.

“Sorry. Apparently I’m experiencing a second teenagerhood at the moment.”

“Is that what it is? It must be contagious, then.”

She held his gaze, refusing to look away. Letting him see how much it excited her that simply standing close to her was enough to give him a hard-on. His expression darkened and he took a step toward her, the movement so jerky it couldn’t be anything but involuntary. He reached for her, his hand curving around her waist, but he didn’t pull her any closer. Instead, he stilled, his eyes dark with confusion.

“Angie…is it really this crazy for you, too?”

“Yes.”

Maybe she was imagining it, but he looked marginally relieved.

“This is new territory for me… I don’t really know how to handle it,” he said, his voice so low she almost couldn’t hear him.

“It’s not exactly my area of expertise, either.” Because this was new for her, too. None of her previous lovers had pushed her buttons quite like Michael did.

“Everything I said the other day still stands. I don’t want to lose your friendship.”

“Me, either. You all mean too much to me.”

“But I’m not sure I can keep my hands off you.”

Her pulse leaped at his words, heat rushing to her thighs.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t.”

But he still didn’t close the distance between them.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Angie.” He was frowning now, and she understood exactly what he was saying.

That anything that happened between them would only be about sex and friendship because his heart belonged to Billie.

“I understand, Michael.” And she did. She knew that this thing between them wasn’t something he’d come looking for and that he didn’t need or want another relationship. It was too soon, he was too raw.

And yet they were both standing here, thrumming with arousal, ready to jump each other.

“As long as we’re both on the same page, it’ll be okay,” she said. “You keep talking to me, and I’ll keep talking to you. And if this—” she indicated the few inches of space between them “—becomes a problem, then we do something about it.”

She was making it up as she went along, but it made sense to her. Or perhaps it only made sense because all she could think about right now was getting Michael naked and inside her as quickly as possible.

As though he could read her mind, he finally closed the distance between them. His hips pressed against hers and his arms slid around her. She drew back slightly as one last rational thought intruded.