Page 41 of Lips of an Angel

There, in the quiet bedroom with my wings gently stroking him into a deeper sleep, I spoke. “I love you, Raleigh.” The words hurt my already-raw throat. “I’m so in love with you.”

In the morning, I snuck out before he woke up. I was the one who got us into this mess, I needed to be the one to get us out of it. My heart, however, wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed with him and never leave again. I found myself standing outside of the shower for an embarrassingly long time, simply because I didn’t want to wash his scent away.

I couldn’t do what I needed to smelling like sweat, sex, and Raleigh.

An hour later, I approached the main entrance of Summerlin Medical Center. The place was bustling with people, and I blended in easily. I’d been with Eli through his whole residency rotation, so I was no stranger to the hospital. He’d been on the emergency roster lately, so I followed the signs for the ER and hoped he wasn’t in the middle of an operation. A typical day had him swimming in cases of alcohol poisoning as there were always a few drunken idiots who injured themselves one way or another.

I slipped behind a nurse who scanned their pass and found Eli standing at the nearest workstation leaning over a tablet. Almost as if he knew when I entered the room, his head turned and his face lit up.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you today,” he said, abandoning the tablet to approach me. His eyes flitted to my neck, and for a moment I panicked. Had Raleigh left a mark I didn’t know about? I fought the urge to snap my hand up.

Eli seemed to think better of touching me, instead shoving his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. “Is everything okay?”

I didn’t answer his question. Instead, I signed, “Are you busy? Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“Follow me.”

From there, Eli led me to an empty on-call room, letting me inside before closing and locking the door behind him. Before he had a chance to speak, I grabbed his bicep to get his attention. Swallowing hard against a lump in my throat, I nodded my head.

“Yes?”

Another nod.

“Yes, what, Angel?”

I centered myself, trying to forget the sound of my name on Raleigh’s lips as he came undone. My hands shook as I signed my explanation. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

Wrath

noun

strong anger and hate toward another person

Chapter 16

RALEIGH

“Whoa!I’m in the wrong career.”

I rolled my eyes. Jack was supposed to be setting up for the night. Instead, he had Angel’s left hand stretched across the bar and was currently admiring the gold band on Angel’s finger. A single, tiny diamond sat in the middle.

I was the only one who could tell that Angel hated it. Despite his quiet and reserved nature, he loved things that sparkled brighter than the sun and I couldn’t believe that after so many years together that Eli had gotten itsowrong.

I side-eyed the exchange while I busied myself drying glasses and stacking them behind the bar. Angel looked at me, and I didn’t miss the worry in his eyes that softened when I smiled back at him. Only then did he relax and let Jack interrogate him about his recent engagement.

It had been two weeks since we’d slept together, and Angel hadn’t looked at me the same way since. He threw himself straight into wedding planning with Eli. They wanted a short engagement; another idea that made me cringe. Angel went along with it, but I knewhewasn’t the impulsive type.

I’d gone over our night together countless times in my head. He definitely hadn’t been wearing a ring that night. After all, I’d been the one to strip him down to nothing—I would’ve noticed another piece of jewelry I’d never seen before. I didn’t see him for a couple of days after that and when he finally resurfaced, I figured out why: He and Eli had been holed up in post-engagement bliss.

Feeling eyes on me, I glanced up from what I was doing. Ryder stood there, tongue in cheek, blue eyes boring a hole through me.

“What’s that look for?” I asked.

His gaze briefly flickered to Angel, then back to me. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

I groaned. I knew that tone all too well. That was his “I know something you don’t know” tone. Fortunately for him, I wanted out of my current situation badly enough to talk about it.

“All right,” I muttered under my breath. “Come on.”

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