Page 59 of Price of Angels

No more Holly, Holly, Holly! No more clammy hands. No more cousin for a husband. No more crying at the side of the bed while Abraham took the belt to her.

Dewey was dead.

For years, three men had made her life the worst of waking nightmares, and now one of them was dead, in the span of a breath.

A wild, giddy laughter built in her throat, and she closed her lips against it. She felt lightheaded. She felt sick. She felt –

Michael turned to face her, his nose a sharp shadow in the filtering light, his eyes like warm glass discs.

She felt the irrepressible urge to throw her arms around him. She wanted to bury her face in his hot throat, wanted to feel his heart beating against her chest, wanted to feel his hips lifting against her hands, the way they had last night, when she’d found the evidence of his wanting.

The way he stared at her now, the hands that had killed her husband held down at his sides, told her that he wanted the same things.

He took a sharp breath. “Congratulations. You just got a divorce.”

Holly wanted to take his husband-killing hands into hers and pull him to her, have him press her up against the wall, and bend to take her mouth with his own.

But she had to be practical. She had to wait, even though an awful, unknown throbbing had started inside her.

She was breathing hard, her voice a sigh of sound. “What are we going to do with him?”

“Gimme your car keys, and I’ll take care of it.” He stepped in close to her, until she was enveloped in his shadow. She saw the faint gleam of skin, as he held his hand out to her, palm-up for the keys.

“I’ll just stay here, then,” she said, her mouth dry, her pulse skipping like moth’s wings in her ears.

“Finish your shift.” His voice had gone low and rough and completely unregulated. “I’ll come back and take you home.”

“You will?” She was staring at his hand, the calluses and lines as she pressed her keys into his palm.

His fingers closed around hers a moment, squeezing. She felt the rapid beat of blood beneath his skin. The same as her own.

“Michael,” she whispered. She didn’t understand any of this; wasn’t even sure what it was that she wanted so badly.

“Go downstairs, and wait, honey. Just wait.”

Stretched thin with nerves, barely managing to smile and speak and get her orders right, it seemed Michael was gone hours longer than the two that he was missing. Then, coming out of the kitchen, she saw him, like he’d sprouted by magic from his favorite booth. He was leaned back against the padded leather, arms folded loosely across his chest, calm and patient as always.

But when she doubled back, got a Jack from Matt and went to set it on the table, she saw the wicked glimmer in his eyes, the retained intensity of upstairs. Her pulse accelerated, as her hand lingered on the glass and his reached up to press against the back of her wrist, a light stroking that went almost to her elbow and then back, trailing off her fingers onto the warm whiskey tumbler, finally.

He stared at her face, saying nothing, absorbed by the way she took one small breath after another, her heart electrified by his simple touch.

“Where is he?” she asked in a whisper.

“I have a friend who has hogs,” he said, voice even, almost pleasant.

Holly shuddered. “You want something to eat?”

“No. I’ll just wait for you.”

Again, she was struck by the overwhelming urge to fold herself into his lap. She wanted him to comfort her, and kiss her, and do something about the relentless heat beneath her skin.

As if he sensed that, he said, with an expression she found sweet for some reason, “You want to see my place? It’s not much, but the sheets are clean.”

“Yes. Yes, please.”

He nodded, and picked up his drink. “It won’t be long.”

And it wouldn’t. She went back to work, her body pulsing and glowing and trembling inside the too-tight seams of her clothes, suddenly.

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