Archangel Rafe (A Novel of The Seven Book 1) Page 2

  “Hell?”

  “How should I know?” That wasn’t the part that freaked her out. She barely paid attention to the background. “I’m naked. But....” Not embarrassed about it.

  “But what?”

  “Like I look now.” Before Gary’s infidelity, she could have given Janine a run for her money even without the cosmetic enhancements. Now, she wouldn’t even be caught dead in a one-piece swimsuit, and Spanx was her new best friend.

  “So far, so good.” Janine grinned wickedly. “Any sex?”

  Heat flooded through her, as if she were right in the middle of one of the damn dreams. Her face felt like she’d spent too long at the pool and forgotten sunscreen. “Uh, yeah.”

  “Give me details.”

  “It’s always the same,” she whispered. The guy was gorgeous. Wasn’t that the way of dreams? “He’s tall, at least six-five. Lots of muscles, but not bulging, more sleek and solid. He’s dark. And he has the most beautiful, tortured--”

  “Get to the good part.” Janine sucked the swizzle between her lips, never forgetting that she was putting on a show for the guy in the corner. “Is he naked too?”

  “Eyes. He has the most beautiful, tortured eyes. All smoke and--”

  Janine gave her the death stare.

  Angelina relented. “Yes, he’s naked too.”

  And the things he did to her, to her body, were sinful and decadent and reverent all at the same time.

  “It’s pretty one-sided.”

  “Does he screw you blind?”

  She squirmed in her seat. Arousal flooded parts that hadn’t seen a man in months. “No. We don’t get that far.”

  “Well, damn.”

  “He just...worships me, over and over with his hands and his mouth.” Eyes closed in reverence. Of course, she didn’t know why she thought he was being reverent. It was weird. She knew she was dreaming, remembered when she woke up. She never remembered her dreams. “Until he’s just about to...you know.”

  “Jesus, Ange, it’s a wonder you ever had children.”

  She ignored Janine, caught up in the sheer eroticism of the memory. The slick glide of his tongue along the inside of her thigh, the slightly rough skim of his fingertips along her breasts before he molded and cupped, the brush of his hair against her collarbone as he closed his mouth over her nipple, the wiry curls and heavy, solid weight of his sex against her softer, swollen and ready body. The heady scent of ancient herbs smoldered in the air. The whole experience was extremely sensual and erotic, right until he opened his eyes.

  He presses a kiss to the sunspot and bolts of fire shoot through her body. And then....

  “He opens his eyes and he looks down at me with sheer horror, as if he’s committed the most grievous sin on earth, in heaven or hell...and then I wake up, sweating like a pig.”

  And I think, great, even a dream guy doesn’t want me.

  “That’s just what that prick Gary did to you, honey. You’ll get over it. You need to find someone else. Someone to replace the dream and Gary and then you’ll feel better.” Janine frowned as much as she could with the botulism toxin freezing her forehead. “You don’t want to be lonely.”

  She was wrong. That was exactly what Angelina wanted. To be alone. She had too many responsibilities as it was. The care and feeding of a man would be just one more.

  Janine offered up her target du jour for her. “You want eleven o’clock?”

  “No.” Angelina hesitated. “You don’t want him either. You need someone who wants you, not just your looks.”

  Janine pulled back into herself.

  “Thank you, though.” That’s what Janine didn’t get. Angelina didn’t want some anonymous face and body. She didn’t want anybody except maybe the dream guy.

  “Forget the dream. You need a real man.”

  Angelina looked around. “The guy in my dream isn’t real either. I mean, he really isn’t a guy.”

  “What?” Her perfectly shadowed eyes rounded. “What’s that mean, it’s a woman?”

  “No! Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But....” Angelina eyed the scant distance between tables and hoped no one was actually eavesdropping on their conversation, knowing she was crazy. She had to be. She rubbed the spot with her thumb. “He’s got wings.”

  “Like an airplane?”

  “Like an angel,” she whispered.

  THREE

  “I’m wearing this and you can’t stop me.” Lina practically stomped her foot.

  Angelina’s head throbbed. Pain stabbed through her right eye in unrelenting spears, and threatened to split her entire brain in half, which if she were lucky, would kill her instantly. If I were dead I wouldn’t have to listen to Lina defy me every chance she got.

  They used to have the most wonderful relationship. Close, loving, open. Lina would tell her all sorts of things. Innocent things. Who went out with who. Whether they actually talked to each other or just exchanged texts. When they first hugged. Angelina had been the envy of her friends because she had more inside scoop on the middle school goings on than anyone else.

  Now Lina wanted to go to her first high school dance in a very short, strapless dress and a very thin thong. So not happening.

  Angelina sat on Lina’s ruffled white eyelet bedspread. Her make-up bag jumbled together with stuffed Sesame Street toys and her look-alike American Girl doll. With a sense of total bewilderment Angelina wondered how Lina had gone from innocent to sexual in such a short time.

  “Angelina Paulina, I love you,” she said in warning. “But, not in that outfit.”

  “Angelina Jolie.” Lina spat, “You can’t stop me.”

  She and the famous Angelina Jolie only had one thing in common. A name.

  The famous one had six kids and an adoring husband and a French chateau. She had two kids, an asshole almost ex-, and a giant mortgage she couldn’t afford.

  Wonder if Grammy would have christened her Angelina Jolie if she’d known the case of envy the name would inspire.

  Her grandma had named her, christening her Angelina Jolie Guerisse. It was a little weird but in her family, the tradition was that the reigning matriarch named the girl children. Grammy had named her daughter as well, which had not gone over well with her, soon to be, ex-husband.

  All those years of playing God and thinking his word was ultimate and suddenly little ole Grammy Angel butted her nose into the hospital room, took one look at their precious daughter and christened her Angelina Marie. He’d thrown a hissy fit of monumental proportions. Perhaps that should have been Angelina’s first clue that they weren’t going to spend the rest of their lives together.

  “Dad would let me.”

  Only if Lina loaned the dress to his girlfriend first.

  Oops. Bitchy, bitchy, bitchy. True. Sadly. But that didn’t matter to Lina, she just wanted to dig on her mother.

  When had their relationship changed from pals to adversaries? And where had her sweet, beautiful daughter disappeared to? Gone were the days where Angelina could distract her daughter with a shiny toy to stave off a tantrum.

  “Let’s compromise,” Angelina wheedled, not up to another fight about another thing today. Wasn’t she entitled to one break?

  She and Gary had compromised on Lina’s middle name, Paulina, after his own mother. Who named their kid, Angelina Paulina? The rhythm was all wrong. Another indicator perhaps of a man too self-absorbed and self-involved? Too bad she didn’t figure it out fourteen years ago when Lina was born and save herself a lot of heartache.

  Well it was all water under the bridge now. Or at least it would be soon.

  “How are we going to compromise?” Lina asked suspiciously.

  “Leggings,” Angelina said, desperate to stop her daughter from crossing the line into slutsville. “Thin leggings.”

  Angelina hoped she’d agree. Lina was right. Gary would let her wear the dress. But Gary was too caught up with his new girlfriend to pay attention to what their teenagers were doing these day
s.

  A few years ago, the thought that her fourteen-year-old daughter might be having more sex than her was inconceivable. Now, sadly, it was entirely possible. Truthfully, she couldn’t face being a divorced grandma so she stuffed some condoms in Lina’s purse and hoped for the best.

  “Fine.” Lina pulled out a pair from her drawer that matched perfectly, so it was possible she’d planned to wear leggings all along.

  Angelina sighed. One crisis down, a hundred more to go.

  All she wanted to do was crawl into bed and lose herself in sleep, in dreams. Lose herself in the one place where no one wanted to change her, no one wanted to desert her, no one wanted to argue with her just for the sake of arguing, where she had no responsibility, where she was worshiped by her very own angel.

  Was it bedtime yet?

  ***

  Just walking through the automatic doors to the nursing home brought Angelina down. The walls were supposed to be a soothing blue but the pall that coated the place turned everything gray. That hospital-y, medicinal smell permeated every single molecule of air in the extended living facility, and sucked the vitality from anyone who dared enter.

  Grammy had been a vibrant, vital force in her life, always present, always engaged. She had raised Angelina and Janine after their mother took off. And every freaking time she stepped into this place, Angelina cursed the inefficiency of Grammy’s mind and the strength of her body. It made Angelina’s heart hurt that Grammy was reduced to this mere subsistence. An institution. A holding cell, waiting for death. Angelina shrugged off the sadness. Her thoughts were unfair. The staff at the senior home was excellent. They truly cared about the people who lived here and they were on top of the medical needs of their patients.

  From the moment Grammy Angel named her, she had guided Angelina. Until now. Angelina came to visit once a week, and wished every time that Grammy could live with her. Angelina slowed her steps. She really, really hated coming here. Grammy would be appalled at her physical appearance.

  She signed in at the front desk and then made her way through the halls. Her Nikes squeaked on the shiny, clean linoleum. The nurse, Gail, waved and smiled, her face lighting up with genuine happiness. “She’s having a good day, Angelina. She’ll be happy to see you.”

  “Thanks, Gail.” She handed the nurse a small bouquet of daffodils.

  “You look great.” Gail lifted the flowers to her nose. “New hair color?”

  “Uh, yeah, I added some highlights.” To prep for the support hearing. Gary was being a jerk about paying the career consultant for the testing. Which she wasn’t going to think about right now. Angelina headed down the hallway to Grammy’s room, the other bunch of daffodils clutched in her suddenly sweaty hand. She dreaded these visits.

  She wanted her Grammy back. The Grammy who told stories, fixed bread and tomato sandwiches, and let her lie around and read on sweltering summer afternoons. Grammy with the candy drawer, supposedly for the kids, but everyone knew she was the one with the sweet tooth. Grammy always looked perfectly put together, whether she was hanging out in the kitchen all day or going shopping and to lunch. Grammy who tended her flower garden with the care and precision of a general.

  Angelina knocked softly, in case she was sleeping.

  “Come on in, Angelina,” she called out in a warbled, shaky voice.

  “Hi Grammy.” She put the flowers in a fake Waterford vase on her night table and poured in a little of the water from the pitcher. She’d been moved to a private room last month. A plastic bin on the wall held her chart and all the accouterments of a hospital room.

  “Come. Sit, sit.”

  She eased into the chair next to the bed.

  Grammy peered at her, her once vibrant brown pupils lost in a rheumy, watery sea. “Somethin’s different.”

  Shouldn’t have worn jeans. Grammy hated them. “I was running late. I didn’t have time to change.”

  “I saw the dungarees. But that isn’t it. Somethin’ else.” She reached out her hand, thin with ropy veins and trembling as if she was an alcoholic who had gone without for a few days. Grammy clasped her hand, her skin a papery, frail husk, insubstantial against Angelina’s younger, more resilient skin. Grammy’s fingers curled slightly just like her body curved in to protect her fragile insides from attack.

  Her Grammy was an old-fashioned woman. She used to get her hair done once a week, washed, curled and teased into a poufy, yet feminine, cap of curls. To protect those teased curls while she slept, she wrapped her hair in a swath of toilet paper then pinned it closed with metal clips. And in the morning she’d carefully unwrap her ‘do, then fuss with the curls until she was ready for public.

  She always wore panty hose. She always wore full make-up: base, blush, eye shadow, mascara, eyebrow pencil and a bold shade of lipstick. Always. In this place, dressing up and cosmetics were long gone, discarded for more pressing concerns like food and medicine. And it broke Angelina’s heart.

  “How are you?” Grammy turned her hand over and leaned closer, so close Angelina feared she’d fall out of bed.

  “Careful.”

  There was a calm satisfaction in Grammy’s movement as she stroked her finger along the strangely shaped sunspot. “How does it feel?”

  That damned spot. Just one more reminder that life changed constantly. Her body included. Despair rolled over her in a wave. That spot represented all the things in her life that she couldn’t control. But now was not the time to wallow in self-pity. “How does what feel, Grammy?”

  She squeezed Angelina’s wrist right over the spot, then put her hands on her granddaughter’s face, along her cheekbones, and stared into her eyes. “You’ve replaced me.”

  “Grammy. No one could replace you.” Angelina smiled uneasily and tried to ease Grammy’s hands away, but her grip was like iron. The intensity of her regard and her unwillingness to let go sent a shiver of premonition scuttling down Angelina’s spine.

  “It was meant,” Grammy said firmly. “Meant.”

  Angelina was losing her. It happened this way. Sometimes Grammy would be lucid and aware and familiar. Other times, she was lost in the past, lost in some world that only she knew. And sometimes it was a combination of both.

  “It’s your turn.”

  Angelina’s turn for what? Only Grammy knew. Maybe she thought they were playing a game. “Okay, Grammy. I’ll take my turn.”

  “It’s your destiny, Angelina.” Her lips dry, she kissed Angelina on the forehead and Angelina was reminded of when she’d first moved into Grammy’s house as a child after her daddy left. Grammy had always tucked her in with the words, Sleep tight, sugar. I’ll look out for you.

  And she had. Grammy had always been there for her. Always looked out for her.

  Now it was Angelina’s turn to look out for Grammy. “So much change,” she murmured. How would she ever cope with it? She could have used Grammy’s wisdom, her advice. She was so weary. So weary of holding everything together. Weary of keeping her kids from spiraling down into a self-esteem nightmare. Weary of holding on to her house, her finances and her sanity while Gary frolicked with his new playmate. All she wanted was to be left alone.

  Angelina sighed and rested her head on Grammy’s nubby blanket.

  “It’s not the change. It’s how you respond to it.” Grammy’s voice was suddenly stronger, more authoritative, as she stroked her head like she’d done when Angelina was ten. “Don’t be scared.”

  “I’m not,” She whispered as tears stung her eyes. Her throat jammed with a hot ball of sadness. “I love you, Grammy.”

  “I love you too, Angel.” Grammy’s eyelids drifted closed, her face going slack and somehow peaceful. “I can rest now.”

  Angelina leaned against the covers. Antiseptic and over-cooked broccoli warred for dominance in the air. The smell assaulted her stomach even as Grammy’s hand rested on her head and gently soothed.

  And Angelina wept for all the things she couldn’t change.

  ***


  Raphael observed Angelina doze next to her grandmother from the foot of the bed. He had a secret. A dangerous secret. In hundreds of years, he’d never once broken the rules. Technically, he still hadn’t.

  But he was hanging on to the rules by his fingertips.

  While the lessons of the Grigori, the fallen angels, had faded with time, one rule remained constant and absolute. Archangels and humans were not supposed to mate. No sex. It was forbidden. Neither could Archangels and Angels.

  It. Was. Not. Done. Because according to history, the consequences would be disastrous.

  He understood, now, the incredible lure of the human. Before, he’d assumed the angels who’d mated with humans had been weak. But now he had carnal knowledge. He’d connected with Angelina’s mind, opened his thoughts, his senses to hers, channeled her desires.

  The feelings were incredible.

  The very first time he’d gone to her in her dreams, her longing, her loneliness had been so acute that he’d been compelled to touch her in comfort. His only thought had been to heal her sadness. But somehow that first touch held none of the healing energy he’d expected. Instead the contact, his hand on her shoulder, a most innocuous and innocent spot, zapped him with a sexual jolt he hadn’t expected.

  They sizzled.

  Attraction, pure sexual, animal lust had raced through him. The logical and prudent action would have been to back away, but instead of abandoning the incredible emotion and sensations that streamed through him, he’d eased nearer. He’d explored her body. His skin flushed hot as his body responded to the memory of her hands and her mouth skimming over his flesh, renewing him in ways he hadn’t even realized he’d needed.

  In her dream, sensations slithered through him, arousal insidious, rolling, roiling in a big ball of heat, streaming through his arms, pouring into his fingertips, as he trailed his fingers along the softest skin, and sensations flared back through his body and down to his erection.