Page 15 of His Relentless Angel

My first thought is, whose fucking lap has she been sitting on? It’s quickly followed by, it’s none of my fucking business.

“I didn’t kiss her,” I assure her. Bailey’s brows draw up with an intermingled spark of disbelief and hope. I hate that, too. “It wasn’t like that. We weren’t…”

“You weren’t what?”

“I was never planning to take her home,” I say. “We simply left together.”

“Why? She’s gorgeous. You’re gorgeous,” she says wistfully, making me puff out my chest. “Single, as far as I know. You could do a lot worse.” Bailey chews the inside of her cheek as her shoulders cave in further, referring to herself as a lot worse.

I hate that most of all.

I bend to look her in the eye and offer impulsively, “Cancel the Uber. Let me take you h—to the hotel.” I almost said home. Fuck, I want to take her home.

“Aren’t you afraid of being alone with the girl who was ruining your life?” She tries to act flippant and looks away, but not before I see a tear slip from the corner of her eye that she angrily swipes away. I know she hates crying in front of people, which is hard to do when she feels everything to such an intense degree.

I want to tell her that I didn’t mean it when I wrote that she was ruining my life and hers in my letter. But, at the time, it was true. I wanted nothing to do with her, especially after having lost control of myself.

Now, though…seeing her again, she’s still ruining my life, but not for the same reasons. It’s ruined because I want to take her in my arms despite all the reasons that would be a terrible, life-altering decision.

A beat-up red sedan pulls up to the curb, and Bailey’s cell phone chimes with a notification. Her Uber driver. “Bye, Isaiah. Hope my disturbing, singular focus didn’t ruin any more of your life.” She steps around me, her lush ass a red bullseye.

I follow and reach past her to slap my hand against the back passenger door to keep her from opening it. Pressing my chest to her shoulders and whispering against her temple, I offer once more, “Let me drive you to the hotel. Please.”

She shifts in her sexy black heels and finally nods after a lengthy stand-off. I knock on the front passenger side window, motioning for the driver to roll it down, and tell the twenties-something stoner-looking dude that the ride is canceled. Even if I had no intention of driving her myself, I never would have let her get in with him. I pass a twenty-dollar bill through the window, and he takes off with a muttered curse after flipping us the bird.

I lead Bailey to the parking lot and hold open the passenger door to my Lexus, swallowing when the high slit of her dress parts, exposing her firm upper thigh as she gives me a breathy thank you. If she shifted the material just a few inches, she’d expose the V of her panties, and goddamn, I’m half a second from pinching the material to do it myself so I can find out what color they are.

It’s when she gives me a questioning look and says my name softly that I drag my eyes away from her before she can see what I’m thinking. As I round the back of my car, I adjust my dick in my shorts, wondering if she could tell I’m hard for her, hoping both that she did and did not.

After she gives me the name of her hotel, it’s a silent twenty-five-minute drive while she stares directly out the windshield into the night, never once turning to face me like I keep turning to her. I’d love to ask her about her life, but my mouth has gone dry as the scent that is uniquely her fills the car. I want to lean across the console and press my nose into her neck to inhale it directly from the source and deep into my lungs while she tells me every single thing that I’ve missed, like her college graduation that I forced myself to stay away from.

When we get to the hotel, I pull into the parking garage instead of dropping her off at the front doors as I should. I mumble something like, “I want to make sure you get safely to your room,” but I’m not convinced I used actual words or if it was jumbled nonsense. That’s how tongue-tied I am when I open the car door for her and help her out. I drop my eyes, hoping to catch a flash of her panties. Damn, still no luck.

Without another word or her permission, I guide her through the dimly lit, empty lobby with my hand hovering at her lower back and step into the mirrored elevator. “Which floor?”

“Second.” I press the button, and she casually adds, “Everyone else is on the third.”

Jesus, help me. There’s no one we know to catch me walking her to her door. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, but I know one thing for sure—my heart is pounding, and my cock is a steel pipe, pre-cum at the tip wetting my boxer briefs.

On the way up, I’m careful not to let our arms brush as we stand side by side, though I have the perfect vantage point at my height to stare down her dress from the corner of my eye, which I do. Of course I do. She’s a goddamn siren, and I’m the captain steering my ship off course.

When the elevator dings, Bailey steps out ahead of me on the rusty red patterned carpet, and I walk behind her the whole way down the long, clay-brown hallway to her door instead of next to her. She adds that sexy extra sway to her rounded hips, the same as she did at the restaurant, enticing me to keep staring at her beautiful ass. She has to know what she’s doing to me.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, how am I supposed to resist her?

Oh, right, by remembering that I’ll break her fucking heart if I kiss her and run again, which I’ll have to do if I don’t want her family and mine coming after me with pitchforks for pursuing someone so young. I’m one-hundred percent positive I’d break my heart in the process, too, so I have to battle the pull of her siren song.

Stopping at the threshold after she unlocks the door with her key card and steps inside, I part my lips with no idea what to say or do. I grip both sides of the doorframe to hold myself back from following her into the dark room. I know I need to say goodnight and leave, but my grip on the doorframe keeps me from retreating as much as it keeps me from pouncing on her.

Bailey stands in the doorway, a small breath away, staring up at me with big, watery eyes. I do absolutely nothing but stare right back at her with every muscle in my body screaming at me to do something. We’re in a silent stand-off again, on some great precipice that could change our lives forever. For better or worse, I’m not sure.

She shreds me to pieces when she says, “Part of me died the day I read your letter. You’re killing me now, Isaiah.”

The pain of hearing her say that is unimaginable, lancing me right in my chest and threatening to send me to my knees. Fuck, baby, you’re killing me, too. But I can’t say it, rooted to the spot and mute. Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t—

Bailey’s expression crumples. “I wish I knew how to stop loving you.” And then she resolutely shuts the door in my face. My immediate impulse is to pound on the door until she lets me in, which is how far down I’ve traveled toward hell.

The elevator from down the hall dings, and I snap my head to the side. A group of college-age kids spill out into the hall, dressed in club outfits and sneakers, drunk or well on their way to being so. These are the people Bailey should be out having fun with, laughing and stumbling over their feet while they’re young and carefree—not with a thirty-six-year-old man.

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