Angel's Hero

Chapter 6

"Hey, can I ask you something?"
"Yes?" Angel hedged. They'd just finished at the Boothbay Railway Village, where they'd spent the better part of an hour exploring and she'd tried to distance herself from him.
Her nerves around him were making it difficult to concentrate, so she'd done her best at creating space between them by walking behind him, or walking around to the other side of the train carriages on display.
Anything to remove herself from the pull she felt when close to him.
But he'd managed to sneak up on her each time, and made his presence known simply by standing near her. God, how could she not notice him when he got close? Even if she couldn't see him, she felt him. The man practically vibrated, the energy coming off of him was that tangible.
"What's your name?" he buckled in and lifted his right hand to the frame overhead, to steady himself when she shot the car backwards.
"You saw my license. Didn't you check?" She hesitated before answering. More than a little surprised that he had missed the few times when Sienna and Bo had both said her name.
She mentally shrugged. Probably thought it was an endearment, as most people had in the past.
"I'll admit, I was more focused on the picture to see if it matched, and grabbed your last name for my notes." When she still didn't answer, he prodded. "Or do you prefer Miss Lew?"
"No, I don't mind you using my first name."
This man was turning her inside out, as it was. She didn't know if she could handle hearing him say her name. She imagined him saying it softly, in the dark, whispering it directly into her ear. Gooseflesh broke out along her neck, despite the heat of the day and the sun pouring down on them.
She was such a pathetic woman, turning to jelly around a man.
Well, not just any man. Conner Grayson was Dothraki King material. She thought back to one of the steamiest television series she had ever watched, one that had swept the world with it's popularity, and she, along with many, many others, had developed a crush on the virile actor playing a savage, sexually charged king. Conner Grayson had the same affect on her.
It was probably down to her inexperience. Yeah, that's it.
Thoughts of her inexperience, though, lead her mind to wonder what it would be like to be introduced to lovemaking. With him.
She wanted to groan at the images in her mind.
From the safety behind her sunglasses, she dropped her eyes to the hand resting on his jean-clad thigh.
Tanned and lightly dusted with dark hair, his forearm, thickly corded with muscle, ended in a large, wide hand, with long fingers, and neat fingernails.
She had a brief flash in her mind of that hand on her bare leg, inching under the edge of her dress, barely touching the skin, caressing her sensitive flesh, moving closer to...
Her breath caught, and she pinched her knees together as much as she could while still keeping them on the right pedals.
She needed to get a grip.
"Which is?" He asked.
"What?" She started guiltily, as if he'd heard her thoughts. "Oh! Angel."
"Darling."
When she gave him a quizzical look, he flashed her a smile. "It might be a bit soon for endearments, but I appreciate your interest."
Surprising a laugh out of her, she threw her head back. "No, you ninny. My name is Angel." His smile twitched. "Angel-Anne Lew."
"Seriously?" He asked.
"Yeah, my mom thought she would be original," Angel lifted a shoulder in a half shrug, almost touching her cheek with it.
"Your name is Angel?" He wasn't smiling anymore, but staring at her incredulously.
"Yes," she laughed again. "Why? What's wrong with my name?"
"Nothing! It's just, well, I mean, I never would have expected it," he finished. "It's special. I like it."
Her cheeks heated.
"Thanks, I think," she snorted softly. "It's caused me to stand out a lot, sometimes when I didn't want to." Angel was looking at the road, so she didn't see the astonished look he sent her way at that comment.
She turned off the road they were on to head towards East Boothbay, where she took them off the main road, winding around, and pointed places out to him.
"That's Lobsterman's Wharf. Great lobster."
"If you go down that road, you'd find Hodgdon Yachts, where they build yachts."
"That's Carriage House."
"Let me guess, they build carriages?" Conner said, tongue-in-cheek.
"Ha-ha, no. It's a theatre. Quite lovely actually." Angel returned.
She offered what she knew about the places, which wasn't much.
She liked the way he paid attention to what she said.
When she pointed, he looked. He wasn't glued to his cellphone, on social media like most others she knew.
You're addicted to social media.
Shush.
"Hey, are we going to actually look at any of these places? Or is this a driving tour only?"
"Just hold your horses."
He laughed with her.
"We're almost there." She said this as she turned her car onto a gravel road.
The sea was visible on both sides of the car now, the narrow strip of land seemed to head straight out into the ocean.
She slowed the car down to a stop, and switched the car over to four-wheel drive.
She heard a surprised sound from the man beside her that made her smile. She wondered if he'd seen many women handle a stick shift, let alone four-wheel drive.
Angel pulled forward slowly, and stopped only as they reached a gate two minutes down the bumpy road.
There she turned the engine off, unhooked her seatbelt and hopped down.
Her boots crunched over the gravel as she moved around to the front.
"Well, come on then, Sherriff."
He unclipped and exited the vehicle, a curious look on his face.
They'd driven out to Reeds Island, a narrow strip of land that she'd discovered on one of her initial explorations during her first month here.
The man who lived on the point alone, away from everything, had seen her crying in her Jeep when she'd driven blindly, until she'd reached his gate. The same gate they were parked at now.
"How did you find this place?" They walked side by side towards the end as she told him about the gentleman who lived in the house behind them. There was no beach here, just dark rocks jutting into the water. She liked that if she focused on the horizon, she could erase the land around her from her vision, and just feel completely free, as if she were standing at the edge of the world, and nothing around her could get her. Hurt her.
"And when he found me, I was inconsolable. He told me to get out and take a walk," Angel lifted her shoulders, brought her hands to her upper arms and held herself, much like she had that first time, and each time she'd visited since.
"And so I did, and I was out here for nearly two hours."
"Why were you crying?" He asked softly.
"I missed my mom," she said it so simply, honestly. He'd turned towards her as if expecting something more, so she felt compelled to tell him everything.
It was a ridiculous urge, to trust him so much, without really knowing him at all.
"She died last year. It's why I came here. To Boothbay. I wanted my family, and the Winters' are all I have left."
"I'm sorry. Do you mind if I ask how?" No pity, no judgment. Just a question. Just like a cop. So she responded o the question.
"Fire in her building. They said she died from smoke inhalation in her sleep before the flames reached her." She released a breath she didn't know she'd held in. The words had shot from her mouth before she'd had a chance to think, or stop them. She needed to stop doing that with him.
"At least she didn't suffer. Where was this?"
"Miami. I was supposed to be with her, but I had missed my flight out of New York due to work. I managed to get a later flight, but the fire happened while I was in the air, and I got the news when I landed. I'd called her before take off, to tell her how excited I was to see her, and cook for her, and to show off my newly perfected skills, told her I loved her, then hung up. The next thing I know, she's dead."
Tears fell from behind her sunglasses.
Crap. What was it I said yesterday about not crying in front of him?