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When Angela got it in her mind to do something, she was not one to halfass it. Leo tasked her to get the book she suspected Julian saw with young David, the one she believed was the very same as Michael’s father’s. A book Michael did not seem to want to let her get her hands on.
But god damn, did she love a good challenge.
Her favorite plan of action to get things from boys was the good old fashioned flirt. This was not going to work on Michael, considering he only barely tolerated her, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be all kinds of entertaining. For one, he was such a stuffy old prude, he couldn’t handle a girl aggressively coming on to him. Julian spent their whole relationship being subconsciously delicate with him, so by the time she started getting handsy he was all scandalized by a brazen hussy. Angela now knew exactly what to do for charming a Victorian gentleman.
Secondly, he knew damn well what her game was. Antagonizing him was now her second favorite thing to do. Michael was most likely going to try and play it cool through the entire thing, until she hit some unpredictable button that inevitably sends him in to a pissed off tizzy. Then he’ll stomp off and leave her with at least a few minutes to stuff that book in her purse and take off.
The presentation all started with her appearance. Once Michael opened the door, that was the first thing he was assaulted with. Her ensemble might have been beautifully classic and understated – if she hadn’t “Angela’ed” it up. The loose white high collared blouse was Victorian inspired for sure, but she went and paired it with cinnamon pink leather pants that looked like they were painted on. To top it off she wore silver glittered peep toe boots. With her high pony-tail, Angela looked as if she had just walked off the set of a modernized Audrey Hepburn flick.
“I hope you don’t have any plans, Mr. Hightower, because we’re totally on a playdate. Oh – read this first!”
Angela thrust a folded letter in to his hands before she pushed past him.
In sparkling gel pen ink was Angela’s curvaceous lettering.
You are cordially invited to the eve of your very own old fashioned wooing. As with any good wooing, it begins with this written letter of intentions, so that your delicate maiden sensibilities are not scandalized by a sudden seduction. What you can expect this evening includes:
Gratuitous, flowery compliments. Your eyes remind me of a moonless October night; cool, dark, and promising to make a heart skip a beat. It would take a thousand men to match the ocean of your brilliance. Dat ass.
Flirtatious but appropriate touching. All little hand holding, staring wistfully in to each other’s eyes, pretending to trip and landing on your lap when we both know it was on purpose. I’ll probably touch your butt anyway, though. My apologies.
Witty banter and charming conversation. What’s this? Hours of time flying by because we’re absorbed in a common interest? How did I not know that ancient astrophysics and the company of a handsome vampire was going to be my favorite after school activity. Oh Michael, I never knew you could be so fascinating!
In order for this wooing to go over well, the following is required:
Don’t freak out. I promise you’re safe with me, baby, don’t be scared. <3
Don’t bite me. Seriously, I’ve been drinking rose tea and I probably taste as bad as it does.
Don’t kill me. Imagine how annoying I would be as a ghost and remind yourself of that every time you feel murderous.
We will end the night with you completely enchanted and me leaving with several of your books. Why not simply ask to borrow a few books instead of an elaborate seduction, you may be wondering? I like to watch cute boys squirm. And it’s fun. It’s totally fun.
Sincerely,
Angela June Mercy
Under the handwritten words at the very corner of the paper was a drawing. It couldn’t have been drawn by Angela herself, because anyone could see by her school notebooks or anything she took a pen to, that her doodling was atrocious. She must’ve taken the time to get someone to draw and color it in for her. A couple stalks of red hyacinth were entwined with blue morning glories. Scribbled next to them with a little arrow was a sentence.
The farther through the letter he read, the tighter Michael’s grip became on the page and the whiter his lips grew as he pressed them tightly together. As he came to the final doodle, he slammed shut his front door and went stalking down the hall after the source of his aggravation.
He caught her by the arm just as she let herself into his study and spun her around.
“What the hell is this?” he hissed, shaking the offending paper in her face. She couldn’t see his eyes thanks to his sunglasses, and he could not at present decide if that was for the best. “Is this funny to you?”
It took him a moment to realize just how tight he was gripping her arm. Horrified, he let her go so abruptly that she stumbled on her ridiculous heels. Michael curled and uncurled his fingers, swallowing hard. He knew better than to let this girl provoke him, especially now. Didn’t she know-
No. Michael was fine.
“Are you done?” he managed. “Because I thought we were past this.”
For a split second Angela was afraid she might’ve grossly miscalculated her first move in her little chess game. The look hopefully washed off her face when she played off her stumble backwards as an exaggerated, deliberate display of presentation for her next statement.
“This, Fangs McCuteface, is intensive therapy.” she started, sticking her tongue out at him before she turned away to mask the silently mouthed ow and rub her hand over her arm. She seriously needed to do something about her delicate straw arms if she was going to keep up with these super-powered jerks.
Shifting farther from him still, she tossed her purse on to his desk, casting the bookshelf only a quick cursory glance to see if she could spot the journal where it should be. Then, Angela turned on her toes to point a finger at him.
“You need to stop hiding here in this stupid house. And I’m guessing you’re not going to leave until you don’t want to bite beautiful blonds and can finally take off those dumb shades. Sooo…!” There went another flourish of her hands along with a few very dramatic poses. Ones she figured mimicked the whole Victorian lady posture. “Here I am! Your Princess Knight here to rescue you, woo you, or dare I even say something so scandalous, but irk you in to a smile!”
“A letter IS how you announce intentions, right? I even signed my middle name and everything.”
Slam went the thing on the other side of the wall.
“Stop,” Michael told her. “This isn’t helping, Angela.”
He brushed invisible dirt from his vest and walked straight past her for the nearest bookshelf. Though his eyes went through the motions of skimming the row of spines for significant titles, he was honestly using it as a pretense.
Get yourself together, he instructed himself silently, reaching out to grip the wooden edge of the case. Inhaling through his nose, he counted backwards from ten the way he’d once practiced long ago… so long ago, so long it felt a lifetime. As if it had happened to some other person. Michael had stopped practicing when he hadn’t needed it anymore.
“Shall we pick up where we left off?” he asked, pushing those thoughts aside and grabbing for the memories of their last Latin lesson. “Or did you want to move on to declension?”
“We could start off with all the different versions of friend.” she quipped back.
Angela allowed him a moment of a breather before she wandered to the bookshelf. She spun around to throw her back against the shelf and sprawl her arms out at weird angles.
“Why must you spurn my affections! Was I supposed to bring candy with the flowers? Because all I got in my purse is a bunch of orange Tic Tacs.” Angela tried to bat her eyelashes at him, but even she couldn’t seem to keep the pretense up long enough for her best come hither stare. Dang, she was going to have to work on her game along with her scrawny arms.
Dropping the act to turn and lean her hip against the dark wood, Angela folded her arms to finally give him a sincere expression.
“It IS helping, you just don’t like it. We can’t just get rid of things we don’t like, we have to deal with them. Otherwise I would’ve chucked half the high school in the lake by now. Do I really have to pout to get you to hang out with me? We can get drunk and play che-eeeess.” She shot him a coaxing smile. The one Julian usually found impossible to say no to.
A crawling sensation spread down Michael’s spine. He stared at her, gut clenching.
“Do you take anything seriously?” he asked. “Friends don’t mock things like… Things like…”
The words to finish the sentence escaped him. With a sudden jolt, he realized that he was still crumpling her insipid letter in one hand; Michael finished balling it up and pushed away from the rows of books, going to toss it in the bin by his desk.
“There is a huuuuuge difference between mocking and teasing. If I wanted to mock you I wouldn’t have wasted three hours drafting that fucking thing and going through seven pages of stationary to get all my loopy capitals perfect.” It was hard not to let at least some offense slip in to her tone. Of course she knew he wasn’t going to like it, but he could have at least appreciated the sheer mastery.
“Don’t you dare-” she cut off just as she made a quick dash forward to snatch the crumbled wad in his hands, “You can’t just throw away my MASTERPIECE while I’m standing right here. Rude.” Michael received a scathing glare as she pried it open again and then tried to flatten it out on his desk with a pen plucked out of a container.
Then, to make sure it wasn’t going anywhere, she grabbed a couple books off the shelf to pile on top of the letter. Angela made sure her randomly selected choices were close in size and shape to the object of her mission.
“I AM taking this seriously,” she finally said while holding up her two pointer fingers. “We’re going to bond and shit! What did you do back when you came a callin’ on old school hotties? I’m still down for rich guy’s bourbon and chess.”
Unbidden, an image bubbled up in Michael’s mind’s eye: a girl spread out on the floor at an unnatural angle, her eyes wide and glassy. Her blond hair was a tangled mess on the tile, matted with blood and bits of china.
Michael began to shake.
“Don’t laugh at me,” he bit out, blinking against the superimposed vision of those eyes, that hair. It was only Angela. He was in his study. He was under control.
“This is hardly a real date, so what does it matter?” Michael went on suddenly, adjusting his sunglasses. “If this is how you think you act on a date, I-”
I pity Caleb Whelan, he’d nearly said. He had to clamp his hand over his mouth to keep it in.
No no no, he chanted. He wasn’t going to do this. Michael wasn’t this person.
“Do I LOOK like I’m laughing at you? Uuugh! Julian is so much easier to get out of a funk! Hugs, food, and music then she’s done!”
For the first time since she shoved her way in to his house, Angela straightened up and actually looked at him. A slow examining stare taking in every little detail she could get. Though she hated his stupid sunglasses, the vest was sharp. He’d stepped up his wardrobe game after All Saint’s Day. That probably meant something, but she filed it away for later. She was more concerned with the fact he was still struggling to control his eat you impulses.
“Michael, I was one hundred percent sincere about helping you with your toothy bite-bite problem. Maaaaybe, I went a tad over board with the superfluous flattery,” she admitted sheepishly. “But I like grandiose bullshit and I’m pretty sure you do too. Or you would if you weren’t determined to hate me for being awesome.”
Normally right about there she’d get pissed off an offended, but she was determined not to run out of the house in a fury. Still, the annoyance was coming through when she rested her hands on her hips.
“This is a PLAY date, not a DATE date. My idea of a date involves expensive dinner, jewelry, and a hell of a lot of kissing. So unless you want to go cook me an awesome dinner not made of people, you better agree to something fun.”
“Your idea of fun and mine are vastly different,” he answered from behind his hand.
Michael closed his eyes. Ten, nine, eight…
“Alright,” he told her, his fingers falling against his side. “Not chess. Do you even like chess?”
Even if she did, Michael wasn’t in the right mindset. As… prone to distraction as he was just now, she would easily beat him, he was forced to grudgingly admit. If only to himself. No, they could play another time, when Michael was himself again. Likely without the bourbon.
Although a drink to calm his nerves was perhaps not a bad idea.
“…How do you take your bourbon?”
Though Angela mourned her chance at a drunken chess game with Michael, she couldn’t be mad at the consolation prize of bourbon and books. Especially the kind of bourbon that looked, smelled, and tasted like it was worth more than all the designers clothes in Margrit’s closet. As for the books… that was exactly where Angela needed to be.
Choosing something was another argument itself. Angela refused to do lessons; lessons were fun but they weren’t the kind of fun she wanted to orchestrate. She could have easily picked anything, but her procrastination was aimed at finding one book in particular. The journal was not sitting on the shelf where she last saw it, which meant it could have been squirreled away anywhere. If she couldn’t find it here in the study, Leo was going to have to find it himself. There was no way in hell she was going to prowl around alone in this creepy vampire infested house. No matter HOW much she wanted to go through all the stuff in it.
Eventually she found an old volume that looked too interesting to pass up. And because Michael wasn’t going to get away with choosing books, thinking she’d just read in silence without bothering him, Angela took to reading it out loud. He got to be tormented with her none-too-shabby speaking skills, except for those moments she got too invested and would blurt out her complaints at characters who would never hear her.
Somewhere along the way of reading aloud, pausing to sip from her glass of bourbon, and pacing his study, she’d kicked off her shoes and dropped comfortably on the tiny couch.
“This is insane.” she exclaimed again between one of the paragraphs, leaning over to set her glass back down. Though the way she said it, insane might have been a compliment.
Michael had wedged himself into one corner of the couch, which left him neatly trapped when she hogged up the rest of it. He stiffened when she first sat down, but otherwise made no sign of acknowledging the encroachment. Ever since she began her read-aloud he’d been unusually quiet. At least, until…
“I used to do this with Leo,” he said, turning his highball glass in his hands. It wasn’t his first drink of the night. He’d had a bit more than was general practice for a bourbon that nice, but he was a vampire after all. He probably couldn’t feel it.
“He likes that one,” he went on, nodding at the book in her lap. “Or he used to.”
“I knew it. That smug mother fucker is a dork.”
Seeing his comment as an opportunity for a break, Angela set the book aside with her glass. She took a moment roll her head and shoulder until she worked out all the little cracks and pops. Then up went her arms as she straightened out her back. Once Angela was done with that, she plopped back against the sofa cushion, deliberately a couple inches closer and with that I’m-not-touching-you smile.
“It’s a good one though, so at least he has taste. I used to read for Julian too, up until I got in to horror and I read her one too many tales of terror before bedtime. Totally not sorry.” Angela shifted, turning in his direction and pulling up a leg to sit on. Her invasion of his personal space forgotten. “Did you do the reading or was it Leo? My bet is on the big-mouth being all dramatic as fuck with weird voices and shit.”
“Also, just fair warning and all, I’m about to take those damn sunglasses. I’m super pretty tonight, but I’m sick of looking at my own reflection.”
“He did the reading,” Michael murmured, and this time he did draw further into the arm of the couch when she moved. “Voices and all.”
Her next comment garnered an even greater reaction. One hand tightened around the glass, the other flying up to hold the shades in place by one arm. He’d gone tense again. Almost flinched, even.
“You are not,” he insisted. “I want to wear them.”
Angela really wanted to know more about Leo’s weird voices, if only because they still had a future play-date of trolling goth-kids that she was not going to let him forget. But now that Michael was protecting his sunglasses with his whole damn arm, Angela was having to stomp down her perfectly natural girl-instinct to try and wrestle them off his face. If Michael had any idea he’d just pulled the classic modern flirt-bait, he’d probably be mortified.
Fuck, she couldn’t help it.
“Soooo did you want me to wrestle those away from you? ‘Cause I’m not about to make you spill perfectly good bourbon. In fact, I’mma go ahead and get this out of the way.” With a surprising amount of delicacy she placed the fingers of one hand under the glass and with her other hand used her thumb and pointer to grip the lip. She didn’t pull it yet. There was just enough pressure to let him know her hands were there without her actually touching him.
“Let it goooo. And take them off. Seriously, I’ve already seen the scary stuff and I haven’t been torturing you. It’s time to relaaaaax. Tell me if you can fence or ride a horse. It’s very important for my research.”
The bourbon glass pulled gently but steadily against her fingers. Apparently he didn’t care to spill it either.
“Don’t you dare,” he hissed. “I’m not taking them off. Leave me alone.”
Setting the glass down on the end table, Michael swiftly grabbed Angela’s hand. His grip was ginger, like he was reluctant to even touch her enough to trap her offending fingers. His skin was like ice and the temptation to make Edward Cullen jokes would have been strong had she not already asked Julian about that and learned that Michael usually had perfectly normal circulation.
“You’ve seen nothing,” he continued. “You have no idea. I don’t want you to and if you had an ounce of manners-”
“If I had manners,” she interjected. “You do know it’s rude as fuck to wear sunglasses indoors, right? I just want to see those October eyes while we’re having a conversation, and here you are acting like I’m trying to get your clothes off.”
Angela couldn’t help the humor in her voice now. She got it, she really did. He was using the stupid things to hide behind and he didn’t trust her. But they needed to start somewhere and this was the perfect first step. If he would just cooperate.
“You asked for this, Michael.” she tried to warn him, shifting on the couch so she was on one knee and a foot on the floor so she could run like hell if he actually tried to fight for them. Very carefully she reached for the sunglasses. “You the need help and a friend! Just remember: Don’t freak out. Don’t bite me. Don’t kill me. I’m juuuuust taking the shades.”
Without warning or any hesitation she grabbed for them, hoping he remembered she was full of vampire poison and that breaking her neck would start the Julian version of Ragnarok.
“No!”
Michael’s fingers closed around hers just as she caught hold of the shades. For a few brief moments they grappled with the glasses, and maybe he’d had more to drink than she’d thought because he was moving far more sluggishly than he should have been. Angela shouldn’t have stood a chance in a wrestling match with a vampire. But somehow she managed to hang on to the sunglasses, right up to the point where Michael tried to pry her fingers off and she clamped down stubbornly, and…
Crack.
The bridge of the shades broke cleanly in half. One of the lenses toppled down between them on the couch; the other dropped onto the hardwood floor and shattered.
The room went eerily silent.
When her eyes found Michael’s, they were the same dilated onyx disks in a bloodshot milky white that she remembered from the last time she’d seen him without the shades. The bags under his eyes were worse, giving his wide, wild stare a haunted cast. He was looking at Angela like he’d never seen her before.
“You bitch,” swore Michael, his voice shaking in fury. “Fuck you!”
In the next second, he had tackled her flat onto her back on the couch, his hands tightening on her shoulders. They were practically bumping noses now as he hovered over her, his eyes flicking down at her throat and back up again, his entire frame vibrating with barely-restrained aggression. He twitched, biting into his bottom lip until it went white.
“You-” he began again, his thumb shifting on her arm. “I…”
Shit!
“Muie!!” It would’ve been nice if her mental curse had made it to her mouth instead of the frightened, mangled squeak of what was probably meant to be his name that slipped out instead. Angela wasn’t a squeaker! She was an intelligent, feisty bombshell who could take on the world. …unfortunately, her brain didn’t want to remember that. Her brain was too busy running comparisons between him and Leo. When Leo had his cold emotionless moment she’d been scared, but deep down she was confident he had control and wouldn’t actually hurt her.
Michael did not have control. Michael had already lost his shit with Julian more than once. Angela was NOT Julian; she was well aware that Michael’s opinion of her was pretty shitty. And now that she was running through every instance where she’d pissed him off, Angela knew she probably hadn’t helped by deliberately being a pain in his ass. The chances of him having the same self restraint with her was next to non-existent.
It figured the one time she genuinely wasn’t trying to be an asshole, she would finally put the last nail in her own coffin.
“I didn’t mean to!” she managed to spit out. Angela didn’t move an inch. She wanted to, even tried to will her arms to shift so she could maybe try to gently push him back and then roll her way off the couch to run away to safety. But the only thing that wanted to move was her heart trying to explode itself out of her chest. She couldn’t even tear her eyes away from him to squeeze them shut.
Fuck, why was she suddenly remembering twenty quotes about man’s arrogance right now?! She was going to die!
“I am sorry,” she stressed, her voice still pitched high. “I didn’t- Hrm. Breaking stuff was not the plan- Helping, I was just- Just kill me before you eat me, Michael! I don’t want it to hurt!”
“Close your eyes,” he told her, low and tight. When she didn’t immediately obey, a shudder ran through him; in the next moment he’d unglued his fingers from one of her shoulders and covered her eyes himself. His hand shut out the dim light of the study.
For a minute he hung there, his breath coming a little too fast and ragged. She could feel it hot against her cheek, smell the bourbon in it. When she listened carefully he was counting aloud in something too quiet to be a whisper. There was a frenzied desperation in the numbers as he rattled off and down from ten.
When he hit zero, his forehead dropped against hers. It wasn’t entirely reassuring. He was still twitching, his finger muscles taut and unyielding.
“I hate you,” Michael hissed abruptly. “I hate you, I hate you, I-”
He cut himself off when his mouth pressed clumsily against hers.
It was nice of him to cover her eyes before she got murdered, she thought. But it made it a million times worse. Because now she was trying to be aware with all of her other senses and that was a recipe for horror. He was going to break her neck. He was going to rip her throat out. He was… counting down from ten? To WHAT? To WHEN he was going to kill her?!
Angela tensed the second the count was over and his confession of hatred fell against her skin. She braced her whole body for the sharp stab of teeth, the snapping of her neck, the ripping of her arms off. Ready for the torrents of pain and hopefully a quick death. Briefly she wondered if her Dad would ever get married again and have another kid. She hoped so. That was a sad last thought to have.
She sure as hell hadn’t been ready for Michael’s mouth to be on hers, nor did she count on her reaction to it. Angela gave a muffled sound of surprise. Kissing him back was reflexive. Somewhere between mindless relief she wasn’t getting strangled and pure automatic surprise. What the fuck. For a good three seconds her whole brain shut down.
Then slowly, sense started to return again. The shock hadn’t completely erased the fear, but Angela was now able to will her limbs to move. She pressed the palm of her hand very tentatively against his shoulder with the slightest of pressure.
The sound she got in response was almost… pained. Like she’d punched him instead of a gentle touch. Michael’s grip on her tightened; he seemed to seize up, going rigid.
His hand fell away from her face to brace himself against the couch, his fingers digging into the leather until his knuckles turned white. She could see his expression now and it was no wonder Michael was so desperate to keep those glasses on, because she could read everything in his face even with his eyes screwed shut.
He’d gone splotchy, like his cheeks were trying to be flushed and to drain of color at the same time. His eyebrows had gone up and drawn together, his skin taut around his eyes. His breath hitched every time Angela so much as moved a muscle.
Michael wasn’t angry- at least, not anymore. Michael was freaking out.
When he moved again, the kiss was different. Angela had seen Michael plant kisses on Julian more than she cared to think about, and they were always very careful and slow and oddly methodical. Right here and now, he was anything but. The initial clumsiness of his first attempt was gone; now he was just being sort of rough. He kissed her hard enough to bruise and then before she knew it his tongue was in her mouth along with the faint taste of liquor.
Michael kissed her like he was starved for it.
She jolted, making another startled sound as she tensed again and her hand gripped in to the fabric at his shoulder. Angela tried to press the pause button- attempted to get some kind mental process going and figure out what the hell what going on and what she thought she was doing. Absolutely nothing was working.
Angela could almost see those same thoughts in his face; that he was just as freaked out as she was. How the fuck that made a difference, she had now idea. Even though there was still that undercurrent of being terrified, something about it turned her fear it some weird sort of fascination.
Bewildered, she squirmed- not a lot, she was still afraid the slightest movement would be a bad idea- just enough to shift her legs and unlock her frozen muscles before they started to ache. Angela tilted her head, with the intent to ease some of the pressure of being pressed down in to the couch cushion, maybe even to pull away, but…
Why, why was she doing this. There was no logical SANE reason for it. Angela just couldn’t seem to help it. Her hand slowly uncurled from his shirt, the tips of her fingers brushing cautiously over his cheek before her palm splayed warm against his skin. Kissing him further was definitely not the plan, but the almost timid testing movement of her lips were a soft contrast to his. All her dumb thoughts about what kissing Michael would be like did not match up to the reality.
His skin was equally warm to the touch. He jerked at first when she laid her hand on his cheek, but then seemed to relax into it, drawing shuddering breath against her lips.
Michael’s hand withdrew from the couch and pressed against Angela’s stomach, fingers spreading wide against the fabric of her blouse. It almost felt like he was steadying himself, but there was a part of it too that felt like he was trying to hold her in place.
And all the while he was kissing her. Apparently vampires didn’t have to come up for air if they didn’t want to. It seemed like Michael was determined to get his tongue into every corner of her mouth, and he wasn’t wasting time about it either. There was something strangely familiar about the raw sensation of want he was conveying, the way she just got swept along in the onslaught the moment he dropped his guard and the floodgates opened…
Fuck. He kissed like Caleb.
Well, fuck. Fuck and damn.
Suddenly she understood all too well about Julian’s kissy-face drama. Because this couldn’t possibly be good, or the right thing to do, or going to go anywhere sane. But no one had kissed her like they WANTED to in so long, that her stupid teenage libido was stronger than her awareness that this was Michael and it was only two minutes ago that he looked like he was going to EAT her.
Kind of like that douchebag at Envy, but Michael actually did it better. How the FUCK.
Angela just gave up. She did try to stop. Sort of. She managed to wiggle her other arm between them and grasp his face with her second hand. There was just the slightest bit of pressure of her thumbs against his cheeks, and she really did intend to push his head back. Except that turned in to gentle touching, a confused audible sigh, and caving in to the curious urge to see what happened when she got her tongue involved too.
It’s not like it could get worse. She was already screwed.
What happened when she got her tongue involved, it turned out, was Michael making a noise in the back of his throat that vibrated into her mouth and right down to her toes. His fingers curled in her blouse briefly before he actually yanked it so hard the buttons came free of their holes, exposing her stomach and just a peek of her bra.
One of the buttons fell off and bounced on the wooden floor, the sound echoing through the study as it rolled away on its side.
Michael’s eyes snapped open.
He stared at her, frozen mid-kiss, his eyes glazed and his pupils still dilated six ways to Sunday. He pulled back just enough for their lips to part ways, his fingers absently stroking along her newly bare abdomen. If Angela didn’t know better, she’d say he looked dazzled. It wasn’t long before he dove back in to place a heavy open-mouthed kiss just under her jawline.
And then suddenly it was all over.
Choking, Michael threw himself backward so hard and so fast that he was a blur. He went crashing against the bookcases, the contents spilling down around him. If he hadn’t thrown his arms up to cradle his head, at least one volume would have beamed him right over his skull. He didn’t seem to care; he was pressed as flat as he could go and shaking like a leaf.
“I- I-” he rasped, wheezing. “Don’t.”
Angela sat up quickly, her back ramrod straight as fussed with trying to get her shirt back where it belonged. She missed a hole and there was no telling where the lost button landed. Smoothing her hair back in to her Hepburn pony tail took little effort, since that didn’t get mussed, but when she ran her fingers over her mouth that kissed crazy feeling was still lingering.
Fuck! Just. Fuck!
When she stood, she probably looked like she was getting to bolt right out the door. Her hands were shaking as she ran them over the front of her jeans. Now that she wasn’t pinned down by a crazy vampire, her head was finally getting back in the game.
Okay, so that was hot as shit.
HORRIFYING ALMOST VAMPIRE SNACK, YOU FREAK! YOU CAN’T POSSIBLY LIKE THAT!
But I wasn’t a snack. That was progress for Mister Psycho Hot-face.
Ooooh fuuuuuck if Leo finds out, he’ll never forgive me.
Without saying a word, Angela tip-toed across the room until she found where she’d abandoned each one of her shoes, snatched them up, and then quietly started sneaking towards the study door. As if he couldn’t see her. Like she was creeping away from a secret rendezvous before the parent showed up. Before she could cross the threshold, she turned around quickly. Holding both her glittery heels up and squeezing her eyes shut as she talked to him.
Angela just couldn’t look at him right now without turning scarlet. Shit, she was probably already flushed.
“…good job!” …and that made it worse. Because instead of shouting it out as obnoxious and loud as possible, it sounded like she still hadn’t caught her breath. She cleared her throat and continued in a much stronger voice. “Ya didn’t kill me- Not exactly how I planned Best Friend Therapy to go, but y’know, skipping about thirty steps is cool too, whatever. We’ll just pretend like that didn’t happen.”
She finally opened one eye to peek at him.
“I’m going home. Unless you want me to stay and pick up books and stash a few in my purse. I’ll be back though. Another time.”
[/et_pb_text][et_pb_button admin_label=”Next Chapter” button_url=”https://www.worldofsilentpines.com/blood-moon-011-into-the-woods-original-draft/” url_new_window=”off” button_text=”Next Chapter” button_alignment=”right” background_layout=”dark” custom_button=”on” button_bg_color=”#2c3036″ button_letter_spacing=”0″ button_icon_placement=”right” button_on_hover=”off” button_bg_color_hover=”#484b50″ button_letter_spacing_hover=”0″ button_border_width=”0″ saved_tabs=”all” _builder_version=”3.0.64″ /][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_4″][et_pb_post_title admin_label=”Featured Book Image” title=”off” meta=”off” author=”on” date=”on” categories=”on” comments=”on” featured_image=”on” featured_placement=”below” parallax_effect=”on” parallax_method=”on” text_orientation=”left” text_color=”dark” text_background=”off” text_bg_color=”rgba(255,255,255,0.9)” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” saved_tabs=”all” global_module=”2310″ /][et_pb_text admin_label=”BLOOD MOON CHAPTERS” saved_tabs=”all” background_layout=”dark” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” global_module=”314″]
- Blood Moon 001: The Shadows (Original Draft)
- Blood Moon 002: The Monster Inside (Original Draft)
- Blood Moon 003: Bonfire (Original Draft)
- Blood Moon 004: Lake Glass (Original Draft)
- Blood Moon 005: I Need Help (Original Draft)
- Blood Moon 006: Slipping (Original Draft)
- Blood Moon 007: The Veil (Original Draft)
- Blood Moon 008: Bullets (Original Draft)
- Blood Moon 009: High School Problems (Original Draft)
- Blood Moon 010: It Starts With a Letter (Original Draft)
- Blood Moon 011: Into the Woods (Original Draft)
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