The Angel (The Original Sinners 2)

“I want your c**k in me, Patrick,” she gasped as he covered her naked body with his.

Patrick laughed softly and Suzanne’s body temperature kicked up a couple more degrees as his strong bare chest vibrated against her taut ni**les.

“I’ll happily put my c**k in you. Where did that come from?” he asked as he slipped on a condom. Reaching between her thighs, he caressed her wet folds with fingers that knew exactly where she liked being touched.

“Your fault,” she said as he traced leisurely circles into her with one and then two fingers. “You’re the one who told me Nora Sutherlin went to Sacred Heart. I’ve been reading her books…for research.”

“One-handed research?” Patrick kissed his way across her shoulders and neck and up to her mouth.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she teased.

“Wouldn’t I love to watch,” he said, pushing gently into her. She spread her legs and took him deeper.

She groaned in the back of her throat as Patrick started his slow forceful thrusts. Rocking her hips into Patrick’s, she tried to keep from dwelling on all the reasons she shouldn’t be—again—having sex with her ex. They weren’t getting back together. With her work, her traveling, she couldn’t have a real relationship. He wanted so much from her—commitment, promises, love—that she didn’t have to give. But at dinner they’d talked about Nora Sutherlin, how she had appeared almost out of nowhere six years ago and become the most celebrated dominatrix in the Underground. Patrick didn’t know too many specifics. Specifics were hard to come by where Nora Sutherlin was concerned. Still, that didn’t stop Suzanne and Patrick from wildly speculating about her personal life—who she slept with, who her clients were, what kinky people did behind closed doors. By the time they stumbled into Suzanne’s apartment after dinner, they were both flushed and breathy and ready to fall into bed together.

Closing her eyes, Suzanne felt the tension in her thighs that signaled she was close to coming. Patrick’s hands groped at her back as his mouth sought hers again and again. She pressed into the bed as she felt the familiar tightening. For one brief moment a vision of someone other than Patrick flashed across her mind’s eye—a vision of a man, taller than Patrick, more viscerally handsome, older, far more intimidating and significantly blonder. Suddenly she orgasmed, the vaginal spasms fluttering through her stomach. For another few seconds Patrick kept thrusting. He pushed one final time, gathered her to him and came hard. At the back of her mind she heard him whisper something into her ear. But shocked by the vision she’d just had, she didn’t understand the words.

“You’re not going to say anything?” Patrick said, kissing her cheek, her neck.

“Sorry,” she said, panicking a moment. Had she said something when she came, said another name? “I just—”

“I said I love you, Suzanne.” Slowly Patrick pulled out of her and lay on his side. “No comment?”

“Oh, God,” she said, gathering the sheets to her chest. “I’m sorry. Good orgasm—I think it killed some brain cells.”

Patrick rolled onto his back. “I killed some brain cells. Nice. Well, not quite what I was hoping for but better than ‘I hate you. Get out.’”

Suzanne heard the hurt in his voice, the hurt she knew he desperately wanted to hide from her. Reluctantly she turned to face him.

“Patrick, we’ve had this conversation. Nothing’s changed since the last time we had it.”

“Right,” he said, dragging his lean, toned body out of her bed. Why did he always have to make sex about something more than sex?

He grabbed his jeans off the floor and pulled them on. “Work is your life. In Iran one month. In Cambodia the next. Can’t settle down. Unfair to me. Just won’t work. I’ve heard it all. What I haven’t heard is you looking me in the eyes and saying, ‘Patrick, I don’t love you.’”

He threw on his shirt and brusquely buttoned it.

“Waiting,” he said. “Can you say it?”

Suzanne rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I always make my declarations of love during post-sex fights. Maybe we should talk about this another time. When I have clothes on.”

“Yeah, that’ll make a difference. I’ll just go now so I can let you get back to work. Call me when you need more help digging up dirt on this priest of yours. Or when you want my c**k in you again, as you so delicately put it.”

He slammed his feet into his shoes, grabbed his jacket and stormed out of the bedroom. Groaning, Suzanne yanked the sheet free from the bed and wrapped it around her.

“Patrick, please don’t leave. We were having such a good evening. Why do you always have to ruin it by starting a fight?” Patrick paused at her front door and turned around.

“You’re beautiful,” he said. “And you’re brilliant. And you drive me insane. And I’ve been in love with you for a year. I didn’t sleep with a single person after you dumped me and ran off to Afghanistan—”

“I didn’t run off,” she countered angrily. “I’m a war correspondent. It was my job.”

“And I didn’t start a fight. I told you I loved you. Only you would hear ‘I love you’ and think I’m starting a fight. I’m leaving now before I say something really horrible, like ‘I love you’ again.”

Suzanne exhaled and ran her fingers through her hair.