The Angel (The Original Sinners 2)

Wesley pursed his lips at her.

“You’re terrible. You know that, right?”

“Actually, I’m pretty damn good at it. Just ask Søren.” She gave him a meaningful wink.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk about him.”

Nora blinked at him. Even illuminated only by moonlight, he could read every little expression on her face. Such a beautiful face…he wished then he knew how to draw or paint or anything so he could do some justice to that face, those big green-black eyes of hers.

“How come? You’ve never met Søren. He’s a very good person. Best man I’ve ever known.”

“You told me about him. Good men don’t hit women.”

“Good men only hit the women who want to be hit.”

“Women shouldn’t want to be hit.”

“Then it’s her problem, not his, right?” She batted her eyelashes up at him.

“Nora, you’re nuts. Come inside. My face is about to freeze off.”

“Can’t have that. Too handsome a face. Just a sec. I need one more.”

At that she paused and inhaled deeply through her nose again. She held the breath for a long time before releasing it almost reluctantly.

“Sorry,” she said. “I love that smell. A winter’s night… Does anything in the world smell better than a winter’s night?”

Wesley closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of winter—so crisp and clean and cold. In the distance someone’s fireplace burned and a trace of the heady wood smoke spiced the air. He could smell the memory of Christmas and the stark freshness of the New Year.

“It does smell amazing,” he’d agreed.

“This…” Nora inhaled again and her eyes narrowed. “This is what Søren’s skin smells like. Just like this. Even in summer this is what I breathe in when I’m near him. At night before I’d fall asleep, I would lay my face on his back between his shoulder blades and breathe in and in until I’d almost pass out. And he would laugh at me. Amazing, isn’t it? That someone’s natural smell could be like this?”

“If he bottled it and sold it, he’d make a fortune.” Wesley glanced at Nora’s small backyard. He wondered what she would say if she saw his backyard at home in Kentucky—all one thousand acres of it.

“God, I miss that smell. I love winter. It’s the only time I can smell him again without having to be around him.”

Wesley turned his eyes from the snow-shrouded lawn and back at Nora. A tear had formed in the corner of her eye and crystallized like a tiny diamond.

“You were crazy about this guy, weren’t you?” he asked, not sure he wanted the answer.

Nora nodded. “Crazy would be a good word for it.”

“Why did you leave him?”

The sigh that was Nora’s first answer billowed out in front of her in a cloud of white.

“Winter,” she finally said, “can be so beautiful and so cruel. Cruel and cold. And if you live in the presence of winter you never have summer.” Nora stepped close to him and put her nose at his cheek. “You smell like summer. Like clean laundry hanging out in the sun. That’s an amazing smell too.”

Wesley blushed at her nearness. Her hair brushed his lips. He never dreamed someone smelling his skin could feel so intimate.

“We should go inside,” Wesley whispered. If he stayed out here with her another second, he’d warm them both up by kissing her. And that would be bad. “It’s too cold out here.”

Nora had reached up and laid her hands on his face, warming his skin with hers.

“It’s okay. It’ll be summer soon.”

Wesley walked in from the back porch and into the kitchen. He’d cooked a thousand meals for Nora in here. For food alone he could get her away from her computer during her writing binges. He walked up the stairs to the second floor and stood in the doorway to his old bedroom.

“Nora…” Wesley breathed as he stepped into his room. When he’d moved in, this had been a rather decadent-looking guest bedroom done up in, as Nora called it, “French bordello style.” He’d quickly made it his own in what he’d called “Not a French bordello anymore style.” And now it remained the same. He’d stripped the walls of his posters, taken his things out…but the same sheets covered the bed, the same pillows. The furniture still remained in the order he’d arranged it.

Had someone been staying in his room? Was that why Nora hadn’t bothered to revert it back to her taste? The bed definitely looked rumpled and recently slept in. A current of anger surged through him. He’d had the most beautiful, erotic, intimate moment of his life in that bed with Nora that night she couldn’t sleep, crawled into bed with him and touched him with her hand. He hated the thought of anyone but him or Nora on those sheets.

Backing out before the conflicting emotions of loneliness, anger and desire overwhelmed him, Wesley walked to Nora’s room. Maybe he could find some clue in there about where she’d gone and for how long.

Inside Nora’s bedroom, Wesley forced all memories back and out of the way. The last thing he needed was to recall the day he and Nora had nearly made love on her bed. He’d wanted to give her his virginity so much…and yet she hadn’t been able to take it. To this day he still didn’t understand why. But it was for the best now, he supposed. She hadn’t really wanted him. If she’d loved him, why had she sent him away?