Donovan’s Angel by Peggy Webb Page B

window.
    “Paul!” she cried happily. “I thought you
weren’t home.”
    “My trusty brown Ford is in the garage. The
mechanic gave me a lift home.” His smile widened. “Are you coming
down or are you being Baby’s messenger again?”
    “Neither. I’m caught.” Looking down into his
quicksilver-gray eyes and hearing his deep, melodious voice, Martie
abandoned her
not touching
resolution. Just one more time,
she told herself. She had to be in his arms just one more time. “I
think if I jump, the tree will let go.”
    “Wait, Martie!”
    But it was already too late. The tree didn’t
let go; it held tighter, and a great tearing sound accompanied her
descent to the ground. Paul tried to catch her, but the jump had
been too unexpected and he wasn’t prepared. She glanced off his
chest and they both crashed into the marigold bed.
    His arms wrapped around her as they rolled in
the dirt. Her cowboy hat and the Christmas-wrapped gift skittered
across the ground, forgotten. With legs entangled and lips only a
kiss away, Paul and Martie had thoughts only for each other.
Skyrockets exploded inside them as their bodies made intimate
contact in the dirt. Her silk-clad hip, exposed through the torn
skirt, pressed against his groin.
    A half-strangled sound escaped his lips as he
raised himself to his knees and looked down at her. “Are you all
right?”
    “Yes,” she said, but her mind was screaming
No
! She would never be all right until she had Paul. All
of him—not just a hungry embrace in a hallway or an intimate tumble
in the dirt, but every glorious inch of him, without
restrictions.
    He scooped her into his arms and carried her
inside the parsonage. “Let’s brush away all that dirt,” he said,
but what he meant was “Let’s get inside before I lose control of
the situation.”
    Still keeping his arm around her waist, he
set her down beside the kitchen sink and reached for a towel,
turning on the water with one hand. “This will only take a
minute.”
    “I hope it takes a year.”
    “Martie?” He turned and saw her eyes, naked
with desire and dark as the velvet throat of pansies.
    The towel dropped to the floor and the water
gurgled down the sink drain as he pulled her into his arms. His
hands tangled in her hair, and he crushed her against his chest as
if he would never let go. They stood this way for a moment, swaying
to the combined rhythms of their runaway hearts.
    In slow motion they inched apart so that
their lips could meet. The kiss was a blending of drugged sweetness
and honeyed desire. It was a Fourth of July parade and a homecoming
celebration. It was passion and joy and burning need. And it was
perfection because they loved.
    Trapped in their mistaken notions of barriers
and suitability, they let their bodies speak what they dared not.
He pressed her hips against his, marveling at how right it felt,
while his tongue plied its urgent message inside her mouth. She
writhed in his arms, moist and open with undisguised longing. The
fever that possessed them raged unchecked, and they gasped with the
heat of it.
    His mouth moved away from her lips and seared
down the side of her neck. She threw back her head to accommodate
his questing mouth, and her hair fanned out in a bright curtain
against his arms. Her pulse tore at her throat as one of Paul’s
hands moved inside her open-necked shirt. A thousand stars burst
inside her at his touch, and she was Aphrodite and Earth Mother
rolled into one.
    And when there was nowhere else to go except
the over the edge, Paul gently released her. “I think I took care
of all the dirt.” His breathing was still ragged and his smile was
lopsided.
    Martie lifted her hair away from her flushed
face. “I don’t know how this keeps happening,” she whispered. “It’s
not supposed to.”
    “We can’t prevent it, angel.”
    “We must. I won’t play Delilah to your
Samson.”
    “My career and my professional reputation are
my responsibility, Martie, not