Ties that Bind - Nick and Angel...the beginning.

 

   Nick grabbed her arm gently. “I won’t hurt you. I’ll never hurt you.” He smiled when he saw the fear leave her eyes. She had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen. There was so much pain in them for someone so young. Somehow, he had to get her out of there and away from Carlos.

   Angel nodded and finished the stitches; he was barely conscious and needed to rest. There was no telling what other sick games Carlos had in store for him. Today she was more frightened than usual, first Carlos was angry at her interest in this man then he had given her to him. She led Nick to the bedroom. This man was all about control and power; he didn’t need a gun or an army of men to command respect and he excited her. 
   “Take your jeans off and I’ll wash them,” she said. He rested his hands on her shoulders while he stepped out of the blood-stained jeans. She stood momentarily transfixed admiring his body; it was hard and muscled, not soft like Carlos’. What would he be like as a lover? Would he be rough and brutal or would his touch be soft as it was now.

   “We need to get you to bed.” Nick stumbled, and pulled her down on top of him. His eyes reminded her of hot chocolate, deep and rich. Her fingers twined in his chest hair as she stared at the cross around his neck. “It’s beautiful.”

   “It’s a Celtic cross.” It was the only thing left of his father and he never took it off. “It’s brought me good luck.” His friend, Jack always said he was a cat with nine lives, but Nick wondered if it was his father looking out for him. All the chances he had taken in his life and all the times he had cheated death. He felt loved and protected when he wore the cross as though his father was still with him.

Angel pulled herself up to kiss his lips. He wrapped his hand in her long strawberry blond hair and kissed her back, his body responded to her touch.

   “No,” he said rolling her off him.

   “Don’t you want me?” she asked. Her innocent blue eyes stared into his. He couldn’t remember wanting anyone as much. This woman was so young, probably twenty going on forty, and she belonged to a man, he couldn’t afford to piss off. He hadn’t made love in almost two years, when he had broken off his engagement to take this assignment. He couldn’t leave her waiting and wondering, when and if he’d come home. He had come across his share of bad-ass drug dealers, but Carlos had a reputation for being crazy and today he had proved it. Angel ran her hands over his body. Nick pushed it away, struggling to stay awake and in control.

   “Why Angel?” he whispered.

   “Because when you’re with me you’ll think you died and went to heaven.”

   He smiled; she did look like an Angel.

Nature of the Beast-Excerpt

I was enjoying the outdoors with my camera today and some passages from the book came to mind. Soon there will be snow.

Afternoon slipped into evening, sunset hidden behind dark clouds. The night sky flashed bright and beautiful with nature’s own fireworks display. Jagged streaks ripped across the onyx sky.

“No rain or thunder?” Nick asked.

“Nope, we always just call it heat lightning.”

“Man never made anything more beautiful than God’s handy work,” Nick said awestruck. These were simple thing but things he had never noticed or appreciated before. The city had its points but it was man made jungle of concrete and steel any beauty found there was created by man’s hand. He understood now what it meant to be in God’s country. To be helpless and fragile at the mercy of a raw and unyielding nature. He had learned to embrace violence because he had to could he learn to embrace his wild side and live in this wilderness?

Summer slipped quietly into fall with its ever changing uncertainty. Kathy’s moods like the weather ran hot and cold. There was an emptiness, a finality to life and all things living that came with the fall in this far northern region. The brilliant greens of spring grass turned brown by the summer’s unrelenting heat. Summer's colors were replaced by fall's rich crimsons and the brilliant yellow of the birch. The woods bloomed one last time with autumn wildflowers before the white blanket of snow covered them during their winter's sleep.