Page 75 of Angel

‘What’s stopping you?’

He turned his smoky eyes to mine, a dry smirk playing on his mouth.

‘Nothing. Not a damn thing, Rox, not one.’

He reached out, hooked his arm on my waist, and tugged me to him, pressing his lips to my temple.

His heat radiated through my shirt, and I shivered with a delicious frisson.

The casual intimacy between us was ramping up, and it terrified me.

‘We doing this?’ he murmured. ‘Let’s get this over with for the suits.’

‘Done deal,’ I said, tapping on the camera app to cut through the sudden tension.

We spent ten minutes messing around to make the photo shoot bearable.

Angel pulled an exaggerated, brooding villain pose, narrowing his eyes at the lens and pursing his lips.

I leaned over his shoulder, twisting my face into a ridiculous duck pout.

We ended up cracking each other up between takes.

I managed to catch candid images of him laughing, his sculpted features losing their aloofness, softening for once.

Studying him through the screen, my brain replayed the obvious: my husband was infuriatingly attractive.

He had this magnetism to him, made even more sexy by how unbothered he was by his hypnotic presence.

I picked a few usable shots, attached them in an email, and sent it off to Di.

We finished our food in the shade, trading quiet banter as the sun started to drop.

At dusk, Mrs. Campanelli appeared on the terrace carrying a wicker hamper.

‘I’m taking the evening off to visit my sister in Anacapri. I left your supper in the basket.’

‘Thanks, Mrs. C,’ Angel called out.

‘There’s a small cove down the strand via the winding cliff path,’ she added, her eyes twinkling with that familiar mischief. ‘Go enjoy the sunset.’

Angel turned to me, brow arched.

‘Shall we?’

‘Let’s,’ I confirmed, anticipation hitting me as we rose from the lounges and got ready for our twilight excursion.

Half an hour later, armed with sand shoes, cushions, blankets, jackets, and our hamper of goodies, we navigated toward the seashore.

Angel held my hand tight down the steep, rocky trail in the fading amber luminescence, guiding my steps over the loose shale.

We reached the solitary shore and found the beach still warm from the day’s rays.

Shedding our sweatshirts and bottoms, we plunged into the sea in our swimming gear, loving the ocean’s brine-laced coolness over our skin.

The dusk light hung over the coastline, bleeding ink-blue and bruised violet across the horizon where the open water met the sky.

Out here on the secluded stretch of sand, the tide crashed on the rocks, churning white foam around our thighs as we waded deeper.