Page 1 of Wicked Angel
Prologue
Angeline
We all make mistakes.
We all fuck up royally from time to time.
We all harbor painful regrets, sorrows, and even secret shames.
Things we wish we never did.
And other things we only wish we never did because we know they’re wrong, even if they felt right. Things we’re so deeply confused about that the torment wedges deep inside, twisting like a knife between our ribs with every breath, until we fear that our boyfriend is about to find out.
Or, wait. Maybe that last part is just me?
Point is, we all make mistakes.
Some we hope to be forgiven for.
Some we don’t deserve to be forgiven for because… if we could do it all again…
We’d still fuck up.
The night I fucked up, all I wanted was a quiet place to make a phone call in the middle of a loud house party. So I stepped outside and walked across the grass, away from the house into the dark, alone, for just a moment. But all it really takes is a moment for the world to crash into oncoming space junk.
“Hey, Angel.”
I jumped a little at his voice floating out of the dark, a tidal wave of goosebumps running down my body. My heart lurched. My nipples pricked. My fingernails dug into my palm as I took a slow, deep breath and turned to find him sitting in the shadows.
“Hello,” I said softly. I sounded like a young girl. A girl so much younger than I was. A girl who was deeply uncertain, suddenly, of the place where her feet met the earth. I was only twenty steps or so from my boyfriend. And from my older sister. Ten steps from a house full of friends. Any one of them would’ve saved me in that moment, if they could.
But the door was closed. No one could see me. Or him.
No one could seeus.
Instead, it was all left up to me, and I fucked up.
Crimson and gold flared in the night as he clicked his lighter and firelight danced across his gorgeous face. His name was Johnny. He was the older brother of one of my best friends.
He was a mistake, long before anything ever happened between us.
Nothing had ever happened between us. But I’d crushed on him so hard and for so long, just the sight of his face, flickering in and out of the dark as that lighter sparked the joint in his hand, turned my stomach to a mass of snakes. Because I knew. I knew something very, very bad was about to happen.
And I was going to let it.
“Angeline Delacroix.” He said my name slowly, like he was tasting it. Like he was really hearing it for the first time since we’d met, years ago. Every syllable so soft and sensuous on his lips in the dark.
Then he got to his feet, standing up to his full height, looming over me. I got a better look at his face in the moonlight. His eyes were wet with some emotion I couldn’t identify. He looked high or drunk, or both.
He looked tormented.
It took my breath away.
His hands slid up around my bare neck, so suddenly I didn’t even pull away. By the time his fingers had slid under my ponytail to cradle my skull, I’d gone almost limp. I dangled there in his hands as his watery eyes tripped into mine.
He was gone. Somewhere far away and somewhere deep inside me, all at once, as he looked into my eyes.
My heart fluttered like a trapped butterfly. My hands went to his waist, grabbing onto him, and his eyes flared. I didn’t pull him to me or push him away. I just held on. I didn’t even know what was happening except that in the utter chaos of this miraculous, fragile event called life, his orbit and mine had suddenly collided and locked together. And I couldn’t move.
