Phoenix Aflame (Alpha Phoenix Book 2) Read online

  He tied an apron over his khakis and western shirt. “I can peel the rest of the eggs,” he offered. He began to tap one on the counter and peel the shell off.

  “Didn’t you want to go greet your sister?” she asked.

  He laughed, showing large even white teeth. “That will be the Little Warbler.”

  “What warbler?” She wrestled with a stubborn spot where a piece of shell clung to the egg white.

  “That’s what we call our baby brother the opera singer.”

  “But he’s famous,” objected Tasha.

  “See, that just adds to the joy of calling him that.”

  She joined in his laughter. “But didn’t you want to meet him?”

  “Sure. Just not enough to ride crammed in between Becky and Quincy in the back of Dad’s SUV,” he said.

  “I’m sure Becky didn’t have to go meet your brother.” She was conscious that she sounded prim but she couldn’t be natural around Harrison.

  “Quincy has been telling me all morning about the concert she and Becky are going to have when Uncle Grant gets here. They are both beside themselves with excitement.”

  “Oh. What concert?”

  “They have big plans for Uncle Grant.”

  “Won’t he mind?” A famous tenor like the Angel of the Opera, might have a few legitimate objections to being roped into a recital by a pair of small girls. Especially if he was supposed to be cosseting his voice.

  “So much the better.” Harrison passed the last peeled egg to Tasha and swept the egg shells off the counter into the empty bowl.

  “I thought he was supposed to be resting his voice?”

  “The Little Warbler has a retinue to keep him from being pestered.” Harrison’s deep voice was dismissive.

  “He’s showing up at his parents’ place with staff?” she asked.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  There was some conflict there. Tasha decided it was none of her business. She smiled blandly and fetched the bowl of potatoes from the fridge. “Would you mind folding these together?” she asked sweetly.

  The bowl was big and deep. And very, very full. Harrison’s blue eyes narrowed. “There’s a lot of stuff in here. Maybe we should divide it first before it goes everywhere.”

  Tasha got a second bowl. “Save the chopped egg to sprinkle on top,” Tasha advised. She turned to ask him if he knew which serving bowls his mother wanted to use. His lips brushed hers and she gasped.

  “Hmm?” he said. “You feel it too?”

  She nodded and swallowed. Her throat felt too small.

  He bent his head and kissed her again. Lightning flashed. Drums rolled. Her heart sped up and her whole body moistened. He lifted his head. His aquiline features were strained and red stained his high cheekbones. His eyes were intense on hers. “Later,” he promised as the door opened and the kitchen filled up with large D’Angelos.

  The Little Warbler was not as tall as his father and brother. Or as Cam. But Grant D’Angelo was plenty taller than she was. And as broad chested and handsome as George and Harrison. His speaking voice was less deep than theirs, which made sense since he was a world-renowned tenor. And he had brought no one with him on his private plane.

  Caroline put him beside Tasha at lunch and he was complimentary about the potato salad and inclined to flirt with her. She got no sense that he was genuinely attracted to her. But he was clearly as chatty as his oldest brother was taciturn.

  He drew her out and had as little trouble getting Tasha to laugh as he had keeping Quincy on his other side in continuous giggles. Across the table Harrison was glaring at her – no, at Grant. His fierce gaze swept the laugh from her face and made her blush.

  * * *

  It was utterly ridiculous. He was making a fool of himself. Any woman in her right mind would prefer the attentions of a charming and lighthearted rascal like Grant. His brother had no difficulty in keeping Tasha amused. Everything Grant said to her seemed to make her giggle. Oh, perhaps giggle was the wrong word. His little girl was giggling. But Tasha was doing was more like gurgling.

  But she blushed when Harrison looked directly at her. And bit her lip. And looked down at her plate as if she knew what the sight of those white teeth nibbling on her rosy lower lip had done to him. After four years of hibernation, his libido had woken up with a vengeance.

  Grant looked across the lunch table and winked at him. What the hell was that about? And then Becky who had squirmed onto the chair next to her uncle when they sat down, started to prattle about Princess. She and Quincy wanted to have a parade.

  “A parade?” What on earth had he missed?

  “Yes.” Becky’s shrill little voice got a little bit shriller with excitement. “Uncle Cameron has flags. And me and Quincy could braid ribbons into Princess’s hair. And we could have a parade.”

  “And Uncle Grant could sing,” Harrison suggested.

  “Yes.” It was almost shriek. Across the table Tasha fixed a stern maternal eye on her daughter and put her finger to her lips. “Inside voice,” she mouthed.

  Great. Now she thought he was a bad influence on her child. Grant smirked at him and leaned in to speak softly to Tasha. Even Harrison’s preternaturally sharp hearing couldn’t catch what his brother said over the din of the rest of the table. But Tasha’s pink cheeks got pinker, and her soft drawl got softer. It made his senses buzz even if he couldn’t make out her words.

  When the meal was over, he had a plan. He stood up and smiled at his mother. “Tasha and I will do the dishes. The girls want Uncle Grant and Uncle Cameron to help them with their parade.” Cameron Reynolds widened his eyes. But he closed his mouth when he saw Harrison’s expression. Good. For a minute he had thought he had lost his edge.

  Becky and Quincy tackled Cameron and Grant and began to explain the whole involved idea to them. They drifted out the back door with the girls talking a mile a minute.

  Caroline rose to her feet. She smiled at George. “We’ll go out to the sunroom,” she said. “Harrison can bring our coffee out to us.”

  He put the apron back on and she grabbed one too. She opened the cupboard under the sink and took out rubber gloves. “You clear. I’ll scrape and stack the dishwasher.”

  They worked together until the table was clear and the leftovers were in the fridge. “If you give me a rag, I’ll wipe up,” he said.

  Wordlessly Tasha passed him the wrung-out kitchen cloth. He wiped and handed it back to her. She rinsed it out in the hot, soapy water in the sink and returned it. He gave the table another going over and then he was back behind her tossing the rag into the suds.

  “What was he saying to you?” he growled against her head. He put his arms around her under her breasts and pulled her back against his erection.

  “Who?” Her voice was agreeably vague as if his presence distracted her. He tightened his arms.

  “Grant.”

  She gurgled. Heaven help him, she gurgled.

  He pushed her away from him. “Tell me.”

  Tasha turned to face him. “You’re jealous.” It was an awed question.

  “He’s very pretty,” he defended himself.

  “But I’m fat.”

  “Did he tell you that?” How dared he? He was going to kill that songbird.

  She gurgled again and leaned into him. “Who?”

  “Grant. Did he tell you that you were fat?” He squeezed her rump like it already belonged to him and she squirmed closer.

  “No. Of course not. We just met.”

  “I haven’t known you long, myself. But you’re not fat. You’re curvy.” He gathered her even closer and kissed her until she was breathless and they were both panting.

  “My sandal fell off,” she said some time later.

  He set her back down. “And we never made that coffee.”

  Somehow her blouse had ridden up over the strings of her apron and her hair was rumpled. She looked delicious.

  She tugged shamefaced at her clothes. “We shouldn�
�t have done that,” she said.

  He didn’t argue. His mom and dad had pretty much adopted Tasha and Becky. Becky was calling them Meemaw and Poppy. They wouldn’t like the idea that their son was taking advantage of Tasha.

  “I’m way too old and contrary.” he tried to explain.

  Her brows snapped together and she moved past him to get the coffee pot and fill it with water. “I don’t see that age has anything to do with it. I only meant that your mother and father wouldn’t like it if they knew we were – were – were.” She stuttered to a halt. “You know.”

  “Necking? Making out? Canoodling?” With each expression her face got pinker. He was starting to enjoy himself again. He reached for the coffee canister and began to fill the basket.

  “Any of those. It’s inappropriate,” she hissed.

  “Only if we’re fooling around. I don’t fool.” He closed the filter bay and pressed the button to start the coffee maker.

  “Not in your mother’s house,” she insisted. “Not where Becky and Quincy could walk in at any moment.”

  “We could make it perfectly respectable.”

  “What exactly are you saying?” Tasha glared up at Harrison.

  “Our kids adore each other,” he said. “You know that I would look after you and Becky. You would never need to be frightened ever again. And I can have Quincy living with me. It’s a win-win for both of us.”

  Tasha’s green eyes got wide. He didn’t like the disappointment on her face. Goaded, he rushed into speech again, “You need me,” he said in his command voice. The one no one argued with. Apparently little Tasha Sutcliffe had not gotten the memo.

  She bunched her hands on her hips and her eyes went from wide to narrow. “What about love?”

  “I can’t promise you love. I don’t have any left to give. But I can promise you loyalty and passion.” Harrison swept Tasha into his arms and let his phoenix take over.

  She was stiff at first, and his heart sank. But then she softened and all that glorious flesh was his to knead and draw closer to his needy body. Because this was what Tasha had done to him. She had woken up his animal instincts. He felt lusty and potent, beyond anything he could remember.

  He sampled her mouth as gently as his urgent arousal would permit. He had to get this right, convince her that marriage to him would have its advantages – beyond the trappings of wealth and the security of marriage to a warrior. Her mouth was a hard line and then those plump lips parted, and he could suckle on that bow-shaped bottom lip that had been tempting him for days.

  She tasted of homecoming, and sweet and giving womanhood. He sent his tongue seeking that sweetness behind her upper lip and let his tongue tangle slowly with hers in a mating dance that was older than the oldest phoenixes. Her arms were stronger than he had supposed. They clutched his upper arms and brought him closer to that pillowy bosom. She was too far away. He lifted her so their faces met in the same plane.

  This was better. He had a better angle from which to taste her. And having her feet dangle made her twine her toes around his knees. Even through his pants, the little caress ratcheted up his pleasure. She clutched him harder, as though she feared he would let her fall. But he had no intention of ever letting this luscious female go. He withdrew slightly from her mouth and nuzzled her at the corners of her lips.

  “Marry me,” he whispered. “I’ll make you happy.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Tasha struggled and he let her go. She backed away and covered her mouth with both hands. She looked even younger. Not much older than Becky, truth be told. Her green eyes were round and her pretty lips swollen. Like a well-kissed little girl. Which was just another way of saying she was way too young for him. Apparently she thought so too because she was shaking her head as she backed away.

  “I can’t,” she whispered huskily. “I’m not a shifter.”

  He hadn’t expected that. “But you grew up in a bearshifter family.” Even to his own ears he sounded combative.

  “Doesn’t make me a shifter. I love Cameron, and I loved my parents. But I never understood how anyone could do that to their kids if they didn’t have to. I watched Cameron coming into his talent. It was painful and unpleasant. I wouldn’t want to put my kids through that.”

  Harrison really didn’t know what to say. He thought back to his own adolescence and to those of his brothers and sisters. There had been a nasty couple of months when he was thirteen. That first shift had been exciting, exhilarating, and excruciating. But well worth the agony. He would’ve thought that Cameron Reynolds was equally comfortable being a bear.

  His brothers and sisters had had some awkward patches too. Probably coming into their talents had intensified what would in any case have been a difficult transition from childhood to adulthood. His normal buddies had raised many kinds of hell with no shifter hormones at all.

  But becoming a phoenix had been a long anticipated joy. He had loved being able to soar, to fly with Mom and Dad. Coming into his sharper phoenix senses had alone been worth the price. The world had immediately become a thousand times more wonderful.

  “Being a phoenix is gift,” he said. “But I wasn’t thinking children – more children.”

  She pulled herself together before his eyes. She stopped looking young and scared and developed some poise. “I’m honored,” she said formally, “But I really can’t accept.” Her voice was lower and unusually sultry. “We are all but strangers.”

  He might’ve tried to persuade her the old-fashioned way, but his mother walked into the kitchen from the sitting room.

  “Is that coffee I smell?” she asked. Her eyes flickered over Tasha’s face, but she ignored her guest’s bee-stung lips.

  But the moment had passed. He hadn’t thought about the fact that if he asked Tasha to marry him that she would expect more children. He hadn’t thought period. He had just spoken. Which was unlike him. The minx had turned his head. It was a dumb idea born of a dumber impulse.

  Nothing but a foolish dream. Of course Tasha wouldn’t want him. She was young. She had only one child. As fond as she seemed to be of his daughter, Quincy wasn’t Tasha’s daughter. Naturally she wanted more children. But even if he hadn’t taken steps to make sure that would never happen, he didn’t think he could face being a father again. He hadn’t meant to blurt out his proposal. General Custer, he was thinking with his trouser snake like a green kid.

  There were lots of reasons why marriage was a bad idea. Tasha had been let down by her ex-husband, more brutally perhaps even than he had been let down by Stephanie. A phoenix’s fated mate, who had swallowed the egg of immortality, was not supposed to die as Steph had.

  He didn’t think that Tasha had gotten married expecting that her husband’s love would only be temporary. Probably she would hesitate to remarry, even if the guy proposing was offering his heart – which he wasn’t. And hadn’t. He winced. Way to go, Romeo.

  Caroline was opening the cupboard and taking down coffee mugs. “Are you guys going to have some too?”

  “Yes, please,” Tasha said.

  “Thank you,” Harrison replied. “And I’ll make another pot for the others when they get back.”

  Caroline filled the mugs before her, and Tasha brought cream from the fridge. “When do you expect Frankie to arrive?” she asked. Her color was a little high, but her voice was back to sweet and syrupy.

  “She should get here around seven,” Caroline said. “But she can stay until Wednesday.” Mom’s voice was happy.

  “I hope she doesn’t miss the parade.” Harrison sipped at his coffee.

  Caroline fixed him with a knowing eye. “The parade will be on the Fourth,” she said sternly. “And your brother is supposed to rest his voice.”

  “Don’t look at me. I didn’t suggest a parade.” He buried his face in his mug to hide his smile.

  “I’m afraid that was me,” admitted Tasha. “But I didn’t know the girls were going to involve the rest of us. I thought it would be them, and maybe Pr
incess, and the grownups would get to watch.”

  “It’ll be fun.” Caroline picked up a second mug and they followed her back into the sitting room.

  * * *

  It was beyond awkward. She had been blindsided by that kiss. A woman didn’t kiss a man the way she had kissed Harrison D’Angelo and then just act as though nothing had happened. At least she didn’t. Her blood felt fizzy and she ached between her legs. She sat quietly and sipped her coffee while George went over to the piano and began to play.

  “I thought we could have some music,” he said. He began to play ragtime.

  He was good. Especially when you considered that piano playing was not exactly a job requirement for a five-star general. Neither Caroline nor Harrison seemed to think that George’s piano playing was unusual. So probably it was not. She hadn’t realized that he played.

  Caroline had been teaching both the girls some simple tunes, but she had not previously heard George playing. And he was extremely talented. She dimly heard the kitchen door open and close. George must’ve heard it too because he stepped harder on the pedal and played louder.

  Harrison was back to looking stoic. As if he hadn’t been kissing her like a madman. No, not a madman. Like a man who was so turned on he had forgotten the rules. Marriage? They barely knew one another. Only her body didn’t seem to know that. It was too busy imagining all that hard muscle surrounding her. Inside her. She pressed her legs together and tried to look as unruffled as Harrison.

  Cam and Grant had the girls perched on their shoulders. They stood in the doorway filling it up. Grant’s immaculate hair was tousled by Becky’s fists. Quincy hadn’t made much headway on Cam. His blond hair was cut Air Force short. Like Harrison’s.

  “We have the pony situated,” Cam said. “We were thinking of doing a little fishing. If no one objects.” He winked at Tasha.

  “At the tank?” George stopped playing.

  “Yes, sir,” Grant said. “If we catch some bass, can you fit it into dinner, Mom?”