Losing Her Wings

Chapter 40

Angelo was a little surprised when he woke that morning, not by the delicate body that snuggled into him in the cold of the morning or the feeling of utter peace and belonging he felt beside Eva, but by the confused and surprised look in her eyes when she slowly woke up a minute later. She was smiling before as she snuggled in and stretched out, her eyes closed and looking very much happy with herself, until she opened her eyes and saw him there. Her smile became guilty and unsure as she bit her lip and sat up, raking a hand through her hair as she stared at him questioningly. She could barely process anything and he could only smile as he lay there, his hands behind his head, listening to the minor snippets of words and sentences that she came out with. “How…what? Did we…?” She questioned, looking down at herself to see that she was still dressed in the same clothes she had left work in, confused a little when she saw the way Angelo was smiling, knowing fine well from that look that they had spent the night together in an altogether different capacity to how she had initially thought. “Why didn’t we? Just remind me again?” She asked suddenly, making him laugh at how much she had protested at the very thought of them having slept together only for her ego to take a knock when she realised they hadn’t.

“You fell asleep on the sofa around one in the morning. You weren’t drunk…you didn’t even drink any alcohol…I figured since I didn’t know where you lived it would be rude of me to go searching through your bag without your permission to find an address and keys…so I put you to bed and let you sleep it off.” He explained calmly, smiling as she frowned to herself and asked why he hadn’t been gentlemanly enough to give her the bed all to herself, in a tormenting way that said she rather liked that he hadn’t done so. But he wasn’t going to use that old line about wanting to feel the warmth of someone’s body against his, of needing to feel some kind of closeness to someone. That was just lame. “It’s my house, I’ll sleep where I damned well please. Anyway, you’re a pretty good looking girl, why shouldn’t I want to sleep beside you?” He smiled, tormenting her for wanting him to stay beside her all night. But it only make her smile in return, liking the way he spoke to her, pretending that he wasn’t that attracted to her, calling her a ‘pretty’ good looking girl, not outrageously gorgeous as some men had and would.

“Or with me.” Eva teased him for not making a pass at her even though everything he had said and done the night before suggested that he wanted to. He hadn’t even kissed her. In fact, all they had done was talk about their last relationships, his with Paige and hers with her brothers once friend Niles, who had been a little younger and just really a fling until he had heartlessly dumped her after she found out he had been dating three other girls at the same time. Neither of them seemed to have a good history with romance but that was the exact reason she thought they were good together. Of course they’d talked about work and their plans for the future, getting to know each other and their little quirks but Eva figured it was about time they got to know each other in a different way. She didn’t usually stay over at guys houses and she certainly didn’t do it after only knowing them a few hours but she really liked Angelo, there was something safe and warm and a little mysterious about him and she couldn’t help herself. Before she could change her mind, she kissed him.

If he had had any sense at all, he would have reminded her that they both had to go to work but, he never was that smart. He kissed her back with all the unexplainable attraction he felt for her, with all the passion he had for a girl he barely knew and within just a moment or two, he had lowered her to the bed and started undoing the fastening of her jeans. In the next few moments neither gave in to the justified and sensible thoughts of their heads, they went with the rush of emotion they felt in their hearts, undressing each other until they were making love. It was an unexpected turn to his morning but Angelo didn’t care about anything other than Eva. He barely remembered his parents rules, that he had always followed, never to be with a woman unless he was married to her, never having been allowed to do anything more than kiss a girl because of it. But it wasn’t the fact that he had waited so long for those things that drove his morning with Eva into a whirlwind of kisses and expression of the physical attraction they had felt for each other. It was something much less concrete…something he felt deep in his gut…something that he hoped Eva shared with him. That instinctual feeling, the instant realisation that the person who came along so suddenly, so unexpectedly into their lives and filled their mind with an attraction so strong they couldn’t deny it or try to refuse it even if they had wanted to, was somehow the missing part of their soul. Just like when Plato said that each soul was split in two by Zeus because he was jealous of their power, leaving the soul divided, forever until the two pieces of the same soul could find each other…their soul mate. Only then would they be whole. And that was how he felt with Eva. Finding her, seeing her…just being with her made him feel like he had never felt before. He finally felt like he wasn’t lost anymore…he was whole again.