Kiss an Angel(16)

This was his year for paying off big debts, first with his deathbed promise to Owen Quest to take the circus out for its last season under the Quest name, and then by agreeing to marry Max’s daughter. In all these years Max had never asked one thing of him as repayment for having saved Alex’s life, but when he’d finally gotten around to it, he’d asked for a doozy.

Alex had tried to convince Max that he could accomplish the same objective just by letting Daisy live with him, but Max was too stodgy. Originally Max had insisted that the marriage last a year, but that had been more than even Alex’s gratitude could tolerate. They had compromised on six months, a period that would end at the same time as this final Quest Brothers tour.

As Alex lathered his chest, he thought about the two men who had been such a powerful force in his life, Owen Quest and Max Petroff. Max had rescued him from an existence of physical and emotional abuse, while Owen had guided him into manhood.

On the day he’d met Max, Alex was twelve and had been traveling with his Uncle Sergey in a scruffy circus that was spending the summer playing every Atlantic coast resort from Daytona Beach to Cape Cod. He’d never forget that hot August afternoon when Max had appeared like an avenging angel to rip the bullwhip out of Sergey’s fist and save Alex from another savage beating.

Now he understood the reasons for Sergey’s acts of sadism, but at the time he hadn’t comprehended the attraction twisted men feel for little boys and how far they’d go to deny that attraction. In an impulsive gesture of generosity, Max had paid off Sergey and taken Alex away. He’d put him in military school and provided the financial, if not the emotional, resources that let Alex survive until he could take care of himself.

But it was Owen Quest who had given Alex lessons on manhood during Alex’s school vacations when he’d traveled with the circus to make money, and then later into Alex’s adulthood as every few years he left the rest of his life behind and gave in to an urge to go on the road for a few months. The part of Alex’s character that hadn’t been shaped by his uncle’s whip had been formed by Owen’s long-winded lectures and generally astute observations about how screwed up the world was and how tough a man had to be in order to survive. Life was a dangerous business in Owen’s view, and he didn’t see much place for laughter or frivolity. A man worked hard, kept his guard up, and always held on to his pride.

Alex turned off the shower and reached for a towel. Both men had their selfish reasons for helping out a troubled kid. Max saw himself as a benefactor and enjoyed bragging about his various charitable projects—including Alex Markov—to his upper-crust friends. Owen, on the other hand, had a monstrous ego, and he relished having an impressionable audience waiting breathlessly for his dark insights on life. But regardless of their motivations, they’d been the only people in his young life who’d ever given a damn about him, and neither of them had once asked for anything in return, not until this past year.

Now Alex had a ragtag circus on his hands, along with a silly, sexy ditz of a wife, who was going to do her best to drive him crazy. He wouldn’t let it happen, of course. Circumstances had made him who he was—tough and stubborn, a man who lived by his own code and no longer had any illusions left about himself. Daisy Devreaux didn’t have a chance.

He wrapped the towel around his waist, picked up another to dry his hair, and opened the bathroom door.

Daisy gulped as the door swung open and he came out. Oh, Lord, he was gorgeous. With his head buried in a towel while he rubbed it dry, she could look her fill, and she saw that his body was her idea of perfect, with muscles that were well-defined but not overly pumped up. He also had something she had never seen on any of Lani’s toy boys—a working man’s tan. His broad chest was dusted with dark hair, and some kind of gold medal nested there, but she was too entranced with the overall vista to take in much detail.

His hips were significantly narrower than his shoulders, his stomach flat. She followed the straight arrow of hair that began just above his navel and continued down into the low-slung knot on his yellow bath towel. Heat fanned through her as she wondered what he’d look like without it.

He finished drying his hair and glanced over at her. “You can sleep with me or you can sleep on the couch. Right now I’m too tired to care which one.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch!” Her voice held a tiny squeak, whether from his words or the sight before her eyes, she wasn’t certain.

He spoiled her view of his front by walking to the bed where he turned his back on her to coil the whips and place them in a wooden case he pulled out from beneath the bed. With the whips out of sight, she found herself able to enjoy the view of his back much more.

Once again, he turned to face her. “In exactly five seconds I’m going to drop this towel.”

He waited, and as more than five seconds passed, she realized what he meant. “Oh. You want me to look away.”

He laughed. “Let me get just one good night’s sleep, angel face, and, I promise, you can look all you want.”

Now she’d done it. She’d given him completely the wrong impression, and she had to correct it. “I’m afraid you misinterpreted.”

“I sure hope not.”

“But you did. I was just curious . . . not curious, exactly, but—well, yes, I guess curious. . . . That’s only natural. But you shouldn’t assume—”