Price of Angels Read Online Free PDF Page A

the bike shop, and even then, her father would try to shoo her away, insisting they had a backup of import bikes that needed Mercy’s delicate touch.
                  “Dad,” Ava had said in reprimand, not buying the excuse.
                  “What? The man takes nine weeks off from work, I’ve got shit for him to do when he gets back.”
                  Either way, she’d enjoyed having dinner with her hubby, even if she’d been too green to eat anything herself.
                  His arm was around her shoulders, but somehow that wasn’t enough. She slid her arm around his waist, inside his cut and jacket, around the hard lean middle of him, pressing herself into his side. She heard his light breath of a chuckle through his nostrils, felt his fingers tighten on her shoulder, the little signs that he marveled and delighted in her intense affection. Her sweet boy. Her sweet, broken man.
                  “How’re you feeling?” he asked quietly, pausing as they reached the door, his free hand on the push bar.
                  “Better,” she assured. “The ginger ale helped.”
                  He pushed through the door, towing her along with him, and Ava gasped at the sharp punch of December air as it blasted her face and tunneled down into her lungs. “Damn.” She turned her face into Mercy’s shoulder as they stepped out onto the sidewalk and the warm bright comfort of Bell Bar was cut off behind them with a metallic clang of the door falling back in place.
                  “Walsh said something about it snowing for Christmas,” Mercy said, lifting his voice to be heard above the rippling breeze.
                  “Wouldn’t surprise me.” Her jaw clenched and she burrowed closer to Mercy as they walked, awkwardly, together like this, back toward their apartment. Walking the short distance to the bar had sounded fine earlier. It seemed like a stupid idea in retrospect.
                  “Poor fillette ,” he crooned in a voice that was half-laugh, half-come-on. “Cold little girl.” A playful voice she knew all too well.
                  “It’s freezing,” she said, in her own defense. “Yeah, I’m cold.”
                  Once they were out of sight of the Bell Bar door, he spun her back against the brick wall, landing her gently against it, covering her body with his, his open leather jacket shielding her from the worst of the wind.
                  Ava gasped in brief surprise, then laughed. “ What are you doing?”
                  “Warming you up.” In the smeared light of the streetlamps, she saw the quick gleam of his teeth as he beamed a wicked grin down at her. One of his big hands reached through the gap between her coat buttons, slipped beneath her sweater, covered her belly. “You don’t want the baby getting cold, do you?”
                  “The baby’s plenty warm in there.”
                  His hand moved lower, shoving boldly into the waistband of her leggings, fingers toying against the cotton screen of her panties.
                  Ava closed her lips against the scandalized, delighted sound that tried to leave her throat. Her hips titled in automatic invitation, her body responsive to his touch at a moment’s notice. But she said, “The baby’s not down there .”
                  “Good, I don’t wanna have to share.” He bent to kiss her, his hair swinging forward to tease at her face. It smelled like the flowery Herbal Essences shampoo he used; felt like watered silk on her skin.
                  “ Mercy ,” she protested, even as her neck stretched and her lips parted.
                  The loud and unhappy grumbling of a rattletrap car engine going past brought her back to her senses. He kissed her once – it was warm and