Blazed

chapter Two

THE GREAT THING about the gargoyle sweeping the streets was that Esme attached herself to me like a barnacle. This invariably resulted in pleasant wake up calls with my morning coffee, hair almost professionally styled, clothes laid out and company to keep me sane. Hell, the woman even cleaned my glasses within an inch of their life when they looked a little murky from her perspective. By her way of thinking, my vision was imperative to my line of work, somewhere she insisted on following me to.

That was the advantage of working in a book shop. Esme looked most like an immaculate marble sculpture when she was curled up in an armchair reading, and that really was the only option of entertainment in Double Booked. The Wi-Fi connection was atrocious, and the host computer nearly always in use by Mrs Reynolds, so it was read or work.

Esme helped me with the work side of the day on occasion, pacing the aisles of books and noting where the gaps and single copies stood, and ably playing the part of sexy tea lady. Too afraid to leave the shop without me, she was definitely what my mother would have called a 'trooper' when it came to the listless silences. Fortunately, Mrs Reynolds appeared to be her biggest fan, so when the suggestion of piping music directly into the shop was made, she rallied around and had her son come in to hook up a speaker system.

That son? Chris.

"There," he announced jubilantly, spinning a screwdriver artfully around his fingers "consider yourselves Chinese pan-pipe music ready."

Scoffing, Esme rifled through the sparse in-house CD collection until she found what she considered to be gold dust. "I think not, Christopher." She brandished a Frank Sinatra CD and ignored his groaned protest. "Hush, metalhead. You don't have to work here."

"Neither do you," he snapped in response, childishly plugging his ears with his fingers. The clash of preferences between them had been known to get ugly— Esme stuck on forties jazz and Chris a dedicated rocker. My own tastes were a little more liberal and eclectic, though maybe not stretching as far as repetitive pan-pipes.

I left them to argue over the music, armed with a trolley of books to re-home on the shelves in the art section, my packed lunch courtesy of Esme and a dull throbbing hangover. The further away I was from the debate, the better. They would duke it out, settle it over the toss of a coin, Chris would leave to go trolling on some internet communities and we'd listen to Sinatra anyway. Like Mrs Reynolds, I knew how to pick my battles where her son was involved.

Even though I could hear it clearly, I tuned out the argument and worked one handed while I ate. When the battle was eventually won and Ol' Blue Eyes began to croon, I hummed along quietly and danced between the shelves, enjoying the peaceful tranquillity of my surroundings. The place others might call stuffy and boring was somewhat of a utopia for me, guarded and almost segregated from the bustling metropolis just streets away. It was like my own Shell Island stood in the middle of London— my very own peninsula accessible by foot but cut off from the world when the tide rolled in.

It wasn't until I heard the swell of an MP3 player breaking the lilt of Mack The Knife that I remembered, realistically, how public my peninsula really was. I made out strains of muffled Fallout Boy and my feet stilled beneath me, sure that whoever was visiting wouldn't sweep me up into a swing dance when they saw me prancing. The other three voices in the shop silenced, so figuring their conversation hadn't been appropriate for public spaces— Mrs Reynolds was definitely a cougar and had the dirty mouth to back it up— I chastised them with an eye roll they wouldn't see and felt my gaze fix on one, or two, books in particular.

Syncretic Sciences razzed at me from it's shelf, the way it had every workday for two years. My pet project had become a fixation and a challenge— one I didn't really care to defeat. I liked to chase the unobtainable but drop the tail when I got too close to catching it. I didn't know what my life would become if I actually achieved something, and that uncertainty made me keep a safe distance between me and my aspirations. I had, after all, seen how success could make a person ugly. Henry hadn't been a prestigious business man when I was born— I saw exactly how to do it and how I could replicate it, but like GI Joe said, 'knowing is half the battle'. I wasn't a fighter, I was a dreamer. So much so my mother often called me 'Sleepy Jean.'

The buzz of Thnks Fr Th Mmrs got closer and had me chuckling to myself at the thought of monkeys in directors chairs. The buzz became a roar the moment it was next to me.

"Hi, sorry." I tried not to audibly groan at having to associate with the customers. "Can you point me to the direction of the graphic novels?"

"Right in front of me." I plastered on my 'good employee' smile and side-stepped to look at the owner of the voice.

My brain stuttered to a complete halt. It felt like I'd walked right onto a Hollywood movie set and ended up face to face with the sexy bad boy in some corny rom-com. With his hair falling down to his temples and skimming the tops of his thick dark brows, he looked like a f*cking poster boy— the kind-hearted rebel who never found the love he always craved. The kind of man school girls wrote their names with in a heart and swore blind they'd marry him. A walking wet-dream.

Him. The man from Esme's.

And he looked almost as surprised to see me. His face broke into a mind-numbing smile mid-examination of me and his weight shifted onto one leg. With no visual impairment, I could fully appreciate the finer details I'd not been able to see in the dimly lit bar with an astigmatism handicap.

The slight surprise in his eyes made them wider and greener, almost inhumanly vivid in emerald hue. He wasn't cleanly shaven like he had been the night before, and the light muzzle of dark prickles spread up to his perfectly sculpted high cheek bones. A small scar marred his Cupid's bow— maybe a souvenir from a drunken battle over a lovelorn woman— one small flaw in the face I'd considered a diamond.

Wow. I was careful not to outwardly express that opinion again. It hadn't been until I locked eyes with him I realised just how much I'd wanted to run into him again and apologise for my less than verbose greeting and unimpressive display of pyrotechnics.

"Well," I damn near flinched when he finally spoke, "that's a much better reaction than last night's self-harm." Not knowing what he meant, I forced focus back onto myself and realised that I was grinning like a fool. Not my customer service smile, something genuine and deceptively soul exposing. And probably manic and shit eating. He was one of those people who exuded joy, who you just had to smile around. Just like Hunter.

"Sorry, it's not intentional. The little man running auto-pilot in my head decided that was the appropriate response to your pheromones." I cringed and mouthed 'what?!' at myself, blushing violently as I turned back to the shelf in self-defence. What the hell had possessed me to say something so obtuse? "So, any graphic novel in particular?"

The amusement in his voice provoked goose bumps. "No, just browsing. Unless you can recommend...?"

"Nope." Straightening, I rounded him to make an escape. "I'll be at the desk if you need any more help."

I could have kicked myself for moving quite so hastily. Any remaining blood that hadn't rerouted to my cheeks flooded to my hands and made them shake relentlessly against the old world cash desk, so hard that the rose quartz friendship bracelet Daniel had given me rattled against the wood. Esme, Chris and Mrs Reynolds all stared at me, apparently still locked into the state of total noiselessness that they'd been pushed into when he walked through the door.

Eventually, Chris choked a laugh and shook his head at me. "'Appropriate response to your to your pheromones'? Only you could dweeb up a chat up line like that." My blush got impossibly deeper at the realisation they'd been listening in on the brief conversation and that they could be easily heard now.

"It wasn't a chat up line," I hissed, feeling like I might pass out if I didn't get a grip. Chris muttered something about thinking I had better taste as he excused himself and left the shop, the exact moment the god slid into view and started walking towards us. Christ, give a girl a chance, I thought to myself, willing some of the colour to drain from my face. His pace was leisurely enough for Esme to give me a thumbs up, assuring me that I didn't look like a crazy person.

"Did you find everything you were looking for?" I asked too cheerfully, tensing every muscle out of his view. What the hell was he doing to me? I wasn't the type of woman who got hot and hormonal over men. Man, maybe. Just one.

"Sort of. I found something. Independent author right?" He threw a book down on the desk in front of me and somehow Esme's and Mrs Reynolds' silence thickened.

I swallowed hard at the sight of Syncretic Sciences staring up at me. Of all the books in all the bookshops... "That's right."

"Did this Emmeline White do anything else?"

"Uh... no. Just that novel and we have the only two copies that got printed."

"Huh..." I kept my eyes fixed on his hands sinuously stroking the spine of the book and felt the movement all over my body. He leaned closer towards me, forcing me instinctively back like a repelling magnet. "Shame really. Did she come to you to sell them?"

"Oh yes," Mrs Reynolds chipped in, granting me a precious second to reassemble my brain cells, "that's how most of our independent works make it here."

"Oh, so would you have means of contacting her? I'd like to petition for her to expand her bibliography."

"No need," the last ounce of blood in my body pooled in my face when she laughed and nodded in my direction, "why go through the desk monkeys when you can go straight to head office?"

Meekly, I lifted my head to meet his scorching hot gaze and forced an almost apologetic smile. He hummed inquisitively on an exhale. "Emmeline White, eh?" His voice caressed my name with aggressive sexuality. The fantasy of him growling it while he was balls deep inside me made my mouth dry. "That's much better than what I've been calling you in my head." He smirked at my raised eyebrow and clarified— "Lisbeth."

"The Girl Who Played With Fire. Very clever." I pulled my eyes away from his, needing to dispel the sunspots he left in my field of vision. "And you are?"

"Blaze."

I immediately looked back at him and scowled. Giving a name like that seemed like a poor joke at my expense. "Are you trying to be funny?" For a moment it didn't look like he understood, but then the dazzling smile crept back onto his face. His laugh was satiny soft and not even slightly patronising like it should have been. He quickly gave off the impression that he'd never lied once in his life because his face could soften even the most brutal truths.

"I wasn't, but if it happened that way, that's fine by me. Tell me, Emmeline," the way he said my name again like we were familiar made my stomach knot, "this is Double Booked, right? If there are only two copies of a graphic novel and you sell just one, what happens to the other?"

"Um, well," coughing away the lump in my throat, I turned away to find something arbitrary to distract me from his intense green eyes, "usually, we take the spare off the shelf and contact the supplier or author to order more. If there are no more prints, it usually ends up in the book graveyard next door."

He craned his neck to look at the adjacent unit. "The charity shop?"

"Sure. 'One man's trash is another man's treasure' and all that jazz."

He seemed to bristle at the word 'trash' and stalked back off beyond the shelves without a word, leaving the three of us to admire him from behind. That view was almost as impressive as the front from the shoulders down, and for the life of me, I couldn't get past the primal urge to strip him bare and stare at him until the image of his naked body was permanently imprinted on my mind. Now there was a sight I wouldn't forget in a hurry.

Too quickly, he came back and tossed the other copy of Syncretic Sciences down, free hand digging into his back pocket for his wallet. "I can find a happy home for this," he promised, "what the proverbs don't tell you is what happens after that trash becomes treasure. Other people see it as treasure too. Just look at any aspect of modern economy for proof. All it takes is one man's idea and another man's faith." Recognising Henry in that statement, I faltered just slightly in my reply. He was the ideas man, and there was no doubting that his unfathomable charisma was how he'd conned— I mean convinced, people to put their belief in him. But I refused to believe that I was capable of anything like that just by paying for a couple of prints of my doodles.

"I expect my fan club to converge every Friday and send me love notes every month."

"Well today is Friday. No time like the present. This place closes at six right? So I'll head off now to get a start on those love notes and swing round to collect you later." My forehead knit into a frown while I scoured his comment for sarcasm. There was none. Even his seraphic face looked deathly serious— about fetching me from work at least, possibly not the love notes.

"Isn't there a pick up line missing from this conversation?" He ducked down to my eye level, scrutinising me as I rang the books through the till and stuffed them into a paper bag.

"You don't look like you have a desire to be wined and dined before you're sixty-nined..."

"I don't." My obsession with Hunter went deep enough to earn me a reputation as a heart-breaker for anyone who wanted anything more long term than the time it took to find a vacant bed or sofa, take care of business and see me safely into a taxi. If a sordid screw was what he was after, he'd have done better propositioning me outright. I did, however, feel my pulse quicken at the dark promise in his observation.

"Well then." He straightened, scooping his purchase up from the desk. "I'll see you at six."



ESME quickly pounced on the computer after we'd watched him leave in an awed muteness you'd probably only see on a playground. There was a sudden and instant gush of nightmarish teenage gossip between her and Mrs Reynolds the moment he slipped out of sight, followed by a rapid fire line of questioning I had few answers for.

"Do you think he knows who you are? He would have mentioned if he'd seen you pictured with your dad right? Oh, but you never wear the specs when you're out drinking, so maybe it didn't click. Oh wow, can you imagine the press coverage of you two?"

"Hold up." I raised a hand to silence the onslaught. "Are you thinking he's pursuing me to score a rich chick?"

"Oh please," Esme scoffed and navigated to a search engine over my shoulder, fingers flying so fast they were almost a blur, "Blaze has been in everything. Modelling for major labels, acting, he was the Monday's Miracle front-man before they got big, and..." a video pinged up on the screen and blared The Bystander Effect's cover of Weak into the shop. One of my favourites.

"He was the anti-CJ. He's been in Amelia Marsh's mouth." I had more than a little girl crush on the woman who was more tattooed leg than body.

"Uh huh. That hot tamale who just 'didn't' ask you out is already a big deal. And... well," she sighed down at me ruefully, "as gorgeous and smoking hot as he is, he doesn't date. He's never pictured with female company despite obviously constantly beating them off with a big stick, and barely associates with anyone attached to a vagina. God knows I've tried."

"Gay?" The question had to be asked.

"Implicitly no. He's been asked in numerous interviews and nothing he says is anything other than the veritable truth." I felt slightly smug that I'd correctly identified that trait, but then frowned at the information Esme was laying in front of me in the medium of news clippings and online gossip blogs.

"So what the hell was that?"

"For both our sakes, I'm hoping it was pillow talk." She grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard enough to blanch the skin in my fingers. "Please, Miss Untouchable, tap that. I need to live vicariously through you."

I DIDN’T BELIEVE for a moment that 'Blaze'— God, even his name did wicked things to me and described his visceral effect on me perfectly— would turn up on that threshold at six o'clock. Articles of how untouchable he was had been pushed under my nose all day and I couldn't come up with a single good reason why I might be the woman he broke a pattern for. The more super-talented and gorgeous I found out he was, the more convinced I became that our verbal spar had been nothing but bravado. Even if he did secretly know which family I was really a part of, he had to be worth a lot of money himself. If he wasn't after the millions I refused to touch, what the hell did he stand to gain?

I pushed the thought of him to the back of my mind with copious amounts of coffee and random reads from the Double Booked science-fiction shelves, and eventually Esme and Mrs Reynolds forgot about him too. The afternoon passed in what was essentially an audio-described flashback for Mrs Reynolds' benefit; Esme recalling the tales of her dire childhood to explain exactly why she was seeking asylum with us. At times it looked like they might both cry, so totally engrossed in the woe, and these were the times I dozed covertly, having heard the montage of memories often enough to no longer empathise.

My head and elbow leaned against the window, cooling the throb of both the hangover and the burn enough for me to feel drowsy. On my lap laid a battered old sketchbook full of the more decorative pieces that had been too detailed for my graphic novel. God, at least one person was going to read that book and have a damned good laugh. Of all the graphic novels in this shop, and we had a pretty extensive collection, why did he have to pick mine?

I was toying with the idea of him using the other copy for toilet paper when a peculiar little bug of a maroon car pulled up to the kerb outside the shop and idled, engine still running but no signs of life inside. The windows were tinted enough to reveal that the lone occupant was male but little else.

"Looks like your sexy visitor came back after all," Mrs Reynolds quipped, pulling my attention away from the window long enough for the driver to step out onto the street and lean up against the side of the vehicle, casual as anything.

Once the disbelief melted away, horror struck me. Turning to Esme, I opened my mouth to insist that I'd see her home safe before I even entertained putting my safety in the hands, and car, of the man standing outside.

"If you blow him off, I will kill you. I know where you sleep," she muttered, staring lustfully through the window. "But if you're not at the bar by nine to gossip, I'll send out a search party."

"Thanks," I said wistfully, wrinkling my nose at the spectacle outside, "I appreciate it."

The minute the clock ticked around to the hour, Blaze was on that threshold looking divine and almost hopeful. He'd shaved and styled his hair back, looking more like the hot stud I'd seen at the bar and less like the ruffled bad boy I'd seen in the shop earlier that day. I couldn't possibly decide which side of him I preferred because both were equally as delicious.

He greeted me with a purr and took my sketchbook from my hand. "Ready to go?"

"Almost, I just—" Esme appeared with my bag and draped it over my shoulder, discernibly whimpering with need for the demigod. "Okay, so I guess I'm ready." With a smile, Blaze lead me out to the path and paused at the passenger door, pulling it open for me to climb in. "Seriously?"

"You don't like my city car?"

I scoffed scornfully, the unwillingly well groomed feline in me unleashing fully sharpened claws. "That's not a car. It's a Cygnet." My form had graced the back seat of many fine vehicles over the past twenty-two years, and this boxcar didn't make the grade.

"It's an Aston Martin," he objected.

"It's a gremlin car." Shuddering, I resigned myself to my fate and stepped past the open door to get it, flinching when he slammed it behind me.

Climbing into the driver's seat, he started the engine before I had chance to fasten the seatbelt. "Do you have something better than this tucked away?" I bit my lip. I'd never confess to anyone that I had an untouched cobalt blue Bentley hidden away in a private garage. It was another token of Henry's 'affection' that I refused to touch. "Don't worry, I don't fill her up after midnight, so she won't mutate and eat you."

"Unless 'she' secretly transforms into Optimus Prime in the dead of night, I'm withholding any hope that this thing won't put me in a coffin." He stopped to look at me and laughed before pulling out into the dense city traffic, tutting at my white knuckle grip on the seat either side of my legs.

"So how's the elbow?"

"Fine, just stiff." A blatant and pitiful lie. The amount of analgesics pumping around my system might have just been the reason why I could string coherent sentences together around him, but there was still a searing pain in my elbow every time I moved. Luckily, I think I cried so much over my teenage years that my tear ducts were paralysed through over use.

"You need an aloe vera plant," he mused, tossing an arm around my headrest to bridge the gap between our seats. I wanted to scream at him to keep both hands on the steering wheel but fear for my life kept me quiet. "Don't worry, I checked our route and there are no open flames."

"Our route?" There was a glint of mischief in his eye that he didn't put words to. I shuffled uncomfortably, hands moving from the seat to my bag where I had a better grip on something— anything— to steady my nerves. "So you don't hang out with women." Shrugging apologetically, I tried to not get preoccupied with the way his eyes darkened like something bothered him.

"You've been doing some research?"

"Well, you know. A guy you meet in a bar strolls into your workplace and bluntly tells you that he's picking you up when you finish without really asking if it's okay. It pays for a girl to be armed with information. 'Knowledge is power'."

"I suppose you're right. How very prudent of you."

"Ah well..." Scratching the back of my neck, I lifted one shoulder in an awkward shrug. "I kind of had it forced on me the minute you left. I'm really more a fan of blissful ignorance. But for curiosity's sake, uh... Why?"

His gaze flickered over me then settled back on the road ahead. "Why don't I hang out with women or why you?"

"Yes."

He sighed, almost amused at my response and shook his head. "I made you set yourself on fire. I suppose this is the least I can do."

"That's all it takes? Stop the presses, I need to let the entire female population of Great Britain know it’s that easy."

WE drove in silence for the next ten minutes, my unease at travelling in the gremlin car fading with each mile. My gaze stayed fixed out of the window, watching the stop-start rhythm of the sea of cars around us. Despite living there for a little over four years, I didn't know London well enough to take it's chaos for granted like the other suits and stiffs roaming the streets between dinner appointments. It still amazed me that anyone could live comfortably in the middle of all the noise.

I'd not once perused the crowded arenas of Piccadilly Circus or Trafalgar Square, so I was daunted enough by being so close to the action before Blaze pulled into a small private car park and retrieved another nightmare mode of transportation from the boot of his 'car'.

"Rollerskates?" I snapped, crossing my arms defiantly as he pulled off his shoes to slip on a pair of red and white skates of his own. "This had better be your bad sense of humour at play."

"Nope. It's rush hour, this is faster."

"You're f*cking crazy, man." He shot me a sterling grin and pulled my door open, swiftly crouching to pull my feet from the foot-well. I was horrified when I realised that he was genuinely serious. "Oh god, I'm going to die today. Without a doubt, this is my last day on Earth."

"I've got your back." He looked up at me and winked, pulling my shoes off and replacing them with the ludicrously clowny skates. "I had to guess at your size, so I went for a five." I tried not to focus on the fact he'd guessed right. He was turning out to be weird enough without the words 'foot fetishist' flashing over his head in neon lights. "You ever been on a pair of these bad boys before?"

"Sure, when I was about nine." And I'd felt like an idiot then.

"Great! No tutorial necessary then." Grabbing me by the waist, he hauled me to my feet and tossed my bag down on the seat behind me. It seemed like I was totally at his mercy in the middle of a relatively alien place, separated from familiar company and any way of contacting them. On rollerskates. Why wasn't I feeling a little more apprehensive than I should have been?

"For interests sake," I murmured, testing the stability of the wheels underneath me, "you know how to keep under the press radar, right?" My question had less to do with his lone wolf reputation and more the fear of being identified as a Tudor.

"Why, are you camera shy?"

"If I say I'm camera shy, do you promise not to ask questions?" His eyes narrowed with suspicion but he nodded, agreeing to play along. "I'm camera shy."

"Righto. Ready?" No.

"As I'll ever be."

WITH one of his hands wrapped around my wrist, Blaze pulled me along behind him at unnerving speed, weaving between the pedestrians that filled the pathways. Occasionally, he glanced back at me to laugh at the hand I had firmly clapped over my eyes and called back insults based around me being cowardly. Watching him move so confidently and fluidly, there was really no way to avoid being envious of how comfortable he was in his own body— completely refined and controlled in a hectic environment like it stemmed off from him and had been constructed specifically for his enjoyment. He was more 'London' than Jonathan and the thrill of being literally dragged along for the ride distracted me from the fact that we were being an absolute nuisance.

"I thought you said we had a route," I yelled after shouting an apology to the fifth person finding themselves on my collision course. Blaze spun around and ground to a halt in front of me, cheeks flushed and pupils wide with adrenaline.

"We do, I just wanted to see how many times I could take you around in a circle before you noticed."

Stepping back to look at the surroundings, I realised that I was looking at Nelson's Column for the third time. "Oh! Ass."

Grinning, he grabbed my hand and pulled me in front of him, pushing me forward at a much slower and safer pace than before. His fingers innocuously thread between mine like it was the most normal thing he could have done, and somehow that encouraged me to move my legs. I might have thought it was because I wanted to escape if I couldn't feel the goofy smile plastered to my face.

Everything in my life at that moment felt askew, turned upside down on it's head and showing no signs of righting itself. There was no way that we would actually avoid the media when Blaze, of all people was circling the capital on rollerskates with some ragtag brunette beside him, but that was okay. The time for bitter retrospect and mourning my mistakes would be later. It was impossible to think logically when he had such a stupefying effect on anyone who looked at him. As soon as we parted ways, I was sure I'd be instantly plunged into a deep regret for being so foolhardy, but when he looked so urbane and free, it was hard not to get a little carried away in the moment.

And then I remembered an old cliché I'd heard so often before but never really put value to; 'Be careful what you wish for'. If I really thought about it, Blaze might just fit the description of the tall, dark and handsome stranger I'd wanted to mess up my life, and maybe I'd dreamed of him so hard he just sprang into existence. Hardcore Buffy The Vampire Slayer fans might call him my 'key'— a complete fabrication of something else moulded into human form, creating false memories of his fame and popularity for everyone else but me. Admittedly, I probably wasn't subconsciously protecting me from a psycho goddess, but my being there with him seemed just as unlikely.

But why the hell was I complaining? I'd wished him, so if he was going to send me down in a blaze of embarrassment and public humiliation, it was my own damned fault.

Three

OUR ROUTE LED us to Hyde Park, where skating seemed to be far less bizarre. Girls in daisy dukes and tank tops spun around skillfully with their bandana wearing boyfriends to the music pounding from portable CD players, swirling around us like we were no real obstacle. Masses of people called Blaze's name when they saw us, proving to me just how notorious the man was, and their curious frowns at our linked hands were a confirmation that this was not his usual means of association. Like I had any doubt. I shook my grip free and folded my hands securely under my arms, painfully aware that I didn't fit in wearing tattered grey slacks and a style-less work shirt.

Apparently sensing my insecurity, Blaze pointed at my shirt and shook his head authoritatively. "Off."

"Excuse me?"

"Okay, not off as such. Undo the bottom buttons and tie it up like a bolero." Sparing a quick glance down, I rolled a foot away from him and turned my back on him. Revealing my midriff in public was possibly a bigger anxiety trigger than if he'd asked me to strip naked. At least all eyes would have been fixed on my chest that way. The way my body looked was a secret shame. "Come on, Emmeline. You'll burn up like that. I know that's your specialist area, but—"

I spun back around to him, hands on my hips. Would he ever let that go? "It's Emmy, not Emmeline, and I'm not doing shit to this outfit. Let me sweat or take me home."

"Interesting set of options," he murmured, trying not to laugh at the fact that I'd been unwittingly suggestive and had the blush to show that I knew it, "but seriously, whatever your beef is with your body, nobody cares what you look like here. Check it." He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at a seriously overweight man wearing less clothes than decent. "You could be seriously disfigured and nobody would care with this guy hogging the vista." I froze, numbed by his unintentional perceptiveness.

He arched a brow at my expressionless face and took advantage of my stillness. "Okay, I'll just sort you out myself."

Before I had any time to object, he had the bottoms of my shirt tied off low enough to not reveal flesh and my sleeves rolled up. Surprised by his swiftness and embarrassed by the fight I'd put up over nothing, I stared at him, struggling to muster the smile he'd so easily caused before. If he sensed my inner turmoil about being so dangerously close to being exposed, he didn't give it away when he turned me back around and began to pluck the bobby pins from the French knot styled into my hair.

"So how long is this mane of yours?"

"Very. That's why it was tied up." He must have ignored the blatant vehemence in my voice too because he kept on pulling at the pins until there was nothing to stop it tumbling free. His fingers sifted through the strands of raven from root to the tips that ended at my waist.

"Jesus." Something in his tone made my stomach flip. It was carnal and raw— something that had no place being directed at me. I'd been object of enough men and women's affections to hear lust in a voice, but Christ, this was so primitive that I half expected his teeth to sink into me. "Why the hell don't you wear it down all the time?"

"It gets in the way," I whispered, scared to turn around and see if his face matched his silky growl, "you'd find out how much if you backed up enough for me to stop feeling like your prey." Immediately, he stepped back out of my personal space, but I could still feel his intensity permeating off him in waves. I was sure my brain was starting to bleed from how severely sexual he was, and I decided in that minute that, as popular and gorgeous as he was, I wouldn't grant him the privilege of being treated any differently from any other man who was drawn to me. If one night in my bed was what he was looking for, he'd get it without this charade.

"There are easier ways to score a lay than with disingenuous flattery and outlandish dates, you know." My fists clenched at my sides as he closed in on me, grabbing me by the hips to pull me right up against him. His hands so close to my bare skin made me sway— I wanted them lower, tensing and flexing, nails biting into my skin as I rode him... My head tipped back to catch a first time glimpse of the twining flecks of copper coursing through his irises. "Wow." Ugh, dammit...

"Cute," he laughed, "but I've got you pegged, Emmeline. You'd be surprised how much you give away without even knowing it, and trust me, I'm no enabler. If you think I brought you here as part of some juvenile mating ritual, you're wrong."

"So why did you bring me here?"

He frowned, slowly releasing me. "I don't know. I didn't even think about it. But I'm not an idiot— I know that if I took you home and screwed you now, I'd never see you again."

"So?"

Scowling, he ducked down and planted a quick kiss right on my lips. I jerked back in surprise, baffled by the passionless advance. "No. I'm not nearly done terrorising you."

HIS rejection didn't hurt as much as it should have, unlike my palms and knees after repeated impact with the concrete. An hour in the baking June evening sun proved that I wasn't half as graceful as he was and not nearly as reflexive. Every time I fell, he darted over to me to save me but ended up on the floor with me. While he laughed, I sulked, feeling like an uncoordinated no-hoper.

"We're not doing that again," I huffed, rolling my eyes at being carried around like a sleepy child. There was no denying that being that close to him was a treat for all the senses— he smelled divinely of shower gel, sweat and himself— but the blood soaking through the fabric of my slacks made me feel more idiotic than the rollerskates did. Pain didn't bother me, but it seemed to bother Blaze, who insisted on carrying me back to his silver bug car en route a pharmacy so he could clean me up when I winced uncontrollably with every step.

"Agreed," he nodded, "I should have guessed that you were too accident prone for something my seven year old nephew does quite capably."

"Don't mock me. I know people." Throwing his head back to laugh, Blaze set me down on the bonnet of his car and lifted my trouser legs to survey the damage. His laugh was almost as silken and seductive as his voice, a good distraction. "Is it bad?"

"You'll live. Though judging from the state of these kneecaps, you're no stranger to falling over."

"Occupational hazard. I'm a professional wino." He ripped the packet of an antiseptic wipe open and seemed to look up for signs of life when I didn't flinch.

"So you're kind of self-destructive?" What the hell kind of question was that to ask a woman he'd just met?

"I got in a car with a total stranger and you're only just realising this? Sure, I'm 'kind of' self-destructive like the Pope is 'kind of' Catholic."

He didn't answer until he'd finished cleaning my grazes. "What would it take to change that?" Why the hell do you care?

"Crack." As much as he tried, he just couldn't resist laughing at the dark joke, making it somehow clear that he knew I wasn't that kind of person.

"You always drink at Esme's?"

"Yup. The five of us— we're a coven. We call the corners every night and substitute the virgin's blood for red wine because we're strict vegetarians."

His brow arched with wry amusement. "Do you ever stop being 'on'?"

"No, I'm like a wind turbine. Or a solar powered calculator."

After removing the skates and replacing my shoes, he pulled me up to my feet and guided me to the passenger seat by the small of my back. In just ninety minutes, it had become like he'd been in my life forever. He was easy to be around, too easy. His little touches and secret smiles felt special and gifted to only me, and he was going to have to knock that right off. There was no space in my head for another man. Hunter, Chris, Daniel and Jonathan had my 'platonic penis' quota covered. "You never actually told me why you don't socialise with women."

Blaze looked at me like he'd known the question was coming and was glad I'd finally cracked. "Honestly? Without sounded conceited, it's impossible to find a woman out there who doesn't want me to fall in love with her and whisk her off to my ivory tower. Better to steer clear of temptation. I can't get attached."

"Can't or won't?"

"Can't. And neither can you." He turned to me, catching me in a gaze so shimmering hot it was like watching magma bubble, and it burned right through my resistances to the truth inside me. I'd never felt so much like an open book to someone. "I told you, I've got you pegged. I don't know the why's, what's and who's, but I knew last night that when you looked at me, you wanted nothing more than to screw me senseless and send me packing. Not a single white picket fence in sight in that scorching hot f*cklust stare of yours."

"F*cklust?" I settled back in my seat, impressed by the new expression I was definitely going to add to my vocabulary when he was out of earshot. "So why all this rollerskating bullshit? Why not just invite yourself back to my flat and have done with it?"

"Well for a start, you set yourself on fire and left pretty quickly," he smirked and started the engine, pivoting in the car park to head back in the direction of Double Booked. "And I'm not a misogynist. I have no objections to forging friendships with women who don't pose some sort of threat of wanting 'more'. But you know, with this face,"—he pointed—"it's difficult to avoid running into complications. Better to steer clear completely and avoid the stress."

Nodding to the sentiment, I rested my head back and narrowed my eyes at him. "That doesn't explain the rollerskate torture. Are you seeking petty vengeance on the inherently clingy womankind through me?"

"Shit no. I like rollerskating, it's fun. I like to have fun with friends and the people I hope will become friends. I get the impression that you're at your best before you've swapped bodily fluids. I'm in no hurry to become disposable to the first woman I've felt comfortable being around in a long time."

That hurt because it was true. With a few minor exceptions, my attitude towards a lover had a tendency to cool significantly after I'd kicked them out of my bed or made a dash for their front door. It wasn't intentional, just a method of self-preservation that stopped me from getting too close to anyone who wanted to chase a commitment. Blaze couldn't have been more right when he said I couldn't get attached to someone. It simply wasn't an option.

But I didn't know if adding him to my circle of friends was either. Could I simply socialise with a man who screamed SEX, not succumb to weakness and not turn arctic like I could with only four others? I didn't trust that I could.

ESME'S JAW DROPPED when her eyes fell on my bloodied slacks and raw palms. She seemed so appalled that she didn't stop to eye-f*ck Blaze, who lingered in the doorway to my flat after insisting that he had to make sure I made it inside without falling over. In fact, she glared at him icily and demanded an explanation for me looking so dishevelled, which he volunteered casually with no hesitation while he walked aimlessly around my small open plan flat, stopping occasionally to check out my displays of movie and video game memorabilia.

"Rollerskating, are you f*cking kidding me?" She spat her words like venom, tugging the knot of my shirt free because she how crazy it must have driven me. "Who does that? You take a woman out for a nice meal, maybe a drink if she's not hungry, then if you must sate your libido, a cheap hotel for a quickie."

"What can I say, Esme? I'm out of practice." Blaze raised his hands like she had him at gunpoint and edged over to the dining room table to set down my bag and sketchbook. "She'll deny it, but she had a great time. Isn't that right, Emmeline?"

"No," I lied, but he saw my betraying smirk. There really was no denying that a part of me was disappointed to come home, even if he did insist on using my full name like some kind of manager or scholar. "Just promise me there'll be no extreme sports next time."

He cleared the space between us in five strides and grabbed my hands, pulling them up to his lips and staring into my eyes with faux-seriousness. "I swear to never put your life in danger again. I have something way better in mind."

WHEN he left shortly afterwards, I had no expectations of seeing him again. We hadn't traded numbers and I didn't know his surname, age or anything people usually discussed early into a 'friendship'. He knew my name and where I lived and worked, but what use was that if he'd decided I was too much of a klutz to be seen with?

Our Hyde Park disaster obviously got snapped, but thankfully I wasn't named. That didn't stop me being recognised by the 'coven' who ribbed me mercilessly for the petulant scowl permanently etched across my features. Esme still didn't believe the whole affair hadn't been a disaster, and those pictures and Blaze's prolonged absence didn't really encourage her to change that opinion.

But not even my nearest and dearest had the attention span to pick something to death. We went back to our usual routine of working by day, drinking by night, and spending our free days at Daniel and Jonathan's swanky loft watching horror movies and munching popcorn. Esme went back to her own flat above the bar after four days and threw herself into a new cabaret project, auditioning burlesque dancers and big bands. By the time a week had passed, my knees and elbow had healed enough for me to not think about Blaze when I looked at them.

And if I wasn't thinking about Blaze, I was thinking about Hunter. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"You sound like shit, Emmeline." I rubbed my chest over my heart that broke every time he called me. The nine hour time difference between us was brutal, and I knew he'd taken the evening shift so his bitch of a fiancée couldn't listen in on us. Unlike me, Hunter wasn't too proud to abuse the opportunities of family connections and had taken a job in Tokyo at his father's hardware company without a second thought so his 'woman' could be near her family. How the hell he'd expected me to take it well, I had no idea. That's probably why I didn't find out until he was already there.

"It was payday yesterday. You know what it's like."

"Yeah, you go out and get drunk with those reprobates."

"They're good friends, unlike some." I heard him wince. We knew how to hurt each other too well. The occasional phone call and email wasn't really enough for him to earn the privilege of still being what I considered my best friend, but I gave it to him anyway because I loved him enough to see past the distance. Why couldn't he extend the same gesture to me? I knew I was only a minor blip on his radar.

"I deserve that," he confessed, "work has been insane. Siobhan is being insane. I'm sorry, I really can't deal with any more crazy." Story of my life. He never had time for my crazy. Nine years of my life spent agonising over him and not once had he made the time I needed. Never said the words I needed to hear. There was only so much Daniel could offer in lieu Hunter and whatever it was he had inside him that drove me to the limits of my sanity.

"Yeah yeah, I get it. But you can't expect me to sit around on my tod staring at my phone waiting for you to spare me a minute. Reprobates or not— and I'm not denying that we are— they still accept me, even knowing what they know."

"You're not a reprobate, you're just confused."

"F*ck you, Hunter. I'm not confused about anything and that's what makes it so god damn hard to deal with." I took a breath, knowing that if this discussion continued, I'd end up doing something reckless. He kept me sick— I knew it and I'd never get past it. There was nothing in the world that could take away the power of something self-inflicted. Couldn't live with him, couldn't live without him. I'd be messed up over him for the rest of my life. "Maybe one day we'll talk about why I collapsed in that gym."

"Don't bring that shit up. You have no idea how much I hated seeing you like that. You're my best friend, Emmeline, I love the bones of you."

My stomach churned at how he used the L word with me. No matter how many times he said it, it was never enough. Loving me like a friend was nothing. Not even loving me like a sister could satisfy me. I wanted him to look at me like he wanted to be inside me in every way, possessing me heart, body and soul— the way I looked at him. But it would never be that way because he was wasting my love elsewhere.

There was a loud snap that made me jump. I looked down to see that the pencil in my hand had split and splintered after being pressed so hard into a sketch I had no idea I'd been drawing. Two cartoon versions of me were torturing a cartoon Hunter in all gruesome manners of disembowelment and garrotting wire decapitations. All of my fraught conversations with him could be documented by the disturbing images that subconsciously formed on the paper when I wasn't really paying attention, like a medium who drew the faces of death she channelled. Not really trusting that the behaviour wouldn't earn me another sectioning, I'd never told a soul that I couldn't control the impulse to picture him suffering horribly for what he'd done to me without even knowing it. I loved him enough to hate and resent him.

"So why are you really calling?" I asked, pushing the sketchbook away and changing tack.

"Come on, Emmeline, you know why. I want you to come to the wedding." I suddenly wished I was still drawing. "Give me one good reason why you won't come."

"I could give you a whole cart full," I snapped evasively, knowing that telling him the real reasons why wouldn't help my 'crazy' case, "but mostly I just really f*cking resent flying over to Japan because the bitch demon won't get married over here. It's your wedding too, Hunter, why the hell did you give her carte blanche on location?"

"I know how to pick my battles. Are you saying you'd come if we got married at my parents house?"

"No. You asked me for one good reason and I gave you one good reason."

"You're such a god damn brat sometimes, Emmeline. You can't always have it your way. You can't click your fingers and relapse to make the world revolve around you. Sometimes you have to accept that other people matter more than you do and make some compromises. If you have to grit your teeth and fake a smile to get through a wedding you don't want to be at, you should damn well do it because it means something to me to have you here. You're not hurting yourself this time, you're hurting the people you're supposed to love."

"Hunter?" I sucked in a deep breath and tried to gather myself before I launched a tirade in response. He was the most selfish person I knew, without a doubt, and nothing I ever did was right by him. Even when we were still in school, he had me by the proverbial balls every minute, trying to groom me into a miniature version of my mother. As much as I loved her, I had too much spirit to be a kept woman, something I still clung to by not accepting Henry's money. I had too much spirit to be downtrodden by elocution and deportment classes. I used to have too much spirit for a lot of things.

But when I really took a long hard look at myself, I knew that, despite his insinuation that I used my ill thoughts and actions to manipulate people, I'd hate myself for driving him away. So I simply said, "sayonara, you self-righteous, egomaniacal pedant," and hung up. Sometimes it was just easier to be the one who stepped back and let him think he'd won, and then pretend the conversation had never happened, than find out what would happened if I bit back.

I just wish I'd realised that I had company ear-wigging.

MY EYES TRACKED up from the varnished wooden cash desk of Double Booked up to the midriff of a man standing directly in front of me on the other side. His fingers slowly brushed along the oak towards me and casually flipped open the cover of my sketchbook.

"How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough to know that pissing you off is a bad idea." My eyes snapped up to a grin I immediately and involuntarily mirrored. The thick, large pages covered in my drawings turned one by one at an almost tortuously slow pace, fanning me slightly when they dropped down. "Who's the self-righteous, egomaniacal pedant?"

"Best friend," I muttered, the smile quickly fading. I always found myself getting strangely defensive where conversations about Hunter were concerned, preferring to avoid them completely. The typical reaction of ridicule for being hopelessly attached to a man who thought little of me was quite firmly etched in my mind.

Noticing that the hands invading my art were empty, I forced my gaze down from the emerald eyes boring into the pages and focused on the fractured nub of my pencil. "Was there something I can help you with?"

The hands paused mid-movement. "Aren't you going to ask why I haven't been around lately?"

"None of my business."

"Are you annoyed?"

"No." I shrugged uncaringly and raised a hand to a returning Mrs Reynolds sneaking in from an extended lunch break. "It's just none of my business. So can I help you?"

"Actually, yes." The sketchbook flapped shut in front of me, then the hands splayed out on either side of it to support their crouching owner. There was no option to escape or evade him— Blaze was back in my domain, gorgeous and stubbornly persistent. "I was hoping for some company for lunch." If he heard my teeth grind, he didn't give it away.

"I'm not big on lunch." I wasn't big on food in the slightest.

"Smoothies?" Oh. My resolved thawed slightly at this suggestion. He held up a finger to ask for a minute and practically sprinted out to the goblin car I hadn't heard pull up, returning a moment later with two travel mugs.

"I thought you said smoothies?" Travel mugs were something I had only known to come hand in hand with chauffeur driven hot shots' morning coffees on the way into the office. Hot shots like Henry. At one point, when I'd practically survived on black coffee, I'd had one of my own.

Blaze pushed one of them across to me and clipped up the seal over the hole on my behalf. "I did. Super fresh smoothies. I made them myself."

"In travel mugs?"

"Sure. How else would I get them here without spilling them?" Baffled by the lengths he'd gone to just to bring me a nutritious liquid lunch, I shook my head and took an apprehensive sniff of the mugs hidden contents. There was an overpowering smell of banana with an undercurrent of what I suspected might be mango. My favourite.

"How about a flask?" Blaze's mouth opened slightly, but as soon as his face registered his disappointment that I might just be right, he waited until I took a sip and trapped his tongue between two rows of perfectly white and straight teeth. The banana hit my taste buds first, closely followed the odd combination of mango and cherry, then a flavour I recognised but couldn't put my finger on until it's after-burn made me cough. "Did you put rum in this?"

He laughed and shushed me, nodding his head towards the ever pricking ears of Mrs Reynolds hiding just out of sight. "Call it belated hair of the dog."

"How did you know I'd be hungover?"

His head cocked cheekily. "Call it a foregone conclusion on the basis of your admitted self-destructive tendencies." What I wanted to call it was arrogant and annoying. It seemed as though my day was headed down a path towards being a victim of relentless antagonism.

I pushed the mug away with a sneer and forced my attention to fiddling with the shop's old-as-hell computer. He couldn't see the screen— he didn't need to know that I was being evasive. "Well, thank you for the consideration but I can't drink that at work."

"Isn't it your lunch break?" Blaze took a long drink from his mug and licked the rogue drops of smoothie from his lightly scarred Cupid's bow. The corners of his mouth twitched at my awkward shuffle on the spot. He was just so... hot. "Come for a walk with me. No wheels of any kind, I promise. You can walk without injuring yourself?"

"I can walk quite capably, thank you," I shot at him, taken aback by my own temper. Hunter's sour words had left me reeling as always. I forced my tone to soften. "I usually just work through my lunch breaks."

"Emmeline..." He sighed and rounded the desk to heave me to my feet. It didn't matter that I tried my best to be uncooperative and went lax and jelly-legged, he pulled me up effortlessly and so quickly I had to grab onto his arms for support. His biceps were solid and thick with muscle. Instinctively, I knew my cheeks must be pink. "I didn't—" Blaze coughed to clear his voice of the sudden, unexpected huskiness. I smirked. There was no way he was immune to the sexual tension. "I didn't come here to be told no. Humour me."

He had no idea how little me and humour had in common.

WE mingled with the frantic flow of businessmen pacing to lunch meetings, sightseeing tourists and lecture skipping students roaming the packed out streets. The slight fuzziness left by the rum smoothie did little to ease my growing panic in the unfamiliar situation— thrust into a finite tidal wave of unknown, scrutinising faces flooding my senses with harsh, judgemental stares. Every single one of them watching me, rating me, identifying my flaws and failings with passing glances faster than I could process. My feet began to fail and I could feel myself lagging behind, battling to anchor myself with both hands clasped around my travel mug.

The majority of my life from adolescence had been spent seeking to avoid anxiety-ridden scenes like these. Central London on a Friday lunchtime was my worst nightmare and a small, dark, neglected piece of me missed the ostentatious but peaceful suburban palace I'd grown up in, with it's tall imposing walls, looming security gates and pre-approved guest list.

The foreign sensation of an arm wrapping around my waist grounded me slightly and slowed the surge of strangers who almost seemed to part for us. No, not us. They parted for the Adonis who had picked me up like, what? A pet project because I was commitment-phobic?

"Hey," Blaze whispered down at me, driving me to look up and find his eyes beating down on me like two shimmering green comets. Even though he'd spoken so quietly, his voice was still louder than the roar around me. "Are you alright?"

"I don't like crowds," I muttered, "sorry."

"Don't apologise." His arm tensed around me and he pulled me closer to his body, fingers kneading into my left side tenderly. All of my breath got trapped in my chest and my brain shut out the rest of the world around me. The combination of dumbfounding fear and unexpected comfort kept my feet moving when I might have crumbled to the floor in a heap, and before I knew it the streets began to clear and quiet. Blaze had damn near guided me safely through Hell.

He pulled me into an inconspicuous restaurant and up a staircase with ornately carved spindles to a sheltered mezzanine area overlooking the street below. I was sure I recognised the red table cloths that matched the immaculate parasols from a magazine. My anchoring travel mug was prized from my grip and set down on the table in front of the chair he ushered me into by the shoulders, and a glass of water crammed with shell shaped ice cubes quickly placed next to it.

"I don't have time to be here, Blaze. I have to go back to work." The idea of having to traverse through that crowd again made me feel sick. I was suddenly grateful for the water in front of me and made a hasty grab at the glass.

Blaze pulled his chair around the table to sit next to me rather than opposite and pulled the lank ends of my ponytail over my shoulder into his hand. "You have plenty of time, we were only walking for ten minutes." How was that possible? It had seemed like so much longer. "Well, you're not wearing it down but it's much better this way. His fingers combed through my tethered hair gently. I didn't even try to hide my frown at what he was doing— treating me tenderly the way Daniel had done every time I was having a 'saga'. He didn't like the word 'relapse'.

I caught Blaze's fingers in my fist and slowly pulled them away. "Are you always so hands on with people?" He gazed at me like he didn't understand, rubbing his thumb over the pale knuckles trapping the rest of his hand.

"No," he said eventually, "at least I don't think so. I don't really think about it and analyse my actions before they happen— I'm the type to go with the flow. Life is too short to second guess your every move."

"Does your 'flow' usually come with a side order of cliché?" He grinned at me and rested his free hand on my knee. Holy crap... I really wished he'd just bed me then disappear back to whichever smoking volcano he'd erupted from eight days earlier. "You're very intense."

"Am I making you uncomfortable?"

My eyes tracked down to his hand still on my knee, warm and alien, but... "No." I answered honestly. He frustrated me, intellectually and sexually, but once the sand he persistently kicked in my eyes settled, I was no more uncomfortable at that moment than I had been when he'd dropped me off at my flat and said a friendly goodbye. "You say you go with the flow, and yet you go out of your way to avoid women." Except me...

He shrugged. "The irony isn't lost on me but I know where to draw certain lines. However, may I snoop?"

My automatic reaction was to smirk. "You're asking my permission? I thought you had me pegged."

"I do." He pulled his hand free of mine to wave to a waitress hovering around the doorway out onto the mezzanine. She approached us, all luscious curves and auburn haired, and curtseyed politely as she delivered a sandwich to the table. Curtseyed? I waited until she was out of earshot before I laughed at her. Yes, she was definitely one of those women Blaze sought to avoid. "Something funny?"

"Not at all. You were snooping?"

He held out the plate, offering to share his sandwich, but I shook my head firmly to decline. "It's really more seeking supplementary information in regards to an observation."

"Spit it out."

He sighed and ran a finger over the small scar on his upper lip. "Your so called friends— Esme and the egomaniacal pedant— they really seem to talk down to you."

My mouth dropped open an inch. "And?" I got a very pointed look in return for my snapping before he turned and took a large bite from his sandwich. He wanted to know why, of course he did. "It's concern," I sighed, "I suppose it's hard for them to treat me like I'm at my best when they've seen me at my worst."

"Relapses?" He stared blankly at my look of horror. How much had he heard? "You work in a bookshop, Emmeline— a usually empty bookshop, and the guy talks so loudly that you may as well have just had your phone on speaker. I wouldn't want to go to his wedding either if he spoke to me like that." Ignoring my obstinate grunts of objection, he pressed on. "Your other friends don't talk to you like that."

"No, they don't." My mind cycled through the motions of the affinity I shared with the other men in my life. Daniel and Jonathan had struggled to find acceptance over their sexuality and Chris had been dealt a pretty shitty hand in the self-esteem stakes. It didn't take much to knock any of us down to rock bottom, and until you'd been there yourself, you just didn't understand how it felt. "They know what it's like to be damaged goods."

"Damaged goods!" Blaze snorted, but didn't pursue the conversation further. Instead, I watched him snarf down his sandwich with quiet enthusiasm and silently tended to my internal war wounds. I was damaged, inside and out, and it wouldn't be long before that damage spread. I was too far gone to fight it.

Four

EVERY DAY I saw the same face. That washed out, beady eyed, chubby cheeked face caked in chocolate and smudged make-up.

Why are you trying to make yourself look pretty, freak? Everyone thinks you're ugly. You're ugly, fat and everyone hates you. No matter how hard you run on that treadmill, you're always going to have a big doughy backside and five chins. Six years of this and you're still wearing the same sized jeans you wore when you left school. Even the fat chicks are embarrassed to see you in the plus size section. Maybe you can cut it out. Maybe you can remove that fat yourself and stitch it back up. You'd do anything for him, wouldn't you? Just make it go away. Nobody would ever know...

No matter how sharp my tongue was, she stood there sadly and took my insults without ever answering or looking away. She was as bored of hearing it as I was of saying it, but somehow we needed each other. She needed to hear it and I needed to be heard. We were gluttons for punishment. Words were meaningless with no action and neither of us could act alone.

If you looked at us side by side, you'd never guess that we were two sides of the same coin. You'd never understand why we stood so close together. You probably wouldn't even realise that she was there...

"HEY, EMMELINE!" THE loud voice at the door of Double Booked's bathroom made me jump out of my skin like I'd been caught with my hands in the cookie jar. "You have five seconds before I barge in through this unlocked door, White— I have your boss' permission. Wake u-up!" My chubby company returned my quizzical look at the sing-song voice. She wanted to know why Blaze had intruded on my workplace two days running too.

My failure to answer in my time limit provoked an uninvited visitor to my bathroom break. I instinctively took a step backward when the door swung open and leaned protectively towards the wide eyed face standing with me.

Blaze paused, frowning, then sagged back on the spot. "You look upset."

"How do I look upset? I'm not upset. Who's upset? Are you upset because I'm not upset." His lips pursed at my ramble and his wariness to approach me dulled. He reached out for my hand carefully, which I almost surrendered until I saw my fat friend giving me a wholly disapproving look. "What are you doing here?"

"Hoping to take you to lunch actually." I could have sworn I heard her hiss. Lunch? With him? How else would you like to fraternise with the enemy? Her patronising tone made me pale. I was somehow betraying her and Hunter by going with him.

"We had lunch yesterday."

Blaze arched a brow at me and grabbed at the hand I didn't give up willingly. His skin was remarkably soft and warm, almost like he was wearing a suede glove. "That was hardly lunch, Emmeline. Come on, something more substantial."

"I don't—"

"It's a free lunch. Who turns down a free lunch?" The muck-caked face shrugged at me. She'd never turned down a free meal in her life. That was my job. I watched her slide out of view over my shoulder as I was unwillingly tugged from the bathroom, wondering how much worse she'd look in a few hours. Blaze didn't know it, but she'd be lurking everywhere we went. Stalking us. He spun around when he heard me mutter a goodbye to her and frowned down at me. His hair had been left to flop leisurely across his forehead again and, as ever, he looked beautifully male and edible. I doubted he was going to volunteer himself as my lunch though. "Who are you talking to?"

"Nobody." As much as a nobody as I was. "I'm not hungry." Not strictly speaking...

"Then you can watch me eat." He was in I-won't-take-no-for-an-answer mode again. I wasn't confident that he had any others. "But I think you might be persuaded after the journey."

"What does that mean?"

He shot me a wicked grin that made me smile slightly. "It means you're going to sing for your supper." Nightmare visions of karaoke bars and busking flashed in front of my eyes. "Not literally!" He laughed and steered me towards my bag behind the cash desk. "But I meant it when I said this would be a free lunch. I'm not paying for it either."

THERE WAS NO chance to question his cryptic statement before we were ushered out of the door by an only too eager to shut up shop early, starry eyed Mrs Reynolds. She stared after Blaze enviously— I knew that she too planned to live vicariously through me. Hell, if she wanted to go for lunch with him instead she was welcome to take my place. Central London on a Saturday lunchtime was even less desirable than Friday lunchtime, and my already fragile disposition was quivering with the thought of all those people swarming the streets again. There'd be more of them, flocking and swooping at me like scavenging eagles, mentally picking away at my inadequacies...

Imagine my horror when Blaze parked the goblin car in the very heart of the city and dragged me to Oxford Street sans handbag, throwing me out into my interpretation of a nightmare with no means of calling for help. I doubted that blinking in Morse Code would be useful. And I was letting him lead me to unfamiliar places and coming out of it unscathed. Was this progression or regression?

"Okay." He pulled me into a small barely noticeable alley way and grabbed my face between his hands. My heart pounded frantically at his proximity. This was how I'd wanted him since the night we met in Esme's— somewhere secluded and up close. Public didn't bother me. He ducked down towards me and stopped an inch away from my face. "Keep dreaming, Emmeline. I'm still not done terrorising you." I caught a glimpse of the fat girl in a murky window opposite us and her sardonic expression. Ho, she mouthed at me, you'd screw him in an alley and he still doesn't want you. Why the hell would he lower his standards? She was as cruel to me as I was to her, my sister in misery.

"Of course you're not," I sighed, pulling my attention back up to Blaze, who stared down at me with a frown.

"Lost you there for a minute. You keep looking like you're having conversations with an invisible friend."

"She's not invisible," I whispered, distracted by how perceptive he was. The truth was that days like these were intermittent and yet frequent. I kept bad company, but it was company nonetheless. Like Hunter and I, we were devastatingly inseparable, and maybe more destructively. It was thanks to Hunter that we'd come together and I still didn't know if that was a good thing. She was there for me, always, but she was an honest bitch. "So why are we in an alley?"

"Preparation," Blaze replied, still frowning, "mess up your hair and rub your eyes."

"You want me to look like I've just been bent over and f*cked without the f*cking?"

He rolled his eyes. "No, I want you to look like you've been mugged."

It was my turn to frown, confused. I stood stock-still while he worked at roughing me up himself, brusquely tousling my tied back hair and smudging my sparse eye make-up with his thumbs. Totally numb and paralysed, my mind struggled to process what was going on and draw a conclusion as to where this plan was headed. Until—

"I'm not picking pockets!" Blaze blinked blankly for a moment, then shook his head and laughed. "I mean it. I don't care how much of a ruffian you make me look like, I'm not stea—"

"I've not brought you out to steal, Emmeline." I sagged back slightly with relief. "Just to tell a few fibs." Consider that relief unceremoniously ripped out of my hands and stamped on.

"Fibs? What fibs?"

"Well," he grinned and pulled the hem of my shirt askew, "you're going to run down that street like you're being chased, pick a rich type to 'unintentionally' bump into and turn on the charm for our lunch money." Was he positively insane?

"No!" I snapped resolutely. There was no way in hell I was going to try and pull a scam like that anywhere, let alone on Oxford Street, even if he was the hottest man on the planet. "Why the hell would you think I would do that?"

Blaze shrugged uncaringly and took a second go at messing up my hair. By the time he finished, it was sticking out all over the place from my hair tie and I looked like a street urchin. "You look like you need a little mischief in your life."

"Why would you think that?"

He shrugged again. "You look like your life never deviates from a work, drink, sleep routine." He was almost right. It was a work, drink, copulate, sleep routine. I think I had a right to be defensive.

"Are you done making asinine judgements about my personality? You don't know me, not even a little bit."

Smirking, Blaze pulled me by the wrist to the mouth of the alley and stood behind me with his hands on my shoulders. I could see both sides of the street from that point, crammed to bursting with native Londoners and day trip visitors craning their necks to look around in awe. All of them travelled with far more ease and fluidity than I ever could. Was I really going to make such a scene and risk the backlash of collaterally embarrassing Henry by being identified just on Blaze's say so? Did I want him that much?

"Your family is well off. They have high hopes for you but you don't want to comply. You'd prefer to spend your life drawing but now you've self-published one graphic novel and sold both copies, you feel like you've reached the conclusion of that episode in your life. School was rough, people didn't like you. You lived in your friend's shadows, though it was entirely by choice. You met a boy. You fell in love. He didn't want you. That rejection consumed your life. You left suburbia to become a self-made woman and got stuck in a depressive routine of working, drinking and rolling out of stranger's beds in a series of one night stands in a futile attempt to gain acceptance you don't really want. You don't like yourself and you want change but you don't know where to find it. When left in your hands, decisions about your life are reckless and unproductive, so you count on others, like Esme and your charming male friend in Japan to take those decisions out of your hands. Am I right?" I glared at him over my shoulder. How had he deduced so much from four short meetings with me? Was he psychic? A stalker? Had I really given so much away just by the way I looked at him?

His eyes shone sympathetically in the summer sun. "This is change. Besides, I left my wallet in the car, so if you chicken out on me, I go hungry too."

In a flash, his hand wrapped around my ponytail and yanked it. Hard. Tears sprang to my eyes. "F*ck!" I spun around and, in a knee jerk reaction, slapped him hard. Pain rang through my hand and radiated until it began to tingle. It was the most physical discomfort I'd felt in years after becoming numb to all else. "What the hell was that, your idea of foreplay?" Blaze's fingers traced his reddened cheek. He didn't look even slightly shocked by my attack. Silently, he turned me back around and shoved me out into the fray with only one word as guidance.

"Run."

AND I'd never felt so much like running in my life. Between that girl chasing me like my shadow, Blaze's uncanny ability to analyse me and the current of arrogant shoppers flooding around me, panic was the only emotion I could process. Run, yes, I could do that. I could dodge and weave through the people as though I was running from my own life, and maybe if I ran fast enough, I might actually escape.

I felt much warmer than the sun might have made me and my skin prickled uncomfortably. I was hyper aware of everything— every voice, car, cyclist, and the fact that Blaze was nowhere near me, but somehow totally unaware of my feet moving of their own accord. I'd run like this before, relentlessly and aimlessly, and the agonising cramps in my muscles were deliciously cathartic. I liked to hurt— I deserved it and it felt productive. The overwhelming need to prolong that ache drove me to keep limping forwards, gasping for breath and eyes burning.

You're doing it again. She crept up, running along side me and matching my pace. You can't run away from him. You'll always love him and you'll never be good enough. Stop running. I couldn't. I wanted to run until there was nothing of me left. I wanted to gain enough speed to burn up in the atmosphere like dust. If I couldn't be enough, I didn't want to be anything.

The next thing I knew, I was on my back on the concrete, dazed and light-headed, and only vaguely aware of a throb in my forehead. Everything was quiet and serene for a moment. Not one cell in my body cared how I'd found my way to the ground until the fog in my mind cleared and the faces overhead came into my blurred view.

"I'm so sorry, she just fell at me from nowhere."

"No, no. It's okay, I'm just glad I found her." One of the dark haired faces above me leaned closer, and I could immediately smell who it was. "I'm here. I'm sorry, I couldn't catch up with him." Blaze stroked my hair, then grabbed both of my hands to pull me to my feet. My legs promptly flagged beneath me, overused and flaccid.

"What?"

"The guy who cornered you. Why did you run off this way?"

"Sorry..." What was he talking about? My hand felt my way to my face and found the reason why my vision was so blurred. "Glasses," I mumbled, twisting out of Blaze's grip to search the floor for my absent lenses. The other dark haired face grasped my hand and wrapped my fingers around them firmly, his grip lingering around mine for just a second too long. "Tha—" Holy shit. When my glasses revealed exactly who it was I'd stumbled into, I couldn't help but simper.

Super-urbane and well-groomed, the man still holding onto my hand shot me a smouldering smile that made the corners of his ice blue eyes crinkle joyously. Dimples burrowed deep into his cheeks, adding youth to the age added by a flawless black suit embellished with a shirt that matched his eyes and a black tie.

"Are you alright?" American! My stomach back-flipped. Of all the men for me to collide with, it had to be the single-most man in London who might just be scrummier than Blaze.

"Better now," I breathed, falling victim to my raging libido, "I don't remember falling, I'm very sorry."

"You were mugged?" He glanced up at Blaze for his answer but turned his eyes back to me expectantly. "You and your boyfriend?"

I blurted out, "he's not my boyfriend," and bit down hard on my lip. The insatiable harpy in me wouldn't be happy unless that man was crawling out of my bed in the early hours of the morning.

"Uh, yeah." The snarl in Blaze's tone surprised me enough to look up at him and raise an eyebrow. What the hell was his problem? "I was trying to talk this beautiful lady into accepting my business card so she can look me up next time she's in the city, but a guy jumped out of nowhere and snatched her handbag and my wallet. I tried to chase him down but the f*cker was fast."

"Quite." The stranger spoke with enough apathy for it to be obvious that he was ignoring Blaze. I could feel his gaze raking me, mentally undressing me. "You're not from London?"

I opened my mouth but Blaze answered for me. "Cardiff." Hiding my irritation, I nodded and fiddled impatiently with my own fingers. Being spoken for like a child was more annoying than being cock-blocked.

"How will you get back?" The man's eyes glinted when I shrugged and his hand delved into the pocket of his crisp blazer. "Here," he passed me a money clip engraved with a lavish 'R' holding an indiscernible amount of money wrapped up in a business card.

"You just happen to carry this around?"

"No, I just woke up feeling lucky, actually. With good reason apparently. You call me. I'll come running to that Cardiff of yours for my money clip."

I was as aware of the man smiling as he walked away as I was of Blaze seething next to me, practically vibrating with cataclysmic ire next to me. Waving the money clip in his face, I elbowed him in the ribs, still watching my new 'friend' slink down the street with almost feline grace.

"What's your problem? You get your free lunch— I did what you asked."

"What?" I glanced up at him and rolled my eyes at his denial. "What the hell was that, Emmeline?"

"I believe that was a pick up line. And it's going to work on me. See?" My fingertip tapped the business card. "You get free food and he gets laid tonight. My good deeds for today and tomorrow are covered."

"I meant you." Blaze pulled my hair free of the elastic tie and tried to restore some order to the straggled locks with his fingers. "One minute you're running like the Grim Reaper is on your heels, collapsing into a heap into some New York stiff, then you turn into Miss Sex Appeal."

"What?"

He glanced down at me in disbelief and shook his head wistfully. "You don't even realise, do you? Your posture completely changes— you straighten out and swagger, and your voice goes all husky. That guy didn't stand a chance against you."

Me, swagger? That was hard to believe. I'd never really questioned how I'd managed to coerce so many men into bed before, presuming it was more to do with a bad reputation of being a sure thing than genuine attraction. Miss Sex Appeal? No, that wasn't me. If that was me, I'd have Hunter.

"So where do you want to eat?" I grunted downwards and shoved the money clip into Blaze's pocket. The rush of snagging the hunk in the suit had quickly faded and left me back where I was before— in the middle of a crowded street and centre of unwanted attention. "A snap decision, please. People are staring."

"Well, you are bleeding. Again." My fingers reached up to the warm throb I'd forgotten about until he mentioned it and came away coated in crimson. "I'm beginning to think I might be something of a danger to you."

He had no idea how true that was.

AS I'D CHOSEN not to get into a deep discussion about my food preferences or lack thereof, the location of our lunch ended up being identified as a quaint pizzeria that boasted a broad selection of Italian delicacies prepared specifically for groups and parties. While I gazed lustfully over the oil and dressing free salad options, Blaze took command of our order, insisting that he was well versed in the virtues and fortes of that particular menu. Whatever, I thought, he's going to be eating alone anyway. Despite his threat that I might, I was no more hungry than I had been when he'd interrupted me at work. Even if I had been, my messy friend was lingering in the background ready to rebuke me or stand at my shoulder barking insults and criticisms if I indulged Blaze's feeder tendency.

The staff had swarmed around me when we walked in, Blaze being the notorious jack-of-all-trades demigod he was and me being scruffy and blood streaked. It was hard to tell if they thought he'd dragged me in off the street after saving me from a mugging, which he supposedly had, if they were trying to win his favour, or if they were just being conscientious human beings. Either way, their fussing rendered me immobile and sparked some uncomfortable memories of being in a similar situation before. So much noise. So many people forcing me to be someone and something I didn't want to be, namely alive.

Almost as though he sensed my unease, Blaze dismissed the huddled crowd around them and took over the duty of tending to the small but deep cut on my forehead. His touch was gentle and tender, like he'd cared for someone else the same way like this before. I leaned into him, feeling weak and helpless, fending off the small part of me that wanted to cry. In a move I think shocked us both, he dropped the cloth spotted with crimson and cradled my head against his chest, nuzzling my hair.

"Your blood smells like whiskey," he muttered quietly, trying to inject some humour into a dire situation. I felt guilty that he was starting to get a look at the Emmeline roller-coaster in all it's depressive finery, but it wasn't like I'd forced it. He had, for want of a better word, harassed me, and I'd caved every time.

"I should definitely call a doctor then," I joked, pulling back from him. His tendency to make me reciprocate his smiles worked in full force, but there was something hollow about his this time. He looked almost lost. I could relate. "My poisons of choice are all clear spirits."

"Ah." Blaze shuffled back into a seat, leaning over to drape a napkin over my lap as our meal arrived.

It was like looking at a murder scene in food form. An enormous pizza sat in the centre of the table in a metal pan, surrounded by several plates of brightly coloured and gloriously spiced side dishes. Not a lettuce leaf in sight. My fingers locked around the glass placed down next to me and my brain struggled to contemplate the foodageddon in front of me. Ten years ago, I might have cleared that table alone. Now, I didn't know that my stomach didn't just cooperate with the old adage 'eyes bigger than your belly'. I hope you're hungry, Blaze. My fat friend smacked her lips while my insides roiled at the collaborative aroma.

"So, you're a speedy little thing. How did you get so fast?"

I blinked up at Blaze as he served a slice of the pizza onto my plate, glad of the distraction. "I used to spend a lot of time at the gym, mostly on the treadmills."

"Used to?"

"I was effectively banned five years ago after collapsing."

He paused mid-movement before proceeding to spoon some sort of pesto concoction onto my plate. "Do that a lot, do you? I'm not sure that I would have caught up with you if you hadn't hit the deck in front of that guy all of a sudden. You're lucky that you don't have more grazes."

"I fainted?" Oh dear. "I had no idea." I could just hear my mother's words echoing around in my mind. 'Please Emmeline, no more of this. I can't bear to see you this way.'

"You wouldn't. You were unconscious." Blaze stuck his tongue out and tucked into his own well stacked plate. "Why did you get banned from the gym? Did you screw a personal trainer or something?"

"Not when I was seventeen, Blaze. What do you take me for?"

"You're only twenty-two?" He stared at me, surprised. "Well that explains the baby face but you seem much older. More mature." He frowned. "Too mature."

I considered probing into yet another asinine assessment of my personality, but decided against it when he shoved the first fork full of food into his mouth. That seemed to be a good indication that the conversation was over for now, but would probably crop up again somewhere down the road. Regardless, the reprieve was welcome, unlike the food, which I picked at unenthusiastically. It almost certainly tasted divine, but that was something I preferred not to find out.

Blaze, however, had no qualms about eating to excess. He ate like a man starved though he clearly wasn't, evident from the tightly packed muscles I'd felt on the few occasions I'd been close enough. There would be none of that if he didn't eat well and work for it, though I imagined him being the type who was lucky enough to be blessed with a hot body regardless of his holistic decisions. I still wanted to see that body, almost as much as I wanted to see Mr Money Clip out of his suit.

I watched Blaze with utmost fascination as he savoured every morsel like the meal had been prepared by gods. Food wasn't just a necessity to him, it seemed like a passion he enjoyed almost as much as he enjoyed causing trouble. And he was looking right at me. "Come on, Emmeline, I can hear your stomach rumbling from here. It's not a lunch date if I'm eating alone." Lunch date? The dirty D word was news to me.

"Sorry, I'm just a little calorie conscious," I picked one of small olives from the pizza topping, held it up between my fingers and grimaced, "I can feel myself expanding just thinking about the trans fats."

"Calorie conscious!" He snorted the words and wiped his face on a paper napkin, then his hands on his trouser leg before he folded his fingers under his chin and seemed to size me up. I suddenly felt more self-conscious than before, if that was even physically possible, and shrank down a few inches. "I don't know why you're bothered with nutritional value. You could stand to gain a few pounds. You're in a what? A size eight?" The raging insecurity got worse with his estimate.

"I'm a size twelve. A big twelve," I muttered quietly, discretely discarding the olive in a napkin, "I'm honestly a little chunky."

I'd come to expect any number of reactions to those five words over time. Laughter was the overruling response, followed by eye rolling and a failure to acknowledge. By no stretch of the imagination did I imagine he'd be angry.

"Chunky? You think you're chunky?" If I'd told him I thought I was the Antichrist he might have looked less annoyed. "I thought you had at least half a brain. Come with me."

Before I could say anything, his long fingers had wrapped around mine and I was on my feet, away from the busy dining room, in a vacant side room left open for customers waiting for taxis. Momentarily mesmerised by how fast we'd seemed to have moved, I barely noticed that Blaze was urgently tugging at the hem of my shirt. "Hey!"

"What is this?" He jabbed at the buckle fastened at my middle.

"A belt and a gross violation of my personal space? Are you not familiar with the saying 'noblesse oblige'? You're supposed to be a celebrity, a role model or... something." He ignored the complaint and pressed on, brow creased into three deep lines. "And why might you need to wear a belt? To stop your trousers falling down around your ankles? Might that suggest your clothes are too big?" He continued to mutter his rhetorical questions in a grumble as he foraged around for the size label in my linen trousers. I batted at his hands pointlessly and tried to pull my shirt down further than it could possibly cover. "You put extra holes in this belt...? My god, Emmeline..." And then he stopped completely still in his tracks and lifted my shirt an extra inch or two. The moment I realised what had caught his eye, I tried to twist away, but he snapped my name in a way I couldn't even imagine disobeying.

His fingers traced over the faded silver lines set into my skin from my left hip up, then followed the prominent ridges of my ribcage. Every touch felt like gentle and well-meaning torture, like slapping a child's hands for playing with knives, and it was the shame that paralysed me into place. What would he think when he saw my damage? Would he scold me like so many others and offer an endless stream of pity and bullshit encouragement? Would that be the end of our friendship, because I was just too much of a liability? Or was I now a pet project for him to 'cure'?

I still had no answer when he lifted the fabric further to see more of my ribs and sucked in his breath between his teeth. "Oh Emmeline, who made you feel this way?" It was another unusual reaction and made no way to dragging me from my stupor. The question everyone had failed to ask when it mattered came from a man who didn't know me from Adam, but yet seemed to know me better than anyone.

He regrouped far more quickly than I did, diverting his search for the label to a search for the fabric of my underwear and taking a quick peek under my shirt to check out my bra. "Hey!"

"Relax, I'm just checking they match. I'm taking you shopping."

"I can't affo—" The lie wouldn't come. If I swallowed my pride, I had enough money in a separate bank account to buy a fairly large and needlessly luxurious townhouse. Allowing Henry to siphon some of his wealth into an allowance was one of the few concessions I'd made to get him to agree to me moving out without torturing my mother over my financial situation on a daily basis. He'd gone over the top, obviously, and the account was bound to have accumulated interest. I might not have wanted to touch his blood money, but I couldn't deny that I had it. Not to Blaze. "I really hate shopping."

"Well tough." He grabbed my hand again and pulled me back to our table, pushing me down by the shoulders into my seat. "But first you're going to eat. You're not even a size eight. If I see you calculating calories, I'm just going to pin you down and feed you that way."

I was damned if I was going back down that path.