chapter Five
I MUST HAVE eaten my body weight in garlic bread before Blaze let me leave the table of the pizzeria, feeling sleepy, overstuffed and greasy. As I'd expected, the food was delicious, but there were enough people in that dining room to stop me losing myself in the flavours. It felt like I had a captive audience as ever, watching each bite eagerly with their fingers gripping into the wooden table tops, wondering if this mouthful would make the girl so slight erupt like an emetic volcano. They knew that much was inevitable— I was positively green when we slumped back out into the big, wide, crowded world.
Blaze had at least had the decency to exercise his pushy concern in a way that didn't make me feel observed. Even though I knew he was considering all the reasons why I might have such a dire appetite and a torso like road kill, his insistence that I ate what he'd served onto my plate was gentle, unlike the army drill sergeant attitudes that had been utilised by just about everyone else. What he'd laid out hadn't been excessive, but enough for me to struggle. Like a child, he enticed and bribed me to keep eating until he could tell that it would do more harm than good. I didn't clear the plate, but I'd eaten. That seemed to be good enough for him.
And I'd eaten for no reason other than to wipe the anxiety off his face. I'd never cared before, why did I care now? For him? Not even Hunter's 'encouragement' had worked as well as Blaze's.
A part of me had dared to hope that he was joking about shopping, but the looming buildings of Oxford Street slipping back into view squashed any of that fruitless optimism right down into the ground. Blaze ignored my audible groan and pulled me into a department store that was too bright and too frantically loud. Finely-polished women wearing too much make-up swirled around us dressed in fine black tunics. As soon as they spotted him, they gushed with almost disgusting streams of salesmanship jargon and far too obvious lust for him. Like I had when Jonathan had joked about roping him into their gay soiree, I began to feel unjustifiably territorial. My grip tightened around our already linked fingers— a way in which Blaze preferred to walk with me. I wouldn't lose him to one of those super sleek jezebels, even if he wasn't really mine to lose.
Our pace didn't slow until we found the women's department, full of svelte housewives and rubbernecking teenagers who pointed and whispered between themselves. Don't worry, they're not interested in you, the fat girl whispered next to me, pointing incredulously at scrap of material that barely qualified as a skirt, nobody is ever really interested in you. My pace stalled, though not enough to deter Blaze from an energised trawl of the shop floor, picking up garments at random and slinging them over the arm that joined with mine. They were all so small and in sizes that surely wouldn't fit. The styles were all super urbane like the stranger in the suit or daringly low cut and revealing, so far removed from the comfort zone of my linen trousers and work shirts.
After a ten minute surge of power shopping, I found myself shoved into a dressing room. In fact, I found myself shoved into several dressing rooms in several shops that provided less than complimentary lighting and mirror combinations, and pumped loud obnoxious music into the building via loud speakers that always seemed to be right over wherever I stood. Sensory overload.
"You know what really frustrates me about you?" Blaze called to me through a curtain that barely covered the gap into the small vestibule with mirrors on all three solid sides. I pulled it across and waved a hand at the outfit I was wearing— a denim skirt that showed far too much leg and some kind of chiffon sleeveless shirt, both in a minuscule size six. I was being forced to seriously reconsider how I dressed myself.
"Everything I imagine."
"Other than everything." He grinned and gave a thumbs up to the outfit, just as he had for nearly every other outfit he'd forced me to try on. The stack of bags behind his feet was embarrassing, and we'd never stopped to pay for anything. It had all materialised, already packed and ready to walk out with when I re-emerged from the dressing rooms wearing my own trash-sack clothing. I would undoubtedly analyse the hell out the situation at Esme's that night. "I never know what you're thinking. You must be a real nightmare to date."
"I thought you had me pegged?" We caught each other in a sceptical eye lock for a moment before I pulled the curtain back across. "I wouldn't know, I've never dated."
"Never? Why the hell not?"
"I just don't. And nobody has ever tried to convince me to do so." Not that I'd given anyone half the chance. Blaze already knew that I couldn't get attached, and if he hadn't guessed by now that it was nigh on impossible to convince me to change my habits, he'd been walking with his eyes closed.
"You know why that is? Nobody knows where they stand with you. You treat your family like your enemies, your enemies like your friends and your friends like your family. God knows how you treat lovers... Wait, you're a not a vi—"
Not really caring that I was wearing nothing but my underwear, I whipped the curtain back fast enough to shock him. "No! What do you take me for? I've probably had more sex this year than you have in your lifetime. You'd be hard pushed to find someone I haven't... you know." Embarrassingly, most of the faces I'd seen in that particular shop had been underneath me at some point. In open air, the scathing expressions were all generic and the same. In smaller, more intimate areas, I recognised every single face and they recognised me too.
Blaze's eyes flittered across my mostly naked form for a brief moment, purposely avoiding the scars on my left side, then settled back at my face. "When was the last time you left Esme's alone?" My mouth twisted ruefully. I couldn't give an accurate answer so I preferred to give none. "The night we met?"
"Esme." His jaw dropped, eyes flooding with the same look I'd seen on Chris' face when I caught him watching lesbian pornography at a LAN party.
"You're bisexual?"
"No, I'm just not fussy. I don't put any emotional value in sex. It's just something I enjoy and it feels the same whoever does it. Well, better if one of my friends does it because they obviously they know my sweet spots."
"The gay couple?" I flushed scarlet. Even Daniel and Jonathan found themselves curious on occasion, and after all Daniel had done for me when I was younger, I was only too happy to offer my 'services'. "The big nerdy guy?"
"Chris," I raised a finger to Blaze's face severely, "would surprise you."
"It's not emotionally significant to you at all?" His baffled eyes darkened and smouldered, shifting into a look that made my insides clench. Dear god... Is he turned on? "You have sex with your friends, then go on like nothing ever happened? You don't just throw everyone onto the discard heap?"
"There are loopholes..." My voice muted to a whisper, unsure of his reaction. It would have been a great time to call me a whore and leave me stranded, but I didn't think he had it in him to do something like that.
"Loopholes?" His voice took on a low growl that sent a frisson of static through the small space between us. It was the same growl from when he'd unpinned my hair at Hyde Park, and again, I felt like I was about to get eaten alive. "Why the hell didn't you say so before?"
Before I could respond, he grabbed me by the waist and pushed me back into the dressing room until my back crushed against the mirror. His hands moved into my hair and his mouth met mine, teeth clashing at the ferocity with which he kissed me. He ate me like he ate his food— ravenous and mad for it.
"Looking at you in all those tiny outfits— Shit!" He ducked down to divest us both of our lower garments, grabbed my legs and pulled them around his waist, impaling me in one swift movement. My fingers clawed into the back of his neck, then grabbed for the indiscreetly left open curtain. My legs tightened around him, pulling him closer to me, and I clung to him while he f*cked me until I was rigid. It was the realisation of what I'd wanted for the past nine days and better than the fantasy. My hands slipped under the fabric of his t-shirt to discover whether his body was what I'd imagined.
It was. Toned slabs of hard but not overly pronounced muscle tensing intermittently in my hands as he moved. His back was just as firm, and tightened when I dug my nails into the sinew in response to a particularly tactical thrust. Sweat started to bead on his skin, so he paused to rid himself of his t-shirt.
"Holy shit, Blaze!" I leered appreciatively, tongue trapped between my canines. Seeing it was better than feeling it, all the finely shaped bronze flesh of him, hot and pressed against me. He smirked wolfishly and leaned in to clamp his teeth around my bottom lip.
"Why, Miss White," he purred, flexing back into a steady rhythm, "are you objectifying me?"
"Objectifying the shit out of you. And I don't even know your surname."
"Vixen."
We laughed for a moment before need and lust took over and drove us into a fast, desperate plea to find our release in each other. We mingled together, heavy breathed, in tune, nose to nose, eye to eye and trapped in the moment, until my head fell back against the mirror and my body went lax, awash with satisfaction and a hot blast of relief. And something else. Something stronger than I'd ever felt before. Affection and gratitude— not for the orgasm but for the man who'd provoked it. For the sheer fact I'd found him.
IN that moment, I felt like I was standing in the middle of a train track staring directly into the rapidly approaching headlights. Something that I'd kept so separate from my emotions for so long had opened a floodgate I'd only ever hoped to be unlocked by one person. I'd fantasised about the same kind of needy, charged sex before, and it had always been a fantasy involving Hunter. That was always how I'd imagined it would be when two kindred spirits opened up to each other intimately. My universe shifted and centred around Blaze, a man I barely knew but knew me better than anyone else. I was cut wide open and weak for him to see, vulnerable and feeling like a liar.
I didn't delude myself into thinking that he didn't see the cataclysm of emotions that coursed through me as I hung limp against him, desperately trying to gather my scattered wits. Neither would I insult him by denying it if he broached the subject. For the sake of my own sanity, I was prepared to be honest and cut him off completely. He'd been lured in only by the promise of my detachment and I'd failed to provide that— he'd wanted the connection even less than I had.
But when I looked up, I could see in his eyes that he was on those train tracks with me. His face said exactly what we were both too afraid to put into words; this wasn't supposed to happen. After such a short period of association, my confession to being loose and his f*cking me senseless had thrown the flame on the kindling we had no idea we'd set out. Lust had become something almost too painful to bear and led us down a path neither of us wanted to tread for any number of reasons. We both had fallen, hard and fast, into a dangerous place that would undoubtedly make us do crazy things to each other.
When our breathing steadied, we stood in an awkward silence, him still semi-hard inside me and both of us mostly stripped naked. The buzzing voices outside reminded me where we were and pure panic set in. Any normal couple engaging in a danger f*ck in a changing room would be big news, but something like this would have me identified. A fast exit was necessary if we stood any chance of escaping without our names sprawled out across gossip columns— my name well known even if the face wasn't. Like this situation wasn't stressful enough.
Without looking at him, I separated our bodies and grabbed my scruffy shirt from the hook stuck to one of the mirrors. When my arm twisted around him, he caught it by the elbow and squeezed gently. "Emmeline." A silent agreement passed between us that our ugly feelings would go undiscussed but frequently indulged— the craziness would be allowed to happen even though we'd deny it existed out loud. Whatever it was we thought we felt wouldn't be given a name or taken too seriously. If we talked about it, that made it real. It was enough that we secretly knew it was there, knew that the other was aware, and would consider it a guilty pleasure.
He burned with covert passion for me, and only me, and I was right there with him. Caught in his flame and scorching, he was the distraction I dreamed of. How long that would last remained a mystery, but whether or not it was temporary, there was no way I'd walk away from him with anything less than third degree burns.
Then all that terror and confusion melted into a drowsiness that made me sag down onto the bench behind me. My eyes grew heavy and battled to stay open as I pulled my shirt back over my arms.
"Are you... Are you falling asleep?"
I nodded dopily. "Sex is my kryptonite. Esme says I'm wired like a man. She's a cuddler. I am not."
Blaze knelt down in front of me and hooked my feet into the legs of my trousers. "Need me to carry you?" Feeling myself becoming complacent and typically arctic, I shook my head and batted his hands away. "Hey." He curled a hand around the scars on my left side and reached up to stroke my dishevelled hair. "Don't over-think this."
"Over-think what?" I snapped, staggering to my feet to pull up my trousers. The usual sense of guilt set in, guilt for sleeping with yet another man who wasn't Hunter. I'd betrayed him again, worse this time for not being my usual emotionally disconnected self. I had royally f*cked up this time. At least the fat girl had the good grace to keep her mouth shut. "Bit presumptuous that you wouldn't need a condom, wasn't it?"
Blaze reached into his trouser pocket for his wallet and pulled a foil packet from a zipped compartment on the side, throwing it down on the floor between us. "We both f*cked up, Emmeline. Please don't cut me off now." He dressed quickly and grabbed the clothes I'd been trying on, leaving me alone to brood.
I dozed, fighting a losing battle with my heavy eyelids, and lifted my fingers to my swollen lips. His kiss had been so tender but so urgent, telling a lot about how badly he'd wanted me. He'd said I was 'safe' and he was out of the danger zone of temptation. Was he feeling as bad as me?
Neither of us had expected the scene to play out as it had. It had just been a little fun at first, two people working to satisfy a primal need. We'd laughed, damn it! How had it gotten so deep just seconds later?
He returned quickly, pulling the curtain back and giving me a sheepish smile. "You're still here."
"My bag is still in your car." He nodded, but he knew as well as I did that I couldn't have left him if I'd tried, no more than I could have left Hunter.
MY paranoia over being watched sky-rocketed when we set foot out on the street again. The fact that they had a damn good reason to stare now didn't really make me feel any better. My cut forehead, f*ck-mussed hair and drowsy stagger might not have felt like such a crime if I'd been enclosed in Blaze's strange aura of calm like normal, but he was keeping a cautious distance from me and not looking particularly calm at all. On the few occasions we spoke to each other, we snarled, both feeling cheated by life and vulnerable. Why he wouldn't just let me go, I had no idea. Out of sight, out of mind.
The goblin car looked too small for both of us. It was small, but somehow just seemed too cramped for us, the bags of clothes and the recent arrival of a big pink elephant. Blaze proved me wrong by packing all the purchases into the back, then stood politely holding my door open.
"Let me drive." He snorted incredulously and rolled his eyes. "I mean it. I need a distraction."
"You're dead on your feet, Emmeline. This car is my pride and joy."
"Then you should seriously consider whipping out a ruler and measuring your penis. I passed my driving test hungover and got zero minor faults."
The tension between us momentarily dissolved with his grin. "It's big?" Oh brother...
"Yes. Biggest I've ever seen. All six foot three of the giant penis standing in front of me."
"You just like saying penis, don't you?" He reluctantly held his keys out and mouthed 'penis' in the hope of making me laugh. It worked, but only for a second. "Can I ask you something?"
"No." I circled the car and let myself in the driver's side, grabbing my bag as soon as I was sat down to find a pair of scuffed mirrored aviator sunglasses I hoped would guard the thoughts and feelings I knew would be visibly thrashing around in my eyes as I drove. They were snatched off my face the minute they settled on the bridge of my nose. "Do you mind?"
"Are they prescription lenses?" My eyes narrowed. "You're not driving my car with a visual impairment, Emmeline." So we were back to snapping at each other. Easy come, easy go.
I pulled out of the car park steadily, hands tightly gripped around the steering wheel. It had been years since I'd driven, not that I'd confess as much to Blaze, but the instinct flowed back into me immediately. I'd forgotten how comfortable I felt driving and my thoughts strayed to the Bentley I wouldn't touch. Some twenty-first birthday present that had been— locked away and never taken out onto the road. I couldn't afford the insurance on it anyway, not unless I dipped into my allowance. Hunter would tell you to drive it, the chubby girl whispered from behind me, he'd tell you to swallow your pathetic pride and use the money. Yes, Hunter, remember him? The man you're supposed to love but now you're pining after yet another man who won't have you. I scowled at the road ahead, unable to shake off the annoying voice nagging at me.
The silence between Blaze and I was intolerably present. Both of us trapped in our thoughts, staring blankly ahead, unable to comprehend the turn of events. The tension seemed to wrap around me and tighten like a cobra, tighter and tighter until I snapped. "Talk to me," I gasped, keeping my eyes straight ahead, "talk to me, distract me. Please. I need you to keep my mind busy or..."
"Or what?" He straightened in his seat and I could feel his eyes burning into me with all the heat his name implied.
"Or I don't know if I won't spend the rest of my life trying to avoid you. I can't do it. This." I waved a hand at the space between us. "You know I can't."
"Neither can I, but we're going to. You know that, don't you, Emmeline? We're going to destroy each other and both of us are going to pretend that we're not happy about the damage we're doing. And we're going to deny that we're enjoying taking the damage too." I shook my head to myself, soothed just slightly by knowing that we were on the same wavelength. My feelings for Blaze were easily just as wrong as my feelings for Hunter, but I at least had the satisfaction of knowing that he felt the same. I was going to go down in a blaze of something, certainly not glory, and he would be right there with me, reeling as I was.
"So are you going to distract me or not?" He sighed and shifted in his seat to face me, swinging an arm around his head rest. Did he have much choice if he wanted to keep me around?
"Where are you really from?"
My mouth curved slightly. "Ironically, Cardiff. You've already figured out why I left."
"To become a self-made woman. Did you even try?"
"Of course I tried!" I hissed, affronted.
"Tell me how."
MY BRIEF ACCOUNT of how I'd lived during my four years in London came to an end as I pulled up outside my flat. I knew that he'd asked to hear the tedious tale for no reason other than to provide the distraction I'd requested, and I was grateful that he'd both done it and that it had worked. My nerves were still scattered, but I knew at that point that the path I was going to be walking was not my own. He'd decided for me.
"Thank you," I muttered quietly, cheeks reddening slightly. I wasn't sure what the protocol was for parting ways with a non-committal man who was committing to me.
"For what?" He pulled himself gracefully from the car and walked around the front of it to open my door. "Springing you out of work early, sending you on a scam, the head injury, swindling money from a stiff, lunch, the shopping spree, the sex, letting you drive my car, distracting you or for potentially making both of our lives very difficult for the foreseeable future?"
I gaped at him, taking the hand he offered. It had definitely been an eventful afternoon. "All of it, I suppose."
"Even the latter?" I croaked and stammered, eventually confessing with a nod. "I still want to ask you something."
"Is it about the scars?"
"Huh?" He glanced down at my side and shook his head dismissively. He'd forgotten? "No, I was wondering if you believe in fate."
"No."
"How about destiny or, I dunno... karmic balance?"
"Aren't they three ways of saying the same thing?" Where the hell was he going with this? And how could you just forget about those scars? "Still no."
"Wishes?"
I froze solid in my place. Wasn't it just last week I'd been musing over 'be careful what you wish for'? I'd wished him, but had I wished for this? "I may have recently come across some supporting evidence for granted wishes."
"Me too." His fingers strayed up to my face and stroked away a few rogue tendrils. "Maybe it was a fluke."
"Only one way to find out." I wiggled my eyebrows at him suggestively and tugged him towards my flat.
"Now? Are you insatiable?"
"Yes. Would you rather sit on it and have it weigh on your mind?"
No, he didn't. He didn't say another word until my door was open and he had me wrapped around him again, speaking only to ask which way my bedroom was. There was no question that we were on fire this way, lost in each other and so attuned it was like we'd each been created with the other in mind. He was a selfish lover as I'd expected, and it drove him crazy when I tugged at his hair, bit his lips or dug my nails into his back to bring him back into line. In return, he knew just how to touch me to keep me satisfied and stimulated, physically and mentally.
That compatibility was driven into me in my bedroom, in my kitchen, in my bathroom, and came to rest on my couch, where Blaze curled around me and toyed with my hair mindlessly while I fought off slumber. There was a sense of calm I'd not felt for years, if ever, and I was far too pleasantly exhausted to feel guilty about it.
"You look sensational spread out like this," Blaze purred at my ear, nipping the lobe gently, "sedate, pacified. So far removed from the woman who sat in that pizzeria with me earlier."
"It's you," I purred back, "you've done something wicked to me."
"Well I'm glad. You're smouldering. Glowing."
"Blazing?" He smirked down at me, but the intent of his smile shifted quickly. His gaze was fiercer and hotter than I'd ever seen it— positively incendiary. I whispered an apology and tried to squirm out of his hold, regretting making him feel so... what? What did he feel?
"Why are you apologising?" He wrapped around me tighter, making it clear that he didn't want me to escape. How deep did that desire run?
"The way you're looking at me. I just felt like I needed to apologise."
He sucked in a breath and leaned his forehead down against mine. "Don't. You don't know what it is you're looking at." With yet another cryptic remark and the gentle kisses he laid across my face, I fell into a deep, restful sleep.
When I woke up, he was gone, leaving nothing but the bags of clothes from Oxford Street and the anonymous suit's money clip as his calling card.
"YOU’RE WEARING YOUR hair down." Daniel pulled me from my thoughts of the vanished enigma that was Blaze with his observation and a glass of wine as he and Jonathan took their usual seats opposite me in Esme's. "You haven't worn it down in years. It gets in the way."
"Blaze likes it down." I rolled my eyes at myself for doing something so juvenile. So what if he liked me to wear my hair loose? He wasn't there. He probably wouldn't ever be there again. Five minutes away from me and he probably started to think rationally about all that had been thrown at him that afternoon.
"And new clothes?" Jonathan leaned across the table to examine the stitching on the uncharacteristically form fitting blazer wrapped around me. Once I'd taken a bitter sweet look at the haul from the shopping trip, I'd realised that my new wardrobe was actually rather impressive and really gave me no excuses to keep wearing the clothes I hadn't noticed were quite so big on me. The man had a great fashion sense— shame the same couldn't be said for his taste in women, though that lapse in judgement was now technically rectified if he'd seen sense. "You look great. Very London. Very much the multi-billionaire's prodigally alcoholic daughter."
"Wow, thanks." I was suddenly far less keen on the blazer, vest and jeans combo if it made me look like a Tudor. There had been no shoe shopping, so the outfit was scruffed up with a pair of well-loved deck shoes.
"Don't sweat it, you're still hotter than your sister." Obviously. "So have you tapped that yet?" Jonathan grinned at me cheekily and settled back down next to Daniel, who regarded me suspiciously. I was almost as transparent to him as I was to Blaze. "I knew you had that look about you. It's going to be two men in one day again, Emmy? I am in awe of you."
"Oh, I..." My hair veiled my face as it filled with blood. "I think I've been used as a penile insertion point quite enough for one day." I looked up just in time to see Esme sit down next to Daniel and their exchanged glances.
"Who's penile insertion point? Blaze?" She bit her lip to stifle a laugh. "Hallelujah, praise the lord. She finally nailed him. But this could get awkward because he just walked in."
"What?"
Chris snorted grumpily next to me and scanned the room for a glimpse of Blaze. There he was, stood at the bar draped in a loose white cotton shirt and pinstripe trousers. "You should really drop your standards, Emmeline. Guys like that won't care about your quest to chase impossibly high standards and ideals because they think they have it all. He'll be expecting exceptional and preferential treatment because he's a pretty-boy with a loaded wallet and you'll end up in another one of your funks."
"I'm already in one of my funks, Chris. She's been following me around all day." My pulse started to race when Blaze turned at the bar with a tray of six drinks and began to weave between the tables towards us. "And if you recall, I do drop my standards. Frequently. Don't tell me our nights together haven't been memorable because I'll call you a liar."
I stood when Blaze reached our table, and met his unusually cool gaze with one of my own, rife with confusion. Why had he come back? He looked fantastic, the shirt fitting the contours of the body I had spent an afternoon writhing against. God, I wanted him, and not just physically. I'd been so distracted by his disappearance that I'd been oblivious to the dull ache that had manifested in the depths of my chest in his absence— the acute need he'd left behind. It was a craving unlike any I'd ever known, and my point of relief stood only a foot away, looking stunning and smelling like expensive cologne and hot sex. He hadn't showered.
"You look surprised to see me," he murmured so only I could hear.
"You left."
"I couldn't stay— couldn't fall asleep next to you and wake up with you in my arms. That would have been bad for both of us. But I couldn't go either." His voice cracked with sincerity, and I knew that he was one man who would be nothing but honest with me. I treasured that aspect of him. "No matter how many times I leave, I'll always be back. Remember that. So, is there room for one more in your coven?"
Nervously, I turned back to my four friends for their verdict. Esme and Jonathan were almost dancing in their places while Chris and Daniel shared aggrieved expressions, anticipating the inevitable disaster that would befall me. Daniel saw it, the bigger picture in the way our bodies leaned together and the fearful glint in our eyes. Chris saw nothing but an impending repeat performance of the keening and sobbing Hunter left behind when he visited, provided by a new source. They would always be standing on the sidelines waiting to be tagged into the ring.
And as Blaze took the seat next to me, I knew that when that firestorm of a disaster hit, we'd be thrown into a full blown mutiny. That table was too crowded now. 'Us' and them packed into a booth that wasn't nearly big enough for all our complications.