Blazed

chapter Six





THE WARM, GENTLE buzz of voices and aura of serenity in Esme's that night was deceptive. Heartbroken lovers laughed with friends like they weren't in pain. Addicts tended to their vices like they wouldn't shake and sweat for them tomorrow. Enemies drank together as though the bad blood could be sweetened with anecdotes and recalled memories from times past. The sick and depressed faked smiles and lied about just how ill they were.

And, as normal, all of their flaws centred into me, the culmination of all that misery sat next to a man who settled into my surroundings like he'd donned camouflage and infiltrated us from the inside out. I suppose he had.

Blaze and Esme gossiped about a cartoon they'd both worked on as voice actors, Daniel and Jonathan quietly discussed dinner arrangements, while Chris and I sat, turgidly silent, watching them all but barely aware of what was happening. His tense quiet boiled down to little more than feeling like he had been, once again, overlooked as anything more than a source of dry wit and like minded humour. This was his usual pattern— pinning hopes on the unlikely and brooding when a miracle didn't happen. He didn't understand that even though he wasn't my first choice of bedfellow, he was still a very huge and vital part of my life. I might have lowered my defences one or twice, but I never gave off any impression that I wanted him for anything more than studding services. Manipulative, maybe, but he knew where he stood. That didn't stop him hoping.

"I don't think the big guy likes me." Blaze's hand slid discreetly over to my thigh and squeezed as soon as Chris left to collect his round from the bar. The action was so instantaneous that it seemed like he'd been holding off on purpose until it was 'safe' to touch me. Negative vibes had been flying around so viciously that it should have been obvious that Blaze might have felt like I'd been marked as forbidden territory.

Jonathan laughed quietly and shook his head into an impressively large glass of brandy. "Don't take it personally. He shows that kind of contempt for anyone who thwarts his nightly attempts to pillage the Deep White South. Tonight it's you, tomorrow it'll be someone else, then someone else and someone else until Emmy has a dry night and he begs for his turn against Esme with the flip of a coin." Hearing that out loud by someone else was uncomfortable— my somewhat promiscuous behaviour— worse knowing that Blaze heard it too. If he was any other man, he'd be disposable. As it was, I wanted to keep him around but I wasn't in the mindset to change any habits for him. He was less in my life on a guest pass and more of a VIP with a membership card like only four other people, but that didn't mean that the menu, entertainment and venue would change for him. There would be no gaps and breaks in my normal life when he wasn't around, and if he expected there to be, we were already at a painful impasse.

"And what if my day trip becomes an extended holiday?"

"Emmy would never... You have seen the scars right? Doesn't it bother you?"

"Of course it bothers me. What kind of person would I be if I was cool with someone I cared about being in such a bad place that they felt like hurting themselves was the only option? But if you're asking me if I can accept it, of course I can. As long I'm not the person that's causing that kind of self-loathing."

He turned his gaze onto me, that same scorchingly intense gaze he'd hit me with before he left my flat. All of the blood in my body rushed to my face and the deepest depths of my stomach knotted and contorted, much like the way I felt in a crowded room— claustrophobic, out of breath and horribly self-conscious. The smallest of smiles kissed the corners of his mouth when I mouthed an apology and sagged back warily. What was I doing so wrong? How could he say he cared for me knowing that I was, for want of a better word, a slut?

He excused himself and slunk over to the bar, turning every woman's and some men's heads as he travelled the distance. That kind of spellbinding effect seemed to be universal and for that I was grateful. I had no desire to become that girl who mooned after a man because she'd bumped uglies with him. It wasn't my style.

Esme leaned over to grip my chin and pull my eyes away from what looked like a dangerously serious conversation between Chris and Blaze. "Why did you apologise just then?"

"I just felt like I had to. Didn't you see the incomparable fury in his eyes? Jesus, not even Hunter looked at me like that when they sectioned me."

"Incomparable fu— ... My god, you can't see the forest for the trees, can you? Open your eyes, Emmy. That man up there is the forest." I shook my head at her blankly and received a raised eyebrow in return. "Get used to his face because you're going to be seeing a lot of it."



WHAT concerned me is why that statement didn't concern me. When I pictured night after night of drinking in Blaze's company, taking him home and falling asleep next to him, I didn't feel sieged like I should have. I felt... indifferent. It already seemed like normality when this was really only the first night of what was forecast to be many. He was too close but I couldn't bring myself to hate it. A crazy little piece of me thought that he might just be the person who broke the curse of unrequited affection Hunter had hung over my head.

"Cupcake?"

"Hmm?" The sudden blast of giggles around me alerted me to the stupid mistake I'd just made. "Oh! Oh god..."

"Might catch on." Blaze slid onto the seat next to me, one leg up on the velvet between us, and held out a dainty cupcake iced in pale pink butter-cream and a white sugarcraft rose. "But I was asking if you wanted this. They're good, maybe the second best thing I've tasted today." He bit down on his lip and flared his eyes at me, sending a delicious shudder right through my veins. I knew he was thinking about what else he'd tasted that day and just the memory made me want to claw at the cushioned seat next to me.

"I'll lick butter-cream off anything, you know." I narrowed my eyes at him, trying not to break the seductive ruse with a squeak. "Call it an indulgence."

"Miss White, you're incorrigible."

"Surely you mean 'encourage-able'? And I'm almost certain that if you save that cupcake for later when I'm far drunker, you'll have a few choice words of encouragement for my greedy mouth."

"Cheque, please." His eyes twinkled brightly in the soft light of the candles I'd learned to keep a safe difference from when he was around. The barely containable urge to reach up and stroke his face made my fingers twitch with unfamiliar adoration. After only eight days, he'd come to mean so much to me and left a heavy footprint on my life. If I never saw him again after that night, I'd never be able to forget him and his smile, or his laugh, or his frown. I suspected that his memory would haunt me just as Hunter did, and that alone told me enough to know that I'd come out of this hurting. It might not be today, maybe not tomorrow, but at some point I'd have to face the repercussions of trying to touch an untouchable man.

I glanced sideways at the table and caught my miserable, distorted reflection in my glass. Daniel pushed it out of my line of vision when he realised how furiously I was staring at it.

"She's not here, Emmy. Not anymore."

"Who?" My eyes looked up to meet Blaze's though my head didn't move. Yet again, I prayed for a distraction.

"Just a small ghost from the past. An unwelcome face who tells her lies."

"Lies?"

"Truths." I closed my eyes and resigned myself to confessing to the hallucination. Better it came from me. If he stuck around, he'd find out sooner or later. Sooner meant the inevitable hole he left behind might be smaller. "The shadow of my teenage self telling me that I'll always be—"

"A little bit ugly, a little bit frumpy, a little bit socially stunted, a little bit fat and a whole lot boring." Esme, Daniel and Jonathan recited the prose in unison, having heard it themselves a thousand times before.

"Lies then." Like I hadn't heard that platitude often enough for it to be meaningless. Blaze ignored my muttered 'whatever' and squared himself to the table, effectively turning away from me. That was it then... He understood what had been chasing me all afternoon and it was just too neurotic for him. "I happen to find you quite fascinating and easy on the eyes, and I think we... hammered out the fat, frumpy thing this afternoon." Did he really think it was that easy?

"You still think I'm socially stunted though?"

"Yes." He tutted mockingly. "Not so much as a thank you."

"For the lunch I didn't want, the clothes I didn't ask for, or the entirely too public 'hammering'?" I saw his eyebrow raise and cheeks lift into a sly smirk. "I'll thank you with butter-cream."

"Phew!" Jonathan fanned himself theatrically with a cork drinks coaster and swooned against Daniel's shoulder. "It's like watching my parents all over again and I heard how hot it was in their bedroom!"

"Is that what turned you towards the frilly paisley pink side?"

"It helped. What did you say to Chris anyway?" At once, we all turned our attention to the unusually empty seat next to me, then to the sullen figure slumped over a whiskey on the rocks at the bar. "It's not like him to prop up the bar. Especially when we're all spitting feathers over here."

Blaze shrugged and raised his glass to his lips, pausing to speak. "I told him that I enjoy the scenery of the Deep White South too much to stay away. That I'm planning on renting a log cabin there to concrete my intentions of visiting frequently until such a time when both a permanent place of residency becomes available and I'm in a more comfortable position to retire there." He took a small sip of his drink. "More or less."

"Well was it the more or the less?" I blurted my words out in a rush, feeling my face return to the shade of red it seemed to visit far to often around Blaze. It sounded suspiciously like he'd told the most protective of my friends that he was going to hang around until our complications stopped obstructing the way to what? A happily ever after? He'd be waiting a long time.

"Less," he laughed, ignoring the three anxious faces sat across from us, "but less is more. At least I know how you feel about the matter now. Don't worry." He dipped down to my ear so his lips brushed the lobe. It was the closest he'd been since he'd arrived to light up my dark evening and reminded me just how lost I felt around him. "I have a guarantor."

Esme, Daniel and Jonathan collectively sighed with relief when the comment made me laugh and inexplicably comforted me in a way it probably shouldn't have. Rather than respond to the threatened intrusion with a dramatic breakdown or a swift sprint down the path leading to the hills, I rolled my eyes at him with a smile on my face and made lustful eyes at the cupcake I didn't want to save for later. Just the fact that he said he planned to stick around for the long haul made me feel good— special. I may well have been the worst woman for the job, but nobody else could say that they'd been offered the chance, and I would have been crazy to not be grateful for the opportunity to hang on to a man like him. I might have even dared to say like I felt like a concubine to a prolific king, my purposes singular, indecent and terminable, but I'd been picked from many as the best. I doubted that he felt the same way.

Chris did eventually rejoin us, still looking downtrodden but forced enough polite conversation to make it obvious that he was putting himself out to be civil for my sake. I loved him for it. To our surprise, we learned that Blaze was somewhat well versed in our nerdy persuasion, owning an extensive comic book and graphic novel collection that would have made Stan Lee weep. He even carried some street cred destroying pictures of said collection on his phone, and pinpointed exactly where Syncretic Sciences now took residence. Naturally, everything was ordered alphabetically, then by year, issue and language— comics and novels separately stored. My mother would have loved him and his anally retentive organisational habits.

"Shame you haven't done more, really. I'd like an Emmeline White shelf. Autographed first editions, obviously."

"Obviously. But my imagination is a little limited."

"To garrotting wire?" Blaze gave me a knowing wink and topped my glass up from a bottle of wine he'd ordered that I'd never tried before but had gotten a taste for. Too much of a taste. It was hard to fall into my usual depressive drunken slump with him around, knowing what mischief lay in wait after the bar closed. But the bad mood threatened.

"Speaking of work being 'limited'—" I barely caught the spiteful smirk on Chris' face before it faded, "you're not exactly fighting off the paparazzi for a man with his fingers in multiple pies and your portfolio isn't all that impressive. You're not filling your days filling Emmy, so what do you do exactly?"

"Chris!" Oh my god... Wincing, I thrust my hands into my hair and peeked up at Blaze through my fingers. "You don't have to answer that." What he did in his own time was his own business, just as my 'extra-curricular activities' were mine. Whether he taught the word of God to small children or murdered whores in brothels, it was none of my concern.

"It's fine," he assured me, wrapping an arm around my back and turning to address the question, "you're asking me what keeps me away, aren't you?" Away from me. Did I really want to hear his reason 'why'? "I'm a carer."

My head jolted up, not nearly attached to my ability to form words. A carer? When he wasn't looking out for me, he was looking out for someone else, someone sick or disabled. I hadn't put much thought into what his complication was, but something like this would never have crossed my mind. It wasn't nearly as bad as the other ideas that might have plagued me given half the chance, and it just seemed so... him.

"They're not completely incapacitated, but accidents happen and concessions have to be made. Job opportunities come and go— being on standby compromises my time. I can't take work outside of the city and I don't like to start something I can't finish. If there's a risk of anything interrupting the little time I get with Emmeline, I'd prefer to sacrifice seeing her rather than give her just half my attention through phone-watching."


AND THAT WAS how it would always be. A watered down version of my role in Hunter's life. He too only called when he could give me his undivided attention, so the concept didn't distress me too much. How could it when I knew that Blaze's motives were much more honest and noble?

The gaps were shorter, a few days at most. Whether it was just lunch or a night out, I knew that the flying visit was always good for at least one cervix-destroying orgasm that sent me searching for a place to catnap. Mrs Reynolds didn't object to my post-lunch snoozes when I found my way to and from them smiling.

Blaze was like my own brand of Prozac. The all-encompassing woe that usually drove me subsided and the fat girl disappeared from my mirror in the mornings. By no means did I love myself, but I could bear to be me. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I didn't think about Hunter and how I lacked the qualities he desired the moment I woke up. I stretched my arm across my bed and remembered who'd been there, talking to me as I nodded off. Complicated or not, whatever we were doing worked and it worked well.

It worked through the scorching heat of June that had us peeling our sweaty, replete bodies off the leather interior of the goblin car on occasion. It worked through impromptu lunch dates and nights out at Esme's. I wore the clothes he'd chosen for me and my hair loose on the off chance he arrived because I liked to imagine what he thought when he opened the door into Double Booked and saw me looking just how he liked me. For some reason, he was attracted to me and made no effort to hide it, kissing me when he saw fit and making vulgar yet endearing propositions regardless of the company we were in. We didn't talk about it, but we both knew that we felt too much for each other. Neither of us cared as long as the other was still on the same page of our bizarre 'don't ask, don't tell' understanding. We were inextricably bound by our denial, a bond so honest that it might have been devalued if we'd forced I love you's like everyone else.

We were functionally dysfunctional and not even the summer heat could compare to how moltenly hot I burned for him at every given chance.



A few days became a week, and a week became ten days. The space that we left for him at our table in Esme's grew cold but stayed open for him to warm up when he could. My friends fussed, sure that I'd crack in his absence. They saw how close we'd grown but were so negative about the outlook of our 'relationship' that they didn't believe in my blind conviction.

"Aren't you worried?" Esme walked home with me through the side-streets after lunch in a quiet little bistro I'd discovered near my flat during a walk with Blaze early the week before. The world hadn't found it yet, which meant that the beastly Saturday crowds had yet to taint it's Mediterranean serenity with popularity. London was in full flow with older children enjoying their summer holidays after exams, students shopping for university essentials and tourists absorbing the fascinating landmarks we natives took for granted. My fear of that mania remained.

"Worried?"

"That he's not coming back." Her reluctance to say the words manifested in a whisper, pausing me for only half a beat.

"No, I'm not. He told me that he'd always come back for me and I believe him."

"Oh, Emmy. Even you aren't this naive." That stopped me for a moment longer.

"You think he was lying?" I challenged her with a raised eyebrow. She immediately relented, knowing that the man was despicably honest to the point of it sometimes being too much. I wasn't sure that he knew how to lie. "He'd tell me if he wasn't coming back, Esme. He wouldn't just leave me flailing."

We scaled the staircase up to my flat on the first floor in silence before she sighed and held up her hands. "I just don't want to see you throw yourself under the metaphorical bus here. You're setting yourself up, but I'm not sure which direction the punch line will take yet. Don't be foolhardy. He may not have been lying at the time, but you don't know how or when the wind might change direction."

"I'm prepared for this to all go wrong. I know that it will so I'm at peace with it." I shrugged and pulled my keys from my pocket. "I'm a realist, you know that. Ask me how I'd cope if it all went right, well that's a different mat—" My sentence was cut short by the door swinging open and hand shooting out to pull me inside. The door kicked shut behind me, putting an abrupt end to my conversation with Esme.

I was tugged so quickly my head spun, eyes barely clear of stars when a familiar mouth closed around mine. I'd never been kissed so passionately before, like I was so essential and life-defining. I shivered at how mighty I felt— an evil harpy done hexed this poor unsuspecting man. Hexed him like he'd hexed me.

My feet left the ground, my legs were wrapped around his waist, and I smiled against his lips. I knew you'd be back. Not only did I have him here, but I also had the satisfaction of a big 'I told you so' for my friends.

"Blaze, quelle surprise. Have you been working hard or hardly wo—" My back swiftly found the fabric of the couch the same moment his mouth found mine again and kissed me hard, quietening my satire to a needy moan into him. God, the ten days had been too long. All the craving I'd been able to block out while he was gone flooded back into me in a deluge of heat and lust. My face flooded with colour and my eyes with life, reigniting a flame he snuffed out every time I woke up alone. I never knew how much I'd miss him until he came back, and this time was almost painful. Just because I didn't feel the hole he left expanding didn't mean I didn't feel it being plugged up. My fingers raked across his back and held him until he shifted, breathless and flushed. "That was one hell of a greeting."

"I was checking if I was still damned." Like he needed it to breathe, he pressed his lips to mine again and moaned softly. I felt his longing surge through me and aggravate that volatile little flame that burned for him.

"And?"

"Very damned." His lips trailed across my jaw to my ear. "I missed you, cupcake."

"I..." Had never been 'missed' before. Not like this. I didn't know where the boundaries lay in an association like ours, but I was certain that they were being pushed with pet names. Still, I couldn't deny that I was right there with him, though maybe a little less confident about it. "I missed you too. Especially when you call me sweet names like that but I'm really turned on right now and your erection is digging into my leg."

He laughed softly and kissed the frantic throb in my neck. "It's a shame you'd just fall asleep if we made love." My mouth dried. I could tell that if I looked at him, he'd be regarding me with that almost carcinogenic glare I felt so guilty about evoking in him, but if it came with the sweet nothings reserved for treasured lovers and long term partners, was I misinterpreting it? I was so confused, and so reluctant to let myself get carried off in a pipe dream fantasy.

"Actually I could really go for a power nap. I've been awake for a whole two hours."

"Oh. Well then." He sucked and nipped at my skin as he pulled me up to sit and wrestled me out of my clothes, carefully folding the arms of my glasses and putting them safely on the coffee table. This, I could deal with. I never felt more certain about my actions where sex was involved, particularly sex with Blaze. I'd quickly learned that it was impossible to make a wrong move with him because he was just so hungry to be inside me. He was still selfish but liked to feel me writhe beneath him, careful to take his time and drive me crazy. He did so quite capably and in more ways than he knew. Small stupid things like the noises he made and the way his back beaded with sweat when he was close to his limits made the experience for me.

We seemed to fit so well together that I swore the mould used to make him had somehow been turned inside out and fitted inside me. Not a single one of the casual encounters I'd had in Blaze's absence could compare or satisfy the lust that took over. I'd started to leave feeling short changed and a little dirty, wondering if I was acting habitually or keeping up appearances. I'd fashioned myself a protective cocoon during my four years in London and Blaze was starting to find the cracks in it. He could exploit my weaknesses the way only one other could— someone who had no business being in my thoughts when a mouth-watering male stood topless in front of me. He'd undressed me in record time and was quite openly ogling me, tongue trapped between his teeth.

"I went to the bookshop first. You weren't there." Blaze scrunched his t-shirt up into a ball and threw it at my face, promptly scooping me up and carrying me into my bedroom. Somehow, the space seemed bigger and tidier. How long had he been there and what the hell had he been doing in my absence?

"Day off. It happens sometimes."

"You need a mobile phone."

"I have one."

"I need your number."

"I don't give men my number."

"I'm not 'men', am I?" I inched back to look down at him from my almost prone position across him and frowned. No, I didn't suppose he was 'men', but I'd promised myself that I wouldn't break trends for him. "Am I?"

"No." Sitting back on my heels, I tugged at the waistband of his jeans as a hint for him to lose them, and quickly. "And I'm not 'women'. So you'll get my number when I get your surname."

"Oh, touché." He wriggled out of his jeans and pulled me back over him, eyes burning like two emerald green beacons. The fact that he'd gone commando turned me on and I had no idea why. "You, on top. I need to see this."

"See what?" I got my answer from his face. His gaze slid down and rested at the point where our bodies would connect. A low growl rumbled in his throat as he watched himself fill me up, fingers restlessly flexing against my hips while the balls of his hands held my weight and stopped me descending too quickly. He snarled a curse, jerking up to meet me, and flipped me onto my back to drill into me hard, fast, and so roughly I battled to catch my breath.

Blaze lacked his usual finesse and I knew that it was because he was feeling tormented. His earlier kisses had said as much. He f*cked like he had a point to make, maybe not to me, but to himself. What that point was, I didn't know. Maybe he was trying to reassure himself that it was just the driving urge to screw me senseless that made him miss me as much as he had and we really did just use each other as implements to get ourselves off. Whatever the reason, he charged through, determined and unrelenting, sparing me no time to recover between orgasms that began to roll together and snowball.

It was too much. Pleasure became painful, but I didn't want it to stop. No matter how hard my toes cramped, he drove on and licked away the almost sadistic tears that dripped down my temples into my hair. I was lost to him, forced into a place where I could focus on nothing but him. My new most favourite place in the world, away from all my neuroses and memories— the only place I could connect so deeply with another human being. An activity I'd spent four years using to validate myself had become a meaningful bridge to a bigger place. Had he turned my life upside down like I'd wanted? Maybe. Given half the chance, Blaze might have ploughed away at me until I was no longer gifted with eyesight, foresight or hindsight, so I might never see for myself just how much damage he'd done.

I whimpered feebly when he sank his teeth into my neck and moaned my name, finally finding his release after I don't know how long. His weight pushed me down into the mattress, making me feel gloriously overpowered and well used. Immediately, my eyelids drooped, but his nose nuzzling my hair kept me just about conscious.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, spending a wave of goose bumps across my skin, "I lost control." Unable to speak, I grunted quietly and found enough energy to catch his hand in mine and squeeze it. "I've broken you, haven't I?"

"You've ruined me for other men, that's for damn sure." I forced one eye open and winked at him. "I'll be good to go again in five minutes."

Blaze scoffed gently and traced his fingers across his bite mark. "Did you really miss me this week?"

"I did. I just didn't know how much until you came back. You always come back." My trust was rewarded with an indulgent, typically contagious smile. I'd believed in him and clearly it meant a lot that I had. It meant so much more to me too— it meant that I could.

"What would you do if I was still here when you woke up?" My forehead creased slightly. Our situation was how it was. Why would I consider it being any other way when this was all it could be? What would be the point of conjuring idyllic scenarios that would never become reality?

"Make you get me coffee and do my hair." He cocked his head to the side a little, a gesture seeking my honesty. "It would be weird for me, like it was 'real'."

"Real how?"

"Real like no complications. No reasons 'why not', I guess. If I woke up and you were in the kitchen or something, that's like Chris or Esme being here. But if I woke up and found you sleeping next to me, I think I'd be forced to do something really stupid like think you were mine." Inhaling sharply, I blushed crimson through my already flushed cheeks and closed my open eye to avoid seeing his reaction. I couldn't filter my thoughts when I was sedate, and the last thing I want to do was scare him off with hints at how deeply he affected me. "Can I have my power nap now?"

"Of course, cupcake." He kissed the tip of my nose and pulled me over to lay my head on his sweat slicked chest. His heart was still racing, visibly straining at the confines of his chest. "And I'll be in that kitchen making you coffee when you wake up."

Maybe he wasn't as scared as I thought.



Seven


I WOKE UP feeling hungover and raw. It took a moment for me to recall the events that had led to me ending up sprawled out in bed, hugging a pillow wrapped up in a t-shirt I didn't recognise. But I recognised the smell that clung to it and it was one that didn't exactly encourage me to move. Blaze's scent set me up for the day, along with the memories it provoked of the night before.

But this wasn't the morning after the night before. It was the same afternoon after the same afternoon before, and I had absolutely no reason to feel so disgraceful.

Dragging the t-shirt over my head, I winced as I sat upright and surveyed the murder scene that was now my bed. Blood spotted the cream cotton valance sheet that was torn in places, and sweat and other...fluids stained the fabric under where I'd laid to sleep. I hadn't realised just how carnal the sex had been at the time, but seeing how rough it could get when I didn't even know it made my mouth snap open. Blaze was dangerous— a serious threat on my sanity and self-control, but how savage was I when I lost my head? It had taken less than five minutes from front door to bedroom to reach this level of indecency...

"Oh, Esme!" I remembered her rude exclusion from my afternoon and knew that I had to explain myself. Or rather explain Blaze. Blaze!

The sight of him standing in my kitchen stopped me in my tracks. He wore nothing but black briefs and was covered in small, red crescent marks left by my nails. His skin glowed red under the scratches but he looked none too perturbed, leaning over a tablet computer set down on the breakfast bar, watching music videos while he swigged milk from the carton. He was at home here, looking far better off than I did even if he had been brutalised by my hand. All elements of that scenario combined, he looked f*cking hot.

"You helped yourself to my Wi-Fi password?" He glanced up, seemingly surprised to see me in my own home, and shot me a smile that made my insides melt enough to forgive the host of violations he'd committed. I loved that he felt comfortable and confident in my small space. It only made sense when he was so happily underneath my skin. "And you're getting your germs in my milk."

"You're getting your germs in my t-shirt." I walked into the arm he held out and leaned into him, sliding a hand down the front of his underwear to stroke the trail of hair that crept down from his navel. If he stuck around like this every time he f*cked me into slumber, we'd never leave my flat. "God woman, you're insatiable. You might be ready again but I need longer than half an hour to recover from something like that."

"Half an hour?"

"Hmm." He nodded and reached around me to pour a large mug of coffee from a steaming hot jug he'd already made. I usually used instant, and was amazed to see that I even owned a coffee grinder. I definitely didn't have the beans... "I thought you'd sleep longer. I was going to sneak a shower and make myself look pretty before you woke up. I brought a change of clothes."

"Quite good at taking liberties, aren't you? Making up for lost time?" The playful atmosphere dissolved with the reminder that we'd been apart for what seemed so long but was really no time at all. We were becoming too emotionally involved in our tryst. I didn't want to pry into his absence but I had to. "Has your uh... 'caree' been ill?"

"Nothing else could have kept me from you, Emmeline." The mood lifted with the tenderness of his tone. "This would be another good case for you giving me your number. I couldn't leave her but I wanted to talk to you, let you know that I was thinking about you."

"Phone sex isn't my thing." I muttered into my coffee and smirked. "It would be too easy for you to just send me a picture of your cock and spare the words."

"You know," Blaze took the mug from my hand and lifted me up onto the breakfast bar next to the tablet, which quietly piped out Panic! At The Disco, one of my favourite bands, "you're much more amenable when you're freshly f*cked. I do think of you beyond your erogenous zones, and the only time I get a sense of you feeling the same is when you're lulled into a post-coital stupor." He sounded affronted, even if his face didn't show it. "I get it, I do. You don't want to let your guard down for something hopeless, but please don't wound me by pretending you're bulletproof. You've got me by the balls here." His honesty still shocked me sometimes. I'd overheard enough conversations by scorned women to be led to believe that men sugar-coated their feelings or kept them completely locked away. A great source of frustration to womankind, I thought. I appeared to have the entirely too forthcoming exception to the rule standing in my flat.

"I can has guilt trip?"

He mirrored my pout. "I don't want to make you feel bad, I just don't want to throw myself into something imbalanced. I don't know that I'm not chasing a mirage if you keep hiding behind innuendo and bravado. Sometimes it's just not practical to bend you over and prod the truth out of you."

I still felt guilty. I'd been trying to run from my feelings for so long that I just didn't know how to express them anymore, and I certainly didn't want to muddy the waters with them. What we had was so simple, or at least it had been at first. We were both in way over our heads now, dangerously close to the point of no return, and maybe I did have to seriously consider playing my part in these far too frequent discussions about 'us'. There was an 'us', I couldn't deny it. I just still didn't know how to deal with the fact someone had pushed their way into and warped the Hunter shaped hole in my heart. Some parts had bowed, forced to move around Blaze, but there were still some gaps around the edges that made the fit imperfect. I didn't know that the round peg in a square hole would ever be a good substitute for what I'd spent nine years wanting, but if a miracle happened and Hunter returned from Japan with his arms spread wide for me, I didn't think he'd be enough either anymore. I was in limbo and, paradoxically, the only way I could live through it was to shield my emotions with a subject change.

"Is 'she' still ill?" I rolled my eyes and swung my feet impatiently side to side. I hated that he'd given her a gender so the irrational part of me had ammunition to be childish and possessive. He's spending all week with another woman...

Blaze stooped to look up into my downcast eyes and grinned, seeing my rogue thoughts the way only he could. Somehow, he looked almost happy to see my naughty little green eyed monster. "Why, Miss White, are you jealous that there's another woman in my life?" It was typical that the one man in the world who didn't freak out over a possessive woman would be the man I didn't truly possess.

"No..." I knew that mine was the only world Blaze was rocking, but I couldn't say the same. I had no right to be jealous, and was determined to pretend that I wasn't for the sake of not being a hypocrite. "Is she okay without you?"

He nodded and pushed away from me, making a beeline to the coffee table for my glasses. "I usually have back-up at the weekends. Last week was an annoying exception."

I followed, hot on his heels. I couldn't stay away from him too long— always had to be close enough to touch him. He was addictive and so potent it scared me. "So Saturday is Emmyday?"

"You want a whole day, cupcake?" A whole day? A light at the end of the week and an excuse to wheedle out of work early? The best part of a weekend to enjoy the hell out of him? A guarantee that he'd be there on the Double Booked threshold ready to make me centre of his universe, even if just for an evening?

"... Yes, please. Weekly."

I didn't know how he'd take the request, but was relieved when he smiled and sank down on the couch, patting the seat next to him for me to join him. "And what would we do with said days?"

"Depends how long it takes you to recharge..." He tried on my glasses and recoiled back immediately, blinking like a light had been shone in his eyes. It was a reaction I was used to seeing, but somehow it warmed my heart when it came from him. He made every expression look gorgeous, doubly so when so devoid of clothing.

"So you're like, blind." Blaze slid the glasses onto my face and the hangover type pounding in my head began to subside. Far from blind, I often forgot how much I needed them when I could still see capably without them. Okay, I couldn't see the details of faces or read, but I wasn't exactly walking into furniture. "You don't wear them when you're at Esme's."

"I don't want them to get broken."

"Buy new ones?"

I sighed, head dropping back. "Truly spoken like a man with perfect vision. For something so necessary, they're really quite expensive. My lenses are complex, so they take days to be ordered in, and glasses are like work boots. It's not as simple as putting on the first pair you find. They might not suit and they're not comfortable right away. You have to wear them in because they'll be too tight, too loose, some lenses put the ground at a funny angle—"

"Okay, okay!"

My point made, I twisted around onto my knees and combed my fingers into his messy hair. "I don't get to see you clearly so often. It's an education."

"Oh really, how do I look?" He donned his full-voltage male model face and posed.

"You look..." Even covered in scratches, he took my breath away. He wore sex hair well— it darkened when it was grimy and brightened those startling green irises that saw right through all my brave fronts. The small scar on his Cupid's bow had become less of a flaw and more of an invitation, a mark to kiss, lip and suck on. It drove him wild when I targeted it. "... Edible. Did you come here today to offer yourself as my meal?"

"Hmm, no... I came to see if you could help me with this here quandary I have. I don't suppose you know any dysfunctional, hot, brunette bookshop assistants with a brand new wardrobe who'd like to get into Monday's Miracle's secret gig tonight?"

I leaned back, eyes narrowed. "Don't toy with my emotions, Blaze. I'm a fragile woman." It was mean of him to taunt me with such things. Esme and I had been keeping our ears to the ground for weeks, waiting for hints at locations and who she could charm into finding us tickets. Blaze had watched us, denying any connection to the event despite being an ex-member of the band. Dirty little liar.

"It's at The Roses." It figured that it would be at one of Henry's clubs, though luckily one he didn't frequent. "Super small, super exclusive. Up close and personal with the band. What do you say?" Like he had to ask.

"If it's a super gig..."

"No capes." I grinned, pleased to have him on my wavelength. The excitement made me squirm, thoughts of breaking my usual cycle of drinking at Esme's to do something so outlandish dizzied me with childlike anticipation. Just me and Blaze, dancing and screaming along to heavy rock, right up in the action with the promise of schmoozing with some rockstars. It was a point of my life I'd remember forever, looking back at the photographs when I felt low and lonely without him. Something so special...

"... Is this a date?"

He blinked slowly and exhaled on a hum, giving no answer in his expression. "How would you ever know if you've never been on one? Call it an awakening. I've seen a lot of your life in the past couple of weeks, Emmeline. Now I want you to see what my world is like, beyond the day job, auditions and boring go-sees." Auditions and go-sees. Jesus, I was really sleeping with a male model, actor and musician. If only I could see the faces of the girls who'd bullied me in school now when they opened their magazines to see me staring up at them, standing next to easily the most wanted man in London. Funny, how I didn't see myself deserving of anyone's envy until it involved a man. I'd nearly always been rich and part of a notorious family, but that didn't seem like a matter to be boasted in my mind. Being Blaze's, even if I wasn't really his at all, made me feel important. Special. Like the only person in the world.

"I would hug you but I have this annoying monkey with intimacy issues on my back."

"You said I looked edible..."

Someone hammered at the door, but I was already straddling Blaze, moaning into his mouth as his tongue stroked mine. In nothing but a t-shirt, all he had to do was pull his underwear down and we could be f*cking like minks in seconds. He was hard already, switched on by my grinding against him.

"Ignore it." I mumbled when the door knocked again, pumping restlessly against his teasing hand, so turned on and in the moment that it wouldn't have taken much to push me over the edge. He held me up and watched his first hard inch push into me, growling so gutturally it undid me.

My orgasm hit the same minute the visitor called out. "Emmy, love? I know you're in there!"

"Shit!" I stared down with amused horror at Blaze, steadying myself on his shoulders. "It's my mother. She has a key."

"Emmeline Elizabeth, open this door!"

"Coming, Mum!" Blaze wiggled beneath me, hitting a sweet spot that damn near brought literal meaning to my answering shout. "You have to hide in the bedroom. Like now."

He pouted and slowly eased out of me, still rock hard. "Just let me meet her."

"No! Even if you weren't only in your underwear..." Ivy Tudor had the unmistakable face of an angel and an encyclopaedic knowledge of current events and celebrity hearsay. Blaze had his equally as seraphic face plastered everywhere. There was no conceivable way they wouldn't recognise each other. I shuddered at the thought and pointed sternly at the bedroom door. "Go, you fiend."

"You'll need these." Quickly, he yanked down his briefs and hooked my feet through them, pulling them up to cover my wet, less than modest modesty, then set on a leisurely pace towards the bedroom, gloriously naked. Watching him walk away was still almost as good as watching him walk towards me, more so when I now knew what lay beyond the clothes, a thought that made me squirm.

"Emmy!" The door opened before I could get to it and just as the bedroom door closed on Blaze's fabulous backside. I smiled up guiltily from the couch with my eyes still a little starry, pulling the t-shirt down over the borrowed briefs. My mother stood just inside the door, innocently oblivious to what she'd walked into.

She was a breath of fresh air in a lilac wrap dress that brought out the green in her eyes but clashed horribly with her car. Her greying blonde hair fell loosely into a chignon and framed a dainty nose, sculpted cheekbones, and naturally full red lips that sheathed a killer smile. She was a trophy bride alright— a real English rose who didn't have any thorns until she married them. And I hadn't seen her for the longest time.

"Mum! You look great." If she was a vision of how I'd look in twenty years, I was eager to age.

"I wish I could say the same, darling. You look dreadful." I nodded, knowing that I couldn't rationally find insult in what she said. My hair was still matted and f*ck-mussed, eyeliner smudged and the bite mark Blaze had left in the tender flesh of my neck was starting to bruise. But no matter how obvious it looked to me that I'd been up to no good, Ivy Tudor saw the good in anyone and could deny the bad existed. "One of your neighbours called your father with a noise complaint. I was around and thought you'd prefer me to come and scold you for being a vixen." Her eyes gleamed with a mischievous yet reverent glint. These were the times she liked to leach vicariously from, having led a relatively unremarkable life in the bedroom department. I didn't want to know the details, but I knew that there had only been one man other than Henry between her sheets and he'd been something of a wet squib.

"I'm sorry, I had no idea I'd been so... vocal."

"By all accounts it was the fellow, love." She sounded disturbingly proud. "I think that was what caused the concern. Old Mrs Adams upstairs thought you were beating him senseless."

"Well then." I coughed and pulled the neck of the t-shirt up over my nose to hide my grin. The idea of Blaze being so lost in the pleasure he found in me was endearing, and I had the driving urge to make him do it again so I could hear it— hear him moan my name while I rode him. It was the times like that I knew I had him all to myself.

Ivy wandered through to the kitchen, pausing once or twice at various objects of my scattered clothing. "You bought yourself a tablet?"

"Ah... no, it's a friends. I'm borrowing it?" The music ceased, leaving a weighty silence between us. There was more to this visit than a noise complaint and I knew it.

"Are you alright, love?" Frowning, I looked over my shoulder into the kitchen area of my open plan flat. "Hunter says you've been ignoring his emails." I blinked, at a loss for words. My email account had been untouched for weeks because the thought simply hadn't crossed my mind, but how dare he run off telling tales to my mother? I was a grown woman with my own life, a life he'd walked out of. "You know he thinks the worst when he doesn't hear from you."

"He could have called." I raised an eyebrow at her. "I'm alright, Mum. I'm the best I've been in a while." Though a little worse now for hearing the 'H' word.

"You do seem different. There's more colour in your cheeks." There was no way I was going to tell her that the rosiness might be due to the fact I'd been having sex just seconds before she walked in. Less way I'd tell her what was making me feel so exuberant beyond my bedroom. "You're still wearing awful clothes though. Come on, I'm taking you shopping. No arguments."

I leapt to my feet when she headed towards my bedroom door. "No, you can't go in there!" She ignored me and made a grab for the handle. "Seriously, Mother. Please don't go in there."

She scowled at me, one hand on her hip, and paused with her other hand ready to lunge. "Why not?" I immediately thought of the bloodied sheets and balked. Even if Blaze found a place to hide, the state of that bed might give her a coronary.

"It's a mess in there." A nervous giggle escaped my throat. "You don't want to see that."

But, because she was my mother, she knew I was hiding something. "Please don't lie to me, Emmy. I know your ways. Tell me what mess you made." My eyes widened and I was vaguely aware of shaking my head. I knew what ways she meant, the conclusion she'd jumped to. She'd jump on it harder when she saw the blood. My recycled excuses for secrecy stoked her concern but I hadn't even realised that I was using them again now.

"It's not like that this time." She sighed, looking me up and down before she made the move I'd been scared of, shoving the door open before my body had time to catch up with my brain.

The brain stopped stock-still at the sight of the bedroom. The bed was freshly made, the torn up sheets hidden by the duvet, and Blaze's personal effects were scattered around the room. Fresh underwear and a change of clothes for him were folded up on the ottoman spanning the bottom of the bedstead next to a pile he'd apparently laid out for me, next to clean towels for a shower. My small, practically antique stereo system played the same music he'd been listening to in the kitchen, and he could be heard singing along from the shower in the en-suite. He'd done this on purpose, though I had no idea why or how he'd done it so quickly.

Ivy stared at me, stunned into silence. "I told you it wasn't like that this time."

"You did." She swallowed hard, blinking too fast. "Sorry love, I just... Is he handsome?" I nodded with a shy smile. She might find out for herself some day just how handsome, but on that day, I was happy enough just to give her the reassurance. "Does he look after you?"

"He does. He took me clothes shopping. He takes me to dinner." Stepping back out into the lounge area, I urged her with me and fiddled with the hem of the t-shirt. "Let's have lunch tomorrow. I'll explain everything then."

"You don't need to explain anything, Emmeline. Just tell me that you're happy."

It was that cut and dry for my mother and I loved her for it. I could have been sleeping with an ex-con and she wouldn't have cared as long as he told me I was pretty and paid for my lunch. Love was paramount and almighty as far as she was concerned, believing that everyone should be paired off with their soul mate. She swore that Hunter was her fault, an oversight. She'd tried to pair us up too young when our personalities weren't done flourishing. By her reckoning, he was marrying his match. My other half was out there and she promised that she'd know him when she saw him. Secretly, this was another reason for keeping her away from Blaze. I was scared she'd tell me that the man who was destined to be with me was the man I couldn't have. I'd be building a miserable rod for my own back.

"I'm happy, Mum. Happy and terrified."

"Then lunch it is. 'To fear love is to fear life'. We'll have you chomping at the bit in no time."





I PURRED HAPPILY, stretching my sleepy, well-used body out across the king-size mattress, coming to rest with my head nuzzling the pillow that was once again wrapped up in Blaze's t-shirt. I'd owed him an orgasm and he'd made damn sure that he'd claimed it the minute my mother had walked out of the door. The skill and technique I'd grown accustomed to had returned, buckling me into a fairground rollercoaster I couldn't get enough of.

Blaze had been created with a vendetta to literally f*ck me stupid. I could think of no logical reason for my surrendering to our difficult romance without a fight that didn't involve him at some point scrambling a few of my brain cells. Like it or not, I was bloody besotted and it was entirely his fault.

"Good afternooning, Miss White." I sat up automatically when Blaze strolled in, freshly showered and dressed in just a red chequered shirt still hanging open. He smelled strongly of men's shower gel, washed clean of the musky scent of our sex, but it still at least distracted me from the fact that he'd practically moved himself into my flat.

"Why do you do this?" I nodded down at the pillow I'd unwittingly kept clutched to me when I sat. "Why have you wrapped your t-shirt around this today?"

"I untangled myself from you earlier to go the bathroom. You were fine when I left but when I came back in a minute later, you were having a bad dream." He sat down next to my feet and took one of my hands in his, turning it palm up to trace circles on my skin.

"I had no idea."

"You calmed as soon as I sat next to you so I thought it was over. But you started to toss and turn again when I stood up, so I got my t-shirt from the lounge and made an alternative me. I didn't think you'd appreciate it if I was there when you woke up, but I couldn't just leave you like that. It was heartbreaking." His face fell and became morose and pained, like he was reliving watching me at the mercy of a nightmare. But then it brightened when he spoke again. "You immediately threw an arm over the pillow and nestled into it, calm and smiling. It was a joy to see, Emmeline." A joy to see me act so daftly or a joy to see me so comforted by his scent?

I simpered, embarrassed by my somnial admission. Surely it was the behaviour I couldn't control that betrayed me the most? "And this time?"

He smiled and stood, pulling me up to my feet. "I didn't want to take any chances. I kept checking on you to make sure I wasn't being big-headed. I wasn't. Now..."

Whatever he said, I didn't hear it. My mind was working on overdrive, clawing around for any shred of a clue at what I'd dreamt of that had made him want to comfort me beyond consciousness. That spread into a paranoia over what I'd done in my sleep, if I'd spoken or done anything untoward. What if I'd said something I shouldn't have?

I acted compliantly as he dressed me like a child. The clothes he'd picked out portrayed me as anything but. The black vest clung to my body, showing off just how slight I was, but the low cut V revealed something that I didn't usually care to show off— I was still somewhat 'blessed' around the bust. It was almost a point of embarrassment that my breasts look like someone else's stuck onto a waif, and the minute Chris had pointed out that I was unrealistically stacked and trim like a video game character was the moment I started to cover up. The flared, black satin skirt Blaze had picked to accompany it was equally as revealing. How had I not realised that he'd been dressing me up like a baby hooker when I was in the shop trying them on?

"You've expanded." Blaze spoke directly to my chest and leered, tugging at the V of the vest. "You've gained those few pounds I was lusting for. This wasn't so tight before."

Fat Emmy roused from her sleep in my subconscious and shook her head at me disapprovingly. You've been letting things slip. "What, really?" Now he mentioned it, my underwear had been feeling a little snug and the clothes he'd brought for me looked more like they would have on the airbrushed catalogue models who sold them.

"You look great for it," he assured me, forcing his eyes away from my cleavage to meet my distraught gaze. No woman wanted to be told she'd gained weight, some women didn't want to be placated with lies like, "you look so sexy". I was one of them. Blaze turned me around by the shoulders and groaned longingly behind me. "This skirt is so short..."

"Shouldn't I have showered before you dressed me?"

"No point. You're going to be filthy in minutes when the music starts and no man wants to stir another's broth."

It took moment to decipher his riddle. "You want me to go out smelling of you so I don't make it with any rockstars?" His usual cockiness faltered with the betraying twitch of his eyes. "You do! Does my green eyed monster have a green eyed monster of his own?" I felt a little guilty for calling him mine, but it didn't seem to be that particular point of the conversation that left him disgruntled.

"I certainly don't want to stand there watching anyone else putting the moves on you." He scrubbed a hand over his face and grabbed my brush from a shelf underneath a large oval mirror painted with brightly coloured filigree, a piece of art with my fingerprints all over it. Blaze sighed as he combed at the tangles in my hair, stroking the entire length down to my waist as it smoothed. "It's like I told your friend Chris, I have every intention of concreting this arrangement someday and I can accept that things won't be 'typical' in the meantime. But I'll be clear, Emmeline, one day I won't care for the complications. Mine are temporary and I can overlook yours."

"But you don't know what my complications are."

He shrugged. "I don't care. I'll take what I can get. God knows I had no idea that we'd be at this point when we met, but I don't know that it would have stopped me anyway. Ten days away from you put it into perspective and scribbled a few question marks into fullstops. I just need time, if you'll allow it."

I don't know if he needed my answer, but I was stuck too still to respond. As messed up as I was, he was looking for permission to stay and a license to become permanent fixture in my life. How could he say that he could just overlook my 'why's when he had no idea what they were? There would be times when I'd regress and fall apart, a ticking time-bomb waiting to explode, and I'd always be in love with another man. It wasn't fair to give him a green light when there was so much he didn't know, so much that might overshadow his delusion that I was a joy to look at and 'make love' to.

"You really don't know how messed up I am, Blaze." Flapping his hand uncaringly, he paced into the bathroom and returned with the case full of makeup I rarely used.

"I'm a strange man, Emmeline White. I prefer to look a person's problems as strands in a tapestry. Alone, they mean nothing, all the same dull colour and hue. Put a few strands of red in a white sea and you might say it looks wrong, blemished, unacceptable. I say it adds character and definition, all in the interest of improving the bigger picture. I could pick away and analyse, questioning why they're there, or I could appreciate that they are and enjoy the masterpiece that took a miracle worker twenty-two years to weave. Now look up." With a smile on his lips, Blaze held my chin up with his forefinger and kissed the tip of my nose. I loved the way he could ham up any sentiment with something poetic when 'I don't give a shit' would have done. There was no way in which he didn't seduce me and leave my inner Juliet drooling and damp around the gusset.

Holding a kohl pencil next to my eye did, however, concern me. "You're going to do my makeup? What, are you—"

"A model? Yes." He gave me a look that warned me off the words 'gay', 'cross-dresser' and 'post-op'. "I also spent a lot of puberty painting Warhammer armies. Look up." It was nigh on impossible to imagine Blaze as the nerdy type- huddled over collectors cards and hyperventilating over pictures of girls boobs. It was harder to imagine him ever not being attractive. Nobody just morphed into a stud when their balls dropped and I refused to believe that he'd been a special case.

He applied my makeup with care and a delicate touch I never would have expected from a man who could be so brusque and domineering. It was almost like having a very masculine big sister prettying me up for the prom I never attended. He sucked on the back of his teeth thoughtfully when he'd finished and stepped back to examine me.

"You'll do. Any more and we won't make it out. I already have balls like space hoppers from looking at that skirt."

I glanced down at the short band of satin and smirked. "You like?"

"I'd like it better if it was all you were wearing and your ankles were by my ears." His eyes misted with a heavy haze of arousal that made heat pool between my legs. That look, Jesus, I was addicted to it. "Keep looking at me like that, Emmeline," he warned, lips dipping to graze my earlobe, "and neither of us will leave this flat for days."

"Keep talking like that, Blaze," I countered, "and neither of us will leave for weeks." And a very small part of me thought it might just honour that threat, keeping him captive in my ivory tower whether it was complicated or not.