The light streamed through the gaps in the blinds, and the temperature in the room climbed. Jake hadn’t needed a sheet with Maddox’s hot-as-a-furnace body. Where their bodies pressed, their skin grew clammy from the building humidity. Jake breathed subtly through his nose, taking Maddox's scent deep inside him. It had been absent the day before, the storm had washed it from Maddox’s body at the beach, and in the bed all Jake could smell was his own bodily fluids. But as the day ticked by with him dozing, Maddox's manly smell flipped his stomach, becoming more intoxicating as the sun rose over the villa. Jake breathed in deep, unable to satisfy himself and grew drunk on it.
“You’re not getting ill, are you?”
Jake stilled at Maddox’s voice. It rumbled through his body and was felt more than heard.
“No, I’m fine,” Jake mumbled.
“Then why are you sniffing like that?”
Jake shuffled his head against the pillow. “I’m not.”
Maddox moved his hand up and cupped Jake’s forehead. It flamed from embarrassed heat, and Maddox laughed gruffly.
Jake slapped the hand from his head and swung his legs to the floor. He got to his feet, swayed a little and walked as casually as he could to get some clothes. It wasn’t easy with the eyes of the hunter on him, trailing his moves. When he turned, Maddox was no longer laying sleepily in the bed, but had slipped along the mattress and casually perched on the edge.
Jake swallowed awkwardly and rustled his bag of clothing. Beside his balled-up belongings, he noticed Maddox’s folded shirts and suit trousers and widened his eyes. He whipped his head back to Maddox and startled forward, knocking his knee. Maddox had moved from the bed and stood only a few feet away. He raised his hand to the ceiling and stretched with a growl. Jake swallowed at the sight of his muscular chest and turned away.
“You’re staying here a while?” he said, flicking his chin out at the evidence.
“Fancied a change of scenery,” Maddox replied, narrowing his green eyes to pin Jake where he stood.
The shirts, the suit trousers. It didn’t seem like a holiday, but a business trip. “You’re having meetings here?”
Maddox mouthed “meetings” and cocked his head. Jake flapped his hand at the ordered drawer of smart clothing.
“I always wear that.” Maddox said.
“Even at the beach?” Jake blurted.
“I have a few short-sleeved ones, and if that doesn’t please you, I won’t wear anything.”
Maddox stepped closer, and Jake resisted the urge to back away. He dropped his head, and forcefully swallowed. “That might be distracting.”
Maddox snorted softly, then reached into the drawer and grabbed a shirt. Jake couldn’t look him in the eye but did drag his eyes up high enough to see Maddox had indeed slipped on a short-sleeved shirt. He didn’t button it and pulled out a neatly folded pair of trousers to climb into. No boxers and no socks, just his loose shirt and his trousers that bulged at the crotch.
“I’ll make us lunch,” he said, then turned and strolled from the room.
Only when the door shut softly behind him could Jake breathe again. He shook his head and rubbed aggressively at his hiccupping heart.
Jake pulled free a pair of wrinkled jeans that had taken on the smell of the plastic bag. It wasn’t smart, but it was slightly more high-brow than his worn joggers. He slipped on a white t-shirt that cupped his chest and walked as naturally as he could into the living room.
Maddox raised an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth lifted with a coy smile. “How does pea and broad bean salad sound?”
Bloody awful, but Jake fixed his face into an expression of gratefulness. “Sounds good, sounds…green.”
Maddox snorted, and his eyes crinkled with amusement. “I’m doing pancakes.”
Jake closed his eyes and pressed his hands together in prayer. “Thank god.”
Maddox turned back to the stove and ignited the top. The flame lapped the bottom of the frying pan, and Jake stumbled back, hitting the table behind. He avoided lighting the stove, and his stomach had suffered for it. Jake had left the room when Tom cooked and eaten the left-overs in the pan once Tom had gone to bed.
The sight of the flames made Jake squirm, and an odd sense of nervousness took over him.
Maddox adjusted the dials, and the flame turned blue beneath the pan.
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Jake asked, before glancing at each corner of the villa. “All this wood…”
“It’s been treated. The fire isn’t dangerous, only the idiot who doesn’t know how to use it.”
Jake lowered himself to the bench, then stroked the polished table. Maddox’s phone lay on top, screen blank from no recent messages.
“Who died?”
He didn’t need to clarify, Maddox knew exactly what he was talking about. He cut the flame on the stove, huffed, then turned to face Jake.
“Do you really want to know?”
“I don’t want to, but I need to.”
Maddox sighed, and crossed his arms. “Derek had family staying…and the young couple Zach and Taylor.”
Jake nodded solemnly at the table, before whispering, “Shit.”
“Shit.” Maddox repeated. “They were asleep when it happened—”
Jake raised his hand and Maddox’s voice stopped abruptly.
“Asleep when it happened, but not for long. I remember the screaming.”
Jake shut his eyes, but there was no relief on the other side, only the flickering orange of his inner eyelids. A hand tightened on Jake's shoulder, and he glanced up at Maddox, no longer by the stove, but leaning over him.
“There was no screaming Jake. They would’ve died from the smoke, before the flames reached them.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“No. I don’t. But it’ll be easier to think about it that way.”
Jake grimaced. “There’s nothing easy about it.”
“I told you being with me would be dangerous. There will always be…casualties.”
“But they didn’t deserve that. I know what I agreed to, but they had no idea.”
Maddox squeezed his shoulder, then let go and walked backwards to the stove. Jake turned away, but still winced at the gas taking the flame, a warping sound that made his gut clench.
The smell of pancakes filled the villa with a soothing sweetness. Jake’s stomach rumbled in approval, but his mind was elsewhere.
When Maddox placed the plate down on the table, Jake offered him a weak smile. In the war between stomach and brain, his brain won, and he shook his head.
“Thanks, but I’m not hungry…”
Instead of moving to sit the other side of the table, Maddox nudged with his leg for Jake to move along. He sat down with his thigh pressed to Jake’s, and he flung his arm over Jake’s shoulders.
“Stop thinking about it,” Maddox mumbled, cutting into the pancake with the side of a fork.
He speared the piece of sticky pancake, tapped it on the edge of the plate, then raised it to Jake’s lips. The hand around Jake’s shoulder tightened, tugging him closer, and he opened his mouth obediently. He welcomed the sugary taste of pancakes and sweet peach with an involuntary groan. His mouth filled with saliva, and his tongue tingled at the tang of peach. All he had eaten for days had been bland cereal and whatever vegetable dish Tom had made, and his stomach whined for more pancake after the first bite.
Maddox loosened his grip of Jake’s shoulder, and moved his hand to the back of Jake’s neck, stroking his thumb up the nape to the hairline before dragging it down again. It was a soothing gesture, and Jake relaxed into Maddox’s side and opened his mouth for another bite of pancake.
Maddox went back and forth between them until only a few scraps of pancake remained. He placed the fork on the table, then plucked the last segment of peach from the plate with his fingers and held it to Jake’s lips. Jake moved to take it, but Maddox denied him, smearing it on his top lip, then the bottom before finally feeding i
t to Jake’s awaiting tongue.
Jake breathed heavily through his nose and rubbed the peach with his tongue, pressing it up until it moulded the roof of his mouth. Maddox watched with darkened eyes, waited for Jake to swallow, then leaned forward to connect their lips. Jake desired Maddox’s taste more than the sweetness of pancakes. He groaned into the kiss, straddled Maddox’s lap, and melted to his front. Suddenly nothing mattered but the mouth teasing his, and the hands in his hair, tugging gently. He didn’t want the taste of peach anymore, but the addicting flavour of Maddox. It was hidden under the sugariness of their breakfast, but after a few minutes, Jake could taste it clearer, and wanted to drink it in like a thirsty dog.
Maddox’s phone buzzed, and he pulled away with a growl. He stared accusingly at the device vibrating on the table, then snatched it up and pressed it to his ear. The moment of heat had ended between them at Maddox’s say so, always at Maddox’s say so, and Jake sagged forward and pressed his forehead to Maddox’s collar bone.
“Yes?” Maddox snapped.
The voice on the other side was not Tom's grumble, but Amber’s fierce tones. She spoke the same way Carl said she ate, snappy and savage.
“Understood. Send me it through.” Maddox said, then stabbed his thumb to the phone to end the call.
Maddox eased Jake off his lap, and back on the bench beside him. There were no hands in his hair, or hand keeping him close by holding his shoulder. Maddox separated himself by a few inches and scrolled through the messages Jake assumed Amber was sending.
Jake’s stomach plummeted, and his head cleared of the hypnotic power Maddox had over him. Despite their fight in the sea, and the words Maddox had spoken, he continued to distance himself from Jake.
Maddox stared intently at his phone, and Jake resisted the urge to angle his head to peek.
“Will you ever tell me what’s going on?”
Maddox glanced to him, then back to the phone before sighing. “Amber’s sent me a picture of the guy that torched my house.”
Jake reached for the phone, tentatively, and after a tense few seconds, Maddox handed it over. Jake frowned at the young man on screen, smiling brightly, highlights in his brown hair, and a piercing through his eyebrow. He didn’t look like a man who would run around with a gas can and set people’s houses alight. No memories sparked, and Jake looked to Maddox to explain the nobody on the screen.
“He’s dead.”
Jake nodded slowly. It wasn’t unexpected, but blunt when staring at a picture of a man grinning, with light in their eyes. Jake held the phone for Maddox to take.
“He deserves it,” Jake whispered.
He could feel Maddox’s eyes on him, studying his reaction. He took the phone and slid it along the tabletop.
“Not by my doing.” Maddox added. “Police found him. Suicide, or made to look like it…”
“Made to look like?”
Maddox shrugged. “It’s a gut feeling I have.”
“He failed in killing us, and they killed him for it,” Jake whispered.
Maddox scratched at his beard, filling the silence with a static hiss of facial hair. “There is no us—”
Jake tried to hide his flinch, but Maddox noticed and quickly lifted Jake’s chin, wiping the pad of his thumb against his cheek. Jake didn’t want to look at him, afraid of what he would see, but the intensity of Maddox’s focus stole him, and he stared into his all-consuming green eyes, praying the possessiveness in them was real.
“To them,” Maddox said slowly, “to the people that did this, there is no us. This wasn’t about you; the fire was started to piss me off.”
Jake frowned and shook his head. “But who? Who wants revenge on you that much that they’d kill innocent people?”
Maddox cocked his jaw, and a fierce frown creased his face. “I don’t know, but I think they’re the same person who persuaded Richie to try to steal the diamond, and the same one who got Ian to betray me and help with the theft. There is someone out to get me, but I don’t think Richie ever told them about you.”
Jake swallowed uncomfortably, and fiddled with the buttons on his jeans. “What makes you say that?”
“No one followed you here. Tom’s vigilant; he would’ve noticed if someone was paying you more attention than necessary. It was the first thing I thought when I saw the house. Someone was trying to piss me off again by targeting you, or who they thought was you.”
Jake frowned and shook his head. “Who they thought was me?”
Maddox sighed long and slow through his nose. “I tried to think what Richie might have said about you just in case. He would’ve said the Mad Dog was seeing a young guy in his twenties, working in a stationary shop. Carl isn’t only looking out for you, but he’s there to be you if things get serious.”
“You’d let someone believe he is me? You’d let him die.”
“To keep you safe. Yes. Carl fits what Richie knew about you. He was seen going in and out the house that night, and other nights where his identity wasn’t hidden. I kept him close after the fire on purpose. If they were really targeting the man I was seeing, that would’ve given them enough false information to act but they haven’t. No one has come after Carl.”
Jake retreated down the bench, shaking his head. “I’m not all right with you using Carl like that.”
“It doesn’t matter what you’re all right with. That’s the way it is. Carl understands, and I wouldn’t leave him to die, it’s just he’s more disposable than you. You want to know more about how my mind works, but when I tell you, you don’t like it.”
Maddox stood abruptly and paced to the far end of the villa. His jacket was tossed casually a chair. He retrieved his lighter, then delved in the front pocket for his pack of cigarettes.
Jake had only ever seen him toying with cigars and flicked his chin out at the pack.
“What’s with them?”
Maddox tapped the box on the back of his hand. “I was in a rush to get here and forgot to bring my own. Have to make do.”
He flicked the zippo and Jake’s breath hitched as his eyes targeted the flickering orange. Maddox didn’t light the cigarette, he snapped the lighter shut, then reopened it again. As if enchanted by the flame, Jake could only stare with unease when it appeared, and sigh in relief when it went.
Maddox removed the cigarette from his mouth and dropped it on the floor. His brow stacked with lines as he shook his head.
“That will not do,” he mumbled.
Jake rocked back on his heels. “What won’t?”
“The man that was challenging a storm, half drowned, is afraid of a bit of fire.”
“It’s dangerous.”
Maddox widened his eyes, and his lips tugged up into a twisted smile. “And splashing around in the unruly sea like some crazy wasn’t? You said you couldn’t swim.”
“I can’t, but I wasn’t deep enough to drown.”
“And what if it swept you out? What would you have done then?”
Jake turned away instead of answering.
“Exactly, and now you fear a small controlled fire? You shouldn’t fear the fire Jake, only the idiot who starts it and doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
Maddox strolled across the room with the zippo held out in front of him. He struck it, and Jake’s eyes snapped from Maddox’s intense irises to the dancing orange.
“No, Jake, keep your eyes on the man, not the fire. It’s the man who can do horrible things when he starts it, when he doesn't respect what it can do. But fire can bring great pleasure too, and I’ll prove it to you.” The zippo snapped shut, and Maddox placed it on the table. “When we’re home, and this mystery person has been found and dealt with, I’ll show you how good it can feel and clear the remaining fear from your mind.”
Jake shuffled, and swallowed awkwardly. “I’m not sure—”
“Do you trust me? Do you trust me more than you fear the fire?”
Maddox stared unblinking. They were meters apart but somehow it felt like Ma
ddox loomed menacingly over him.
“Yes, I trust you,” Jake whispered.
“Good, now come on, we need to shower after last night.”
Maddox walked past, flicking a look over his shoulder to check Jake was following behind him.
Chapter 10
The front row of trees had taken a battering. Palm fronds littered the sand, and a few trunks had been stripped altogether. It was the only evidence of the storm the day before. The ocean lapped gently, reflecting the golden rays of the sun and the sand was no longer wind-swept, but back to its photogenic evenness.
Jake paddled in the shallows, and Maddox watched from the sand. Still wearing his open shirt, but instead of his suit trousers he wore a tight pair of boxer shorts. He had added to the lustful visual by slotting a pair of aviator shades over his eyes. He lounged on the beach like he was some hot-shot movie star, but given what Jake knew, he imagined Maddox would be the Bond villain rather than Bond himself.
Maddox wagged the bottle of sun cream he'd clutched in his hand since they left the villa. Jake nodded, and returned to his side before dropping into the soft sand and wriggling to get comfortable.
Jake tugged off his t-shirt and flung it down. Maddox turned to Jake, and he could tell by the slight dent at the top of his nose he wasn’t happy. Jake quickly grabbed at his discarded piece of clothing, then neatly folded it, and placed it down.
“Better?” Jake asked, raising an eyebrow.
Maddox cocked his head. “It was, until you opened your mouth.”
Jake stretched his lips into a huge smile and lay down on the sand. “So, you gunna put sun cream on me or what?”
He gasped at the pinched of his nipple, then pouted as he rubbed the sore bud. Maddox tapped Jake’s forehead and he relaxed the frown and sunk down onto the warm sand. He listened to the squirt of the bottle, then waited patiently for Maddox’s hands to knead his body like some possessive cat.
Fire and Sand Page 7