by Komal Kant
“Ah, I forgot.” He leaned back, a darkness flashing in his eyes. “You journalists can sniff out a story from a mile away.”
“You really seem to look down on my job.” I reached for my glass and finished the rest of my drink, not liking the way Wade made me feel about my career.
Noticing my empty glass, Wade waved the bartender over and ordered us new drinks. Once the bartender left, Wade turned his attention back to my statement.
“Humans are inherently selfish, Blair. Selfish, jealous, greedy, you name it.” He leaned back against the padded booth, studying me. “Journalists are all those things magnified.”
Whoa. Ouch. Now I really needed that drink.
“Why do you think that?” I dared to ask, feeling the worst about my career in a long time. I knew how it all worked; the dirty politics that ran rampant behind the scenes, but I’d learned to keep my head down and focus on my job.
“Somewhere along the way, that world decided their path to success involved not giving a fuck about other people. Not to show weakness or sympathy or compassion.”
I blanched. Awful memories forced themselves back into my mind.
Crushed metal and plumes of smoke. But he wasn’t dead, he wasn’t dead.
It was unsettling how close to the truth Wade had hit. How close to my truth he had hit. All those years of trying to move on and be better, yet a random conversation in a random place with a random man had brought all the emotions rushing to the surface.
It was a dark place, my thoughts. The guilt of many years was always there, brimming just beneath the surface, and Wade was saying all the things that threw me back into that miserable past.
Years of hating myself over a selfish mistake. No amount of self-reflection cleansed me.
Thankfully, my vodka arrived just then, and at least for tonight, it would cleanse me of the guilt Wade had no idea he’d rekindled.
The willpower of three years of sobriety did nothing to quell the drinks I downed with Blair.
How could I when she’d seen right through me and figured it out? That I had a drinking problem. It was easy for her to say, not even realizing the underlying reason behind it.
There was no need for her to understand either. The beers that had turned me drunk were now my armor from Blair. My armor and my weakness.
We’d loosened up enough that we’d deserted our booth for the bar. Our stools were close together, our knees risking the rare graze as we flew through different topics at lightning speed.
Drew’s hermitage in Nepal. My job at the salvage yard. Her dad’s refusal to be at her grandmother’s funeral. Why Hunter was such a dick. Her mom’s weird behavior whenever her grandmother came up.
And in all this, Blair was making it hard to think straight.
That smile, so brilliant, it was spreading to my chest like a supernova. Those lips, intoxicated with liquor, were now intoxicating me. Her eyes were impossible to look away from—flashing from desert yellow to glade green.
For a moment, I thought I glimpsed the ocean in them, until I realized I was so close to her, my own eyes were reflecting back at me. Also, I was ridiculously drunk off my face. A few drinks later, a few hours later, and the woman who should repel me was doing anything but that. I couldn’t stay away and I didn’t want to. It was more than the physical though.
I’d quickly learned that when Blair wasn’t yelling at me, she could be witty and insightful. She had great stories about Chicago, especially one about a pink parasol that made her laugh almost light up the dull look in her eyes. Almost.
“Literally, Drew came back with a beard longer than my hair!” Blair was in the middle of a story about her brother’s return from Nepal, but all I could focus on was the way her lips moved. I wanted them to move against mine.
Lust stirred within me. My fingers were itching to touch her. Beneath her baggy sweatpants, I knew what an incredible body she had. It had imprinted with mine in the mud, where we’d wrestled with more than just our words. I was so turned on by her smile and her voice that I couldn’t think straight.
“Hmm,” I said, so she knew I was paying attention. Kinda.
Blair laughed at that, her eyes dropping to my mouth.
Oh, man. Goochee was trouble. Trouble for me. Trouble for the solitary life I had built.
Our knees touched again, my heart leapt, and I knew I was flirting with disaster.
Something. Anything. I needed a distraction. I needed to hate her again. We would both be safer that way.
“What’s your darkest secret?” I asked recklessly, leaning away from the honey scent that drifted from her hair.
I didn’t care if I came across too forward. I needed a reminder of the worst parts of Blair Fonseka. The worst thing she could say was “nothing”. Her lack of remorse would be my cold shower.
Blair stared at me in surprise, the lines of her forehead wrinkling in thought. Her lips twitched, and it hit me that the answer was already on her tongue. The expression on her face contorted as she struggled with her thoughts.
“I’m not telling you that,” she finally said, the happy buzz fading from her face as she pulled her knee away from mine.
Relief sank into me. She’d said exactly what I needed to hear. If she’d confessed, I would’ve fallen apart. Her answer created distance between us.
“Oh, so you don’t have one?” I asked, letting out a slow breath.
“I’m pretty sure everyone does,” she returned, eyes flashing. “If you want to know so bad, why don’t you share yours?”
That was so easy, so simple, because it was staring me right in the face.
“I fall in love with the wrong people,” I said without hesitation, and with it came a memory as clear as the day it had happened.
***
The glass came crashing down. Blood red wine stained the ivory, Persian rug. My head was ringing as though a cacophony of cymbals were clashing in my ear.
In the vast dimness of the room, my phone flashed on the glass coffee table that she had painstakingly taken months to choose from a Swedish catalogue.
Flash. Flash. A warning.
But I already knew.
And she—she was at the center of it all. Tall, trembling, terror. The tight, slender body she killed herself for, the body I used to call my own, whose every crevice and curve had bonded with my flesh, was now foreign to me.
She was the storm before the cyclone—and she was screaming. Or was that me?
Were those her tears splashing on the floor, or were they mine?
It didn’t matter. Feelings didn’t matter. She didn’t matter.
All there was remaining was a swirling mass of black, the eye of the storm, and I was in the heart of it.
Waiting to crumble.
***
“That’s it?” Blair asked, sounding disappointed as she broke me out of my thoughts. “You date the wrong people?”
“That’s it?” I scoffed, shaking my head at her. “You have no idea. It’s more than that. It’s about putting your heart and your soul into a relationship and not realizing that the other person is incapable of reciprocating. Every dollar, every tear, every breath. In the end, it all means nothing.”
Blair gaped at me, her face wrought with melancholy. “I’m sorry.”
I shrugged in response, my body still anchored to that day from all those years ago. I was a man frozen in a memory that prevented me from moving forward.
Maybe it was because Blair felt bad for me, or maybe my words had triggered something in her, but finally, five words tumbled out of her mouth. “I broke up a marriage.”
Five simple words. A world of heartache.
A heart-wrenching feeling overwhelmed me. Upheaving mountains and sinking oceans. It was hard to think straight when images were assaulting my mind. I could relate to Blair’s words on every level, just in a different way.
The fact that she could admit to something like that was monumental.
“You slept with him?” I asked, tryi
ng to appear normal.
“No.” Her face paled to the color of chalk, her voice nothing more than a whisper. “It was something else. Something worse.”
“Worse?” I prompted, dying to hear the words fall from her mouth.
“Yes, worse.” There was a look in Blair’s eyes, like she was far away, lost in the darkness of her memories. “After that, I struggled to connect with people, to form relationships, to even get intimate with a man. I was so weighed down with guilt.”
My chest heaved as I stared at her, seeing her in a different light. Remorse was on her face. It was a shade I hadn’t expected to see on her.
It made me want her even more. My plan had failed.
“Your smile is almost as dark as my soul,” I muttered, realization hitting me.
This woman was more than the prissy exterior she put on. There was something dark lurking in her life, just like mine.
Blair’s eyes shot to me as though I had said something that resonated with her. “You know, I don’t do this very often.”
“What?” My voice was soft as I leaned into her. An emptiness canvassed itself against my soul. I wanted to touch her, to feel human contact.
It wasn’t just the alcohol that had undone me. It was Blair. It was her words.
“Open myself up to someone.”
Fuck, I wanted to open her up even more. I wanted to do things to her that I hadn’t want to do to another woman in years.
Before I could respond to her admission, the bartender announced that it was last call. Shit.
“Now what?” Blair asked, her heart pounding in her rainbow eyes.
“Maybe,” I began, reaching for her thigh, “we can get to know each other more.”
It felt sleazy voicing “back in the motel room”, so I didn’t, but from the way Blair’s mouth parted, I could tell she caught my meaning.
I wanted her, the only woman I’d wanted in years. The last woman I expected to ever connect with was already connected to me in ways she didn’t know.
But for tonight, I didn’t want her to know. Tonight, I wanted both of us to forget.
WADE’S THICK FINGERS TEASED THE strap of my bra beneath my tank top.
Rip it off, rip it off.
My skin tingled where he touched my shoulders, his hands rough and firm, and I wanted nothing more than for him to take me right now, except, well, we’d probably get arrested for it.
Our stumbling steps were taking us closer and closer to our motel. Well, when we weren’t distracting each other with all the touching.
We were both too drunk to drive back to the motel, but the bar had been closer to it than I’d realized, so we’d opted to walk the ten minutes instead of risking it.
The last thing we needed was to wreck Wade’s truck, too.
Especially when we were stuck in a town only second in hellishness to Pine Bluffs.
Those fingers continued to trace circles on my shoulders, and I looked up to find Wade gazing down at me with lust swimming in his ocean eyes. A feeling lurched inside me, like my desire was trapped in my chest and was desperately trying to reach him.
“Only you could pull off this outfit, Goochee,” Wade said, his voice low as he looked me up and down.
“Don’t go ruining these, too,” I warned him, in what I thought was a seductive voice.
“Oh, they’ll be coming off tonight, that’s for damn sure,” he said, his voice causing shivers to run through me.
We couldn’t get back soon enough. Every part of me craved him, wanting to know more, feel more.
My own fingers were hooked around one of the belt loops of his jeans, close to his groin. So, close. I imagined brushing my fingers against it, but the alcohol hadn’t made me bold enough to take the plunge. Not yet, at least.
Thankfully, the motel’s 1950’s sign loomed up ahead, and the anticipation of what was to come was thudding in my chest.
Three years. It had been three years. Now, I was ready to be taken. Or whatever it was called. The stuffy, uptight Blair was giving in to the Blair who wanted to move on from mistakes made and give in to her needs.
I had finally revealed a piece of my past to Wade, and it had triggered a feeling of liberation inside of me that I hadn’t experienced in years. It had never occurred to me that I would find myself in the most unexpected place.
Wade dropped his fingers from my shoulder—disappointment hitting me—and weaved them with my own. It was a sweet gesture, but also allowed him to guide me confidently past the leering creep at the front desk.
The door to the room was upon us, and we were inside before I could even comprehend it. Wade’s fingers slipped from mine as he strode across the room and kicked off his shoes.
When he turned and his brooding, lustful, blue gaze pinned me from beneath the blanket of his thick lashes, I could almost forget my own name.
The murky yellow light of the room wasn’t enough to dull him, silent and unmoving, expression inscrutable. I leaned against the bolted door, holding my breath, unable to take my eyes off him.
The desire to touch him was building, but I waited for him to make the first move. We’d flirted and touched at the bar, but I was still a little rusty. Maybe the vodka rushing through me would aid me with the sexual encounter I was about to have with Bearded Jer-Wade, I meant Wade. It was beyond weird referring to the guy I wanted to do sex things with as Bearded Jerk.
That was when Wade stirred. In one fluid motion, he stepped forward and was in front of me within seconds, a hand resting behind me on the door. His masculine smell mixed in with wood and pine was intoxicating. Butterflies took flight in my stomach as I watched him.
What now? Would he grab ahold of me and kiss me like there was no tomorrow?
I mentally tried to shake my desire for this man, but I couldn’t. My life had been intentionally man-free for the last three years and I’d been perfectly content. Except, now I was rethinking it all. I wanted Wade like I had never wanted any man before.
Wade was close enough that I could see the burning look in his eyes. Or was that just the light? The heat emanating from his body was wrapping itself around mine, making my skin swelter. The energy between us was undeniable, a pull neither of us could resist.
Touch me, touch me, please.
Wade sucked in a deep breath. “You’re beautiful, you know?” he whispered, causing my heart to thud. “So fucking beautiful. I thought that the second you spilled your coffee on me.” His beard brushed my cheek, and I almost fell apart right then, imagining his beard grazing other parts of my body.
“Hey,” I said with indignation, managing to find my voice, “I didn’t-”
“Shh, Goochee.” Wade’s eyes gleamed as he grasped my arms and pushed me against the door. He smelled of beer and a distinct, masculine scent that made me swoon. He watched my face carefully with serious eyes. “Just, shh.”
Finally, as the anticipation in my chest heightened, his warm mouth met mine in an eruption of sparks.
No more words were needed. My impatient lips pressed against his. Wade’s mouth was hungry, his teeth catching my bottom lip as he ran his hand along the side of my body.
With a moan, I returned his eagerness, pushing my hands through his thick hair and wrapping a leg around his hip so that his hard-on was pushing into me.
We were playing a dangerous game that was verging on the edge of something we couldn’t take back. My mind was unsure, but my body was beyond reason.
“Your clothes are in the way,” he murmured against my tongue, grasping me by the small of my back.
“Then take them off,” I said breathily, struggling to control the flutters in my stomach.
We grappled our way to the bed, neither of us daring to break the physical contact we had both desired for so long. Longer than either of us would admit.
Wade’s kisses grew more urgent, more desperate, and his fingers started trailing to the edge of my tank top, pushing it higher and higher. We broke apart just long enough for him to wrench my
tank top and sweatpants off my body, so I was left bare and naked.
Wade’s eyes drank me in as he took in my body. An electric energy buzzed in the air around us. Eagerness swept through me. I hadn’t been touched, wanted, needed like this in years. And to be touched by a man so devastatingly sexy was only making me more eager.
My impatient fingers were swiftly undoing the buttons of his shirt, waiting to be rewarded with what I knew I would find underneath. I wasn’t disappointed.
All his clothes were off. I ran my hands over the washboard abs, so perfect, they had to be painstakingly crafted. His strong arms lifted me up and slid me onto the bed, his skin like fire against mine.
My mind was buzzing, yet so clear. We hated each other, but we wanted each other, too. The back and forth bickering had swelled into an attraction that couldn’t be rivaled.
I needed this man like I had never needed a man before.
There was something else in Wade’s gaze as he hovered over me; something that seemed familiar. It took me a second to catch it, to be sure of what it was. It was a feeling that echoed my own.
He was even more dead than I was.
Maybe he sensed it too, because in a split second—as though my dead soul had called out to his—he reached out in a flash, his coarse fingers grazing my soft skin. It was a touch that pierced my flesh and traveled to my core.
“Why don’t we trade?” he asked, capturing me in a single look. “My dark soul for your dark smile?”
The same words he had said to me back in the bar—the same words that seemed to define me like nothing else ever had before. My dark smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes fit perfectly with his dark soul.
It was the meaning I’d always searched for, and I had found it here in the most unexpected circumstance with the most unexpected man.
My greedy hands took in every part of Wade’s firm, muscular body as he trailed kisses down my neck and to my breasts. When he pulled a nipple into his mouth and pushed my legs apart, it took everything for me not to crumble right then and there.
When he began stroking me with surprisingly gentle fingers, a sensation of light and fire ignited inside me. I moaned, grasping onto his huge arms as they tensed and flexed above me, working furiously, deep concentration on his face.