by Vivien Vale
Hell, earlier today I even walked across the stage at graduation. And I didn’t miss the look in my father’s eyes when Margot came over to kiss me on the cheek in congratulations.
I would have given it all up in an instant if it had meant the beautiful woman here in my arms would live.
“Oxygen!” I call out, lumbering towards an ambulance. Its flashing lights turn Margot’s pale face bright red and blue as we approach.
A medic places an oxygen mask over Margot’s mouth and nose as I drop to the pavement, still cradling her in my arms.
It’s then that an awful thought hits me: what if I was too late?
But before I can fall into a cycle of guilt that would have sent me spiraling out of control, Margot’s thick, dark lashes flutter and the corner of her lips twitch.
Her eyes open, looking for something to figure out where she was.
They meet mine and I fall in love with her all over again.
Happens every fucking time.
“Boone?” she rasps, knitting her brows together in confusion.
“Hey,” I say, flipping my helmet off, and cradling her cheek in my hand. “Hey, you. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
She moves against my glove, nuzzling my palm instinctively. It leaves streaks of soot against the perfect paleness of her cheekbone.
“What happened, Boone?”
“Nothing you need to worry about now.”
The medic offers me a blanket, and I wrap it around her as the night sky opens up to make way for soft rain. I position my body over hers, shielding her from the downpour until I’m soaked.
I think it’s then that I finally realize—no matter what happens or where our futures lead, Margot St. James will always be the woman for me.
Whether she’ll have me or not.
Even if it takes an entire lifetime…I can wait.
Margot
I’ve known it from the moment I first laid eyes on Boone Masters.
It was always going to be him.
You recover quicker than you think you will.
Sure, my lungs burned for a few days after Boone pulled me from my burning sorority house just moments before it collapsed entirely.
But I’m young—and I’m in college. Ultimately, it was on par with a nasty hangover, the kind you get when you go to a frat party and the boys all decide to light up cigars.
I drank some water.
I let the nurses in the hospital fuss over me for a few days.
I took a shower and washed the last of the soot and ash and smoke from my hair.
After that, the next order of business seemed pretty obvious.
Boone Masters saved my life that night. And with graduation over, I know he’ll be gone in a few days...maybe for good.
I might have grown up with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I wasn’t raised to be ungrateful.
Boone and I come from the same world. So, what do you get someone who has everything?
For his going-away present, Boone gave me my life.
There’s not much that I can give him to match that...but in my defense, at least my thank-you gift is one-of-a-kind.
When he answers the door, he’s in a pair of sweatpants. That’s it. Nothing else.
“Hey...Margot,” he says, blinking in surprise.
Overhead, the moon shines bright. Busy cars zip by on the street outside as our fellow students head home for the summer. The rain on the road reflects the cars’ headlights.
“Hey, Boone. Can I come in?”
“Ah...” He casts a glance over his shoulder to the interior of his apartment.
Most of his things are boxed up behind him. He’s ready to move out in the morning.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “I don’t mind.”
Boone shrugs and shifts his massive, broad shoulders aside so I can enter.
“It’s a mess,” he admits. “But if you don’t mind...”
I could care less—but I hope he hasn’t packed up his bed yet.
“I’m not bothering you, am I?” I ask, watching the way he moves.
It’s like he’s afraid to get too close to me—like he’s afraid of what he might do if that happens.
We do this silly little dance around each other, like planets trapped in each other’s orbits. Boone keeps his space a few paces away from me, no matter how hard I try to move closer.
“You’re not,” he reassures me. “It’s just...You know how it is, Margot. Your parents don’t want me anywhere near you—even less since—”
“Since you saved my life?”
I finally have him where I want him, with his back against the wall.
Nowhere to run now, Boone.
“Look, I don’t care what my parents want. You saved my life that night, Boone. I’m here because I want to say thank you.”
Boone’s eyes narrow as I take a step closer.
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” he admits. “It’s how you plan on doing it that worries me.”
I come up to him and raise my hand to his chest. Boone’s chest hair is incredible—thick, dark, and all over his gorgeous pecs. I stop half an inch from actually touching him, with his chest hair tickling my palm.
“Don’t you want it?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. “It’s a very heartfelt thank you.”
“Oh, I want it,” Boone says with a ragged laugh. “But wanting something and having it show up on your doorstep at midnight are two entirely different things. Especially wearing something like that.”
I look down at my white t-shirt with the university’s logo printed on it and my Daisy Dukes.
Okay, I can admit it—I look hot. But it’s not like I showed up in a trench coat and lingerie for crying out loud.
Although admittedly, that was Plan B.
As Boone pores over my body, taking in my curves beneath the clothes, I shrug and take the hem of my t-shirt in my hands.
“If you don’t like what I’m wearing...” I pull the shirt up over my head, revealing a lacy pink bra beneath. “I can take care of that.”
“Margot—”
“Boone,” I warn him. “Cut the crap. Don’t pretend that you haven’t been dreaming about this moment since the moment you first laid eyes on me.”
I grab his wrist and turn his palm over in my hand. His hands are huge and heavy—it takes both of mine just to hold one of his. I see the way his fingers twitch as I pull his hand closer to me—like he’s trying desperately not to act on something that he desperately wants to.
“I’m not pretending,” he growls.
I see something dark flash through his eyes as I tug his hand closer.
“Then do something about it.”
“Your parents...”
“My parents don’t like you because they don’t like your parents, Boone. It’s stupid. It’s pointless. It’s an ancient feud that has nothing to do with us...and it has cost us too much time already. I want this. You want this.”
I place his hand on my stomach. His palm is burning hot against my skin, like there’s a fire roaring within Boone that radiates red hot heat.
When his skin meets mine, a low, dark growl emanates from deep in Boone’s throat.
“You’re playing with fire, Margot.”
“Good thing I’m in the presence of the world’s greatest firefighter.”
“You shouldn’t make me touch you like this.”
“Yeah? What are you going to do about it?”
In an instant, Boone’s hand is removed from my stomach and pressing against the small of my back instead. He pulls me against him, hard and fast.
In such close proximity, I realize exactly how small I am compared to his massive physique.
He takes my jaw in his other hand, turning my face upward.
With a purr of hunger, he stoops to kiss me.
It’s a kiss that I never want to end.
“I leave tomorrow,” he warns me, pulling away from my lips like he’s giving up breathing. “Wall Street.”
“As far away from me as possible, huh?”
“Something like that. But tonight...”
Boone kisses me again, and there’s something even more intense in his touch. I move against his body, relishing his everything.
The hardness of his chest. The thickness of his hair. His lips, so hot and brutally tender.
His scent—like leather and smoke.
His cock, pressing demandingly against my belly in a way that makes me want to beg him to take me with him.
Given the opportunity...I could make this man my entire fucking world.
“We only have tonight, then,” Boone says with a sad little shake of his head. “Margot...you deserve more than just one night.”
“So do you,” I tell him.
When I look into his eyes, I see the pain there. He’s hurting—and I know he’s hurting for me.
“But if tonight is all we have...Boone, when it comes to you, I can’t live with a what if.”
As he picks me up and carries me to his bed the same way he carried me out of that burning building, I know we’re making the right choice.
One night together.
If that’s all we can have, then this is the way it has to be.
Boone
I take a moment to stand perfectly still and listen.
My ears don’t turn like those of a horse, a dog, or a deer, but they’re acutely aware of the noise around me.
It has taken me years to perfect this fucking skill—three and a half, to be precise.
But the practice has paid off.
Not only is my hearing so well defined that I can hear the deer I’m hunting eat grass about eight hundred meters away, but my sense of smell kicks in and tells me it’s a young one, maybe about two or three years old. The older deer tend to have a stronger smell. In all my time up here, I haven’t quite worked out why this is so.
My theory has to do with good old vanity.
Yep, sounds crazy I know, but animals are just as keen to look and smell good as us, humans. Okay, so there’s no make up, nor plastic surgery, nor expensive perfume, but I have seen animals do some crazy shit to come up looking their best.
Last fall, I watched a young bear roll in the dirt before jumping into the water. He repeated this process several times before drying off in the sun. Intrigued by this and seeing how great he looked afterwards, I tried using gravelly dirt to wash my own hair, but I wasn’t that impressed with it.
Anyway, as the animals get older, I think they spend less time on their grooming habits and, therefore, smell more.
With my mind reasonably calm, I open my eyes again and keep striding upwards. Deer tend to graze in the higher, more exposed parts of the mountain, as opposed to lower down, among the trees and lush green grass. A survival mechanism, from what I know of their habits.
Five strides on and I stop again.
Something else was there on the mountain, something other than my dinner. I frown and strain to make sense of the signals I’m picking up. But I can’t make sense of the noise, which seems more like the static a radio makes between two channels, and when in need of tuning.
A swarm of bees can make that kind of noise, too, but I can’t smell honey. The smell of honey and bees go hand in hand.
Slowly, I keep going. I’m exercising caution to make sure I don’t come across someone or something I don’t want to.
If, heaven forbid, people have strayed into my territory, I don’t want to fucking run into them. I left city life behind several years ago, and I’d rather not have it visit me.
I like my privacy. I don’t want nosy do-gooders snooping around. If what my senses are picking up are human, I’m out of here. I shake my head, as if to clear away an annoying insect.
However, the pitter patter of memories refuses to be stopped. Suddenly, my head is filled with pictures of burning buildings. I can hear people screaming, sirens wailing, and I smell smoke.
I stop.
My chest heaves.
It’s as if I’ve stepped back in time, and picked up where I left off.
Another fire alarm goes off, another daring rescue is staged. Some survive the ordeal, others don’t. Not all the fires could have been prevented, but then again, a lot of them could have.
Corruption combined with poor building practices left many people fighting for their lives. Of course, I could never prove any of it, but those of us who worked on the front line saving poor innocent souls, knew what the fuck was going on.
Money always changes hands to hide that sort of stuff. And if you do speak out, you start watching your back every step of the way.
It’s only when I start grinding my teeth that I realize my fists are clenched and my jaw is set.
Take a deep breath, I tell myself and practice some meditative breathing.
But it’s no use. Those unwanted pictures keep playing over and over in my head as if someone’s pressed the repeat button.
And then I see her.
Margot.
The woman of my dreams, the one I had to let go because of family.
I laugh. I may even have laughed out loud. A bird flies out of a tree and off into the distance.
What a joke.
We both come from money. We both come from terribly ambitious families. And our families can’t stand each other.
They both would do whatever it takes to make sure the other one doesn’t get ahead.
I can’t stand the fucking competitiveness. As far as I’m concerned, there’s enough in the world to go around for everyone.
I mean, fuck—how many fucking millions does my family need? How many does her family need? Margot and I were on the same page. We were just happy to be in each other’s company.
The night her life was threatened still haunts me in my dreams. I was lucky to save her from the burning building. The thanks she gave me will stay with me for the rest of my life.
It has to—since I won’t ever fucking see her again.
Remembering that I won’t see her again breaks my heart every time. I would give away the family fucking fortune just to see her face, her smile, her eyes, and her ass.
She’s got the best ass I’ve seen on any woman.
Stop.
My feet stop moving. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the light brown fur.
There’s my meal for the next few days. I slow my step and try to take deep breaths. If the animal were to spot me now, it would run far away and over the next mountain.
Timing is going to be everything. I need to fucking time this right.
To concentrate on my timing, I need to stop dreaming or drooling about Margot.
It’s in the past. Let it go.
But I can’t.
Her ghost haunts me all the time. It’s worse than if she died. I’ve got no corpse to mourn.
On the contrary, I’ve got nothing to mourn, other than the way our families are toward each other.
Okay, so there’s more to this than meets the eye. I mean she might not even like the idea of living out here with me if I ever saw her again and asked her. But then again, maybe she would.
When we were together at college, she was like my best friend.
Maybe I should write to her?
I should fucking stop thinking about her and focus on the deer. It still has its head down, foraging for food.
To get close, I need to be super quiet.
I glance around. The wind blows from the other direction.
It won’t pick up my scent until I’m nearly upon it.
By then, it’ll hopefully be too fucking late.
My knife is in a little pocket on my camouflage pants. Once I’m closer, I’ll be able to pull it out with one swift movement.
I plan to cut the animal’s throat. Give it a quick and painless death. I don’t like seeing animals suffer.
I can’t stand the hunters coming up to s
hoot for sport. In fact, those words—“shoot for sport”—should be outlawed. Shooting an innocent animal, an animal who can’t defend itself is brutal murder, not sport.
I shake my head again.
I was never going to get any dinner this way. Too much fucking navel gazing and philosophizing wasn’t good for anyone, and it was, especially, not good for me.
Gingerly, I inch forward. By now, I’m almost on all fours, blending in with my surroundings. From my estimate, the deer is about twenty steps away. It’s not close enough for me to lunge myself at it.
Ten more steps.
Dinner—sorry, I mean the deer—lifts its head. It’s sniffing the air, turning his head away from me to its left.
The ripple through his body tells me it heard something. I heard it, too.
It’s a low grumbling, the kind that thunder makes. My eyes scan the sky above us before moving to the horizon. Blue sky as far as the eye can see.
Of course, thunder isn’t the only thing that makes that noise. There’s something else, something far more dangerous.
Landslide.
I straighten up. The grumble increases. My right foot steps on a twig.
Snap.
Now the deer’s ears twitch, and I realize I’ve got less than two seconds before it’ll take off.
Just as I’m about to throw myself onto the animal, I see half the side of the mountain ahead of me come loose and crash downward.
At the same time, I hear a blood-curdling high-pitched scream.
It was a familiar scream. I’ve heard screams like that before.
Only people who fucking fear for their lives scream like that; it’s high-pitched and ear piercing.
The deer takes off, and so do I. Without thinking, I race toward the sound of the cry for help. All of my rescue instincts kick in, and suddenly, I’m on auto-pilot.
There are no thoughts of hiding from this person who’s obviously in danger.
Time to save someone’s life.
Margot
“If you stand by the rock, I’ll take a photo,” I call out to Amelia who, by now, is too far ahead of me. It makes my heart beat faster, and sweat pour down my back.
I watch my little girl turn, skid on the gravel path and hesitate. To emphasize my intention, I hold up my camera for her to see. Usually, she can’t resist the temptation of a photo.