by Kira Blakely
Chapter 3
He had found a clearing at the back of the crowd. “Sit down.” His voice was strangely authoritative as he tugged me by the arm. His fingers still gripped my arm as he pushed me down.
I slid down, my back against a wall, as his hands guided my shoulders. My face slid against his body, faintly grazing the bulge in his pants as my bottom bumped against the ground. Ding Ding Ding!
“Uh, thank you,” I said awkwardly, but he seemed to ignore me.
“You need to sit and keep still,” he said from above me. I looked up. His head shielded the hot, San Francisco sun’s glare and a halo-like effect encircled his face. His eyes were narrowed and focused on my injury. His brows were crinkled. I felt like a child looking up at an adult.
“I need to get back up and protest my cause,” I told him weakly.
The man shook his head, and for the first time, I saw him smile. That beautiful mouth tilted and the smile even reached his piercing blue eyes. His teeth were bright white and very straight. Again, perfection.
“You can protest again when we’ve fixed you up,” he said, and then bent down in front of me so that our faces were now aligned.
Even through my bleeding nose, I could smell him. He smelled of expensive cologne, musk, oak, chocolate, and everything else that was nice on this planet. I tried to keep myself from smiling.
“Your face is covered in glitter,” he said, his smile widening.
“It’s from my poster. It tore when I got hit.” I don’t know why I was explaining this to him. He was studying my face closely, tracing the deposits of glitter on my nose and chin.
“A protest sign made in glitter? Someone should have told you this isn’t the ‘70s anymore,” he said, resting one of his hands on a bended knee and regarding me with interest. His ‘70s comment was about more than just the glitter on my sign. I knew he’d taken in the conch shell earrings, the beads around my neck, and my unruly auburn hair, which I didn’t blow dry ever as a matter of principle.
“Someone should have told you to not manhandle women,” I snapped, my eyes narrowing. I wasn’t about to blush and giggle and demonstrate how long I had been admiring his physique. He didn’t need to know that.
“Besides the glitter, your face is also caked in the blood dripping down your nose. I had to do something. You’re welcome,” he said, keeping his back straight and his eyes keenly focused on me. The smile still lingered on his face, which was now beginning to annoy me a little. We were in the middle of a war, and he was congratulating himself for pulling me out of it. The nerve!
“You’re clearly not an experienced protestor, then,” I said proudly, thrusting my chin up at him.
His smile grew. “Don’t judge me for doing a good deed,” he said, and I was suddenly aware of the polished timbre in his voice. He had certainly grown up in a household where they all spoke in hushed tones and sat together in neatly-pressed dress clothes at the dinner table. He was right; I was judging him.
“I don’t have time to have a chat. Find someone else to pat your back,” I said, trying to stand back up again. He pushed me back down, his hands on my shoulders – another electric shock down my spine. Why did this man have this effect on me? I was like putty in his hands.
“Let me have a look at you,” he said softly, and before I could stop it, he wound himself around me to have a closer look at the back of my head. Our bodies were crouched on the ground and barely an inch apart. I could feel his breath on my hair, and some of my curls blew around my face as a result. For a few moments, everything came to a standstill around me as he tenderly examined the back of my skull.
“It’s only a superficial wound. Just needs some antiseptic and you’ll be fine,” he said, bringing his face back level with mine. I could breathe.
“Yes, I know,” I snapped at him, trying my hardest to hide the discomfort I felt by our proximity.
“Now, your nose. Let me see,” he said, and he wasn’t asking. With his forefinger, he tipped my head up. His eyes that were both gray and blue at once were trained up my nose as he held me like that for several moments. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t have stopped him because my limbs had all lost their locomotive capabilities. I was jelly in his hands again.
“We need to stem the flow,” he said, in a serious voice. He let my face go.
“Stem the flow? No, we don’t. I’ll do it later,” I said briskly, but I didn’t dare stand up again, because I didn’t want to feel the jerking reaction of having his hands on me.
“You’re wobbly on your feet,” he said with that same smile. It was almost like he was enjoying watching me incapacitated like this.
“Stop calling me that. My name is Lily Fitz. You may call me Lily,” I said, jumbling up my words a little out of nervousness. But I wanted to continue to create the impression that I wasn’t really enjoying his company or appreciating being held back from my task.
“All right, Lily. My name is Casper,” he said with a laugh in his voice. Why did he find everything funny? What was so funny about my name? “Now what do we have to stem the flow?” he added, and I watched as he rummaged around in his pockets.
I lifted an eyebrow, mocking him as he searched for something to put in my nose. He clearly hadn’t come prepared, which in some small way seemed to be a point of victory for me, even though I was the one sitting on the ground bleeding through my nose.
“What do you have in your bag?” he asked. Without asking for permission, he reached for the cross-body cloth bag hanging on the side of my hip.
“What are you doing?” I squealed when he popped open the button holding it together.
“Looking for something that might help stop the bleeding,” he said in a thoughtful voice. I couldn’t do anything but slap his hands, but it was too late. He extracted two tampons out of my bag and waved them in the air in front of my face.
“These should get the job done, don’t you think, Lily?” He said my name like he wasn’t sure how to pronounce it, and yet he had that sparkling look in his eyes. My cheeks burned, and I gulped.
“You want me to walk around with two tampons sticking out from my nose?” I asked, after staring at him for a few moments.
Casper said nothing, only nodded, and then shrugged his shoulders. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, he had a point.
“Fine, whatever. If you’ll let me go now,” I said, and grabbed the tampons out of his hands.
Casper watched me with his lips turned to an almost-smile. His unbelievably perfect bronze skin glistened in the sun, his golden hair catching the light as well while I sat in front of him, ripping open the packaging of the two tampons in my hands.
He didn’t know, but usually I was a fully functioning, straight-thinking adult. But for some reason, I inserted the two tampons up my nose without another question. The strings dangled from my nostrils as I stared at him, my face frozen. I wanted to kill him.
“I wish I knew some of your friends so I could tell them about this,” he said, suddenly grabbing his belly with both his hands as he burst out laughing. I watched as he threw his head back and laughed loudly, how his shoulders shook, how his neck stretched, the shape of his large, sturdy fingers.
“Something tells me that you and my friends would never get along,” I said when he was catching his breath from all that laughter. The tampons were still stuck up my nostrils. I knew I looked stupid. I knew I was nowhere close to being as presentable as I should have been in the company of a man who looked like him, but I was already down the rabbit hole, and there was no point trying to deny it.
“You’re judging me again, Lily,” he said, clearing his throat.
I raised an eyebrow and looked at him just as keenly as he was looking at me. “Why shouldn’t I? You appeared out of nowhere and dragged me away from my group, and now you’ve made me stick tampons up my nose,” I said, noticing the way the strings of the tampons shook with every movement of my head.
My cheeks flamed, because I was reminded again of ho
w ridiculous I probably looked, and how Casper was looking at me.
“You would have been trampled on if it wasn’t for me,” he said, a little more seriously this time.
“You keep saying that. But what really needs saving right now are the Green Gleneagles, and you’re keeping me from them,” I said, my voice rising with my fury. I was gladly returning to my old self again. The throbbing ache at the back of my head had all but disappeared, and the bleeding had stopped, too. The tampons were working.
“Now, why would I do such a thing?” he asked, and I noticed how his gaze fell to the neck of my peasant blouse. He was openly staring at my cleavage!
“Because you clearly have an agenda,” I said, too brashly, and this time I pushed to my feet. I had regained most of my strength by now, and I had done it too quickly for him to be able to stop me in time. He followed me up, straightening himself. But even when we were standing, he towered over me. He had to bend his neck low to be able to look at me directly. I felt that electrical surge down my spine again, as I had a quick image of how sexy it would be to have him lift me up in his arms.
“You’re clearly concussed. You’re beginning to imagine things even though I just saved your life,” he said with a smirk on his face, and now I was even doubly sure of myself. I wasn’t concussed. In fact, I had never thought this clearly before. This man was definitely not the good-natured Samaritan I had thought.
I crossed my arms over my breasts, just like the policemen had earlier. His gaze dropped. He was looking at my cleavage again with a knowing smile on his face. Were my nipples still erect? Could he see them through the fabric of my blouse? I pushed those thoughts out of my head.
“Are you even here as a protester?” I asked.
Chapter 4
“Why does it matter what I’m here for?” Casper asked, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. I couldn’t believe he was being this elusive in the middle of the riot that was about to break out around us. More importantly, why was I still standing there talking to him? I was somehow glued to him, to his voice, and to catching one more glimpse of his smile, even though every logical sense in my being was urging me to make a move, to get away from him. This could only mean one thing: trouble.
“Look, Casper, if that is even your name, we’re all here to protest Argent’s wind farm project,” I said, cocking my head in his direction. He smiled again, his lips curling and his eyes widening. I could stare at him all day!
“And I’m standing here, watching you explain it to me. Thank you for stating the obvious,” he said, snapping me out of my unwavering admiration of his good looks. I was filled with the most disastrous waves of mixed emotions – my growing annoyance at him and my undeniable attraction for his body.
“So, you’re admitting that you’re not a protestor,” I said, the tampons still dangling from my nose.
“I’m not admitting anything, other than that the glitter really adds a glow to your face,” he said, enjoying his own joke a little too much. His shoulders were shaking again from his laughter.
“So, you work for Argent Energy Systems. Is that it?” I said, ignoring his distracting comments and focusing on the gold mine I had just landed on. All day long, I’d been hoping to catch some employee, any representative, from the organization so that I could force them to hear what I had to say, what we had to say. And now, potentially, I had one right in front of me.
He must have seen the manic twinkle in my eye, because the smile disappeared from his face slowly, and he stared at me.
“Should I prep myself for a lecture?” he asked, and this time it was me smiling.
“There are only 160 Green Gleneagles left in the whole world, and they all live in your company’s construction spot,” I said, taking a few steps closer to him. It didn’t bother me that the man was way taller than me, that I had to crane my neck to look up at him. I caught his gaze, and I was going to hold it.
Casper breathed in and sighed, but continued to look at me. “I am aware of that,” he said in his usual calm and soft voice. Hearing him now, I couldn’t even imagine the same man throwing punches at a crowd only a few minutes ago.
The tampon strings dangling from my nose were distracting, and I tugged at them, pulling them out quickly. They had soaked up all the blood from my nose, and I dropped them in my bag again, deciding to worry about them later. Now was not the time.
“Building over their habitat means that they have nowhere to live. They will die out because of the loss of their homes,” I continued, and noticed that Casper was still looking at me earnestly.
“Do you mind me asking you a question?” he interrupted my flow of thought.
“What?” I snapped.
“Why did you put glitter on your sign?” he asked, focusing on the glitter on my face again.
I rolled my eyes and looked away from him. This guy wasn’t paying attention; he didn’t care about what I had to say. But at least he was better than having nobody to speak to directly. So, I decided to indulge him.
“My best friend’s daughter Zoe, who’s six years old, helped me make it. So, I had no other choice,” I said exasperatedly. “Anyway, are you listening to me? Don’t you think that your employers should feel a little guilty about how they’re ruining nature?”
“Do you babysit her often?” he asked, changing the subject again as though I had said nothing about the birds, as though he had not noticed how worked up I was about the protest.
“What? Yeah. Marla is a single mom. I watch Zoe five nights a week. You’re not listening to me.” I waved my hand in front of his face, even though he was looking at me. He didn’t blink an eyelid.
“That’s very good of you. To look out for your friend’s daughter. You must be a student yourself with very little time to spare,” he continued, again like that was the whole point of our conversation.
“I’m trying to get through to you about something important here, and all you can talk about is glitter!” Something in me snapped, and I was yelling at him now. I was furious again. My body was aware of his undeniable sexual presence, but my mind was focused on the protest. It was like I had no control over my body or my mind anymore.
“I hear you, Lily. I know what you’re saying.” Casper said, the smile disappearing from his face. He was all serious again.
“Then why are you avoiding the question?” I yelled.
“Because I can’t do anything about it. There’s no point lecturing me when my hands are tied,” he said, still calm. He wasn’t raising his voice to match mine at all. This was probably what triggered me into more anger, watching him so collected and noble.
“Of course, you can. You can do your bit. You can protest. You can quit your job. There are a million things you can do, if you really want to!” I was screaming still, my anger rising. I was probably angry with myself as well for having such painfully effective sexual thoughts about a man who stood so completely against my beliefs.
“You look cute when you’re mad. The tops of your ears turn pink,” he said suddenly, his face breaking into a smile again. “It’s no wonder that you get no work done.”
I couldn’t believe what he’d just said. Not only had he made an off-hand comment about my physical appearance, but he was trying to imply that our protests never worked, that we were picketing – or rather, I was picketing – for no good reason.
I hurled myself at him, a surreal and strange war cry emanating from my being. I could feel it in my core as I lashed out at him with a bunched-up fist. This was exactly what I had decided not to do. I had planned on not being violent. I wanted to show the world the power of a peaceful protest, and here I was, ramming myself into a man who had managed to get under my skin.
My palm landed on his chest, and immediately I felt the strength of it, like his body was made of pure muscle. My hand bounced off his chest, and he grabbed me by my waist as he gently pried me away.
“What are you trying to do, Lily?” he asked, and I heard the laughter in his voice agai
n. He was still enjoying himself!
“I’m trying to attack you for what you just said,” I screamed, completely at a loss. This was supposed to be a fist fight, not an explanation about why we were going to have a fist fight. Casper was laughing; he wasn’t affected at all by any of this. It was almost like he wanted me to try and punch him.
He let go of my waist and grabbed my wrists as quickly as he had pushed me away from him earlier. His fingers were wrapped tightly around my wrists, and I could feel the strength in his grip again. It was almost frightening. He yanked me closer. His face was only a few inches away from me. Some of my auburn curls fell over my face, and I blew them away.
“You’re making a big mistake, Lily. This is not what you should be doing,” he said, and I heard a threat in his voice.
“What are you going to do about it?” I hissed.
“Sir? Is everything all right? Is this woman bothering you?” someone asked from behind me. Casper still had me tightly grasped in his hands, and I didn’t see the man who’d asked that, although I did immediately wonder why Casper was being referred to as “sir.”
“Take this one into the building,” Casper said, while he kept his eyes on me.
Then a different set of hands grasped my shoulders and pulled me away from him.
Chapter 5
The man who’d rendered me helpless pushed me through the back of the crowd, around the back of the office building we had congregated in front of, and then through the elevators to the twentieth floor.
The doors opened, and he led me into a room. He had answered none of my questions about where he was taking me, who he was, or what any of this meant.
“You can use the bathroom through that door to clean yourself up,” he said robotically, before banging the door shut behind him.
I stood quietly for a few moments, looking around me. The large room was like none I had ever been in before, both futuristic and minimalistic. This had an immediate calming effect on my nerves, even though I wanted to remain riled up. I wanted to fight somebody. But I was alone in this room, decorated in varying shades of white and gray.