Blaze

by Gwendolyn Grace

  Blake’s fingers slipped in the front of my panties and my breath caught.

  “Blake,” I whispered.

  “What?” he whispered back as his hand stilled.

  “More.” My instincts controlled my response, and I was powerless. His fingers resumed their descent into my growing wetness, and when they made contact with my sensitive flesh, I moaned.

  “God, Tay,” Blake groaned in reply. “I want you so badly. I can’t pretend that I don’t anymore.” He continued to work me with his fingers, gliding them in and out. Using one finger then two. I moved my hips in time with his hand. “I want to taste you. Will you let me?”

  When I nodded, he turned me onto my back so that he was kneeling between my legs. He slowly removed my panties and tossed them away. His eyes darkened as he lowered his head to my inner thigh where he placed kisses all the way up to my hip bone. When his warm breath hovered over my sensitive sex, I whimpered with anticipation. Nobody had ever done this to me before, and I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to behave. I looked down to see Blake’s blue eyes staring at me just as his mouth dipped below view and his tongue slid along my wet folds.

  “Oh God.” I threw my head back as he parted my legs wider. His movements became bolder as he used his tongue in ways I never knew existed. Swirling, lapping, and sliding inside. I gripped the edges of the pillow while I let the sensations take over. “Blake,” I moaned.

  “Tayia, you taste so good.” He lifted my hips higher as he continued to devour me. I put my hands in his hair and moved my hips shamelessly against his face.

  “Go ahead. Come for me, baby.” And I did, loud and hard.

  “Blake, Blake, Blake . . .”

  When I opened my eyes, my cheeks felt flushed and my heart was pounding rapidly in my chest. Blake was hovering over me with a sexy smile on his face.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi.” I smiled in return before throwing my arms around his shoulders and bringing his mouth to mine. I tasted my essence on his lips and on his tongue as he kissed me back. It felt so erotic. Blake reached for his gym shorts and shoved them down. When he lined his erection at my swollen entrance, I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more than to feel him inside of me.

  “Please.” I gasped against his mouth and he plunged inside. I was unprepared for the slight pain I felt as he stretched me. His movements were slow and steady, which gave me time to adjust myself. With his mouth never leaving mine, he rocked into me in a pace that was perfect for building my second orgasm.

  “Tay, you feel so good. So fucking good.” He laced his fingers with mine. “Put your legs around my waist.” When I did as he asked, I panted as he slid in even deeper to the exact spot I knew would set me off. I opened my eyes to meet his.

  “I love you, Tay.” The raw passion there was overwhelming, but I couldn’t look away.

  “I love you, Blake.” He gave a small smile before placing his lips on mine. I felt his hand under my backside as he brought me to him with each thrust, and I knew I was going to explode.

  “Blake, oh God.” I pulled my lips from his and threw my head back as every tiny sensation let loose at once and I convulsed underneath him.

  “Tayia. Ah, fuck.” He pumped hard and fast into me a few more times before he pulled out completely, spilling himself on my abdomen.

  We lay there for a while, covered in sweat and trying to catch our breath. Our stomach slid against each other, slick with his cum. He rolled off me, and I pulled my T-shirt over my head and wiped away the wetness before settling into his arms where he pulled me to him.

  “What are we doing, Blake?”

  “I don’t know.” He was quiet for a long time as he held me, placing kisses along the side of my face. “I wanted Lucy to break things off. I actually pushed her so she would.”

  “What do you mean? I thought . . .”

  “Protection. I was using her to protect you from me.”

  I turned in his arms to face him while twisting my face in confusion. “Protect me?”

  “Tay,” he continued. “I wasn’t being fair to you. I thought about if the situation were reversed and I was forced to live with you and your boyfriend. Shit, I would go insane. I mean, I would lose my fucking mind.” He ran a hand through his messy hair. “I didn’t want to do that anymore. I had to make a decision and figure out what I wanted.”

  “I can tell you that I want this. I want us.”

  “Me, too, Tay. It’s just . . . complicated.”

  “It doesn’t have to be. Even if only we know.”

  “You want to hide what we’re doing from everyone?”

  “No, I don’t want to hide it, but if the only way we can be like this is to keep it a secret, then I’m willing to do it.”

  “Tay . . .”

  “Please, Blake. For now, until we figure this out.” I brushed my lips lightly against his and he exhaled before running his tongue along my bottom lip.

  “Okay,” he finally agreed then pulled back so that he could stare into my eyes. “But you’re mine.” I nodded, but he wasn’t satisfied. “No, Tayia, say it out loud.”

  “I’m yours, Blake.”

  “Damn right.” He kissed me long and hard until we were both craving each other again. We didn’t get much sleep that night, but I’d never felt so invigorated. Everything I wanted was coming true, even if it was only partially the way I envisioned it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I convinced Blake to rent out the spare bedroom by mentioning that it could help him save enough money to buy the parts he needed to finish his car. When Harley Wyatt showed up on our doorstep wearing tiny shorts and a cross-body bag, she wasn’t exactly the renter I’d had in mind. Blake seemed to like her a little too much, and I seethed with jealousy.

  “No, Blake,” I whispered once we’d stepped into the kitchen to discuss accepting Harley as our roommate.

  “Why not?” he asked, looking confused. “She seems nice.”

  “Of course you would think that. I’m quite sure those shorts really helped you out with judging her character." I snorted.

  “Tayia, are you jealous?”

  “No.”

  “Yes, you are.” He stepped forward and wrapped an arm around my waist. “You know I only have eyes for you.” Blake nuzzled his nose into my neck and I melted into him.

  “You’re not being fair right now,” I whisper-whined.

  “This was your idea, Tay,” he reminded me.

  “I know.”

  “Let’s just try it out. She’s only week-to-week. Give it a one week trial.”

  “Fine,” I finally conceded. “But that means I’ll have to sleep in my bed tonight.” I pulled back just in time to see Blake’s expression go from relaxed to wide-eyed.

  “Wait—” he started to say, but I pushed away from him and threw my head back, laughing.

  “Oh, Harley!” I called while grinning at Blake. “Let me show you to your room.”

  “Tay,” Blake groaned behind me as I made a show of seductively moving my hips as I exited the kitchen.

  Harley wasn’t so bad. She had very little belongings, which meant she was always neat, though she didn’t have a car so Blake often drove her around. The two of them would spend hours in the garage talking and laughing. He was right. I had been a little jealous. They could enjoy each other’s company out in the open in a way Blake and I couldn’t without rousing suspicion. When I confronted her about her intentions toward Blake, she explained that they were just friends, and though I couldn’t explain why, I believed her.

  Blake wanted me, of that I was sure. He used every opportunity to show it, too. On nights when Harley was working late at Catch, he came into my room and made love to me until my limbs felt like jelly then snuck out before our roommate returned home. At the shop, he would pull me into the office, bend me over the desk, and take me hard, just the way I liked it. Afterward, he would admire the way his cum ran down my backside.

  “Why do you do that, Blake?”
I asked as I watched with my forearms resting on the stack of invoices waiting to be paid as he wiped away the mess he’d created.

  “I just love it. It turns me on knowing you’ll let me do that.”

  “I’m yours, Blake. My body, heart, and soul belong to you.”

  His eyes darkened with possession. He loved to hear me tell him I was his. Sometimes he wanted me to repeat it just before he came. It heightened my arousal, too, pleasing him in that way.

  We made sure nobody knew about us, not Harley, Jonna, Neil, or our parents. I had to admit the whole arrangement was kind of hot—in the beginning.

  Mastering the art of discretion took a lot of effort. There were times we wanted to be alone and unhurried, but living in a small town made it tough. After race nights at The Spot, Blake and I would sometimes get in the Nova and go for a long drive with our hands entwined as he shifted gears. I lived for those moments alone with him. It made all the secrets worthwhile.

  Almost.

  “Blake,” I moaned as I ran my fingers through his hair and gently held his head in place while his tongue did wicked things to my clit. The cool night breeze lightly brushed my exposed nipples as I lay on my back in the soft grass. Above us, the moon glowed, along with the rustling leaves and the faint sound of trickling water from the nearby stream.

  “Mmm,” Blake hummed against my sensitive flesh. “How does it feel, baby?”

  “Good. So good,” I whimpered breathlessly as I moved my hips faster to keep up with the rapid motion of his tongue. I was getting close. Just a few more strokes was all it would take for me to explode. Then suddenly, the delicious friction was gone. When I opened my eyes, he was grinning at me from between my parted legs with his lips glistening and that dimple on full display.

  “I wish you could see yourself right now.” His blue eyes worshiped me in the glow of the moonlight, except I wasn’t feeling content with the gesture. I was on the edge of release and felt like I would die if I didn’t have his mouth on me again and soon.

  “Blake!” I tried to glare at him through my unfocused eyes and whimpered while wiggling my hips.

  “What?” He chuckled, knowing exactly what.

  “Please.”

  “Please what?”

  “Keep doing what you were doing.”

  “What was I doing?” He lowered his face closer to my wetness, his breath brushing over my skin, though he wasn’t touching me.

  “Licking me.”

  “You want me to keep licking you?”

  I nodded.

  “What else do you want me to do?”

  “Make me come.”

  “Yes, I’ll always make you come, Tayia. I’m the only one who ever will. Say it.”

  “Yes, only you, Blake.”

  Instead of finishing me off with his mouth, he lowered his jeans and slid inside of me. When his eyes met mine, I saw a mixture of love and possession. He laced our fingers together and ran his tongue along my bottom lip.

  “You’re mine, Tayia. All fucking mine.”

  I brought my hand to the back of his head and smashed my mouth to his. Blake rocked slowly into me as I wrapped my legs around his waist, opening every part of myself to him—body, heart, and soul. The ridges of his thick shaft touched my inner walls with each measured thrust. It was as if we were made to fit one another. I felt him everywhere and exactly where I needed.

  Our tongues slid together, never losing contact. His hands gripped my hips as he glided deeper into me. My orgasm coiled tightly from low in my stomach and spread its way over my entire body as I cried out into the night sky. The sensation seemed never ending as my body convulsed under his while my muscles gripped him repeatedly. I was faintly aware of Blake’s own cries of release as I felt him stiffen and pull back his hips just in time to spill himself in hot pulsing spurts onto my stomach.

  We lay like that for a while, kissing each other’s damp skin and letting the world around us come back into focus. This felt right. Being together like this always felt right. Yet here we were, in the woods behind the house, hiding the beautiful thing we had together from Harley and Fox, who claimed to be watching a movie but ended up making out on the couch. Blake and I had to wait until we could slip out of the back door and to our spot in the woods undetected.

  “Blake?” I said while running my fingers through his hair as he rested his head on my chest.

  “Hmm?”

  “I was thinking that maybe it’s time we talked to our parents . . . about . . . us.”

  Blake stiffened in my arms, and when he didn’t speak, my heart sank. That wasn’t the first time he’d reacted that way. For my twentieth birthday, he’d wanted to take me out to dinner and stay the night in a fancy hotel in Key City, except we’d never made it there. He’d wanted to come up with an elaborate lie to tell Harley as to why we’d be gone together overnight. When I’d suggested we tell the truth to everyone, it had sparked a huge argument. We’d ended up spending the night locked in our separate rooms, completely ruining my birthday.

  Later, Jonna and I used the already purchased hotel package to go to a party in Key City. That was the night she met King.

  “Blake?”

  “Tay.” He sighed. “You know why we can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t play dumb. We’ve been through this before. People won’t understand.”

  “I don’t care. I love you, and I want to be with you in public where everyone can see. I don’t want to keep being a dirty little secret.”

  “Yeah, but you’re so good at being dirty,” he mumbled as he nuzzled the side of my neck.

  “Stop it. Stop trying to distract me. I’m serious.”

  Blake blew out an exasperated breath as he sat up on one elbow. “What? What do you want to do?”

  “Tell our parents at Christmas that we’re together.” His eyes grew wide and his face contorted in an expression somewhere between shock and horror. Christmas was only a month away.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Tayia, if we go public, we may as well end things now. Our parents won’t accept it. You know that. The entire island will go fuckin’ crazy. They think we’re blood related. Our parents are married, remember? I don’t give a shit what they’d say about me, but they’ll eat you up and you don’t deserve that. I won’t let it happen. Nobody will understand. Nobody.” He cupped the side of my face as he pleaded with his eyes. “Don’t do this to us. I’ll lose you, baby. I know it.”

  “Blake, if we keep hiding this, you’ll lose me anyway.”

  “Hang on a second. I thought you were the one at the beginning who said you were content with only the two of us knowing.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve changed my mind.” I sat up and crossed my arms over my bare chest. Suddenly, the sultry atmosphere the woods had provided earlier felt cold and hollow. Our voices echoed in the dark, the grass was beginning to itch, and I thought I saw two sets of little red eyes glowing in the distance. I got to my knees and crawled around, gathering my discarded clothes. We dressed in silence. Blake’s movements were jerky, indicating he was just as angry as me. I went to stand in front of him with my arms crossed while I waited for him to speak.

  “I just can’t, Tay,” he said quietly while keeping his eyes lowered. “If you’re asking me to choose between ending this now or waiting for it to happen after everyone finds out about us, I choose neither. I love you, and I’ll be with you this way forever, or for as long as you still want me.”

  “I think you’re wrong, Blake. If you love me half as much as I love you, we’ll be fine as long as we have each other.”

  “I do love you, Tayia. God, I love you so much it physically hurts sometimes that I can’t tell anyone about it. I let people believe that I’m talking about my feelings for Lucy when I really want to tell them that it’s you.”

  “Why can’t you believe in what we have and know that I won’t let other people tear us apart?”

  “We can’t control what others
say—”

  “That’s right. We can’t, but we can control what we do.”

  “Tayia, I—”

  “I don’t want to live in secret anymore, and until you want the same, I don’t see any reason to discuss this.”

  “Tay?” he called after me, but I kept walking. “Tayia!” His voice faded as I quickened my pace, running as fast as my legs could carry me through the night while my heart disintegrated. I needed him to come around, and I’d just taken a gamble by forcing his hand. Was I doing the right thing? God, I hoped so.

  That night, I felt him slide into my bed and pull me to him. I savored the feeling of his strong arms around me.

  “Okay. I’ll do it,” he said into the darkness.

  My breath caught. “You will?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Blakey.” I spun around in his arms to face him. “It will be fine. We have each other. Nothing anyone can say will change that.”

  “God, I hope you’re right.” He pulled me closer and we lay there, entwined in each other’s arms.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You’re so sweet to me, Tayia doll.” Maggie smiled weakly as I handed her a cup of tea. She’d been wrapped in a throw blanket and huddled in the window seat at the back of the house all day. After taking a sip of tea, she sighed. “I can’t believe she’s gone.” Her sad eyes traveled to the view of the bay.

  Maggie’s mother had died the week prior, and after the funeral, she and my father drove from Pennsylvania in time for Christmas. Grandpa hadn’t said much since his arrival and remained in his wheelchair in front of the television. The house was full of sadness even though it was usually a joyous time of the year for the family. All I could do was wrap my arms around my stepmother. I’d lost my own mother years ago, but I was too young to remember much about her. Sometimes I felt like every image or story had been planted there by my dad and that I somehow convinced myself that I had memories of her, too.

  After Maggie had gone to lie down, I went in search of Blake. Considering the recent events, nobody had the motivation to make a big Christmas dinner, so Harley suggested we go to Catch.