by Lee, Corri
Then all that terror and confusion melted into a drowsiness that made me sag down onto the bench behind me. My eyes grew heavy and battled to stay open as I pulled my shirt back over my arms.
"Are you... Are you falling asleep?"
I nodded dopily. "Sex is my kryptonite. Esme says I'm wired like a man. She's a cuddler. I am not."
Blaze knelt down in front of me and hooked my feet into the legs of my trousers. "Need me to carry you?" Feeling myself becoming complacent and typically arctic, I shook my head and batted his hands away. "Hey." He curled a hand around the scars on my left side and reached up to stroke my dishevelled hair. "Don't over-think this."
"Over-think what?" I snapped, staggering to my feet to pull up my trousers. The usual sense of guilt set in, guilt for sleeping with yet another man who wasn't Hunter. I'd betrayed him again, worse this time for not being my usual emotionally disconnected self. I had royally fucked up this time. At least the fat girl had the good grace to keep her mouth shut. "Bit presumptuous that you wouldn't need a condom, wasn't it?"
Blaze reached into his trouser pocket for his wallet and pulled a foil packet from a zipped compartment on the side, throwing it down on the floor between us. "We both fucked up, Emmeline. Please don't cut me off now." He dressed quickly and grabbed the clothes I'd been trying on, leaving me alone to brood.
I dozed, fighting a losing battle with my heavy eyelids, and lifted my fingers to my swollen lips. His kiss had been so tender but so urgent, telling a lot about how badly he'd wanted me. He'd said I was 'safe' and he was out of the danger zone of temptation. Was he feeling as bad as me?
Neither of us had expected the scene to play out as it had. It had just been a little fun at first, two people working to satisfy a primal need. We'd laughed, damn it! How had it gotten so deep just seconds later?
He returned quickly, pulling the curtain back and giving me a sheepish smile. "You're still here."
"My bag is still in your car." He nodded, but he knew as well as I did that I couldn't have left him if I'd tried, no more than I could have left Hunter.
MY paranoia over being watched sky-rocketed when we set foot out on the street again. The fact that they had a damn good reason to stare now didn't really make me feel any better. My cut forehead, fuck-mussed hair and drowsy stagger might not have felt like such a crime if I'd been enclosed in Blaze's strange aura of calm like normal, but he was keeping a cautious distance from me and not looking particularly calm at all. On the few occasions we spoke to each other, we snarled, both feeling cheated by life and vulnerable. Why he wouldn't just let me go, I had no idea. Out of sight, out of mind.
The goblin car looked too small for both of us. It was small, but somehow just seemed too cramped for us, the bags of clothes and the recent arrival of a big pink elephant. Blaze proved me wrong by packing all the purchases into the back, then stood politely holding my door open.
"Let me drive." He snorted incredulously and rolled his eyes. "I mean it. I need a distraction."
"You're dead on your feet, Emmeline. This car is my pride and joy."
"Then you should seriously consider whipping out a ruler and measuring your penis. I passed my driving test hungover and got zero minor faults."
The tension between us momentarily dissolved with his grin. "It's big?" Oh brother...
"Yes. Biggest I've ever seen. All six foot three of the giant penis standing in front of me."
"You just like saying penis, don't you?" He reluctantly held his keys out and mouthed 'penis' in the hope of making me laugh. It worked, but only for a second. "Can I ask you something?"
"No." I circled the car and let myself in the driver's side, grabbing my bag as soon as I was sat down to find a pair of scuffed mirrored aviator sunglasses I hoped would guard the thoughts and feelings I knew would be visibly thrashing around in my eyes as I drove. They were snatched off my face the minute they settled on the bridge of my nose. "Do you mind?"
"Are they prescription lenses?" My eyes narrowed. "You're not driving my car with a visual impairment, Emmeline." So we were back to snapping at each other. Easy come, easy go.
I pulled out of the car park steadily, hands tightly gripped around the steering wheel. It had been years since I'd driven, not that I'd confess as much to Blaze, but the instinct flowed back into me immediately. I'd forgotten how comfortable I felt driving and my thoughts strayed to the Bentley I wouldn't touch. Some twenty-first birthday present that had been— locked away and never taken out onto the road. I couldn't afford the insurance on it anyway, not unless I dipped into my allowance. Hunter would tell you to drive it, the chubby girl whispered from behind me, he'd tell you to swallow your pathetic pride and use the money. Yes, Hunter, remember him? The man you're supposed to love but now you're pining after yet another man who won't have you. I scowled at the road ahead, unable to shake off the annoying voice nagging at me.
The silence between Blaze and I was intolerably present. Both of us trapped in our thoughts, staring blankly ahead, unable to comprehend the turn of events. The tension seemed to wrap around me and tighten like a cobra, tighter and tighter until I snapped. "Talk to me," I gasped, keeping my eyes straight ahead, "talk to me, distract me. Please. I need you to keep my mind busy or..."
"Or what?" He straightened in his seat and I could feel his eyes burning into me with all the heat his name implied.
"Or I don't know if I won't spend the rest of my life trying to avoid you. I can't do it. This." I waved a hand at the space between us. "You know I can't."
"Neither can I, but we're going to. You know that, don't you, Emmeline? We're going to destroy each other and both of us are going to pretend that we're not happy about the damage we're doing. And we're going to deny that we're enjoying taking the damage too." I shook my head to myself, soothed just slightly by knowing that we were on the same wavelength. My feelings for Blaze were easily just as wrong as my feelings for Hunter, but I at least had the satisfaction of knowing that he felt the same. I was going to go down in a blaze of something, certainly not glory, and he would be right there with me, reeling as I was.
"So are you going to distract me or not?" He sighed and shifted in his seat to face me, swinging an arm around his head rest. Did he have much choice if he wanted to keep me around?
"Where are you really from?"
My mouth curved slightly. "Ironically, Cardiff. You've already figured out why I left."
"To become a self-made woman. Did you even try?"
"Of course I tried!" I hissed, affronted.
"Tell me how."
MY BRIEF ACCOUNT of how I'd lived during my four years in London came to an end as I pulled up outside my flat. I knew that he'd asked to hear the tedious tale for no reason other than to provide the distraction I'd requested, and I was grateful that he'd both done it and that it had worked. My nerves were still scattered, but I knew at that point that the path I was going to be walking was not my own. He'd decided for me.
"Thank you," I muttered quietly, cheeks reddening slightly. I wasn't sure what the protocol was for parting ways with a non-committal man who was committing to me.
"For what?" He pulled himself gracefully from the car and walked around the front of it to open my door. "Springing you out of work early, sending you on a scam, the head injury, swindling money from a stiff, lunch, the shopping spree, the sex, letting you drive my car, distracting you or for potentially making both of our lives very difficult for the foreseeable future?"
I gaped at him, taking the hand he offered. It had definitely been an eventful afternoon. "All of it, I suppose."
"Even the latter?" I croaked and stammered, eventually confessing with a nod. "I still want to ask you something."
"Is it about the scars?"
"Huh?" He glanced down at my side and shook his head dismissively. He'd forgotten? "No, I was wondering if you believe in fate."
"No."
"How about destiny or, I dunno... karmic balance?"
"Aren't they three ways
of saying the same thing?" Where the hell was he going with this? And how could you just forget about those scars? "Still no."
"Wishes?"
I froze solid in my place. Wasn't it just last week I'd been musing over 'be careful what you wish for'? I'd wished him, but had I wished for this? "I may have recently come across some supporting evidence for granted wishes."
"Me too." His fingers strayed up to my face and stroked away a few rogue tendrils. "Maybe it was a fluke."
"Only one way to find out." I wiggled my eyebrows at him suggestively and tugged him towards my flat.
"Now? Are you insatiable?"
"Yes. Would you rather sit on it and have it weigh on your mind?"
No, he didn't. He didn't say another word until my door was open and he had me wrapped around him again, speaking only to ask which way my bedroom was. There was no question that we were on fire this way, lost in each other and so attuned it was like we'd each been created with the other in mind. He was a selfish lover as I'd expected, and it drove him crazy when I tugged at his hair, bit his lips or dug my nails into his back to bring him back into line. In return, he knew just how to touch me to keep me satisfied and stimulated, physically and mentally.
That compatibility was driven into me in my bedroom, in my kitchen, in my bathroom, and came to rest on my couch, where Blaze curled around me and toyed with my hair mindlessly while I fought off slumber. There was a sense of calm I'd not felt for years, if ever, and I was far too pleasantly exhausted to feel guilty about it.
"You look sensational spread out like this," Blaze purred at my ear, nipping the lobe gently, "sedate, pacified. So far removed from the woman who sat in that pizzeria with me earlier."
"It's you," I purred back, "you've done something wicked to me."
"Well I'm glad. You're smouldering. Glowing."
"Blazing?" He smirked down at me, but the intent of his smile shifted quickly. His gaze was fiercer and hotter than I'd ever seen it— positively incendiary. I whispered an apology and tried to squirm out of his hold, regretting making him feel so... what? What did he feel?
"Why are you apologising?" He wrapped around me tighter, making it clear that he didn't want me to escape. How deep did that desire run?
"The way you're looking at me. I just felt like I needed to apologise."
He sucked in a breath and leaned his forehead down against mine. "Don't. You don't know what it is you're looking at." With yet another cryptic remark and the gentle kisses he laid across my face, I fell into a deep, restful sleep.
When I woke up, he was gone, leaving nothing but the bags of clothes from Oxford Street and the anonymous suit's money clip as his calling card.
"YOU’RE WEARING YOUR hair down." Daniel pulled me from my thoughts of the vanished enigma that was Blaze with his observation and a glass of wine as he and Jonathan took their usual seats opposite me in Esme's. "You haven't worn it down in years. It gets in the way."
"Blaze likes it down." I rolled my eyes at myself for doing something so juvenile. So what if he liked me to wear my hair loose? He wasn't there. He probably wouldn't ever be there again. Five minutes away from me and he probably started to think rationally about all that had been thrown at him that afternoon.
"And new clothes?" Jonathan leaned across the table to examine the stitching on the uncharacteristically form fitting blazer wrapped around me. Once I'd taken a bitter sweet look at the haul from the shopping trip, I'd realised that my new wardrobe was actually rather impressive and really gave me no excuses to keep wearing the clothes I hadn't noticed were quite so big on me. The man had a great fashion sense— shame the same couldn't be said for his taste in women, though that lapse in judgement was now technically rectified if he'd seen sense. "You look great. Very London. Very much the multi-billionaire's prodigally alcoholic daughter."
"Wow, thanks." I was suddenly far less keen on the blazer, vest and jeans combo if it made me look like a Tudor. There had been no shoe shopping, so the outfit was scruffed up with a pair of well-loved deck shoes.
"Don't sweat it, you're still hotter than your sister." Obviously. "So have you tapped that yet?" Jonathan grinned at me cheekily and settled back down next to Daniel, who regarded me suspiciously. I was almost as transparent to him as I was to Blaze. "I knew you had that look about you. It's going to be two men in one day again, Emmy? I am in awe of you."
"Oh, I..." My hair veiled my face as it filled with blood. "I think I've been used as a penile insertion point quite enough for one day." I looked up just in time to see Esme sit down next to Daniel and their exchanged glances.
"Who's penile insertion point? Blaze?" She bit her lip to stifle a laugh. "Hallelujah, praise the lord. She finally nailed him. But this could get awkward because he just walked in."
"What?"
Chris snorted grumpily next to me and scanned the room for a glimpse of Blaze. There he was, stood at the bar draped in a loose white cotton shirt and pinstripe trousers. "You should really drop your standards, Emmeline. Guys like that won't care about your quest to chase impossibly high standards and ideals because they think they have it all. He'll be expecting exceptional and preferential treatment because he's a pretty-boy with a loaded wallet and you'll end up in another one of your funks."
"I'm already in one of my funks, Chris. She's been following me around all day." My pulse started to race when Blaze turned at the bar with a tray of six drinks and began to weave between the tables towards us. "And if you recall, I do drop my standards. Frequently. Don't tell me our nights together haven't been memorable because I'll call you a liar."
I stood when Blaze reached our table, and met his unusually cool gaze with one of my own, rife with confusion. Why had he come back? He looked fantastic, the shirt fitting the contours of the body I had spent an afternoon writhing against. God, I wanted him, and not just physically. I'd been so distracted by his disappearance that I'd been oblivious to the dull ache that had manifested in the depths of my chest in his absence— the acute need he'd left behind. It was a craving unlike any I'd ever known, and my point of relief stood only a foot away, looking stunning and smelling like expensive cologne and hot sex. He hadn't showered.
"You look surprised to see me," he murmured so only I could hear.
"You left."
"I couldn't stay— couldn't fall asleep next to you and wake up with you in my arms. That would have been bad for both of us. But I couldn't go either." His voice cracked with sincerity, and I knew that he was one man who would be nothing but honest with me. I treasured that aspect of him. "No matter how many times I leave, I'll always be back. Remember that. So, is there room for one more in your coven?"
Nervously, I turned back to my four friends for their verdict. Esme and Jonathan were almost dancing in their places while Chris and Daniel shared aggrieved expressions, anticipating the inevitable disaster that would befall me. Daniel saw it, the bigger picture in the way our bodies leaned together and the fearful glint in our eyes. Chris saw nothing but an impending repeat performance of the keening and sobbing Hunter left behind when he visited, provided by a new source. They would always be standing on the sidelines waiting to be tagged into the ring.
And as Blaze took the seat next to me, I knew that when that firestorm of a disaster hit, we'd be thrown into a full blown mutiny. That table was too crowded now. 'Us' and them packed into a booth that wasn't nearly big enough for all our complications.
Six
THE WARM, GENTLE buzz of voices and aura of serenity in Esme's that night was deceptive. Heartbroken lovers laughed with friends like they weren't in pain. Addicts tended to their vices like they wouldn't shake and sweat for them tomorrow. Enemies drank together as though the bad blood could be sweetened with anecdotes and recalled memories from times past. The sick and depressed faked smiles and lied about just how ill they were.
And, as normal, all of their flaws centred into me, the culmination of all that misery sat next to a man who settled into my surroundings like he'd donned
camouflage and infiltrated us from the inside out. I suppose he had.
Blaze and Esme gossiped about a cartoon they'd both worked on as voice actors, Daniel and Jonathan quietly discussed dinner arrangements, while Chris and I sat, turgidly silent, watching them all but barely aware of what was happening. His tense quiet boiled down to little more than feeling like he had been, once again, overlooked as anything more than a source of dry wit and like minded humour. This was his usual pattern— pinning hopes on the unlikely and brooding when a miracle didn't happen. He didn't understand that even though he wasn't my first choice of bedfellow, he was still a very huge and vital part of my life. I might have lowered my defences one or twice, but I never gave off any impression that I wanted him for anything more than studding services. Manipulative, maybe, but he knew where he stood. That didn't stop him hoping.
"I don't think the big guy likes me." Blaze's hand slid discreetly over to my thigh and squeezed as soon as Chris left to collect his round from the bar. The action was so instantaneous that it seemed like he'd been holding off on purpose until it was 'safe' to touch me. Negative vibes had been flying around so viciously that it should have been obvious that Blaze might have felt like I'd been marked as forbidden territory.
Jonathan laughed quietly and shook his head into an impressively large glass of brandy. "Don't take it personally. He shows that kind of contempt for anyone who thwarts his nightly attempts to pillage the Deep White South. Tonight it's you, tomorrow it'll be someone else, then someone else and someone else until Emmy has a dry night and he begs for his turn against Esme with the flip of a coin." Hearing that out loud by someone else was uncomfortable— my somewhat promiscuous behaviour— worse knowing that Blaze heard it too. If he was any other man, he'd be disposable. As it was, I wanted to keep him around but I wasn't in the mindset to change any habits for him. He was less in my life on a guest pass and more of a VIP with a membership card like only four other people, but that didn't mean that the menu, entertainment and venue would change for him. There would be no gaps and breaks in my normal life when he wasn't around, and if he expected there to be, we were already at a painful impasse.