by Lee, Corri
I poured us both cups of coffee and tiptoed in to crouch next to him, finding myself smiling. He really was beautiful, and as far as the world knew, mine.
But he's not yours, is he? However much you think he wants you, you can never be the focal point in his life. You'll only ever be a part time lover— god knows what he's doing in the week.
Shut up, he's caring for someone. It's his job, he gets paid for it.
Unless he's lying. Maybe he does care for her, but maybe he's fucking her as well. You don't keep yourself for him, why would he? You don't really have a right to complain, do you?
"Emmeline?" Two sleepy green eyes fluttered open at me and crinkled with an accompanying smile. It stopped my heart to see him so unguarded in those first waking moments, before his brain could start to process and produce his usual cockiness and wit. Shakily, I raised a hand to stroke across his hairline, feeling something I thought I'd obliterated from my emotional repertoire years ago. Tears burning the backs of my eyes and complete, pathetic, unreasonable dread.
He meant too much. I was already hurting. If I cut him off now, it might save me from years of obsession, but it would shred me to do so. And down the rabbit hole she goes...
"Hey, don't cry." Even the quiet encouragement couldn't stop me. I was 'feeling' the most I had in years and was a little resentful about it. All the framework I'd put in place so far to become indestructible had been burned to the ground and lay in sad little piles of ash at my feet. Back to square one, somewhere I'd come to London to escape.
"This is all just too much, Blaze. You are too much. I don't think I'll come out of this in one piece, even if I step back now."
"Oh, Emmeline." Shifting to sit, he pulled me up into the couch with him and manoeuvred me onto his lap, pressing his nose into my hair. "This time last week I felt the same way. I thought I'd come and see you again just once to say goodbye and limp home to lick my wounds because I was in too deep. But then I heard two words. Two words that perfectly epitomised our dilemma and told me how to proceed. Two words who came from a woman neither of us know; a woman who'd just been told that if she discharged herself from hospital and refused chemotherapy, she'd die."
"Go on."
" 'Fuck it'." I twisted to look at him and raised an eyebrow. He nodded briefly, then pulled me back into the warm snug of his arms. "Wonderful woman, ancient, vulgar to the back teeth, and she said 'fuck it'. Her explanation was that life is too short and she'd already taken more time than she deserved. She said she'd wasted her life second guessing impulse decisions and saying no when she should have said yes, and 'damned if it isn't about time someone took it away from me so I don't balls it up further!' "
"She sounds wise." The hassle I'd have been saved from if someone had taken away my life or freewill...
"Not so much. She smoked sixty a day and had lung cancer. But I understood what she meant. I don't want to waste my life on 'what if's. How do I know this would turn out so bad if I don't even try? I'd rather walk through life saying 'oh well, at least I know' than turn my back on something that isn't so significant for no reason. I told you yesterday that nothing will get rid of me now, not when my mind is so made up and I've finished second guessing. We just need time. Do you have time?"
"Yes." I had time in bucketfuls because I was guilty of wasting it too. With or without him, I'd keep wasting it, but at least the scenery was better when he was wasting it with me. "I really don't have any choice but to sit here waiting for you, do I?"
"Sure you do. You can send me away and go on with your life as normal. But that doesn't mean I won't stop coming back."
SO waiting it was. This was my 'normal' now— door watching and making the effort to leave the house looking good every morning whilst trying to maintain my usual patterns of behaviour so it didn't look like I was too far gone, then intermittently being swept off my feet and spoiled with compliments and affection that would drive my feelings for him deeper, making it more painful every time he left.
As depressing as it may have sounded, I really didn't mind it. It was almost like my routine with Hunter except he didn't spare me the kind words and subdue me with orgasms at every chance. The roar of the cynical voice in my mind was easily blocked out when Blaze spoke to me and wanting him wasn't nearly as self-destructive. I was actually kind of happy about it.
WE stayed wrapped up on the couch while we drank our coffee, idly chatting and trying to piece together the fractured memories of the night before. I did fall off his shoulders, and Blaze caught me. How symbolic. Spending this kind of quality time together was peaceful and soothing, the fact of it being uneventful being proof that our strange relationship had substance beyond the alcohol and animal sex.
He looked like hell and he still looked great. We both stank to high heaven but somehow he just wore it like a movie role, cast as my party animal 'boyfriend'. The word still felt strange.
"I think I need to de-funk." The words lacked motive. I was still exhausted and heavy-headed, putting 'moving' fairly low on my to-do list.
Blaze lifted my arm and stuck his nose into my armpit, squeezing me to stillness when I tried to squirm away. "Jesus, you're right. You're noxious."
"You disgust me." I thought about daring him to sniff lower down but not trusting him to hold back from the challenge, I begrudgingly pulled myself away from him and made tracks through the bedroom to the en suite, groaning at the sight of my bed. I had to trim my fingernails.
"You're a natural blonde." Blaze caught me by the elbow just as I was about to step into the shower and smirked downwards. I followed his line of sight and grimaced. The point of focus was the fine muzzle of pubic hair making an appearance between my legs.
"I was about to deal with that." Grooming had never been essential but somehow it just made me feel feminine and a little more acceptable. "So if you don't mind..."
"You want me to leave while you shower?" I glared at him like the question was stupid. It was stupid, but he raised an eyebrow and leaned into the shower screen, not flinching at the ice cold sheet of glass pressing against his still very naked body. I didn't even try not to eye-fuck him. "Why are you so body conscious? You have an amazing figure. Even with those god damn scars, you're still one of the sexiest women I've ever met in person." I was about to ask why I wasn't the sexiest when I remembered he'd been in a music video with Amelia Marsh. There was no way to compete.
Shuddering inwardly, I backed under the water and closed myself in before I confessed, "because I used to be fucking fat." He had to hear it sooner or later, and there really was no time like the present. If he was insistent on throwing around claims of sticking with me despite everything, it was better I told him when it was easier for him to take back.
His scoff and disbelief rang over the hiss of water. "No, really."
"Really, Blaze. I was the fat, ugly, sweaty, blonde nerd who hoarded chocolate in her pencil case." The memory of looking like a two tonne whale made me literally gag.
"So what the hell happened?" I paused and closed my eyes, praying for the subject to go away. "Emmeline?"
"... Boys. One in particular. He was really nice to me when other people weren't and gave me and Daniel the time of day. I was mad for him to the point of being downright brazen but he ignored it, so I figured it was my weight. I took the weight loss to the extreme— I..." My voice broke. Reliving those memories was painful and talking about them now of all times— when I was naked— wasn't helping. No matter how hard I looked in the mirror, I saw fat and I saw ugliness. I couldn't remember the last time I looked at myself and saw anything I liked. Sure, I was a little more accepting of it since Blaze had been around, but still, Fat Emmy was always there.
"I dropped a shit ton of weight and even though he told me I looked great, he never asked me out. So I thought I needed to drop more." The screen slid open and Blaze slipped in behind me, folding his arms around my body. He felt so much warmer than the water pouring down on us and was giving me what I'd needed nine years ea
rlier. Just that comfort and willingness to touch me.
"You were anorexic."
"Yeah, but I'd get so hungry and snap sometimes. It went on for years, still does. It was around the time I collapsed in a gym and ended up hospitalised he met some half-Japanese chick who looked like a fucking hentai character. Abnormally massive rack for a seventeen year old, big brown eyes and really amazing raven hair. So I dyed my hair black, figuring that was what he liked, which earned me a smug girl chat in the college bathrooms. She told me I was still fat, he hated me because I was ugly and I'd never be as good as her. So I made a bungled attempt at suicide, ended up back in hospital and was forcibly sectioned, where he told me I was selfish. That just provoked a self-harm habit in places I knew nobody would see— where I thought it was 'needed'. However much I thought I hurt, it just didn't feel like I was hurting enough."
"Emmeline..." He eased me around by the shoulders and pulled me against his rippling bronze skin. Even hearing about my messed up life, he was still semi-hard and holding me. Why the hell was he doing it? "Cupcake, anyone who can't accept you on face value isn't worthy of you. You don't have to change for anyone— nobody at all. You want to be a fat blonde chick indulging an oral fixation? Then be that fat blonde chick."
"You'd like me blonde?" I looked up at him shyly and my mouth curved into an awkward smile.
"Yeah, it would suit you because genetics made you that way. But I like the black and I'd like red, green, blue or purple. Hell, I couldn't give a shit if you were bald, which is a serious possibility if you don't stop dying it. But it doesn't matter what I like, as long as you're comfortable in it."
God. There was no way this man was for real. He was already screwing me, so where was his ulterior motive? What could I possibly have that would make six foot three inches of pure godliness say these things to me? "Do me a favour though? Don't lose any more weight. You're perfect the way you are." He nodded down to the proud erection straining between us. "See, we're only talking and I'm dying to be inside you." His confession made me drop to my knees and lick my lips, taking his thick heavy cock in my hand. It was the first time I'd really paid attention to it beyond foreplay in a dimly lit room and I was determined to repay the favour for all it's good work.
My lips pushed over the crest and switched me right on. He felt right in my mouth, solid and firm but still soft. Closing in on him, I reached up for his hand and urged it down in my hair. I wanted him to guide me, to tell me how he wanted it. His fingers flexed on my crown and rocked me back and forth, encouraging me to fuck him with my mouth.
He purred my name as I sucked, twisting and bobbing to find any spot he preferred and targeting it. Cupping his balls in one hand, I tugged just enough to make him flinch and throw his hands out to steady himself.
"Faster," he rasped, leaning into me, "suck me harder." One hand pumped while the other squeezed, my tongue flattening against his underside, curling around the crown and swirling around the tip. He twitched and buckled, filling my mouth with his own unique creamy flavour forcefully enough to spill over. I pumped until he softened and continued to tease beyond the tremors, hoping to get him hard enough to taste him again. "Christ, woman, give me a chance."
I looked up innocently and took the hand he offered, knowing that my cheeks were as flushed as his. The noises he made always turned me on. "Is this your kryptonite?"
"You are my god damn kryptonite."
I grinned, feeling a little giddy with pride. "Come on, let's do my hair. I told you I'd make you."
"ASSHOLE, I TOLD you— nobody called Miss Tudor lives here. Stop calling." The one sided screaming match in my lounge forced me back a step when I emerged from the bathroom, a fresh bottle blonde that was artificial but almost my natural colour. He'd done a great job, obviously well practised, but I didn't dwell on it. I didn't look so sallow in my own colouring, and my irises glowed like a cat's eyes. Even Fat Emmy stopped and stared in awe at the person looking at her now.
My eyes slipped into a glare when they locked onto Blaze clutching my cordless landline handset, slamming around in the kitchen like he owned the place. And then they softened when I realised that he was dressed only in boxer shorts and an unbuttoned white shirt. His hair was still damp and carelessly combed back into no particular style, his stunning irises visibly greener than normal and visible across the room. As soon he put that phone down, he was going to end up with those boxers around his ankles.
"No, you listen to me, dumb fuck. I don't care how much this call is costing you, I have spent enough time inside the woman who lives here to know that she doesn't go by the name Miss Tudor." Shit.
I scurried across the lounge, feet slipping on the hardwood, and wrenched the handset from his hand. Why the hell had he felt the need to say that?
"Hunter," I panted, resting against a cupboard, "I am so sorry, you don't usually call on a Sunday." He didn't usually call at all, but who was splitting hairs?
"Your friend is a real idiot, Emmeline. You pick him up on a street corner?" There was an accusatory hardness around the word 'friend' that got my back up.
"What the fuck would you care, you dickless wonder?" My words carried enough aggression to embarrass me. "What do you want?"
"I want to know who you are and what you've done with my best friend." He sighed, and at even blows on insults, the battle ended. "Your mother called yesterday to let me know that you've been distracted by a new boyfriend." Hell, I should have known that they'd have a little back and forth repartee going on between them. Not knowing that he'd been the cause of my anguish, my mother still worshipped the ground he walked on and thought he was fabulous. "Was that him?"
"What? That is precisely none of your fucking business." I glanced over my shoulder at Blaze, who had stationed himself over the cooker and was frying bacon again with a scowl, and moved into the lounge. "It's complicated. Anyway, you know nobody calls me Tudor here."
"He didn't sound like any of your male friends and we all know you don't keep company overnight. I thought you'd let one of Henry's staff in to tidy your shithole." Resentfully looking around my flat, I couldn't reasonably deny that it looked 'lived in'. But the mess was new from that weekend— I'd noticed areas of the space suddenly become well ordered and neat overnight when Blaze was around. Was there anything he wasn't setting right in my life?
"I would sooner die than get his goons in. I'm Emmy White outside of Cardiff, a separate entity. Independent."
"You're still pretending you're 'normal'? Grow a spine, Emmeline. You have obligations and a public image to uphold, if not for Henry then just for your mother."
I sighed and slumped down on the couch, not stupid enough to think that there was a good way to have this conversation. So I'd get out of having it. "What do you really want? I presume you don't want a step by step guide with diagrams of how I interact with my... boyfriend?" There, I said it. It was real now.
"I want to know why you've really been ignoring my emails."
"You could have called." Silence in reply. Hunter knew better than to try and defend himself when he knew I had a point. Those moments were rare. "I'm sorry, I've just been really busy. I forgot."
"You forgot about me?"
Every trace of my good mood and regained self-esteem vanished. I had nearly forgotten about him. Barely thought about him for weeks. The man at the top of my list had been unfairly demoted and really hadn't been so much as a blip on my radar. Nine years of friendship neglected for my pretty new toy who was really equally as inaccessible. I was a terrible friend.
And how did I suppose he'd ever change his mind about me if I wasn't giving him the time of day? Who would lay themselves out for someone who turned their back as soon as something shinier caught their eye? Hunter didn't hate me because I was fat. He hated me because he knew I was a cold, selfish bitch.
"I promise it won't happen again."
"You don't have to make any promises to me, Emmeline," his voice was filled with hostility I was afraid of, "you wan
t to fuck your own life up and end up sectioned again because you're keeping the wrong company, you go for it. Just have the decency to recover or die in time for the wedding so your family can be there."
The phone slammed down on his end, leaving me in a loaded silence where even Fat Emmy was afraid to speak. I'd blown any chance of ever seeing the inside of that man's heart over a walking hard-on I'd never wake up next to. How the hell could I undo the damage? Why did I even fucking care anymore?
Still, I didn't scream and curse out loud like I was inside. Nothing good came from making a scene and I was no attention seeker. It wasn't safe for me express outwardly with my history, not if I wanted to avoid going back to that hellish ward of unhinged misanthropists. I could deal with it alone, in private. Let it go then...
"Emmeline?" A bacon sandwich appeared over my shoulder, but I ignored it. I wasn't hungry, but it wasn't me being mental. I just wasn't hungry. "Please."
"I don't fucking want it!"
"I don't particularly care what you want right now." Enraged, I spun around onto my knees, ready to throw the phone at Blaze, but stopped as soon as I was looking at him.
This was what I'd neglected Hunter for. A selfless man who spent his whole life 'caring' for someone else but still arrived wanting to care for me in more ways than one. A man who'd put himself out for me even when I didn't want it since day one, and didn't hate me when I threw it back in his face. A man who'd thrown me into the fire like Joan of Arc but stood in the flames with me rather than leave me to stand alone.
A man who believed in me far more than I believed in myself. Maybe he understood what it was like from my perspective to be eclipsed by Hunter.
Despite not really being hungry, I took the sandwich from him and bit into it just to put a smile on his face. Blaze visibly relaxed and sat down on the couch next to me, curling an arm around my shoulders and pressing his lips to my temple.