Into the Flames

by Multi-Author

  I broke away and kept my arms around his waist, pressing my face into his shirt redolent of the smoke that must be embedded in his skin and a somewhat new odor—a yeasty, malty, breadiness that I realized came from his life as a brewer and brewery owner.

  I knew he was madly in love with helping me. I doubted that he would be able to stand it if I weren’t in some position of helplessness. But for now, I decided to enjoy him—his arms, his lips, his laugh, the way women would turn and watch him pass, unable to help themselves in the face of his movie-star good looks. “I don’t think I can do…much, yet.” I looked up into his eyes. He touched my nose.

  “No worries. I have my own room.”

  “Good thing,” I said, raising an eyebrow and wishing for nothing more than to fall into bed with this man but honestly unable to picture myself ever having normal sex again. That did make me cry. I held onto the back of his shirt, gripping for dear life and sobbed. He let me do it before stepping back and appraising me.

  “Here,” he said, grabbing a tissue from a nearby table. “Got that out of your system?”

  “For now,” I snuffled, blowing my nose and staring around for someplace to toss the tissue. “I leak like a sieve, Georgie-boy. Not sure I’ll be much fun tonight.”

  “I drove all this way. I’ll take my chances.” He held out his elbow. I stuck my hand into it and smiled.

  Chapter Three

  I love to dance.

  Honestly, it’s probably my third favorite activity in the world.

  The hotel promised and delivered a club-like atmosphere for the final hours of Lucy and Dante’s festivities. By the time we made it back inside, the place was rocking hard. I gripped George’s hand, letting myself enjoy the scene, getting ready to jump in.

  “Come on, stud muffin, let’s show ‘em how it’s done.”

  He rolled his eyes but followed me out onto the light-flashing, bass-thumping dance floor. The music suffused me, bringing out a sort of pre-attack Jane that I didn’t even know I’d missed so much. And to my shocked surprise, Mr. Lattimer was quite the rug-cutter. He was graceful, not awkward, yet not overdone. He was, in a word, sexy as fuck—okay, three words, but I’d had two more glasses of wine by then and had danced with him, Dante, Dante’s brother David, and almost every dude in the room before finally making it back around to George and accepting that basic truth.

  He’d sweated through his pink shirt enough to make nearly every sentient woman in the room take notice. His eyes darkened when he spotted me in front of him again in a way that set every inch of my skin on edge—in a good way this time. I grinned when he tugged me close, pressing my entire body against his. I’d gotten pretty sweaty myself and I allowed myself to enjoy the way we slipped and slid together, dirty dancing and grinding our way through the next song.

  I felt glorious, restored in a way I never thought possible. When he grabbed my ass and pulled me even higher up his firm thigh, I gasped. “Oh shit, George,” I said close to his ear, my fingers gripping his hair. “I think I just came.”

  He pulled away from me, his face neutral but his eyes asking me all sorts of questions. Unwilling to over-analyze what I was feeling right then, I kissed him, and kissed him and didn’t stop kissing him for what seemed like hours, wrapping my arms around his neck, molding my body against his most definitely aroused one.

  “All right, you kids,” someone said, tapping me on the shoulder. “The music stopped about three minutes ago. Want to take it upstairs, or what?”

  I opened my eyes. George was grinning from ear to ear. I couldn’t help but laugh at him. “I think we’ll call it a night,” he said, taking my hand and leading me over to Lucy and Dante, who were making their good-byes to the crowd. We waited, sipping water from the bottles provided by the hotel staff, hands clasped tight together as if we were afraid to let go. I know I was. I was honestly afraid if I did, I’d run, as fast and as far from him as I could because I simply didn’t know what to do about what should come next.

  Lucy gave me a huge hug then grabbed my arms and shook me enough to make my head hurt. “You’re amazing, Jane. I’m so lucky you’re my best friend.” She glanced at George and then back at me. “You’re in great hands with this guy. He was amazing…is amazing. Oh shit, I’m gonna cry, you bitch.”

  Dante pulled us close, kissed my temple and then his wife’s. “You’re all clear,” he whispered in my ear. “But don’t do anything you’re not ready for. You get to a therapist yet?”

  I patted his cheek. “No bummer talk at the party. Go on, have your wedding night.”

  Dante let go of me and shook George’s hand. “Take care of her,” he said. George nodded. We watched them leave, standing apart now, not touching. I felt a shiver of fear run down my spine. I turned to him.

  “I don’t think I can—”

  He put a finger to my lips. “Sh…let’s go have a nightcap then I’ll walk you to your room. I’m in no particular hurry.” He made a show of looking pained and adjusting his zipper. I smacked his shoulder.

  We sat in our rocking chairs and cradled glasses of bourbon, wrapped in our individual quilts and thoughts. “I’d like to try. I mean, tonight,” I said, standing up and walking over to stand in front of him.

  He shook his head, not looking at me. “No. It’s too soon.” A familiar sort of distance had crept into his voice.

  “I’m pretty sure I’ll be the one to make the call.” I tried to keep the petulance out of my voice. Damn man was not going to shut me out now, not after the day we’d had. I tilted his chin up so he had to look at me. “I’m ready.”

  He blinked fast and looked for all the world like a scared little boy for a split second. I took a step back from him. “You think you can’t. Because of her, your wife who’s been dead for over a decade.”

  “Don’t psychoanalyze me please. I’ve had that done by professionals plenty of times.” His jaw clenched and I saw he was white knuckling the rocker arms. I put my palms on the tops of his hands and my lips to his ear.

  “I won’t psychoanalyze you, George. But I want you to make love to me. I need you to.” I kissed his cheek, his nose, his forehead. He shut his eyes. I was venturing into unfair territory now, and I knew it. Using his abnormally strong protective tendencies against him just so I could get past some kind of mental barrier and get on with my own life, forcing him to do something his body definitely wanted but his shredded heart couldn’t bear. I was craven, I supposed.

  “You said you loved me,” I kept whispering, putting small fluttery kisses along his stubbly jawline. “Prove it. Help me, George. I need you.” My skin was pebbly. I was aware, for the first time in over a month, of my nipples pressing against the thin fabric of my bra. When I lowered myself onto his lap, it hurt a little, but I bit down on the urge to whimper.

  I put my hands on the rocker’s tall back and ground down as much as I could, loving the press of his fabric-covered erection while at the same time fighting an increasingly loud and unfamiliar noise in my head. I shut my eyes, wanting this moment, determined not to ruin it for either of us. He cupped my breasts in that soft, reverent way he had and pressed his lips against my upper chest, licking and kissing his way down.

  I sighed and leaned my head back, trying to relax, trying not to panic, but the noise kept rising in my head, getting louder. It was a voice. It said, “You’re a cunt tease. Let me see how you like it my way, fucking bitch. Do you want a fist? I think you do. You’re. A. Cunt. Tease.”

  I gasped when his thumbs grazed my nipples. Tears were running down my face. But I wanted this. I did. I know I did. I had to have it, to have him, to get us to some kind of next step or something. He put a finger between my legs and slid it under my panties. I leaned closer so he could pull my breast free of the dress. My hips moved, my head pounded, the voices surrounded me. And he brought me to the edge, sending me into a soft, orgasmic shiver but not drowning out the voices. I was pretty sure that would never happen.

&nb
sp; “Don’t cry, Harriet,” he said, brushing my tears away. “I won’t ever hurt you and I won’t let anyone else either.”

  “Thanks,” I said, still leaning into him, still hearing someone ask me if I wanted his fist, still tasting my own tears and bitterness at the back of my throat. “We are a fucked up matched pair, eh, Trey?” He ran warm, comforting hands down my back. “We should get all the way naked together for a change. See if that helps.”

  He chuckled and kissed my hair then peeled me off him. “No. I don’t think it will. Come on, let me walk you to your room. And it’s George.”

  I got to my feet, wobbly and confused, tired, a little drunk, a lot horny, and terrified—of what I didn’t know, but I did know there were too many things to try and sort through at that moment. “What?” I pulled my hair up and off my neck. He ran a finger down my face and kissed me, going deep into it and absorbing me, driving out the voices for a few seconds.

  “I’m George, remember,” he said, slightly breathless after breaking away. “And can I just tell you, you’re a class-A kisser, Harriet.”

  Chapter Four

  “Why don’t you come in,” I asked, leaning in the open doorway to my over-the-top Grand Hotel suite. “You know, for a nightcap…” I batted my lashes, enjoying the half joking-half serious thing that was slowly unfurling between us.

  George loomed over me, even taller since I’d shed my party heels, one hand propped over my head in the doorframe, the other on my hip. “You scare me,” he said, before leaning down to kiss a spot somewhere between my neck and shoulder that made me shiver. I hooked a finger in his belt loop and tugged him close, relishing the warmth of his body in a way that scared me a little bit too. Sighing, as if doing it just to humor me, he cupped my ass. Our lips met, familiar now and perfect.

  He broke away first, cradling my face between his hands. “I’m going to my room before we do something neither of us is ready for.”

  “Oh, I think you’re ready, mister,” I said, reaching down to place a hand against his reviving erection. He shuddered and closed his eyes. “Aren’t you, George?” I kissed his neck, loving the saltiness left from our sweaty dance session earlier.

  “Part of me is, yes,” he whispered in my ear, cupping my breast and angling his hips to give me better access. “Oh, god, is it ever.”

  “Well, it’s the most important part of you so I say—”

  He moved back so fast I almost fell over into the space he’d vacated. Running a hand down his face and looking about as pissed off as a guy about to get laid could, he shifted to the side, placing himself back out in the hallway. I frowned and crossed my arms over my chest. “What? Do I smell?”

  His brow furrowed. “It’s not enough that my dick is ready for a woman like you, Harriet. I’m sorry. I…can’t do this.”

  Confused, a little relived, but a whole lot pissed off that he was thwarting me yet again, I let that guide what I did next. I took his hand and pulled him back to the doorway, went up on my tiptoes and gave him a soft kiss. “Yes, I think you can. And I think you need to. I know I do. C’mon. You said you loved me earlier so…this”—I put my hand back on his zipper—“is what people who love each other do. It’s normal and healthy and I am desperate for a dose of that. From you, George.”

  He groaned and pressed against me again, shoving his thigh between my legs like he’d done on the dance floor, one hand gipping my ass, the other stroking my nipple through the thin dress fabric. I let myself enjoy it, shoving away the bad voices with a firm mental hand as I threaded my fingers in his thick hair and hung on while our lips and tongues tangled in a sort of desperate, rookie-ish way.

  I loved it. I may very well love him, I thought as he pulled me up his leg, giving me exquisite friction and licking his way down my neck. “Let’s take it inside,” I said, breathless, needy, and eager to get this done and over with. I did need and want it, although the fear was creeping up my spine along with the voices that kept reminding me of what I really was.

  Cunt.

  Tease.

  Bitch.

  “Harriet,” he whispered, voice hoarse, body trembling. “Harriet.” He stepped away from me. “You’re too much like her,” he said, his eyes dark with anger or something too much like it for my taste. “I can’t do this again. We were…she was…I…fuck.” He looked down at the floor, hands on his hips.

  “I’m not her.” I tried to pull him into the room. “She’s dead. And I’m sorry. You’ve been carting her around with you for too long. Time to let her go.”

  “I have let her go, goddamn it.” He stayed stubbornly planted in the open door. “I let her go over and over again. Every motherfucking night since the dreams started.” He dragged shaking fingers through his messy hair. “They’re so vivid. She’s so alive. So with me, so not like a dream.” He slumped against the frame. “We have sex every night in my dream. I come like a teenager in my sleep. Every goddamned night for weeks now—since I met you. She was…I’m…” He glared at me as if it were my fault. “Every night I’ll wake myself up, drink coffee, energy drinks, anything just to not fall back to sleep. It’s killing me, I think.”

  To my utter shock, his eyes watered for a second. Then he set his jaw. “I’m fucked up. You have enough problems. I’ll be your friend because I love your smart mouth and your know-it-all attitude. But that’s it. All right? I don’t love you. You were right. I just love rescuing you. Good night.” Without even letting me get a reply to formulate and emerge from my mouth, he moved to one side and shut my door in my face.

  I wrenched it open and watched him half walk, half stagger down the hall. “George,” I called in a whisper. “Hey. George.”

  He turned and propped one hand on a wall covered in fussy wallpaper and giant framed paintings of strangers. “It’s not your fault, you know,” I said keeping my distance. “You didn’t fly the planes, you didn’t collapse the building, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I didn’t get to her or to our child in time,” he insisted, jaw clenched so tight it was hard to make out the words. “That was my fault. Go to sleep, Harriet. Thanks for a fun day.” He turned and headed for the stairwell without another backward glance.

  Fuming, I stripped out of my clothes and climbed into a steaming hot shower. After a few minutes, I was calmer and ready to acknowledge that I probably wasn’t ready either. I was still sore, for one thing, and that one sick, panicky moment I’d had earlier was not something I wanted to experience again. But the man had to stop whipping himself over something he had no control over. So many people died that day. Even though he was some superhero rescuer, there are some things that are can’t be rescued.

  I thought about his claim that I was so much like her. I wished I could talk to Lucy but the woman was smack in the middle of her wedding night, so that wasn’t an option. With a huge sigh, I wiped the steam from the giant bathroom mirror and stared at myself. Strands of my indeterminate blonde-brown hair stuck to my face, reddened from the hot water. I pressed my fingers to my neck, letting them slide down to the towel I had wrapped around me. It fell to the floor as I touched my peaking nipples, gasping a little at the pleasant sensation it sent straight down to my core.

  Wincing, a little afraid of what I’d find as if being gang raped and beaten up had somehow changed the very physiology of my most intimate body parts—all of which I knew well, having spent time exploring them, and how they would react to stimulation—I touched myself. Running fingertips across the sparse patch of hair that was growing out, since I’d neglected my usual radical waxing chores in the past few weeks, I watched my eyes, which darkened from their usual light green. I tugged on my nipple and stroked myself to a small release. Gasping and dropping my hands to the marble-topped vanity, I let a rogue tear hit the sink before realizing that I owed something to George. And I was going to pay that debt. Tonight.

  To hell with talk therapy, I thought, smiling at my reflection. I’m going to fuck myself back to myse
lf. I had always enjoyed sex; from the first time I’d experienced what it could be like at the hands of an older, experienced, and very nice guy out in Vegas.

  Screw those loser rapist jerks. They are not going to define me. They thought they took something from me but really, I took it from them.

  I dabbed on a bit of perfume, fluffed out my hair with the dryer, and slid back into my dress sans a lick of undergarments. After a quick bit of powder on my face and some lip gloss, I stopped, acknowledging the tiniest tickle of something—conscience? Fear?

  I shook my head, reminding myself this would be therapeutic for us both. George needed to get laid and purge his wife’s ghost from his dreams. I needed it to purge the very fear that was once again creeping up my spine, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I gulped down some water, put on my best ‘Oh no! Silly me, can you please help me?’ face and headed for the front desk.

  A few minutes later, armed with a key card to George’s room and pleased with how easily my seduce-and-conquer-or-at-least-see-if-it-helped plan was going, I stood at his door, hesitating long enough to have serious second thoughts. This whole thing felt a tad weird and fake, like a cheesy movie plot. I put my hand on the door as if I could sense his mood by touching it.

  Realizing my legs were shaking and my heart pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears, I eased the key card into the slot, cursing when the little indicator light shone red the first time. “Get a grip, Jane,” I said under my breath. “It is just sex.”

  The light flashed green. I ducked into the foyer of his room and stood, letting the door click shut behind me. The room was curtains drawn, all lights out pitch black. It took me a minute to get my bearings and recognize things like the large overstuffed chair and fussy marble-topped table. I stepped out of my shoes, shucked my dress to the floor, and slipped under the cool sheets.