Licking her lips, she lowered her mouth to his throat and tasted him, and her lip curled into her mouth as she nuzzled him. He twirled the ends of her hair between his fingers, and the soothing motion sent tingles the length of her spine. Every once in a while the tip of his finger teased the flesh of her shoulder blades.
‘Mol,’ he muttered. The vibration from his throat sent tremors across her lips.
‘Shh,’ she whispered, and tasted his throat again, this time with the tip of her tongue.
Kissing her way to tease the side of his neck, she ran her fingers up the short sleeve of his tee-shirt and squeezed his muscle. Without taking her lips from his skin, she slid her hand down to his and tossed her head back to kiss his jaw.
‘It’s ok, baby,’ she breathed onto his earlobe, and directed his hand up the back of her thigh to her ass. ‘Touch me.’
‘Whoa, Mol,’ Blake said.
She lost her breath when he took her shoulders and tossed her body away to give him the space to leap from the bed and pace away.
‘What?’ she asked, spitting hair from her mouth. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘You can’t do this. You can’t do this tonight.’
‘I wasn’t doing anything,’ she said. ‘I… I’m sorry, I—‘
‘Don’t apologise, Mol. Jeez, please, don’t apologise.’
Sitting here in the middle of the bed, Molly watched him pace from the door to the bed with his hand on his forehead. ‘What’s wrong? Blake, I don’t understand.’
‘You’re exposed, ok? You have had a tough time tonight. I can’t take advantage of that… I just can’t do it.’ He stopped pacing and stared at her, perched in her nest. ‘I want to. Jesus Christ, babe, you have no idea how much I want to. But I can’t. I really can’t… I know I will regret this moment for the rest of my life. I know you will come to your senses tomorrow. But if I do this… if I let this happen—‘
‘I get it,’ Molly said with a nod.
When he sat on the bed, he took her hand to his knee with both hands, wrapping it tight. ‘Go out with me.’
‘What?’ Molly said on a laugh, failing to extricate her hand from his. The statement, or question, or whatever it was, had been said so abruptly that she needed him to repeat it just to be sure she’d heard him correctly, and it wasn’t just a moment of insanity.
‘Go out with me.’
‘Blake, I—‘
‘Take a chance, Mol. Don’t tell me that you don’t do the dating thing.’
While holding her breath, Molly rolled her tongue to the back of her mouth. ‘When?’ the word burst from her mouth of its own accord.
‘Whenever you want,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow.’
She laughed. ‘I have to staff the bar tomorrow. Sunday is a busy night.’
‘Get Vanessa.’
Exhaling one laugh, then another, insanity seemed to be spreading. ‘I… I… Ok.’
His desperate grip on her hand loosened, but he pulled her knuckles to his mouth. He proceeded to trace his lips back and forth, searing her trembling skin. ‘I’ll pick you up at seven.’
‘Get me outside,’ she said. ‘Stop the tongues wagging.’
He nodded and kissed the back of her hand. ‘Ok, now that’s out of the way you have to spill.’
‘Spill what?’
‘Where is the rest of your pad?’
Chapter Eight
His question had been met with momentary hesitation, but then Molly had taken his hand and led him into the hall toward another door, which was on the same wall as her bedroom. She took him into a windowless office with shelves holding books and folders. At one time, she explained, this used to be her parents’ bedroom. Cal had slept in the box room perpendicular to her bedroom, which she now used as a closet.
Opposite the door they had entered the office by was another door hidden behind a three-drawer filing cabinet. With his help, Molly managed to shift it out of the way. Then she clambered up onto a chair to retrieve a key hidden on top of the closest shelving unit, and Blake forced himself not to peek up her nightwear to see what she wore underneath. He hadn’t tried too hard, because he caught sight of the black thong she wore beneath it. Molly found the key and caught his shoulder to jump down. Jiggling the key, Molly tugged on the door with all of her might, to no avail.
‘This is all very sinister,’ Blake said, as she yanked at the door again.
‘This is one door that you should never fix,’ she said, pulling at the handle until she descended into a squatting position. ‘Come on!’
‘Step aside, feeble one,’ Blake said. He slid his hands onto her shoulders to try and move her aside, but she pushed herself back against his grip.
‘I can do this,’ she strained.
‘Do you want to pull something in the process?’
‘No pain, no gain.’
‘Only resistance without assistance,’ he said, and urged her sideways.
This time she relented to let him try the door, but before he did, Blake got theatrical. He flicked his eyebrows at her, cracked his knuckles, and cleared his throat. Limbering up before he demonstrated his masculinity for her.
‘Oh, just get on with it,’ she said and folded her arms.
‘There is pressure here,’ Blake teased. ‘Give a guy a minute.’
‘I’ll flash you if you open it within the next ten seconds.’
This amazing, beautiful, smart woman surprised him. Her principles were important to her, yet here she was flirting with him after propositioning him in the other room. Not only was she flirting, but Molly played with him and teased him. Something he knew she wouldn’t do unless he’d won her round. Now that he had her confidence, she revealed her mischievous nature and it was not something he had ever expected to see from her.
‘Done,’ he said, checking her out. ‘Now there’s pressure.’
‘Ten… nine…’ She peeked at her imaginary watch.
‘Hey! Not so fast.’
‘Six… Five…’
‘What happened to eight and seven?’
‘Three… Two.’
Blake took the handle in one hand, put weight behind it and turned the key with a satisfying click, then he swung the door open and winked at her.
‘That was at least eleven seconds,’ she said, swaggering past him.
‘You can’t back out now, I—‘
The ghost of a room in front of him stopped Blake in his tracks. Externally, Ashton’s was a two storey building. The bar he knew took up half of the lower floor, and he knew now that Mason lived in the other half. But the upper floor all belonged to Ashton’s. Her residence was only a tiny portion of the space, and the rest he saw now was all commercial.
A bar stood to the left, there were a few tables and chairs with a dance floor and DJ booth beyond. The space extended further to their right, above what would be Mason’s apartment. There were pool tables and another doorway on the furthest wall.
‘Wow,’ he breathed.
‘Yeah,’ Molly said in barely a whisper.
The windows covered the wall on the opposite side of the room and around to their right, but they were dirty, caked with dust and grime. Happy birthday banners hung around the room, with decorations on every wall and deflated balloons scattered on the floor, interspersed with a shower of confetti. Presents were piled on the pool tables, where there were trays of long-rotten food.
A sign for the restrooms hung above them, and the whole room was thick with dust that floated through the random streaks of moon and street light that snuck into the area through any available crevice.
‘What is this place?’
‘Our function suite.’
‘Really? This is quite a space. You could pack them in here.’
Molly nodded. Moonlight barely penetrated the room, but the light from the office behind them managed to catch the mirror ball which hung a dozen feet above right in the middle of the dance floor. Blake took the first steps into the room, then kept going until he reached the middle of
the dance floor, where he spun to see Molly hugging herself just a few feet inside the office door. One of the banners had fallen to the floor, and he twisted his head to read it – “Molly” was all it said.
‘It was your birthday?’ Blake said, his words cutting through the chill surrounding them and she nodded. ‘Which one?’
‘My twenty-fourth.’
‘Five years ago?’ Blake said. ‘You haven’t been in here for five years?’ She shook her head. Maintaining her line of vision on the floor, she wrapped her arms further around herself.
‘I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea. I thought I could do this… that after all this time it would be no big deal, but… I can’t… I… Can we get out of here?’
‘Wait,’ Blake said. ‘No. Tell me.’
‘Tell you what? It was my birthday; we were up here having a party. My dad went downstairs to lock up the bar and… never came back.’
‘The night he had his heart attack? So you locked the door and never opened it again?’
‘Never,’ Molly said. ‘I thought about it a few times, but… I’ve never wanted to do it alone.’
‘What about Harry? He didn’t come in with you?’
Her gaze pounced up to his. ‘Who told you about Harry?’
‘Joel and the sisters,’ he said, hooking his thumbs into his jeans as he wandered back toward her.
She shook her head and went back to staring at the spot on the floor. ‘He never asked.’
‘Never?’ Blake asked. ‘He didn’t realise that the size of the building outside didn’t match the size of it inside?’
Molly shrugged. ‘He knew this place was here, but he just never asked.’
‘Is that the only way in here?’ Blake asked. ‘From your office?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘The main entrance was up an external metal stairway to a door behind the pool tables. It was in the alley just at the end of our block.’
‘I’ve never seen a metal stairway.’
‘The door was boarded up the same year that my dad died… I asked them to dismantle the stairs. At that point, I never intended to come back in here.’
‘Why not?’ he asked.
‘This was my dad’s favourite room. He loved celebrating people’s important moments and being there for them in the bad ones. These decorations were hung by him, the party was a surprise, and… I was in this room when they told me he was downstairs, unresponsive—‘
‘What happened to your mom, Mol?’
‘Can we not do this tonight? Please, Blake, I…’
‘Shh,’ he said, and pulled her against him again, cradling the small of her back and her skull.
‘He would be so disappointed in me.’
‘What?’ Blake gaped. ‘He would be proud of you.’
Though her head remained buried in his chest, she shook it. ‘He wouldn’t. He would tell me I was crazy. He didn’t let anything in life affect him. He saw the bright side of everything and of everyone. He loved life. My dad lived for this bar, and for me and Cal. When Cal was taken from us… he didn’t blame me. He didn’t blame anyone. He said his goodbye and just got over it. When he talked about Cal, he did it with a smile on his face. Nothing got my father down.’
‘Shh, babe, come on. Everyone is different. You’ve been left alone. You lost your brother, and your dad, but you’re still going. You’ve kept this place going on your own.’
‘Cal was supposed to inherit the bar,’ Molly said, stepping out of his arms and wiping her cheeks to clear the escaped tears. ‘My job was to get married and reproduce.’ A sob crossed with a laugh seeped past her lips. ‘I think the government would advise against me procreating. I should have my own health warning.’
‘You’re too hard on yourself,’ he said, and threw his arm around her. Letting her beat herself up was unproductive, so Blake resolved to change the mood. ‘If you want to tap this resource, then just say the word and we’ll get it into shape. But if you’re not ready, we’ll lock that door, block it, and pretend we were never here.’
‘I wanted to show you something,’ she said, tiptoeing around the tables toward the bar. Glasses remained on the tables, all of them had grown mould, leaving the whole place with a musty smell.
‘What is it, Sugar?’
Molly disappeared behind the bar, so he took in the view. This was a huge time capsule to a horrific moment in her life. She would have been standing up here laughing and dancing when someone came into the room and announced her father was dead. Her heart must have stopped too. At that time, her father was the only family that Molly had left.
Few people would want to embrace such a memory, and so it didn’t surprise him that she’d blocked off the room. The whole structure would be filled with memories of her family, but she got the final blow in this room.
‘This!’ she called to him.
Allowing his gaze to slope in her direction, Blake stifled a yawn. But when she jumped up from behind the bar his mouth clamped shut. ‘Jesus Christ, what are you doing with that?’
‘It’s my dad’s!’ she called with a grin on her face, holding a gun up towards the ceiling.
Keeping an eye on her hands, and the gun’s position, he ducked toward her. ‘Do you know how to use it?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘But it can’t be that hard.’
‘I’m coming over there; don’t point it at me.’
Closing the space between them, he jumped behind the bar. By now she held it out in front of her, pointed out into the room, but he pried her fingers from the dusty, cold metal.
‘Do you think I should take it downstairs?’ she asked.
‘This is an old Smith and Wesson six shooter. Where the hell did your old man get this?’
Molly shrugged. ‘He only had it for emergencies.’
‘Yeah… right,’ Blake said, opening the cylinder to see that it was fully loaded. ‘It wasn’t just a scare tactic.’ He tipped the gun back and removed the bullets from it.
‘I should take it downstairs,’ she said. ‘In case anyone tries to rob me again.’
‘Yeah, you could have told me this was here earlier.’
‘Do you know how to use a gun?’ she asked.
‘Like you said, it’s not that hard,’ Blake said, as he inspected the weapon.
‘Have you ever shot anyone?’
He narrowed his eyes at her when he heard the glow in her voice. ‘I’ve never murdered anyone, if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘Can you show me?’ she said, and the delight in her voice unsettled him.
‘No. Leave this here.’
‘I need some kind of protection downstairs.’
‘I’ll get you a panic button.’
‘Not like that,’ Molly said. ‘This is the best solution.’
‘No,’ Blake said. ‘It’s not. I’ve seen more innocent people get hurt by guns than guilty ones. If it’s there, it can be used against you.’
‘You have shot someone! Were you in the army?’
‘Since when do you care about violence?’ Blake asked, sliding the gun back under the counter before he put the bullets in a jar by the register.
‘I don’t,’ Molly said. ‘But I never thought that I would be in the position that I was tonight. What would I have done if you hadn’t been there?’
‘Kneed the guy in the nuts just like you did and got into the street.’
‘Oh, the street filled with serial killers…? That’s much better.’
‘Everyone in your bar tells me that you women have nothing to worry about.’
‘Well, it’s about time,’ Molly said. ‘We’re forever the ones in danger. It’s about time you men had a turn.’
Molly rounded the bar, leaving him alone, and traversed toward the window. Her goal was the DJ booth and when she got there, she leaned over and flicked a switch. Lights came on all around them and music crept on from nowhere, which Blake recognised as Nina Simone.
‘What are you doing?’ Blake asked.
‘My dad’s favourite!’ she shouted over the music, and beckoned for him to join her.
Intending to join her, he began to walk in her direction, but when he saw her hips sway in time to the music his pace slowed until he stopped to watch her writhe. Deciding then that he was close enough, Blake propped his hand on the bar and stared.
‘No, no!’ she said. ‘Get over here!’
‘I don’t dance.’
She laughed and swaggered toward him. ‘You don’t have to dance,’ she said. ‘Just hold onto me. I’ll do all the moving.’
Linking her fingers at the back of his neck, she began to walk backward, taking him onto the floor. Clutching her waist, he felt every inch of her body move against him. Everything she did teased him, but this was torture.
Her eyes closed as she slid her arms further around him, pressing herself into him until she relaxed her head onto his shoulder. As they stood here, holding each other, a strange sense of contentment swept over him, which was more than desire or pleasure. It wasn’t happiness or delight, either. This moment was the closest in his life that he had ever been to satisfaction.
The clarity stilled his heart and his body. So he snatched her hand and grabbed her waist to push her body away from his in a spin until their arms were outstretched apart. Molly screeched as she spun back to him and collided with his chest, where he twisted and dipped her back.
‘I thought you didn’t dance,’ she said, catching her breath.
‘I don’t… doesn’t mean I can’t.’
When her head fell back with laughter, Blake took his chance to sample her throat. He kissed and sucked at the tender flesh and he heard her breath leave her lungs, which turned him to concrete again.
The union of his lips on her skin was broken when she brought her head back up. ‘I thought you didn’t want to kiss me tonight.’
‘I shouldn’t, but I want to.’
Drawing her back to her feet, he spun her away again. This time when he brought her back to him he kept hold of her hand. Placing his other palm to her waist, Blake rested his lips to her scalp.
‘Promise me that you’ll never touch that gun again.’
Reluctant Suspicion Page 10
