by Anna Bloom
My teeth clench at her words. My heart, which has been pumping with heated blood, cools to the temperature of the sea in the depths of winter. "She’s with Johnny?"
"Of course." She nods blindly.
"But, she overdosed with him? He’s a trigger for her." I shouldn’t need to be explaining this, surely it’s obvious? I’m just wasting precious time prattling a conversation with this ridiculous woman.
A flicker in her eyes catches my attention and I switch into overdrive. Adrenaline begins to pump through every cell in my genetic make-up. "Oh shit, you know what the trigger is, don’t you?" I step for her, my hand wrapping into the silk of her blouse sleeve, grasping her tight so she’ll have to look at me. "What’s the trigger, Erica?"
She laughs, a high-pitched squeal. "She’s fanciful, always has been."
"What’s the trigger, Erica?" Hitting women is one of my no goes. But shit I want to thump her, and not for the first time in our acquaintance.
"You. You’re the trigger. You destroyed her and left her searching to replace you."
A nasty chill creeps down my spine. Just what would Sophia allow to happen to try to replace me? What had she wanted from me that I wouldn’t give her?
My memory reels to the night I walked out five years ago. The night I’d found Johnny Fairweather’s naked arse poised above my obsession. The night she’d clambered onto my lap and pressed her lips against mine, her desperate hands tangling around my neck.
"Fuck."
I launch for the door, allowing it to swing on its hinges in my wake.
The jeep can’t go fast enough. The roads are empty but every turn feels like it’s taking me further away. Finally, I find my way to his house. How I remember where it is after all these years I don’t know. I run along the driveway, my feet crunching underneath. His car is on the drive but my hammering on the door goes unanswered.
I pound harder and harder, preparing to splinter the wood of the arched door if I have to, but a cry from outside fills the air. I run for it, my legs moving before my brain has even registered the cry is Sophia’s. The fence doesn’t stand a chance as I kick it down, clambering over the security wire. Alarms wail with my entry, but it doesn’t matter. Hopefully the cops will arrive, hopefully they catch the sick pervert for what he is.
Everything makes blinding sense to me now. The jigsaw pieces have slotted into place, but the picture they reveal revolts me and turns my stomach.
He gets her high.
He helps her forget… me… I swallow hard enough my throat aches, my feet still working on the fence, untangling it where it snags into my trousers. Once I’m free, I run; my legs pumping, my brain churning with half-baked thoughts, and nightmares.
What does he get from her?
What would make her overdose? What would make her slash at her own wrists so she’s scarred by her own mistakes for the rest of her life?
My breath hisses in my throat as I screech onto the pool deck. God give me the strength not to kill him
"Sophia," I call her name and his head shoots up. What I see makes sick rise up my throat. He rolls off her, his groans filling the air.
"Fuck, here comes the anti-fun police."
She doesn’t move, doesn’t stir. She’s dead. He’s been mauling a dead person. His jeans are undone, his belt hanging free, but thankfully they’re still up around his hips.
She’s in her underwear. A corpse in underwear.
"You’re a sick pervert." The words shoot out my mouth, venom sending them flying through the air.
"Whatever, bodyguard. I get to do it, you just dream about it." He stares at the sky, no concern for the semi-naked girl by his side. There’s nothing on his face apart from boredom.
I will kill him.
I will actually kill the bastard.
I lurch forward, this will be it, the end of everything I’ve battled against. Everything I’ve fought so hard to contain and remain professional. But I can’t hold back any longer. Her. Me. As I move toward her and her vulnerability stabs me in the heart, saving her right now, being there for her, protecting her, will be worth any repercussions. My arm rises ready to deliver a blow to the bastard that’s touched my girl. My pulse thumps in my veins, pushing me on. Go on do it Blake, end the bastard.
It’s in this moment of blinding clarity as I step towards Johnny that the truth I’ve been trying so hard to avoid acknowledging hits me with full clarity. She’s my girl. She always has been and I know she always will be. There is no chance I will ever be able to walk away now. My eyes flutter over her. Should I be fighting, or should I be saving her? The only thing that matters to me, is the person who I have put above all others.
"This time I won’t let you get away with it, bodyguard." He lifts an eyebrow as he clambers away from her body leaving her exposed. “Who’s going to protect her while you’re behind bars?"
He thinks he’s won, he thinks his words have stopped me. I allow my arms to drop to my sides. Releasing my fingers from their tense curl I want to pound the fuck out of him, but what would be the point. I want to laugh in his face more, empowerment rushes through me. She’s mine. He can laugh, sneer, goad me as much as he likes but he won’t change the fact that she will never be his.
Sophia stirs, groaning, her skin the hue of pond water. I don’t hesitate to sweep her into my arms, her bare skin burning though my suit. "Sophia?" her name lifts from my lips like a prayer and I hear him chuckle behind me as I grab her clothes. I don’t care. I’m going to take her away from everything. “You’re okay, Sophia, I’ve got you.” I whisper into her hair, my lips skimming the flattened strands. “I’m never going to let you go.”
I walk away with MY girl in my arms. The only bloody girl in the whole of my existence.
Chapter Fifteeen
Sophia
"Fuck." The darkness speaks, a string of tumbling oaths that vibrate within a vast void of emptiness.
I shrink until I’m rolled like a hedgehog under a leaf. Until I’m invisible from the watchful eyes of the world. Cool, refreshing surfaces press against my ball like form. They’re nice.
I want to stay in the dark. It’s better here, safer, away from lies and hurt. Away from those who want things from me, things I’m not sure I can give.
I love the dark.
Water falls onto my face, pinging off the surface of my skin. Where has water come from in the dark? I don’t know, but it makes me sick again and my efforts at vomiting and spluttering under the current of water are met with another low, "Fuck."
I don’t care. Instead, I submit to the soothing void of nothing. Nothing is easier, safer, more supporting than anything else. I have no ambition to fight it.
I have no ambition. No ambition at all to do anything, be anything, to exist. The dark is perfect. It wants me as much as I want it and I’ll never have to worry again.
"Sophia?" The call is low and soft, a piercing break under the surface.
My god did I hate that name.
My hand swats at the name I don’t want. I no longer want to own anything, not even the call of my name. If I acknowledge it, I’ll have to be it. So I shake my head.
I don’t want to be Sophia anymore, wish I didn’t know who she was.
She’s a fake.
There. The darkness tells me who I am. A FAKE.
"Thank you." I tell the darkness. "Thank you."
Thank you for telling me what I am. For confirming what I’ve always known.
The water comes faster, harder, pouring into my mouth and the darkness fades away until it lifts into a murky grey. I claw at it. "Don’t leave me." The cascading water mingles with my heaving sobs and my tears fall into a warm torrent.
An uncomfortable prod delves around my eye socket and a blue eye stares at me. "Wake up, Soph." The dark blue eyes are framed by a face torn with an expression of such despair it jostles me, pulls me from the welcoming black void of nothing.
Water gushes over that torn face, running in rivulets, falling into the mo
uth open in anguish, rolling off dark long lashes. "If you don’t wake up, I’ll have to take you to the hospital. And they will start it all over again. They will make me stay away."
The solid surface holding my body gives a tight squeeze.
Does he not know I’m awake? I’m here.
"Blake?" His name tumbles from my mouth, lost in gurgling jets of water. "Blake?" I try again and his attention snaps towards me. His dark waves fall onto his face, soaked strands of darkest ebony. My fingers reach for the warm supportive surface of his body, tangling in drenched cotton, sliding through the gap between buttons until my fingertips meet hot damp skin.
"Sophia." My name’s a cry and his arms crush me into his wet chest, my fingers trapped between our heaving bodies, splayed against his skin. I’m touching him and he’s holding me in the way I’ve always dreamed.
My head aches, thumping and rattling in my skull and I wince at the extreme sharp pain.
One hand smooths around my neck, running along the sensitive skin under my hairline. A thumb grazes the edge of my jaw and I stare up at him, wordlessly. I don’t have anything to say, I just stare up at him as if he’s the sun. I’ve never realised how big he is compared to me, but he cradles the back of my neck in one warm, easy hand. A low whimper leaves my lips, but it’s not the headache. It’s desire. It’s always desire with him. He’s all I’ve ever wanted. He is all I knew I’d never get.
I want the darkness again. Oblivion. Oblivion is easier.
"Blake, you lied to me," I say, the words just falling from my unwilling mouth. "You lied. You’re just like everyone else…"
Firm fingers hold my chin and I fight against the touch, straining away. It reminds me of something dark and unwanted. "Look at me."
Screwing my eyes shut, I shake my head. A flutter of pressure lands on my skin, a soft caress. "I’ll never lie to you again. Anything you want to know, I’ll give it to you." Another caress. "Sophia, I promise."
My eyes snap open. Am I dreaming? Water spurts in my eyes. Some dream. Blake stands under the water, his hair flattened and black as it falls across his forehead, into his lashes. "I’m just cleaning you up." His cheek presses against mine and the water tumbles over us like a hot spring. "Cleaning us up."
I widen my eyes, my faculties slowly returning. "Us?"
The dark blues swirl with hidden depths. "You puked on me."
I struggle against his hold and his arms tighten. I’d puked on him?
"Stay still." It’s a low command and my fight dissolves at his words. Fingers run through my hair, pulling at the strands, lifting them so water can seep against my scalp. His eyes focus on my mouth and that searing expression of torment returns to his features as long fingers cradle the bones of my face, holding it secure. All I can do is keep my eyes wide open and lose myself in his deep gaze. I search for repulsion in their depths but what I find is unnameable. “Here.” He hands me a tube of toothpaste which I all to willingly squirt straight into my mouth, swirling it around with my tongue before swallowing.
"I’m sorry. I was so angry and scared." I don’t know how to explain why I reacted the way I did. It’s what I do. I launch myself off the cliff of oblivion at the first sign of trouble. It’s a pathetic weakness but one I don’t know how to fix.
He inches closer. "Shh, don’t speak."
My remaining words die on my tongue, washed away in the steaming droplets of the shower. Hesitating for one long moment he measures the space between us, but then I watch in a dream as his lips set with determination and he closes the space. Anticipation rockets through my body. A wild giddiness rushes like a train.
His lips brush mine and the air in my lungs dissipates. Gone. The fingers holding my face grip firmer as he steps closer, his chest brushing mine, the soaking material of our clothes meshing together. He stalls, his lips skimming and savouring as they pass in gentle delicate waves over the surface of my mouth. Finally, when my tummy is flipping into an erratic dance of desire, his warm tongue teases and flicks my lips. My mouth burns with fire as I open and he tilts my head in the cradle of his hands until we are a blur of teeth, tongues and gasps.
This is a kiss and I’m awake. Every brush, every touch, every swirl of his tongue, every suck on my lips, every dancing probe is an electrical charge restoring my cold damaged heart.
My heart, thumping wildly in my chest, ceases to beat when he breaks the connection of the kiss. An echoing silence fills the sound that moments before was my ragged breathing and our mutual sighs. His fingers hold me tight, their strength unwavering. When I open my eyes he’s millimetres away, a flash of defeat chasing across the handsome planes of his face. "I can’t save you like this." His words are nothing more than a broken whisper drowned by the fall of water.
My fingers reach for his face, skimming the tips along his skin, the curve of his nose, the smooth outline of his lips hidden under dark stubble. I cling to him, holding him with every shred of strength I can muster. Desperately, I meet his eyes, swallowing the pounding pulse that thuds in my throat as my heart kick-starts back to life. Holding his gaze, I say the words I’ve never said to anyone. "Save me. Please?"
Chapter Sixteen
Blake
It’s funny that when it comes to snap decisions, I can make them easily. Just as five years ago when I walked away it had been easy. The decision once made, just a formality I could follow through with.
This time when I make the decision that will change everything it’s as simple as counting one, two, three.
I watch her, asleep on the bed of the pool house as I dial. Her body’s a tight ball, arms hugging knees, damp hair sprawled across white pillows.
I kissed her. And I fucking loved it, relished it. The memory of that scorching kiss burns through my veins and I want more, more than she can probably give.
My call connects and I take a deep lungful of air, my free hand picking imaginary fluff off my jeans. "I’m coming home." It sounds so easy when I say it.
I grimace at the snapped response and glance at my watch. "Tomorrow. Can you get Shayne to leave the car at the airport?"
A flurry of curses meet my ears, some in English, some Welsh. "Thanks, I appreciate it." I reply, my tone heavily laden with sarcasm.
Until that point I don’t know I’m going to say the words. But then there they are, breezing their way down the transatlantic phone call. "I’m not going to be alone."
There’s a stunned silence. Blake Henderson is always alone.
My eyes travel to the tangle of arms and legs on the bed. I’d always been alone with good reason. A reason that still stood. Yet, tonight I’d taken a brick from the wall and discarded it with my fears.
Tonight, my fears had transformed into something else.
Losing her would be the end of me. I know that now.
Being with her is impossible but losing her would be even worse. I will never walk away. I’m not that strong.
Yes, I’m stuck in no-man’s-land, but if that’s what it takes then that’s the place I will be. For her.
I sigh into the phone, dropping my chin onto my chest. A battering ram of tiredness smashes into me, reminding me I haven’t slept for over twenty-four hours. "Is Shayne okay?" It’s a loaded question. I haven’t tried to call him since my first day here and remorse niggles the back of my conscience like an annoying fly buzzing over a dessert.
I breathe out with the answer I receive. "Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow." I hang up quickly as the girl who absorbs all my attention begins to stir. She looks better than she did—but that’s not hard given the circumstances.
This is some serious messed up shit. What had he been doing to her? Is that what had happened before? The night that sent her to rehab? A stab of guilt takes up residence in my stomach. Was Erica, right? Am I the trigger?
Everything is starting to make more sense, but she needs to be the one to tell me, she has to share that. But if it helps, I will tell her all my truths, all the things I keep private—I will show her everythin
g I am.
I don’t know what my role is anymore. Bodyguard? Friend? Man who kissed her in the shower when she was barely awake? I’m definitely that one.
"Hey?" her voice croaks, and I stand from my spot in the corner, padding across the carpet to hand her a glass of water.
"Here." It comes out gruffer than I intend, more of a bark. This is what happens with her. I can never be or act the way I want. It all comes out wrong and confused.
I kissed her. That was definitely wrong.
"Thanks." She clutches the glass and takes a sip, her eyes averting from mine. "Why does my throat hurt so much?" Her slender fingers rub the delicate skin of her neck and I swallow as a different pain of my own rises.
Perching on the bed, the mattress dips with my weight and I take the glass back. Relieved of the glass she falls back against the pillows. Dark purple bruises spread under her eyes, but then I guess I’m no picture right now either. I scrub a hand across the rough hair on my cheeks. A frown flickers across her face, settling in a deep groove between her brows. "Why am I just in my underwear?"
I lift an eyebrow. "Because you puked all over us, which just to add, I think may have caused the sore throat." A ghost of a smile flits across my lips. This is unchartered water. "You took projectile to a whole new level."
"You kissed me." Her gaze briefly lifts and a pink burn stains her cheeks.
"I’m sorry. I know it’s unprofessional." Just pull my tongue from my mouth—right now. I’ll never forget the way her tongue darted against mine, stroking and probing. I also know I want more.
I’m an asshole, I know that for sure.
Her face freezes into a mask of fury at my rebuff. "Yes, it was." She thrusts the sheets off her slim frame exposing all the things I want to see but know I shouldn’t look at. I stare anyway. I’m a man, not a monk. Irresistible milk chocolate freckles dot her skin in stark contrast to the black underwear I left her drying in. She’s a work of art in scraps of dark cotton.
