by Tee, Marian
Frankie nearly wilted in relief. That...was such a perfectly plausible thing for her to have said, it was kinda scary knowing Thornton was the one to think of it.
But still.
At least she was out of the woods with Blake now, Frankie told herself. And as for Thornton's reasons for still not telling her friend about Hartland Initiative...
Thornton was unsurprised when Frankie headed back his way as soon as Blake had another set of customers to attend to.
"I owe you for that," Blake's friend muttered.
"You do."
She glared at him. "I know my hands are legally tied and there's no way for me to force you to tell Blake the truth. But if you ever hurt her..."
"I won't."
Frankie was unimpressed. "We'll see, Mr. Blackwood. But just so you know...I'm not the only one who'll be after your hide---"
"Curt Teller." The way Frankie jumped told Thornton he had guessed correctly, and his lips tightened. "I know he likes her."
Frankie had a hard time keeping her face expressionless. Oh no. Getting Curt to make Thornton potentially jealous had been her idea, and it had seemed like a good one...before. But now that the two were a couple?
She cleared her throat. "About that---" But before she could say another word, they both heard Blake's mobile phone ring.
"Hello?"
Thornton's gaze narrowed when he saw something flicker in Blake's eyes. "Oh. Hey. It's you...Kate."
Frankie winced. Oh, Blake. She took a peek at Thornton's expression and found it utterly, terrifyingly bland. Oh, shit. That look just about said everything.
Thornton suddenly found his view of Blake blocked when her friend jumped in front of him.
"It's not what you think, Mr. Blackwood," she said in a rush. "Curt---"
"Is what?"
Shit, shit, shit.
"You don't have anything to be jealous about," she tried convincing him.
"Can you prove that?"
Shit.
Thornton's jaw clenched at Frankie's helpless look. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. Who the fuck was this Curt guy to Blake anyway?
Chapter Seventeen
It was close to seven by the time the last customer left, and Blake could barely keep herself from fidgeting while watching the old woman head for the door with her newly-purchased cozy mystery paperback clutched between her fingers.
Come on, come on...
The moment the door swung shut behind the customer, she immediately dashed towards the reading nook. Thornton was seated on one of the chairs, browsing through a history book, with a look of concentration on his beautiful bearded face.
As if sensing her gaze on him, Thornton glanced up, his gaze questioning.
Here goes...
One moment, Blake was standing a few feet away with a guilty expression on her too-pretty face, and then the next moment, she had launched herself without warning, and Thornton had to quickly grab hold of the table to keep both of them from toppling over.
Blake quickly threw her arms around his neck the moment she righted herself in his lap.
Thornton could feel how fast and hard her heart was beating. Scared. Blake was scared, and even though he still had the urge to pulverize something - anything - into pieces, he could already feel his concern for Blake overpowering his anger.
Which means I'm fucked, Thornton thought.
Blake sensed her boyfriend lifting a hand and tensed uncontrollably. She knew he wouldn't hurt her in any way, but...
A moment later, his hand settled on her head...and started stroking her hair.
Thornton heard the breath she expelled, and despite everything, he couldn't help feel the tiniest bit exasperated and amused. "You thought I'd strike you."
Blake winced. "Sorry," she mumbled. "It's stupid, I know. But it's only because...I know you know."
With her face pressed against the crook of his neck, her voice came out slightly muffled, but the way the fingers threading through her hair stilled told her Thornton understood her just fine.
Her guilt grew, and her eyes started stinging.
"You do, right You know I was lying a while ago. D-Don't you?"
The fingers started moving again, and when she felt his lips brush the top of her head---
Blake burst into tears.
"Baby..."
But this only made her cry harder.
"Blake."
Perfect, she thought, sobbing hard. He's perfect, and I don't deserve him for making him feel stupid things he doesn't deserve to feel.
"I k-know you have the wrong idea about me and Curt---" She felt him stiffen slightly at hearing her say the other guy's name, and pain welled up inside of her. "It's not what you think!" She hugged him as tightly as she could. "I swear to God, Thorn, I swear---"
"Blake---"
"I'm not lying," she swore between sniffs. "So please---"
"Blake."
Why did his voice sound somewhat strangled?
"You're choking me, baby."
Oh!
She quickly let go and was aghast to see how his face had changed color due to lack of oxygen.
Oops.
"I'm so sorry!" Her voice wobbled as she fought against the urge to burst into another embarrassing bout of tears. Could this night get any worse? Not only had she made a perfect boyfriend like Thornton feel jealous or betrayed even, she now had to add attempted murder to her list of growing sins---
Just the thought of it proved too much, and before she knew it, she was crying again.
"It's alright."
But the gentleness in his voice only made her cry harder and hate herself more.
Thornton stroked his girlfriend's back but when her tears still showed no signs of stopping, he carefully reached up to disentangle her arms from around him.
Blake jerked when she realized what Thornton was doing. "T-Thorn?" But he kept moving, and in the next moment he had succeeded in getting her off his lap, and a tremendous wave of despair and empty loneliness threatened to swallow her up when she suddenly found herself seated on the chair opposite him.
He's going to break up with me, she thought hysterically. He's going to ask for an explanation, and I won't be able to say a word, and he's going to think I'm lying, and by the time I can tell the truth, it's going to be too late, and---
"Blake."
She shook her head jerkily. "I don't want to hear it."
"Baby---"
"No!" She covered her ears. "That's not going to make me listen to you either, and no matter what you say, we're not going to break up---"
"We're not."
"We're going to fix this---"
"We are."
"Do you hear me?"
"I do." Thornton reached for Blake's hands and forcibly pulled it down with gentle firmness. "Question is," he drawled. "Have you heard anything I said?"
She stared at him in shock as the past thirty seconds began replaying in her mind.
Oh. Oh. OH!
"You're really not going to break up with me?" she asked in a small voice.
"No."
"Even if I tell you...if you ask me who Curt is, I won't be able to tell you the truth?"
Thornton's lips tightened, but after a moment, he said curtly, "Even then."
"And that I promised to meet with him tomorrow...alone?"
His jaw clenched, and a longer amount of time had to pass before he said finally, "Even then."
"And---"
Anger blazed in his dark eyes. "Don't push it---"
"I'm just joking."
He stared at her.
She flashed him a peace sign with a weak smile. "I'm really sorry. I couldn't resist---holy sheep!" He suddenly jerked to his feet, and she nearly fell out of her chair in shock. She looked up, and the sight of him towering over her had Blake gulping. Oh no. Oh yes. She was once again a confused mass of fear and excitement, with the way one part of her found Thornton's aura of danger terrifying while the other part was undeniably aroused by the menacing fee
l of his power.
"So you think you could make a joke out of this..."
Umm.
When he put it that way...
Sheep.
"I'm so sor---ah!"
Blake suddenly found herself lifted like a sack of potatoes and thrown over Thornton's shoulder.
"Thorn!"
But her shriek only earned her a slap on the butt, and she half-choked, half-gasped with laughter. "What in the---"
SLAP!
"People are typically afraid of me for no reason, and I've become used to being avoided and living alone."
Blake stopped trying to wriggle free at Thornton's words.
"But you..."
Blake held her breath and barely noticed Thornton opening the door to his unit.
"You were different from the start." Thornton carefully lowered Blake to her feet as he spoke. "People tend to see all sorts of things when they look at me, but you...you saw perfection." His hands settled on her waist and tightened. "You were never once afraid." He slowly pulled her close until he was seated on the edge of the bed and she was standing between his legs. "And that was what fucked me up."
He looked up.
Blake was crying again, the tears silently falling down her face.
"Do you get it now?" he asked roughly.
She could only shake her head, tears making her unable to speak.
"You fucked me up by making me realize I can't live alone. Not after knowing there's someone like you in the world. You fucked me up so damn well that I find myself trusting you for the strangest things. You admit to lying about Teller not being a childhood friend. You tell me you can't yet speak the truth about him...but you tell me you also need to meet him. Alone. And to fucking top things off, you even dared to make a joke of the whole fucking thing..."
His lips twisted in a rare, beautifully crooked smile.
"Surely you see it now? How you fucked me up so damn good that even though everything points to you and Teller having some kind of romantic past...you've got me so fucked up that I see all these things as proof. You've gotta be the most inept person to be starting a secret affair and cheat on me...but it's those same things that make me think I should trust you."
He cupped her chin.
"It still makes me feel like the world's biggest idiot to say this, but for what it's worth..."
Another crooked smile.
"I trust you---"
Blake threw herself at him, and she was crying and he was grinning as they fell into the bed.
Tomorrow, Blake promised to herself as they tore each other's clothes off.
Tomorrow, Thornton vowed to himself just before his cock plunged deep into her pussy.
Tomorrow, I'll tell him I love him.
Tomorrow, I'll tell her I love her.
Tomorrow, both of them thought as their bodies shuddered against each other.
Tomorrow.
But it wasn't to be.
Chapter Eighteen
Ethan heard the front door swish open and absently wondered who in his right mind would need to visit a flower shop on a rainy weekday afternoon. Hartland was always exceptionally colder than most of the mainland, and rain made it more so.
Must be a miserable bastard, Ethan thought as he came to his feet, to have to brave this kind of weather and give someone flowers.
Footsteps headed his way, and as he turned to greet the customer - he ended up blinking in surprise instead. "Thorn?"
His older brother only grunted as he tossed himself on one of the vacant stools next to the counter.
Ethan glanced outside and saw no signs of Thornton's new girlfriend. "Trouble in paradise?"
Thornton grunted again, and Ethan's brows shot up. "There's trouble then?" he asked in surprise. Even if only a fraction of the gossip coming out from the local rumor mills was true, he would've expected Thornton and Blake to still be too busy fucking to have any time to fight.
"Blake's gone down to the city." Before Ethan could ask what for, his older brother then added, "To meet with Curt Teller."
Ethan gave up any pretense of working at that and set aside the bunch of flowers he had been arranging for a bouquet. "Let's head back to the kitchen."
"You're still open," Thornton felt obliged to remind his brother.
"It's Hartland," the younger man dismissed. "We don't get robbed here, and even if we do get the stray burglar or two, they'll find out soon enough we're no ordinary small town."
"Touché," Thornton acknowledged, remembering the multimillion-dollar security system Hartland Initiative had invested in. It wasn't the type that one could see easily, but it would work when it was needed to work.
"So..." Ethan placed a mug of hot chocolate in front of his brother. "About Ms. Golding meeting her very dear and handsome childhood friend---"
"Fuck you."
Ethan smirked at the rare note of irritation in Thornton's tone. "Did she tell you that or did you find out about it on your own?"
"She told me."
"And you didn't put up a fuss," he guessed slyly. "Even if you wanted to. Because if you did, you knew it would make you look immature and unreasonably jealous---"
"Fuck you."
Ethan threw his head back with a laugh.
"It's not fucking funny."
"Just relax, man," Ethan said with a careless shrug. "This is Blake we're talking about, remember? The girl who can't help but still see you as perfect no matter how much we try to convince her otherwise?"
Silence.
Ethan put his own mug down, just the slightest bit discomfited now. "What's really bugging you?" he asked finally. "Because I think we both know Blake can be trusted, and---"
"I'm going to ask her to marry me."
Ethan choked on his coffee.
"We've never spoken about our...feelings."
Ethan kept choking. Was this fucking happening for real? His brother, a man whose range of emotions could only be from zero (frowning) to point five (not smiling), was actually talking about marriage and feelings?
"I'm sorry, Thorn," Ethan said when he finally recovered from his shock. "You've dropped a bomb back there, but it's great news..." His voice trailed off when he saw the shuttered look on his brother's face. "I mean, it is. Right?"
"I'm not rushing things," Thornton said flatly.
"Uh, yeah." Ethan was perplexed. 'You don't have to tell me that. You're not the type---"
"And Blake?"
"And Blake what?"
"Do you think she's the type?"
* * *
Thornton checked his watch. Ten-fifteen in the evening. She was supposed to be here by dinner, dammit. It wasn't like her to be late, and even more unlike Blake was her not sending a message to explain the delay. The only reason he wasn't calling the police now was because he had incognito bodyguards tailing Blake from the moment he realized his attraction to her.
They had kept him updated throughout the day, and it was through them he found out that she and Teller had finished talking even before dinner. After that, she had stayed with her grandmother...and stopped contacting him since then.
What the hell was happening?
He took his phone out and backread on all the messages they had exchanged throughout the day.
Blake: Missing you already.
Blake: Thorn! I said I'm missing you already.
Thornton: You just got inside the car.
Blake: So?
Thornton: I can still see you. You're still in our driveway.
Blake: I see what you did there.
Thornton: Speaking logically?
Blake: You called it our driveway to distract me.
Thornton: I wasn't trying to distract you.
Blake: But it's not working.
Thornton: I just said I wasn't trying anything.
Blake: So please just say it.
Blake: Thorn?
Blake: Hello?
Blake: I'm driving away now.
Blake: You can't see me now.
<
br /> Blake: Can you say it now?
Thornton: Don't drive and text.
Thornton: And I miss you.
Just thinking about their earlier text conversation almost had him smiling. It had been silly as hell, but he had enjoyed it. Like he had told her last night, she had fucked him up well and good, and well...he was hoping she would keep at it for the rest of their lives---
A sound coming from the outside, almost like someone making a run for it, had Thornton swiftly stepping out just in time to see Blake rushing inside her place.
"Blake---"
But she didn't even turn her head, and the door slammed shut behind her.
What the fuck?
He knocked on her door.
"Blake?"
He knocked again and again.
"Blake?"
He could feel his blood turning cold, could feel the urge to smash the door down growing stronger inside of him. Something...wasn't right. He could feel it in his bones. He had these instincts ever since he had gone to war, and his instincts had never been wrong.
"Blake?"
He fought to keep his voice level. Kept knocking even when the skin on his knuckles started to wear off and his flesh began to sting.
"Blake."
"Baby."
"Tell me what's wrong."
Chapter Nineteen
Jumanji drums.
Thornton cast a puzzled glance at her over his shoulder. "Pardon?"
In for a penny, in for a pound, Blake thought, realizing she had accidentally mumbled the words out loud.
Thornton could feel his forehead creasing in a frown as he listened to Blake's explanation. She had woken up hearing Jumanji drums, she had said. It's like this foreshadowing device in the movie. When you hear it, you know something's going to happen..
After flipping the pancakes one last time, he turned around and asked, "So what does it have to do with you?"
"Um."
He transferred the pancakes to their plates before taking a seat. "Wanna say grace?"
Blake cleared her throat. "Yes, sure." She tried not to get distracted while praying, but it was hard. And yes, she did know she had asked for it. She had teased Thornton earlier about needing to see him in an apron and jeans and nothing else, thinking he'd roll his eyes or just stare at her in that stoic way of his.
