Blaze, page 31
Indy, I think, what the hell are you into?
CHAPTER TWENTY
INDY
I’m tired. I’m running on empty. The last thing I wanted to do after a long day of lectures was a shift at The Lab, but I need normality… and food.
If I had it my way, I would have curled up in bed and never left the room, but my pillow saw enough tears last night. I cried in silence, careful not to wake Naomi. I think she worked out what happened, but to her credit she didn’t ask any questions, didn’t pry. She almost seemed pleased.
My meeting with Agent Matherson didn’t help. The case has been pushed back due to “additional evidence.” I would have almost welcomed that news a day ago, but now I only want to get as far away from Abbotsleigh as possible, as far away as I can from him.
Do you? The voice of reason interjects. Can you blame him? He has a right to know.
I do miss him, his reassuring words, his hands. And sure, maybe I was a little harsh, taking out my own frustration, my own stupid issues on him—someone who just learned they were adopted, whose brother has been diagnosed with a rare disease that he’s powerless to help.
He needs you. Why won’t you let him in?
It’s been quiet in here ever since the brawl. A different crowd frequents The Lab now that the sporty types have vanished. It could be any generic bar in the East Village these days, full of arts majors and musicians.
I’m stocking the rear shelves when I see someone approach the bar in the mirror.
“What can I get you?” I ask, before I turn.
When I do, I freeze.
Cayden places his hands out. “Wait.” He looks like hell, like he hasn’t slept in days.
“Cay—”
He reaches across the bar and takes my hand, placing his other on top. “I can’t do this, Indy. I can’t live without you, and yes, I know you don’t want to tell me about your past, your secrets, but I’m here to say I’m okay with that as long as I can be with you.”
A tear slides down my cheek, but I’m already softening at his touch, the walls I’d built up so high over the last day tumbling down. It’s hard to even recall why I was so mad in the first place.
A guy steps up to the bar beside us. “Can I get a shot of tequila?”
Cayden reaches behind the bar and takes hold of an entire bottle, sliding it across. “Merry Christmas.”
The kid takes it. “Ah, thanks,” he says, bemused, before walking off.
“You can’t—” I begin, but he interrupts me.
“Are you listening to me, Indy? Because I’ve had to deal with some serious shit over the last twenty-four hours, shit I wouldn’t have seen coming in a million years. It’s made me question a lot of things, but the only thing that’s true, that feels right, is you. You know it too. Admit it.”
I sigh. “It’s complicated.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t care. Life is complicated. Do it with me, whatever it is.”
I stand there on the edge and I want desperately to leap, to trust him.
You can.
“Okay,” I say, “I’ll tell you everything, but not now, not here.”
“When do you get off?” he asks.
I check the clock on the wall. “An hour.”
“I’ll be waiting at the house. You’ll come?”
I nod. “I will.”
He smiles. “Okay,” he says, letting go of my hands and walking away.
The next hour passes like shifting molasses, people coming and going, Lucy darting in and out from the back room, the clock hand ticking, ticking, ticking.
I half-walk, half-run to the house, expecting to find at least Colton home, but the place is empty bar Cayden, leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed.
He pushes off and approaches me. “Before you say anything, you should know I had a run-in with your friend today.”
“My friend?”
“The one with the FBI badge.”
I take a seat at the kitchen table.
He joins me, moving his legs between mine, close and observant. I have his complete attention.
He takes my hands. “Trust me.”
I take a deep breath. Here we go. “I’m from New York.”
“Good.”
“A month ago, I was studying law at NYU. I had a small apartment, a cat called Crackers. I met with friends for pastrami on rye at Katz’s. I ran in Central Park two days a week. I had a normal life.”
“Until…”
I take another breath, feel my scars prickling.
“There was this party one night, in Brooklyn, an ’80s thing. It got late. My ride disappeared, I wanted to go home, but there were no taxis on the street. Hardly anyone was around.”
I’m shaking.
He squeezes my hands harder. “Go on.”
“I got lost, found myself in the back streets. There was a car with its lights on. I thought it was a taxi, so I went over.
I breathe in deep again. He watches me, eyes imploring me to continue.
“I got close enough to see it wasn’t, to make out the man driving. He was smoking, wearing a grey suit. I asked him if he knew where I could find a ride home. He said to walk down a block, take a left. I thanked him and walked away, almost out of the alley when I heard someone shout.”
“The guy from the car?”
“Yeah. I turned and saw two other men at his window. One of them pulled a gun, shot him right in the head. The whole car lit up for a second. I was so shocked I couldn’t even get the scream out, covering my mouth and tucking myself behind a wall.”
Another breath, the scarring on my shoulder heating.
“A third man came around the corner,” I continue. “He didn’t see me crouched there in the shadows. He was carrying a jerry can. I wanted to run, but I was frozen there, completely scared out of my wits, so I watched. I watched them pour gasoline over the car and run it in a line past me, gasoline spilling around on my shoes and clothes. They stood at the end of the alley, my only way out, a lit match in one of their hands.” I have to stop, catch my breath again.
“Indy, it’s okay.” He squeezes my hands for reassurance. “I’m here. You’re safe.”
“I’ve never seen flames move so fast. I crouched there, in a ball, my back burning, unable to escape. I put my arms over head in and waited, hoping I wouldn’t go up.” I stop again, tears falling freely from my eyes, staining the carpet between us. “I was sure I was going to die, and then there was a blast of cold, smoke so thick I could barely see. Someone was lifting me up, a man in a mask.”
“Jesus,” says Cayden, wiping a tear from my face. “I had no idea.”
My voice is breaking up, but there’s relief there, too. “The police came to take a statement when I was in hospital, had me moved the very next day, a guard put on my door. I’d witnessed a crime, the murder of the police commissioner himself. I don’t know what he was doing out there alone, in that car, and they won’t tell me, but I’m the sole witness. I’m their whole case.”
Cayden nods. “I remember. It was all over the news. They arrested three guys, right? Mafia?”
I nod to confirm.
“And so you’re in witness protection, but what are you doing back at college? I thought they put you in a safe house or something.”
“It’s been my one condition. I’ll testify as long as I can keep studying. I couldn’t stay in New York, so here I am a thousand miles away with a new name and nothing of my former life.”
“Fucking hell.”
I nod again, laughing a little through the tears. “An accurate description.”
“When do you testify?”
“It was supposed to be a month, then two. Now? Who knows?”
Cayden pulls me into his chest. His heartbeat is the best sound in the world. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, okay?”
I smile because he’s right. I just said it. I’m a thousand miles away, under protection, and no one else knows except for Cayden and the FBI.
The relief I feel is palpable, the burden of keeping this to myself finally lifted.
We stay like that for a long time, silent.
Cayden makes dinner—two of the finest frozen meals money can buy, canned Coke to wash it down, but I couldn’t care less.
He takes my hand when we’re done and pulls me upstairs. We start to kiss, moving into the first room we can find — Colton’s, given the lacrosse sticks piled up like a plastic tepee in the corner.
The kiss becomes mores, our hands groping and moving, the desperation from the both of us all-consuming now there is nothing left to hide.
I notice Cayden wince when I touch his lower back, but he’s not about to stop.
A bird coos outside.
We’re so caught up in each other we don’t notice the snap downstairs as the front door opens, the whine of it opening wide.
A light flickers on, a golden glow moving down the hallway. Voices mingle in the stairwell, meeting at the roof. I don’t recognize them.
I read the look on Cayden’s face. Oh, shit.
The voices are moving upstairs now, language loose from inebriation.
“Nice place. I wonder what happened to the mirror?” says a female. “And these guys are from your football team?”
“Yeah,” comes the voice. “The Becketts. Fucking ballers.”
Laughing follows, from both parties. They’re drunk alright.
They’re moving down the hall, almost at the door to Colton’s room.
Cayden grips my wrist. He pulls me towards the closet, sliding open the mirrored door. It’s less than a couple of feet deep inside. Chest to chest, we fall in, pressed up against one another amongst clothes and shoes. The last thing I see before Cayden slides the door closed fully is his eyes, alert but calm, always calculating the situation.
“What’s going on?” I whisper. “Who is it?”
“A guy from the team.”
“He has a key?”
“They all have keys,” Cayden whispers back. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you can’t exactly take a girl back to your dorm room around here.”
“So you’re providing a public service, like a hotel?”
“Something like that.”
“It’s your house. Why are we hiding?”
I see Cayden smiling. He shrugs. “Let’s see what they do.”
Right on cue, the guy and his mystery girl swing into the room.
They’re kissing. I can hear them, close to the closet. The lights remain off, but their shadows dance together behind the closet door. Cayden’s arms are by his side, his breathing steady. I remain still in front of him, can’t even comprehend how we’re going to explain our way out of this one if we’re busted.
You said it yourself. It’s Cayden house. He’ll just kick them out.
I’ve never been much of a voyeur, but the idea is intriguing.
He places his hands on my shoulders and moves a finger over my mouth,
The sound of bodies impacting a bed permeates the room. They break apart, breathless. “You want to do it right here, on one of their beds?” asks the male.
“You’d prefer the kitchen table?” the girl laughs.
Clothes scamper across the floor. It seems endless, their foreplay, the air in the closet quite the opposite, already hot.
There are ‘mmm’s and ‘ahhhs’ trapped in that cave of mouths outside. There’s a slap of flesh, a laugh, a thud on the floor followed by a long ‘oooohhhhh, that feels so fucking good’ as the inevitable happens.
Their bodies come together, wet.
Unbelievably, I can feel Cayden getting hard between us. Right now? I think, and I swear he’s smiling in the dark.
Strange as it is, I’m a touch turned on myself. Sometimes I’d masturbate listening to the couple next door back in New York, pretending I was the lucky girl on the other side of the wall who could come over and over.
And now you are.
Cayden pushes a coat aside, his other hand exploring, reaching through the darkness for my face, climbing up my cheekbones, an exploratory finger hooking into the side of my mouth.
My need overtakes my fear.
I press up against him, my waist rotating around his dick, the action stifled by the lack of space.
“I’m going to come all over your stupid fucking face, you hear me?” comes the female’s voice.
Both Cayden and I stifle laughter.
“Yeah, fuck me,” the male’s saying, his words slurred. I bet he thinks he sounds real sexy, but from in here’s it’s pure cheese.
Still, I’m wet thinking about them.
It’s too much, the energy outside, the bodies copulating just feet away, sexual energy rising.
Cayden holds my jaw in one hand and with the other reaches down under my skirt. He pulls at the lace, one side and then the other, my panties slipping down my thighs, catching in the center, stuck to my sex. I push my legs apart and they fall softly to the floor, a damp bundle.
God knows why, but I spread my legs wider, pressing my elbows tight into my body so as not to bump the door.
With a bundled hand he lifts my skirt up until I can feel his cock against the soft mound of my pussy.
Cayden takes a finger and runs it up my leg. It climbs up the delicate skin there, the inner leg he’s been so privy to of late. The digit tickles my labia, an unbearable flicker, before it dips inwards.
I can’t help it. My mouth opens involuntarily, but it is soon cupped by Cayden’s hand, a cage of fingers to keep the sound in.
“Yes, your cock’s so fucking good. It’s making me so fucking wet.” The girl outside screams as Cayden makes contact, a finger sinking slowly inside me.
“Fuck my pussy! Yes, yes,” come the cries.
Cayden adds a second finger. The sensation is exquisite. I bite down on his shoulder. The mix of fear and pleasure is too much, their proximity too close, too heightened in this situation.
Cayden removes his fingers from my sex. He takes them in his mouth, rolling his tongue over them, savoring the salty arousal of my pussy.
He takes my mouth and I can taste myself, him, all at once. My loins respond, a pulsing ball of need building in my core.
Slap. Slap. Slap.
A pause outside.
“Ahhhhhhh, fuck. You’re so fucking hot.”
Their breathing is getting heavy, labored with the effort, but they continue. The bed rocks and creaks, shaking itself to pieces. The male stops speaking.
The bed stops crying out.
Cayden’s fingers pause inside me.
Their shadows move. Suddenly, something slams into the closet, the door buckling. The voices are right there, only a mirrored door separating us.
“Oh, oh, oh,” the female moans.
It’s so visceral, so close I feel I could reach through the closet door and touch skin, the sweat on the guy’s back, his buttocks as they flex into her, over and over and over again. The door buckles inwards and they’re on the bed again. The slapping changes timbre.
“You’re so fucking tight,” says the male.
“I love your big, Trojan cock inside me,” comes the response.
Cayden’s lips depart mine. He strokes my cheek, the dampness under my armpit, moving his hand over my arm and lifting it until it’s high above my head. I grip onto something there, a railing. He takes my free hand and brings it to meet the other. It’s crazy, insane, but I know what to do.
I brace my legs against his thighs and kicks upwards carefully, pulling myself up on the railing so my feet leave the ground, fighting through suits, shirts, my face curtained by them.
When I’m high enough, the side of my cheeks against the cold metal, a clothes hangar at my back, I feel his hands gripping me under my legs, holding me in position. The pressure on my hands relaxes. I no longer have to hold my weight, kneeling above him like this, air on my open sex, exposed.
Cayden moves his left hand until it cradles my ass and lets go with the other so I’m suspended there in the cradle of his arm.
I hear his belt unclasp, the zipper moving down against the din of sex outside, the constant moaning and screams as the guy and the girl fuck each other senseless.
Cayden’s pants fall to the floor. I lower myself just enough to feel the tip of his cock part my folds, sliding minutely in and out with my breathing, the sweat, my moisture, his moisture, all falling together down my legs and the shaft of his cock.
But I’m not ready.
Not yet.
I hook my entire arm over the railing above, my legs over his shoulders and, in one motion, leverage my body up until my pussy is in his face, smothering it, my legs wrapped around his head, trapping out the sound of anything else, forcing him to focus on my wet sex.
Cayden responds with his tongue, his nose tapping at my clit as he presses in.
“Keep going. I’m getting close,” the girl pants, my own arousal rising in unison.
I pull away from Cayden’s face, letting my body fall completely into his hands, his cock swallowed up inside me. He holds a full ass cheek in each hand, squeezing them like pillows as his cock slips back and forth, completely out, then in, our actions seemingly silent against the building crescendo of ‘fuck,’ ‘oh,’ and ‘baby’ outside.
Cayden forces his face to the side, burying it in whatever dress or article of clothing is there to stifle his voice, the guttural sounds that seem to stem from deep within his throat, emanating from his very groin.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” she’s rambling outside, over and over, stuck in a loop, a pre-climax mantra.
Cayden’s hands are slick. They begin to slip on the smooth exterior of my ass. I oscillate against him, my mouth limp.
A renegade finger works its way into the crack of my ass, separating my buttocks and perilously close to my exposed anus. He presses at the hot indent there with the tip of a finger, playing at the edges before slowly working his way inside.
He applies pressure, half a finger disappearing inside my most taboo place.
It’s too much.
I lose control, moaning into his ear. He’s forced to push me back into the clothes at the rear of the closet to shut me up. More pressure and I’ve taken the finger completely.
