Chapter 16 #3
I tried to stalk past him, but he grabbed me and pulled me in tight, so forcefully that I stumbled and fell into him.
For a moment I was distracted by the nearness of his face to mine.
There were delicate flecks over the bridge of his nose.
Tiny moles, too dark to be freckles. Not something left by the sun.
Moonspots, I thought, and I felt they suited him much better.
‘Oh yes, you are,’ he said grimly. ‘You’ve been my problem ever since I found you in that goddamn library. You are my problem, Mabel, mine and mine alone, and you’re getting less and less solvable the more I see you.’
I could have laughed. ‘Don’t you dare! Don’t act like you give two shits about me. If I meant anything to you at all, you’d talk to me.’
I tried to pull away. Maybe a little half-heartedly, because distance wasn’t really what I wanted.
What I really wanted was for him to pull me close, I wanted to tear off his black shirt and lay my fingers on his tattoo, I wanted to clasp his face and make him look at me until I could see inside, until I finally, finally understood him.
He made me angry, he frustrated me, he messed with my head like no one else.
And I hated it. I hated that I had to think about him all the time, that even now I was thinking how good he smelt and how close he was and how it wasn’t close enough. How none of it was enough.
‘You’d help me keep Zoe away from Ashton, and you wouldn’t let your friends burn Davie’s research! You wouldn’t let them threaten me or—’
‘Why won’t you understand that all that stuff is out of my control?
’ he broke in. I tried to jab my knee in between his legs, but he threw me up against the wall behind me.
‘That the only way to protect you is to try and make sure you stay away from us – from me? And I am trying. I’ve been trying for weeks, but you make it so goddamn difficult! ’
There was such a note of desperation in the last word that I swallowed.
My movements went limp, my body slackening against the wall.
My head fell back against the midnight-blue velvet of a tapestry as my eyes sank into his.
His gaze, turbulent and angry, but at the same time worried, helpless and … yearning.
At that moment I understood: he was feeling everything that I felt. Which, suddenly, left me with only one reply.
‘Then don’t,’ I said calmly, although the fierce hammering of my heart was almost unbearable. Surely he must be able to feel it – his fingers rested on the arteries in my wrists as he pressed my hands against the wall.
‘What?’ He relaxed his grip, but didn’t pull away.
A few locks of hair hung loose over his forehead, his cheeks were red, his eyes leapt from my eyes to my mouth and back.
Not to my neck, as they had so many times before.
Only to my lips, which were trembling slightly.
And this tiny detail told me that he’d known for a while: the answer to his question was one he kept hidden in himself, one he was reluctant to admit.
‘Don’t try to protect me. Don’t try to stay away. That’s not what I want from you.’
He let go of my wrists, running his fingers lightly down my arms to the sleeves of my dress, then he planted his hands on the wall behind me. ‘What do you want, then?’
Something in his voice pleaded with me to say it out loud, while something behind it begged me not to. Despair and desire in one, in all of him in that moment: his body, so close to mine, his furrowed brow, his heart, which beat faster as I rested my hand on his chest.
This is madness. The thought raced through my mind, but it crumbled under its own weight until there were only fragments. Only one piece of solid ground.
I ran my hand slowly up the buttons of his shirt until I reached his throat and then his face. His skin was cooler than before, but warm enough to make me shudder a little. Blake closed his eyes as I stroked the scar on his temple.
‘I’m about to kiss you,’ I whispered. ‘If you want to spread your wings and fly away, now’s your chance.’
‘Be quiet.’ The corners of his mouth twitched, and he put his hand on my neck. Fingers resting on my vertebrae, breath on my lips, so warm. ‘And … close your eyes,’ he murmured.
I searched for his gaze, confused, but his eyes were still closed. ‘Why?’
He shook his head. ‘Can’t you just do what I ask you to, for once?’
I should have said no, I should have pushed him away, turned around and left. I should have done anything, absolutely anything, except close my eyes. The problem was, it was all I wanted to do. The truth was that I’d wanted to kiss Blake Ames ever since I met him that first night at the library.
I’d convinced myself he was part of a puzzle I wanted to solve, because I loved solving puzzles. But in this moment I realised it had never been about that. I didn’t need to fully work him out to feel like I understood him. Or to want him.
I stroked one hand languidly down his cheek until it came to rest at his throat.
Rising up onto my toes, I leant forward until the tip of my nose was touching his face.
Taking a deep breath, I inhaled his perfume, a distinctive scent that reminded me of woody oud and rich lavender, perhaps a trace of cinnamon.
I thought, Blake. Thought, Cliff. Thought, Heathcliff.
I thought nothing as he cupped my face in his hands and turned it gently to the side, just far enough that I felt his lips on mine. He paused, I held my breath. And then we gave in to it.
As I shifted towards him, he gathered me close. We kissed each other at the same moment, warily and yet with such … certainty.
Nothing hesitant, nothing tentative, only his lips on mine, and my beating heart, which sank through my chest to between my legs. A kiss in the blink of an eye – and everything inside me throbbed.
I grabbed the collar of his shirt and held it tightly as he pushed me once more against the wall. My dress rasped between my shoulder blades. I still couldn’t breathe in it, and I wished he’d unbutton it.
It wasn’t raw desire I felt but something softer, more innocent, yet at the same time more intense.
The kiss was scraping at the core of something I thought I’d recognised in Blake from the moment we first met.
And I wanted, at last, to reach it. I wanted to crack through every false shell until there was only us.
No more fabric, no lies, no secrets, no one else, no other influences. Just us.
But Blake’s hands were still on my face, his thumbs tracing soft circles on my cheeks.
There was only his knee, pushing between my legs as he kissed me more deeply, more urgently.
His lips were warm and a little rough, like the sound that came out of my mouth as I felt the pressure of him through the layers of cloth.
Oh God, it really was madness, but I loved it.
It sent a jolt through Blake. He broke away from the kiss and rested his forehead against mine, breathing heavily. His breath was hot on my face, which was already burning. I didn’t dare to move, not even to blink. ‘Why can’t I look at you when we kiss?’ I whispered, my voice brittle.
‘If you need your eyes to see me in a kiss like that, then something is wrong,’ he answered, just as softly. I wasn’t sure I understood the words, but I thought I grasped the emotion behind them.
Because I did see him. In that warm, dark moment, he was the only thing I saw.
And for the first time since I’d known him, I found nothing conflicted there.
No mismatch between his expression and his words, no gulf between the glittering perfection of his friends and the broken way he viewed the world, as if he were alone in it.
He wasn’t perfect, and nor was I, but he was whole. Wholly himself.
For seconds we stood before each other in silence. The wind whistling through the window, the music spilling through the floorboards from below, the noisy world snatching out at us on all sides. Yet in that moment, it couldn’t reach.
‘This is you drawing back the curtain, isn’t it?’ I whispered.
‘Yes.’ He smiled audibly.
‘Is it real, or is it an illusion?’
‘It’s all too real with you, Pica,’ he murmured into my mouth. ‘That’s the whole goddamn problem.’
I was about to say something, but his lips were on mine again. And kissing him was more enjoyable than asking questions he wouldn’t answer anyway. So I put my hands on his neck and sighed into his mouth as he buried his fingers in my hair and tilted my head back a little.
‘Blake.’
The voice reached my ears as if through cotton wool.
Or through velvet, because everything about me and in me felt that way: like dark, soft, protective velvet.
The world bounced off me, until that little word, that name, bristling with thorns, slipped through and tore the shell of the moment apart.
Blake switched more quickly than I did. First he stopped mid-kiss, then released me with a jerk and backed away.
I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the dim light in the corridor.
The silhouette a few yards away came only reluctantly into focus. Norah was wearing an evening gown: pale blue satin that accentuated her slim figure and made her hair look even redder. It might have made her look gentle, but the way she stared at us was sharp-edged. She was … appalled.
‘Henry’s gone, but the others are looking for you. And Ashton is’—her eyes flicked in my direction, and she lowered her voice—‘Ashton. We should go before he comes up here and…’
This time she looked at me without seeing at me.
My face was tingling, my tongue too. Blake had been right.
I’d been able to see him without opening my eyes.
And now I could sense him even though he wasn’t touching me.
He took a step forward, between Norah and me.
‘At the other end of the hall there’s a second flight of stairs.
Take that, grab your jacket and go home,’ he told me.
His voice was still a little breathless, but his body was well under control now.
He swept the hair back from his brow and adjusted the collar of his shirt, as if by doing so he could cast off all memory of the kiss – and of me.
Yet I saw a smear of my lipstick on his mouth, and – much more important – still felt the touch of his hands.
And I knew it was the same for him. I just knew.
‘I—’ I began, confused, but then he turned to me.
‘Please.’ His voice was so earnest, so deep and strained, that it almost made me flinch. ‘Go home.’
I moved unwillingly away from the wall, smoothing my dress. ‘Fine. But that’s the second time you’ve asked me to do something and I’ve said yes. You owe me.’
‘Blake.’ Norah snarled his name. His shoulders tensed, but he didn’t take his eyes off me as I took the first step past him.
‘You’ll text me?’ I asked, so quietly I could barely hear the words myself. But I could taste them – especially the bittersweet trace of hope.
A pained look crossed his face. He made no answer, just moved his lips soundlessly, shaping one word: go.
So I went. Past Norah, who turned her head as if she couldn’t bear to look at me. Down the corridor and around the corner, until I found the narrow stairs that led directly to the front hall.
I saw no one on the way back to my room.
The college was invisible beneath a thin quilt of snow.
It crunched under my feet with every step, still drifting down from above.
Despite the cold, I was blazing hot. My mind should have been thrumming with questions, but I felt a throbbing only in my mouth and heart, in a way that made me feel like I’d found an answer today, after all – an answer to a question I hadn’t yet dared to ask.