Blazed(21)

"I would hug you but I have this annoying monkey with intimacy issues on my back."

"You said I looked edible..."

Someone hammered at the door, but I was already straddling Blaze, moaning into his mouth as his tongue stroked mine. In nothing but a t-shirt, all he had to do was pull his underwear down and we could be f*cking like minks in seconds. He was hard already, switched on by my grinding against him.

"Ignore it." I mumbled when the door knocked again, pumping restlessly against his teasing hand, so turned on and in the moment that it wouldn't have taken much to push me over the edge. He held me up and watched his first hard inch push into me, growling so gutturally it undid me.

My orgasm hit the same minute the visitor called out. "Emmy, love? I know you're in there!"

"Shit!" I stared down with amused horror at Blaze, steadying myself on his shoulders. "It's my mother. She has a key."

"Emmeline Elizabeth, open this door!"

"Coming, Mum!" Blaze wiggled beneath me, hitting a sweet spot that damn near brought literal meaning to my answering shout. "You have to hide in the bedroom. Like now."

He pouted and slowly eased out of me, still rock hard. "Just let me meet her."

"No! Even if you weren't only in your underwear..." Ivy Tudor had the unmistakable face of an angel and an encyclopaedic knowledge of current events and celebrity hearsay. Blaze had his equally as seraphic face plastered everywhere. There was no conceivable way they wouldn't recognise each other. I shuddered at the thought and pointed sternly at the bedroom door. "Go, you fiend."

"You'll need these." Quickly, he yanked down his briefs and hooked my feet through them, pulling them up to cover my wet, less than modest modesty, then set on a leisurely pace towards the bedroom, gloriously naked. Watching him walk away was still almost as good as watching him walk towards me, more so when I now knew what lay beyond the clothes, a thought that made me squirm.

"Emmy!" The door opened before I could get to it and just as the bedroom door closed on Blaze's fabulous backside. I smiled up guiltily from the couch with my eyes still a little starry, pulling the t-shirt down over the borrowed briefs. My mother stood just inside the door, innocently oblivious to what she'd walked into.

She was a breath of fresh air in a lilac wrap dress that brought out the green in her eyes but clashed horribly with her car. Her greying blonde hair fell loosely into a chignon and framed a dainty nose, sculpted cheekbones, and naturally full red lips that sheathed a killer smile. She was a trophy bride alright— a real English rose who didn't have any thorns until she married them. And I hadn't seen her for the longest time.

"Mum! You look great." If she was a vision of how I'd look in twenty years, I was eager to age.

"I wish I could say the same, darling. You look dreadful." I nodded, knowing that I couldn't rationally find insult in what she said. My hair was still matted and f*ck-mussed, eyeliner smudged and the bite mark Blaze had left in the tender flesh of my neck was starting to bruise. But no matter how obvious it looked to me that I'd been up to no good, Ivy Tudor saw the good in anyone and could deny the bad existed. "One of your neighbours called your father with a noise complaint. I was around and thought you'd prefer me to come and scold you for being a vixen." Her eyes gleamed with a mischievous yet reverent glint. These were the times she liked to leach vicariously from, having led a relatively unremarkable life in the bedroom department. I didn't want to know the details, but I knew that there had only been one man other than Henry between her sheets and he'd been something of a wet squib.

"I'm sorry, I had no idea I'd been so... vocal."

"By all accounts it was the fellow, love." She sounded disturbingly proud. "I think that was what caused the concern. Old Mrs Adams upstairs thought you were beating him senseless."

"Well then." I coughed and pulled the neck of the t-shirt up over my nose to hide my grin. The idea of Blaze being so lost in the pleasure he found in me was endearing, and I had the driving urge to make him do it again so I could hear it— hear him moan my name while I rode him. It was the times like that I knew I had him all to myself.

Ivy wandered through to the kitchen, pausing once or twice at various objects of my scattered clothing. "You bought yourself a tablet?"

"Ah... no, it's a friends. I'm borrowing it?" The music ceased, leaving a weighty silence between us. There was more to this visit than a noise complaint and I knew it.

"Are you alright, love?" Frowning, I looked over my shoulder into the kitchen area of my open plan flat. "Hunter says you've been ignoring his emails." I blinked, at a loss for words. My email account had been untouched for weeks because the thought simply hadn't crossed my mind, but how dare he run off telling tales to my mother? I was a grown woman with my own life, a life he'd walked out of. "You know he thinks the worst when he doesn't hear from you."

"He could have called." I raised an eyebrow at her. "I'm alright, Mum. I'm the best I've been in a while." Though a little worse now for hearing the 'H' word.

"You do seem different. There's more colour in your cheeks." There was no way I was going to tell her that the rosiness might be due to the fact I'd been having sex just seconds before she walked in. Less way I'd tell her what was making me feel so exuberant beyond my bedroom. "You're still wearing awful clothes though. Come on, I'm taking you shopping. No arguments."

I leapt to my feet when she headed towards my bedroom door. "No, you can't go in there!" She ignored me and made a grab for the handle. "Seriously, Mother. Please don't go in there."

She scowled at me, one hand on her hip, and paused with her other hand ready to lunge. "Why not?" I immediately thought of the bloodied sheets and balked. Even if Blaze found a place to hide, the state of that bed might give her a coronary.

"It's a mess in there." A nervous giggle escaped my throat. "You don't want to see that."

But, because she was my mother, she knew I was hiding something. "Please don't lie to me, Emmy. I know your ways. Tell me what mess you made." My eyes widened and I was vaguely aware of shaking my head. I knew what ways she meant, the conclusion she'd jumped to. She'd jump on it harder when she saw the blood. My recycled excuses for secrecy stoked her concern but I hadn't even realised that I was using them again now.

"It's not like that this time." She sighed, looking me up and down before she made the move I'd been scared of, shoving the door open before my body had time to catch up with my brain.

The brain stopped stock-still at the sight of the bedroom. The bed was freshly made, the torn up sheets hidden by the duvet, and Blaze's personal effects were scattered around the room. Fresh underwear and a change of clothes for him were folded up on the ottoman spanning the bottom of the bedstead next to a pile he'd apparently laid out for me, next to clean towels for a shower. My small, practically antique stereo system played the same music he'd been listening to in the kitchen, and he could be heard singing along from the shower in the en-suite. He'd done this on purpose, though I had no idea why or how he'd done it so quickly.

Ivy stared at me, stunned into silence. "I told you it wasn't like that this time."

"You did." She swallowed hard, blinking too fast. "Sorry love, I just... Is he handsome?" I nodded with a shy smile. She might find out for herself some day just how handsome, but on that day, I was happy enough just to give her the reassurance. "Does he look after you?"

"He does. He took me clothes shopping. He takes me to dinner." Stepping back out into the lounge area, I urged her with me and fiddled with the hem of the t-shirt. "Let's have lunch tomorrow. I'll explain everything then."

"You don't need to explain anything, Emmeline. Just tell me that you're happy."

It was that cut and dry for my mother and I loved her for it. I could have been sleeping with an ex-con and she wouldn't have cared as long as he told me I was pretty and paid for my lunch. Love was paramount and almighty as far as she was concerned, believing that everyone should be paired off with their soul mate. She swore that Hunter was her fault, an oversight. She'd tried to pair us up too young when our personalities weren't done flourishing. By her reckoning, he was marrying his match. My other half was out there and she promised that she'd know him when she saw him. Secretly, this was another reason for keeping her away from Blaze. I was scared she'd tell me that the man who was destined to be with me was the man I couldn't have. I'd be building a miserable rod for my own back.

"I'm happy, Mum. Happy and terrified."

"Then lunch it is. 'To fear love is to fear life'. We'll have you chomping at the bit in no time."