Hearts of Fire

  How could he ever think he was a danger to me when he made me feel this safe?

  I was frozen in place, felt too exposed to acknowledge him, but the outside of his thigh pressed up against mine and our shoulders were touching. Such sweet relief it was even to have this small, impersonal amount of contact.

  “Her saviour arrives.” Pedro spat disdainfully before picking up his beer and taking a long swig.

  Lola passed me a plastic cup with red wine and I took it gratefully, glad to have some small distraction from Jack’s closeness. I wanted to say something to him, even make polite small talk, but I couldn’t seem to find my voice.

  My attention was distracted when people began cheering and clapping as Marina took to the makeshift stage where the band was playing. There was no microphone, but somehow her voice carried well around the space.

  “As many of you who knew him will agree, Konrad was one of the best people the world ever thought to spit out. He was a marvellously twisted human being, and so perfect in his madness. That madness took him in the end, and, like many who came before him, he put out his own flame. But in his life he created all of this,” she said, spreading her arms out, “and so, on this day I will always think of him, and I will always thank him for leaving behind such beauty in my memories.” She stopped and brought a shot glass to her mouth, knocking it back in one go. “Here’s to the love of my life. May he wander between the worlds until we meet again.”

  Her words were so heartfelt, so full of emotion, that even though I never knew the man, I felt my eyes grow wet. It was clear from what she said that Konrad had taken his own life. My emotional state was only worsened when the guitar player began to pick at the strings and Marina started to sing “Starry, Starry Night” in a surprisingly appealing voice.

  I knew in that moment that I was going to paint this scene. It struck me so powerfully that I’d never forget it: Marina standing there, a vision in black, her hair so red and her eyes so sad. I was lost in the song when I realised someone was staring at me, and I turned my head to find Jack’s eyes blazing fiercely.

  “You’re crying,” he murmured, and reached over to wipe away my tears with his fingertips.

  “It’s sad,” I said, feeling strangely exposed and self-conscious. “How much she clearly misses him, I mean.”

  “Have you ever missed someone that much?” he asked, voice intense.

  “No,” I answered honestly, wanting to tack onto the end that if I’d spent as many years with him as Marina had with Konrad, then I’d probably die of the pain from missing him.

  “You’re lucky, then,” he said.

  I knew the meaning behind his words. I was lucky, but he was not, because he’d probably missed his brother like Marina missed Konrad. God, how I hoped Jay would read my letter and come find him. The laughter and talk that surrounded us was loud, but I still felt like I was in a bubble with Jack, his attention all-consuming.

  “You shouldn’t be sitting here, looking like that,” he said, and I furrowed my brow.

  “Why not?”

  He leaned in close and my heart stuttered, his lips touching the shell of my ear as he whispered, “Because the wolves are circling, and I could be considered one of them.”

  Twelve

  With courage Jack threw his mask away forever

  I shivered, but before I could react to his words, the music changed, the band belting out a fast-paced number. Lola grabbed my hand to pull me up from my seat. I was still reeling after what Jack had said to refuse dancing with her, and before I knew it, I was crowded amid a sea of other bodies in the middle of the floor.

  Lola clapped and stomped her foot in time to the beat and I copied her, trying to get into it as my eyes sought out Jack. I couldn’t spot him over all the moving heads, and the loud music was distracting. A moment later, we were joined by a smiling Luan, who put his hands on Lola’s waist and matched the tempo of her movements with his own. Violet was to my right, and I couldn’t help laughing when Pedro tried to dance with her. She completely blanked him and instead focused her attention on a tall blond guy I recognised from around the campsite. My laughter cut off abruptly when I saw his attention land on me, and he began moving through the gyrating bodies.

  Before he reached me, I felt warm, familiar arms go around my waist, and my heart fluttered. The moment Pedro spotted Jack, he scowled and turned away. My head swam with relief. I soaked in being close to him for a moment before he bent down and spoke into my ear.

  “I won’t always be here to be your good wolf, Lille. What will you do about the bad ones then?”

  I turned my body and stared up at him. His mouth was so close, and I missed it. I was looking at his lips while I replied, “If you’re my good wolf, then why do you think you’re bad for me?”

  A wall went up behind his eyes. “Because I am.”

  I leaned closer, moulding my body to his. I knew he felt how perfectly we connected by his sudden intake of breath, my breasts pushing into his chest. “That’s not a good enough answer,” I told him, then bravely went up on my tiptoes to brush my lips over his. It was a handy thing I was wearing heels now, because it meant I wasn’t at too much of a disadvantage in height.

  “Don’t,” he said pleadingly, but I wasn’t feeling very charitable. I missed him, and something told me he missed me, too. It was ridiculous to keep fighting it, so I kissed him. I ran my tongue along the seam of his lips, then dipped inside, my body straining against his, because whenever I got to taste him, it always felt too good. I was breathless when I broke away for air.

  “If you don’t want this, then I want a better reason, Jack.” I wasn’t sure what it was, perhaps the mix of vodka and red wine, or maybe the dark of the night and the feeling of recklessness this party of death brought on, but I was feeling braver than I’d ever felt before.

  He gripped the back of my neck, then brought his mouth down on mine with a hard, fierce hunger that caused my bravery to waver. In that moment, I knew that when we’d been together before, he’d been holding back a great deal of himself. In fact, he still was, and I shuddered not unpleasantly to think of what it would be like to have him unleash his entire self on me.

  I moaned as his fingers dug into my neck, his tongue worshipping my mouth and his erection thickening against my thigh.

  “Jack,” I gasped, and though I could feel several stares on us, I didn’t have the ability to focus on anyone else but him.

  He took my hand in his then and dragged me away from the dancing. The music became less loud the farther away we got, and soon we were past the campers and trucks and heading towards an empty field.

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked, voice thick with arousal and curiosity.

  “Somewhere I can give you a good enough answer. I won’t pull you in completely until you know everything. Then you can make your own decision,” he bit out, and my arousal vanished in a heartbeat. My curiosity remained, but it was now tinged with apprehension. I stumbled on my heels, and Jack stopped walking to bend down and relieve me of my shoes. He held them both in one hand while scooping me up with the other. I startled and gripped his neck, holding on tight as we walked through the long grass until he reached a cluster of bushy trees. I slid down his solid, hard body, and my feet touched the earth.

  “Why are we here?” I asked as I glanced all about, voice hushed. There was hardly any light here, just a greyish-yellow cloud from the city in the distance.

  He rubbed his jaw and paced, then looked back at me. “I needed to go somewhere away from listening ears to tell you this, but I’m starting to wonder if I should confide in you at all.”

  “You said before that you trusted me. You trusted me enough to tell me about your brother,” I whispered. And you betrayed that trust, Lille. He just doesn’t know it yet, my conscience whispered back.

  “Yeah, and look where that got me,” he replied, and I flinched. He didn’t know the half of it. Still, I wanted to know more. I wanted to know everything about this eni
gma of a man.

  I took three steps forward until I was in front of him, close enough to take his big hand in mine and place it over my heart. “You can still trust me, Jack. Whatever you tell me will stay between the two of us. I just need to know why you think we can’t be together. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never felt anything like this before. I’ve never had a man make me feel the way you make me feel.”

  My voice felt louder, more pronounced in the quiet darkness, and I could just make out the shine of his eyes as he stared at me. He cupped my jaw in his hand and seemed to sigh.

  “I feel it, Lille. Maybe even more than you do.”

  I gripped his shirt in my hands, my mouth a hair’s breadth away from his. “So why not let it happen, then? Sometimes I lie awake at night, unable to sleep, because I can’t stop thinking of you, can’t stop fixating on how empty I feel and how I want you to fill me up.”

  He groaned as the words left my lips, then swore, low and guttural. “Fuck.”

  I started to plant kisses along his neck, my hands travelling down his flat torso. “I love how you feel, Jack.” Yeah, I was definitely running on alcohol-fuelled courage tonight.

  “Wait,” he breathed, and caught my wrists, stopping their descent.

  I shivered, my skin prickling with the nighttime cold. Jack must have noticed, because he let go of me and took off his work shirt before draping it around my shoulders. There was something about the way he did it that made me fall for him a little. How he could be so caring was completely at odds with his gruff, masculine exterior. He tugged me over to a tree and sat down, pulling me between his legs so I was sitting with my back to his front, his arms cradling me in warmth.

  I moved against him, and he groaned again. “God, you’re horny tonight.”

  “It’s your fault,” I said fitfully.

  He growled low and his fingers danced along my thigh, tapping out a silent rhythm. It was unexpected when he began to speak. “This isn’t a pretty story, Lille. In fact, it’s going to make you feel sick beyond belief. And after you hear it, you’ll probably feel sick just to look at me.”

  “That’s not possible,” I argued, and he went silent for a moment.

  “I told you a little about my foster mother, Frances, though calling her a mother is being very generous. She wasn’t a nice woman, and taking young boys into her home was a money-making scheme, pure and simple.”

  All of a sudden, I didn’t want to hear his story. Especially if this was him giving me a good enough answer as to why we couldn’t be together. At the same time, I needed him to tell me so that I could disprove it, counter it with all of my own reasons as to why it didn’t matter.

  “Do you mean so she could get government support?” I asked, keeping my voice low and soft.

  “Partly. But more so that she could pimp us out.” His stark reply made me startle, and I twisted in his arms so I could look at him. For a moment I thought he might be messing with me, but then, if I knew anything about Jack McCabe, it was that he didn’t beat around the bush. No, he was telling the truth, and I was shocked and disgusted as it all sank in.

  “You’re not lying, are you?” I whispered, and he shook his head. I remembered Marina telling me about the first time she’d met Jack on the street, and how he thought she was trying to solicit him for sex. Now it all made sense. The horror of his reality struck me silent as I gripped onto his arm, too tight, almost. Then I began to move my hands to his face, touching him tenderly, like he might break any second as I murmured, “You poor, poor thing.”

  For a long time we just sat there, staring into each other’s eyes. Mine said, This doesn’t change how I see you. His said, How can it not?

  “I was thirteen when it all started. At night, men would come into the room I shared with two other boys. Sometimes women, though more often than not it was men. You can’t believe how small your world becomes when you depend on one person to survive and that person has no mercy. How it feels like there’s no escape but to suffer in silence. The years went by, and I started to become numb to sex. In the beginning I was aroused against my will, but by the end I felt nothing. I retreated inside my head. I didn’t even want to be with girls my own age because everything connected to my sexuality made me feel sick. I hardly ever masturbated.

  “Frances used to call me Freaky Jack because of my burn scars. Sometimes she’d forbid me from wearing a shirt around the house and would periodically poke at my scars, saying how ugly they were, how I was lucky she took me in because nobody else would want a disfigured boy. Her words rang true. My uncle didn’t want me, and neither did my brother. When I was sixteen, I came home one day, and the house was empty except for Frances. She was in the kitchen making lunch, a pan of oil heating on the cooker. When she saw me, she made some cruel comment. I can’t even remember it anymore, but it was the last straw. I completely snapped, picked up the pan of oil, and threw it in her face. I’d never heard screaming like it — her agony as she wailed was satisfying to me. I didn’t feel horror, I felt justice, I felt pleasure. I left her there, disfigured even worse than I was, packed my stuff, and left. I’m not sure if she reported me to the police, but no one ever came for me. I’ve been on my own ever since.”

  My brain was still trying to piece together all the information when he continued talking. “To this day, I’ve been obsessed with burning. Obsessed with fire and heat, and what it can do to people. When I was a child, it always frightened me, reminded me of the horror of losing my family and almost dying. Somehow, by harming Frances, I’d turned it into my medicine. I’d burn stuff all the time. It was addicting. You can’t believe the relief it brought me. Then I began learning how to breathe it, how to eat it, and the performance followed. It’s still the only thing that gives me complete sexual gratification, Lille.”

  Suddenly, what he was trying to say made sense. I understood why he’d told me his sad, horrific story. It was to make a point. That point said this was his reason. This was his proper answer. You have to stay away from me because being with me means you’ll get burned, literally.

  Two memories struck me at once, how I’d burned my hand back home in the restaurant and how Jack couldn’t take his eyes off me afterwards. How it had happened again in Violet’s camper, and that was the first time he’d been overtly sexual towards me. It had turned him on.

  “So, you’re into sadomasochism,” I said quietly, and I wasn’t sure if I meant it as a statement or a question.

  “More like erotically fixated with burning. Does that frighten you?” he asked, eyes seeking. He was tense as he awaited my reply.

  “A little bit,” I answered honestly, and saw him wince. That’s when I knew he’d been holding out hope that I wouldn’t reject him. That he could show me all his flaws and have me accept them. “No, don’t do that,” I said. “Don’t pull away. What that woman submitted you to was unforgiveable. She was a monster, and I would never judge you for what you did to her. By all accounts, she deserved it.”

  “But it turned me on, Lille. I told you experiences shape us, twist us, and mine have twisted me in ways not meant for women like you.”

  Desperately, I grabbed his hand and placed it on my breast. His breathing grew shallow. “Does that turn you on?” I whispered, and he nodded as he swallowed. I bent and pressed my lips to his throat. “Does this?” Again, he nodded, and I felt the evidence of his arousal in how he hardened against my inner thigh. I smiled as I spoke into his skin. “Then, quite frankly, Jack, I have to ask, what exactly is the problem?”

  Abruptly, he turned us so that I was no longer in the power position. He crouched over me, pulling my legs around his waist and growling in my ear, “The problem is that it makes me want to pour wax over your skin, press hot matches to your thighs. It makes want to leave marks all over your body until no man can refute that you’re mine.”

  I moaned and pulled him closer, and I wasn’t sure who was more surprised by my reaction, me or him. I couldn’t understand why, because he was t
elling me he wanted to hurt me, but I’d never been more aroused in my entire life.

  With only a few deft movements, he had my legs parted wide, his hand sliding under my dress, beneath the fabric of my underwear, and discovering how wet I was. A strangled cry escaped me as he thrust two fingers into me, and I bit his neck, causing a deep, masculine groan. His body was so magnificent, I wanted to bite and lick him everywhere. He buried his face in my neck, breathing raggedly, and muttering lovely worshipful swear words into my skin.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, you feel good, you’re so wet, shit, I love how you feel, Christ, Lille, I’ve dreamt about this.

  His fingers moved in and out, his thumb finding my clit and applying just the right amount of pressure to make me whimper. The sweet relief of his touch was ecstasy. I tried to remember to be frightened, to be scared of what he wanted to do to me, but I couldn’t. The overwhelming urge to have him inside me outweighed everything else until I was nothing but a needy pile of flesh and bones.

  I grabbed a handful of his hair as he travelled down my body, his hand still working me into a frenzy as his mouth met the rise of my breasts. His other hand came up, pushing the top of the dress down urgently to reveal my nipples. His mouth was on me in an instant, alternating between licks, sucks, and bites and I felt my body coil tight. I was going to come so fast it was almost embarrassing.

  “Jack,” I cried out as my orgasm hit me quick. I was blushing all over as his eyes raked my body, and then he kissed me in a way that was almost more indecent than what his hand was doing. The slow slide of his tongue was dirty and erotic, and I knew I could become addicted to the way he tasted me.

  This was nothing like the sex I’d had before. It was in a whole other stratosphere, it was more, and it wasn’t even sex, not yet. He rose up on his knees and dragged my underwear down my legs. A moment later they were gone, tucked into his pants pocket. He leaned down and kissed me again before breathing a ragged warning, “I’m going to fuck you now, and it won’t be slow.”