Up In Flames (BWWM)

Chapter Two

"Did you have to cut me though?" Dan whines from his seat on the pool table.

I've been playing nurse on him for the past twenty minutes. He's such a big baby when it comes to getting hurt. The first ten minutes I spent trying to convince him to move his hand from over the top of the cut.

"Apparently you don't use your words unless I injure you so...yeah I did," I grin, "How'd you get in here anyway?"

He rolls his eyes and pulls his shirt sleeve down over the bandage on his forearm, "You're parents hired me some months ago to remodel the basement. Since I finished the remodel on my place I finally had some free time to come and check out the space and called, they told me where they left the spare key and that you were home. However no one told me you're a fucking samurai warrior and would slice me once I got here."

Now it's my turn to roll my eyes, he's such a diva. I close down the lid of the first aid kit and put it back in its place before returning to the pool table and our conversation.

"You're being dramatic, had you announced yourself none of this would've happened," I explain folding my arms across my chest, a smile hiding on my lips.

"I'm sorry milady I didn't know this was the royal court," he mocks in a British accent before returning to his normal voice, "Besides you've been avoiding me like the plague for months. Had I told you I was here you would've just told me to leave."

"Well look what that got you," I joke, trying to deter the conversation to something else, anything other than where it's going now.

He catches my hands and pulls me to him, trapping me between his thighs. I can feel how muscular they are against my hips and it makes me pool down below. His scent is intoxicating, a head spinning mix of outdoors and smooth cologne, like he's been working outside all day and sprayed himself just before coming here. I feel my eyes droop slightly and fight to keep them open. Must. Not. Inhale. Deeply.

"Aria," his voice floats softly across the tight space between us, "Why haven't you been returning my calls? It's been six months since I heard from you, since that night."

He doesn't have to remind me about that night. It was a few days after our first time together and my all-nighter with Nicole. I was on a high after telling David about the divorce and was on an even bigger one that day because I had officially filed. All it took was one phone call and somehow I ended up sprawled out on a hotel comforter with Daniel in between my legs for hours. We stayed there together until I had to get the kids from school. After, I dropped them off with my parents and went back to our little cocoon. That was the night I came so many times I lost track and also the night I indefinitely ended things with Daniel.

"We both agreed it was for the best Dan," I say quietly, trying to leave his grasps but he clenches his thighs tighter.

"We agreed we wouldn't sleep together anymore. I never agreed to never speaking again. You were my friend before any of this, I didn't sign up for losing that," he says reaching up to caress my cheek.

Off of instinct I lean into his touch but instantly regret it when I see the look of hope in his eyes. I've missed his touch tremendously. Most often during my sleepless nights when the heat between my thighs is too much for even a naughty novel to handle. Those are the nights when I think back to how he touched me, groped me, handled every inch of my body like he hand crafted it himself. I loathe those nights.

"You signed up for it the second we crossed over the line from friendship to more, Daniel. You know how vindictive your brother is. The last thing I need is for him to catch wind of this. It'll be the end of any leverage I've been able to hold on to with him and this divorce from hell."