I cover my mouth in shock.
"Oh my god Jake that was a complete accident, I didn't mean to hit you. Let me see," I say.
He touches his hand to the blood and inspects it. Then he gives me a look that I think might be shock or awe and goes to tilt his head back. "No forward, here like this." I instruct and he puts his hands out to stop the blood dripping on my carpet.
As I reach up I see the chunky antique turquoise ring that is now officially a weapon. I take it off hastily and throw it onto the chair, as though the ring is the villain of this piece. Not me. Crazy violent sexually frustrated person.
"Here, sit down. I'll get some ice.." I lead him to the sofa and leave him there to go through to the kitchen, shaking my head as I do. What on earth was that? I don't act like that. Ever. Who on earth does over the age of 5? I'm calm and analytical in tense situations, over analytical even. To a fault. I wonder vaguely when my period's due. No, it must be him. He clearly has a flammable effect on me. Around him every single nerve on my body is a live wire and one tiny flame from him will set it off one way or another. I burst his bloody nose. Oh dear god.
When I get back to the living room I find him sitting back on the sofa holding his nose with his head tilted back even though I told him not to. Since I burst his nose I don't really feel like scolding him for it. As I come to kneel beside him he glances at me sideways and flinches.
"You didn't come back with a baseball bat did you?" He's clearly joking but my cheeks flame anyway. I shake my head and kneel up further on the couch, gently wiping away the blood around his mouth and nose. Oh his perfect, innocent nose, bloodied because of me. "I probably deserved it to be honest." He says finally.
I shake my head. "No. You didn't. No one deserves to be hit like that. It was a complete accident. I don't know what came over me..." I look down.
"Well unfortunately not me," he mutters quietly. What's he talking about? I look back at him confused and he smiles boyishly. Oh... I get it now. He never came over me. Well at least he still has a sense of humor.
"I'm so sorry." I say guiltily.
"I'm sorry too. I was wrong to say that to you. I did it for a reaction. I got one," He shrugs sounding guilty too. I look at him for a long moment. He wanted a reaction from me? That's hilarious. So my desperate attempt at undressing him wasn't reaction enough?
"Yes you got one alright..." I whisper.
"Well I still shouldn't have said it. I'm sorry." He looks serious now.
"That's not the first time you've apologised to me for saying the wrong thing Jake," I point out. "Why not just stop saying them?" I look away from his eyes and go back to wiping and dabbing. Erasing the evidence.
"Alex if I knew the right things to say to you then I'd be doing a whole lot better than being stood up and getting smacked in the face." he smiles, charmingly. So I can be violent and he can be charming. Who would have guessed those would be our roles in this thing? Whatever this thing was. "I meant the part about you being fucking gorgeous when you're angry by the way. Which means that making you angry definitely has its upsides."
I should look away from his eyes where it's safer. As in right now Alex. Good girl. I finish wet wiping around his face and mouth and then I bring the freezer bag with ice in it up to sit it half on his nose and half on his cheek. He winces as it touches his skin. I wonder how long the ice will take to melt against his skin since his body is so hot. I laugh inwardly at my double meaning.
"How long do you need to hold that there? Do you need to monitor me through the night? " he asks his eyes skirting to mine, mouth quirked.
I hide a smile "We'll keep it here until you can't feel your face anymore, or until it melts. Whichever is first," I say and his expression changes before he nods and turns to face the front. Leaning back sideways against the sofa, I take a long look his profile as he adjusts himself to get comfortable, spreading his legs and slouching down a little lower resting his head on the back.
My eyes take this as an invitation to glance down his body and between his legs, my heart speeding at the faint outline of the bump in his trousers. The image of him relaxing in my house makes me feel strange. But it's because I like it. Seeing him sitting comfortably on my sofa, seeing him stroke my cat. Bizarrely, I also like tending to his burst nose. I glance away from his crotch and back up to his face where it's safer. Though really, there are no safe places to look at when it comes to him.
"Did you ever have any intention of going out with me?" he asks, breaking the heavy silence. "I mean lets say you didn't have other plans. Were you actually gonna have dinner with me? The truth Alex. No more games," He doesn't look round at me. Just keeps staring at the ceiling, head resting on the back of the sofa. I resent him calling it a game again. It wasn't a game, because I wasn't playing. Or if I was I had no idea that's what I was doing.
"Yes." Is all I say. How could I not have gone out with him? Pretending he wasn't my type - which since he really still wasn't - and enjoying him chasing me was all over the day he came to the Deli and asked me out. I was most likely just in denial up until that point.
"Because you wanted to or because I blind-sided you?" he turns his head to the side and looks at me.
"Because after you blind sided me I wanted to," I smile. I wanted to before he blindsided me too but I had my good girl reasons then. Then an instant later his face darkens, like a shadow has crossed overhead.
"So how long have you been seeing him for?"
I shake my head. "I'm not seeing him. Tonight was the first time we'd gone out. Like I said, we work together." I look down and brush a piece of imaginary fluff off my jeans. His eyes are too intense to stare directly at.
"Are you planning on seeing him again?"
"Oh you mean even though I don't want him?"
"Even though you want me." He states. Sexual arrogance. I fix him with my own narrow gaze and shake my head again.
"He's a nice guy Jake," I say clearing my throat. His eyes are a truly amazing color, and the iris seems to move like green liquid fire under certain lights. Under this light. They make me feel hot and needy and I have to look away yet again - I look back to the ice pack perched on his nose. It's melting surprisingly slowly which I'm glad about. I'm not ready for him to leave yet.
"Yeah you said that before." His voice is quiet. "Is that the kinda guy you want Alex? Nice?"
"As opposed to what?" I say pointedly glancing back to him. He holds my eyes for a long time and I manage not to look away this time. Then he sighs deeply.
"You know I never normally have to work this fucking hard with a girl. Never." he shakes his head.
"Yes, you said that before." I echo his words. I'm sure he actually does have women spreading their legs at the sound of his voice. "Any girl you want you get her. It's a done deal. I remember." I nod, irritated.
An image of womanizing Jake flits through my mind and I see him fucking nameless faceless women long and hard and deep against the window in his office. It makes me feel a different kind of heat. An angry heat coupled with a wave of nausea. When I look back to him he's biting the inside of his bottom lip in that way he does. His eyes are still intense and dark as he stares at me.
"You're not just any girl though are you? I knew that. I knew you were.... more..." He whispers sounding distant.
"More what?" I ask, confused. The look on his face tells me I've misunderstood something.
He stares at me for a long moment, as though he's debating something, clearing up the misunderstanding maybe. Then he blinks and shakes his head. "Nevermind," He says, tilting his head back away from me. I get the feeling I just missed an opportunity to get inside his head. As though the bravado and sexual arrogance had cracked a little and revealed something else. "I mean I literally have no fucking clue what's going on here. You say you'll go out with me but then you stand me up for some guy in a pair of cords who you clearly aren't even into?" He sounds annoyed again.
I sigh, feeling annoyed too. I don't want to talk about Sam anymore. What else is there to say about bloody Sam? This conversation is a dead end. "Look, is this going somewhere?"
"You and me? I'd really fucking like it to. And if you'd stop pretending you aren't interested and smacking me in the face then I'm pretty sure we'd make some progress." he says. His face is half serious but then it softens into a small smile. I feel mine do the same and before I know it I'm smiling back at him even though I'm holding an icepack to his face because I assaulted him. So he wants us to go somewhere. That was new wasn't it? If only I knew if his idea of 'going somewhere' meant more than dinner and feeling himself inside me.
"Ok, well I promise never to smack you in the face again." I say. "Contrary to what you might think, I don't condone violence. It solves nothing."
"Dunno... it has its uses." He says. I arch an eyebrow at him. "Well, you went from wanting to kill me to being my primary care giver in about 10 seconds. That was useful," He smiles a boyish canine smile at me. He somehow has the ability to look totally adorable and yet totally wicked at the same time, like he's promising to hold your hand and whisper sweet things in your ear one moment and do erotic NSFW things to you the next.
"I didn't want to kill you. I was shocked and angry. But please don't make light of my hitting you. It really isn't funny."
"No it wasn't funny." He sounds serious again. "It was pretty painful actually. Not a bad backhander." I think he's going to add 'for a girl', but he doesn't. I bite my lip and shake my head and lean over to lift the ice pack. I dab around his nose and cheek gently before settling it back down, pressing some unmelted cubes of ice to his skin. I really hope we've caught it in time and it doesn't swell tomorrow, or worse, he has a black eye.
"I think you're going to be fine," I reassure him although I'm not sure myself.
I pull the collar of his shirt down to inspect the knife wound I had all but forgotten about and I hear him take a sharp inhale of breath before shifting his sitting position to give me better access. The skin on his throat is smooth and the cord of muscle down his neck flexes as he tilts his head away from me to let me see. I suddenly have the overwhelming urge to run my tongue up the skin of his neck, desperate to feel and taste his warm vital skin on the tip of my tongue as the scent of him invades my nose. Then I want to kiss around his jaw until I reach his mouth. My mouth waters at the thought and I can still taste him from our kiss earlier. The one I should have savored and memorised because it was supposed to be the last.
"How has this been healing?" I ask without meeting his eyes. I'm afraid that the desire is etched plainly across my face and he'll spot it immediately with his amazing, hereditary eyesight. I focus instead on his wound and peel back the small white square padding on the crook of his neck to peek inside. The sutures look good although he'll still be left with a 10-centimeter scar across the top of his right shoulder which upsets me because his skin is so golden and perfect. I hate the person that did this to him.
"Yeah fine. I don't mind it actually." He says. He doesn't mind it? What a bizarre comment. He doesn't mind the fact that someone tried to kill him with a Kitchen knife, or he doesn't mind that he'll have a scar? Maybe he likes scars. I honestly don't know. I glance back to see him focused on me intensely. I fix the padding back in place before meeting his stare.
"Can I ask you something?" I say.
His eyes grow wary from under his long dark lashes but then he nods once.
"Why didn't you want go to the police about this? I mean someone tried to really hurt you. They could have killed you. Why would you let them just get away with it?" He could have died if it had been a bit higher, or paralyzed if it had been a bit lower and to the right. My stomach churns at the thought.
He purses his lips and narrows his eyes a little. "What makes you think I let them get away with it?" He says.
Something prickles over my skin at the depth in his eyes. "Oh." I say.
My eyes trail the gaping shirt at his neck, the button still undone, open slightly to reveal a hairless tanned chest. So he paid them back. As long as he paid them back with something non-violent then I'm pleased because they deserve it. A deep part of me says it probably wasn't though.
I look across his jaw to his mouth and then up his face to meet his eyes, which are staring at me with a dark kind of hunger, their deep turquoise blue standing out brightly against the healthy tanned skin of his face in the dim light of my living room. He really is truly stunning up close. He's an extremely beautiful man. He's also dangerous and intense and mercurial and the kind of man all my good girl reasons should be screaming for me to keep away from. But they've gone quiet now and I want him. I'm not going to bother denying it anymore, there's no point. It takes too much effort.
As we continue to stare at each other I know that I have two options. Either I move across the sofa and kiss him, which will lead to my sleeping with him, because that's what I want - more than anything its what I want. Or I stay right here, remove the icepack and politely wish him goodnight.
As he stares at me with that hot gaze, I'm sure he can tell what I'm thinking. I'm sure he can tell that I'm weighing up all the ways that this night could end. Or the two ways it could end to be more exact. God, can he tell I'm imagining straddling him and kissing him before moving down his body to unzip his trousers? Can he? No. Impossible.
I swallow and reach over slowly, our bodies so close now that I can smell his spicy male scent that makes me dizzy. I feel dizzy. His mouth opens as I edge closer and I think that he might lean up and kiss me and I hope he does because then I don't have to make the decision. He licks his lips ever so slightly and I swallow again but he doesn't move any further. Neither does he look away. I move forward a fraction more my breathing feeling light but labored and his sounding shallow. Time stills for a moment, stopping entirely.
Then I reach up and remove the ice pack from his face.
"I think that should do it." I say breathlessly before standing up.
I leave him sitting there and walk through to the kitchen to empty the contents of the bag into the sink. Then I take another few deep breaths and plead with my heart to calm the hell down. I put the plastic food bag into the recycling, and stand with my hands on the sink for a few moments with my head bowed watching the remnants of Jake melted ice run slowly down into the plughole. Why am I like this? Why can't I just take what I want? I want him. Why does it need to be anything more than tonight? Why do I need it to be? I'm sure as anything that he doesn't. But then it wasn't so long ago that I had my heart broken. Do I really want to go back there? This soon. With a guy like him? There's no relationship with a guy like him. He fucks women long and hard and he never normally has to try this hard to do it.
I take one more deep breath and turn around and get a shock when I see him standing in the doorway of my kitchen watching me. How long has he been there?
"Do you want me to leave you alone now Alex?" he asks quietly, eyes unreadable.
I look down at my watch and see it's just after 1am. He's only been here about an hour? It honestly seems like days ago that I opened my front door to see him standing there. I should be exhausted, but I'm not, I'm on edge, frustrated, excited, magnetized. Too many adjectives again. I can't help it. It's to do with having him this close and this attainable. The fantasy of him in the flesh is too dangerous.
"It is late, and I'm tired." I lie.
He moves into the kitchen. "That's not what I meant,"
I frown at him, confused.
"I meant do you want me to stop chasing you and leave you alone," My stomach bottoms out as though I've hit turbulence and my fingers dig into the worktop to hold myself steady. Oh. That kind of alone. His deep green/blue eyes burn through me as he waits for my answer. To say that he can have me, or to leave me alone.
I'm convinced now that this kind of attraction is something that normally you only read about. It doesn't happen to real people, or if it does they don't over think it to the point of destruction. They grab it with both hands, no matter how unlikely it might seem, no matter the consequences. But then, that's also not real life is it? To say hell with the consequences - It's not my real life anyway. God, I'm so confused.
"You know I never asked you to chase me." I whisper, stalling for time. He lets out a breath and then stalks across the kitchen toward me. My heartbeat speeds up as he gets closer and when he stops in front of me I think I stop breathing completely. He brushes the side of my face with his hand, and then with his fingers under my chin he tilts my face up to meet his eyes. His eyes roam mine looking for something. I want him to find it. I try to imagine what he's seeing, hoping for once that how much I want him is written plainly across my face. So I don't have to say it out loud.
"No you didn't ask me to chase you." He shakes his head, his voice a little sad. It doesn't sound like the Jake I'm used to. "And if you asked me to stop now I would. I can take a hint. But I know you want me Alex and it's confusing the fucking life out of me so I need you to say it. I need you to tell me,"
This is a turning point. He will leave me alone now if I asked him to. Of course I've asked him to leave me alone before and he didn't. But this time is different. I feel that. He will walk away and I don't know how I feel about that. What I do know is that if he leaves now, then any time I walk down a London street, or probably any street, I will search nameless faces hoping to run into him or catch a glimpse of him. Hoping that one-day when I least expect it, I'll bump into him, as in physically accidentally, like they do in films. In my fantasy he'll have been hoping that he'd bump into me too because he's also been searching the same streets looking for me. We'd have an awkward "Hi, how are you?" for a few moments, and then as though its cut from a movie the next scene would be us kissing and making love desperately to rid ourselves of the stupidity of the night that night I stood him up and smacked him in the face and told him to leave me alone.
That's the fantasy. In reality though if we bumped into each other in the future he'd most likely be married to a glamour model and I'd be single and alone and bitter because he still looks as good as he does right now.
"Is that what you want Alex? You want me to leave you alone?" His voice is urging, and it snaps me out of my thoughts.
Okay real life now. Not chick-flick inspired fantasyland. I need to rationalise. I'm good at rational. Is that what I want? To move on and continue with my life in exactly the same way I have been up until now? To never set eyes on him again? A weird sense of panic skitters down my spine and I feel a bit lightheaded and sick. His hand is near my mouth now and he strokes his thumb across my bottom lip and my whole body sizzles. Yes, actually sizzles. I'm sizzling from a man's touch and I'm contemplating not seeing him again. Am I mad? No, not seeing him again is not an option. No.
He smiles. It's slow, and starts in the corner of his mouth before it spreads across it. It's a combination of satisfaction and desire and it makes me feel weak again. His mouth is a work of art that I could look at all day long. I start to wonder why he's smiling and then I realise. He's smiling because I spoke aloud. Because the word 'no' left my mouth. I didn't just think it. I look down out of his eye line. It's harder to look at him now, now that I'm exposed and not hiding behind a pretense that I don't want him. Now, he knows everything. Except, he already knew didn't he?
"I didn't think so," He says.
He runs his hand slowly down the side of my cheek and brushes my hair behind my shoulder exposing my neck to him and skims his fingers down, his touch leaving scorch marks as they go. As he leans down and kisses across the path that his fingers just made, my eyes close over in bliss. His mouth is hot and wet and it burns as he goes across and up the other side. It occurs to me then just how gentle all of his touches have been. They're not at all what I expected. Not when I first saw him and not in my fantasies where he was always commanding and rough. I hear him inhale me and moan softly.
"I knew I was right..." He whispers against my throat. Yes, I definitely thought he would be rougher.
I'm stunned by him.
Stunned in the real meaning of the word, meaning as in to deprive of consciousness. I don't feel conscious when he's around. When he reaches my ear he nuzzles below it and then softly begins sucking on my earlobe, biting down gently. Oh... my... god.... A small loose moan escapes my mouth.
Before I have a chance to prepare he kisses me on the mouth and I have to dig my feet into the ground to stop my legs from buckling. My arms slide up and around his neck and I pull myself into him, as much for balance as for the need to hold him. His lips and tongue move inside mine, and a moan comes from his throat as he pushes his hips into me and I feel his hardness once more. He slides his hands down my body to the waistband of my jeans and then unbuttons the top one quickly.
"No Jake...no..." I break my head away from his mouth and shake my head at him.
He pulls his hands away immediately and steps back from my body, breathing hard as he looks back at me, clearly confused by my sudden change of heart about not wanting him to leave me alone. I move past him, walking a few steps away from him towards the kitchen door before turning back to look at him. The sight of him almost makes me groan aloud. He looks otherworldly gorgeous. Turned on and deadly like a predator whose prey is about to get away.
"Well? Aren't you coming?" I ask him. "I assume you haven't changed your mind about wanting to come to bed with me? I have high hopes for your cuddling ability." I smile.
The look that comes across his face a second later is totally my undoing. It's the look he had in the deli when I agreed to go out with him only magnified by a thousand. How does any woman have a chance against him when he looks at them like that?
They don't. I don't.
His eyes seem to get heavier instantly and his mouth opens and he wets his lips. Divine. I've never seen a man who oozes carnality like he does. My whole body is trembling as he walks toward me in very slow measured movements before he pulls me to him, all warm, hard, heat. He brings his hand up and skims it down the side of my face as he looks into my eyes, and I stare back into his deep turquoise green pools of heat and depth. When he speaks his voice is low and serious.
"I've wanted to go to bed with you since the moment I saw you doctor," his fingers stroke the skin of my cheek. Doctor doesn't sound so impersonal this time. It sounds almost erotic. "You think there is any fucking chance I'm letting you go now?"