I reached the top floor: a deserted corridor, old-fashioned lamps at head height, tapestries adorned with floral patterns, several closed doors covered in ornate carvings, and a single window at the far end. No more stairs, no obvious exits, no way out.
Before I could rattle a handle or reach for my hairpin, I heard him behind me. Then, a moment later, his voice: cool, tense, furious. ‘I know this building better than you do. So stay put.’
Heat rushed through my muscles, and I whirled around. ‘I bet you do. Is the society meeting here tonight? What’s for dinner? Roast starling?’
Blake neared me slowly. It only struck me now that he was wearing a suit. Shirt, trousers and jacket all in the same deep black. As black as the look on his face as he stopped a few feet away from me. His eyes slid briefly over my body, then locked onto mine. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
I gazed up at him innocently. ‘What does it look like? I’m networking, getting drunk at the university’s expense, getting into the Christmas spirit. The usual.’
‘Don’t give me that. I know exactly who he is.’
‘I have no idea what you’re on about.’ I planted a hand on my hip so he wouldn’t see it shaking. I felt like I’d been caught red-handed, although I wasn’t sure at what. Professor Edwards hadn’t told me anything new, and his hints had been so odd that I thought probably they’d just made me more confused. There was no reason for Blake to be so upset, unless… he knew the professor could tell me something that would get him and his friends into trouble.
Before I could follow that line of thought any further, he took another step towards me. I saw the strain in his face, all softness gone. Harsh notches in the muscles of his cheek, his mouth a line that ironed out every dimple, the crease between his brows unusually deep. ‘I told you to leave it alone.’
‘And I told you it’s none of your business. I’m not your problem!’
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. Hownoneof 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–fromme? 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,sowarm. ‘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.
