All In (The Blackstone Affair, Part 2) (2 page)

♥

I parked in the lot for the Rothvale Gallery
and shut off the engine. It was a dreary day, drizzling and chilly,
but not inside my car. Having Brynne sitting next to me, dressed
for work, looking beautiful, sexy, smiling at me, had me soaring,
but knowing what we’d just shared together this morning was the
fucking bomb. And I wasn’t talking about the fucking. Remembering
the shower and what we’d done there would hold me throughout my
day—just barely, but it was knowing that I’d see her again tonight,
that we’d be together, that she was mine, and that I could take her
to bed and show her all over again. It was the conversation we’d
had too. I felt like she’d finally let me in a little. That she
cared about me in the same way I cared about her. And it was time
to start talking future with us. I wanted so much with her.

“Did I ever tell you how much I like it when
you smile at me, Ethan?”

“No,” I answered, dropping the smile, “tell
me.”

She shook her head at my tactics and looked
out the window at the rain. “I’ve always felt special when you do
because I think you don’t smile much in public. I would describe
you as reserved. So when you smile at me I’m kind of…swept
away.”

“Look at me.” I waited for her to respond,
knowing it would come. This was another thing we had yet to discuss
but was crystal clear from the very beginning. Brynne was naturally
submissive to me. She accepted what I wanted to give her—the Dom in
me had found my muse, and it was just one more reason we were
perfect together.

I sweep you away, huh?

She lifted her brown/green/grey eyes to me
and waited while my cock pounded in my trousers. I could take her
right here in the car and still want her minutes later. She was
that much of an addiction.

“Christ you’re beautiful when you do
that.”

“Do what, Ethan?”

I tucked a strand of her silky hair behind
her ear and smiled for her again. “Never mind. You just make me
happy is all. I love bringing you to your job after I’ve had you
all night.”

She blushed at me and I wanted to fuck her
again.

No, that’s not right. I wanted to make love
to her...slowly. I could just picture her gorgeous body stretched
out naked for me to pleasure in every way I could manage it.
All
mine.
For me alone. Brynne made me feel
everything—

“Would you like to come in and see what I’m
working on? Do you have time?”

I brought her hand to my lips and breathed
the scent of her skin. “I thought you’d never ask. Lead on,
Professor Bennett.”

She laughed. “Someday maybe. I’ll wear one
of those black robes and glasses and do my hair up in a bun. I’ll
give lectures on proper conserving techniques, and you can sit in
the back and distract me with inappropriate comments and
leering.”

“Ahhh, and will you summon me to your office
for chastisement then? Will you detain me, Professor Bennett? I am
sure we can negotiate a deal for me
working off
my
disrespectful behavior.” I put my head down toward her lap.

“You are insane,” she told me, giggling and
pushing me back. “Let’s go inside.”

We ran through the rain together, my
umbrella shielding us, her slim shape tucked against me, smelling
of flowers and sunshine and making me feel like the luckiest man on
the planet.

She introduced me to the old security guard
who was clearly in love with her, and led me back into a great,
studio-like room. Wide tables and easels were set up with good
lighting and plenty of open space. She brought me up to a large oil
painting of a dark haired, solemn woman with startling blue eyes,
holding a book.

“Ethan, please say hello to Lady Percival.
Lady Percival, my boyfriend, Ethan Blackstone.” She smiled at the
painting like they were best friends.

I offered a half bow to the painting and
said, “My lady.”

“Isn’t she amazing?” Brynne asked.

I studied the image pragmatically. “Well,
she is an arresting figure to be sure. She looks like she has a
story behind her blue eyes.” I peered closer to look at the book
she held with the front visible. The words were hard to read but
once I realized they were French it was somewhat easier.

“I’ve been working on the section with the
book in particular,” Brynne said. “She suffered some heat damage in
a fire decades ago and it’s been a struggle getting the cooked on
lacquer off that book. It’s special, I just know it.”

I looked again and made out the word
Chrétien
. “It’s in French. That is the name Christian right
there.” I pointed.

Her eyes got big and her voice excited. “It
is?”

“Yes. And I’m sure this says,
Le Conte du
Graal.
The Story of the Grail?” I looked at Brynne and
shrugged. “The woman in the painting is called Lady Percival right?
Isn’t Percival the knight who found the Holy Grail in the King
Arthur legend?”

“Good God, Ethan!” She grabbed my arm in
excitement. “Of course! Percival… it’s her story. You figured it
out! Lady Percival is holding a very rare book indeed. I
knew
it was something special! One of the first King Arthur
stories ever written down; all the way back in the twelfth century.
That book is Chrétien de Troyes’, The Story of Perceval and the
Grail.” She gazed at the painting, her face glowing with happiness
and pure joy, and I reached for my mobile and snapped a picture of
her. A magnificent profile shot of Brynne smiling at her Lady
Percival.

“Well, I’m glad I could help you, baby.”

She leapt at me and kissed me on the lips,
her arms wrapped tightly around me. It was the most amazing feeling
in the world.

“You did! You helped me so much. I’m going
to call the Mallerton Society today and tell them what you
discovered. They will be interested I’m sure. There’s his birthday
exhibit coming in next month…I wonder if they’ll want to include
this…”

Brynne rambled, excitedly telling me
everything I could ever have wanted to know about rare books,
paintings of rare books, and the conserving of paintings of rare
books. Her face flushed with the thrill of solving a mystery but
that smile and kiss was worth its weight in gold to me.

♥

…I opened my eyes and tried to get my
bearings. My head felt like I’d been smashed with a board. A half
empty bottle of Van Gogh stared at me. Djarum butts were sprinkled
atop my desk where my cheek was stuck fast, filling my nose with
stale cloves and tobacco. I peeled my face off the desk top and
propped my head in my hands, supported on firmly planted
elbows.

The same desk where I’d laid her out and
fucked her only a few hours before. Yes, fucked. That had been
pure, unapologetic shagging, and so good my eyes stung at the
remembrance. The light on my mobile blinked madly. I flipped it
over so I didn’t have to look. I knew none of the calls were from
her anyway.

Brynne wouldn’t call me. Of that I was
certain. The only question was how long before I tried calling
her.

It was nighttime now. Dark outside. Where
was she? Was she horribly hurt and upset? Crying? Being comforted
by her friends? Hating me? Yeah, probably all of those, and I
couldn’t go to her and make it better either.
She doesn’t want
you.

So this is what it feels like. Being in
love. It was time to face some truths about Brynne and what I’d
done to her. So I stayed in my office and faced it. I couldn’t go
home. There was too much of her there already, and seeing her
things would only drive me utterly mad. I’d stay here tonight and
sleep on sheets that didn’t have her scent all over them.
Didn’t
have her in them
. A wave of panic sliced into me and I had to
move.

I heaved my arse off the chair and stood up.
I saw the scrap of pink fabric on the floor at my feet and knew
what it was. The lacey knickers I’d peeled off her during that
session on my desk.

Fuck! Remembering where I was when that
message from her dad came through.
Buried inside her
. It was
agonizing to touch something that had last been against her skin. I
fingered the fabric and put them in my pocket. A shower was calling
my name.

I went through the back door to the attached
suite set-up with a bed, a bath, a TV and a small
kitchen—everything top of the line. The perfect bachelor crash pad
for the busy professional man who works so late there’s no point in
driving home.

Or more like a fuck pad. This is where I
brought women if I wanted to fuck them. Always after hours of
course, and they never stayed the whole night. I got my “dates” the
hell out long before dawn. All of this was before I found Brynne. I
never wanted to bring her here. She was different from the
beginning. Special.
My beautiful American girl.

Brynne didn’t even know about this suite.
She would have figured it out in two seconds flat and hated me for
bringing her into it. I rubbed my chest and tried to still the ache
that burned. I turned on the shower and got undressed.

As the hot water poured over me I leaned
against the tile and faced exactly where I was.
You’re not with
her!
You made a cock-up of everything, and she doesn’t want
you now.

My Brynne had left me for the second time.
The first time she did it in stealth in the middle of the night
because she was terrorized by a bad dream. This time she just
turned and walked away from me without looking back. I could see it
in her face and it wasn’t fear that made her leave. It was utter
devastation at the betrayal, to find I had kept the truth from her.
I had broken her trust. I’d wagered too high and lost.

The urge to pull her back and make her stay
was so great I punched the wall and likely fractured something to
keep from grabbing her. She told me never to contact her again.

I turned off the shower and stepped out, the
desolate sounds of dripping water draining away made my chest hurt
worse from the hollowness. I pulled down a plush towel and shoved
my head in it. I stared at my image in the mirror as my face was
revealed. Naked, wet, and miserable. Alone. I realized another
truth as I stared at my motherfucker asshole self.

Never
is a very long time. I might be
able to give her a day or two, but
never
was irrefutably out
of the question.

The fact that she still needed protection
from a threat which could prove dangerous hadn’t changed either. I
couldn’t allow anything to happen to the woman I love.
Never
.

I smiled into the mirror, my cleverness
amusing even me in my sorry state; for I had just found a perfect
example of the proper usage for the word
never
.

Day two
of my exile
from Brynne and it sucked. I
was moving around and doing things but nothing felt right. How long
would I be like this? Should I call her? If I thought about my
situation too much, dread started to creep in so I left it alone. I
left her alone. The empty space inside me pushed for action but I
knew it was too soon to try to go to her. She needed some time and
I’d made this mistake before. Pressing too fast and too hard with
her.
And being an utter selfish prick.

I parked on the street next to the house
where I’d grown up. The lawn very tidy, the gate straight and the
shrubbery clipped as it had always been. Dad would never leave
here. Not the home where he’d been with my mother. My dad gave the
term ‘stubborn old man’ new meaning and this was where he would die
some day.

I picked up the cold beer off the seat and
went in through the gate. A black cat dashed ahead of me and
waited. It was not quite a kitten and not fully grown either. A
teenage cat I suppose. It sat down right in front of the door and
turned and looked at me. Bright green eyes blinked as if saying for
me to hurry up my too-slow arse and let him in the house. When in
the hell had Dad gotten a cat?

I rang the bell and then opened the door and
stuck my head in. “Dad?” The cat slithered into the house faster
than the speed of light and all I could do was stare. “You have a
cat now?” I called out and went into the kitchen. I put the beer in
the fridge and flopped on the couch.

Remote pointed, I turned on the box.
European Championship.
Fucking perfect
. I could focus on
football for a few hours, hopefully drink four out of the six beers
and forget about my girl for a little while
. And cry to my
Dad.

I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.
Something furry and soft climbed into my lap. The cat was back.

“Ahh, well you’re here then, and I see
you’ve met Soot.” My dad walked up behind me.

“Why did you get a cat?” I couldn’t wait for
this answer. We’d never had cats growing up.

My dad snorted and sat down in his chair. “I
didn’t. You could say that he got me.”

“I can imagine.” I stroked my hand down
Soot’s sleek body. “He just came in the house the second I opened
the front door like he owned the place.”

“My neighbour asked me to feed him while she
left to take care of her mum who’s very ill. She’s had to move into
her mother’s house and I got him by default. We have an
understanding I s’pose.”

“You and the neighbour, or you and the
cat?”

My dad looked at me shrewdly, his eyes
narrowing. Jonathan Blackstone was very perceptive by nature.
Always had been. I could never slip anything by him. He always knew
if I came home drunk and when I started smoking, or if I was into
trouble as a lad. I guess he’d been that way because he was a
single parent for most of our lives. My sister Hannah and I were
never neglected despite the loss of our mum. His senses got keener
and he could sniff out problems like a bloodhound. He was doing it
now.

“What the hell happened to you, son?”