Embers (Blaze Series Book 3)
Read Embers (Blaze Series Book 3) Online
Authors: Erika Chase
EMBERS
BLAZE:
BOOK THREE
BY
ERIKA
CHASE
Copyright
© 2015 Chase Books
All
Rights Reserved
For Max.
I didn’t know what to say to her; I
didn’t know what she wanted to hear. So I didn’t say a word—I just kissed her,
hard. For a moment she went tense in my arms, and then her body relaxed against
me. Her mouth opened to mine; her lips were warm and soft.
I ran my hand up into her hair and
tangled it there, gathering my fingers into a fist. She moaned softly as I
pulled on her hair, tugging her head back.
After a moment she broke away. Her
breathing was faster, heavier.
“God, I don’t know what to do,” she
sighed. The street was quiet. The night sky sparkled with stars. It must have
been midnight by then. The whole neighbourhood was asleep.
“Come here,” I said, and she put her
mouth to mine, hungrily, desperately.
Everywhere was still. She filled my
world. I wanted her; I wanted to rip the clothes from her and take her right
there on the street.
I could feel myself getting hard. She
felt it too, and pressed her thigh against me, gasping a little at the feel of
me. She buried her lips in my neck and ran her hand over my chest, my stomach,
the front of my jeans.
“There,” she breathed, rubbing me,
kissing her tiny kisses against my neck. I closed my eyes and fell into the
sensation of it—her mouth opening against my skin, her hand gripping me,
squeezing me. I could smell her perfume in the clean night air.
“Ava,” I said, and she squeezed me
harder. My hands clamped against her ass, pulling her to me. God, I wanted to
fuck her. It was all I could think of, entering her for the first time, hearing
the sounds she made, feeling her press herself against me. Feeling what it was
like to be buried in her.
Just the thought of it got me even
harder. She felt it too and before I knew what she was doing she was sliding
down to her knees on the sidewalk.
She looked up at me. Her breathing was
hard and fast. Her skirt has slid up on her thighs, and I could see the valley
between her breasts.
“I haven’t done this since high school,”
she said, a shaky, nervous laugh in her voice. She reached up to undo my zipper
with a hand that trembled a little, and then she was reaching inside, fumbling
with my briefs, freeing my cock.
“Oh,” she breathed when she first took
hold of me, and I shivered at the feeling of her cool hand. She took me into
her mouth. I leaned back against the fence of the little suburban house. I felt
like a kid again myself, nervous that some passerby was going to stumble on us,
was going to see Ava there on her knees, her head bobbing up and down.
Her eyes were closed and she sucked at me
hard and fast, pulling me in further and further until she gagged. She sucked
in a long, shuddering breath and then her lips were sliding over me again. Her
mouth was hot and I could feel that it wasn’t going to be long. Whenever she
pulled back the cold night air was like a caress on my skin, and then her mouth
would slide forward again, wet and warm around me.
The soft sucking sounds she made seemed so
loud in the empty street. My breathing was harsh and heavy. The first pulse
flickered through me and I stifled a groan. She took me in deeper, right as the
first orgasm started to crest. My cock swelled and then the first moments were
on me, the liquid heat flooding out of me, into her mouth. She moaned as she swallowed,
desperately drawing every last drop of me.
It felt like it went on forever, her
throat working as she swallowed. All the want I’d felt, all the need, emptied
itself over her tongue, into her mouth. Finally it was over and I shivered when
I finally pulled away.
I had to help her up to her feet. She
clung to me, her heart pounding in her chest.
“That was incredible,” I whispered, and
she laughed, her nerves finally getting the better out of her. Then she clapped
a hand over her mouth.
“What if someone heard us?” she asked.
I kissed her forehead softly.
“Then they’re going to be jealous the
rest of their lives,” I said.
From
Autumn
Blaze
, by Gabriel Call.
I stare at the baggage carousel as it slowly
starts to move. It makes a dull, whirring sound, like a car engine turning
over. The rows of bright lights overhead reflect off the cold white tiles
beneath my feet. Noise builds as the latest planeload of people pours down the
escalator to the baggage claim.
All around me people are on their phones,
telling their families, their husbands, their friends, that they’re back home.
To my right a young couple laughs at some private joke and the dad grabs their
daughter and lifts her up into the air. The girl, her yellow hair flying out in
two pigtails, squeals and giggles, delighted.
And inside, I’m numb. Inside, I’m nothing.
Bags start appearing and the carousel chugs
them along. Big black travel cases, cute little overnight bags, overstuffed
tennis bags. I stare at them.
Where are you all going
? I wonder, watching people dart forward and snatch up their
luggage.
Do you have someone to go home too? Or are you like me—all alone?
Out the window of San Francisco
International Airport I can see the threatening gray clouds packing the sky.
Our pilot warned us in a gruff Texan accent coming in that we were going to hit
bad weather. He made some joke about everyone having a new pet tomorrow because
it was going to rain cats and dogs. I thought about Calley and I wanted to
burst into tears.
I need a cup of coffee. I need something to
eat. And I need to go back home and pull the covers over my head and bawl for a
thousand years.
I never knew I could feel this bad
, I think.
I never knew love could leave me this completely
shattered.
A man bumps me as he reaches to get his bag.
“Sorry,” he says, turning to face me. “I
didn’t see you there.”
He’s got dark hair, and I can’t place his
accent. English? Australian? He smiles.
“Don’t worry about,” I say, turning away
from him.
The crowd is thinning now. The same bags are
rotating around and around and around. Just like it has ever since I left
Alaska, a feeling of sick regret passes through me.
I screwed up. I screwed everything up.
For a moment my mouth twists. The sour
feeling inside me isn’t going away. It’s only getting worse.
The first drops of rain burst against the
big bay windows up above me. I look out to the cab stand and I can see people
starting to run to the safety of the airport, or inside taxis. The wind is
starting to pick up. An empty Doritos bag whirls madly in the wind then smacks
straight into the window. The wind holds it there for a moment then whisks it
away again.
Suddenly I’m tired. Just about as tired as
I’ve ever been. I can tell without looking in a mirror that I have huge puffy
dark bags under my eyes.
Finally,
finally
, my suitcases
appear. I’m the last person from my flight waiting. Figures.
I haul them off and walk outside to find a
taxi. The cold wind slices right through me as soon as I step through the
doors. The rain is falling heavier and heavier now, turning the road from gray
to black.
I sigh. This angry, turbulent weather seems
an appropriate welcome home.
I feel my phone begin to vibrate through my
jacket pocket. I pull it out and look at the screen. It’s Natasha.
Welcome back to us
, her text reads.
I promise you, everything’s going to be OK.
As I’m reading her message my phone vibrates
again. Nat’s sending another text right on the heels of the first.
Even if your heart’s had the crap kicked
out of it,
she writes,
you are going to be fine.
It brings the tiniest of smiles to my face.
But I can’t help but wondering—
How is anything going to be OK now?
Because I don’t think I can fix what I’ve
broken.
The cab drives through downtown as the rain pours
down. It beats on the roof like a drum, and the driver curses under his breath.
He needs to change his wipers; they squeal as they drag across the windshield,
leaving dirty smears behind them that even this deluge can’t seem to completely
wash away.
Finally he pulls up out the front of my
place and turns to me. His expression is impassive.
“Forty-two dollars, miss,” he says. I know
I’m getting ripped off, and I know I can’t afford it, but I just don’t have the
energy to argue with him. I stuff my last fifty in his hand and he gives me
back a five. He’s not getting a cent more out of me, especially when he doesn’t
even give me a half-hearted offer to help me with my bags.
So I haul them out of the trunk myself. The
rain is icy on my hair, down my neck, soaking my clothes in an instant. The cab
pulls off and I look dismally at the line of cars that I am somehow supposed to
navigate my way around to cross the street.
But someone takes pity on me, the poor
drowned rat girl, and waves me across. With a grateful wave back I hustle
across the street, dragging my heavy-ass travel luggage up the steps to my house.
“Hello?” I call out when I finally shut the
front door behind me. “Is anyone home?”
Only silence. My roommates must be out.
I trundle my luggage up the stairs, the
heavy bag bumping on every single step as we go. My whole body is weak with
weariness. I don’t want to unpack, but I know if I don’t do it now I’m going to
put it off for days. I get to my bedroom and heave my bag up onto my bed. The
airline ticket is still looped around one of the fasteners, a receipt for my
flight to Alaska. I stare at it numbly for a little while. Alaska is Sam, and
Sam is heartbreak, and I don’t want to think about that right now.
Instead I go to take a long, hot shower.
There’s something all the more pleasurable about it when I can hear the
freezing rain still pounding down outside, battering the bathroom windows and
turning the sky dark. I keep the lights off. When I’m done I towel myself dry,
pressed up against the space heater, feeling the warm air soothe my clean skin.
When I get back into my room, my towel wrapped
around me, feeling just little bit more human again, I notice something I
hadn’t before. A stack of envelopes, sitting neatly on my dresser. My roommates
must have left them there.
And sure enough, they’re bills, neatly itemized
with what I owe. Lucky me, they must have all arrived while I was away in
Alaska. Perfect timing.
I sort through them with a sinking feeling.
This is going to wipe out what little I have left in the bank. And maybe then
some on top of that. And I don’t even know really what’s happening with work
right now.
I close the door to my bedroom, curl up on
my bed, and weep. Now that I’ve stopped moving it’s all catching up with me.
Gabriel. Sam. Matt. My family, my job, and how completely screwed my life is.
I fumble under my pillow and draw out
Smithers, my antique teddy bear. I’ve been carrying him everywhere I’ve lived
since I was a little girl. I bury my head in his well-worn fuzzy head face and
pull him tight against me, sobbing.
The flood of misery seems to go on forever.
I could cry all night and it still wouldn’t be enough to exorcise this
unhappiness. It seems endless, an infinite cycle where nothing I do is going to
make a bit of difference.
I don’t know how things got so bad. I
don’t know how I went from being so happy to so. . . so goddamn awful.
Finally I come back to myself, the sobs
subsiding. The pillow, and Smithers, are both soaked with tears.
From somewhere I locate my PJs and change
into them. At least I can hope that tomorrow I’ll feel better. That tomorrow
some miracle might have happened to bring everything back to being good.
I crawl under the covers and pull them right
up under my chin. My last thought before I fall into an exhausted, dreamless
sleep is:
I bet I don’t get a wink of sleep tonight.