Let Me Burn by Elodie Colt
Nathan
Asmall hand wriggles down my pants, squeezing my package. My dick twitches, but other than that, he remains an overcooked noodle in my boxers.
I groan into Claire’s mouth (or is it Clarissa? Clara? Fuck, if I know), swallowing the taste of cheap rum, mint, and sexual desperation. Her tongue drills a hole into my throat as our teeth clash together, but we’re too tanked to make the kiss any less sloppy, eager to share a five-minute quickie before we go our separate ways, pretending we’ve never met.
At least, that’s my plan.
“Yes,” she moans when I shove my hand underneath her cherry-red dress to pull down her thong with a sharp tug that almost has me looking down to check if the string has cut her leg, but gathering from the way she tries to climb me like a tree, she likes it rough.
I hoist her up and smash her against the piss-yellow tiled wall. Her fingers claw at my hair, pushing me down to suck her cleavage that she presses against my face. I bury my nose in her skin. She reeks of Coco Chanel and sweet sweat. Slightly more pleasant than the citrus air freshener polluting York’s restroom, but not good enough for me to want to bottle her scent and sell it as a new perfume brand.
Not Ella’s scent.
I growl, biting into a chunk of flesh, and she yelps. The girl’s got the body of a supermodel and the sex drive of a porn star. Every man’s wet dream with a pair of perfect tits, fuck-me-heels, and a clit piercing, I realize when I brush the pad of my finger over a piece of hot, slick metal.
With a frenzied chuckle, she tugs at my tie, pulling my face up to hers, and our mouths clash once more. Her hands go on a mission to open my belt. The snap of the leather echoes through the room as she yanks it out of the buckle. Two seconds later, my pants drop to the floor.
Someone pounds against the door, making the lock rattle. “Hey, hurry up in there, will ya?”
We ignore the complaint as I grind my groin against her pussy. She’s so wet, you’d think I’d already been inside her, but alas, half-mast won’t do it.
“Hey.”
Her voice barely makes it through the haze in my brain, and I flick her nub in frantic movements. She grabs my wrist and pulls my hand away.
“Hey!”
The alarm in her voice brings me to a standstill, and I finally crack my eyes open.
She jerks her head down to my groin, clearly pissed. “What’s going on?”
Irritated, I follow her gaze as if that would help my case, but my dick stays as soft as the rubber ball Nick likes to squeeze at work when he’s under stress.
I lift my head in a daze, a brown strand of hair flopping over my nose. Claire cocks an eyebrow at me, waiting for an explanation.
Huffing through my nose, I frame her face. She’s a catch, this girl. A Miami blonde with sapphire eyes and a tiny birthmark below her nose. I move my thumb to her lips, pushing down her lower lip.
She yanks her head to the side. “What’s the matter with you?”
Frowning, I drop my hand. My dick goes completely slack.
“I can see you.”
The words are out of my mouth before I can analyze their meaning. Claire gawks at me as if I’d gone mental, unhooking her ankles from my waist and pushing me back.
“Not pretty enough for you, huh?” She juts out her chin when I continue to stare at her birthmark. She thinks it bothers me whereas it just reminds me of the pretty dots on Ella’s back.
“Well, guess what…” she mutters, adjusting her dress. “Your crooked nose could do with some plastic surgery, too.”
With a sneer, she plucks her clutch from the floor, shoulders past me, and unlocks the door before I can pull up my pants.
“About fucking time,” one of the girls waiting outside grumbles when Claire skirts off with her pride in pieces.
“Hey, get the fuck out of here, asshole,” another snaps when she storms inside, shoving me away from the basin and in the direction of the door.
With a huff, I secure my belt and stagger out, now even more irked than I was when I came here. Turns out that booze and pussy don’t do shit to take my mind off Ella for a few hours.
Frustrated, I pick my way through the bar and hurry outside. Sauntering down the sidewalk, I check my phone. A shit-ton of emails is waiting in my inbox along with a bunch of stupid notifications from my Silent Sins app.
Delete the app and be done with it, idiot. Ella is done with you, too.
After giving me the boot, she went the extra mile and reported me for violating the terms. Carl was furious. No clue why he didn’t kick me out of his fancy dating program. Maybe he’s hoping to get me back on the straight and narrow by setting me up with another match. He can go fuck himself. I’d found my perfect match, and now she’s gone. End of story. End of Silent Sins. End of the fucking world.
Persistent and obsessed as I am, I even went as far as sending her a message directly on her phone. She already knew I found out more about her than she was willing to reveal, so I figured it wouldn’t make a difference after she kicked me out of Silent Sins. My message never went through. ‘Unable to deliver.’ She must have gotten herself a new phone. I had the good sense to leave it at that and not grill Wayde for her new number.
Nick had warned me. He’d told me Ella might never forgive me if she found out I discovered her identity long ago. And what did I do? Confessing my sins shortly before I confessed my fucking love to her while my cock was still twitching inside her. That hadn’t been part of the plan, but the words just slipped out like the burp now gurgling up my throat, coating my tongue with the taste of scotch and misery. She thinks I couldn’t possibly feel that way, not after a handful of dates in the dark. She thinks I don’t know enough about her to fall in love with her.
She’s wrong.
I drag my feet down the sidewalk, too lost in my thoughts to take in my surroundings. My shoulder bumps against another, but I ignore the dude hurling insults after me.
Doesn’t matter if she believes me or not. Up until our last date, I thought there was a possibility she loved me too, but it seems hope has made me blind. She didn’t ask me who I was. She didn’t ask me about my name. She didn’t ask me where we met. She didn’t want to know one fucking thing. She said she just wanted to protect me, but maybe I didn’t get as much under her skin as she got under mine.
‘I thought that was what Silent Sins is,’she’d said when we met for the very first time. ‘Leading the other on a merry chase.’
Back then, I thought I controlled the game. That I would be the one to lead her astray. Play with her a little, fuck her twice a month, and move on to the next vacant toy. Instead, she’d pulled the strings from the beginning. Fucked me twice a month and cast me aside as soon as she left the Room.
Sure, I’m simplifying things to patch up my bleeding heart with a thick layer of rage. Because I know it was never that easy, not with Ella Jenkins and her past that crossed the Atlantic to catch up with her.
Luka Sokolov.
We’d chased him off, but Ella thinks I just made matters worse. That he’ll never give her up as long as he’s alive. The thought unsettles me. I’m checking in with Wayde a couple of times per week. He confirmed that he left the city in his Nissan Rogue. No sign of him or his car ever since, also no activity in New York under his other five names, according to Wayde and Vincent’s friends at the NYPD. Sure, all this shit won’t keep the guy from taking on a new identity, but I have to trust Vincent here that his threat took roots. Wayde also told me that he lost the connection to Ella’s security system, but I’m not surprised. After everything that went down, chances are she got herself a new one.
Or she left the city, too.
Ella Jenkins isn’t a part of my life any longer. My dragonfly girl is gone. Cruelly ripped out of my heart like a chunk of plaster from a crumbling shack. No matter how strong the urge to hunt down her ass, I have to accept the cold, hard truth.
We’re done.
The thoughts keep tumbling inside my head when I arrive at Crawford Crescent. Trying to get the electronic pad next to the entrance into focus, I punch in the code and make my way up to my apartment.
Once there, I loosen my tie and discard my jacket. Ella’s Halloween costume she wore last year is still draped around the edge of the sofa—the only item of her that made her real. Ripping my gaze away, I shuffle over to the fireplace in the corner of my living area. Flames lick up behind the glass panel, softly cracking inside the gray-tiled alcove and creating a cozy atmosphere. But my place is still the same. Clean, lonely, empty.
A pent-up sigh escapes my lips as I pick up the items scattered on a small table next to the fireplace—Luka Sokolov’s phone, keys, and wallet I took from him when we paid him a visit. With a vacant stare, I toss them one by one into the flames, watching metal and plastic melting through the logs.
‘You think you know her,’the fucker said to me. ‘You don’t even know her real name.’
And maybe I don’t. Ella Jenkins doesn’t sound Russian to me. If she changed her place of residence to escape that motherfucker, chances are she changed her name, too. A pity it had all been in vain.
My gaze travels back to her costume. I should get rid of it. Burn it along with all my memories of her.
Do it. Do it!
Someone knocks on my door. I briefly close my eyes. I’m not keen on having a heart-to-heart with Nick right now. He’s been bugging me with questions ever since I returned from my last date with Ella, pushing me to open up to him. I shut him out. His brotherly advices are nothing but tedious.
“Nathan, it’s me.”
I freeze. It’s not Nick pounding his fist against my door. In fact, it’s someone who hasn’t set a foot inside this apartment for almost fifteen years.
I clear my throat. “Uh, come on in.”
The door opens, and Brooke walks in. I almost do a double-take when I give her a once-over. No strangulating-tight dress, no killer heels, no I’m-about-to-ruin-you pace as she carries herself in my direction. For the first time since I was a kid, she’s dressed casual—jeans, a black blouse, and a middle-aged face without make-up. The lack of sparkling diamonds on her wrists, neck, and ears—just like the fact that she’s here, in my room—is so surreal, I have to blink to make sure I’m not hallucinating.
And then it hits me.
“What happened?” I straighten in alarm. “Is Vincent—”
“He’s fine,” she cuts in with a smile that is as rare as chipped-off polish on her nails. “I came here to talk to you.”
“About what?”
She utters a soft chuckle at my skeptical undertone, motioning for me to sit down with her. Stunned, I inch toward the sofa and slouch down while she sweeps over to the minibar to prepare drinks. I hastily smooth down my tie, although I have no idea why. It’s not as if I have to make an impression inside my own four walls.
“Sanzhar Sharipova is visiting next month,” she announces, and it takes me a second to kick my brain into gear after staring at her blonde hair hanging uncombed down her back—not the usual perfect updo that always makes me wonder how many hours it takes her stylist to get it done in the morning.
“Sanzhar?” I repeat, confused.
She places a glass of scotch on the table and takes a seat opposite me—her back, for once, not rod-straight as she reclines in the backrest.
“Yes. He wants to invest in museums and is looking for pieces to complete his collections. Vincent has promised him a private tour.”
My head bops in a nod, but my mind only circles around one question, and it tumbles out of my mouth without my consent.
“Why are you here, Brooke?”
Her eyes are on me as she exhales through her nose—smoky-gray eyes that look so much gentler without tons of eyeshadow. Slowly, she lifts her glass to take a sip before she reveals, “I want to get you back onto the right track.”
My mouth slackens. She never gave a shit about me. Why now?
“Tell me about her,” she says. “I want to know who the woman is who cut you so deep, the heartbreak is pouring from your eyes.”
Fuck. I swear, that woman is a witch. Each word feels as if it has the power to hollow me out until I’m nothing but an empty corpse.
It takes me a moment to find my composure, and I throw her a frosty stare. “Give me one reason why I should tell you anything about my private life.”
“Because you need a woman’s advice, so unless you want to pour out your heart to the cleaning lady or Susan McElroy, who’s still stuck in the last century, I’d suggest you talk to me.”
She delivers her speech swiftly, unperturbed by my wariness. What’s her deal? There has to be some sort of hidden agenda, right?
I taper my eyes at her, but she doesn’t back down from my glare. No, not her. No matter if she is the brutal businesswoman or the caring mother, she will always be the Crawford Queen. Superior, steadfast, and perpetually assertive.
She sighs when I remain silent, and when she starts to speak, my jaw almost hits the floor.
“All I wanted was a baby. His baby.” Her tone is wistful, wavering with emotion. “The longer I waited, the more obsessed I became. I’ve tried everything—diets, fertility treatments, massages, yoga to soothe the stress…”
She lets the sentence hover in the air, and I rip my gaze away, unable to keep eye contact. I’m vacillating between indifference, frustration, and a tinge of pity that I’m not ready to show.
“Every happy moment I shared with my husband was clouded by disappointment,” she goes on. “Mother’s Day was my yearly torture. Visiting my friends who all have children was agonizing. Sex became a clinical means to an end.”
I fidget, chewing at the inside of my mouth.
“I dreamed about what could have been instead of living what I had, and before I knew it, my relationship was in ruins. Vincent withdrew from me, knowing he couldn’t make me happy. He started to do his own thing—drinking, gambling, stealing. Cheating, eventually. And then, out of nowhere, heaven answered my prayers, and you literally dropped into my hands.”
A disarming smile spreads on her face, and I take a gulp from my scotch to cover up my unease. I’m glad I don’t remember the woman who gave birth to me only to abandon me at the age of two months right in the middle of Central Park.
“Vincent fell in love with you on the spot,” she says. “I thought we were a happy family, but I realized too late that Vincent’s love for me had run dry. When I became pregnant with Nick, I hoped it would reignite the flame in his heart seeing as Nick was his own flesh and blood, but it didn’t.” She smacks her lips. “Don’t misunderstand me, he loved him, just not as much as he loved you. Or me…”
Her last words crack into my soul, and I carve a hand through my hair. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it was.” She nods to herself. “Ultimately, we stayed a patchwork family. Vincent neglected Nick, and I neglected you.”
The profound conversation weighs down on me, so I try to lighten the mood. “All in all, Nick and I didn’t develop so bad, now, did we?”
She chuckles, and it’s the first time in ages that I see the accessible, considerate, good-natured side of her, one she likes to hide beneath a thick shield of ignorance and emotional detachment.
Still, we both know we’ve only scratched on the surface of our dysfunctional relationship. She can’t erase the past, just as I can’t hand her my forgiveness. Come tomorrow, we’ll both slip back into our roles as unattainable mother and defiant son.
“Now, your turn,” she prompts.
I set my glass on the table, gripping my hands.
You ruled off Ella Jenkins. Buried her in a grave labeled ‘unrequited love.’ Why are you rooting everything out again?
Brooke clicks her tongue. “You were never a carouser, Nathan. I could smell the booze radiating from your pores when I entered. Who is this woman that has been making you kill your brain cells for three weeks now?”
That’s why she came here tonight. She fears that I’m about to fall down the same cliff as Nick before he met Janice.
And before I know what’s happening, the dam cracks, the words spilling out of my soul in a flood of confessions. I tell her about Silent Sins, and how Carl persuaded me to give it a shot. I tell her about Ella, how our bond grew stronger with each date, and that I realized she was the Russian interpreter at our exhibition shortly before she left. I tell her about her stalker, that he’d been the one to beat me black and blue that night at the bar, and how Vincent and Nick chased him out of the city.
Brooke listens intently, her attention never straying, soaking up my entire story as if it were second nature to her. As if this wasn’t the first time in ages we’ve talked like mother and son.
She wants to know everything about Ella—what I like about her, what I hate about her, when I fell in love with her. And stupid, helpless, desperate me lets her in on all my pain and lost hopes.
When I huff out the last word of my endless speech, a long moment of silence stretches between us, the only sounds the fire cracking in the corner and her nails clicking on her scotch glass. Her expression is inscrutable, and I don’t like it. Knowing her, she’s about to throw a fit and rake me over the coals for dragging Vincent and Nick into this.
Turns out I was wrong.
“You have to cut a diamond with a diamond,” she says at last.
“What do you mean?”
“That girl is a rock. Hard to get and even harder to polish. If you want to unearth that gem, you have to dig deep.”
I scoff. “I already dug so deep, I’ve left scratches on her.”
“That stalker left the scratches, not you. You’ve got the tools to cut her smooth and make her all shiny again.”
I tap a finger against my lip. She’s telling me not to give up. To bend every rule and break every law to get what I want. It just leaves one question…
“Why the sudden interest in my love life?” I taper my eyes at her. “You were against my divorce with Aiko. You wanted me to give her a second chance. Why push me into the hands of another now?”
She lets lose a solemn smile that wavers on her face. “I hated that you were smarter than me. That you had the guts to leave her after she cheated on you. I didn’t, and Vincent cheated on me for years. And then I found out that…”
The breath hitches in her throat, and a curtain of pain clouds her eyes.
I lean forward, propping my elbows on my knees. “You found out what?”
She doesn’t speak for a long moment, and when she finally does, I stop breathing altogether.
“That Vincent has another child.”