Reignited Flame

Part 2 of an ongoing story, best enjoyed as a series.

Chapter Three

Dawn

I knew exactly where I was when I woke up the next morning. There was none of that,

Oh, I had the weirdest, strangest dream-nonsense.

Even before my eyes opened properly, that "skill" I had — of always being able to

feel

Tom's presence — told me where I was even before my nose twitched at detecting a faint musk in the air. A warm tingle swelled in my belly at the memory of last night; the tears in our eyes as we fucked, and the way Tom screamed my name as he exploded inside me. Echoes of everything I'd felt — every kiss, every caress, every thrust — seemed to play through my flesh, my skin, as I finally opened my eyes and turned to look at him.

He lay on his back, his eyes closed and his head half-turned away from me. His broad, hairless chest gently rose and fell with each breath. The rippling of pectorals and abs sculpted by years of hard graft, had me fighting the urge to wake him up with kisses. Kisses that moved all the way down to his...

"Stop objectifying me." His faint, croaky voice dragged my eyes up to his. He was rubbing them, a faint smirk on his face.

"Don't pretend like you don't love it."

The smirk became a smile as he turned and raised himself up on to one elbow. Leaned in and placed a soft kiss on my lips, which I returned in defiance of the part of me that worried about morning breath. About the stale sweat on my skin. When he was finished kissing me, he moved his face barely an inch from mine. If he wasn't bothered by whatever scents hung in the air between us right now, then I wasn't going to be.

I was thinking that I might be just about to add to it.

I let my small, dainty hand rest on his raised shoulder, splayed fingers stretching as if trying to wrap around his bicep, even though they didn't have a hope of doing so. Felt the tightening of his tricep as his arm slid forward, fingertips at my hips to move me onto my back. This time, my legs did not instinctively clamp together. They opened, just slightly, a second before his thick, smooth fingers slid over my mound, and he sucked in a sharp breath as if scalded, right at the moment I turned my face to his and thrust my tongue into his open mouth.

The slick sounds of his fingers exploring me was like a drumbeat beneath our chaotic gasps and moans as we exchanged hungry, urgent kisses; his tongue fighting for dominance with mine. It was a pretty even wrestling match until I became more preoccupied with the feeling of my clit being swirled while Tom's palm added a rhythmic pressure just above it. At that point, I was his, my arms fallen away from him, my head turning to one side as I offered only whimpers while waiting for another orgasm to tear through me.

When it did, the sound of my screams ricocheted around Tom's bedroom as if the walls were playing tennis.

***

"What are you thinking about?" Tom asked me a few minutes later. It had taken a while, but my legs had stopped shaking, and were now steady enough for me to get out of his bed to throw on yesterday's clothes.

"Nothing." Of course, he definitely knew it was

something

— I wasn't looking at him when I spoke and hadn't looked at him for the last minute or so, after thoughts had started swirling in my mind.

I heard the complaint of bedsprings as he sat up. "Seriously," he said. "Something's on your mind, I can tell."

I sighed, and nodded. There was no point in avoiding him. I finished putting on my jumper, then sat on the edge of the bed. Tried to keep my gaze on his

eyes

, and not any other part of him. But there was so much of him on show...

"Are you regretting what—"

"No!" I shook my head, firmly. "Absolutely not. Never. This was..." I couldn't find the words. "But I am worried. Worried about falling too deep, falling back in love with you. I mean, my kids... I can't move them out of London, not right now. They have school. And then there's my work. But it's mostly the kids, I can't turn their lives upside down. They're still so young—"

"It's all right," he said, leaning forward and stroking my hair. I felt my racing heart slow a little. "I'm not asking you to do anything."

"But I... I want..." God, why was it so hard to tell him that I wanted to be with

him

? How terrified I was of having to just to losing him, all over again?

"I know," he said, his fingers tracing a line down my jaw until he had my chin pinched between his finger and thumb. He tugged my face to his, giving me the softest of kisses. "I know."

Then he said something that set my whole being on fire.

"What if I came to you?"

Chapter Four

Tom

It took a couple of weeks for Dawn to set herself up in a Central London apartment — a two-bedroom on the fifth floor of a building overlooking the Thames from the South Bank; so spacious, and with ceilings so high, the sound of two people talking could be mistaken for a dinner party. And two people gasping, squealing, shrieking and roaring could be mistaken for an orgy. Within those two weeks, I'd finished up the remaining jobs I was contracted to, deferred one or two others for a few weeks, and handed whatever simpler ones were left (extensions, chimney re-pointings, stuff like that) over to Sean, one of the longer-serving members of my crew. There was no question of me turning my back on the business. I just wanted to make the most of this time with Dawn. I'd been staying with her the last few nights, but today had caught a train to my village to check a few things with Sean. Once I was satisfied that he had everything in hand, I got

back

on a train, to Waterloo East station. A long fifty minutes or so, during which time, I thought of nothing but Dawn, and what we'd be doing to each other once I'd returned to the apartment. How quickly I had adjusted to the absence of the loneliness and isolation that had dominated my waking moments lately; how easily I had got used to having not just someone in my life again, but having

Dawn

.

But when I got back to the apartment building, I saw a black estate car in the carpark — like the kind I knew that Mark, Dawn's husband, drove. And upstairs on the fifth floor, the living room light was on. My turning up would not be the best idea. Though Dawn had told me Mark was not being difficult through the initial discussions about how their divorce would go, it was still going to be hand grenade throw into Dawn's life. So I took myself off for a walk along the South Bank.

I gave myself half an hour before circling back to the apartment building to confirm, the black estate car was gone — the coast was clear.

Inside the apartment, the air was heavy with what I imagined had been, if not an argument, then a pretty intense discussion. The only sound was the running of the shower from the

en suite

bathroom; the occasional slap of water hitting the wall or floor, as I imagined Dawn furiously washing the day off her body.

By the time she emerged — wearing her navy blue, towelled robe; her damp hair hanging limply over her face, scrubbed clean of make-up — I had taken off my jacket and shoes, and was positioned at the kitchen island. I held up the bottle of red wine I had taken from the cupboard, but she shook her head.

"I'm all right, thanks," she said, walking to the obscenely long, leather sofa that ran almost the full width of the floor-to-ceiling windows that offered up London like a piece of art. She sat down heavily, tucking her legs underneath her. I stood at the island, unsure of my next move — unsure of what would be the most appropriate, most helpful course of action.

Dawn

I was torn, because Tom was in the room. He was clos, and whenever Tom was close, whatever space there was between us felt like a chasm. On some level, having him in the same room felt almost worse than not seeing him at all for so many years, because him being in the room but not

right here beside me

took on the feeling of the cruellest of taunts.

And yet, I still had a rational part of my brain that told me I should process tonight's heavy discussion with Mark right out of my system before I shared a space with Tom. No matter how keenly aware I was of

him

...

But he didn't help matters by lazily leaning forward on the kitchen island, propping himself up on crossed forearms. Sculpted, chiselled forearms ending in thick, meaty hands that, just last night — and first thing this morning — had been all over me, exploring me, controlling me...

I had to ask him to repeat the question I'd just missed.

"Was Mark giving you trouble?" he asked.

I shook my head. "No, nothing like that. It's just... a lot of things to think about. A lot of admin. I hate admin."

He smiled, but said nothing. That was always his way — letting me talk at my own pace. But what I had to say to him was not going to come easily.

"It's just..." I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, kind of regretting refusing the glass of wine just now. "The whole time Mark was here, I was terrified you were going to walk in. How I'd explain it if you did... Could I convince Mark that nothing was going on while he and I were still supposedly together...? It was so stressful. And... I started to feel like we were doing something bad — something

wrong

."

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, the feeling that I'd been having since Mark showed up — a feeling like my heart was in the grip of someone else's hand — got worse; the invisible hand squeezed my heart as I tried to hold Tom's gaze. He was so fucking honourable, I knew that thing he was thinking about right at that moment was that he was going to leave, that he was going to...

"...give you some space so you can sort all this out."

Of course he made that offer; and of course, this filled me with a worse anxiety than I was feeling about the divorce. I knew that if Tom made to walk out of this apartment tonight, I would leap off the sofa, run across the apartment and jump onto his back and tell him he mustn't, he

couldn't

. He couldn't go anywhere that I wasn't.

And yet... The bloody rational part of my brain was telling me, maybe that was for the best.

At some point during all these thoughts, a tear had escaped...

"Hey, hey, hey..." His voice sounded so soft as he moved from the island to the settee; sat down beside me as if he

didn't

know how much harder he was making all of this. "It's OK."

"I can't lose you," I murmured, my voice vibrating as I held back a sob. "Not again."

"I'm not going anywhere," he said. Then he snorted. "Well, I'll go home for a bit if you think that'll help — but I'm not going anywhere, like, emotionally. You know? As soon as you've sorted everything out, I'll be straight back here."

I had not been looking at him since he moved to the settee. I knew myself well enough to know, just looking at him right now was a dangerous move. If I needed resolve to make a difficult decision, I was not going to find it while looking at him. But now, I

had

to look at him. I had to see the seriousness in his eyes; had to convince myself that he meant what he said; remind myself, we'd found each other again after so long, and were not about to let each other go now...

Instead, what I felt when I looked at him was a joy in my heart so overwhelming, it was a wonder that I didn't unleash a wail of anguished love that shook the walls of the apartment. A certainty that the one thing Tom could not do right now was leave, because the joy flowing through me just to have him close was going to be the only thing that kept me together, gave me the strength to get through everything that I was going to get through as my family fragmented.

I leaned forward, using one hand to take hold of his chin, and the other to move aside the damp fronds of hair tumbling over my face so that I could kiss him, inhaling the scent of his skin as I did so. The scent of his skin that

always

conquered my senses, my entire being. I felt him hesitate, probably deciding whether this was the best idea, in the circumstances; but only for a second, before I felt his fingers clamp on my waist, his decision made.

I slid one hand round to the back of his head, taking a fistful of his hair as I slowly lay back on the settee. A shiver of the purest excitement ran right through me at the feeling of his weight never leaving my body; the split-second of exquisite powerlessness at the end, knowing-but-not-knowing whether or not he'd crush me. His hands slid down my thighs, fingertips stopping at the hem of my robe, twitching as if about to lift it, move it aside. My thighs instinctively parted in anticipation, and when he made no move to actually lift the robe, I could have sworn I heard the most disappointed part of me groan in annoyance.

This man and his teasing!

His lips moved from mine, tracing a gentle path down one cheek to my jaw, to my neck. The tip of his tongue journeyed lazily upwards, his lips pinching my earlobe a split-second before his whispered voice seemed to inhabit my whole body from within.

"Any time you want to stop," he said, "just tell me."

I answered by turning my face to his, finding his lips and thrusting my tongue into his mouth with all the force I could muster. He shifted to kneel beside the settee, and the feeling of his weight lifting off my body was like a bereavement. My legs opened a little wider, as if begging him to come back.

But of course, he wasn't going anywhere. He had just changed positions to free up his hand, which had now slipped underneath my robe, tracing a downward path over my belly - my belly which was on fire with anticipation, with

need

. A need that almost exploded within me when my sex felt the first touch of his fingers, my thighs clamping together so suddenly, it was a wonder I didn't crush his hand — or draw blood from his lips when I took his head in both hands and pulled him as close to me as I could, mashing our faces together.

But after a moment, I felt him

tut

against my mouth. He broke the kiss, both of us gasping for air as he pulled away from me to look down towards my waist, gently turning his left wrist as if working out some kind of cramp.

"This ain't going to work," he said. He wanted to stop? Had my discussing of my concerns, of how much my conversation with my soon-to-be-ex-husband had affected me, got into his head? Was he rethinking this whole thing, us?

He was not. What he

was

thinking was, I was facing the wrong way on the settee. I'd left him no choice but to work at me with his left hand. He was right, that was not going to work. And before I'd even fully sat up to adjust myself, he had placed both his hands on my hips to lift me off the sofa with just the right amount of roughness, so that I was now laying at the other end. I was travelling for maybe two seconds, but in that time, he had somehow undone the loose knot at my belt so that my robe had fallen open. As I wriggled my arms out, letting the robe lay under me as a blanket, my body pulsed with a need to feel his weight gently falling on to me again. But he stayed where he was, on the floor, shifted onto one knee and reached for my face. His fingertips slid up my cheekbones to my hair, moving all of it away from my face, before falling to my cheeks again so that he could pull me to him; pull me in to a kiss that was slower and deeper than the one we'd just been sharing, as he placed his dominant hand palm down on my sternum, between my breasts. He was pinning me in place, letting me know he was in control, that I was his... that no amount of my whimpering, nor the way my legs wriggled to show him how hungry I was for him, was going to prompt him to do anything before he was ready.

Slowly, slowly, his fingertips climbed downwards. They made only the lightest contact with my skin, but it was enough to bring out every part of me in gooseflesh so that, despite the fire raging in my sex, I shivered as if freezing cold. I had absolutely no control of my body in this moment, and this was a feeling that I never wanted to end.

The cry I unleashed when his fingers found me sounded obscenely loud in the vast apartment. A more "proper" part of my brain found time to acknowledge, I'd definitely been heard; it was possible that I had woken up new neighbours to the left of me, to the right; upstairs and down...

And I could not care less in that moment. All I could about was the feeling of Tom's hand on me, inside me; his fingers thrusting in, trying to explore my deepest depths, then curling rhythmically as if gently beckoning my orgasm to come out from hiding. To charge out into the world...

And when his thumb started swirling my clit, that's exactly what it did.

"Oh, no, no, no..." He was laughing at the way my thighs were trying to close together as I came. "I don't think so..." He shifted his body so that his right shoulder was blocking my left leg, his left hand bracing my right thigh. I was completely helpless, completely open to him.

No sooner had I finished coming than I felt his lips on my chest, where his strong hand had been pinning me just moments before. They worked their way down, walking the same path that his fingertips had done, while his palms pushed my thighs as far apart as they could get. His right hand was so slick with the evidence of my orgasm, I was almost stunned at how quickly another was building, even before his lips pinched my clit with the same tender pressure he'd used on my earlobe — how long ago? Five minutes? An hour? Two?

I had no idea, and it felt amazing.

As his tongue journeyed in a lazy loop around the path of my sex, he made sure make stops my clit, which he flicked and kissed and sucked each time passed it. Not like our reunion night, when he teased me until I was almost screaming for his mouth. I needed him so badly right now, I didn't think I could take it if he tried that again...

"Oh, fuck, how I can be about to come again?" The words were barely in English, they came so fast. I heard the tingle of his laugh against my blazing lips, which triggered a jolt that had me arching my back. With my legs unable to move beneath his powerful grip, I almost slid right off the settee to the living room floor. As the fire inside me built and built, my thighs tried to find each other again, but that just made him brace them harder, pin them in place while sucking on me, until the only thing I could feel was my sex, his mouth, his tongue...

And a certainty that my second orgasm probably woke up my entire floor.

To be continued...