A Year and a Half Later
“Did you bring popcorn?”
I glare at Blaze as I drop down onto the empty space beside her. The scratchy material of the picnic blanket wrinkles as I try to get comfortable on the hard ground. “I didn’t exactly have time to fit making popcorn into my schedule.” Anticipation pumps through my veins as I recheck my watch.
She shakes her head and kisses me while savagely plucking the innocent grass. “Misplaced priorities.” The thief sighs, reaching over me to get to the picnic basket—wait. Since when do we own a picnic basket? Secondly, how did she manage to steal it? Blaze waves the bag of popcorn in my face. “It’s a good thing you have me to make sure you don’t forget anything.”
I snort and snatch the bag away from her to grab a handful before she can. We settle into silence as we stare out at the twinkling lights of the city and listen to the sirens blaring in the distance. The sounds started the second we got to our spot, right on cue.
She leans against me, and I wrap my arm around her shoulder to pull her to my side, running my fingers over the small strip of skin between her crop top and skirt. We found this slice of abandoned property last year while scouting the area in preparation for this day. It’s situated on a hill that overlooks the industrial part of the city, and has the perfect view of the big, white and silver building that has people filing out of big glass doors and onto the footpath. OP is printed in big red, cursive lettering on the side of the building, bright enough to be seen from a mile away. Osman Pharmaceuticals.
The place where the magic happens.
It’s my family’s headquarters. Their main lab is based in that hideous building, and so is their primary manufacturing facility—since they lost all of their overseas FDA approved factories, that is.
Everything inside the building is covered in white to hide the rot that comes from inside. I’ve been in there more times than I can count for the various events my parents have hosted. The night would always start with pictures of me, Kiervan, and our parents smiling for the camera. There’d be a speech or two, some food, then I’d be sent to my dad’s office while everyone carried on without me.
Despite all the disappointment my father has in me, he wanted me to work at Osman Pharmaceuticals. I assume it was so he had an employee he could push around until the day he retired.
During the day, the silver building is bustling with people, and it’s slowly been getting busier now that the buzz from the information release has died down and some of the labs have closed to preserve their business. Osman Pharmaceuticals is all the hype again now that it’s in the lead with a different medication that its competitors haven’t been able to replicate yet.
Medication that’s being manufactured behind those doors.
“We should have brought s’mores,” Blaze says to herself as she pulls a blanket over our lap. I press my lips to the top of her head as she fusses about getting comfortable while we wait for the timer to go off.
Emergency services are supposed to arrive in nine minutes.
People evacuate in five.
The four-minute window is crucial.
At this hour of the night, there are only a couple security guards and a handful of janitors, making clearing the building easier—seven minutes at the very latest if our prior test runs prove to be correct.
Blaze fishes my burner phone out of my pocket and drops it into my hand. It’s one of the old-style phones where I need to press the number three twice to get the letter E. I push the device back toward her and I’m momentarily struck by how beautiful she looks as the shadows curve along her face. “Make the call.”
She shakes her head and returns the phone to my hand. “Your revenge is your own.”
“Fine,” I say, grabbing another burner and passing it to her. “I’ll call if you send the email.”
“Look at us, so domesticated,” she teases. “But we both know I’m the one who makes the calls in this relationship.” Artificial light glows against her soft skin when she unlocks the smartphone and scrolls until she locates the draft, anonymous email waiting to go out to every Ivy League university and major press agency in the country.
The timer goes off on my watch, sending a line of anxiety down my spine. She casts me a hesitant look. “Are you ready? There’s no going back from this.”
I’ve always been certain about the two things I want in life: I want Blaze in every way there is, and to bring the Osmans down. I have no intention of backtracking into the past, where the rest of my family sat on thrones while they made me hide behind them. Out of sight, out of mind.
They’ll be able to see me now.
The whole world will.
My heart beats erratically in my chest, and I have to take a deep breath just to get the words out. “On the count of three?”
A smile splits across Blaze’s face. “Wait. On three or after three?”
“Three,” I say, and push the Call button at the same time Blaze rushes to click Send.
“You’re meant to count down, asshole,” she hisses while staring at the silver building. Neither of us utter a word as we wait with bated breath as the first ring chimes through the air. Her hand drops to my thigh, and she digs her nails into my muscles hard enough to make me grunt.
The line rings again, and still, nothing happens.
By the third ring, Blaze lets go of my leg.
At the fourth, she swings around to look at me with an accusatory glare.
“Did you fuck it up?”
I hold the phone up defensively. “I did exactly as the instructions said. I checked it—”
She jumps into my arms with a scream as orange, black, and vermillion explode into the sky with a thunderous boom. Alarms blare all around, and sirens start up from every corner of the city, dousing the surrounding buildings in a chorus of yellow, red, and blue. The flames go up in plumes of gray, mixing it into the navy sky, scattering ash in every direction the wind will carry it.
My family’s livelihood is quite literally up in flames.
Fuck, if that isn’t a sight to see.
Their research, their facilities, their income. Gone. They barely recovered from the information release two years ago. There’s no bouncing back from losing their main facility. Finding a substitute and replacing everything they need to continue production would take months. And what happens to their staff during that time? Their shareholders?
I smile to myself. My family wanted to be in the limelight and keep me in the shadows, and they succeeded.
My cock hardens as I watch the fire roar.
“Holy shit!” Blaze giggles, clapping her hands as the light from the fire makes the golden threads of her hair gleam.
Her sterling-blue eyes find mine, burning just as brightly as the day I decided I wanted her. She may not have started my fascination with flames, but she was the first fire I fell for, and she’ll be the last one I ever want to see.
“Now that’s how you make a motherfucking bomb.” She laughs—God, I’m addicted to the sound of it.
I smirk down at her, relishing in the heat that fans our way. “Are you impressed?”
She purses her lips, twisting them to the side with a shrug. “I’ve seen better.”
“Liar.”
Her tongue flicks out, and I zero in on the glistening trail she leaves behind on her plump lips. She shrugs noncommittally. “I guess it’s a little hot.” A grin spreads across her face. My cock strains against the zipper of my jeans every time I glance up at the fire, and it’s near impossible to think when she rubs her bare legs against my own.
I clear my throat, reminding myself that ruining my parents’ lives isn’t where the line ends. “Did you send it?”
She checks the burner phone and shows me the screen. Right there in black-and-white is an email titled Kiervan Osman: Plagiarism Scandal.
My brother’s college and every university he has any hope of getting into for his graduate degree will find evidence of all the copying and pasting I’ve done for him over the last five years I was playing his bitch. A lot of the references in his assignments were wrong or made-up. Past students’ assignments which I stole paragraphs from. Everything is in that email. I changed the words just enough so his school’s software wouldn’t pick it up. Maybe he should have put some work into his assignments rather than submitting them without batting an eye.
Now, his own college will see the fraud that he is. So will every news agency chomping at the bit for another Osman scandal.
A semester before graduation too.
How rough.
Maybe he should have given me all the money like I asked, and at least he’d have a bachelor’s degree to his name before losing his future by our father’s side.
A year from now, Osman Pharmaceuticals will have no choice but to be liquidated. My parents will become social pariahs, and they’ll scramble to salvage the pieces of their life. But nothing will be able to save them. Their company barely survived getting hit by the information release. There’s no way they’ll survive this blow.
Kiervan, on the other hand? He’ll be unemployed, known for being the slimy piece of shit he is, and he won’t have the money to buy his freedom. He’ll become a broke outcast, just like our parents. Forced to live in the shadows, just like I was.
Me? I’ll have my degree and the girl of my dreams by my side. Admittedly, we had to balance my revenge out, of course. Even though I legally changed my last name to Aydin, my granddad’s first name, I can’t be the only one in the family who wasn’t targeted. So the shitty house we were renting and my beloved car that I couldn’t give a shit about both fell victim to an arson attack.
Tragic.
Fire trucks screech to a halt in front of the burning building. Men and women come spilling out, grabbing ladders and pulling hoses, screaming orders at each other left, right, and center.
“To the fall of House Osman.” Blaze cheers by tapping the corner of our burner phones together.
Tonight, we’re finally free. There’s no family to torture us. No past that threatens to drag us back beneath the depths. From here on out, it’ll always just be us. Everyone who’s ever wronged us will have paid the price.
I grab a fistful of her hair, forcing her head into an upward angle and kiss her with every inch of my soul. She moans against my lips, and the combination of the crackle of flames with her saccharine voice makes me sink my greedy fingers into her flesh.
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” I break apart long enough to say. It’s tempting to close my eyes, so there’s nothing but the feel of her against me. Not only is seeing the way Blaze looks against the flames priceless beyond measure, but she’s also otherworldly.
My grip tightens in her hair as I covertly reach for the box hidden within the pockets of my jeans. Her lips don’t stop moving against mine, hungry with need as if I’m the only source of oxygen she can get. Taking her left hand that’s clutching my shirt, I slide a ring onto her finger.
She’s always been mine, but now she has a ring she’ll never need to steal from me.
Blaze breaks the kiss, snapping her attention to the silver band around her finger and the black sapphire stone sitting in the center. Her lips part as she stares at the ring for three agonizing seconds. Then a ghost of a smile plays on her lips.
“You know you’re meant to ask, right?”
“It wasn’t a question.” A smug grin pulls at my mouth.
“What if I want to say no?”
Reaching into my pocket, I grab the industrial-strength super glue I needed for the bomb. “I wouldn’t recommend that.”
Her jaw drops, and she snatches the glue from my hand. “You can’t just ‘no takesies backsies’ a marriage proposal.”
“It wasn’t a proposal either. Because that implies there’s an answer to be given.”
Blue eyes glimmer with mischief as the light from the fire creates a halo around her copper hair. Her palms press against my chest to shove me back onto my elbows, and she straddles me in the little black skirt that does absolutely nothing to keep her warm.
A shiver runs down my spine as she trails her left hand up my chest, my ring sitting proudly on her finger, glinting against the fire. “You know… I did something special for you to fully commemorate and celebrate your night.”
“And that is?” My voice comes out hoarse and gruff like I haven’t used it in weeks.
Blaze leans forward to brush her lips against my ear, careful not to block the flames from my sight. “I’m not wearing any underwear.” She pushes me back down before I get the chance to find out if that’s true.
A growl of frustration threatens to rumble out of my chest as her potentially bare core grinds against my jeans. I silently curse the thick material because I can’t feel the heat of her pussy skating along my cock, only the mind-blowing pressure. This woman makes me fucking mad.
“Patience, lover boy.” Clicking her tongue, she rocks back on her heels to create distance between us. “That’s not all.”
If Blaze doesn’t tell me in the next three seconds, I’m getting her on her back and fucking her. I’ll be fine with not finding out her next surprise because the alternative is that I die from blue balls.
Slowly—so fucking slowly—she crawls down my body, coming to a stop as she reaches my knees. Then she twists around, giving me her back before she lowers her chest to the blanket between my spread legs. I almost choke on a breath when her skirt pulls up over her ass, presenting her sweet pussy to me, and the glow-in-the-dark, customized butt plug with three words in block lettering: Kohen’s Little Whore.
Fucking hell.
She’s the most ridiculous person I’ve ever met, and I’m completely, utterly, madly in love with her.
And she’s all mine.
I keep glancing between her ass, the moisture glistening on her cunt, and the fire that’s raging against the water hoses. Blaze shakes her ass in my face, and my dick almost pops the damn zipper open. “Take a picture. It’ll last long—”
I dive forward, turning her words into a cry of pleasure that drowns out the wail of sirens. She arches her back, pushing her pretty little pussy against my face as I flatten my tongue to her clit. The muscles in her legs spasm when I push my tongue into her entrance, lapping up her juices like it’s dessert. The moan that tears out of her next has me whipping out my cock to relieve the pressure, and white spots dance in my vision as soon as I fist it, releasing a strangled groan.
I need to fuck her now; if not I’m coming in my hand and screwing it up for the both of us.
Shifting onto my knees, my fingers slip inside her warm heat, and I abandon my dick to prod at the butt plug. I curse under my breath when she writhes from the pressure of the metal and my two fingers inside her. “Your pussy’s so fucking tight. How do you think you’re going to take my cock, huh?”
Blaze whimpers, bucking into my hand as the muscles in her core convulse. I slowly ease the plug out, teasing her with it as I pump it and my fingers into her at the same time. “Does my little whore like that?” She fists the blanket instead of answering, and jolts forward when I pinch her clit in punishment. “I asked you a question, Blaze.”
Beyond the roar of the flames and the sound of the sirens, she says what always ignites the beast born and bred for her. “I think you could do better.”
I pull my fingers out her core, grinning at the sound of her growl of protest. With one clean thrust, I slam my cock into her, making her lose her balance. “Jesus.”
Fuck. My eyes damn well roll to the back of my head. Her pussy chokes me without a plug. With one? Any second now, I’m going to die from asphyxiation.
The next slam of my hips has her reaching out in front of her like some divine being might help her escape. “What did I say about mentioning another man, Thief?” I grunt, gripping her hips as I drive into her.
“I don’t know,” she says, biting back a guttural moan. “Why don’t you remind me.”
The corners of my lips tip up as I pull out of her completely. She whips around to slice me with a venomous glare. “Is that reminder enough?”
I slap her cherry-tattooed ass and twist her long red hair around my fist. With my free hand, I rip the buttons from her top, then twist her nipples between my thumb and forefinger before grabbing hold of her waist to keep her still.
“Are you sorry?” I tease, kneading her tits and pushing the tip of my cock inside of her before pulling back out.
Blaze growls in frustration and shoves her hips against mine. “Shut the fuck up and fuck me.”
“Apologize,” I say simply, gliding my cock along her pussy to watch her squirm.
She slaps my thigh. “I’m going to kill you.”
I tap my length against her entrance. “Last chance.”
“Fuck you, okay? I’m so—” Her words die on a scream as I fill her with a single drive of my hips. Blaze meets me, thrust for thrust until her legs give out and she comes with a feral cry, tightening around my cock so hard I’m sure it could break. I don’t let her go even when she soaks the blanket with her squirt, then falls limp as she strangles my cock with another scream.
She’s so fucking perfect. It’s hard to believe she’s even real.
My balls tighten as she comes a third time, cursing my name to the heavens as she slaps around the picnic blanket like she’s trying to find something to kill me with. Electricity jolts through my veins, making a rabid snarl tear past my lips, pumping her pussy full of my release. It doesn’t seem to stop. The combination of the flames and the plug forces me to slump down onto her as she milks me for every single drop.
I roll onto my side, taking her with me. Blaze squirms on my cock in an attempt to get away, but all it does is make her gasp. “You’re hard again?”
Chuckling against her hair, I stare out at the evidence of my family’s downfall and hold on to the girl who’s always worn her emotions on her sleeve, and showed me how to fight even when I kept getting pushed aside. I hold on to the first person who ever chose me.
I was never scared about falling in love with her. I was always angry because I thought I’d only get to do it once. But every day, I fall again. Every day, I fall a little harder.
I don’t know what I’m doing. But as long as I’m with her, I could be doing anything.
She’s my flame. My everything. My Blaze. And there’s nothing more beautiful than fire.
