Created By

irwinwe

Rate this Story

Embed

...that's when my feet returned to earth, and I remembered where I was and who I was with...

Continued...

Iain looked down at me, his eyes aglow with the same thing that filled mine: lust.  And in addition to this deceptive emotion I recognized that had so entrapped us, I realized there was something else very wrong with the equation: the variables.  They were mixed up.  In my current frame of mind, there was no exactness in the product we created.  He and I, right then, did not make sense.  Iain lowered his head, as if he meant to kiss me again, but suddenly, and before he could think to grab me back to him, I jerked away, more by instinct than by strength.  I started walking towards the door of the pub, pushing my way through people rudely.  I heard Iain call after me, audibly upset and confused, and I felt ill for not comforting him or explaining to him why I could not give him my full attention.  If only I had told him the truth earlier.  How cruel was I, to lead him on?  But then again, was it solely him being deceived, or was it also myself?  Did my heart really belong to Kane like I so wanted to believe?  Or did it really belong to Iain, like everyone kept mysteriously implying?  I shook my head violently as if to clear it, but the seductive vibe of the pub was ubiquitous, and I was suffocating. 

I heard Iain's voice calling after me, and though I was ashamed of my behavior and should have gone back to apologize to him, when I did look back, it was not his face I sought.  It was Kane's.  And he was looking straight at me, with eyes, according to my overactive imagination, so green that they were glowing.  It wasn't a kryptonite green of angry poison, the gaze that I most feared from him.  Rather, it was the flammable kind of gaze, like there was a low kindling behind it, and all it needed to blow us up into flames was the fuel of my kiss.  He looked at me with a new, decisive conviction that claimed me as hard as had Iain's mouth.  Then, he endorsed that conviction with another sip of whiskey.  I let him watch me swallow, and before I could shiver along with it, just like the simpering virgin that I was and wasn't all in the same measure, I turned around and nearly knocked over three people to get out of the pub.  Air, that's what I needed.  Air, whose personality was as changeable as my own.

I panicked when I realized I didn't know where Andy was.  He had driven me here tonight, and if I wanted to leave, he was likely my only ride home.  Desperately I scanned the crowds, hoping Iain wouldn't follow me and mess up the conviction that Kane had so implied for us.  His conviction had claimed me, if not solely for now.  I had always been claimed by him, whether it had been subconscious realization or not.  Iain was just serving as a damned distraction.  

Finally I caught a glimpse of my friend. He was, of course, in the most secluded place in the pub...the darkened corner.  I rolled my eyes, scolding myself for not previously assuming I could find him only in the most suspicious, glittery-eyed of places, and then I pushed through the crowd a ways to get to him.  As I got closer I realized exactly why he was in the darkened corner.  A feminine hand was grasping passionately to his unkempt chestnut hair.  He had her pressed against the wall, and one of her legs inched up his thigh scandalously.  His hand slid up her voluptuous thigh, and then disappeared under her dress.   

Damn her, I thought with bitterness I as simultaneously opened my mouth in shock.  I averted my gaze quickly and exhaled the breath I was holding.  I wasn't jealous that she was kissing Andy, but rather I was pissed as hell that she could focus her full attention on him, as opposed to me, who was repeatedly torn back and forth between two equally roguish and equally different men, one that I knew I liked in my soul, the other that was just too maddening to quit me.  Everywhere I looked it presided, the passion, and it was like an onslaught upon every one of my senses.  I could even smell it in the heavy heat of flesh.

I needed a ride home, however, for it was too cold and snowy for me to walk back to the apartment complex, so I turned my head to face him again, determined this time.  "Uh...Andy?" I inquired softly, awkwardly, from behind him.  He froze, and then turned his head and regarded me slowly and dazedly.  When he did this, I saw the face of the woman he was kissing. 

"Vic!" I exclaimed, completely alarmed, "what about your boyfriend?  He'll kill both of you if he sees this!  You told me how possessive he is!" 

But she smiled in response, her strawberry-blonde locks framing her flushed face attractively.  She was no longer the shy, timid girl I had met at the beginning of the program.  And by the look of her, not only had she left the branch entirely, but she was free-falling.  

"My boyfriend" she said, a little breathlessly, "is currently killing me with passion.  And I doona think he would 'ave tae be possessive, for I'd stay here of my own free will."

My mouth fell agape.  "You...him?  Andy? What?"  I looked up at him, befuddled, but his answering smile confirmed my skepticism.  If I had been in my right mind, perhaps I would have reacted more optimistically.  I had always pictured the two of them together, but I suppose I had never imagined they'd find each other, and without my initial observation.  It had come from left field.  After all, what didn't in my life?  

"Did you need something, Ellen?" Andy asked me, trying to focus on me and be a good friend, although I could tell he was really hoping I'd just leave them alone.

"No.  No, nevermind." I gave them a slight smile and turned to walk away.  Out of my periphery I saw him return to his unfinished business with ferver, and I swallowed my jumping heart.  

I was rideless, but regardless of this, I pushed my way to the exit.  I had to get out.  The cold air hit my feverish skin like a sock in the gut and chilled me to the bone, but I welcomed it, glad I could be doused in something completely opposite from my steamy reality.  I called Rachel, and she agreed to come get me, thought she was none too happy about it.  She had already been asleep for an hour. Somehow, later, as I got into her car, I sensed that this night was long from over, and that I had some unfinished business of my own to contend with.  My anxiety began to ripen, making me heavy with expectation.  But it would not fall from the vine.  Not yet.  

***