Uninvited

Monacco Desert Cottage - 10:00pm

Isabella had registered the streetlights whizzing by and the shadows of the giant red rocks, off in the distance, that seemed to move past in slow motion by comparison. She had watched the dust clouds kick up on the side of the car as the gritty desert floor encroached on the asphalt the further away they went from the city. She had even gone crossed eyed a few times trying to count the white dotted lines in the middle of the road; any and every distraction was welcome if it meant stopping the horrifying movie playing in her mind.

The red paint someone had smeared all over the floor and her mother’s picture was as thick as the real blood that had stained her mother’s pale dead skin and the gun she still in her hand after she hit the ground. She could never clearly remember much of what had happened before the deafening shot, she only remembered the blood; warm, seeping into her jeans as she kneeled in a puddle of it, screaming and shaking the lifeless body is was draining out of. Her mother’s eyes were open, smiling at her, hinting at the last remaining piece of her soul that lingered. Isabella shut her eyes quickly, trying to shake the indelible memory. Just breathe, she thought, as she inhaled slowly and tried to stop her heart from racing.

“Isabella, we're here." Blake’s voice crept up on her, causing her to nearly jump out of her skin. She had been so deep in thought she hadn’t realized the car had stopped. Turning to him, she was met with his usual penetrating stare and for the first time it didn’t bother her the way it usually did; the warmth behind his eyes was what she might describe as comforting, if it was even a sensation she could feel at this point.

She only realized she was shaking when he reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. The weight of it against her rigid frame nearly brought her to tears but she fought hard to keep them at bay. He had seen her cry enough for one night and his was not the shoulder she had ever intended to lean on in the first place.

Turning away from him, she closed her eyes quickly, but not before one defiant tear escaped down the side of her face. His grip tightened as she wiped it away. “Are you okay?” he said.

She paused and bit back the sarcastic answer she had for his question.  He didn’t deserve it, or the last few hours of chaos her situation had put him through. He really did mean well, she had accepted that, but somehow she allowed him to get in closer than arm’s length and it was time for her to reset those boundaries.  But as another wave of emotion suddenly hit her she found herself opening further rather than closing him off. 

“I don’t how much more I can take.”

Blake moved his hand from her shoulder and up to her chin, pulling her face toward him.  “Whoever did this is sick and if I have anything to do with it, nobody is going to get a chance to do it again.”

“This is all my fault,” she said in a stoic voice.  “I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t, but I always knew coming here would be a mistake, but I did it anyway.  I’ve done a lot things I shouldn’t have and now I have to face the consequences. It’s starting all over again; everything is falling apart and I let it happen.”

“You think you deserve to have somebody send you bloody scarves and recreate the scene of your mother’s death?  What in the hell could you have done to deserve that?”

Isabella stared at him for a moment and then shifted her gaze again.  “Well if you don’t listen to reason and leave me alone you might find out.  I told you not to get involved.”

Blake reached for her, this time pulling her arm and untwining it from the other until he was able to grab her hand.  “You really don’t understand, do you?”

She looked down at his hand on hers and then back up at him and slowly released it from his grasp.  Why did he insist on making things more complicated than they already were? “I have to go,” she said, and got out of the car and began walking towards the house.   Blake let out a sigh, hopped out of the car and followed her to the door. 

She heard his footsteps behind her as she hurriedly dug through her purse for her keys.  She could feel him watching her, hear his breath start and stop a few times as he began to speak and then decided against it.  He moved a step closer, and before he could say or do anything else she pulled out her keys and turned to face him.

“Thank you, again, for everything. I’m sorry you had to deal with any of it.”

“I’m not. Look, let me stay until your friend sends the patrol car over.  I don't feel right about leaving you alone.”

“Lexie will be here as soon as she finishes up with the security company, and, like you said, Reese is sending someone over.  I’ll be --”

“Fine! Yeah, I know,” he said.  Before she could move, he pulled her into a hug, which she hesitantly reciprocated. His sweater was warm against the cool night breeze; it smelled like fabric softener.  His breath blew the stray tendrils of her hair as he grazed the top of her head with a kiss. “You know you can call me if you change your mind; doesn’t matter what time.”

“I know,” she replied.  She continued to hold onto him; the feeling of his arms wrapped around her felt better than she wanted to admit, and, despite her conviction not to cry she suddenly found it impossible to keep her tears to herself any longer. He tightened his grip as she muffled her sobs into his chest.

They stood there together for several minutes as she struggled to regain control of her emotions.  He began to massage the small of her back and slowly moving his hands up, brushing the hair from her neck and exposing it to the night air. A shiver ran through her body as he moved his hands up to frame her face, drawing his thumb softly across her wet cheek, his breath coming harder and faster as he leaned in closer to her.  Isabella kept her eyes closed and swallowed the lump in her throat before looking up at him. Just as she expected, his eyes, crystal blue and intense as ever, were fixed on hers, asking a question, and waiting for an answer. Without thinking she grabbed at the front of his shirt, pulling him towards her and erasing the last bit of space between them.

With permission granted, he pressed his lips urgently against hers, savoring the initial contact for several seconds before he moved again. Her pulse quickened as he slipped his tongue between her lips and massaged it against hers.  She could barely keep still as the electricity of the kiss surged through her like a live wire, and, yielding to him completely, she wrapped her arms around his neck, fusing her body with his.

His hands began roaming her body, lightly pulling her hair, his fingers finding the waist band of her jeans; the anticipation of where they might go next threatening to destroy any ounce of control she had left.  This had to stop. Her mind raced faster than her heart, squaring off in a fierce battle with her body, searching for a reason why she should pull away, but every time their lips touched and parted and found their way back to each other, she came up empty. Every kiss felt better than the one before and despite everything that was wrong in her life, every second she stayed in his arms felt more unnervingly right than anything had in weeks. 

The heat of his breath, as he began pecking at her neck and tugging on her ear lobe with his mouth, made things even worse.  She dug her nails into his back, eliciting a pleasured groan from him that turned her on all the more. Blake grabbed her by the waist and maneuvered her over to the wall, pressing her against the rough stucco and anchoring her under his control.

She closed her eyes and sighed in ecstasy as he buried his face in her neck and slid his hands up the back of her sweater.  They were warm and rough to the touch but they melted on her skin like butter. Seizing a handful of his hair, she opened her eyes and gazed at the jet black locks intertwined between her fingers.  They were soft and smooth, so dark and so unfamiliar. So was his cologne, the rough stubble on his face, the way he touched her, the way his lips moved against hers. How could she feel so free and open with a virtual stranger? Their lips met again as he began to tug at one of her bra straps. Something was gravely wrong, but for the life of her she couldn’t pinpoint why. Her body continued to ignore her mind’s pleas for her to stop as she pressed her pelvis into his.

One of his hands moved up the length of her arm, clasped around her hand, and removed the key chain she had hooked around her finger. He began nudging her closer and closer towards the door, making his intentions abundantly clear, and it wasn’t until she heard the metal of the lock release and the door creek open that the reason to stop became clear. Her spine stiffened suddenly and she pulled the door shut with a loud slam, startling them both.

"I can't," she whispered, taking the keys from him and sliding out of the space between Blake and the wall. “What’s wrong,” he said, maintaining his hold on her waist, his eyes once again searching hers for an answer.  She looked away, struggling to catch her breath, to hold back more tears, trying to figure out how to say what was so obvious to her now.  She was standing in front of a line in the sand; the threshold to a future she wasn’t ready to face, one that couldn’t include the past she had been so desperately holding onto.  If she let him walk through the door he would be entering territory that, as far as she was concerned, belonged to someone else. The scars on her heart were deep and painful, but she couldn’t bring herself to let go.

“I just can’t do this,” she said again. “I really need you go; now.”  His fingers glued to her skin and a look of concern and puzzlement on his face, he stared at her for a few moments, waiting for her to reconsider or at least give him more of an explanation, but the solemn look on her face told him he wouldn’t getting anything else out of her tonight. 

“Okay,” he said reluctantly sliding his hands off of her hips and into his pockets. He took them back out and swiftly pulled her into him planting one last kiss on her forehead before turning to walk away. 

She hurried into the safety of the house and watched him walk to his car, moving away from the door and into the darkness of the living room when she saw him turn to look at her. Unaware she had been holding her breath; she exhaled hard as his taillights disappeared into the distance, and, torn between disappointment and relief, locked the door that had so narrowly separated her from a point of no return.

-----------------------------------------

Isabella walked slowly down a long stretch of dark hallway.  There were voices echoing against the walls, muffled voices, one of them angry. Her parents must have been arguing again. She followed the noise to her parent’s room and pressed her ear against the closed door but she still couldn’t make out what was going on. Suddenly the door slipped open against her weight and she quietly eased her way inside.

It was nearly pitch black beyond the doorway but her father’s gruff voice drew her ears and eyes to the far corner of the room.  She could barely make out his frame moving on the bed but it was clear that he was struggling with something; with someone. He was telling them to stop, threatening them, and when the other dark figure let out a garbled moan she realized that not only was the other person a woman, but that she was not her mother.

*******

******

Horrified Isabella began moving into the room, ready to pounce, ready to scream, ready to tear her father apart for betraying her mother, but a loud bang sent her racing in the opposite direction.

She tore back down the dark corridor, her feet sliding on the polished marble. Something was wrong, deathly wrong. There was a smokey smell in the air, not the fire place and not cigarette smoke. It was a sharp, pungent odor, almost metallic. After what seemed like an eternity she reached the threshold of the great room at the back of the house and there, in the middle of large pool of blood, her mother lay lifeless.

She heard herself scream as she fell to the ground next to her mother and began violently shaking her body. This has to be a dream.  Please God let this be a dream, she thought to herself.  She heard herself scream again, but this time it wasn’t coming from her mouth.  She turned around to see the grown up version of herself standing behind her, horrified and shaking.

“What did you do?” the grown up Isabella demanded. 

“I didn’t do anything,” she replied.  “This is all your fault.”

“What do you mean?” She took a few steps back to avoid the widening puddle of blood.

“You ignored her. You knew what dad was doing and you never tried to help her.  You were too busy running after him.”  The younger Isabella gave her a look of disgust as she pointed towards the doorway.

“Who are you talking about?  There’s nobody there.” 

“He ran away.  Go on and chase him; it’s what you always do anyway.”

Isabella backed away from her mother and her younger self before turning to run for the front door.  An overwhelming fear came over her and she found herself running faster and faster.  She didn’t understand why by whoever “he” was, she had to find him before he left.

Blinding sunlight hit her squarely in the face as she stepped out onto the front steps and as her eyes slowly began to focus she could see the outline of a man standing in the driveway.  He motioned for her to come closer and as she did, she realized that it was Blake. He wasn’t the person she had expected to find, but that didn’t stop her from returning the smile he gave her as she made her way over to him.

This had to be a dream because nothing made sense. Her younger self had said that she was chasing him, but that had never been true; she barely knew the man.  The girl must have been talking about someone else, but who?  There was no one else there but Blake. 

She took a step out onto the driveway and froze in place as a surge of fear shot through her body suddenly. Out of nowhere a big black car came gunning towards her; engine roaring and tires screeching.  She tried to move but she couldn’t. Instead she screamed and shut her eyes tight, bracing herself for the collision.

The hit came, head-on, sending her slamming to the ground; but when she finally opened her eyes she realized that it was Blake’s body on top of her and not the car. “Are you okay?” he asked her.

“I’m fine,” she replied.

“I knew you would say that.”

“I knew you would be here.” She kept her eyes locked on his as she watched relief wash over his face and when he began to move off of her she pulled him back, drawing him closer and closer until their lips met.

 

She closed her eyes as they kissed and when she opened them it was dark again and they had moved from the driveway of the mansion into the private confines of her room.  The cool silk sheets brushing against her back were in stark contrast to the rough texture of his the hair on his chest and warmth of his skin pressing against hers. Being here surprised her but she didn’t stop or pull away.  Instead she drew him closer, moving her body in tandem with his as he tried to cover every inch of her with his mouth and hands.

Please God don’t let this be a dream, she thought as she began to lose herself in the pleasure she was feeling.

“It’s not a dream,” Blake said to her as if he had read her mind.  “Or at least it won’t be once he leaves.” 

“What?  Oh my God….NO!”