Free Mountain Fire by Brenda Margriet

that.”
    “I do want to. More than you know. But I can’t.”
    “Of course you can. What I want to know is why you won’t.”
    She was surprised by the depth of annoyance in his voice. “Because I’m not looking for a short term fling...I’m looking for more. We only met a couple of weeks ago. We’ve only seen each other a few times. I’m not ready.”
    He closed off immediately, tense, cold, all emotions clamped tight. “What do you mean, more?”
    “More time. More chances to get to know you.” She twisted her fingers together. “More commitment.”
    “Commitment?” he choked. “You said it yourself, we barely know each other, and you want commitment?” She held tight to her composure, afraid she might crumple beneath the fiery anger in his words, the flare of antagonism in his eyes. “I want to take you, find out how you like to be touched, the noises you’ll make when I please you. But that’s all I’m offering. Pleasure, not promises.”
    Turning away, she opened a cupboard, took out a glass, and filled it with water from the tap. “I see.” She took a small sip, and another, trying to soothe the burning at the back of her throat where tears threatened.
    “For God’s sake, what do you want from me?” He paced the small kitchen. “I could have had you right here, but you asked me to stop. I did. And now you’re telling me...what? What exactly are you telling me, June?”
    “I’m sorry.” She clutched the counter behind her back so tightly the edge cut into her fingers. “I’m not trying to be a tease. I’m trying to be honest.”
    “Maybe I should leave.” He glared across the room. “Maybe I should go.”
    “I don’t want you to leave. But I’m not going to have sex with you tonight.”
    Silence stretched between them.
    Slowly the fierceness in his expression faded. He breathed deeply through his nose, once, twice. “You have no idea what you do to me, do you?” He approached her cautiously. “But if you’re being honest with me, the least I can do is be honest with you.”
    Keeping a safe space between them, he mirrored her position at the counter. “Your parents are still together, right?” She nodded, watching his profile. “Mine split when I was thirteen. My dad divorced wife number three last year, and is now with a woman younger than I am. My mother hasn’t re-married, but she continues to have a succession of men-friends.” His voice was sour, his face grim. “It took me a long time to realize they were having their flings on the side long before they divorced. Commitment? Not something I’m used to.”
    She wanted to reach out, comfort him in some way, erase the desolation of the boy inside the man. “You don’t believe a man and a woman can love each other, forever?”
    He lifted his shoulders in an irritable shrug. “Happily ever after? Really? What kind of fairy tale are you living in?”
    She refused to be hurt. Instead, she said lightly, “See, this is exactly my point.”
    “What?”
    “These are the things I want to know about you, need to know about you. Before we take this any further.”
    “You certainly seem to know what you want.” He took his jacket down from the hook by the back door. “Now I have to decide what I want.”
    The snick of the latch as he closed the door behind him was the loneliest sound she’d ever heard.

Chapter Seven
    “And this,” Thomas said sulkily as he pulled open another meticulously organized cabinet drawer, “is where you’ll find all the agendas and minutes of our meetings.”
    She’d never seen file folders so precisely aligned, with colour coded labels and finicky printing that would have made a kindergarten teacher envious. That was, she’d never seen file folders like that except in all the other painstakingly ordered drawers Thomas had shown her during the last half hour.
    The original plan had been for June to meet Richard at his office, but when she’d arrived, promptly at ten o’clock, his