Rouge (33 page)

When he wrapped his arms
around her waist and spun her in circles around the kitchen, she laughed with
him until her throbbing head and stinging shoulder couldn’t take it anymore.

“Eli!” she screamed. “Ouch,
put me down!”

“Oh sorry!” He gently
lowered her, running his hands down her face and gently over the bandage on her
shoulder. “You look sexy in the hospital gown,” he grinned. “And… wait, whose
jumper is this?”

“It’s… its Jack’s. I bumped
into him at the hospital.” It would be far too hard to get into the
Joshua-coma-Jack-rescue saga, especially when the complications had just
started to unravel.

“Well… I know just what you
need to kick that concussion of yours in the butt: drinks!” he declared and
sprinted to the fridge.

Still giggling, Hunter sat
herself down on the bench.

“What do you feel like?” he
asked, rummaging in the icebox.

“Whatever you’re having.”

Eli brought out a cocktail
mix and reached into a high cupboard for a bottle of vodka. Then, he turned to
her and grinned cheekily.

“Naughty, naughty,” Hunter
chuckled.

“Melissa taught me how to
make cocktails.” Eli took two martini glasses out from beneath the bench and
placed them beside their ingredients.

“Of course she did.”

“Some of them are really
great. And I know I’m not twenty-one yet,” he winked at her, “but I do know a
thing or two about my liquor.”

Hunter watched with
fascination as Eli whipped up an impressive drink and handed it to her. It was
a pale green and slushy and smelt very strongly of alcohol. Eli lifted his
glass and clinked theirs together.

“To a new beginning,” he
said.

Hunter tapped her glass
against his, her heart leaping. “A new beginning it is.”

They sipped and winced
together, and the look on each other’s face made them chuckle, cough and start
doubling over in laughter.

And the laughter grew until they
were in hysterics on the kitchen floor with their martini glasses, staring at
the kitchen cupboards on the opposite side, their throats sore from the ice in
the cocktail and the burning liquor.

“You know what this needs?”

Eli looked at her with an expression
of curiosity. “What?”

Without thinking about it or
mulling over how strange it was to openly use her powers around him, Hunter
concentrated on their glasses, channeled the heat to the very tips of her
fingers and released it.

Two bursts of flames shot
from her fingers and suddenly their drinks were alight. Eli gaped, his eyes
widening behind the reflection of fire in his glasses. Hunter feared she
might’ve scared him, so she laid a hand on his wrist and grinned.

“
Now
you’re a secret
agent.”

His eyes met hers. “My
fantasy. You remembered.”

“Of course I remember. I
have trouble forgetting every moment with you.”

He looked puzzled. “Hmm.”

“What’s ‘hmm’?” she asked
anxiously.
Have I said too much?

“Well… I’m just wondering
how in hell I’m going to get my hands on
the
Dilorian
,
I mean that’s
gotta
be impossible.”

Hunter giggled, looking down
at her melting cocktail. Eli leaned over and kissed her cheek softly. She
twisted and met his lips, kissing him with a gentle, teasing touch. She wanted
more, and by the urgency of his hand as it rested behind her neck and drew her
closer, she felt certain he wanted more too. But how soon was too soon? Was Eli
still mad at her, or was she completely forgiven? Did he fear her and what she
could do, or did he mean what he said earlier, that it didn’t matter?

“Eli…” she whispered,
staring at his chest so close to her and hoping that he was thinking the same
thing. “You and me… we’re… I mean w…”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed
and twisted her body to face him full on, searching inside her for the courage
to say what was on her heart. She had never expected it to be so easy, even if
she hadn’t had long to worry about it. She deserved weeks of not talking to
him, possibly even a break up, but he hadn’t argued or shouted. He had chosen
to make things right. “I guess I just want to know what I did to deserve your
forgiveness so quickly.”

Eli blinked in bewilderment.
“Don’t you want-”

“No! I mean, yes-” she
assured him. “It’s not that I don’t want to be with you again, it’s more than
what I wanted, it’s just that... usually time goes by before couples are about
to forgive each other, for wounds to heal. When I woke up in the hospital and I
knew you’d figured out what I could do... I wanted to see you straight away.
Joshua said you stayed with me, just like you promised. I came here not knowing
what to expect, except maybe a really long argument and then for you to kick me
out... but you weren’t mad at all.”

“I was,” he said and turned
away. “When I left the hospital to come home and change, I listened to music I
don’t even like and had all the TVs and radios playing in the house, trying to
fill my head with noise so that I would drown out the one voice inside my mind
that kept mocking me, telling me I wasn’t right to trust someone like you.”

Hunter felt unexpected tears
well in her eyes, but Eli took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

“But I was wrong. Despite
the fact that you did keep something important from me, which kind of made me
feel like an idiot for not seeing it before, I couldn’t keep my thoughts away
from you. Everything reminded me of you. The smoking add came on the radio -
you know, the
Quitline
one? - and I thought of you.
And the really old King Kong from the 1930s was playing on the TV.”

Hunter’s puzzled expression
made him smile.

“I thought of the night we
met. I’ll never forget what you said to me after I told you I was passionate
about animal rights.”

Hunter bit her lip. “I don’t
remember.”

“You said to never give up
on what you believe in. And I believe in us, Hunter. I’ve never been so sure of
how I feel about anything in my entire life.” His strange green eyes swarmed
with passion and warmth. “I’m in love with you.”

Hunter was completely
speechless. Just those words were enough to send her heart into a frenzy and
she could feel herself breaking out in a sweat again. She briefly glanced away,
but the look in his eye was like an addictive drug; she had to turn back, or
feel the cold again.

“I am too,” she said.

Impossibly, Eli’s eyes
brightened. “So,” he continued. “Despite what it says in the relationship
rulebook – which I’ve studied very thoroughly, by the way-” he laughed and cast
a sly glance at her, “-I decided to hell with it. I can get past the fact that
you’re a fire… wielding…
Supergirl
and that you never
told me personally because the person I fell in love with is still there, and
that’s all that matters.”

Hunter’s heart danced. “Why
are you so perfect?”

“Me?” he murmured. “I’m just
a regular guy. Sometimes I wonder how you even fell for someone like me.”

“Hey-” She raised her hand
and laid it gently on his cheek. “You had me at thumped pigs.”

Eli smiled, closing his eyes
at her touch as she traced her fingers down the line of his jaw. She leaned in
and kissed him again, an eagerness overpowering her. It was as if all the love
she’d ever had inside of her had suddenly banded together and was pushing at
the edges of her skin, begging her to let it give itself to Eli. She worried it
was the fire disguising itself as something good, just like the snake and the
apple. But then Eli’s hands cupped her face in his and she was looking into his
strange eyes, green with splashes of brown, ones she could usually read so
well. Yet now they were bottomless with a longing so rich it almost matched her
own. Hunter had no idea what she wanted, nor could she describe all the
feelings whirling around inside her, only that they blurred together to form a
desire she’d never experienced.

“Eli?”

“Yeah?”

Her heart pounded a familiar
rhythm against her chest. A driving force inside of her gave her the courage to
tell him what she wanted, what she craved most; to be close to him.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

Eli’s eyes sparkled with
intensity. For a moment she was afraid she’d moved too quickly. He had, after
all, just discovered what she could do. Did she want to ruin it by suggesting
they-

“Yes,” he replied.

Hunter blinked a few times,
wondering whether she’d heard him wrong. But then a smile stretched across his
mouth and he held out his hand to her.

Hunter’s heart fluttered
nervously. Was the fire controlled? She couldn’t bear the thought of setting
Eli on fire like she almost had before when things got too intimate. But her
desire overpowered her fear of the flame. So long as she didn’t lose her
control, she had faith that everything would be fine. 

Eli lifted her to her feet
and they climbed the stairs to his bedroom. The house was dead silent, a
silence that was both eerie and comforting at the same time. And as they
entered the bedroom, everything fell away. The strong smell of violin polish
and musky cologne sent Hunter’s head whirling. The room was dimly lit by a
glowing gold lamp beside the bed, and messy as always.

Hunter looked at Eli in his
jeans and T-shirt with ‘Save the Whales’ printed across it and closed the
distance between them. She didn’t need to say anything more about how sorry she
was, about how many questions he might have or about how much she loved him.
The words were spoken in pure passion as Eli swept her off her feet and carried
her to the bed.

He placed her gently down,
never leaving her gaze. Eli stood beside her and pulled his shirt over his
head. His chest was a light honey tone in the lamp-glow. As he sat beside her
on the bed, she removed Jack’s jumper.

Eli let out a low whistle.
“Wow.
Gotta
love a girl in a thin blue dress.”

Hunter snorted and rolled
her eyes. “I’m sorry I left my black lace teddy in my bedroom.”

“Really?” Eli’s eyebrows
shot up as he leant over and kissed her bandaged shoulder. “This will do.”

Slowly - each touch of his
fingers sending sparks through her body - he reached behind her and undid the
ties on the back of her gown.

The flimsy sheet floated to
the floor.

Eli kissed her with strong determination
and they sunk into the bed. The feel of his skin was so delicate and she ran
her hands up his back in the indentations of his muscles as he buried his hands
in her hair and ran kisses down her neck to her chest, moving down. She lost
herself for a moment as the fire inside her burned. Her breath caught in her
throat, and even if Eli assumed it was only pleasure that made her cry out, she
knew that the fire was controlled. She could feel it snaking beneath her skin,
but it didn’t try to break free. It drove her mad. A wave of shivers passed
through her body and the two of them became entangled.

Eli’s eyes met hers. They
were filled with so many things.

“Are you nervous?” she
whispered.

He nodded. “I’ve never done
this before.”

“It’s a first for me too.”

Pecking
her on the lips, Eli paused. “One second.” She closed her eyes and listened to
him fiddle around in his drawer before joining her again with a little golden
square of plastic. “Can’t forget this.”

Hunter
found herself chuckling. “Jeez, you’re prepared aren’t you?”

“There’s
plenty more where that came from,” he muttered and ripped open the packet.

She could see the deep need
in his eyes. He forced his lips against hers and she arched to meet him, her heart
beating so fast she thought it might leap through her skin and fly away. For so
long she had waited for this moment, to find someone to share her entire self
with and love so much that it felt as if her love would burst from the depths
of her soul. And oh, how she loved him. It swelled inside her. It replaced all
her doubt and fear and the questions that harassed her.
Will it hurt? Will I
be good? Will the fire overtake me? Will Eli be safe?
Indeed, it was love
that washed all that away so Hunter could open herself to Eli and invite him
in.

The world fell away and,
after a brief moment of sharp pain that made Hunter cry out, incredible bliss
overcame her. And just like that, Hunter felt happiness. In all her life she
had never experienced anything like the joy she felt that night with Eli. She
looked deep into his eyes and there were no secrets behind them.

“Are you okay?” he asked
softly. “Does it hurt?”

Hunter shook her head,
knowing if she opened her mouth to speak she would surely scream. The fire burned
inside of her like a raging, uncontrollable blaze, giving her pleasure not
pain. Her entire body glowed, the fire hot and bright through her veins. It
grew angrier as the pace increased and Hunter couldn’t stop it. She had to cry
out as an indescribable explosion erupted inside of her. It was hot and cold
and pure ecstasy all at once. It was the same explosion she had felt in the
alleyway, only it was bliss that struck her, not anger. Eli felt it too. He let
out a gasp and her eyes burst open, praying to God that he wasn’t on fire.