BlowingitOff (9 page)

Will’s nostrils flared. Jaws set, shoulders squared, in
quick order he destroyed the distance between him and Phoebe, towering over her
as he focused his attention on the mysterious Harvey.

With a silent step, Damon moved until he could just glimpse
around the door. He wanted to see how Harvey reacted to Will’s presence.
Something about the situation itched at Damon’s gut.

The reaction was instant and unmistakable. Harvey flinched,
a deep red spreading up his throat to his cheeks.

“G’day, Harvey.” Will leaned over Phoebe’s shoulder,
extending his hand to the furiously blushing man even as he let his other hand
come to rest on the curve of her hip in a very unsubtle message. “I’m Officer
Will Bradley. Tell me what you know about the fire in Ms. Masters’ studio.”

Damon watched Harvey. The man licked his lips. His stare
flicking from Will’s face to Phoebe’s, down to Will’s proprietary placement of
his hand and back up to Will’s face again. His cheeks burned redder. “I…” He
licked his lips again. “I didn’t see a car out front…I didn’t realize Phoebe
had…had company.” He cleared his throat. “You weren’t at…at her studio so I
thought you guys had gone back to Newcastle.”

Will shook his head and slid his palm up Phoebe’s rib cage.
“Nope.”

Phoebe, Damon was unsettled to see, tried to nudge Will’s
hand away. “Will, Harvey is a firefighter with the Morpeth brigade,” she said,
twisting enough to give Will a steady glare. “He’s also Captain Kilgour’s son.”
She turned back to Harvey. “Come in and tell us what you know.”

For the third time Harvey licked his lips, a nervous swipe
Damon didn’t like at all. Something about the man put him on edge.

“Captain Kilgour?” Will said, his hand staying resolutely on
Phoebe’s body. “Very astute man. We interviewed him a few hours ago. Knows a
lot. Was quite suspicious of the fire.” He paused for a short second. “What
about you, Harvey? Do you think it was deliberately lit?”

“I think,” Harvey said, shuffling his feet, “the fire was
caused by a candle left un-extinguished. Phoebe burns vanilla candles often
when she’s working in her studio. Not when she’s working with glass, but when
she’s sketching at her drawing table.”

Phoebe’s shoulders straightened. “How do you know all this?”

Harvey stared at her. “Just things I’ve noticed when I’m
there. Fire things, y’know. And sometimes you forget to blow the candles out.”

“That’s some impressive noticing skills you’ve got there,”
Will said, and Damon noticed his friend’s jaw flex.

Harvey, it seemed,
didn’t
notice. He nodded, flicking
Will a nervous smile before turning his attention back to Phoebe. “And
sometimes you leave the back window open. Which means a cat or a possum
could’ve jumped into your studio looking for something to eat—like the apples
you keep in the bowl near your drawing table—and knocked the candle over. If
the candle fell close to the newspapers you use to mould the glass, the fire
would have plenty of material to burn.”

Damon narrowed his eyes. Harvey seemed to know a lot about
Phoebe. That in itself was disquieting, but added to it was the fact that close
to everything Harvey had mentioned was conclusive with Damon and Will’s
findings of the fire scene.

They
had
found wax residue near a huge stack of
partially burned newspapers, just as Harvey had hypothesized. They’d found an
open window at the back of the studio, which meant the flames had all the
oxygen they needed to burn, and burn quickly. They’d found the charred remains
of fruit scattered through the debris.

Everything rang true. Except for one thing…

Ethyl alcohol.

The Morpeth firefighter hadn’t mentioned the accelerant.

Because he didn’t know about it? Or because he
did
?

The question punched into Damon’s chest—heavy and cold. And
by the tension stealing over Will’s body, Damon suspected the very same
question had occurred to his partner.

Most people didn’t realize that fire left a story—a
minute-by-minute account of the burn. And most people assumed things like
candles and paper would be incinerated in the blaze. No matter how hot the
inferno, there was always residue, always tell signs. Candles would melt to
liquid, and that liquid would boil, leaving an almost imperceptible film of wax
behind, concentrated on the original location. Paper often burned to ash that
was dispersed by a firefighter’s hose. But in Phoebe’s studio, the thick pile
of papers contained an unburned center, turned to a pulpy mass by the thousands
of gallons of water pumped into the space. Little hints all adding together to
tell a story he and Will knew how to read. As, it seemed, did Harvey. And if
Harvey knew how to
read
the story, then he also knew how to tell it. And
how to begin it.

Once upon a time there was an accelerant called ethyl
alcohol that found itself splashed all around a glassblowers studio…

Damon stared hard at the man gazing at Phoebe from the other
side of the threshold, his mind racing. Harvey was a firefighter, which meant
he would know all about the “fire triangle”, the three factors needed to create
and sustain a fire of destructive force—oxygen, a fuel source and heat. It’s
very likely he would know one of the most overlooked accelerants in arson cases
was ethyl alcohol, due to its deceptive alcohol smell. And any firefighter
worth wielding a hose would know an open window meant a rapid burn rate.

So, fuel source—initially paper, followed by wooden furniture.
Oxygen from a window supposedly left window by accident, something Phoebe had
never been guilty of when living in Newcastle. In fact, she’d been pedantic
about keeping her windows closed and locked. And heat from the flames
themselves. But in Phoebe’s fire, those flames were helped along by ethyl
alcohol, and helped very effectively. The char pattern on the concrete floor
indicated enough of the flammable liquid had been splashed about to ensure the
fire would take hold quickly and devastatingly, but only on or beneath
horizontal surfaces. Appearing for all the world like the result of spilled
alcoholic beverages.

But why would Harvey want to set fire to Phoebe’s studio? To
what end?

Damon narrowed his eyes again. Gut instincts suggested one
reason. A reason that had everything to do with the thing hanging between
Harvey’s legs.

Then step forward. See what he does.

He pulled his t-shirt up over his head, threw it aside,
scruffed up his hair with his fingers and then stepped from his unseen
position, rubbing one hand over his bare stomach in languid, contented strokes.

“I didn’t know you two were already awake,” he murmured,
making his voice sound sleepy as he ambled into view. From the corner of his
eye, he saw Harvey jerk. He also heard Phoebe hiss in a breath, but kept his
half-lidded gaze on Will. “Did you both shower without me?”

He stopped at Phoebe’s side, ignoring her stunned
expression. With a lazy grin, he lowered his head and nuzzled the side of her
neck, running his hand up her belly to almost—
almost
—cup her breast.
“Hmm, you taste good, Masters.”

“Damon?” Phoebe’s throat vibrated under his lips, and for a
split second the intoxicating scent of her almost made him lose his
concentration. “What are—”

“What the
fuck
?”

Harvey’s croaked exclamation surprised all of them.

“You can’t touch her like—!”

Damon straightened, giving the man a steady look. Harvey
snapped his mouth shut, eyes bulging, face redder than ever. He glared at
Damon, hate burning in his gaze, hotter than any fire Damon had ever seen. Glared
at him with baleful rage before sliding his stare to Will. He curled his lip,
his chest puffing up. “I didn’t realize you city boys did such a thorough job
of…
questioning
the property owner. We Morpeth guys just investigate the
fire at the actual scene.”

“Harvey!” Phoebe stiffened, but Damon didn’t take his
attention off the man. Venom glowed in Harvey’s eyes. Venom and something far,
far more primitive.

Jealousy. Raw, unequivocal jealousy.

Damon scratched at his stomach again, giving Harvey a
bemused grin. “Sorry, who are you again?”

“I’m the one doing the real work, being the
real
hero
while you fucking big-shot city wankers take advantage of a poor distraught
woman in her moment of crisis,” Harvey snarled. And there was no other word for
it—it
was
a snarl, full of malevolent hate. He leaned forward and
sneered at Damon again. “I’m the man who discovered what caused Phoebe’s fire,
dickhead.”

“Don’t you mean the one who
started
it?” Will asked,
his voice low and calm and as cold as ice.

Harvey’s face turned white. His mouth fell open, his stare
locked on Will’s.

And then he turned and ran.

Damon let out a shocked laugh.

“Ah fuck,” Will growled. “Now we’re going to have to chase
him down.”

Chapter Seven

Phoebe held the accidental dildo in her hand, staring at the
glass sculpture opposite her. Will and Damon had been gone for two hours.

Two hours since they’d made love to her, asked her to move
in with them, exposed Harvey Kilgour for the arsonist he was, crash-tackled him
to the ground in front of her home and pinned him there, bucking and screaming
and professing his love for her. Two hours since Damon and Will took turns
holding the thrashing, writhing, love-professing Harvey so they could finish
dressing.

Two hours since Phoebe’s neighbors witnessed the whole
God-awful, surreal thing, casting her curious glances as they whispered amongst
themselves.

Two hours since her whole life had changed.

And the entire time, Phoebe sat in silence on her old,
overstuffed sofa, alternating between gazing at the bed and its rumpled,
messed-up duvet and staring at the dark glass sculpture once called
Untitled
Time
, then briefly called
Oh Fuck, Why Can’t I Get Them Out of My
Fucking Head?
and now called
Damn It, How Can I Live Without Them?

The last thing Damon had said to her as they’d stood
side-by-side, watching Will and the Morpeth police sergeant bundle Harvey into
the back of the squad car, rang in her ears even now. “Don’t say no, Masters.”

He and Will had walked back to their own car then—still
parked outside her burnt-out studio—and followed the sergeant to the Morpeth
police station where, presumably, Harvey would be charged with arson.

Two hours ago. Did it take that long to ensure a man be
charged with a crime?

The pit of her belly rolled and she let out a sigh. Once
again, when she should have been freaking out about one thing, she was worried
about another. When she should be beside herself because sweet, friendly,
puppy-dog desperate Harvey had set her studio alight in some messed-up,
deranged attempt to impress her—and his father, if his wild rantings about
getting respect were anything to go on—she was fixated on the two men
responsible for uncovering Harvey’s lunacy.

Fixated on them
and
the question left unanswered
between them.

Another sigh slipped past her lips. Long and shaky. They
wanted her to live with them. All three together. They wanted a
happy-ménage-ever-after.

It wasn’t her belly that reacted this time, it was her sex.
Her breath caught at the notion of a life spent living with Will and Damon, of
waking up between them every morning. Of coming home from her studio to their
grins and boyish fun every day. Of grocery shopping with them, watching movies,
visiting the beach and eating out and riding bikes and planning holidays with
them.

All three of them together. One big, happy, society-bucking
family.

She thought of making love to them,
both
of them.
Whenever she wanted. Whenever they wanted. Of being impaled on one of them as
the other worshipped her body. Of being impaled on
both
of them at the same
time as she had been only a few hours ago.

She closed her eyes and gripped the glass shard in her hands
tighter, her pussy not just tingling but damn near convulsing. “Damn it,
Masters. This was just meant to be sex. Goodbye sex. Ending-it sex. Not look-what-you-could-have-forever
sex.”

Have forever.

The two words made her throat thick. Her and Will and Damon.
Forever. She let out a shaky sigh. She’d never really given a toss about what
society expected or demanded of her. She’d often joked with Sami it was one of
the perks of being a professional artist—the rest of the population expected
her to be unconventional. She could walk a busy street wearing nothing but
oversized dungarees and a singlet, her hair brilliant purple dreadlocks, her
nose pierced and her toenails painted ten different colors and no one would
think anything of it except “weirdo artist”. In fact she had done that very
thing back in her art school days.

How she existed in the “real world” bared little impact on
her. As long as she could create, she was happy. And then Will and Damon had
come along, and how she existed with
them
in the real world became a
pressing question.

Their weekend of wild, uninhibited sex six months ago had
planted a longing in her she’d tried to ignore. When the topic of what happened
next came up, she hadn’t balked at the idea of continuing their threesome
outside the bedroom.

Will and Damon had. Damon had laughed the whole weekend off
as “one of the things I can mark off my Bucket List”, and Will had, well… Will,
ever the serious one, had calmly shaken his head and remarked that the weekend
had been “interesting” and left it at that.

Thirty minutes later she’d walked out of Damon’s house
wishing to hell she’d been an accountant, or a pre-school teacher or a…a…dental
nurse. Anything but an artist who didn’t give a rat’s bum what society thought.
If she
gave
a rat’s bum, she would never have dared believe for one
wonderful, stupid moment that she and Will and Damon could have a
happy-ménage-ever-after together.