The Blackfire Protocol by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 15

The evening meal was filled with conversation about the places Frank wanted to visit, but when the Smithsonian Institute came up, Ava immediately perked up, stating that it was her favorite place to visit. Frank’s curiosity piqued as questions flooded his mind.

“Do you want to go there sometime?” he asked. Ava moved in close and kissing him on the cheek whispered in his ear.

“I’d love to,” she replied. “But I thought we’d have dessert first.”

He responded with a slightly flushed face and, turning, embraced her. With their arms entwined, Frank and Ava’s lips met in a warm embrace, and within a few minutes he picked her up from the floor and carried her to his bedroom. From the warmth of

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his bed, the night evolved into a passionate drama of sensual enlightenment as Ava introduced him to pleasures he had never experienced. Pushing him onto his back, she gently drew her lips down his chest and stomach until finally stopping at his most sensitive place. With her tongue caressing his now-firm member, Ava took it deeply into her mouth as Frank gasped in both surprise and pleasure. She would occasionally look up at him to find his head tipped back, his eyes closed, and his mouth open. To him, it was an eternity, but when pleasure soon turned to torture, Ava released him and crawling up to just below his waist grasped him firmly while straddling his hips. Frank soon experienced a far more intense pleasure as Ava lowered herself down while drawing him into her soft, warm body. His expression told her everything as he grabbed her by the hips, forcefully raising and lowering her body until both succumbed to release.

Although the cold December air had crept in through the walls and around the window frame, Ava and Frank were content to lie next to each other in the warmth of their naked bodies. With the sheen of sweat glistening from their skin, they held each other until its dissipation was replaced by the nighttime chill. It seemed to fill the room, prompting him to pull the covers up, cocooning them both against what would later become a bone-chilling night. By morning, they still lay with their arms around each other, protected by the opened sleeping bag Frank had spread over them. It was Sunday morning, and waking first, Ava wrapped a spare blanket around her chilled body and headed for the shower. The sound of running water was loud enough to wake

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him, who, without clothes, went to the shower and invited himself in.

“How about conserving some water?” he asked. Ava smiled broadly as she moved to provide him with room to stand, and together they washed each other’s bodies.

“I can’t stay long,” she said. “The semester starts in a couple of days, and I have to make sure my curriculums are updated.”

Holding each other, he kissed her deeply on the neck as Ava lost herself to the moment. She suddenly gave him a gentle push and stepped out of the shower.

“I really have to go,” she said.

Frank watched her towel off her body and invited her to stay for breakfast, hoping for act two of what had played out merely a few hours before. “I can’t,” she replied. “I have a lot of work to do, and I can’t start the semester and be unorganized.” Leaving the towel behind, she went back to his bedroom and dressing in the clothes she wore upon her arrival, prepared to leave. By this time, he had wrapped himself in a towel and stepped out into the living room, where Ava was preparing to leave. “Not even a quickie?” he asked.

Walking out fully dressed, Ava wrapped her arms around him and kissed him deeply. “I have to go,” she began. “I love you.” Frank was startled by these words. Who knew that three short words could affect someone so strongly? They hadn’t known each other that long—barely a few days. Now, Ava had unknowingly succeeded in scaring him in a way he had never experienced. In only a few passing moments, Frank struggled to find

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a response, but what he would say he knew to be a lie. After a moment of hesitation, he responded. “Um, me too.”

Ava looked at him with endearing eyes, knowing that men are not prone to displays of emotional expression. For her, a ‘me too’ seemed to be enough. But given his hesitation and facial expression, she was left with the realization that she had caught him off guard, and smiling gently tried to reassure him. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said. Now, another lie.

“Oh, no,” Frank replied. “Not at all. I guess I just wasn’t expecting to hear it so soon. It’s okay, though.”

Kissing Frank on the cheek, Ava walked the short distance to the door and, opening it, turned back. “Maybe we can get together this weekend,” she said. “What do you think?”

Another lie:

“Yeah,” he answered. “That would be great—if you’re not too busy.”

Flashing another smile, she assured him that she could always make time for him.

Closing the door behind her, Ava made her way down the stairs as Frank walked to one of the windows at the front of his apartment. He watched as she got into her car, started the engine, and drove off. Nearly paralyzed with fear, he walked back and, sitting on the couch, fought for a way to deal with what had just transpired. A relationship was not what he wanted. In fact, he had been trying to stay clear of any potentially intimate situations. Frank had promised himself that nothing would stand in his

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way or interfere with his studies. Now he had allowed himself to be drawn in to exactly that, and sitting on the couch, chastised himself for having become a part of it.

“Fuck,” he said. “This is not what I wanted. What the fuck am I going to do?”

He knew he would have to break things off with Ava, but having no experience in relationships, was at a loss for what course to take. He sat with his head in his hands, trying to think of the best way to go about ending something he didn’t want in the first place. But he did feel responsible. After all, he was only human and prone to human desires, but he was also angry at his failure to control his emotions. “How the fuck am I going to do this?” he asked himself.

In spite of the changes he was going through, Frank did realize that people have feelings and that, however this played out, Ava would still be hurt. He sat weighing the value of a painful truth against a kind lie and decided that offering something in between was probably best—some bits of a well-worded lie mixed with an even more well-worded truth. Regardless of how he went about it, Ava would still be hurt and would likely come to the belief that she had been used. But reality is a strange beast, and after he did what he needed to do, he would find that the outcome would not be what he expected.