Burning love...

Her hair is pulled back, just a few wisps free but tucked behind her ears; The wind reaches in through the open window and tugs at the strawberry blonde ponytail as if to say slow down, stop. She has no idea she's going way too fast and is oblivious to the voice of the wind, the frantic hum of the tyres on the road, the needle on the dash like a warning finger, approaching 100; She keeps her foot planted determined to keep going as if the distance she puts between him and herself will also diminish the feelings and emotions plaguing her thoughts.

The headlights push out ahead of the car bringing the broken white lines on the road to life one after the other. They remind her of the lines she crossed with him. The road-reflectors come to life in turn as the beams hit them; They glare at her accusingly and then flash away behind only to be replaced by another. Or maybe it's her own guilty conscience accusing her. Tears fall as the memories filter in through the flashing lines and reflectors, the rush of the wind as the car hurtles down the road and she tries not to think about what went wrong, her reason for leaving...The feel of his bare chest beneath her head as she snuggled closer to him...STOP! Her mind shrieks as if that futile thought could break into the reverie she was in; Memories of his eyes looking down on her from above.

She glances at the mobile phone on the seat beside her...A little too long, and she hears the tyres thudding on the road-reflectors as she crosses the centre-line. The thudding reminds her of the pounding of her heart, what, only three hours ago? She lets the car go for a while longer lost in the rhythmic thud thud thud then shifts back to her own lane, eyes returning to the road ahead and the accusing reflectors. The phone is dead anyway, a lifeless, cold thing...She used up the battery calling...calling. But he never answered...

...The vehicle crosses the white line erratically to avoid a slow moving car. A wrench on the wheel and it's back in the lane but before long it swerves again back to the wrong side, then back over again. Headlights stretch out in front almost seeming to pull the vehicle onward in haste. The engine roars. Loudly. It speeds the vehicle down the country road. The windows are shut. The cabin seems a still, almost serene space and yet inside tension builds in relative silence. The darkness around the vehicle is stained blue, no red...Now blue again as the vehicle flied by, the scream of sirens drowning the frenetic hum of the tyres on the road...

Her legs are pinned, entwined by his, pleasingly so she thinks. She can feel warmth on her neck; His breath of course. He strokes her head aimlessly, she can feel the pressure of his hand brushing her hair back and she notices a weight on her chest, his arm draped casually across her chest, realising it's a little difficult to breathe but she's loathe to move, or ask him to...She's so happy, entangled and twisted in her lovers embrace. Her mind drifts slightly and she closes her eyes allowing her head to fall backward to rest in the crook of his arm...She could die here, happy in her lovers' embrace.

...Something bright reaches her eye through heavy lids and she opens her eyes lazily and with great difficulty...She sees a flicker of yellow...The candle she lit before they laid on the bed she thought. It's so bright and getting brighter and then she feels the pressure of him holding her urgently in his embrace, the strength in his arms puller in closely and she drifts again...So warm...

Sirens cut now but lights blazing the second vehicle rounds the corner in a riot of red and blue. It comes to a hasty but controlled stop some distance from the other vehicle.

It's on its roof in a slight depression by the road and partially wrapped around a tree. It was engulfed in flame, ablaze with a ferocity and heat that only burning oil, fuel and tyres can create. The two men in the newly-arrived vehicle jump out and approach, one talking non-stop into his two-way-radio the other shielding his face from the heat. They can only approach so far before they were beaten back by the intensity of the heat.

...She tries to open her eyes but can't, the strawberry blonde girl in the car. She could see through her closed lids that the candles were brighter, her lovers' breath a little hotter. She felt content here, tangled up in his arms, their bodies as one with the heat of their passion building rather than subsiding. She relaxed back into his embrace...Yes, she thought "I could die here, happy in my lovers' embrace and the heat of passion."

And she does.

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