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“If you were invisible before I saw you,” I snarl possessively. “I’m glad, because it means nobody else got to see how fucking perfect you are.”
I guide my lips and find hers, and then part them and stroke my tongue along hers, tasting every part of her. She smiles, and then she relaxes and my rough lips guide hers, the tips of our tongues clashing, buzzing together, sparking.
I glide my hands down her body, but somehow manage to keep my hands above her hips, my mind still fixated on the red dragon tattoo, breathing fire, and just how much hotter I could make that bastard with a blowtorch and three good Chariots.
I stop the kiss, leaning back.
“Is something wrong?”
“No,” I smolder. “But if I keep kissing you, I’m going to turn into a complete beast. I think I should take you home, Kelly. But first, let’s go for a walk.”
“A walk?”
“Don’t forget, we’re here to see the stars.”
We walk outside together and away from the compound, my hand clutched in hers and hers in mine, and the more we walk the brighter and more numerous the stars get, shining down.
Glowing.
On us.
Chapter Six
Kelly
I sit in my mom’s salon, waiting for her to finish up with her last customer so that we can go to the diner.
Thoughts of last night and the bright stars return to me as Mom and Janine chatter away, my mom with her bob of blonde hair and hour glass figure, always with her quick wit and her arched eyebrow, a perfect combatant in the world of the salon.
Janine is an older woman with a perm she maintains religiously and a Chihuahua-poodle cross she pampers.
Little Sissy is now sitting in her handbag off to the side, her head resting on the custom made pillow Janine had added for her aging dog, Sissy’s eyes closed and her forepaws fluttering over the edge as she dreams.
“What’re you thinking about, girl?” Janine clucks. “Boys?”
“No,” I lie.
Or maybe it’s the truth, because there’s no boy in Kane.
He’s a man, mine.
His words return to me, the claim he made, the stake he placed in me, and a flutter goes through me as I remember their effect on my body. I feel tingly now, warm inside, just thinking about it.
“I was thinking about college,” I whisper.
How is that going to work?
When I go to college, is Kane going to want to do long distance?
I chide myself for being overeager.
Long distance.
We’re not even short distance yet, not technically. We’re definitely not anything approaching official, despite his claims. We’re just two people and maybe when I go to college, Kane’s fire for me will have burnt out, even as I know that mine for him will flare for a very, very long time.
“Are you ready, then, hon?” Janine asks.
“More or less,” I say.
Mom scoffs. “Ignore the false modesty. This one has been reading nonstop. She’s a reading addict, my little bookworm.”
“Mom,” I snap, but I’m grinning, and a silly part of me still glows under the nickname. “I’m not a little anything, anymore. Newsflash, womanhood has claimed me.”
“Should count yourself lucky.” Janine grins, flashing a gold tooth. “Some mothers get alcoholics, drug addicts, sex addicts, but you’ve got a reading addict. I think you drew the long straw there, Henri.”
Henri. Etta. Some call her the former and some the latter. I remember calling her Etta when I was a little girl, trying it out, before returning to Mom because I couldn’t bear the idea of people not knowing I was her daughter.
The memories strike me now, swarming me with love for her.
What would she say if she knew about last night, about how I’d betrayed Dad with his worst enemy?
The conversation moves on without me, and a while later after watching Sissy climb out of the bag and run small laps around the salon, tongue wagging, running to her favorite spot in the far corner I tune into the conversation again.
Mom has just said something about the drug problem currently hitting Aslado and the neighboring towns.
“They say it’s those Chariots and the Cartel, working hand in hand. That’s what I’ve heard.”
Janine clicks her tongue against her teeth knowingly.
“It makes sense to me. It’s not your husband, Henri, I know that much.”
“We’ve got no proof it’s the Chariots,” Mom says quietly.
“I heard Jason ranting about it in the bar the other night,” Janine says. “But you don’t believe it?”
“I’m just saying,” Mom mutters. “We don’t have any evidence. I don’t get involved in town politics. You know that. I try not to. But I wouldn’t want to call Kane Knight guilty when he’s not.”
My breath catches as the force of her words strike me.
Maybe she doesn’t hate Kane as much as Dad does.
Maybe there’s more to the story.
After Janine and Sissy have left and Mom is turning the faded blue lettering of Open sight to Closed, I stand up and wait for her near the rear door. I chip at the door frame with my thumbnail, remembering how close Kane felt to me last night, how intimately his body was pushed against mine.
