AllFreeNovel
Share Us
12
EDIER
I’d plannedto leave the second she fell asleep, but I’m still here, hours later, lying in the darkness and fighting dawn. Recognizing that each passing minute is a countdown to a war I don’t have a chance of winning.
She’s exhausted, but she’s fighting alongside me, one arm strewn across my chest and her left hand resting on my heart.
“I’m waiting,” she mumbles, barely stirring.
“Waiting for what?” Pulling her on top of me, I bury my face in her hair again, breathing in citrus and something dangerously close to serenity.
“For you to think I’m dead to the world, and then slip away like a thief.”
“I don’t slip anywhere,Mi Cielo. I make noise and cause dissidence.”
Resting her chin on her arm, she studies me for a moment, our faces so close I’m basking in her every exhale. Her black hair is a gorgeous, freshly fucked mess and it suits her, but only when it’s me who’s made it that way. “Admit it, you had no intention of opening our box of secrets. You figured you’d be long gone by then.”
“Bullshit. I opened your box plenty last night.”
Her grin fades as fast as it appears. “I’ve tried so hard to remember that last day in Colombia. All I have are sketchy memories of you drawing frogs and then of waking up in a bathroom with my parents and a gazillion doctors around me. Did something else happen?”
“I got drunk.”
“Was that after I was taken to hospital, or while I was still lying on the floor?”
“Ella…” The tone of my voice is a warning.
“Why didn’t you visit me before you went to Europe?”
“Box,” I grit out, like it’s some kind of a bastard safe word. “Now, kiss me, or face the consequences of defying me.”
My phone beeps, but I ignore it. The three BratvapatsansI have strung up in a warehouse in Red Hook will have to wait a while longer for my justice. This isn’t the time or place for slaughter talk. It’s the land of lost innocence and regret, at leastuntil sunrise.
“Do you think there’s magic in the moonlight?” she muses suddenly, glancing at the window.
“If there is, let’s not ruin it by overanalyzing it.”
“I blame Selene.”
“Is that an anagram, or a subtext?” I brush my fingers over the silky-smooth curves of her ass, resisting the urge to dig my fingers in and bind us together forever.
“She was a lunar goddess. Susceptible to spells and stuff. When she disappeared each morning, the Greeks believed a curse had sent her light away. Hey, maybe whatever magic that keeps her high in the sky…” She trails off and blushes. “Sorry, I’m doing it again.”
“Never apologize. I love your pretty little digressions. Smart women make me hard.”
“Everything makes you, ah, hard.”
“Smart woman,” I correct coolly. “And you’d be surprised how selective he is.”
“Do you usually talk abouthimin the third person?”
“It’s a requisite when it’s so big. It won’t fit in first person narrative.” She laughs and I can’t drag my eyes away. “I was making you nervous again?”
She nods. “You looked like you wanted to eat me alive and—oh.” I catch her mouth in that kiss I’ve been craving, and she melts into my embrace. “You’re such a bad influence,” she says with a sigh. “Before this evening I’d never made a rash decision in my life.”
“Or used bad words, apparently. Now, put those soft lips back on mine. I decide when we stop this, not you.”
“You’re very dictatorial as well.”
