Page 12 of Blade

“The guy agreed, thankfully.”

I don’t know if he’s making fun of me or genuinely agreeing with me.But I was never sure with him.I doubt anyone is.He’s got this quiet form of sarcasm, irony some would call it, and it goes straight over my head most of the time.

We’re sitting on the lumpy, wine-red sofa in my living room, the sky outside a dusky purple laced with grey and dark blue.I made us sweet mint tea and the room is filled with its aroma.It reminds me of summer and long, lazy afternoons spent at his mom’s house in Angelino Heights.The house was old, and everything creaked if you so much as sneezed, but it was still the coziest and most peaceful place I’ve ever known.

His mom was nice to me too.Until the occasional line of heroin turned into something much worse for me.Then I had to come for visits via the overgrown shrubbery in the back and sneak in through the laundry room window.

“How’s your mom?”I ask.

He shrugs.“Hanging in there.”

“And how does she view your crime fighting life?”

He grins.“You mean because she’s always been so overprotective of me?”

I nod, biting my lip.His parents were a rich white couple who couldn’t have children of their own.They’d adopted him when they were already in their forties and proceeded to give him everything, wrapping him in cotton wool like nobody’s business.It didn’t help that his dad had died when Blade was only fourteen.

“She’s accepted that I’m a grown man now who makes his own choices.”

“It went that well, huh?”

“It took awhile, but it’s all good now.She worries, but I try to see her as much as I can.”

“That’s good of you,” I say.“And good that she understands.”

He leans forward and deposits his cup on the coffee table.“I’d ask about yours but I figure it’s not good.”

I shake my head.“Nope.Not good.My dad and my brother Ricardo are dead.And my other brother Matteo won’t speak to me.”

“I’m sorry they’re dead.”

“They disowned me long before that happened.And I’ve long since stopped considering them my family,” I say, as always, wondering if that’s entirely true.They treated me very badly when I refused to marry the man they picked out for me.But sometimes I still get lost in the memories of the good times we had as a family.“And after they almost killed you… I didn’t want to have anything to do with them either.I’m still so sorry about that… ”

“It wasn’t your fault, Bella, like I’ve told you a hundred times already,” he says gently, probably assuming I once again won’t believe him.

“But it was… I knew how things were done in my family, I knew they’d react violently if I started dating you, but I did it anyway…” I say.

He grins.“Because you couldn’t help it.You loved me.”

I smile too.“That’s true.”

He always turns this conversation down this lane every time I bring it up, won’t let me take the blame.But everything I said is true.

He brushes a strand of hair off my forehead.The touch is gentle, but I feel the coiled tension emanating from his muscles.I feel it deep in my core like a magnetic force I can’t fight.I never could fight this pull he has on me, and I never felt the like of it with anyone else.

“All this reconnecting talk is nice and all, but there’s something else I’d rather be doing.”

And I know exactly what he means.I’d rather be doing that thing too, ever since the moment I saw him.And every day of the past ten years.

“So how about it?”he adds and I just nod.My voice would be just a croak if I tried to speak anyway.

He leans forward and touches his lips to mine.It’s a soft touch, but the force of two strong magnets connecting claps through me, making my head spin and taking my breath.

Not that I need to breathe as he deepens the kiss, his tongue invading my mouth with an urgency and a need only he’s ever had for me.Sparks of pleasure and bliss start coming to life deep inside me, slow to start because they’ve been dead for so long.But soon, as his tongue plays with mine and the taste of him starts waking memories I’ve buried so deep I might as well call them forgotten, they explode into a raging fire that nothing can stop.

He pulls me into his lap and slides his hands up my back under my shirt, his lips still firmly planted on mine.The years we spent apart are flaking away to reveal the joy we used to feel for each other.The newness of being in love for the first time.The sheer bliss of kissing your soulmate.

But the ugly is coming up too.

---