Page 38 of Thief of my Heart

“I’m sorry again,” he said as we stopped in front of the tri-arched entry to Mary, Mother of Our Redeemer Catholic Church. “About last night, I mean.”

I snorted. “Which part is still bugging you? When you went all caveman on me in the middle of a party? Or when you threatened to spank me like a little girl?”

The tips of his ears turned pink, along with his nose. This time, I knew it wasn’t from the cold.

“All of it,” he said. “I kind of lost it.”

“Why?” I pressed. “That’s what I don’t understand. So I ran my mouth a little. So what?”

He kicked the toe of his boot into a bit of ice on the sidewalk. It cracked in half. “You didn’t ‘run your mouth.’ You practically offered yourself on a platter to the entire borough.”

“Yeah, but why do you even care?” I asked, even though I couldn’t help but blush. “Why does it bother you so much, the idea that I would have se?—”

I cut myself off as the door opened, and a squat lady who looked about a hundred years old waddled out of the church. Now, I was the one checking to make sure none of our neighbors overheard. The last thing I needed was for it to get back to Nonna that her “good girl” had been overheard talking about her sex life on Father Deflorio’s steps.

“That I would do that,” I amended after she was out of earshot. “It’s not like anyone was interested anyway. So you don’t need to worry.”

Michael gave me a look. One that simultaneously reminded me of how many people at that party were there for the possibility of no-strings sex…and of the fact that, at one point, the two of us had been wrapped around each other tighter than the twine around Nonna’s beef roasts.

I rolled my eyes. “So you kissed me. So what? People make out at parties all the time. It doesn’t mean they want to screw.”

That dirty-eyed expression didn’t even blink.

My cheeks grew hot.

“Stop looking at me like that,” I said, as I waved across the street at Angelo del Vecchio, one of Nonno’s oldest friends.

“Then stop saying dumb shit,” Michael replied dryly, without a care for where we were standing. “You know exactly how you looked in that dress. And you knew exactly what most of the dudes—and probably some girls too—wanted to do to you in it. Myself included.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

The question leaped out of my mouth before I could stop it. Suddenly, it didn’t matter that we were literally discussing my sexual valuation on the steps of my church. It had bothered me all night. If he was going to apologize, I needed to understand why he did what he did. And why he didn’t do what he and I both clearly wanted.

Michael’s eyes flickered with something I couldn’t quite read. “You really want me to answer that?”

I crossed my arms. “I’m sick of this push and pull. You’re my friend, then you’re not. We fight, then we kiss, fight some more, make up. It’s exhausting. You say you want me. Obviously, I was into it. So why did you stop?”

He didn’t say anything for a few moments. Just looked at me like he was trying to figure out what I was thinking. His eyes darted behind me, toward the street we’d walked down, then back up to the church entrance, before returning back to me.

Finally, Michael let out a harsh sigh. “I suppose I was trying to do the right thing.”

“What, protect the sad virgin? That’s my call, not yours.”

“No, protect you,” he hissed. “Why do you have to make this so fucking hard? I’m trying to be a nice guy here.”

“You’re trying to be my daddy,” I snapped. “Still. I already have a protective older brother and an old-school grandpa. And you’re maybe three years older than me, so please cut the paternal shi—stuff. I’m not a child. I can make my own decisions about what I do with my body and who with. Including you.”

“Jesus Christ, Lea.”

Before I could chide him for taking the Lord’s name in vain in front of an actual church, I was pulled off the steps and into an alley next to Our Redeemer. Away from anyone else who might be on their way to offer a few more prayers for sinners like him. Or me, apparently.

“I said no more dragging!” I snapped.

“I’m not. I’m helping. Now, will you please listen?” He pulled me around to face him, his hand on my arm like a brand. “I know you’re not a child. Believe me, I know.”

Somehow, he’d gotten closer to me than was strictly necessary. Close enough that I could smell a faint scent of cologne or soap, stronger than the smells of pizza and tamales floating down the street, stronger than the faint whiffs of incense that always came from the church next to us.

I forced myself not to stare at his lips. Or to remember how soft, yet demanding, they had been last night. How his tongue had felt tangled with mine, the ache it had caused in my belly, my chest, and right between my legs.

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