Page 48 of Thief of my Heart

“And they sent you to your grandparents?”

I hoped to God they did. I knew exactly how fucked up—and slow—the New York child welfare system could be. It was too easy to imagine their case worker passing them off to a temporary foster home when they had a perfectly good place to stay, with loving grandparents ten blocks away. And the idea of Lea living in some of the places I had as a kid? That made me feel fucking lethal.

Thankfully, she shook her head. “We’d already been there for a few weeks, actually. But yeah. Since they already had a record of us in their care, they released us back to Nonno within an hour or so. It was still scary, though. And sad. Mami was convicted of three counts of manslaughter since she killed the other car’s passengers too. The judge gave her twenty years.”

We didn’t say anything for a long time, just munched on the rest of our sandwiches. The ferry docked at Staten Island, and for a moment, I considered leading her off the boat. That wasn’t the original plan. The ferry ride itself was the date; dinner on the water was the best I could afford. Lea seemed to know it too, since she made no move to get off with the rest of the passengers.

But for a moment, I wanted to take her away. We seemed so far from the city that had taken so much from both of us, where responsibility and harsh pasts awaited us, that I wanted to continue on. Run as far as we could possibly go.

But when she looked at me, her eyes sparkling brighter than any star hidden over the city ever could, there was something else there I’d never known.

Hope, shining bright and true.

Misguided, maybe. Especially if she had hope for me. But totally addictive.

So I did the only thing I could do in a moment like that. I slipped a hand around her neck, buried my fingers in the warm thicket of hair, and pulled her close.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled against her lips.

And then I kissed her like I’d been meant to my entire fucking life.

FOURTEEN

THAT CERTAINLY CHANGES EVERYTHING

Michael

We didn’t really talk much on the ferry ride back to Manhattan. Or on the 1 train that chugged up the length of the island. Or at Columbus Circle while we waited for the B-D line transfer. Or in the seat we found in the last train car all the way back to Fordham Heights, a subway stop much closer than the line we’d taken downtown.

She didn’t seem to notice. We were too busy communicating in…other ways.

Seriously, though. I hadn’t made out that intensely with a girl since Juliana de Soto’s birthday party in the eighth grade. There was something so pure about kissing and nothing more.

Not that I didn’t want to do a hell of a lot more. The problem with kissing Lea Zola was that once I started, I really couldn’t stop. The conversation, the sandwiches, hell, the damn ferry—it all had broken a dam deep inside me, and now something was flowing right into her, hot and fast.

She felt so damn good in my arms, warm and soft and welcoming to my touch. Her lips were more suckable than candy, and the slick of her tongue slipping around mine was a version of heaven I’d never even considered.

The girl was voracious. And, apparently, shameless, which suited me just fine. She didn’t care that we were in public places—she seemed to need me as much as I craved her.

Underneath the tough, prim face she showed the rest of the world was a vixen, a passionate creature I got the feeling was rarely let out. After our conversation tonight, I understood why. Suddenly, kissing her, holding her, giving in to the burning desire I felt for Lea Zola didn’t make me feel like a sinner but more like a savior.

Lea carried the damn world for nearly everyone in her family. She needed to let loose. Have a space to be free. Be a little bad, like most eighteen-year-olds should have a chance to be.

If I could keep her safe at the same time, maybe I was actually doing her a favor.

Or maybe that’s what I was telling myself so I could keep devouring that luscious mouth like it was the dessert I’d forgotten to bring.

“Approaching Fordham Road.”

The blare of the conductor’s voice through the blown-out speakers only partially registered in between kisses.

“Michael.”

She was lucky, really, that at that moment, I’d taken the opportunity to taste the delicate skin under her jaw. It allowed her to look up at the light board at the top of the train that informed us of the next stop.

“Michael.” Her fingers grabbed my hair at the base of my neck and tugged.

“Mmmph.”

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