Kisses and Warfare

“You really killed my game,” I tell Marcus.

“I’m having a child. Which is more important than you fucking my soon-to-be sister-in-law,” he says, taking me by surprise. He rubs his face and shakes his head. “Fuck! A baby,” he says again.

“Yep,” is all I can say to that.

“What? I know you want to say it. So say it.”

“We had a shit mother, and a shit childhood. Why on earth would you want to bring a child into our world?”

“I didn’t, but then I met her. What Rochelle wants, I want.”

“You sound fucked,” I tell him. “Do you even hear yourself? Who the hell are you?”

My brother steps closer, his hand coming to my chest, anger written all over his face. “I’m a fucking man who isn’t stuck in shadows anymore. I’ve been there forever, lurking and getting nowhere. She makes me see the light.”

Marcus turns and walks back inside, leaving me standing there wondering what the fuck is going on.Chapter EighteenKat“Tell your brother we said bye,” my parents say to Marcus as they leave.

Blaze hasn’t come back in, and it’s been over an hour. I look through the glass door and see him sitting by the pool, a cigarette hanging from his lips as he reclines on a lounger. I look over to Annabelle, who’s sound asleep, and open the door to go out the back to him. Blaze doesn’t bother to turn to look at me as I take a seat next to him.

“If you aren’t here to sit on my cock, then there’s no use for you,” he says, blowing the smoke out and looking up at the sky.

“Sit on your cock. How fun that would be,” I reply, making him turn to face me.

“You are too beautiful for your own good.”

I feel the blush coming to my cheeks, so I look away from his intense glare.

“Are you not happy for your brother?” I ask Blaze.

“I am.”

“You don’t seem like it.”

“No, I guess I don’t. But when you see a mother burning her own child, you tend to not want to believe in the happy ever after scenario. I mean, I never see the father of your child, so all families are fucked-up in some way.”

“Holy shit! Okay, bomb dropped. But that isn’t my story to dig into,” I say, referring to their mother burning Marcus. I knew things had happened to him, because Rochelle had said something, but she didn’t go into details. “How did your scar happen?” I ask him.

“My mother,” is all he replies. He takes another drag on his cigarette and then looks up at the sky. “She was a real bitch, that one. Damn well shouldn’t have had kids.”

“Rochelle will be nothing like her,” I tell him.

“I know she’ll be good. And Marcus will find out what it’s like, and maybe even wish he had better when he was younger.”

“Come on, hot stuff. How about you take me for a ride on that bike of yours.” I stand to offer him my hand. He looks at it, drops the cigarette, and stands. Taking my hand in his, he looks inside. “Your daughter?”

“She’s sleeping. Rochelle is hovering around her,” I say.

Smiling, I remember Rochelle telling me it’s practice for her. But she doesn’t need it, she will be a natural at motherhood.

We walk around the house to where his bike sits, Blaze takes his helmet and places it on my head, then throws his leg over and nods for me to sit behind him.

“Where is your helmet?” I ask.

“You’re wearing it,” he says. “Now get on and wrap your hands around me tight.”

I smile. “I like the sound of that.” I climb on and squeeze my legs around him, clinging on. Lifting his shirt, I touch his stomach as I slide my hands under and lock them together. He doesn’t protest or tell me to move, he simply starts the engine and takes off fast, my hair whipping my back as he flings up some dirt. I grip onto his skin, feeling the warmth as he drives us. We ride for a few minutes, and I relax into his back, leaning my head on him. Blaze lifts the shirt, and one of his hands covers mine, and I smile into his back.

This is the first time I feel free, like my worries are somehow all gone, that I have left them back where they can’t affect me right now. And at this moment it’s just me, a bike, and a man who makes my heart beat pick up way too fast for my liking. No man has ever made me so angry and so turned on, yet confused all in one sitting.

I want to hate him.

I don’t want to want him.

But I do.

Blaze’s hand lifts, and he lets me go as I feel the bike come to a stop. When I lift my head, I see where we are. Nowhere. There’s bush and nothing but the stars and moon above us.