Veiled (Ada Palomino 1)

I stare at him with uncertainty, even though I want to believe him so badly.

“Are you sure?” I whisper.

He gives me a faint smile. “When you shed evil from your soul, you know it. It’s no longer a shadow always following you, a black crown on your head. He’s not here.” He gestures to his chest. “It’s just me. J.J. Abrams.”

I can’t help but grin, then quickly bite my lip, trying to keep it together. “What about Jacob?”

“I have free will, remember?” he says, running his thumb over my bottom lip. “And what he doesn’t know, can’t hurt him.”

“But,” I try to say but he just pushes his thumb gently into my mouth. Hmmm. This is new and not entirely unwelcome.

“Can you put up the walls?” he whispers, eyes glued to my mouth as he removes his hand.

I swallow anxiously. Nod. I reach back into my head, my soul, the same way I’d done before, and instead of a steel door that can withstand the hot and cold of Hell, I imagine black velvet curtains rising from the floor, curtains made to conceal us inside and out.

Pop, pop, pop.

One by one they emerge around the room, billowing out and circling us in until it’s just Jay and I standing in world of soft black.

We grin at each other in amazement. I’m just as surprised as he is.

“Problem solved,” he says proudly. “What else can you do?”

I lick my lips and squeeze his hand tight, leading him toward the bed. “Let me show you.”

We stand at the foot of the bed, my hand pressed against his hard, heaving chest, ready to push him down. Before I can, his mouth crashes against mine, waves at sunset, kissing the shoreline. It’s like being swept into a whirlpool, warm and electric, spinning and pulling until I’m drowning, wild and free.

Are you sure? I ask inside my head.

And his kiss tells me, Always.

We fall into bed, wrapped in each other’s arms, cocooned by the dark.

We make our own light.

THE END