Page 105 of Sangre
I should tell her I want her to stay. That I love her, but I don’t wanna fuck up her dreams. “That’s what you wanted.”
“Yeah.” She wrung her hands over and over in her lap. “Would you like to go on the tour with me? I’d love for you to be with me.”
“I can’t leave the business or the club for that long. Maybe I can come out and see you in LA when you get back from touring.”
“That’d be great,” she mumbled.
A silence stretched between them.
Sturgis was a few weeks away and he planned to make the most of their time together. He went over to the bed and sat down next to her. “Take a day off recording and let’s spend it at Crystal Lake.”
She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I’ll see if I can get away.”
His chest constricted, and he curled his arm around her. “It’ll be fun.”
She raised her head and fixed her eyes on him. “Are we still just friends? I mean is what we have a friends with benefits type of deal? Because I don’t really know how you feel about me.”
He sucked in a deep breath then slowly let it out. “We passed the friends stage the minute I realized it was you.”
“So what does that mean? Tell me how youfeel, dammit.”
Sangre scrubbed his face: He didn’t talk about his feelings. All he knew was that she was the only woman who moved him in a way no other woman ever had or could. She was all he thought about, and he wanted her always in his life. When he was in high school, he spent most of his time wanting her and the rest of the time telling himself that he’d blow their friendship. He didn’t want to do anything that would take her away from him, so he held back.
“By you not answering me, you spoke volumes.” She rose to her feet, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down.
“I don’t want you to leave, but I don’t wanna fuck up your music career and your dreams.” He pushed her down on the mattress and leaned over her, his fingers gently caressing her bruised cheek. “I’ve had you buried so deep in my heart that no woman could ever capture it. I just didn’t realize it until you came back into my life.”
She blinked rapidly. “Are you telling me you love me?”
He pressed his lips to hers. “That’s what I’m saying, babe. I love you. I’ve never said that to any woman. When I thought I was gonna lose you today, that was the worst feeling in the world.”
Tears streaked down her face as she pushed him down next to her. “DR said you’re supposed to keep pressure off your arm.”
He guffawed and, with his good arm, drew her close to him. “That’s classic. I never say shit about my feelings and I just told you I love you, and your response is about my arm. I fuckin’ love it.”
She giggled. “I just didn’t want the stiches to break or something.”
“And dirty your robe?” He burst out laughing and she joined in, their guffaws filling the room.
When they’d calmed down, she tilted her head back and looked up at him. “In the letter I wrote you the day my family moved, I told you how much I loved you. But when I didn’t hear from you, I was crushed and felt like a fool for telling you about my feelings. I’ve loved you for a very long time. No oneevercompared to you. You’ve always been in my heart.”
Sangre crushed his mouth on hers and kissed her as though it would be their last kiss. After a long while, he pulled back and held her gaze. “You told me you loved me back then?”
She nodded and he swept his finger over her lips; they were smooth and red, slightly swollen and glossy from his kiss. “Ever since you told me about the letter, I wondered what happened to it. It finally hit me—I bet Jay took it.”
“Jay? How would he have known about it?”
“He was supposed to come over that day, and he never showed. After that he had an attitude and that’s when we started drifting. Damn, if I knew you loved me back then, I wouldn’t have wasted all these years without you.”
Isla ran her finger down his throat. “I think we needed the time to grow. Coming together now makes our love stronger.”
“Will you stay in Alina? We can get a place together.”
“I want to but what about the band? We have the gig in Sturgis, the tour, and a label interested in signing us. If I leave now, the label will never sign Iris Blue. I can’t fuck up this opportunity for them.”
“I wouldn’t respect you if you did.” He cupped her chin. “As much as I want you to stay with me, I know music is in your soul.”
She grasped his hand, brought it to her lips, and kissed it. “Long distance relationships are so hard. They really never work,” she said softly.
