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“Open it up and see.” He smiles, flashing beautiful white teeth and dimples.
I grin and open the latch, flipping the box open before squealing in pleasure. Inside, there is an assortment of knives; karambits, fixed blades, switch-blades, neck knives and tomahawks. They are so beautiful; so shiny and new they sparkle in my eyes. I reach out for the karambit, caressing it. This feels like my birthday where I get the present that I actually want. I take it out and Ren backs away, so does Jaya.
I laugh and walk away from them in the wide-open area of my living room near to the spiral staircase, decorated in gold that leads up the bedrooms and bathrooms on the second floor. I start dancing around the room, practicing my snake style kung-fu but instead of just using my hands as the weapons, I’ve got this beautiful curved blade with a dangerous thin and pointed angle that can gut a body with ease. As I move my arms about, striking out, I hear the knife slice the air and shivers of delight run through my body.
“You could slice me, any day,” Ren says and I laugh while kicking the air and striking the blade at no-one. When I stop moving and start walking over with it in my hand, I see Jaya give Ren a disgusted look and I grin.
“Hey, why’d you never teach us that?” Jaya asks.
“I’ve taught you snake-style kung fu,” I tell her.
“No, I mean, with knives. That’s pretty awesome!” Her eyes light up.
“And a lot more dangerous than a gun if you don’t know what you’re doing.” I raise my brow at her. “Blades are more my kind of thing.” I smirk and tilt my head. “Thanks, Ren.” I smile at him.
“Anytime,” he says.
Ren’s my arms supplier. He’s from Japan and so it’s easier for him to import things from there for me and I have a special place in my heart for how the Japanese make their weapons. I just love the feel of it.
He clears his throat. “So, are you gonna walk me to the door?” he asks.
I smile, blushing as I look at Jaya who’s gone over to the couch to sit down and check her phone. I nod at him and follow him to the door. At the door, he leans across to whisper to me, “So when are you going to take me up on my offer and let me take you out?” he asks, raking his eyes over me. He’s sexy, so good-looking and I can smell his cologne rubbing itself up against my nose. He’s definitely a temptation in his black leather jacket which matches his dark hair, brows and eyes. Ooh, he’s delicious but unfortunately, I’m on a diet and I can’t let him ruin it.
I’m abstaining from love, and that includes any type of sex that can leave me swooning in the end. Something about the way he moves and talks and smells, lets me know that one night with him wouldn’t be enough and that’s the kind of distraction that can kill me at a time like this. I’m just going to have to resist the temptation. Though it is fun to flirt with him. “I don’t know, let me think about it,” I speak to his lips but back away before he can kiss me.
I open the door and push him through it and he laughs, holding his hands up. “Okay, okay! I’ll leave it alone…for now.” He smiles and I close the door leaning against it all excited and shit.
“I don’t know how you do it,” Jaya says.
“Do what?” I ask her.
“Flirt…with ‘them’,” she says, grimacing.
“Them? Who? Men?” I ask.
“Yeah, especially after everything they put us through.” She’s heated and I get it.
“Hey, right after I got out of it, I used to hate men, never saw them as anything else other than the fucking slimeballs that fucking ruined our fucking lives. I thought they were all the same, I mean, why wouldn’t I? That’s all I knew, right? Until I fell in love,” I say and oof, the memories come at me fast.
She raises one eyebrow and looks at me, unconvinced. “With who? One of those three dudes we left behind?”
I nod. “Yup, all three of them; Mikhail, Cal and Axe.” My eyes sting but I smile through it.
“Yeah, whatever, I don’t believe in love. And if they’re so great, why aren’t they here with you?” she asks.
I’m getting uncomfortable. I shift a little. “Because they’ve done enough and they deserve great lives. I wasn’t ready to give this up and uh, well, love’s a commitment to someone, it takes compromise and when it comes to this, I’m not willing to compromise and I don’t want the baggage. I’m glad I found it though, I never thought I would. Just like you, I never thought it existed. But it does and it’s amazing. And it’s a lot of work. It can be really sad when it’s over.” I clear my throat and move toward my blades, examining each one of them.
“Well, I guess you were lucky then. Couldn’t be me though. I couldn’t live with one boy, have him touch me or kiss me without curling up inside, wanting to die, then hating him for reminding me of the life I left behind and I’d end up wanting to kill him. So I couldn’t imagine living with three. If a guy just looks at me now, I’m wondering what he’s thinking. Does he think he can take me? Inside my head, as he watches me, I play out what I’d do if he tried to grab me. If a guy holds the door open for me, I don’t trust walking in ahead of him. I don’t want my back turned to him. I want to be able to see him at all times. If he offers to help me carry my bags, I think he just wants to walk me back to my car or my home so that he can try something quick without any eyes on him. I don’t want the fuckers to even breathe next to me,” she says.
Wow, I can definitely understand where she’s coming from. I mean, I experienced a lot of what she’s talking about. Except for the fact that I’d be able to separate my emotions from sex, so I’d use it to distract or to get what I wanted out of a man because I believed they were all alike. It’s interesting hearing her experience. While there’s some common ground between us all, we don’t all experience the effects of our trauma the same way.
“I get that,” I say. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I did have a bit of luck when it came to meeting them. Anyhow, I don’t want to talk about them anymore because I’ll only miss them and I don’t want to miss them because I don’t want to see them again. I don’t want anything to distract me from what we’re working toward, okay?” I ask her, making eye contact so she understands that I won’t let anything get in the way. We’re in this together.
“But this is the last thing I’ll say about love, okay? It’s real, it exists and it’ll find you when you least expect it. But right now, you’re young, you’re recovering and you’ve got a mission to focus on, so if you don’t find love right now, great, because you don’t need anything clouding your judgment,” I say before my phone rings and I reach into the pocket of my joggers to get it out.
It’s Selena. I give Jaya a look that tells her that chit chat is over, it’s focus time. I answer. “What’s up?”
“I think we got him,” Selena says.
