Page 194 of Lau Ahi
He brushed a hair from my face. “It drives you. The desire to conquer the bad in the world. I know that feeling.”
“Are you sharing your emotions, Mr. Nakoa?”
He smirked before he went back to looking out on the water. “If I can’t share them with you I’d be shit out of luck don’t you think?”
“Lucky for you I’m a good listener.” I bumped his shoulder playfully forcing a smile on his face.
“Not to touch on anything too hard but I get why you focus so much on this. Maybe there’s a way for you to still teach or do more publishing.”
“You sound like this separate lives thing no longer works for you.”
“I’m not quite sure it ever did, Semira.”
“I don’t know why I love it so much that you call me that.” There was no way to stop the warm and fuzzy feeling I felt whenever he called me by my name.
“Because it makes you feel seen. Asha might be the name you go by but it’s not the one that encompasses who you are. Asha has had a lot of bad stuff happen to her. A lot she’s had to push down. Don’t get me wrong; I’m proud of her. But Semira is you unencumbered with the burdens that life has tried to heap on your shoulders. The you that exists outside of being William Avery’s daughter or Sasha Avery’s sister. The one who hasn’t had to focus on crime to feel control over her past.”
I was gobsmacked at how easily he’d parsed out the way I’d felt my entire life. Broke it down and labeled me with ease. “Damn. You’re truly trying to break me down aren’t you?”
He shook his head as he kept his eyes on the water. “No. I understand that trust is a big thing with you. So when I say I want you to trust me I have to show you that I understand you so that you can trust me.”
“And what do I need to do for you?”
“You do it every day without me having to tell you or you having to think about it.”
“And that’s what?”
“You’re still here.”
“It can’t be that simple.”
“It’s exactly that simple and that complex at once.”
Our eyes locked and I felt my defenses turn to dust where he’d already had them piled at my feet. He didn’t say anything just reached over and interlocked our fingers. I clung to them, feeling myself become more vulnerable as we swayed together on the deck of the boat.
“Are you going to tell me?” The request was gentle but I felt my heart jolt from its languid cadence to one in full flight mode.
I swallowed, then exhaled slowly in an attempt to control the pace. “Tell you what?”
“Who hurt you?”
The lie was right there. I could easily tell him I didn’t want to talk about it. That he’d been wrong in his assumption that I had experienced something beyond what I’d already shared. I could gaslight him the way men so often did women but I couldn’t. This wasn’t just some man. He was mine. And I felt the need to open up to him the way I’d done so few before.
“Why do you want to talk about this, Ori? We were having such a beautiful day.” My eyes were down and the warmth of the sun washing over the deck couldn’t penetrate the cold that had set into my bones.
Ori’s hands reached over into my lap to wrap protectively around mine. “You’ve told me everything else but noteverything. This is real, Semira. For both of us. No masks. They both fell away the first night we met. You can lie to yourself the same way I tried to but neither of us has been the same since then.”
My eyes gravitated to him. Pulled magnetically and I knew I would find his already on me. And they were. “That was months ago.”
“And yet the damage was already done.
I squeezed his hand playfully and he smiled in response. “So being with me is damaging?
He didn’t refute my words only smiled and pulled my fingers to his lips before kissing them softly. “To my ego, to my sense of pride to the person I thought I was going to be until the day I died. Yes. Being with you destroys all of that.” I scooted so that I could get closer to him his words making me want to be enveloped in him physically.
“That doesn’t seem like a good thing. All that damage.”
“Do you hear me complaining? Do you see me running away to free myself from you?” To prove his point, he pulled me half on his lap so we were skin to skin. His hand went to my hip, which was exposed in the cut of the bikini bottom he’d chosen. I knew why he’d done it. This cut allowed the skin of my thighs to be on display and showed off my scars. He refused to let me hide and I still toyed around with telling him what he wanted me to.
