Chapter 51

It turned out that their incident at lunch earned them detention for the next two Saturdays—for disrupting lunch and for leaving their designated classrooms (and cafeteria) without permission. Even Mom wasn’t too pleased with her that time, and she ended up without television for a week.

Aleda didn’t mind that nearly as much as the prospect of spending an entire hour, two Saturdays in a row, locked up in a classroom with Nate… when she should be in a basement with Ryan, where the locking would be optional.

At least it would give her a chance to do some of the homework she had missed, and hadn’t really planned to do.

Detention was supposed to be from noon to one o’clock on Saturday. Technically it wouldn’t be cutting all that much into the time Ryan and his sister usually spent training her on Saturday mornings, but considering the past couple of weeks, Aleda had been hoping to have a chance to grab lunch or something with him afterwards. She went into her drawer that evening, intending to pull out her usual comfy pajamas and go to bed.

She reconsidered.

Sometimes he showed up earlier than usual on Saturday mornings. Sometimes he showed up so early she was still in her pajamas. And sometimes he was too impatient to let her go back upstairs and change. She shoved the old pajamas back into the drawer and pulled out something she thought would work a bit better, then smiled a little to herself. She shut off her alarm clock and went to bed.

 

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When Ryan and Talia got to their house the next morning, he was surprised to see Alejandro’s car missing. It was only eight o’clock in the morning, and while Aria was the type to be up and about at the crack of dawn, the term “morning person” just didn’t stick to her husband. He looked at his sister, who shrugged. A little bit curious, he knocked on the door and waited. He had to wait a couple of minutes, actually, and knocked again before he finally heard and felt somebody stumbling around upstairs and coming to the door. He knew it was Aleda before she even opened the door.

He didn’t know what she would be wearing.

The warm smile he had ready for her twitched at the sight of a very tousled-looking Aleda wearing nothing but a low-cut tank top and boxers. She yawned and smiled up at him.

“Hey, g’morning!” she said sleepily. “Sorry about that, I must have slept in.”

“Not… not a problem,” Ryan coughed out.

Talia decided to be helpful and pounded him on the back. “Just you, kid?” she asked. “I saw your dad’s car was gone.”

Aleda nodded and rubbed the back of her head thoughtfully. “Yeah… I think Mom said they were going to go out for brunch or something today.” She grinned slyly. “I think she just wanted to get Papá away from you,” she told Ryan confidentially.

He stared at her. Got to keep those eyes on her face. On her face, jackass.

“You, uh, going to come in?” she prompted.

He addressed his sister, his eyes not budging. “Talia, you…”

“I’ve got to get over to Newark!” Talia finished for him. “Man, what am I doing here? Totally forgot all those errands. Yeah, errands. So I will see you later!” She backed off, grinning. “Forget my own head next. There’s just no help for me.”

Ryan didn’t even see her leave. He followed Aleda into her house, barely remembering to close the door behind him. She slipped into the kitchen, bare feet slapping against the tile. Her hair was such a riotous mass of curls that he couldn’t even see her tank top with her back turned.

“You want anything?” she asked over her shoulder. “I haven’t actually had breakfast yet.”

He stopped himself at the divide between the living room and the kitchen, leaning one hand against the doorframe, and watched her move around the kitchen. She had to reach up to pull a box of cereal out of the pantry. There were no bowls left in the cupboard; she bent over and grabbed one out of the dishwasher. Ryan’s fingers dug into the wall. When she leaned over the sink to wash it off he couldn’t stand still any longer. He pushed off from the doorframe and moved behind her, putting his hands on the counter on either side of her. The smell of her hair flooded his senses and he closed his eyes, reveling in the fact that he didn’t have to hide this anymore.

“No oatmeal today?” he murmured into her ear.

She shivered and shook her head. “Too hot.”

“I can see how that would be a problem,” he said agreeably. “So, cereal?”

She finished washing her bowl and slipped away from him, ducking under his arm. He bit back a groan and turned to watch her pour cereal into her newly-clean bowl at the opposite counter. “Well, I like it,” she said. “Hey, could you hand me the milk?” She nodded towards the fridge to his left. He chose one of the several gallons of milk at random and pulled it out for her.

He set it down gently next to her elbow. “Anything else I can do for you?” he asked.

She looked up at him through her eyelashes. “Get me a glass?”

Merciful heaven. “Sure. Which cupboard?”

“That one,” she said, and nodded at the one directly in front of her, just above the counter.

He smirked and once again closed the distance between them. He reached around her and opened the cupboard door cautiously, making sure that it didn’t bump her head. Sure enough, there were rows of glasses inside, of all different sizes. He took one and set it down in front of her.

“Thanks!” she said brightly. She poured some milk into the glass and then picked up her assembled meal and walked out of the kitchen to set it on the table. Ryan shook his head and followed, pulling out a chair across from her.

She looked up at him from her bowl of cereal and raised an eyebrow.

“Didn’t you want anything?” she asked.  “Plenty of milk in there. Fruit.”

“Maybe later.”

She took her sweet time eating, too. More than once she leaned over her bowl to fish out a particularly stubborn cornflake. He had to grit his teeth to keep his eyes from slipping. Fecking hell, that little tank top of hers wasn’t covering much of anything, was it? When she was done she went back into the kitchen and dropped her dishes in the sink, then came back around the corner and went directly down the basement steps without a backwards glance. He shook his head and followed her, grabbing the gallon of milk off the counter as he went.

“Don’t you want to be changin’ first?” he asked her. If nothing else, she must be chilly in this concrete basement.

“Nah, I’m good,” she said. “You’re the one that said it was better to train in loose clothing.”

“I wouldn’t call that loose,” he muttered under his breath, then said a little louder: “I don’t want you getting cold.”

“I’m just going to get all sweaty anyway,” she retorted.

Ryan stared at her.

“And what about you, Mr. Leather Jacket?”

“What? Oh.” He stripped down to his T-shirt, laying his jacket and long-sleeved button-down shirt on the steps. He glanced back at Aleda to see her looking at him expectantly. Right. The claws. He pulled the dull pair out of his jacket and walked over to her. He handed one set to her and concentrated his attention on strapping the other set onto her hand.

“Could you do this one too?” she asked, holding out her first hand. He finished fastening the straps and buckles as gently as possible, letting his hands linger a few extra moments.

“Does that feel alright?” he asked softly.

“Feels great,” she said. She waved her hands a little. “So… what’s the plan for today?”

“Oh, you know.” He cleared his throat. “Same as usual.”

“Pretend we’re trying to kill each other?”

“That’s the one.”

Aleda grinned and circled away from him, slipping into her role seamlessly. Ryan followed suit, willing himself not to see the sparse fabric and the light shining through her skin, all the more visible now with so little cloth in the way. He watched her feet, looking for shifts in weight to tell him where she would go next; watched her leather-wrapped hands, and the set of her shoulders.

He broke first, charging her from the side and switching directions at the last second. She saw him coming, though, and quicker than he had expected she dropped and rolled forward, springing to her feet behind his back. She managed to catch him in the side before he whirled around, striking just hard enough to tell him she would have hit his liver. Not lethal, but a good strike none the less. He twisted around sharply and swung out an arm intended to catch her by the waist.

Again she was quicker than he expected. She launched herself into an unexpected backflip and made it all the way to the wall. Without wasting a second he closed the distance and pinned her against the concrete. Their few minutes of exertion had given her a light sheen of sweat, and it glistened with every breath she took. He slid his hands from her wrists, where he held them to the wall, down to her elbows.

“Hey, Ryan?” she asked.

“Mhm?”

“Papá said something on Thursday…do you know what being ‘bound’ is?”

Ryan’s right hand, which had been on its way from her elbow to her hair, froze in midair.

“What is it?” she whispered.

Contrary to all expectations, Ryan managed to blush. “It… It means we’re connected,” he tried to explain. “You’re… well, you’re a part of me lass, and there’s naught in the world that can break that.”

Aleda frowned in confusion. “But… what does that mean? Really?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like.” He bit through the pad of his thumb and held it against her temple. The familiar electricity rushed through her, even stronger this time. She gasped and stared up into his eyes… and straight through them. Just that little boost was all she needed. She could see straight to his soul and there were no metaphors involved.

“Ryan…” she whispered.

“I can feel you a mile away,” he murmured, not breaking contact. “I can see you through walls and a dozen other people. I could find you in a hurricane. You’re a part of me. And I’m a part of you.”

Aleda stared up at him. This close to him, she could feel the heat behind his eyes as he looked at her. He pulled her close and kissed her deeply, and she melted into his embrace. Something inside her was stirring in the wake of the fire now coursing through her veins. And they still had three hours until her detention.

 

 

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“Hey, cachondo, watch those eyes!”

Ryan blinked guiltily and returned his gaze to Aleda’s face… or would have, had she not used the distraction to duck behind him and wrap an arm around his chest, digging in with her wooden claws. He stretched his neck around to look at her over his shoulder.

“Not bad,” he said with a grin. “And what did you call me?”

“You heard me, cachondo.”

He brought his hand up to cover hers. His eyes glinted with mischief. “You’re the one who answered the door in your underwear.”

Aleda gasped in mock outrage. “I beg your pardon, these are pajamas! I don’t know where your mind is!”

“Oh, I think you do,” Ryan chuckled, sending warm vibrations down her arm. “After all, you’re the one that put it there.”

Her eyes raked down his back, where she could see the golden heat coursing through his veins. “El viejo verde está muy seguro de sí mismo,” she commented dryly.

His hand tightened around hers, where it rested on his chest, and pulled her around to face him. He caught her deftly and steadied her with a hand on each hip. “Well, yes,” he admitted with a cocky grin. “I am pretty sure of myself… Although I have to say, I’m not sure how much I like you calling me a dirty old man.”

“Mm, I don’t know,” Aleda said. She let her arms trace their way up to his neck. “You are almost sixty. Sounds kind of dirty to me.”

Ryan’s fingers tightened on her hips and drew her closer. “Si tú quisieras que fuera ‘verde’,” he murmured, “Solo necesitaras preguntarme.”

Aleda giggled and pushed herself up a little on the balls of her feet, then froze. From the driveway came the unmistakable sound of a car door slamming shut. “Papá!” she whispered urgently. Her eyes went wide. Ryan just looked up in annoyance, his eyes following the path of the two hunters walking up to the front door. He glanced back down at the girl in his arms and noticed her so-called ‘pajamas’, now half-translucent with sweat.

“Come here,” he said, and pulled her to the stairs, where he had left his shirt and jacket. She tensed and resisted him for a moment before she realized that he wasn’t taking her upstairs. He grabbed the button-down shirt off the steps and wrapped it around her. It did a good job of covering up her top half, but it was a shame that he didn’t have anything that could possibly do something about her bare legs.

The shirt would have to do.

“Hey, what time is it?” she asked. “I didn’t have a chance to grab my watch this morning.”

“Um… Twelve-forty, almost.”

“Oh, geez! I have to be at school in twenty minutes!”

She skipped up a couple of steps and tried to calculate her chances of making it up to her room without her parents seeing her. Ryan walked up behind her and put a hand on her back. “I’ll keep your papá busy, you go get yourself changed,” he told her.

“O-okay...”

“Wait here thirty seconds and then go. I’ll get him into the kitchen and you can go around.”

He slid around her on the stairs and ducked through the door that opened into the living room, careful not to let anybody that happened to be in that room see the girl that was standing a few steps down. Aleda heard their voices, and the sound of footsteps moving around the first floor. Not long after, she heard the footsteps move past the door and into the kitchen, and she cautiously opened the door and peeked through. Ryan had Papá cornered in the kitchen, and facing away from the living room. She snuck through the room as quietly as possibly and slipped up the stairs to her room.

Home free!

She went straight for her drawers and found a pair of jeans to pull on, though she still had on Ryan’s shirt. For a minute she considered… but, no. Probably not a good idea to go out in public wearing an oversized guy’s shirt.

If nothing else, she wasn’t wearing a bra.

Three minutes later she was downstairs in jeans and one of her own shirts, and Ryan and Papá were talking almost amiably in the kitchen. She dropped Ryan’s shirt as casually as possible onto a chair before walking into the kitchen herself.

“Hi, Papá. Did you have a good brunch?” she asked cautiously.

“It was very good,” he said. “And your… training?”

“Good. Good. I, um… I beat Ryan a couple of times.” Aleda fidgeted, and wondered why it hadn’t been so awkward when she’d been dating Nate. Papá hadn’t seemed to freak out quite so much about him. It bloody well figured. She cleared her throat. “I actually have to be at school in about twenty minutes. So I should go.”

“Do you have something for your lunch?” Papá asked.

Aleda shrugged. “I was just going to wait until I got home.”

“Okay. Well… I will see you when you get back,” he said. He turned and left the room, heading for the master bedroom where Mom was still busy changing into something more comfortable for a Saturday afternoon.

“Why do you have to go to school on a Saturday?” Ryan asked when Papá had left the room. He noticed his shirt on the chair and picked it up.

“I’ve got detention, actually,” she said, a little bit embarrassed.

He managed to look somewhat amused, and raised his eyebrows. “Oh yeah? You’ve been getting into trouble, then?”

“It was silly,” she said, blushing. “Just a stupid… thing.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“I…Well, okay, I had a massive fight with Nate in the middle of the cafeteria yesterday. Happy?”

Ryan grinned. “Very,” he said. “I definitely approve.”

She stuck her tongue out at him and started to walk past him. “You would.”

He caught her as she walked past. “How far is it?”

“Not that far—I usually walk.”

“I’ll walk you there. Come on.”

She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment in mock hesitation. “Well… okay. But no kidnapping me today, you hear? I’m in enough trouble already.”

Ryan chuckled, shaking his head at her playful severity, and followed her out the door.

He checked the time again when they got there.

“You’ve still got a little while before one o’clock,” he told her. “Where do you have to go?”

“Cafeteria. Are you going back to your apartment?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Talia should be back to check on me pretty soon. Although I have a few errands to take care of.”

“Still trying to get Mike kicked out of Philadelphia?”

“Groceries, actually.”

“Alright… Well, I guess I’ll see you next week?”

“You know, I’ve never been in this place.”

Aleda looked at him and frowned. “What?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “You’re in this building every day and I’ve never even seen the inside of it. We should fix that.”

“I’ve got to go to detention!” Aleda protested as he took her hand and walked up to the long row of doors at the front entrance.

“You’ll get there.”

There was just no use trying, sometimes.

“So which one is your locker?”

She led him down the right hallway and pointed to one. “There,” she said. “Number 142.”

He walked up to it and inspected it carefully, as if there were something particularly unique about hers that made it any different than the hundreds of identical lockers all over the school.

“Come here for a second,” he said. She walked over and stood where he pointed, right in front of her locker. He leaned an arm against the locker and before she could say a word he was kissing her, using his other arm to hold her tight against the hard metal of the lockers.

He pulled back and smirked. “One down, twenty-six to go.”

“One down… One what? Ryan?” But he had already started walking down the hallway, looking with interest into all the classrooms. She sighed and jogged to catch up.

“Well, the cafeteria’s right down here,” she said. “I really should get in there.”

“Okay. But I’m picking you up at six tomorrow night.”

Aleda grinned. “Oh, well, if you insist.” She glanced through the large glass windows separating the cafeteria from the hallway and made a face. Nate was there.

Ryan noticed, too. He gave her one last, visible kiss for good measure and said goodbye.

Aleda walked into the room with a sigh. The teacher running the detention made her sign in and then sit down. Fortunately, there were plenty of places to sit in the cafeteria, and only a few other students there that day. Nate seemed inclined to ignore her completely. She nodded slightly to herself and set her head down on the table.

Nap time.