Free Lana by R.K. Lilley Page A

made him laugh.   I touched the dimple in his cheek as he did so.   I couldn’t seem to help it, my hand had a mind of its own.   And his eyes got so soft when I did that.   He shocked me by pulling me snugly into his arms, placing a sweet kiss on top of my head.   When he didn’t immediately release me, I just went with his affectionate mood, throwing both of my arms around his neck, and burrowing my face into my favorite spot on his chest.   I knew the bar crowd was staring at us.   Akira was not exactly known for being a demonstrative, affectionate man.   Just the opposite, in fact.   But he had always been different for me.   Everyone had probably just forgotten that.   I had been gone a long time.  
      He was in a kind mood, and so let me stay like that for a long time, my cheek on his chest, his hand stroking over my hair.   I felt him playing with the streaky waves.   He even brought a lock to his lips at one point.   I wanted to stay like that forever, crowded bar or not.   I felt cherished like that.  
      We didn’t speak for a long time.   I didn’t even consider it.   I didn’t want to risk breaking the spell.   He took long drinks of his beer, but never relinquished his hold on me, and didn’t push me away.   I wasn’t planning to move an inch if he didn’t make me.
      “Do you want me to get you more tea?” Akira murmured, his mouth close to my ear as he spoke.  
      I made a non-committal noise into his shirt.   “Maybe later.”  
      His hands stroked my back.   “I need to go tell Mari that you’re here, anyway.   She’ll never forgive me if you come here to hang out and she doesn’t even know about it.   I’ll be right back, k?”   He set me away from him as he spoke, and I sat back down in my chair, already missing that warm embrace.   He kissed my head before he left.  
      Milena must have had someone on the watch-out for him to leave, because just seconds after he’d left the bar, she was taking his seat beside me.   She glared at me malevolently.   I recognized that she was beautiful.   But I had never understood why Akira was with her, other than that.   He could have had anyone.   And she was rude and mean, and overly aggressive.   I had never understood their relationship, but I’d always hated it.
      “You think you’re special to him, but you’re not.   You’re nothing but his little puppy,” she said in a vicious voice.  
      I just sighed at her weak attack.   Really, she could have done better.   It wasn’t hard to hurt my feelings where Akira was concerned, but she had somehow managed to miss a very large target.  
      “Did you have a point?   He says you’re not his girlfriend anymore,” I said, wanting to hear her take on that.
      She flushed.   “Not now, I’m not.   But he was mine for years, haole.   How long did you get him for?   A night or two?   Just think of how good those nights were, and then think of a thousand nights like that.   That’s what I got from him.   You got nothing.   You are nothing.   And yet you have the nerve to disrespect me.”  
      I raised my brows at her.   “How so?   I think I do a pretty good job of staying out of your way, which is what you clearly prefer.”  
      I saw her getting visibly more agitated at my words.   That hadn’t been my intention.   I wasn’t trying to make her mad.   I just wanted her to go away.  
      She pointed a red tipped finger at me.   “You fucked him when he was my man, back when you were eighteen.   I heard you talking about it, so you can’t even deny it.”  
      I froze at that accusation, because it actually hurt.   “You were broken up at the time,” I told her, lifting my chin.  
      That sharp nail poked me in the chest, hard.   It stung.   Her voice was a near-shout when she responded, “That breakup was his idea, and I didn’t agree to it!   And, since we got back together a few months later, that breakup