“Emilio—?”
His eyes are hooded and glazed with desire. “Don’t. Don’t overthink this. I want you. And I’m pretty sure you want me too.”
I exhale in a rush as Emilio’s hands find their way to the back of my head, tangling in my hair. He tugs me toward him again, his lips an open invitation I’m not strong enough to deny. I didn’t realize how badly I craved him. How much deeper my need for him has grown these past few days.
I sag against him, allowing the kiss to deepen, and the next thing I know, he’s lifting me onto the kitchen counter and wedging himself between my thighs, the height just enough to line our bodies up perfectly. He devours me as though starved, his kisses deep and hungry. His tongue slips past my defenses, the taste of sweet oranges and chili an addictive flavor I can’t seem to get enough of.
For a second, I consider pushing him away, but then he groans into my mouth, his hard length pressing against my center, and any thoughts of putting an end to this escape me.
“Emilio,” I breathe. “God, you feel so good.” Oh my god, did I just say that out loud?
“Fuck,” he moans. “I can’t get enough of you.” His fingers slip under the hem of my sweatshirt and the next thing I know he has it tugged up and over my head. I gasp as cool air hits my overheated skin and my arms instantly wrap around my middle to cover myself.
He pulls back, a furrow between his brows as I tear my gaze away from him, hunching my shoulders in a vain attempt to hide my body. This was a mistake.
“Hey.”
I turn, my eyes scanning the room for my sweater, but he’s thrown it on the floor behind him and out of reach.
“Bibiana?”
“I need my sweater,” I tell him, hoping he’ll grab it and give it back to me. He doesn’t. Instead, he takes two steps back, folds his arms across his chest and stares at me. My nursing bra isn’t sexy. It’s simple. A black full coverage bra that hooks in the back and has snaps above each cup for easy access should Luis get hungry. It’s not what I would have chosen if I knew anyone else was going to see it, but it’s not the worst bra I could be wearing either. At least this one has shape and isn’t one of those uni-boob sports bra types that I happen to have buried in my drawers.
What I’m more worried about is that I didn’t have a shirt on underneath my sweater, so not only is my bra on full display, but so is the rest of my body and it isn’t pretty. It isn’t…what he’s used to. The body he’s seen before.
My cheeks heat in the worst possible way and I blink back my complete and utter humiliation, refusing to cry over something like this. Stupid hormones. Come on, Bibi. Pull yourself together.
“What happened just now?”
“Nothing, I just want my sweater back. Can you hand it to me? Please.” I hold my hand out but he doesn’t move.
My vision blurs. Dammit. I shouldn’t care. It’s not like I want to impress him. What he thinks of my body shouldn’t matter. But it does. I don’t let people see me like this. I cover up. I wear baggier clothes. I hide the changes having a baby has made to my body. I don’t want his scrutiny. His disgust.
“Hey—” His voice softens. “Talk to me. What just happened? We were good and then it’s like a switch went off as soon as I…” His brows pull together. “You want your sweater?” he asks, as if that isn’t exactly what I’ve been asking for this entire time.
“Yes. Now, please.”
He picks it up from the ground but doesn’t hand it to me. I huff out an exasperated breath. “Emilio. Give it to me.” I’m still covering my stomach or I’d reach for it myself.
“Why?”
“Because I want it back.” I snap. I shouldn’t have to explain this to him.
His eyes roam over my body.
I clench my teeth, bracing myself for the look of revulsion I’m sure will come once he realizes what I’m hiding.
He steps closer and I all but lunge for my sweater, but he shifts to the side, keeping it just out of reach. “I want to see you.”
The first tear falls. “No. And we shouldn’t be—“
He doesn’t give me the chance to finish. His lips crash into mine and my mouth opens on a moan. His tongue flicks out, sending tendrils of desire straight to my core. His hands loosen the hold I have on myself as he guides my arms around his neck, pressing our bodies impossibly close so my stomach is flush against his.
He abandons my lips to trail kisses along my neck, sucking and nipping at my skin gently. Shockwaves ripple through me when his hand cups my center, his palm pressing firmly against my clit through the fabric of my jeans.
“You’re so goddamn beautiful,” he tells me. I wish I could believe him but—
His tongue drags back up my jaw and to my mouth before he pulls back just enough to look me in the eye. “You are beautiful. This body is perfection. Do you understand me?”
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “But—”
He shakes his head. “No buts. You’re perfect. Don’t ever hide from me.” He kisses me again. “I want to see all of you. Every inch so I can worship your body the way I’ve been dreaming about.”
His words undo me and I force myself to relax. If he’s repulsed by my body, I’ll find out soon enough.
My stomach is soft. My stretch marks visible. That won’t ever go away. And if it’s going to be a deal breaker, I may as well find out now before putting my heart on the line.
His palm slides down my side, over my hip and to the button on my jeans. He pops them open as I pull at the material of his shirt, tugging it off and exposing his broad chest and muscular abs. My eyes catch on the tattoo that spreads across his chest. A gothic woman’s portrait, her hair flying all around her as ravens tug on the strands.
I trace the intricate ink. It wasn’t there when we first met. It’s amazing. “Is this new?” I ask and there’s a note of wonder in my voice. It looks so lifelike, the woman almost familiar.
“Got it on my eighteenth birthday earlier this year,” he tells me.
“She’s—”
“You.”
I jerk my hand away from the tattoo. “What?”
He smirks. “I knew what I wanted, and I needed a description for the girl, so when I got the ink, I described you.”
My eyes widen. “Why would you do that?”
A shrug. “Because you were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen—you still are,” he adds with a savage smile. “Being with you that night was a memory I didn’t want to forget. Even if you ghosted me after the fact.”
My chest squeezes. “Emilio, I—“
He places a finger against my lips to stop me. “We have history. We have a kid. I want to see where this goes. Where we can go. Don’t you?”
God, yes. But … so many things could go wrong. What if this blows up in our faces?
He mistakes my hesitation as acceptance and kisses me, and I’m too far gone to stop him. His fingers hook into the waistband of my pants, and I decide to hell with it. I’m going to be the girl I was when we first met. Reckless and free. I’ll spread my wings and soar with Emilio right beside me.
Our breathing is heavy as he drags my jeans and underwear down over my hips and I lift myself up a few inches for him to get them past my butt and down my legs. I hiss when my bare ass hits the counter and he chuckles. “Cold, baby?”
I bite his bottom lip.
He grunts. “Why don’t you let me warm you up.” His fingertips leave a fiery trail of heat across my skin as he inches closer to my center. I squirm on the counter, one of my legs hooked over his hip. I tug at his jeans, wanting him just as naked and exposed as I am. I haven’t been with anyone else. There isn’t a lot of time to explore your sexuality when you’re pregnant, and there is even less when you have a newborn. I’m desperate to feel his skin against my own.
Unbuckling his belt, I push his jeans and boxers to the floor and his impressive cock springs forward. I swallow hard. I remember him being big, but…did it grow?
“Everything oka
y?” he asks just as he sinks one finger inside my wet heat.
My back arches toward him and I whimper, needing more.
“Fuck, you’re tight.” He thrusts in and out of me before inserting another finger and I cry out, tightening my legs around him. He cups my nape and devours my mouth as skilled fingers bring me close to the edge of orgasm. My fingers bite into his biceps, the muscles flexing beneath my touch.
“I have dreamed about fucking you ever since you left. Replayed your moans in my mind every night since you came back.”
“I didn’t leave, I—”
“You left,” he growls. “I’m not letting you go again.” He adds a third finger and uses his thumb to stroke my clit and I explode, my body tightening around him as shock waves wrack my system.
I’m shaking as he withdraws his fingers, and the satisfied smile on his face is absolutely savage. He grabs a condom from his jeans pocket and rolls it on his hard length before lining himself up with my center and meeting my gaze. His eyes are hard but his voice is tender when he asks, “You ready for me, baby?”
My chest rises and falls as I struggle to catch my breath. “Mmm hmm.” I’m beyond words at this point.
He circles his cock around my opening, teasing every sensitive nerve ending I have before plunging himself inside me in a single hard thrust. I gasp his name as he pulls out only to dive back in, harder than before.
I buck my hips up and he increases his pace. Triumph is stamped across his face as he buries himself inside me, his thrusts coming faster and more urgent. My body responds, arching toward him and leaving me breathless. It feels so good. I can’t help but watch him as he towers over me. His muscles bunch. His jaw gets tighter. Sharper. He’s beautiful like this—consumed with need.
He drags the cup of the bra I’m wearing down, exposing one breast as he fucks me, and before I can tell him to stop, he’s squeezed my breast in his palm before pinching my nipple and drawing a moan from my throat. Sensations surge through me and moisture coats my breast but he doesn’t seem to care. He spreads my milk across my chest before exposing my other breast and giving it a similar treatment. Kneading and squeezing the tender flesh.
“Fuck,” he swears before leaning forward and raking his teeth against my sensitive nipple. A second organism slams into me and I can tell his is close behind. He slams into me, his entire body trembling. His control starts to slip. His movements grow erratic as he thrusts deep into me three more times before his dick is pulsing inside of me. He hisses out a sharp, “Fuck,” when he finds his own release and slumps against me, his sweat-slick skin hot against my own.
I wrap my arms around his shoulders, clinging to him as the gravity of what we did settles over me. Milk leaks from my breasts onto his chest and I pull away, looking for something to clean myself up with before he stops me.
“There you go hiding from me again,” he whispers. One finger trails down my stomach and I realize he’s tracing a particularly dark and thick stretch mark.
I push his hand away. “I’m leaking,” I confess, completely mortified.
His mouth smiles against my own as his hand cups my breast and his thumb flicks over my still sensitive and leaking nipple. “Is that supposed to bother me?”
I bite my bottom lip. I mean…shouldn’t it?
“Because it doesn’t. Like I said, everything about you is perfect.”
Luis’s cry shatters the moment and as though we’re both on fire, we lunge away from one another and for our clothes then rush up the stairs. I manage to grab Emilio’s shirt and throw it over my head just as I reach the door and throw it wide.
Luis stands in his crib, eyes red and angry, but he hiccups to a stop when he sees me.
“Hey, benzinho,” I coo. My baby. “Come here.” Emilio is right behind me. He’s managed to slip on his jeans and stands barefoot, his naked chest pressed against my back.
“Hey, little man.”
Luis turns toward Emilio and a smile spreads across his face. He gurgles and babbles and whatever he was upset about is history now that he sees his dad. “You wanna come see me?” Emilio asks, putting his hands out, and Luis reaches for him.
“Why don’t you get cleaned up and little man and I will wait for you in the living room?” He presses a kiss to my temple and bounces Luis in his arms. “Don’t worry, momma. I’ve got this.”
eighteen
The weekend passes and I somehow manage not to throw myself at Emilio every time he comes over, despite the heavy tension between us. My mind is a jumbled mess. I don’t know what the two of us sleeping together means, and it’s driving me insane.
We haven’t talked about what this is. I’m not even sure what I want it to mean.
We’ve kissed. Touched. But we haven’t had sex again. My body wants him. Craves him. But my mind tells me I need to slow down. There is too much on the line to rush into whatever this is turning into. I want to believe we can be one big happy family. What girl doesn’t want her Cinderella story? But it all seems too good to be true.
Emilio doesn’t do commitment. I’ve heard enough stories. Rumors. The thought that he’ll tire of playing family is a feeling I can’t shake.
On top of that, I’ve given up on my mom being available for Luis. I need to take matters into my own hands. This, at least, is something I feel confident in working out.
I walk into my first period class with Luis on my hip. The bell will ring in just a few minutes, so I’ll need to make this quick. The rape charges against Miguel were dropped, and he’s since been charged with securities fraud and money laundering in addition to extortion. I have no idea what all they found, but the combined charges can lead up to a combined twenty years behind bars and over five hundred thousand dollars in penalties and fines.
He’s in jail now, but his bail hearing is set for Wednesday afternoon, and Mom is frantically trying to figure out a way to pull the money together for his release. We don’t have it. Miguel doesn’t have it stashed away somewhere that I know of either. Which is a relief.
It’s insane how ignorant she’s behaving. But the fact that the rape charges were dropped just confirms in her mind that he didn’t do it. He has her convinced the rest is false. Misunderstandings or mistakes made by his associates. She is completely blind to the fact that he’s a criminal and a rapist.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love for Miguel to be innocent. My mom loves him. Truly and completely loves him, but she didn’t see the look on his face when confronted with Allie in the kitchen. She didn’t hear his admission of guilt. And that’s what that was. An admission. He knows what he did, and the fact that he won’t be charged for his crime is wrong.
I’ve never had a great relationship with Miguel, but I never had issues with him either. He was just always … there. It creeps me way the heck out to know that all this time, I’ve been living with a rapist. Would he have done to me what he did to Allie if given enough time and opportunity? What if he tried to hurt Luis? He’s just a baby, unable to tell me if anyone tries to hurt him.
I shiver just thinking about. It keeps me up at night. Knowing he was there. I’m glad I never left Luis alone with him. Never trusted him enough to watch my boy.
Heading toward Mr. Albert’s desk, I consider what I’m going to say just as his head lifts from a stack of assignments he’s been grading, judging by the red pen in his hand.
“Ms. Sousa.” He gives Luis a curious once-over. “Can I help you with something?”
I shift Luis’s weight to my other side and nod. “Yeah. Sorry. I won’t be in class today. Actually, I probably won’t make it all week. Again.” I exhale a sigh. “I was hoping you’d let me make up this week’s assignments somehow, and any quizzes we might have coming up since I missed Friday’s exam?”
His lips purse and he looks a little closer at the baby boy in my arms. “He yours?”
I nod and offer him a small smile. “Yeah, he’s mine.”
He nods to himself. “Okay. When you first enrolled we were infor
med you had a child. I didn’t realize he was so young. We’ll make it work.”
“Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. You have no idea. I promise to stay on top of things. I can even drop my assignments off daily after school gets out. Whatever you—”
“Ms. Sousa, I believe you misunderstand me.”
My stomach drops. What? I thought…
“I didn’t mean I would send you home with independent study assignments. I meant you could continue coming to class and bring your son with you.”
“To class?” No way am I hearing him right. What high school teacher is okay with a nine-month-old in their classroom?
“Yes. And before you leave I’ll have you write down the names of your other teachers and get things sorted out with them. If they don’t want you in the classroom you can use the teacher’s lounge to do your assignments away from other students, or perhaps the library if you’d be more comfortable there.”
Emotion clogs my throat and my vision blurs. “Why?” The single word passes my lips in a whisper, and I suck in a shaking breath as I struggle to maintain my composure. “Why are you jumping to help me like this?” Because that’s exactly what he’s doing. He doesn’t have to go out of his way for me. Emailing me assignments and letting me retake tests is already going above and beyond but this … letting me complete my senior year as a student. This is so much more.
Mr. Albert stands from his chair and moves around his desk. He reaches a tentative hand out and Luis latches onto his finger waving his arm and jabbering away with a drooly grin on his face.
“Ms. Sousa, you are one of the brightest students I have ever had the pleasure of teaching. You are diligent. Studious. You think outside of the box and your creativity in thought knows no bounds. You can make something of yourself should you decide to. Having a child does not mean you have to sacrifice your opportunities. If anything, it means you must get a little … creative in how you achieve your goals.”
Savage Devil: A Secret Baby, High School Bully Romance (Devils of Sun Valley High Book 2) Page 13
