Rooted (The Pagano Family Book 3)

by Fanetti, Susan

  And then her writhing rhythm became so intense that he could no longer match it. He went still, his tongue flat and firm on her clit, his fingers stiff inside her, and let her go and go until she came, noisily and with vigor.

  When she finally dropped back to the mattress, limp and perspiring, Theo slid up, over, and into her. Her moan at his entry was sinfully sated.

  He thought of the baby between them, and came up on locked arms to loom over her. “Is this…comfortable for you?” The effort it took to speak surprised him.

  As an answer, she smiled and brought her legs up to wrap around his waist.

  He groaned and went still, suddenly needing a minute. She felt so unbelievably good, so incredibly right, and not even twenty-four hours before, he’d been sure they would never be like this again.

  “Tell me again.”

  Still smiling, she didn’t ask what he meant. “I love you.”

  “Thank you.” He lowered down to rest on his elbows, held her head in both his hands, covered her mouth with his, and began to move.

  The satiny touch of her enclosing him, without the barrier of latex, was insanely intense—but also not entirely unfamiliar, and Theo wondered just how often they’d missed the condom step during the summer. They’d both been behaving like hormonal teenagers. He didn’t let that thought take root, though; it no longer mattered. What was past had passed. Later, they could consider the future. Right now, only now mattered. And right now, he was buried to his balls in the woman he loved, and she was knotted tightly around him.

  When he felt deep heat concentrating like a fist low in his belly, and when Carmen shifted her hips, causing him to go even deeper with every thrust, he knew they were both close. He wanted to see her eyes when she came, when they hopefully came together, so he tore his mouth from hers, opened his eyes, and lifted a little away. Her eyes were closed.

  “Look at me, beautiful.”

  She opened her eyes.

  He thrust deep and held, making them both groan. “I love you. Completely. I am entangled in you.” He thrust again, as before.

  Carmen blinked, and her eyes filled and blurred with tears. Biting her lip again, as if to stave off the emotion that wanted to top over, she nodded.

  He hadn’t seen Carmen cry before, or even come so close. Nearly overwhelmed with emotion himself, he leaned down and kissed the skin at the corner of each eye. Then, looking down at her again, he finally moved in her with the intent to finish them both.

  With each thrust, he sped up a bit more, not going rough, not ever rough, not this time, but deep, seeking the connection between them. Her eyes fluttered closed as she began to contract around his cock.

  “See me, Carmen,” he groaned, and she opened her eyes again.

  He saw her climax before he felt it, the violent ecstasy filling her eyes, tightening her brow, and then her body clamped around his and she cried out, “There! God! Yesyesyes! Theo, God!”

  What came from her lips thereafter had no language but was vividly clear nonetheless. Theo thrust again, and again, until the hot fist in his gut finally opened, and he buried his face in Carmen’s hair and came with a long, agonized groan.

  “God, Carmen,” he gasped, when he remembered language. “Jesus Christ.”

  She kissed his cheek and laughed, her breath soft and cool on his hot, damp skin. “That was fucking poetic.”

  He eased out of her, loving the way she followed him up, trying to keep him, and her whimper as his body left hers. Then he lay at her side and shifted them both until he was on his back with his arms around her, and she was pillowed on his chest. He reached down and grabbed the nearest pillow—a red one—and tucked it under his head. Passion spent, fatigue crept in.

  Theo had never been able to sleep well on an airplane, and he certainly hadn’t been able to do so this latest trip. He was approaching two days since he’d last slept. The weariness of the long, stressful hours since—hours spent sober, in his longest stretch since the summer—began to make his bones ache.

  But Carmen was with him, her head on his shoulder, her fingers playing in the hair on his chest, and he wanted to be present for every new minute. It was Thanksgiving, and instead of the bleak absence of the holiday he’d anticipated, his day abounded with blessings.

  “I’m afraid of something else, Theo.” Carmen’s voice was uncharacteristically fragile.

  He crooked his finger under her chin and lifted her head so he could look down into her eyes. “Talk to me.”

  She didn’t answer, but he could see it coming in the eyes she held to his, so he waited, watching.

  “I’m afraid…” She stopped, and again, he waited. She huffed and started again. Theo almost smiled at the frustration she’d turned on herself. She did so hate to be weak. “I’m afraid you can’t love me enough.”

  He let go of her chin and sat up more, so he could face her directly. “What? What do you mean?”

  “You already had your great love. I’m not sure what’s left for me.”

  “Oh, beautiful girl. Now who’s the hopeless romantic?”

  Her brows drew together, and she pushed herself up to sit. He’d made her angry. “I can’t compete with a ghost.”

  “Carmen, enough. That’s not how love works. Do you honestly not know that?”

  “Don’t patronize me, Theo.”

  Those words elicited in Theo an acute sense of déjà vu. She’d said the same thing in the cab on that shitty, shitty day in Paris. Feeling suddenly furious again for the first time since she’d opened her door, he turned and swung his legs off the daybed. Sitting up on the side, he fought with himself for a few seconds, biting back the powerful urge to tell her he’d stop patronizing her when she stopped acting like a child.

  This was what it was to love Carmen: love and war, often concurrently. He took a breath and forced himself to reply calmly. “It’s not a contest, Carmen. What I feel for you is different in its very essence from the love I had with Maggie. It’s not less. It’s different. About the only thing you have in common with her is your gender.” She didn’t fight him; she simply stared, looking neither skeptical nor persuaded. “You’re a reader. I expect you read The Great Gatsby at some point?”

  “Sure. A couple of times. Not since school, though.”

  “I teach it all the time. There’s a line in Gatsby: ‘There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice.’ I think it’s true. I know for us, for me, it is.”

  At that, finally, her expression eased into something he could read. She smiled, just a little tightening at the corner at her mouth. “As I remember it, I don’t think The Great Gatsby is the best example of healthy love.”

  He smiled, too, glad for the tinge of teasing in her voice. “Not healthy, no. But encompassing. And it doesn’t make the statement less true. I love you, Carmen. Completely. You either believe that or you don’t, but I can’t compete with your fear of a ghost.”

  They stared at each other, even more naked than their bare bodies, until Carmen finally nodded.

  Theo needed her to say the words. “Do you believe me?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you love me?”

  She chuckled, low and wry. “Theo, you’re my great love. My one and only. I knew it this summer. That’s why I’m so fucking scared.”

  Words weren’t sufficient, there was no poetry or platitude suited to the moment, so Theo simply leaned in, slid his hand in Carmen’s beautiful, thick hair, and kissed her. She relaxed into him immediately, and he felt trust in the way her body molded to his. When she moved forward, pushing him to lie down again, he went, and they made out quietly for several minutes—not foreplay. Not play at all. Just connection.

  When they broke for breath, Carmen smiled down at him. “Can I tell you something else?”

  “I don’t know if my heart can take it, but go ahead.”

  “You look like hell.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Sorry. You’re still gorgeous. You just loo
k like you haven’t slept in a century.”

  He slept heavily every night, and sometimes half the day, cocooned in a boozy haze. But he’d gone an imposing stretch of time now without either sleep or drink. “It’s been a rough fall. And I haven’t slept since two mornings ago, I guess, the last time I woke up in Paris.”

  “Are you coming to Thanksgiving with me? Will you? Or is that unspeakably awkward—meeting my family today, after all this?”

  He laughed. “I was there already. I went there first this morning, to talk to Eli and get your address. I think I’m expected. I met everybody. I hope that was everybody. There were a lot of people.”

  Carmen’s eyes were wide with shock. “Yeah, that’s unspeakably awkward.”

  Theo only shrugged. Those were her consequences for keeping all this from him.

  She sighed. “Okay. Well, we have a little time. I’ll text somebody over there and say we won’t show up until dinner, and then we can stay here and nap if you want. A couple of hours, anyway.”

  He could have wept with relief. “That sounds amazing. Yes.”

  She got up and went for her phone. When she came back, she had a large, fluffy, colorful blanket. She crawled back in and settled again on his chest. Theo pulled the cover over them and was asleep within seconds.

  He slept more deeply, more restfully in those two hours nestled with his beautiful girl than he had in nearly four months of boozy, ten-hour comas.

  ~oOo~

  “What kind of drunk are you, Theo?”

  Standing behind the sofa in Carmen’s brother’s house, watching the game, Theo turned and faced Carlo Sr.—Carmen’s father. “Excuse me?”

  “I’ve been watching—no, not watching. Noticing. You’re not drinking. But you watch other people drink, and when you do, you look damn thirsty. So I figure you got a problem you’re trying to get over on.”

  They were alone in the room, but probably wouldn’t be for long. Everybody was involved in either cleaning up the kitchen or unpacking Christmas decorations, which was apparently a family tradition. Theo had come into the living room from the front yard, having worked with Luca and Joey to hang lights on the eaves of the house, and gotten caught up for a minute in the game. Carlo, Eli, and John were doing the lights next door, where Carmen’s father and stepmother lived. The Paganos had themselves a little compound.

  When Theo didn’t answer, Carlo Sr. went on. “Don’t mean to offend you. But you’re no kid, and I’m not pussy-footing around. I’m feeling thirsty myself, but that little splash of scotch I had after that half-inch slice of pie is all the wife will allow since my heart gave out. You got a heart problem, Theo?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “But you got a booze problem.”

  Yeah, he did. Until today, he hadn’t had to face how far he’d slid down that slope. But he was working on two days without a drink now, and booze had been flowing around him since he and Carmen had arrived for Thanksgiving dinner. Even the wine was looking good, and he hated wine. When his hands had started shaking while they were hanging lights on this not-especially-cold day, he’d finally admitted it to himself. He was an alcoholic. But how did he say that to Carmen’s father, whom he’d met hours before? He didn’t. “I’m just cutting back.”

  “That’s a yes, then. I’m asking what kind of drunk you are. Are you a party drunk? A drown-your-sorrows drunk? A mean drunk? What I’m getting at here is do I have to worry about my girl around you? Or the grandchild she’s carrying?”

  “No!” He took a breath and confronted the question head on. “I’m not violent. Sober or not, I’m not violent. And I’m quitting. No more booze.”

  “That’s good. Don’t be stupid about it. Get help. Carmen’s going to make you work for what you have with her. She’s like her mother, all mouth and fight.” He stopped and laughed. “I guess you already know that. She’ll drive you to drink”—at Theo’s responding chuckle, Carlo Sr. laughed harder—“I guess you know that, too. So get help.”

  Theo nodded. “Yeah. I will. But you don’t have to worry about Carmen, or the baby. I love them. I’d never hurt them.”

  “Good intentions pave the road to perdition, Theo. But I’ll trust you. You raised a fine boy in Eli. I wish those two would get married instead of shacking up, but I know that’s my Rosa as much as it is him. Eli’s a solid young man. He speaks well of you. With respect. Admiration. So I trust you with my girl. She’s a special one.”

  “I know. She changed my life.”

  ~oOo~

  When the decorating was finished, all but the Christmas tree and fresh greenery, which Sabina and Rosa planned to get the next day, some of the family started a board game in the dining room. Others were in the cellar, watching the eighty-inch television down there. Carlo Sr. and his wife, Adele, had taken their leave. Carmen, though, seemed to have disappeared.

  Theo was feeling tired and overwhelmed at the end of this day. He’d enjoyed her family, and they’d welcomed him almost as if he were a long lost relative and not someone they were only just meeting. But it was loud everywhere he went. There were so many of them—Carlo Sr., Adele, Carlo Jr., Sabina, Trey, Luca, Manny, John, Joey, Rosa, Carmen, and Eli and him. He’d kept a running list in his head, trying to keep faces mated with names. And there was a horse-size dog wandering around—Ella, or something like that. This was not the kind of family he was used to, and his nerves, seeking bourbon, jangled harshly.

  Unable to find Carmen, he was starting to feel an irrational panic that she’d left him trapped in a web of Paganos.

  As he went through the kitchen on his third pass through the rooms of the main floor, he met Carlo, who was getting a beer out of the fridge. Theo caught himself staring at the bottle, watching condensation bead up in a delicious fog on the glass.

  “I think she’s upstairs with Sabina. Helping Trey do his tree.”

  Theo forced his eyes up to Carlo’s. “Hmm?”

  “Carmen. You look lost. I think she’s in Trey’s room. Go on up.” He lifted his bottle. “And help yourself.”

  “Thanks. I’ll just go up and see if I can find her.”

  Carlo gave him a look, then nodded and headed back to the dining room.

  Theo went up the stairs. He heard Carmen’s voice as he topped the landing and went to the open door in the middle of the hallway. There he saw her with Sabina and Trey. They were adding red and blue ornaments to a four-foot-high, white artificial tree. Red and blue miniature lights already glowed against the sparkling white branches, and a small baseball cap topped the tree. A Boston Red Sox tree. Theo smiled.

  “Hey. Thought I lost you.”

  Trey, dangling a little red glass sock from his finger, turned and grinned happily up at Theo. “Mr. Theo! Look I have my own tree. For the Boston Red Sox the best baseball team in the world!”

  Sabina smiled up at him, too. “This year’s obsession. His father hopes this one lasts.”

  “That’s a great tree, kiddo. I’m a Rockies fan, myself, but I like your spirit.”

  “Daddy says that when you pick a baseball team you pick it for life.”

  The Colorado Rockies hadn’t existed when Theo was a kid. But otherwise, he agreed. “I’d say that’s pretty true, yeah.”

  Trey got somber. “Yeah. I’m sorry that you picked the wrong team. Now you can’t change to the Boston Red Sox even though they’re the best team in the world.”

  The kid was already learning how to talk smack. Theo laughed. “Yep. Good spirit, kid.”

  Carmen was sitting on the floor. When she started to rise, she faltered a little, and Theo jumped in and helped her up.

  “God,” she grumbled. “I can’t be turning into a Weeble already.”

  He kissed her cheek and moved his lips to her ear to whisper, “You’re beautiful. I can’t wait to see your belly get big and round and full of our baby.”

  She turned and looked into his eyes. “Come with me.” Then she led him out of the room and down the hall, opening a door at the end an
d pulling him into a dark room. She closed the door and turned on the light.

  They were in a boys’ shared room—blue, crème, and brown, two twin beds, two dressers, two desks, two bulletin boards. It clearly did not get regular use any longer.

  “Whose room is this?”

  “It was John and Joey’s, but they never stay here anymore. Joey has been in what was the guest room for a while, but he’s looking for his own place now. I think Carlo and Sabina are going to move Trey in here and make Trey’s room into a nursery.”