Rooted (The Pagano Family Book 3)

by Fanetti, Susan

  His wise, young son.

  He hadn’t fought hard enough before. But he would fight for his family with everything he had, now and forevermore.

  ~oOo~

  Late that night, after a quiet, happy afternoon and evening spent beginning to settle into their new life, Theo went back into Teresa’s room, where Carmen was nursing. Mother and daughter sat together in the glider, the light from a small glass lamp with a violet shade casting a calm glow over them both. Teresa nursed with one tiny hand on her mother’s breast, and Carmen gazed down at her, gently petting her dark, dark hair.

  Theo leaned on the jamb and watched, his heart aching happily. He said nothing, but Carmen sensed his presence and looked up with a smile.

  “Hi,” she whispered. “She’s conking out, I think.”

  He came in and squatted in front of her. “Good. I have plans for her mother.”

  As predicted, Teresa fell asleep, still latched on. Theo reached up and pressed gently on Carmen’s breast, breaking the suction, and Carmen put the baby on her shoulder. After a few moments, without waking, Teresa burped, a dainty sigh of air.

  Theo stood and held out his hands. Carmen sat forward and let him take their daughter. He cuddled her to his chest and closed his eyes, not yet ready to lay her down. He sensed Carmen stand. She kissed his shoulder and left the room. Theo stayed where he was and let peace fill him in every corner.

  He finally bestirred himself and laid his daughter in her new crib. He watched her settle back into real sleep and then turned the monitor on and went to look for her mother.

  He found her in their bed. Naked. When he came in, she rose onto her knees and turned around, facing the headboard and then lowering onto her hands. She looked over her shoulder at him.

  “Christ. You are so beautiful.” He pulled his sweater off and walked to the bed, undoing his belt and jeans as he went. “I thought you were going to make me pay for calling you prim.”

  Her smile steamed. “I decided I’d rather show you how wrong you were.”

  “Excellent idea.” Already barefoot, he dropped his jeans and climbed onto the bed to kneel behind her.

  First, he put his hands on her and simply felt her, caressing her back, and her fabulous ass, her firm, long thighs, the sultry sweep from her hip to her waist and over across her belly—softer than it had been before Teresa, and all the more beautiful for its changes.

  Then, with his hands hooked on her shoulders, he bent over her and licked a line from her waist to her neck, groaning with pleasure at the way her body bowed beneath the brush of his tongue. She pushed backwards, pressing her ass against him and shimmying until his erect, pulsing cock was between her legs. “Theo, come on.”

  With his head at her shoulder, he murmured, “What do you want, beautiful girl?”

  “I want your cock. I want it deep.” Without a word, he guided himself into her with one hand, and she gasped, “Oh, fuck, yeah. Deep. Go deep.”

  When he was as deep as he could possibly get, he pulled out, until only his tip connected them. He clutched her hips in his hands and drove into her again and again, each time as deep as he could, feeling his balls slap against her every time he hit home. She cried out with every inward thrust, finally falling to her elbows and grabbing the slats of his—no, their—headboard in her hands. The bed began to rock and bounce, and he went harder and harder until her cries stopped and she seemed not even to be breathing.

  “Carm?” He gasped between thrusts. Their mingled perspiration made her body slick in his hands.

  “Go…fuck, go…don’t…stop,” she grunted.

  He sped up even more, giving her everything he had, and she let go of the headboard and dropped her face into the pillows, gathering them up in a heap around her head. He felt her body relax suddenly around him and then clamp down forcefully, almost painfully tight around his cock. Her muscles rolled and danced on him, and she screamed into the pillow.

  His balls cramped at the spectacular perfection of her orgasm, but he didn’t come. He slowed, moving gently in her as she came down and caught her breath. When she finally rose back up onto her hands, moaning softly in time with his rocking hips, he slid an arm around her waist and rolled to his back, bringing her with him without breaking their connection. She gasped and arched when she landed on him, still with her back to him.

  She looked over her shoulder and smiled. So beautiful, all mussed and flushed and his. And then she rode him, folding forward and grabbing his legs. She writhed and rolled, driving him deep again, driving him crazy again. Her second orgasm came up quickly, and she sat up straight, her head tilted back, her long hair dancing over her back and his belly, and he curled his toes and made his muscles taut, holding off his own peak, loving the way she forgot about him when she topped over, focused completely on herself and the pleasure she felt.

  He wanted to see her when he came. So, when she relaxed again, he sat up and set her aside, pulling out and making them both groan. And then he rolled on top of her and sank back in deep. This time, he focused on his need. With his eyes open and locked with hers, he slammed into her again and again until the intensity of his pleasure dimmed his sight. He dropped his head to her shoulder and grunted into her hair as his body finally satisfied its need.

  When he could relax, he slid out of her and settled at her side. “I stand corrected,” he panted. “You are not prim.”

  She chuckled and snuggled against him, one hand wrapping around the jasper pendant he still wore. She wore similar stones now, too. “And don’t you forget it.”

  “If I forget, will you remind me like that?”

  “Trouble, Theodore. That’s what you are.”

  He pulled her even closer and put his mouth to her ear. “I take that as a yes.”

  Epilogue

  Carmen sat in a willow chair on the deck at the lakeside, Teresa in her stroller beside her, wearing little red shades and a floppy yellow hat, banging away at the toy dangling over her, making it rattle and jingle. Though she had not caught up yet, developmentally, to most four-month-olds, she was making great strides. She was a happy baby, too—as long as nobody tried to keep her from something she wanted.

  She had a sketchbook out and had been sketching out landscaping plans in halfhearted way. She had wanted to add some blooming color to the clearing around the house, but now that she was trying to plan it, she wondered whether she was fiddling with perfection just to fiddle with it. Sure, the color palette of the Wilde Wood was subdued, all greens, blues, and browns, but it was lovely as it was. And the canopy was so dense that there was nowhere but the very lakeside that ever got more than dappled sun.

  Maybe the scent and sight of wood and earth and water was all they needed. Sitting here now, while the June sun warmed her, and her daughter played happily, Carmen thought she had everything she needed. More than that, she had everything she wanted.

  Her business was going well with Maxine at the helm. Carmen was spending about four, maybe six, days a month in Quiet Cove, managing the business that required the owner’s physical presence—mostly client contact. For those brief trips, she brought Teresa with her, and sometimes Theo, too, and they stayed in the house on Caravel Road. Theo had been right. Her father had been right. Everybody had been right but her. Moving to Maine had made things better, and had not impaired her connection to her family. Teresa would know her grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. She would have that loving haven. And so would Carmen.

  Theo didn’t love it when Carmen took Teresa to the Cove without him, but he didn’t get in her way, either. Still, he’d made sure to arrange the trip he was on now, to New York to meet with his agent and publisher, for a time when Carmen didn’t have business in Rhode Island and promised to stay put in Colson.

  Everybody seemed to love Lavender in Summer, and he was in New York to finalize the publication deal. Hunter Anders was throwing him a party that night, too. Theo had asked if she wanted to join him and had laughed when she had conveyed without a wor
d that she did not. Fifth Avenue cocktail parties were not her thing—not his, either, but that was his fault for being a brilliant writer.

  She wondered how he would handle the drinking thing. He’d finally told her, while she and Teresa were in the hospital, that he had joined AA. She hadn’t been much surprised; she’d noticed him struggling when they were together those brief weeks after Thanksgiving, and she’d certainly noticed how much he’d been drinking in France—she’d been right there with him. They’d spent half the summer in a haze.

  He seemed to be through the real, constant struggle now, and looked strong and healthy and gorgeous. But a cocktail party thrown by his patron in New York City might be a big test. She’d call him later to check in.

  Teresa kicked her legs emphatically and complained in her stroller. She rarely really cried. What she preferred to do was grouse. She’d make a huffing kind of sound, not a whine, not a sigh, but something between, and then stop and look around, as if wondering if somebody was going to hop to it, or if she was actually going to have to yell to get any attention. Generally, Theo and Carmen hopped to it.

  Now, Carmen leaned over and saw her daughter sucking lustily on her hand. Her sunglasses were askew on her little face. “You hungry again, little miss? You’re a piggy.” She felt her milk let down as she reached in and brought Teresa to her chest. She opened her shirt and bra and got her settled, then eased back into the chair and looked out over the quiet lake.

  She understood why some women breastfed their children until they were two or three years old. No feeling in the world was comparable to the feeling of her child nursing from her body. She couldn’t describe it well, to herself or to Theo, but it was as if they were linked by a physical bond stronger than merely Teresa’s mouth at her breast, stronger even than the umbilical cord that had once connected them. It enveloped her, every time, in an embrace of love and happiness so complete and keen that she spent every nurse near tears.

  And the sounds Teresa had begun to make as she fed—tiny, happy moans that made Carmen grin until her cheeks ached.

  Looking over the water to the shore across their little cove, Carmen saw a moose with a calf come out of the woods and walk to the water’s edge for a drink. She watched, feeling ridiculous as tears topped over her eyes because she felt a sisterly bond of motherhood with the beast.

  Her emotions were still just all over the place, obviously. But she loved it.

  She was happy.

  ~oOo~

  She woke that night with a start as Theo slid into bed behind her. “Hey. You’re not supposed to be home until tomorrow.”

  “It is tomorrow.” He kissed her cheek. He smelled of several different colognes, but she wasn’t jealous. A Fifth Avenue cocktail party meant lots of hugs and cheek kisses from well-heeled old broads. Even the well-heeled young broads didn’t intimidate her. Her man was hers.

  She looked up at the clock on her nightstand. “It’s three-thirty. What did you do, come straight from Hunter’s party?”

  “Yep. Even left early. I missed my beautiful girls.” He rolled her to her back and pushed his hand between her legs. Her body responded instantly, her hips rising up as if they had will of their own.

  “We shouldn’t. She’s going to wake up any second looking to nurse.”

  “Nope. I just fed her. She went right back down.”

  “Theo—that milk in the fridge is for tomorrow.” She had a doctor’s appointment and errands to run in Lewiston, and Marijean was going to watch Teresa. Carmen still didn’t really like their neighbor, but Theo was right—she was nice and eager and helpful, and she absolutely doted on Teresa. Carmen felt like a bitch for staying a bit aloof. But the woman was just so cheerful.

  “It is tomorrow.” He chuckled and kissed her as his fingers pushed her underwear to the side and slid in. She moaned, unable to get mad. She was happy to have him home.

  Home.

  He was home.

  She was home.

  This was home.

  He was sucking on her neck as his fingers probed and explored her. But her attention was not, for this moment, on his hands or his mouth or her body. She cradled his head in her hands and made him look at her. The light from the hallway through their open bedroom door made a halo around him. “Theo.”

  He smiled down at her. “Yes?”

  “Ask me.”

  She could see that he knew exactly what she meant, and he knew it right away. A light entered his eyes that had nothing to do with the hallway sconce or even the moonlight coming through the window. He took his hand from between her legs and held her hand instead.

  “Carmen Pagano, my beautiful, beautiful girl, will you marry me?”

  “Yes.”

  THE END

  ~oOo~

  COMING SOON:

  DEEP: The Pagano Family Series, Book FOUR

  Nick Pagano leads the charge against his family’s enemy, a man who has taken much from him. Beverly Maddox gets inadvertently swept up in Nick’s fight. Thrust together by circumstance, Nick comes to see that Beverly’s light heart eases his dark soul. But will his darkness douse her light instead?

  Release Date: Saturday, 20 December 2014

  For more information and a teaser for Deep, check out the Freak Circle Press blog:

  http://tfcpress.wordpress.com/

  And find us on Facebook:

  https://www.facebook.com/freakcirclepress

  Follow Susan Fanetti on Twitter: @sfanetti