His hands trailed from my breasts until he gripped my hips softly, his eyes never leaving mine until finally, he smirked.
In one swift movement, I was on my back and his hands spread my legs, fitting himself in the crevice of my hips. His mouth landed on my neck, leaving a trail of long, slow kisses until those lips landed over my nipple. I bucked underneath him at the sensation. One of his hands let go of my legs, trailing up to squeeze the underside of my boob as his tongue swirled around my nipple, laving at it until I felt the heat of his tongue down below my hips.
I felt a pressure that I never felt before. I tried to squeeze my legs but he had me pinned in a way where I could receive no traction. I groaned in frustration.
I could feel his smile against my breast. “It’s not too late to try to kill you,” I said, my voice coming out shaky. His other hand slid from my leg to my sex, separating my folds and running one single finger through my slit. Oh, fuck. I didn’t know if that felt better or worse.
“Hector,” I whimpered, throwing my head back against the pillows. I was pleading for something; I just couldn’t be sure of what.
“Mmhmm,” he hummed with my breast in his mouth. “Say my name, bebita.”
I melted into his touch. Anything he wanted to do to me in this moment, I wouldn’t have put up much of a fight. I writhed. I clawed at him, his hair, his neck, his back. His fingers started rubbing circles against my clit, my legs involuntarily spreading wider. He pulled back and looked down at me, those brown eyes the softest I’d ever seen them.
“Are you sure, Annie?”
As much as I needed his fingers to start moving again, I knew he needed my assurance more. “If there is one thing I’m sure about, it’s you.”
He looked at me for one long moment before I felt his finger tease my opening before he slipped it in. My body tensed at the intrusion. There wasn’t any pain but the feeling of having something in me felt foreign and uncomfortable. With his free hand, he brushed the hair that had fallen out of the ponytail from my face.
“Try to relax, okay?”
I nodded and I tried, his fingers caressing my cheek making it easier on me.
I felt it when I finally calmed down, when my legs fell against the mattress and I wasn’t squeezing my abdomen to the point of pain. He must have felt it too because he pulled his finger out completely just to slip it back in. He was slow the second time, allowing me time to adjust to the feeling. He did it over and over again until I could no longer remember the slight discomfort. He worked his finger in and out and his name became a breathless chant on my lips.
“Hector. Hector. Hector.”
He added a second finger until my body grew frantic and I was just short of humping his hand. I was too in the moment to be embarrassed about my reaction to him. My thighs started to shake and my stomach started to clench.
“Let me have it,” Hector whispered against my neck. “Let me have you.”
I let the shaking take over and before I could blink, I was breaking apart, soaking his hand.
With his free hand, he brushed the few strands of hair from my face. It was tender, so gentle I had the urge to cry. I tilted my head, placing a feather-light kiss at the edge of his palm. He grabbed my abandoned t-shirt and wiped his fingers off, coming back to wrap me in his arms but I wasn’t done with him. My hands traveled down to where he still was fully dressed.
“Off,” I demanded.
He chuckled in my ear. “We don’t have to do that tonight,” he said, his hands in my hair.
I looked up at him, hoping he’d see the love I felt for him. “I want to. I want you. Now.”
“You’re a bossy little thing, you know that?”
I smiled up at him. “And you’re the one who gives me everything I want.” I pinned him with a challenging glare, silently asking him if this was anything different. His shirt and pants were off in less than five seconds.
When he was wrapping himself up in a condom, I felt the need to tell him what he probably already knew. “This is my first time.”
He looked at me like he thought I was adorable. “I know,” he said, suddenly serious. “I’m going to take care of you, bonita. But you’re going to have to tell me what hurts or makes you uncomfortable. Tell me to stop at any point. Your wish is my command, okay, Annie?”
I nodded. He pulled my body to the edge of the bed, moving his cock against my lips, coating himself with my leftover wetness. He kneeled on the floor, his hips parallel with the top of the bed. His hands were on my thighs, keeping them wide. His tip nudged at my opening and my core was already clenching. He pushed in slowly and I grabbed the sheets, the tightness from his fingers returning tenfold.
He stopped once his tip was seated in me. One of his hands traveled up to my stomach and started to rub smooth circles above my navel, willing me to relax. We looked at each other, both of our expressions soft when he slid in another inch. A gasp escaped me and I wiggled when he stopped again, trying to adjust myself to him. Inch by inch, he surprise-attacked me until our pelvises met. He stayed still for a long time before pulling all of the way out, hitting every one of my nerve endings. He pushed back in without pausing. His strokes were deep and slow. I wrapped my legs around his back and the movement brought us tighter together.
He picked up the pace, keeping his strokes just as deep but sliding in and out faster. I broke out in a sweat, feeling the heat of us connecting all the way up to my temples. I couldn’t help but to call out his name.
He disconnected our bodies and pushed me into the middle of the bed as he climbed on the bed after me. He pressed my right leg wide open and my left leg, he balanced over his shoulder. My view from down here was downright sinister. I bit my lip before Hector leaned down and took my lip away from me, kissing me hard as he pushed back into me.
I met him, thrust for thrust. It was sloppy. It was frantic. It was desperate. And I loved every fucking second of it. His thumb reached down to rub small circles on my clit and before I could even prepare, I exploded on his cock, my walls tightening around him. He collapsed onto me, his hands digging in my hair as he sporadically thrust into me. I wrapped both of my legs around his waist and he cursed.
His face nudged into my neck and I held him as impossibly close to my body as I could. He grunted into my neck as he found his own release.
I kept my arms wrapped around him, knowing we’d both have to get up any second to clean ourselves up. His hands snuck under my back, hugging me to him. This man has infected me. First, he was in my mind. Then, he wormed his way into my heart. And finally, finally, he has conquered my body.
* * *
When I woke up the next morning, I felt cold. There were no arms wrapped around my body. There wasn’t a set of brown eyes looking down at me and laughing at me when my body distorted while I stretched. There wasn’t a soft voice asking me if I wanted him to cook me breakfast.
I sat up, holding the sheets up against my still naked body. The house was still and as quiet as it was months ago when I woke up in this bed for the first time. There was no sign of Hector laughing while he talked to his son. The bathroom door was open and the shower wasn’t running. The clinking of the weights in the gym was vacant. The silence meant one thing, a fear just below him rejecting me: shit got too real for him and he left. He left me.
I let the sheet fall from my body and contemplated not moving from this spot all day. Maybe if I didn’t get out of bed, then none of this would be real. I wouldn’t go downstairs to an empty house and a locked system. That was a fairy tale and I had never believed in them. I was never one to cower and hide and so even if my chest hurt from his absence, I would get up and deal with it.
My entire body was sore, getting up turned out to be harder than I expected. When I eventually convinced my body to cooperate with me, I found a note on the nightstand. I huffed humorously. If this wasn’t déjà vu from the first time I woke in this bed to an empty house, I wasn’t sure what was.
There was a glass of or
ange juice and two ibuprofens next to the note. I picked up the note quickly, just to get it over with. If you need anything, call Nolan.
I laughed, though I found no humor in the situation. No “I hope my dick didn’t break you.” No “I’ll be back later.” No, “Call me when you wake up.” No nothing.
Just to spite him, I ignored the juice and pills, padding downstairs and making myself a heaping bowl of cereal. I stabbed the cereal as if it was the man himself. I traveled into the gym and threw myself into cardio and weights which probably wasn’t the best idea when my body was already hurting. After an hour, I nearly had to drag my body up the stairs and into bed. I fell asleep instantly.
When I woke up, the house was still nothing but empty silence. Despite my wanting to wallow in bed all day, I decided it was best to get out of the house for a bit. I called Nolan.
“Annie.”
“If you’re not busy, I’d like to go to the store.”
He was silent for a few seconds, probably checking his calendar for the day. “I’m free for another two hours. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
I quickly dressed in the first pair of jeans and shirt that I found. I tried the front door, unsure if I would have access to it, even now. It opened up right away. Nolan showed up a few minutes later and I locked the house with my handprint, sure to leave my phone on the stand beside the door.
Before he could get out of the car, I was already sliding in the passenger seat. “I just need to grab a few things for dinner.”
He nodded, driving us to the closest grocery store. When we got there, I handed him a list and asked him if he could go inside instead. He was about to get out when I swiped his phone from his jacket pocket.
“I will be quick,” he assured me.
I smiled tightly at him. As soon as I saw his body disappear past the sliding doors, I opened his phone, opening his contact list and hitting the call button when I came across “Boss.”
Hector picked up on the second ring. “Yeah?”
I wanted to say so many things. I wanted to yell at him, curse him with every colorful word I knew both in English and Spanish. But I remained silent, a million words on the tip of my tongue, but just staying there.
“Hello,” he asked, impatience in his tone. He waited a few seconds, his breathing ragged, before sighing and hanging up.
I loved him. I wanted to curse him, yell at him, hit him. And it’s only because I loved him. It’s only because I loved him that I was staying. That I wasn’t packing my bags up and running as far away from him as possible.
As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I froze, the phone slipping from my hands, bouncing off my thighs before landing on the floor between my feet as the realization hit me.
I didn’t care about Cameron anymore.
I didn’t care about his life. Whether he was dead already, would die in a few weeks, or would keep living his pathetic, miserable life until he crossed the wrong person or his liver failed him. I didn’t care. My work with the women’s shelter, my newfound love of poetry, and living my life the way she would have wanted me to was honoring my mother much more than taking care of the monster who took her away.
Hector was the reason I was staying. Because he saved me. He saved me from one of the biggest mistakes of my life. He saved me from a life of running and regret. He saved me from me. I may have found this version of me all by myself, but he was the one who led me here.
I didn’t even know I was crying until a sob tore out of my throat. I slipped an arm out of my t-shirt and wiped my cheeks furiously with my sleeve. Hurriedly, I picked up the phone, needing to call one more person before Nolan returned.
Samuel answered on the first ring. “Uncle Nolan. Do you need some advice on how to explore a woman?”
I snorted. “Are you an expert on it or something?” I asked, laughing despite my splintering heart.
“Annie,” he said, his voice surprised. “I was not expecting you.” He coughed and if I didn’t know any better, I would say he was embarrassed.
I looked over and saw Nolan heading this way. Shit. “I have to talk to you. But Nolan is about to catch me on his phone so I’m texting you my phone number. Call me when you get a chance later.”
I didn’t give him a chance to reply before I hung up. I texted his phone my number and I quickly deleted the message and the two calls I made. I flung the phone in the drink holder just as Nolan opened the back door and started to unload groceries.
After I got home and put all my groceries away that I had no intention of using except the one thing I left out, I sat down at the kitchen bar and waited for Samuel to call me. I was about a third into my half-gallon container of cookie dough ice cream when my phone rang. I answered even though it came across my screen as an unknown number.
When the line clicked over, Samuel asked me bluntly, “What idiotic thing did my father do now?”
A laugh burst out of me. I took a deep breath before admitting, “He ghosted me.”
Samuel didn’t say anything back for a few minutes. “Tell me everything, from the very beginning.”
“Okay. It all started with how we met.” I told him everything. About how he stopped me from killing Cameron and making me promise my next six months of my life would be about me and not my revenge. I told him about forcing him on dates and I finished on the way we met on the shelter, and the way he looked at me like he might just be in love with me.
“Okay,” he said. “I don’t need any more information on that. Has he told you about my mom? What he does for a living?”
“Yes,” I told him on a sigh. “I’ve gotten the story behind your mother and he told me a little bit about what he does.”
“What did he tell you about my mother?”
“She couldn’t handle his lifestyle.”
He huffed a humorless laugh. “My mother is a gold digger.”
I didn’t think I had it in me but I laughed around a spoonful of ice cream. Otherwise, I remained quiet. “She messed him up bad. I don’t know how he felt about her but he was prepared to love and care for her and protect her for a lifetime. She took what she wanted from him and she left. There hasn’t been any woman since he shipped her to wherever the hell she is these days. Not until you.”
I leaned back against the chair and squeezed my eyes shut. “The past few months, he’s been different. He seems lighter, happier. He grunts less and laughs more. You’ve made him happy.”
He’s made me the happiest, I didn’t dare admit aloud.
“I don’t know how much he loved her. She’s not his or my favorite subject to talk about but she broke him in a way I don’t think he’s ever gotten over. He has it in his mind that since she couldn’t love the darkness in him, no one would. That’s why he won’t let himself be seen in public with you. He wants you to find your happiness and leave him. It’s what he’s used to.”
“I love him,” I whispered, my heart splintering at the truth. “But love only matters when it’s equal.”
We were both quiet for a while, my fingers furiously wiping the tears running down my face. “I have a few days off before I start school next week. I’ll swing by and talk some sense into him.”
“And what if that doesn’t work?” I asked hesitantly, afraid of the answer.
“You leave his sorry ass,” Samuel told me bluntly.
Long after we hung up, I sat there at the table thinking about everything. Everything Samuel said on the phone to everything that has happened between the two of us since he dragged me here. There was nothing more I wanted than to be with him, but if he taught me anything at all during our time together, it was that I deserved to live life for me, no one else. Not even him.
He didn’t show up that night. Or the next night. Or the night after that. It was seven days later when he showed up, while I was in bed upstairs watching a Criminal Minds marathon.
He stood there, leaning up against the doorframe, his hands in his pockets, looking at the carpet beneath his feet, not
offering me one single word. After what seemed like an hour of me pretending he wasn’t there, he walked into the room and sat on the edge of the bed, his head hung low.
His hair stood up in each direction and he was sporting a thicker beard than what he usually wore. He looked miserable, but I found myself unable to feel bad for him. This was on him. He left. He ran. Not me.
I turned the TV off, grabbing a blanket, needing to not be around him right now. “If you didn’t want to have sex with me,” I said, my voice hard. “All you had to do was say so.” I padded down the stairs and into the living room. It did not escape my notice that he didn’t call after me, didn’t try to stop me. He just let me go.
I forced myself to not go after her. I dug my heels in, clenched my hands around the mattress. I stared off into the dark hallway to where she disappeared. Things had to change. If she was going to be with me for two more months, the six-month deadline, I had to go back to my original plan. I had to go back to my life before, business and Nolan would be in charge of driving her into the city each morning and bringing her home each evening. And in sixty days, we would sit down and I’d hand Cameron over or I would get the pleasure of killing him myself. Either way, Annie was going to leave and it would be just me once more.
I counted two hours out exactly before I went downstairs after her. I just needed one more night. One more night to hold her in my arms. One more night to be close to her. One more night to witness her growing softness. I found her curled up on the sofa with my blanket, covering her from chin to feet. Hauling her up in my arms, I carried her upstairs and placed her on the bed, underneath the covers, following her. Her knees uncoiled from under her chest and wrapped around my body, her hands reaching for me. I took a deep, shaky breath as I let her fold herself into me.
Hijacked Page 27
