Chapter 20 #2
“How could it not be?” Natalia frowns. “Sometimes I feel disconnected. My birth parents are Latino, so, naturally, I guess, I am too. But that’s all I know.
My dad is black and his family is from Haiti, and Daddy is Korean.
They’re more connected to their roots than I am.
They have roots. Dad has his own culture and so does Daddy.
I speak English and Korean, but I look like this.
It’s always felt like I’m being pulled in three different directions.
I don’t look like my Daddy’s side of the family, and I don’t completely look like my dads.
I just wonder sometimes…I don’t know. I wish I knew my background—where my birth family came from and their culture.
It’s nice, though, that my parents are also people of color.
It was always just…an understanding in our house.
Racism and micro aggressions—All of it. We understood each other’s struggles.
But, I don’t know, I always felt that maybe a teeny, tiny part of me was missing.
And I hate that. I hate it because I have the best parents who have given me everything, but somehow I just—”
I wrap my arm around her and pull her into me.
“It’s okay to feel that way,” I say quietly, tenderly. “All of those feelings are valid, sweetheart.”
“Are they? They feel wrong.”
“They’re valid,” I say again. “Those are your feelings, Natalia. You’re allowed to feel them. Don’t feel guilty, because there is nothing to feel guilty about. You love your dads, I know that.”
“I do.”
“And they love you,” I tell her. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t feel these things.”
I brush my lips across her temple and she sniffs. “It’s fine,” she rasps. “I think it’s just because they’ve been traveling so much and I barely see them. I’ll get over it.”
“Hey, no, don’t do that,” I whisper. “Don’t push those feelings aside because you think they’re wrong. You don’t have to get over anything.”
She lifts a shoulder. “I’ve never told anyone that.”
“Your secrets are safe with me.”
Natalia sniffs again and wipes her hand on a nearby towel. “It’s my turn.” She turns in my arm but lets me keep it around her, and I’m thankful for it. “Whats the real reason you named your restaurant Beetlejuice?” she asks. “Because it’s weird.”
“It’s not weird.”
“Yes it is,” she says. “Now answer the question.”
I sigh. “Natalia…”
“Don’t do this to me,” she whispers, hazel-green eyes soft and sad.
“Do what, sweetheart?” I cup her cheek, my thumb tracing her lips before it brushes up her cheek bone.
“Why me?”
“It’s always been you.”
“Stop that,” she says.
“Why?”
“I’m not…well.”
I hold her face in both hands gently, careful not to hurt her—her masterpiece of a face. Every part of her is a masterpiece. Art. Perfection.
“Rowan,” she breathes.
“I know,” I say and my thumbs frame her pouty mouth. “I think you should know, though, that I think you’re perfect. That you are everything, Natalia.”
“Don’t tell me that,” she whispers and it breaks me just a bit—a crack in my chest.
“Why not, sweetheart?”
“I don’t feel like I deserve it,” she admits quietly. “And because we’re…friends.”
“Are we?” I brush my lips over hers, her tongue darting out to lick mine. I dart my tongue out to touch hers. “Just friends?”
Her perfect lips part, her reply getting lost somewhere in the air.
“No,” she says, and my tongue slides into her mouth, tangling with hers as our kisses become sloppy and too passionate to keep up with. “Rowan.”
I groan into her mouth and she arches into me. My hands go to her hips and I lift her, dropping her right onto the table. Natalia kicks off her Crocs and wraps her legs around my waist, her nimble hands pulling me closer by my belt and her ankles digging into my lower back.
“Sweetheart,” I groan and press my hips into hers. In response, she grinds against me as best as she can. “Fuck, Nat.”
“Off,” she pants on my lips as she pushes my sweater up my body.
It almost doesn’t come off because we can barely pull apart from each other.
But the moment we do, it’s quick and my sweater is gone.
My hands find their way up her sweater and find her braless, her nipples hard beneath my palms, and she gasps with the first pinch.
“I have one last question for you,” I whisper against her ear, my thumbs skimming across her hard nipples and tongue tracing her neck.
“No,” she moans, her head falling back and fingers in my hair pulling me in. “No more questions. Rowan…” I lift her sweater enough to expose her breasts and lick her nipples. “Oh my god.”
Feeling my blood thrumming with haste, I lower onto my knees. I tug down her leggings, her fuzzy socks coming off with them, and I toss them away.
“I’m assuming you’ll be the one to clean the kitchen after this,” she breathes shakily, her thighs already trembling beneath my palms. “Since you started it.”
I huff a laugh and kiss up her left leg, starting at her kneecap. “Maybe.”
“Rowan…”
I inch my lips higher across her beautiful, soft skin, kissing a reverent path to the top of her thigh. My lips linger on a bundle of pale scars, stacked against each other, and I kiss. I kiss and kiss and kiss, trying my best to get to each one.
“Rowan, please,” she croaks, her fingers twisting in my hair to urge me away.
I pull back and look up into her reddened eyes. “I’m sorry.”
She sniffs. “For what?”
“That you felt that you needed to do this,” I rasp. “That I wasn’t there to stop you. To tell you—”
“Don’t do that,” she breathes. “I might have done it regardless.”
I shake my head and kiss them once more before I stand between her legs. Her hazel-green eyes peer up at me through her lashes.
“Don’t think about it,” Natalia whispers. “Not right now. Not like this.”
“I’m sorry.” My hands smooth up and down her bare thighs before I run them up her curves, beneath her lavender sweater. Natalia dips her chin and I pull it over her head. I bend enough to kiss between her breasts. “I’m sorry.”
Natalia’s whimper is quiet, only giving me a shake of her head, as her hands roam my body. My muscles grow taut and my body shudders beneath her touch, her fingers brushing across my skin, tracing lines, dipping between hard-earned muscle, as she peers up at me through her lashes.
“How do you look like this?” she whispers and bites into her lip, her eyes following the path of her fingers. “I mean, Jesus fucking…”
I moan her name, my cock aching. “Sweetheart.”
Her hands come back to my hair and nape, pulling me back down to her lips.
“I’ve got you, you know,” I whisper. “Always.”
“I know you do,” she rasps, her fingers scratching into my hair. Natalia pulls me down but it doesn’t take much—she doesn’t ever have to ask.
It’s her lips and mine, moving slowly, a dance we’ve mastered. Something we’ll never get wrong.
“Rowan,” she whimpers. “In—Inside me…”
Within a minute, our clothes are lost on the floor and I’m inside the girl I love, even though I haven’t told her. And I probably should tell her because it kills me when I can’t while I’m inside of her like this, kissing her and fucking her intently, giving everything I have to her.
Together, our names become a million meanings, a million synonyms. Every time she says my name, I hear something new. And every time I say hers, I can only hope she hears me.
I urge her back onto the table and she hisses at the cool stainless steel.
I bring her ankles to my shoulders and pull her to the edge with me, my thumb rubbing circles over her clit until she’s breathless and arching off the table.
She cups her breasts, tugs at her nipples, my name spilling from her lips, and we’re sent into a euphoric oblivion together.
“Oh my god,” Natalia heaves, our bodies slick with a thin sheen of sweat.
But holy fuck, she looks fucking gorgeous.
Her body flushes, her lips swollen from kissing me—only me.
And when she snaps her eyes open, they’re on me and it rips the air right out of me when I’m met with that color of hazel and green mixed together.
I gingerly lower her legs from my shoulders and move to set them down, but she wraps them around me instead. I bend and kiss her stomach, resting my forehead there for a moment to catch my breath and listen while she catches hers.
Steady rhythms.
“Are you okay?” Natalia whispers, her fingers in my hair again and scratching. She’ll never know how easily that settles the storm that blows inside of me.
“Yes, sweetheart,” I rasp and pick myself up. “Are you?”
She nods and reaches for me. I wrap my arm around her and pull her back into a sitting position. Her limbs are wrapped around me like she won’t ever let go and she buries her face in my neck, nuzzling her nose.
Steady and calm again, I pull out of her.
“Oh my god.” She sighs.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she says and sits back, her hands still holding on tight. “Everything.”
I push curls of her wildly enthralling mane behind her ears and breathe with her, the sounds in sync. The ordinary motion of her powerful breathing is enough to soothe the tumultuous churning in my chest.
The oven dings before my lips inch closer enough to hers and Natalia rasps, “I think the cupcakes are ready.”