Emiliano
USE ME
While the circumstances weren’t the most jovial leading up to this trip, I’m happy to be in México with Taina.
I haven’t been in this villa in years, certainly not since it became mine.
Taina already has plans for making it our own, having turned her nose up at the dust that’d collected on the drapes covering the furniture.
She lies on my bare chest, and I soothe myself with the sound of her breathing.
I haven’t known what to say to her since I handed her the gun and encouraged her to put a bullet it in my brother’s head.
It hasn’t been hard to avoid, what with all of the contractors in the house patching up bullet holes and fixing windows.
And Mami has been hovering like her life depends on it, apologizing to Taina any chance she can get.
I don’t miss the quiet sorrow in my mother’s eyes. In an effort to help her heal, I’m never going to tell Mami that Papi is no longer here because of Carlos. It’d be like grieving him all over again.
Ignacio and I agreed on that and plan to take that information to the grave.
Carlos may’ve been subhuman, but he was still her son .
And he was still my brother. I cling to the memories we shared as children and do everything I can to convince my brain that he died long before Taina came around.
But I still have questions, uncertainty licking at the frays of what once felt like a solid foundation between Taina and I.
“You don’t have to marry me if you don’t want to,” she whispers, placing her hand on my chest as she turns her head to glance up at me.
If you want to live, I do.
But I don’t tell her that. No sense in adding even more pressure.
“I do want to,” I insist, and it’s the truth. “But I do have some questions.”
She nods, waiting. The ceiling fan causes a soft breeze, and gauzy curtains flirt with the open windows that let in the night air.
Still, all I can see or think about is Taina covered in blood, a gun held to her head.
Knowing she had to overcome abuse at the hands of my brother for days, until he nearly killed her.
So I start with my first concern.
“Did you know who I was when you first saw me?” It’s the question that’s been on my mind since I first saw the video of Carlos and his wife taunting Taina at the hardware store.
“Yes,” she admits, and it reframes our entire first interaction. Her immediate look of disdain.
“Did you use me to get close to him?” I ask as I scratch my stomach. The question hangs in the air for a moment, the ceiling fan doing nothing to make the anxiousness of it blow away.
“We were both there. What do you think?”
I think about how I pursued her, unable to let her go, enthralled by her demeanor and her candor.
I remember how she tried to push me away.
This is for your own good , she’d said .
And I think back to a conversation I had with Berto the night Carlos tried to kill Taina.
After our family physician came by to check out her injuries and she got the all clear—aside from a concussion I needed to monitor—we stood guard outside the bathroom door while she showered.
I couldn’t imagine how red the water ran as she washed the blood off of her.
Seeing Fabián face down with gashes all over his face, neck, and upper body, I assumed most of what she wore was his.
Good girl.
“You said you should’ve known. Why?” I finally asked Berto, now that I had caught my breath. “What did I miss?”
With his hands clasped together in front of him, he grants me a side-eye. As if his loyalty is no longer to me, but to Taina.
“The day of her migraine, we stopped directly in front of one of your father’s old homes.
The one Carlos used to party in during college.
Oswaldo hated that house,” he answers, a bite in his tone.
“He ended up signing it over to Carlos before he passed. And now it looks like he’s selling the place. Or was.”
Whenever Carlos needed to perform his jefe de sicario duties, he always brought them there. And it was there that he asked me to stop by many times to help him clean up.
My stomach still rolls at the thought of never having known it was Taina’s blood that I helped him get rid of at one point.
“No such thing as coincidences,” I responded, and as if he senses my bitterness, he places his hand on my shoulder.
“She loves you.”
I felt weak, starved for those words to come from her lips; to tell me that this was real and not because she wanted revenge.
“How do you know?” I allowed myself to ask.
“She told me,” he said, like it was a part of their everyday conversation. “And she asked me not to tell you, so don’t go running your mouth.”
Old Berto would never talk to me this way.
Taina wiggles in my arms, adjusting herself, and she catches sight of my smile.
“What?” she asks, her voice higher in octave. “Why are you smiling?”
“Berto loves you,” I inform her. “More than he’s ever loved me.”
“Then stop yelling at him,” she chastises. “And I’m being serious. If I hear you talking crazy to that man, we’re gonna have a problem.”
“I’m already a problem,” I say as I scoot out from under her. “The problem I’m having now is that you’re not sitting on my face.”
“I thought we discussed this already,” she starts, squealing when I pick her up and hold her against me as my back hits the bed again. “I can’t.”
“You will.”
She shakes her head, but I’m too busy peeling off her panties to care about her faux rejection.
Once they’re off and she’s naked under her silky nightgown, I pull her back up to rest on my hips.
“I promise if I can’t breathe, I’ll tap you on your thigh. Okay?”
She looks down at herself, her bottom lip snagged between her teeth. And then she nods with a grin, a few of her curls framing her beautiful face.
The sight of her mottled bruising is a reminder that I’m her protector, and I plan on taking that role much more seriously.
Especially when she becomes my wife.
“Come here,” I insist, helping her scoot up my body until I can see her perfect pussy hovering above me. I aim a shot of saliva, spitting it directly on her, watching as I bring my thumb up to spread it before pressing against her opening.
She shudders out a breath as my thumb slips inside.
“You wanna come?” I ask, making circles in her pussy that earn me needy little sounds. “Ride my face. Use me.”
With my thumb now removed, I grab her hips and yank her down, my tongue waiting for contact.
She yelps, and I hear her hands hit the bed frame.
“Oh, fuck ,” she cries out, and before I know it, she’s taken on a rhythm, chasing after her orgasm. “Just like that.”
I continue exactly what I’m doing, prepared to get lockjaw just to bring her pleasure. Her body sags, and before I can stop her, she climbs off.
“What are you?—”
“I wanna come on your dick,” she pants out, pulling it out of my pants and sinking right down on him.
I’m convinced the groan I let out came all the way from my toes. Again, she sets a rhythm, and I oblige, meeting her with every thrust, using my fingers to rub her clit.
I can’t fight the orgasm that shatters me, pumping her full of cum as she twitches from her own pleasure.
We lie there, catching our breath, the evening air offering reprieve to our sticky bodies.
Taina presses a kiss to my neck, tucking her face into me. “I love you,” she whispers against my skin, words that sound like an oath.
“I love you more.”