Chapter 23
Angel
Looking through emails was doing nothing for my mood. “I think if you press on the keyboard any harder, you will break it,” Omar observed casually.
“?Vete a la mierda!”
Omar laughed. “What could have possibly put my big brother in such a mood, huh?”
“I’m planning Tío Andre’s death,” I muttered.
“Why? What did the old drunk do now?”
I looked at my brother. “He had Emma pinned outside the powder room on the northside.”
Omar made a face. “What was she doing there? She should know better than to go near the tíos’ rooms.”
I slapped my desk and pointed at him. “That is what I said!”
“I mean,” Omar added, “it’s not like you wouldn’t warn her about Tío Andre and Tío Jose. They can’t be trusted around anyone who looks good in a skirt. Liliana doesn’t go near them if she doesn’t have to, and she’s blood.”
My anger pulled back like a wave going back out to sea. It would come back — it always did — but for now, I felt deflated. “I told her to keep her nose out of places that didn’t concern her,” I said, and Omar frowned.
“That’s a little different than saying that the tíos are perverts and to stay away from them,” he pointed out.
“I know that.”
Omar put his hands up in a “surrender” gesture. “Why don’t we go to the gun range?” he asked.
I ground my teeth, feeling that ache in my jaw from clenching it together too tightly. “I’ve got to go through this business plan.”
My brother put a hand on my shoulder. “Spare me a few hours,” he said, “before you break something expensive or start a fistfight.”
I didn’t want to admit that Omar was right, but I shut down my computer and stood. “Let me go change,” I said. “Maybe we can hit the gym on the way back.”
“Good idea, brother.”
For the first twenty minutes, Omar and I were blissfully alone at the range.
Omar put targets at twenty-five, fifty, and seventy-five feet as I loaded all of the magazines for the 9mm Smith we usually ended up seeing who was the better shot when we came here, and I was primed for it. I handed Omar a loaded clip, and we racked them into our guns. I grabbed the earmuffs and settled it over my ears, muffling the world around me. My focus became the targets in front of me.
Vaguely, I heard Omar take his first shot, but I didn’t glance to see where on the target he hit. Instead, I zeroed in on the paper figure twenty-five feet in front of me. Sighting down, I took a breath and squeezed the trigger. A hole appeared dead-center of the target.
“Damn it,” Omar swore, and now I looked over. While he had hit the target, it was just to the left of the center.
I scoffed. “You haven’t been practicing enough.”
“Su puta madre,” Omar snapped at me.
“We shared a mother,” I reminded him and sighted down on the target that was at fifty feet.
Another breath, another squeeze of the trigger, and another hole appeared perfectly in the center.
Omar hit the target again, but he was high.
Either he was having a bad shooting day, or he was humoring me to make me feel better.
“You’re jerking too much with the recoil,” I called to him; it was the same thing he’d told me time and time again.
Omar flipped me off. “I’m taking the training wheels off, Angel,” he warned, and his next shot, at the farthest target, hit dead-center while mine went a little low. My brother smirked at me. “Call it a tie?”
“In what world is that a tie?” We turned, and Lili was standing in the doorway between the range and the small ready-room where we stored the extra clips and ear protection.
Emma stood beside her, clutching at a small carrying case.
Her shoulders were tight; she resolutely did not look my way.
Fine, I thought. We can play it that way.
“Angel’s scores still beat you even if he messed up the final shot. ”
“What are you two doing here?” I asked.
Lili gave me a look that accused me of being deliberately obtuse. “Target practice,” she said. “I’ve been teaching Emma self-defense. Did you think that was going to stop at just hand-to-hand?”
I hadn’t actually considered what Lili might be teaching Emma. “You went over gun safety, right?” The only time I’d seen Emma hold a gun was at the club, and that hadn’t gone well for her…but it had saved me getting shot.
My baby sister’s annoyed expression was slipping into true Castillo anger now. “Do you think I’m stupid?” she asked. “Of course, I taught her gun safety. We also went over how to take one apart and put it back together.”
“I can do it in less than five minutes,” Emma piped in, though she still wouldn’t look my way. I blinked: it was an impressive time, almost as good as mine.
“So, can we join you?” Lili asked.
I glanced at Omar, who shrugged. “Do what you want,” I said.
Lili smiled, all sharp teeth and sarcasm. “You’re so kind.” She motioned for Emma to step into the lane next to mine. They unpacked a smaller handgun and laid it out on the tray along with two extra magazines. “Okay,” Lili said. “What do you do first?”
Instead of answering with words, Emma picked up the gun, checked that it wasn’t loaded, and then she racked in a loaded clip. I couldn’t help but watch her; while some of her movements were shaky, she had obviously taken Lili’s lessons to heart.
Heat pooled in my gut, and I did my best to shake it off. We haven’t spoken properly since our fight, I thought. That was the only explanation for getting hard at the sight of my wife handling a gun. “Are we shooting, or what?” Omar asked.
I nodded, but my eyes kept sliding to Emma.
Lili was walking her through how to sight down on a target.
I fiddled with reloading my clip while Emma took her first shot.
She brought her arms up like Lili instructed and squeezed the trigger, but her eyes closed at the last second, and the shot flew over the target entirely. “Damn,” she swore.
The urge to go over and wrap my body around hers and show her how to aim was nearly overwhelming.
But Lili was already doing just that, and I should not be jealous of my sister, but as I put my eyes back on my targets, I put holes in all three of my paper targets’ heads.
“Damn, Angel,” Omar said from beside me.
“I think that makes me the reigning champion, right?” I glanced at my brother. “Unless you can do better?”
“I can do better,” Lili said from the next lane. “Do you mind if I go teach my brothers a lesson?”
I heard Emma’s laugh. “Have fun.”
Lili moved into my lane, and I backed up to give her space. My siblings took these competitions seriously; Padre had demanded it of us when we were children, and it had stuck. Backing up also lets you look at Emma, my mind whispered to me, but I wasn’t going to look at her.
Less than a second later, my eyes darted to her. She was reloading her magazine with bullets, and when she was done, she set it on the tray next to the unloaded gun, ready for Lili to come back and resume their lesson. Unthinking, I stepped beside her. “Can I show you?”
Emma peeked up at me, and there was heat in her eyes. A little bit of anger, sure, but I knew what desire looked like on my woman. The look sparked that pooling heat in my belly. “Lili will only be a minute,” she said, but her tone was breathy, wanting.
I shook my head. “I’ve seen a shoot-off between her and Omar last for more than an hour before,” I said. I gestured for her to pick up the gun. “Go on,” I said. “I want to see how you do.”
“Angel —”
Whispering did no good with the ear protection on — everything we were saying was already muffled — but I leaned in anyway.
I knew what my breath on her skin did to her, the way it could make her tremble to be touched.
“Show me what you’ve learned, mi esposa.
” Emma shivered, and when she reached for the gun, her hands shook a little. “Steady,” I told her.
Emma took a breath, and then she picked up the gun, inserted the clip, and racked a bullet into the chamber.
When she aimed, I put my arm around her and steadied her.
“Before you take a shot,” I said, “take a breath and visualize someone that you’d want to protect.
The target is going to do them harm if you don’t stop them. ”
She didn’t acknowledge that I’d spoken, but I felt her take a breath before her finger went to the trigger and squeezed down. A hole appeared in the center mass of the target. Not dead-center, but in a respectable spot for someone who had only just begun shooting. “You’re a quick study. Sigue así.”
Emma kept shooting until the clip was empty again; she hit the target more than she missed it.
Each time she squeezed down on the trigger, I pressed against her a little more.
When she set the gun back down, she whirled in my arms, eyes blazing.
“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.
Her words were nearly drowned out by Omar and Lili commencing with their own shooting competition.
“What?” I asked. “Can’t a man enjoy how well his wife performs for him?”
A blush spread across her cheeks and nose. “I wasn’t performing for you,” she hissed.
“No?” I asked, teasing. “So you didn’t want to show me just how good you could do?”
“Why should I care what you think?” The words were harsh, but the venom was missing from her voice. Instead, she sounded breathy. Needy, almost.
Her words set fire to my very nervous system. “You don’t care?” I challenged. “Really?”
Emma shook her head, stubborn to a fault. “I really don’t.”
We will see about that, I thought and grabbed her arm.
Pulling her behind me, we left the gun range and crossed the front storage room.
There was a powder room with a lock, and I yanked her inside and pushed her up against the door.
I reached out and took the ear protection off her head and set it and mine aside.
We stared at one another for a heartbeat. And then two. And then I watched the fire in her eyes shift; her breathing quickened. I moved to crush my mouth to hers — to finally take that last part of her — but she turned her head, and my lips brushed her cheek.
I nearly pushed myself away from her, but I felt the smallest tickle of a kiss against my throat. She kissed me again, harder and with teeth, and desire overtook my pride. “Take off those ridiculous leggings,” I demanded and spun her toward the sink.
Eyes on mine in the mirror, she pushed the athletic leggings that she was wearing down and leaned over the sink.
No matter how many times I took her, I never quite got over how sexy she was…
or that I was the only one who got to see this side of her.
“Well?” she demanded, huffy. “Are you going to stare at me, or what?”
“You and that mouth.” I shoved my athletic shorts down and kicked her feet farther apart. “I should do something about it.”
“Later. Fuck me now,” she said, and I couldn’t have agreed more.
Not when she was positioned so perfectly for me.
I angled myself against her and thrust inside.
She whined as I stretched her; she was wet but so tight around me.
Her eyes scrunched shut, and she fell down onto her arms, presenting even more of her ass to me.
I put a hand between her shoulder blades, keeping her pinned, as I fucked into her, giving her no reprieve. She couldn’t move; she could only take what I had to give, and I had three days of silence and frustration running through me.
I rode her hard, forcing moans and sobs from her throat, and far too quickly, I could feel pleasure sparking at the base of my spine, ready to let go at any second. I pulled myself out of her, and I saw tears fill her eyes in the mirror. “What —?”
I turned her around. “Put your arms around me,” I said hoarsely, and Emma looped her arms around my neck.
“Keep your eyes on me, mi esposa,” I said and helped her to sit on the sink.
Holding onto her thighs, I pushed back into her, grunting at the tight heat of her.
When I thrust again, she moaned and her eyes slipped closed, but I touched her cheek, bringing her focus back to me.
“Eyes on me,” I reminded her, “or we stop right now.”
I had never denied her before, and the pout that appeared on her face almost made me laugh. Mostly, I wanted to sink my teeth into that plush bottom lip. “Angel, please,” she breathed out.
I moved against her, inside of her, again; I worked back up to that breathless, driving rhythm, only slowing when her eyes would start to slip closed. Her fingers dug into my shoulders; the heels of her athletic shoes pressed into my ass, spurring me on.
Her breathing changed, deepened, and Emma whined, canting her hips to meet mine. I watched her eyes go wide and shocky as her body tensed around me. “Oh,” she moaned. “I’m going to —”
“Come for me, mi esposa,” I commanded, and I watched her face as her body obeyed.
I had seen her come apart so many times, but I couldn’t recall ever being so focused on her face before.
She was magnificent. “So fucking beautiful,” I groaned as her body clamped down around me, sending me over the edge along with her.
We stood there, panting, for a moment, just staring at one another.
Normally, Emma would demand to be held for a little while, but when she didn’t say anything, I slipped away from her and began to clean myself up.
If she chose to continue to be angry with me, I wouldn’t stop her.
“What are you and Lili’s plans for this afternoon?
” I asked, tucking myself back into my boxers and pulling my shorts back up over my hips.
She blinked some of the haziness out of her eyes. Her lips twitched into a frown “We’re going to lunch,” she said. “David’s coming with us.”
I reached out and touched her cheek. “I’ll see you at home later then,” I said, and then left her leaning against the sink with her leggings still around her ankles.