Chapter 31 #2
I swallow and start twisting two strands of my hair together.
Say, “I’ve never experienced labor, obviously, but the nurse said between me deeming it a nine on the pain scale and my body showing signs of that—it might’ve felt as bad to me as a contraction would.
” Carmello’s eyes widen slightly, and I have a wandering thought of him holding Daniela’s hand in the hospital.
“Anyway, the six-hour wait in the emergency room was worth it because an ultrasound revealed scarring and cysts on my ovaries. It took about a year after that for a doctor to perform laparoscopic surgery and confirm that I suffer from endometriosis.” Carmello’s shoulder’s fall considerably, and on instinct I want to look away so he can’t study my eyes.
I hold steady, but I do lighten my tone.
“With the confirmation, I actually felt some relief knowing the symptoms weren’t just in my head.
But it meant I had to start drinking things that taste like grass if I wanted to consume as much caffeine as I do and that maybe I didn’t want to work in a kitchen if it meant dealing with assholes like that.
Besides, being a private chef can pay a whole lot better too. ”
“I’ve noticed things,” Carmello says. “Particularly you not shoulder-checking me with a fork in hand to taste whatever I’m cooking at Celia’s Place this past week.” I smile and shrug one shoulder to my chin. His brows pinch together. “Stop looking cute when I’m trying to be serious.”
“I can’t help it,” I say. “Serious is…boring.”
“Is it?” he asks. “Or do you not want a spotlight on feeling sorry for yourself?”
I tap my nails to my chest. “Ouch. I am not feeling sorry for myself, I just want more control over my body. And I still hate matcha, and I want to devour your picadera because it already smells so good and fatty, but I gotta pick at it because I’m feeling better now but I’m supposed to be watching what I eat.
Not most times—like regular people wanting to be healthy.
Every. Single. Day. For the rest of my life, so that I get less agonizing episodes like the one last week.
And that, sir, is not fair. So, yeah, maybe I do feel a little sorry for myself. ”
“Was that so hard to admit?”
“Yes,” I say.
He runs a hand along his jaw. “You’re pouting,” he says.
I try to fix my face. “I’m just having a dramatic moment.”
He examines me for a few more seconds and then pushes off of the counter.
Once he’s in front of me, he places both of his large hands on my legs, leans in so we’re only inches apart.
I have a tough time breathing with him this close, touching me where he’s touching me, us eye to eye in a position that could quickly become compromising.
“I promise I wasn’t judging,” he says. “I was just taking notes, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around what it must be like as a chef.
We try our own cooking constantly, and I wonder how hard it’s been for you to do this type of work while knowing that eating certain foods can cause you considerable pain.
And…I was also thinking about how you’ve been working hard at my restaurant without telling me. ”
“What were you gonna do about it if I did?” I say. “I don’t work for you. I took breaks when I really needed to. Was I supposed to ask for a heating pad and a massage like I did when we were younger?”
“If that’s what would’ve helped,” he says. “I’m here. You don’t have to be so strong.”
I want to tell him there were so many nights in the past ten years when I wished he was there so that I could fall apart.
“Stop being so sweet. It’s making my heart do funny things,” I admit.
He doesn’t look surprised by the confession, and I wonder if his heart is doing funny things right now too.
“Me, sweet? What about you? If you’re just starting to feel fully better after the bad episode, why risk it being a taste tester for my fusion picadera?
We can have someone else do th…” He stops mid-sentence, bites his lip. “You’re pouting again.”
“Because it would give me instant satisfaction to be your garbage disposal,” I say.
There’s a smile on his mouth after he sighs. “I’m never going to tell you how to protect yourself or not to whine about not being able to be a full-time taste tester. But I’m serious, O. You’re safe here. You don’t have to pretend with me. You don’t have to suffer for my benefit.”
“Because we’re friends now?” I tease.
“Yeah…friends,” he repeats, and usually it’s so hard to know what he’s thinking.
Something about that has always thrilled me.
Maybe it’s because he has the ability to surprise me.
Right now though, I’m pretty sure his tone is telling me he wants more than friendship.
And the look in his eyes has me certain that he’s suddenly hypnotized by our proximity.
He leans in closer, mouth almost touching my ear, and says, “But I have a confession.”
I brace myself against the counter with both of my hands. “What’s that?”
My voice is raw with wanting. The hypnotism works both ways.
“When I was listening and taking notes,” he says, inching his hands farther up my legs, “and I first noticed you pout, I didn’t mean to say it out loud.
But I was already feeling so many things for you, and after seeing your face like that”—I watch the muscles in his throat move and the tattoos on his neck contract as he swallows—“some of them weren’t friendly. ”
“No?”
He shakes his head. His hands are so far up my thighs now.
Another inch or two and he’d be able to feel how wet I am for him.
“I thought, what can I do to make her make that face for me instead? If she wants instant satisfaction, what else can I offer?” He pulls back to watch me intently while his fingers slowly continue their exploration and his words cause heat to build like wildfire inside my body.
“Maybe something with more lasting effects,” he finishes, and I have to fight to keep my body from bucking to find friction against his fingers.
I swallow and lift my chin. “And have you arrived at any ideas, Mr. Rodriguez?”
“Yes,” he says. “Would you like me to show you what they are, Jones?”
I blow out a breath, and then I beg: “Please.”
Carmello’s eyes darken considerably, but he still searches my face for a sign of uncertainty.
When he finds none, he pulls my thighs apart like they belong to him and inserts his body between them.
He tilts my head back, runs his nose along my neck, eliciting goose bumps as he groans.
“You smell so fucking good. Lavender and lilacs. Sweet.” His mouth finds the underside of my jaw, teasing with tentative touches of his lips. “Do you still like to be kissed here?”
I tug on the curls at the nape of his neck and pull a hissing sound through his teeth. “Carmello, if you don’t put your mouth on me. Right. Now.”
I feel him smile against my jaw before he rolls his tongue along the flesh there.
Moves it down to my throat. Nips the skin with his teeth.
The slight sting is instant dopamine. We were shy when we were younger, and our living conditions weren’t ideal for explorative sex, but when our mouths meet again, I’m fully aware that we’re starting something on his kitchen counter.
He reaches under my shirt at the back to undo my bra with one hand, and I tug his bottom lip with my teeth.
“An expert at that now, I see.”
He laughs. “Let me show you what else I’ve learned to do better.”
My breasts ache in anticipation when he backs up a step to pull my shirt over my head.
I let him explore me with his eyes, and I hope he can see how ready I am for whatever he wants to do to me, wherever he wants me.
But he’s such a tease, he palms both of my breasts slowly, working his thumbs over each of my areolas.
Pinches my nipple. Does it again when a moan slips from my mouth.
When he finally puts his lips on me, licking and sucking and encircling me so fully, the only thing I have to beg for is him not to stop.
For a moment, memories of the past few weeks come back, and I thank the universe that one thing after the other has led us here.
Carmello’s tongue is lapping against my sensitive skin.
He splits his attention so well. Using his hands to make sure one nipple isn’t neglected for the next.
And I don’t know how I went a decade without his touch.
He softly scrapes his teeth along my areolas and he sucks and sucks and sucks.
All while his eyes are closed: the way I’ve caught him savoring his favorite desserts.
And I never want this to stop. But then he slides a hand between my thighs again, touching me where the warmth is pooling, and breaks away with a smile.
“You’re so wet, O. Jesus. Soaked. Aching and throbbing against my fingertips. I know just how to help you with that.”
Then suddenly, he’s hoisting me off the counter. I gasp in surprise but he hooks one arm firmly under my ass and says, “Don’t worry, I got you.”
Laughter fills the spaces between our kisses while he carries me to his room.
I’m on Carmello’s bed with him hovering above me and my body tingling before he even comes down on top of me.
The friction is instant. Even though we’re separated by fabric, his length, thick and hard between my legs, provides the perfect pressure.
As we kiss, desperate with our tongues, biting and sucking lips, he rolls his hips and rocks into me—our middles meeting in a way that will surely undo me.
And when he moans against my mouth, I feel an intense satisfaction that he’s making those sounds for me.
He pulls back to kiss and lick along my collarbone and I dig my nails into his shoulder blades, and we grind and grind and grind.
I want to slow down, I don’t want to stop, but my body has been deprived and the edge is closer than I thought it was and suddenly I’m shuddering with his name on my lips.
I can feel Carmello throbbing, I can sense him smiling against my neck. I’m grinning like we’re young again and getting to do what we just did was the highlight of my day.
He lifts himself up to stare at my face. “You’re happy,” he says.
“Dry sex is criminally underrated, and you do it so well,” I say, circling my hips to feel him still so hard it must hurt. “Are you happy?”
He leans down to kiss my mouth before he pushes into a sitting position to slide off my skirt. “I haven’t heard you come for me in a decade. I’m going to taste you now and see if I can make it happen again,” he says. “Does that sound like happiness to you?”
My stomach squeezes in excitement; there’s this light energy in the room, almost as if we were always bound to be back here, focused in on each other, aching and wanting more. I bite my lip when he reaches for my waistband, but then the sound of his alarm pulls our attention to the time.
His phone is in the kitchen, but he shuts it off with his watch.
He’s not looking at me, but I know he has to pick his son up from school.
I’ve noticed things about him too these past few weeks.
Like how he sets an alarm ten minutes before he truly has to go.
Then another one, just in case. The crazy part is that I hadn’t realized how much time passed.
That’s definitely a newer feeling for me; usually my mind runs so much my body can’t quite keep up.
Carmello takes a sharp breath, then comes over me again, lays his head between my breasts. We both throb. I want his tongue between my legs. I want to see him, to touch him and taste him, feel him slide inside of me. The orgasm was great, but my body aches to feel him fully.
I run my fingers through his hair and try to slow my breathing.
“Your Teddy alarm,” I say. I don’t sound like myself; my voice is raspy—like I just had good sex or a cigarette.
I don’t smoke and I won’t be getting the former.
Not today, at least. But my heart is louder than my body.
It’s steady, soft, and warm. Beating for him the way it used to.
He lifts his head to look at me. “I’m sorry we have to stop,” he says.
“It’s okay,” I say, then tug on his shirt for a kiss.
Moan when he gives me one more. But I break the contact and cup his face when he tries for another.
“As bad as I want you right now, if you left your son waiting at school to do nasty things with me, I’d be turned off with us both afterward.
” He smiles like he wasn’t expecting me to say that, and I feel him starting to harden between us again.
We groan in unison. God, what I wouldn’t give to have the power to slow time.
“But we should definitely reschedule as soon as physically possible.”
He tilts his head. “So, you didn’t take this particular interruption as a sign that maybe we shouldn’t continue whatever it is we’re doing?”
“No,” I say quickly. A stutter below my breastbone. “Did you?”
Something flashes across his face before he kisses my forehead and pushes up off the bed. “I think maybe we should talk about what this means before we reschedule. Is that okay?”
I don’t tell him that today he’s easier for me to read. That I missed him, and I don’t doubt he missed me anymore. That I’m happy we’re having new moments together, but I’m not sure if we’re aligned enough that they won’t be our last.
I feel nerves gather in my throat knowing that a talk could bring clarity to that.
My heart is wide open, it’s in his hands and he doesn’t even know it.
“Maybe we should,” I say, because I know he needs the communication to feel safe.
“Come here,” he says, helping me off the bed to wrap me in his arms.
With my head against his chest, I can feel how nervous he is, so I close my eyes and enjoy every second while we’re connected, just in case.