21. Sofia
21
SOFIA
F our days before Christmas, I got an early present. Xavier came in early to work at the clinic and wanted to pick up some overtime. Selena, of course, tried to make it happen since she was related to him, and Pamela did not want to adjust her day because her husband was supposed to pick her up at her normal quitting time. I never turned down the opportunity to work because I was so used to living frugally and needing to earn every single penny I could. For the first time, though, I stepped up to go home to let Xavier get more hours.
“Yeah, I can head home early.” It felt so foreign and was not something that I would normally say. They all looked at me, surprised.
I shrugged. “I could use a little extra time to get things ready for Christmas. Ramon is in school, and I can get some things done at home without him there.”
That was the story I was sticking to. It wasn’t a lie. There were a few things that I needed to get done, but I was mostly excited about the chance to spend time with Diego.
I headed home thrilled to surprise him. I spent so much time working, and I felt guilty about his feeling useless and bored at home until he could get a job. There was no point that we could agree upon for him to get a job. It seemed that when he decided to reenter society, he would need to do so with the risk of somebody coming after him.
Today was not that day. I parked my car and went inside, smiling wide when he stood from the couch and looked at me with his brows very high.
“Surprise,” I said, walking toward him and ready to hug him. Feeling his strong arm around me was one of the best feelings in the world. He was my faith. He was my ultimate comfort.
He hugged me back, resting his chin on the top of my head. “You’re home early. What happened?” He leaned away to look at me in the face, seeming to search me for an answer.
I supposed that if I didn’t sound so happy, he would have been alarmed. I never came home early. I was a workaholic to the bone. Any deviation from the routine would be a cause for surprise. That wasn’t the case right now.
“There was a little change in the staffing today. I had an opportunity to come home early so I took it. I wanted to spend some time with you.” I stared up at him, admiring those deep, soft, brown eyes that I could get lost in so easily.
Hugging me tight, he acted as though he never wanted to let me go, yet he didn’t seem at peace. While I thought my early arrival home would be something for him to celebrate and to enjoy, he didn’t act like he was very happy about it.
It was my turn to ask him the same question. “Diego, what’s wrong?” If something was going on, I wanted him to come out with it and tell me.
“I feel like I am getting closer to understanding who I was. And the closer I come to figuring it out, I worry that I might not like who I was before.”
That made no sense. I struggled to understand why he suddenly had these issues with self-esteem. It didn’t seem like him, and while I didn’t know everything about him and I hadn’t known him for very long, I had a good feeling that I was correct. Diego wasn’t a sensitive man who needed reassurance. He was strong, both in body and mind.
Something had to have triggered him to talk like this and think like this.
“I don’t understand.”
“I worry that I wasn’t a good person before, my angel. I worry that if and when I figure out who I was, you won’t see me in the same light.”
“Diego, I see you right now, here before me, and I know that you are a good man.”
“No, you only want to believe that because that’s all you know. I can’t escape the possibility that I did bad things before and that I have a dark past you won’t approve of.”
“Everyone makes mistakes. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“No, I’m not talking about mistakes. I’m talking about if I was a dangerous and violent man. If I am inherently bad, and not a good man for you to want to be with.”
I couldn’t believe that he would actually think this. This man had proven time and again how much he cared about me. He showed me how much I mattered all the way to the point that he risked his life for me. He’d killed for me. If there were any other more serious and permanent way to show loyalty and compassion, that was it. I had no doubt in my mind.
“No one is only good. And no one is only bad. That’s the nature of humans. A good man can do bad things just the same as every bad guy can do some good. We are all capable of good and bad.”
“No, there are bad people out there for a reason and we should avoid them.”
I didn’t want to avoid him, and that wouldn’t change.
I shook my head, thinking back on how I had recently compared the two men who broke in with the Cartel. Those druggies weren’t Cartel men and they were bad. I was wrong to assume that every man in the world was bad. Stereotypical generalization like that didn’t help anyone.
“I agree with you that avoiding enemies is smart. But even in that, we have to be careful.” I cleared my throat and summoned the energy to talk about the worst time in my life. “When I was taken by the Cartel and Sebastian came after me the night the lights went out, I knew he was bad, but at the same time, I saw how there were some good people too. Some of the men were not okay with what he wanted to do. Others brought me food and water and gave me the common decency that I believe they would give all the women in their life. Even within the organization of the Cartel, I knew some of them were not completely bad. That doesn’t excuse the bad ones like Sebastian, and it has taken me a while to reconsider that I can’t fear everything. Even in the bad, there is some good. So, if you had a past that you might not be proud of now, it does not have to define who you are in your heart forever.”
He backed away from me, running his hand through his hair. I followed after him as he headed to the bedroom, seeming to need more space to walk and pace. He slumped onto the edge of the bed, where he had sat that night when I was spiraling in fear. He brought me back to the present then, and because I loved this man, I wanted to do the same for him.
When he was stuck in his mind and full of doubt and confusion and worry, I wanted to be able to be the grounding comfort to snap him out of it.
“Nothing about your past would change my mind about who you are. I have seen you in the best and worst moments of humanity. I have seen you vulnerable and lost, and I have seen you brave and angry. Even though we haven’t been in each other’s lives for long, I know you are not heartless. And you are more than capable of being good, of doing good.”
I stepped up close to him, staring into his serious eyes. Standing like this made me feel like I was too far away. I lowered to my knees, resting my hands on his thighs.
“You are a good man,” I said as I stroked my fingers over his legs. “You are a man I trust.” I unzipped his pants.
He watched me, silent and still, his eyes burning hotter, and he lifted his hips up to help me get his pants off.
“You are the good man that I want in my life.” Without his shorts or boxers on, his long, thick dick was within my reach. I started to wrap my fingers around the girth of his dick, pleased by how he was already getting harder by the second. It seemed that having my hand on him was all it took to make him hard and ready for pleasure.
And this time, I wanted to be the one to give it to him.
“You are a good man, the only man I love.” And with that declaration, one I never thought I would be brave enough to say to any man, I boldly traced my fingers up and down his velvety, stiff shaft.
I didn’t need to order him to look at me. I didn’t have any desire to tell him to keep his eyes on me. They were. He watched me as I brought him to my lips. I put my mouth over the tip. Feeling the moisture of the drop of pre-cum, I stuck my tongue out to collect it and taste him.
Salty. Musky.
I had never done this before, and I was glad that he would be the first one for me to have this heady experience.
With his thick cock becoming harder before me, I lowered my lips over his bulbous head and sucked him into my mouth. I explored every ridge of his veins with my tongue, loving the texture and sensation of this naughty act.
Before long, I was bobbing my head up and down, sucking hard and getting lost in the lust it spawned in me.
Staying steady, I sucked him off with the power to make him moan.
Trapped in my scrubs, I felt like I had too many layers on. He seemed to share that sentiment because he ripped his shirt off, widening his legs so I could stay right there and suck him.
“No, my angel.” He breathed faster, on the brink of coming. I could tell, and I wanted to give him that pleasure.
“I want to come with you.” He waited for me to ease back to pull me up. From how I felt, so alive and horny, all from what I did for him, I looked at the glistening surface of his dick that I just had in my mouth and wanted it back in. I stood and tore at my shirt while he rammed my pants and panties down.
“Ride me,” he said as he helped me disrobe. I got out of my pants and panties, the latter of which were already damp with my arousal.
Under the guidance of his hands on my hips, I climbed onto his lap and situated myself closer to his big erection jutting up at me.
“Now, my angel.” He helped align his cock, aiming his erection at my pussy, but before he grabbed my hips and pulled me down, he slid his fingers through the creaminess coating my skin. Collecting some of my juices, he put one hand behind me. He used that hand to push me forward and notch his wide cock head at my pussy.
But he wasn’t done. With a slick finger, he rubbed at my rear hole, teasing at the rim.
“I want to be the man you love,” he said as he lowered me to sit down on him.
“Because you are the woman I love.” He kissed me hard, and I leaned into his touch, sealing my lips to his without any desire of ever giving him up. I welcomed the slant over him as we joined into one.
I fell further onto his lap, and his dick pierced up into me with a lift of his hips. Stretched full, wide open with him stuffing me, I felt the beginning pressure of him pistoning his finger into my ass.
He didn’t move for a moment, and with his free hand latched on my hip, he kept me locked and wrapped around his dick. As he wedged his finger further into me, between the dual sensation of him in both holes, I knew I would not last long at all.
I panted, already pushed close to coming. Wrenching away from another hot kiss, I tried to speak again. “Diego, I won’t… I won’t last.”
Neither of us would.
“Ride me, my sweet angel. Let us mark tonight as the one that starts the rest of our future.”
With love.
With his finger rubbing in and out of my ass, and as I lifted and sank up and down on him, I wanted to reach my bliss, accepting the full-body burn of desire. My orgasm would stun me, I knew it would, and I anticipated the sweet relief that would lance through me.
With his hot lips brutal against mine, as we kissed like we couldn’t exist without each other, he stuffed me full while I rode him. A moment later, we came together, falling into the utter ecstasy and beautiful blessing of an orgasm that robbed my breath.
I would never be tired of making love to this man.
And I knew now more than ever that he was mine.
Mine to keep.
No matter what secrets lurked in his past.