Chapter 7
Antonio
“I need you inside me,” she says. “Please.”
That word almost undoes me. Jasmine Haywood saying please with her body open beneath mine, wanting me. It’s enough to make a man lose his mind.
I position myself between her thighs, careful to brace my weight on my forearms. Her ribs are still healing. If I hurt her, I’ll never forgive myself.
“Look at me,” I say.
Her eyes flutter open. Dark and hazy with want. I hold her gaze as I push forward, watching her face as I fill her.
“Deus.” The word scrapes out of my throat. “You feel incredible.”
Incredible doesn’t cover it. Nothing covers it. She’s warm and tight and perfect, and I have to hold myself still before this ends embarrassingly fast.
Four months of celibacy will do that to a man. Four months of wanting only her.
Jasmine wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me deeper, and I take that as permission to move.
I keep my rotating thrusts slow. Every stroke draws a sound from her that I want to remember forever. She rocks her hips to meet me, finding a rhythm, and the tension builds in my spine.
I shift my angle, and she cries out. There. Right there. I do it again, watching her face shatter, watching her eyes lose focus.
“Fuck, you’re gripping me so tight,” I growl. “Come for me, querida.”
She does, clenching around me so hard I see stars. Moments later, I spill inside her with a groan.
I pull out and shift us onto our sides, tucking her back against my chest. My arm drapes over her waist while my hand splays across her belly.
“Oh my God!”
My heart stops. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Antonio.” She tilts her head back to look at me over her shoulder, eyes wide. “We didn’t use a condom.”
“I’m clean. I got tested recently.”
“What if I get pregnant? What are we going to do?”
Panic seizes me for a second before my brain catches up.
“You think you’re funny.” I flex my fingers against the small swell beneath my palm.
The laughter spills out of her. “Your face. You actually fell for it.”
“I did not.”
“You did. You went pale.”
“I’m Brazilian. I don’t pale.”
“You went as pale as a Brazilian man can go.” She’s still laughing, wiping tears from her eyes. “Admit it.”
I tighten my arm around her waist and pull her impossibly closer, nuzzling into her neck. “Don’t worry, querida,” I say against her skin. “I’ll take care of you and the baby.”
The words are out before I can think them through. A promise. The kind my father made a thousand times and broke just as many.
What if I can’t? What if the Da Rocha genetics kick in and I become present but unreliable, loving but ultimately disappointing? What if I hurt her the way he hurt m?e, not through malice but through my own inability to be what she needs?
But I’ve already said it. And I meant it. I just have to figure out how to actually do it.
“My mother was right,” I say.
“About what?”
“Stability.” I stare at the back of her head. “Our daughter deserves parents under one roof.”
Jasmine turns her face toward me again. “What’s your plan?”
“We’ve done everything backwards. We had sex before we dated. We’re having a baby before we’re a couple.” I take her hand, lacing our fingers together against her belly. “I want to take you on a date.”
“A date.”
“Dinner, conversation, maybe dancing if you’re up for it. I want to court you properly, Jasmine. The way you deserve.”
Court. Meu Deus, I sound like my av?. But it’s the right word. The only word.
“You want to court me?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
Something flickers in her eyes. I know she’s thinking about all the reasons she shouldn’t trust me, starting with Dani waiting in my bed.
“Let me prove I can be what you and the baby need.”
Jasmine is quiet for a couple of minutes, and I hold my breath.
“Yes. I’ll go on a date with you.”
She’s giving me a chance. Now I just have to figure out how not to waste it.
I lean in and kiss her lips before she relaxes back into the pillows, turning her face forward again. I follow, pressing a kiss to her shoulder, then her neck, working my way up to her earlobes.
“Antonio,” she arches back against me, her ass pressing into my already hardening cock. She reaches back to grip my thigh, “I want you again.”
“I want you, too.” I hook her top leg over my hip to open her up before sliding into her from behind.
This time is slower. Longer. My hands roam between her slick pussy, the curve of her stomach, and her sensitive nipples. I whisper Portuguese endearments against her neck until she is clenching around me and moaning my name in surrender.
Afterward, she falls asleep first. I hold her close, my hand resting on her belly and my face tucked into the crook of her neck.
I fall asleep spent and satisfied, even though I’m terrified I’ll end up being another person who lets her down.
I wake to an empty bed, my arms wrapped around nothing but cool sheets.
After pulling on my discarded shorts, I pad down the hallway. Light spills from under the door of my office. The soft click of typing reaches my ears.
I pull out my phone and check the office camera. She’s hunched over her laptop, fingers flying across the keys, completely absorbed.
Best to leave her alone. I return to bed. Sleep doesn’t come easy with her scent still clinging to the sheets and the absence of her warmth beside me.
Three hours later, I wake up again and make my way to the kitchen. The clacking of keys tells me she’s still at it when I pass the office.
In the kitchen, I make her lemon water, toast some bread, and cut up fruit. She’s been awake all night, and as much as she wants to push through it, she’s still healing.
When I push open the office door, she hasn’t moved. She’s still typing and her neck is bent at an angle that’s going to hurt later.
“There you are,” I say.
She jumps, hand flying to her chest. “Jesus, Antonio. You scared me.”
“Sorry.” I cross the room and set the mug beside her laptop. “Drink.”
She takes a sip. “Thank you.”
“You’ve been up all night.”
“I wrote three chapters.”
“You did?”
“The characters are speaking again.” Her voice holds wonder.
“I figured out what was wrong. It wasn’t the plot or the pacing, or any of the technical things I kept trying to fix.
It was Celeste. She was afraid of being loved, and I couldn’t write past it because I couldn’t understand her.
But now...” She trails off, fingers still hovering over the keyboard as if she might dive back in any second.
I pull a chair closer and sit beside her. “Can I hear some?”
She scrolls back and reads aloud. Something about walls and stones and keeping danger out while keeping joy from entering. Her voice is rough from disuse, but the words are beautiful. The kind of writing that makes you want to read more.
“Keep going,” I say.
“I am not easy to love,” Celeste says. “I am guarded and suspicious, and I will test you at every turn. I will push you away and then resent you for leaving. I will doubt your words even when your actions prove them true. I am a fortress with no door, and I don’t know how to build one.”
Qalingo takes her hand. “Then we will build one together. Brick by brick, if we must. I have time, Celeste. I have nothing but time for you.”
I wonder if she knows she’s describing herself.
“That’s beautiful,” I say. Then I reach out to save her work and close her laptop. “Now, come back to bed.”
“I should keep writing while the words are flowing.”
“You’ve been awake all night. The words will still be there after you sleep.”
“But what if they’re not? What if this was a fluke and tonight I’m blocked again?”
I stand and pull her to her feet. “Then you’ll work through it. But right now, you need rest. Doctor’s orders.”
“You’re not a doctor.”
“I’m the father of your child, and I’m telling you, you need to sleep.” I kiss her forehead. “You’re exhausted.”
She fights it for another moment, then gives in. “Fine. But I need a bath.”
“Eat first.” I nod at the untouched toast and fruit. “At least half.”
She rolls her eyes but sits, nibbling at the toast while I lean against the desk and watch. Her gaze drifts back to the closed laptop.
“It’s not going anywhere,” I say.
“You don’t know that.” But she takes another bite.
Ten minutes later, I run the water while she brushes her teeth. When she lowers herself into the tub, I stay. I lather a washcloth and run it across her shoulders, her back and the swell of her breasts. She sighs and leans into my touch.
“I could get used to this,” she says.
“Good.”
I want her to get used to me taking care of her. But the want comes with terror. My father was good at the beginning too, until he wasn’t.
I help her out when the water cools and wrap her in a heated towel. She leans against me while she dries off. I hold her up without comment.
“Sit,” I say, guiding her to the edge of the bed.
I get her petroleum jelly from the bathroom, kneel in front of her and work it into her feet, her calves, her thighs. When she stands, I smooth it over her belly where our daughter is growing, then her back, her arms. By the time I’m finished, she’s boneless.
“Stay there,” I say.
I find her wide-tooth comb and settle behind her on the bed. Parting her hair down the middle, I start braiding one section.
Jasmine goes still. “Since when do you know how to braid?”
“Meesha.” My fingers cross sections with confidence. “She used to make me oil her scalp at night when she was too lazy to do it herself. Taught me to braid while she was at it.”
She snorts. “Of course she did.”
“Said since I wasn’t a sister, I needed to be a useful brother.”
A laugh escapes her. I finish the second braid and settle her silk bonnet over her head.
“There,” I say.
She catches my hand. “Thank you.”
I kiss her palm. “Get into bed.”
She climbs in and I pull the covers up around her. I tuck them in at her sides the way my m?e used to do for me.
“Sleep.” I press my lips to her forehead again. “Close your eyes.”
She does. I stroke her cheek, then force myself to leave.
I stand in the hallway for a long moment, processing what just happened. I made her breakfast, gave her a bath, braided her hair, and tucked her in.
This is not how I operate. I don’t do tender. I don’t do caretaking. I do charm and humor, and strategic exits.
But Jasmine is the opposite of an exit. She’s a door I keep walking through, even when it scares the shit out of me.
I head back to the kitchen to make coffee.
The machine hisses and gurgles, filling the quiet house with the rich scent of dark roast. I pull out my phone while I wait, scrolling through the avalanche of emails that accumulated overnight.
I respond to what I can, flagging the rest for later.
My phone buzzes with an incoming call. Pai.
I answer. “Al?, pai.”
“Antonio. Tudo bem?” His voice is casual. “Tiago told me you haven’t been returning his calls. I figured I’d check in myself.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Busy is good. Busy means the business is doing well.” He pauses. “But you always make time for your brother. What’s going on?”
The coffee finishes brewing. I pour a cup and lean against the counter.
“I’m going to be a father,” I say. “You’re going to be an av?.”
“Did I miss a wedding invitation?”
“No. But I’m working on it.”
He chuckles. “Ah, these Western women. They’re tough to crack, no? Independent. They don’t make it easy.”
“It’s not her,” I say. “It’s me.”
The laughter stops. “What do you mean?”
“I’m terrified.” I take a sip. “Of being you.”
The silence stretches between us. Then he laughs.
“You’re not me, Antonio.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because when you were sixteen and spending the summer with me in Florianópolis, you were dating that girl. What was her name? Beatriz?”
Beatriz was sweet, traditional, and raised in a Catholic household. We’d held hands on the beach and she’d blushed when I kissed her cheek.
I head to my room while he talks. The sheets are rumpled from where Dani waited for me last night.
“There was another girl that summer.” His voice shifts. “She made it very clear what she was offering you. And you were sixteen, full of hormones, and she was beautiful.”
Carolina. She had cornered me at a beach party, pressed herself against me, whispered exactly what she wanted to do. Every sixteen-year-old boy’s fantasy handed to him on a silver platter.
“You stopped her,” my father responds. “Then you went straight to Beatriz and told her what happened.”
“She cried. Thought I was breaking up with her.” I strip the bed, then bundle it all into my arms and carry them to the laundry room.
“It would have been easier to keep your mouth shut.” He pauses. “Most boys your age would have taken what Carolina offered and never told Beatriz. Would have had both and felt entitled to it.” His voice drops. “I would have. I did, many times. But you didn’t.”
I shove the sheets into the machine and start it running. Beatriz and I had spent that whole summer together, and the night before I flew back to the States, she’d given me what she’d been saving for marriage.
“That’s who you are, filho. You don’t play games with people you care about.”
We talk for a few more minutes about when he can visit, about meeting Jasmine and soccer. When we hang up, I head back to Jasmine’s bedroom.
She is asleep, exactly where I left her. The bonnet covers her hair, and her hand rests on her belly. Our daughter is in there, growing, depending on me to get this right.
I shower quickly, then pull on clean boxer briefs and slide into bed beside her. She shifts, unconsciously moving into my warmth, and I wrap my arm around her waist.