Chapter 10 Jasmine
Jasmine
I type the last sentence of chapter forty-two and stare at the screen. After months of silence, and believing I’d lost the ability to tell stories, I finished the book. The book series—Celestial— I started three years ago is finally complete.
Celeste got her happy ending. Prince Qalingo proved himself worthy of her trust. And the kingdom was saved.
I sit back in my chair and press my hands to my belly, where our daughter has been doing gymnastics for the past hour. She’s more active at night, which the books say is normal.
“I finished it,” I tell her. “Your mama actually finished the book.”
She kicks in response, and I burst into tears, choosing to interpret this as congratulations.
The door to my guest bedroom turned office opens behind me, and I don’t even have time to wipe my face before Antonio’s voice fills the room.
“Querida, I brought...” He stops. I hear the rustle of bags being set down, then his footsteps crossing quickly to where I sit. “What happened?”
He’s kneeling beside my chair before I can answer. “Are you okay? Are you stuck on the plot again? I will buy the publishing house and—”
“I finished it.”
He stops mid-sentence, brow furrowing. “What?”
“The book.” I laugh through my tears, which only makes me cry harder. “I finished the book, Antonio. Just now. The last chapter. It’s done.”
Understanding dawns across his face, and then he’s pulling me out of the chair and into his arms, holding me as tightly as my thirty-week belly will allow.
“You finished it,” he repeats against my hair. “Minha linda, you finished it.”
“I thought I wouldn’t.” I’m sobbing now, all the months of doubt and fear and frustration pouring out. “I thought the words were gone forever, and then they came back, and I didn’t trust them, and now...”
“You did it.” He brushes away my tears. “We need to celebrate. I’ll make reservations somewhere at that rooftop restaurant you love, or the Italian restaurant by the water. Or champagne. Well, sparkling cider for you, but...”
“Babe.”
“...I could call our friends and make it a whole thing. Or just us, if you want just us. Whatever you want, querida. This is your night.”
“Antonio.”
He stops talking. Looks at me.
“We’ll celebrate after,” I say quietly. “Right now, I want you.”
His eyes darken, and I watch the shift happen in real time. The excited, rambling boyfriend disappears, replaced by someone hungrier.
“Yeah?” His voice drops low. “What do you want, querida?”
I answer by pulling his mouth to mine.
The kiss is desperate, and his hands slide beneath my shirt, warming my skin. I tug at his hem impatiently, and he breaks the kiss just long enough to pull it over his head.
We make it to the bedroom in stages. His mouth on my neck in the hallway. My bra unclasped somewhere near the door. By the time we reach the bed, I’m bare from the waist up, and his hands are everywhere.
Antonio sits on the edge of the mattress and pulls me between his legs, pressing kisses to my belly, my ribs, the undersides of my breasts. I thread my fingers through his hair and let my head fall back.
His hands slide down to my hips and tugs down my shorts and underwear. I step out of them and his palm glides back up my thigh.
When his fingers find me already wet, the sound he makes sends heat pooling in my belly. “All this for me, querida?”
“I just wrote the emotional climax of a love story. I’m feeling some things.”
He laughs against my skin, pressing another kiss to my belly. “Happy to help with the physical climax too.”
“That was terrible.”
“You’re smiling.”
I am. Even now, standing naked between his legs while his fingers do things that make my toes curl, he makes me laugh. That’s the difference, I realize. That’s what I was missing in every relationship before him.
He circles my clit and I grip his shoulders to steady myself. When he captures one of my nipples between his lips, still working me with his other hand, my thighs tremble as the dual sensations build.
“That’s it,” he breathes, pulling back to look up at me. “Let go for me.”
I try to form words, but they dissolve into a moan as he slips two fingers inside me. The pressure builds fast when his thumb presses harder and his fingers curve deeper.
My knees threaten to buckle, but Antonio holds me as the orgasm tears through me.
“That’s my girl.” His voice is strained. “I could do this all night.”
“Don’t you dare.”
Antonio grins, and there’s something wicked in it. “No?”
He withdraws his fingers slowly, making me whimper at the loss. I step back, still catching my breath, and watch as he stands to shed his remaining clothes. My mouth goes dry at the sight of him fully bare and his curved dick already hard.
Sitting back on the edge of the mattress, he reaches for me. I climb over him, letting him guide me into position. This position is easier on my back, and I can control everything.
These past months, he’s learned my body, noting what works and what doesn’t as my belly has grown.
I sink down onto him slowly.
“Deus, Jasmine.”
I brace my hands on his chest and start to move. I roll my hips in a rhythm that grinds my already sensitive clit against his pubic bone, sending sharp jolts of pleasure through me with every circle.
His palms find my hips, guiding but not controlling, letting me set the pace. I lean forward, changing the angle, and gasp as he hits my G-spot.
“Right there?” he asks, voice gruff.
I nod, unable to form words, and he plants his feet on the mattress, thrusting up to meet me. The new tempo is faster, deeper, and I’m climbing toward something inevitable.
The orgasm crashes through me, pulling a cry from my throat. My inner walls clench around him, and he comes with me, groaning my name as he pulses inside me.
I collapse forward onto his chest, careful to angle myself so my belly rests beside him rather than between us. His arms wrap around me immediately, one hand stroking up and down my spine.
We lie there for a while, catching our breath. Eventually, he shifts us both, settling back against the headboard with me tucked against his side, and I drape my arm across his chest.
My mind drifts back to Vegas, the way it does sometimes when I’m this close to him. I’ve never asked him about that morning. Never wanted to know the answer, because not knowing felt safer than confirmation.
But lying here in the aftermath of celebration and intimacy, I can’t stop myself from verbalizing my thoughts.
“You left me in Vegas.”
His hand stills on my back. “I didn’t leave you.”
“You were gone when I woke up. That’s literally the definition of leaving.”
“I went to get breakfast. I had this whole plan, and when I came back, you were gone.”
My head lifts from his chest. “What?”
“I came back. Twenty minutes, maybe less. And you were already gone.”
“I waited, but you never came back.” The words come out quiet.
“How long did you wait?”
“Not long enough, apparently.” My gaze fixes on a point somewhere near his collarbone. “I just... I saw you were gone, and I assumed...”
“I left to get food. I was coming back.” He shifts beneath me, and I feel his hand come up to cup my face, tilting it toward his. “I thought you regretted that night and couldn’t get away from me fast enough. I didn’t know you thought I abandoned you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper.
“When? Before the car accident, you wouldn’t look at me. Every time I walked into a room, you found somewhere else to be. I thought you wanted to forget it ever happened.”
“I was protecting myself.” My voice comes out smaller than I intend. “Because I thought you didn’t want me.”
“I have wanted you since the first time I saw you, querida. Vegas was me finally having the woman I’d been thinking about for eight years. I woke up next to you, and you were so beautiful, and I wanted to do something nice. Give you something to smile about when you woke up.”
Eight years. He wanted me for eight years.
“And I left before you came back,” I say.
“We’re both idiots.”
A breathless laugh escapes me. “Speak for yourself.”
“I’m speaking for both of us.” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “If you hadn’t gotten pregnant, we might have gone the rest of our lives believing the wrong thing.”
“We would’ve figured it out, eventually.” I don’t believe it, even as I say it. “Right?”
“I want to say yes, but honestly? I don’t know if I would’ve had the courage without our baby.”
“I don’t know if I would’ve either.”
“But you’re here now.” His voice is soft. “We both are.”
He’s right. I settle back against his chest, letting his heartbeat steady mine. My hand finds its place over his heart, and his covers it, holding it there. I let myself enjoy this feeling of being exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Then I lift my head, fixing him with a serious expression. “Speaking of Vegas, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“You kissed better in Vegas.”
His face shifts through confusion, disbelief and outrage before landing on indignation. “Excuse me?”
“I’m just saying.” I shrug, fighting to keep my face neutral. “There was a certain... energy. I don’t know what happened to it.”
“Jasmine, fifteen minutes ago you were...”
“I know what I was doing fifteen minutes ago.” I pat his chest consolingly. “I’m just giving you feedback for improvement purposes.”
Antonio moves fast. Before I can even register it, I’m on my back with him hovering over me, his hand braced beside my head and his eyes dark with playful menace.
“You want Vegas energy, querida?” His voice is low. “I’ll give you Vegas energy.”
I’m laughing when his mouth finds mine, and he swallows the sound with a kiss that absolutely, definitively snatches my breath away.
When he pulls back, my thoughts scattered.
“Better?” he asks.
I take a moment to collect myself. “Adequate.”
“Meu Deus.” He laughs. “You’re playing me.”
“And yet here you are.” My smile widens. “Playing along.”
“Against my better judgment.”
“Your judgment was never that good to begin with. You got me pregnant.”
“You were there too. You put on the condom.”
“Lot of good it did us.”
He claims my lips again, and we stay like that for several minutes, trading kisses until the urgency fades.
“I should get going,” he says after a while, but his arms don’t loosen around me.
“Stay,” I say. “Just for a little while.”
He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Always.”
The next morning, I pad down the hallway toward the kitchen. My apartment is quiet except for Antonio’s voice drifting from the living room.
From what I’m gathering, he’s on the phone with Carmen. His tone is laced with annoyance.
“No, I haven’t asked her to marry me, and I won’t.” A pause. “Yes, I know what you think. You’ve made that abundantly clear.”
My shoulder finds the wall, and I lean there. The baby is pressing on my lungs, but that’s not why I can’t breathe.
I won’t.
Not “I’m not ready yet.” Not “we’re taking things slow.” Just—I won’t.
Of course he won’t. Why would he?
We never discussed marriage. He’s here because I’m carrying his child, and he’s a good man who takes responsibility for his actions. That’s not the same as wanting forever.
I knew that. I’ve always known that.
I let myself get confused with the weekend trips to the lake house, the shopping trips for the baby and video game matches. I let the way he looks at me and the way he touches me convince me this was becoming something it was never meant to be.
But this is what I expected from the beginning. The version of events I braced for when I woke up alone in Vegas. He’s not a villain for being exactly who I thought he was. I’m not a victim for wanting something he never offered.
We’re just two people who made a baby in Vegas and are doing their best not to make it weird.
Our daughter shifts beneath my palm.
“You don’t need to buy her any more clothes. She has plenty.” His voice softens. “I know you’re excited. I will call you later. Também te amo.”
Marriage was never in my life plan, anyway. Neither was a partner. I was going to have this baby alone, raise her as a single parent and love her more than my mother loved me. That was always the plan.
So nothing has changed. Not really.
I just forgot, for a little while, that the plan was still the plan.
I make my way back to the bedroom before he finds me standing there, and I climb back into bed, pulling the covers over my head.