Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
the most precious, most beautiful thing—no, person—in my life
Alice
After Arthur and Ivan’s talk at the birthday party, it felt like everything had changed again.
As soon as we went back inside, the air was lighter.
Everyone else felt it, too. Arthur promised to be back for a family dinner, and they all insisted I be there, as well, which had me nearly in tears for about the twelfth time that day.
It’s been five days since the party, and I haven’t slept in my own bed. Arthur insists, and I honestly sleep better next to him, so it’s a win-win. I’ll deal with going back to sleeping alone when I have to.
As things progress with the clinic, Rosemary has been looking for another occupational therapist to hire, and it seems she’s found a potential candidate. It’s a load off my shoulders, knowing I won’t be leaving them high and dry when I decide it’s time to go.
Given the way things are moving along with Gran’s house now that Gabriel helped me get connected with a realtor, it seems I’ll be able to cross that off my list soon.
And with Gran’s worsening condition, I don’t know if I can handle staying around much longer.
She either remembers who I am and that she despises me, or she has no clue who I am and is nicer than she’s ever been to me.
Either option hurts like hell, and I don’t know how much more of it I can take.
It’s a slow Saturday morning, and after letting Luther out, Arthur got back into bed with me. We’ve been lying here since, dozing in and out of sleep. It’s the kind of bliss I’ve never known before.
But, as tends to happen when I have too much time to think, my brain takes off down a road that is less happy and cozy thoughts, and more doom and gloom.
Arthur smooths the pad of his thumb in the space between my brows. “What’s going on in there?” he asks gently.
I could lie and pretend I’m thinking about work, but instead, the full truth comes out. “I want to tell you why I didn’t want to come back to Ojai, if that’s okay.” Some part of me needs him to understand why it’s so hard to be here, why I’ve been so adamant about leaving.
“Of course it’s okay. You can tell me anything, tesouro.” He kisses the top of my head and goes silent, waiting for me to begin.
“I wasn’t supposed to be born. My mom’s pregnancy was an accident, and my grandmother begged her to have an abortion.
Mom was in her third year of college, on track to get a business degree, and she had an affair with a professor from another faculty.
That’s how she got pregnant. She thought if she kept the baby, he’d leave his wife and take care of her, but he didn’t.
He got a job in another state and left. During the entire pregnancy, according to Gran, my mom thought he’d come back for her.
Well, he didn’t do that, either. My mom dropped out of college. I was born.”
I take a breath, smoothing my hand over his chest. “She was heartbroken, and I don’t think she ever got over him.
She drank a lot, but when I was about six or seven, she started using drugs.
” He tenses for a moment, and it’s so quick I almost wonder if I imagined it.
“I don’t know what kind, because I was too young, but I remember the change.
I don’t think Gran ever knew how bad it got, or maybe she didn’t want to see it.
“Suddenly, there were always new men in our house. I think Mom was constantly chasing love. It was like that for years, and then one day I came home from school and there were a bunch of people there. Police officers and paramedics. Gran was there. She didn’t even pick me up from school early; she let me come home and see the aftermath for myself.
The police tape all over the place. The flashing lights.
The body bag being wheeled out of our house.
Mom had overdosed, and one of her friends found her. ”
Arthur’s grip on me tightens, and his breath hitches.
I know if I look at him, I’ll lose it, so I keep going.
“That was when I went to live with Gran, who blamed me for losing her only daughter. She had been a single mom, too, and she didn’t want that for my mom.
Every day, I was reminded I’d been a mistake, so when I graduated from high school, I left. I did so intending to never come back.
“Then, all those weeks ago, I got a call from a doctor who told me my grandmother had advanced Alzheimer’s, and that I either needed to provide her with twenty-four-seven care myself or find a place that could do that for her.
So here I am, trying to figure out how to sell a house full of painful memories and fire damage, in a town that birthed all my worst moments.
” I chance a look at Arthur then, and find him openly crying, which instantly makes me do the same. “Sorry,” I whisper.
Shaking his head, he wipes my tears away. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. I—Thank you for telling me.”
Reaching up, I touch my lips to his, but he keeps the kiss short. “Alice, I—”
“I don’t want to talk anymore right now. Okay?” My fingers trace his jaw, letting the roughness of his stubble on my skin be the feeling I focus on.
“Yeah.” He swallows, his eyes still sad. But I don’t want to be sad. I want to enjoy the time I have with him because soon, it’ll end. At least now he knows why. Now he understands.
I straddle him and begin trailing kisses down his neck, over his chest. He’s quiet, but his breathing picks up.
“Tell me about your tattoos,” I whisper into his skin. “What do they mean?” I’ve always wondered about the colorful flowers and birds he has on his skin, and I have never asked.
“The flowers are for my grandmother. They’re roses. Her favorites.” He moans when I kiss over his abs, running my hand over the waistband of his boxer briefs. “But we’re not gonna talk about her right now.”
“What about the birds?” I ask, chuckling while I pull on the fabric until he’s naked beneath me, hoping none of the other tattoos are for family members, too.
“The sabiá-laranjeira is Brazil’s national bird. I remember the first time I heard them singing, there were thousands of them. It was—” He pauses when my lips reach his hip, and I stop moving, waiting for him. “Incredible,” he mumbles, groaning when I continue to kiss him lower.
“And the hummingbird?” I ask, my lips hovering over where he’s hard for me. He doesn’t answer, and when I swirl my tongue over the head of his cock, tasting him with a moan, a strangled sound leaves him. “Arthur, are you going to answer my question?”
He struggles to answer me again, fisting the sheets when I lick him from base to tip.
“Uh, I l-like them. They’re a symbol of, um, uh, r-resilience.
They—They’re, uh delicate, b-but strong.
” He struggles through the explanation as I continue to tease him with my mouth, and when he finishes, I wrap my lips around him and take him as deeply as I can.
“Oh, fuck,” he whispers, his breath catching when I hum around him, sucking as I somehow take him even deeper.
Lifting my gaze, I find his eyes already on me, and it makes my core throb to see him watching me with fire in his eyes. I moan, searching for friction as I squeeze my thighs together.
And then, faster than I can fully process in the moment, he’s lifting me so I’m straddling him again and pulling my oversized T-shirt over my head, his heated gaze making my core throb.
“You want my cock, baby?” With all the confidence in the world, he puts his hands behind his head and waits.
“Yes,” I answer, bracing my hands on his abs until the head of his cock grazes over my clit, making me moan.
“Then take it, tesouro. Take what’s yours. Ride me. Soak me.” I move my hips, coating him in the proof of what he does to my body.
Finding some confidence of my own, I lift my leg and maneuver myself until I’m straddling him again, but facing the other way. Keeping my eyes low, I use one hand to guide him to my entrance and the other to brace myself on his thigh.
“Goddamn it, how are you real?” The awe in his question only spurs me on more, and I sink down onto him, whimpering at the delicious stretch and pleasure that seems to reach every part of me.
I lift and lower myself until all that exists are our labored breaths and the feel of him, long and so hard inside me. As my movements become more erratic, I know I can’t keep this up much longer, and Arthur senses it, as he holds me at the waist. “On your hands and knees, tesouro.”
Holy hell, I might come just from his deep, gravelly voice commanding me. I do as he asks, and whine when he slips out of me, only to find myself moaning loudly the next moment when he thrusts fully inside me with a groan.
He fucks like he does everything else—intentionally, flawlessly.
He also fucks the way I’ve always wanted, deep and long, hard and slow at first. His tattooed arm wraps around my middle, pulling me up until my back is flush with his chest. I brace myself with one hand on his thick thigh, the one that made me come the first time, while the other finds his hair.
“Why do you call me goldie?” Maybe it’s the wrong time to ask, but it feels like we’re running out of it, and I need to know.
“Your eyes,” he says into my skin, thrusting into me in a rhythm that’s our own.
“And the other one?” I pant, trying to memorize the way he feels inside me. “What does it mean?” The question I’ve been wanting to ask since day one finally makes itself known.
“What, baby?” He moans as his hand finds my breast. I love that sound. I love that just touching my body makes him do that.
“Tesouro,” I clarify.
“Tesouro,” he repeats. “Você é o meu tesouro. A coisa—n?o, a pessoa—mais preciosa, mais linda na minha vida.” He peppers my neck with kisses, bringing his other hand to my hip and squeezing.
“Arthur, please,” I beg, needing to know what those words mean. Needing to hear him say them again, even if I never understand them.
“It means treasure.” He takes my hand in his, moving them both until they’re at my core, feeling the place we’re most intimately connected.
“You’re my treasure. The most precious, most beautiful thing—no, person—in my life.
” With the admission on his lips and his finger on my clit, I come around him, squeezing and pulsing until nothing else exists but this.
Us.
As his arms tighten around me, he whispers my name into my neck, finding his own release.
I hope I never forget how it feels to be held by him, to be loved by him. Because even if he’s never said he loves me, he makes me feel loved and cherished, and that’s a priceless gift I’ll never take for granted.
As we catch our breaths, his hold on me never loosens, as if he’s scared to let me go. I’m scared, too. Scared he’ll let me leave when the time comes, even though I know if he asked me to stay, I’m not sure I could deny him. I’m not sure I want to anymore.
Finally, we pry our bodies apart, and Arthur picks me up, carrying me out to the hallway and into the bathroom. “I told you, you don’t have to ca—”
He silences me with a kiss before setting me on the vanity. “And I told you I’ll carry you anywhere. I’d carry you everywhere. Then you’d never be far away from me.”
He cleans us both up as he’s done before, then moves away from me to turn on the water in the tub, checking the temperature and then pouring in salts I didn’t realize he had stashed away. In seconds, the whole room smells like lavender.
He struts back to where I’m sitting, stunned, watching as his muscles move and his hair falls over his forehead, entranced by the magic and beauty that is Arthur Machado.
He reaches behind me then begins to pull my hair delicately to the top of my head, gathering the strands and tying the scrunchie I left on the countertop around it until it’s in a messy knot. I watch his face tense in concentration, brows furrowed and his tongue sticking out between his lips.
My gosh, I want to kiss him. Hug him. Hold on to him and never let him go. I want to be with him every moment until forever.
Before my feelings get away from me, his face softens, and he chuckles at his own handiwork. And then he picks me up again, making me giggle.
“You know what’s better than the sound of your laugh?
” he asks, my favorite smile tugging at his stubbled cheeks.
I shake my head as he lowers me into the tub first, then climbs in himself, pulling me back until I’m resting against his chest with his legs on either side of me. “Nothing,” he whispers into my hair.
We sit like that, all gentle touches and stolen kisses wherever we can reach—arms and hands for me, head, neck and shoulders for him.
The first night we met, when Arthur held me like this on the bathroom floor, I never could have imagined we’d end up here.
Now I can’t imagine being anywhere else.