by L. D. Davis
Leo put a finger to my lips. “Watch your mouth, little girl,” he said.
I smiled against his finger.
“In seventh grade I went skating with a few friends. A whole group of you girls walked in. My buddies were as excited as a bunch of twelve and thirteen-year-old boys can get about girls, but I didn’t really care. Not that I wasn’t into girls, but I couldn’t stand all of the makeup and sparkly lip-gloss and hairspray and the choking scent of too much perfume, and I hated the way they huddled in packs. They even skated in packs. Leslie and the other girls skated onto the floor and my friends decided it was a good time to show off and they started skating fast and doing tricks and being loud to get their attention. I hung back, though, because I didn’t want to be bothered with all of that. I don’t know what took you so long, but you didn’t come out right away. Leslie shouted your name over her shoulder and waved you on. I followed her line of sight to see whom she was talking to and that’s when I saw you. You looked about as interested in joining the gaggle of girls as I was about joining my idiot buddies.”
Leo’s eyes glazed over as he saw the thirteen-year-old me at the skating rink. I watched him with an awed expression on my face.
“You had on a pair of ugly brown rental skates,” he said with a small chuckle. “You had on jeans and a Bon Jovi T-shirt. Your hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail, but the wind had caught it, because it was a little messy, but I liked it. I liked watching your fingers push it behind your ear, totally unconcerned with the fact that it wasn’t perfect. Your face was naked except for the slight gleam of a clear gloss on your lips, but I didn’t even see that until I was really close to you. You smelled like soap and shampoo and I really liked that. I had skated ahead of you and turned around right in front of you, and skated backward so I could look at you and talk to you. I asked you for your name.”
“No,” I objected. “You demanded my name. ‘What’s your name.’ It wasn’t a question.”
Leo laughed but lightly pinched my leg. “Hush now, this is my story.”
“But I remember,” I said softly, placing my hands on his cheeks.
“Then you remember scowling at me and telling me to move out of your way before you skate on my face?”
I bit my bottom lip to keep myself from laughing. “You were in my way, and that was so obnoxious!”
“I was trying to be smooth!”
I sputtered. “Yeah, you failed at that!”
“Are you going to let me finish the story, or not?” he asked, poking my side.
“Go on, smooth one,” I said, ruffling his hair. “Finish your tale of love.”
Leo took my hand and kissed the palm. I melted a little as I smiled down at him.
“So, I asked for your name,” he said eyeing me and silently daring me to object again. “And you told me to move out of your way before you skated on my face, and I was shocked, and amused. I was a good-looking kid. Girls liked me, and they especially liked when I talked to them, but not you. You wanted to skate on my face. Leslie called to you again. She said Tabby, but I thought I’d get you back for wanting to commit violence with a skate and called you Tacky. It was already too late for me,” Leo sighed happily. “You had my heart right then and neither of us knew it.”
Warmth spread through me, and I actually had to fight the urge to cry. Our story had begun sooner than I could have ever guessed.
“But…” I whispered.
“But what?” Leo asked, caressing my legs.
“But…I was…fat.” It wasn’t often in my adult life that I felt insecure about my weight, but as I said the word, I felt the word. I suddenly felt like a beached whale sitting on the bed. Sudden scary thoughts about Leo’s intentions flooded my mind. How could he love someone like me when he could have someone thin like Leslie? How did he feel out in public with me? I never missed the way some slim, beautiful women looked at us, wondering what the buff hottie was doing with the big girl, but I always secretly got a thrill from it, except I wasn’t feeling so thrilled as my hands fidgeted with the hem of my shirt.
Leo stood up straight and pulled me up with him. He cradled my face in his hands and looked at me with an intensity that burned.
“You were beautiful,” he said reverently. “You are beautiful. I love every inch of your body, Tabitha. Do you have any idea how hard it is not to touch you constantly? I want my hands and mouth on your body every second of every day. I can never get enough of you.”
His lips lightly touched mine.
“So gorgeous,” he whispered against my mouth as his hands moved lightly over my breasts. “So beautiful.” He caressed my belly before inching over to my hips. “So perfect.”
His tongue sought entrance into my mouth and I let him in. Sensually, his tongue stroked into my mouth. My toes curled into the carpet as he instantly took my breath away. I curled my fingers around his neck as I moaned softly into his mouth. Leo’s hands flattened against my backside and he pulled me to him.
His kisses always made me feel lost in him, but that kiss…I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be found again. I was drowning in him, soaking him into my lungs, and breathing him in.
Our clothes slipped off a piece at a time. His shirt, my pants. My shirt and then his pants. My panties and bra joined the pile of clothes on the floor, finally followed by Leo’s boxers. His kisses feathered down my neck, across my chest, and over each breast, pulling and laving at the nipples with his mouth. He kissed my belly as his fingers reached for my nipples, rolling them in his fingers.
He gently pushed me down to sit on the edge of the bed. He kneeled before me and guided my legs over his shoulders. I held my breath with anticipation, meeting his blazing eyes as his tongue met my sex. I didn’t look away from him as he loved me with his mouth, feasting on me like a starving man. I used one hand to hold myself up and the other threaded into his hair. Leo moaned, enjoying the experience just as much as I was. When he pushed two fingers inside of me, I cried out and grinded myself against his face and hand as my orgasm shook me.
When Leo finally stood up, his mouth glistened with my wetness. He leaned down and kissed me passionately, and I groaned into his mouth at the eroticism of tasting myself on his tongue. He tossed Leslie’s letter onto the bedside table and then looked at me like a predator. I shivered. As if I weighed nothing, Leo made me shriek with alarm as he lifted me and tossed me onto the bed.
“Shit,” I panted as he crawled up my body, kissing me along the way.
His grin was devilish and made me feel hot all over. He kissed my mouth again as he positioned himself at the entrance of my core.
“Wait,” I said, putting a hand on his abdomen. “You have to wear a condom,” I reminded him.
In the process of moving to Miami, I had missed my last birth control shot. I had an appointment with a new doctor, but in the meantime, my body was an open baby factory.
Leo looked to the table where the condoms were stored in a drawer. I expected him to reach over and retrieve one, but he turned back to me and his brow set into a firm line.
“No,” he said resolutely.
My eyes widened slightly. “No?” I parroted.
“We’re doing this now,” he said, pushing into me an inch.
“Doing what now?” I asked, my voice high and my eyes saucers.
“Getting married. Starting a family. We’ve wasted enough time. We’re doing this now.”
He pushed into me a little more and we both moaned.
Fighting the urge to thrust into me to the hilt, Leo’s jaw was tight as he spoke. “I can’t wait another day to make you my wife. I can’t wait another day to try to create a life with you, our own beautiful baby, dolcezza,” he whispered and kissed me softly as he pushed in a little more. He groaned and said, “Let me give you my love, Tabitha.”
I cried out as Leo buried his cock in me in one hard thrust. He groaned against the corner of my mouth as he pushed my arms back until my hands were on the bed above my head. He laced his fingers
with mine, and while gazing into my eyes, he pulled out slowly and then thrust into me again.
“Leo,” I whimpered.
He held my hands down as he began to move in a smooth rhythm. My breasts bounced against his chest and my sex clenched with every thrust. I moaned and thrashed beneath him as he kissed me deeply.
“You’re marrying me tomorrow,” Leo growled against my mouth. I nipped at his lips and his tongue in response and soothed the bites with soft licks. His tongue tangled with mine, obscene and pornographic.
His thrusts became harder, wilder, pinning me to the bed with his hips. I lost any control, begging and screaming for him to do it harder and deeper. I was climbing fast toward my climax. Leo dipped his head and took a nipple into his mouth. He held it between his teeth as he bucked against me.
“Oh, god!” I cried out. “Please, please, please!” I begged for my release.
Leo’s thrusts became furious. “Yes, baby, take it. Take it,” he growled before giving my nipple one last tug. “Ready for me, baby? Are you ready to come with me, dolcezza?”
I screamed something wordless as his thrusts became jerky.
“Come with me, amore mio,” Leo groaned.
When I felt the first stream of semen inside of me, my body tensed up tightly, and suddenly released an explosive energy. My fingers tightened around his and my hips bucked against him.
“Take every drop.” He moaned against my lips before whispering, “Give me a baby, amore mio, sei la mia vita.”
I fell back against the mattress, my legs shaking and trying to close around his body. My whole body trembled and my cheeks were moist with tears. Leo’s movements slowed and gentled as he kissed me softly.
“Tomorrow,” he said a moment later. “You will be my wife.”
“Tomorrow,” I whispered back.
His eyes glistened as he smiled down at me. “Per sempre.”
I placed a gentle kiss on his lips and nodded. “Forever.”
Epilogue
Five years later…
“Bon jour, brother!” I waved to Tack. There was only about a two-second delay before he heard and saw me and waved back. “How’s it going?”
He smiled warmly, looking more like the man I always thought he’d be at that age, and not the washed out man he had been more than five years earlier.
“Good. Did you see the video I sent? My phone died so I don’t know if you got back to me.”
“I did—we all did. She’s beautiful, Tack!” I almost started crying again. After receiving the forty-second video clip of Tack holding his newborn baby girl for the first time, I had cried for ten minutes. His first child, Theodore Tackard III, was born in France five years before. He and his girlfriend Nora married when Theo was a little more than a year old. My brother was determined to be a good dad and husband. He slipped once since going to rehab, but only once. Since then, he had been clean for over four years.
We are all so deeply indebted to Emmy for her kindness, I’m not sure if we’ll ever be able to repay her. You can’t put a monetary value on the quality of life that she helped Tack achieve, even if it was half a world away in another country.
I learned a lot about my cousin in the days following that meeting in her hotel room, like how she had slept with Leo when we were younger! It left a bitter taste in my mouth, but that bitter taste was replaced by horror and sadness for my cousin as she recounted a tale that had left her a broken woman. Her experiences put things in perspective for me. Nothing I had faced, not my parents’ lack of affection, not my brother’s drug use, and not my Leslie-Leo debacle could compare to what Emmy endured and what would haunt her for the rest of her life. Furthermore, it made me realize what was truly important in life. I learned that night that I had to let go and always move forward. Learn from my mistakes and keep it moving. Any residual feelings I felt after the showdown in Miami with Leslie instantly dispersed. I held tight to my guy, and we moved on.
“Mom and Dad are going to come out and see you guys next month,” I said to Tack. “I wish I could come out.”
“At the rate you and Pesciano are going, you’ll never not be knocked up and you’ll never get out here,” he snickered.
“Not funny, Tack,” I said seriously, running a hand over my swollen belly. “This is the last one.”
He chuckled as if he didn’t believe me. “Kiss my niece and nephew for me and tell the folks I’ll chat with them later. I want to get back to the hospital.”
“Congratulations,” I said, blinking back my tears. “I’m really proud of you, you know that?”
“Don’t start bawling again,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Yes, I know. I’m proud of you, too. I love you, little sister.”
“I love you, too.” I blew teary kisses at him until he cut the video transmission.
San blew into the house just then. “Are you crying again?”
“I just talked to Tack,” I explained as I followed Sandy into the kitchen.
“Aww, how is the baby and Nora?” She went into the fridge and pulled out mustard and ketchup.
“They’re fine,” I said, grabbing the bags of hotdog and hamburger buns off of the counter.
“Think they’ll come to the states again soon?” she asked as I followed her back outside.
“I don’t know. I hope so.”
“It’s about time!” Leo said from his place in front of the large grill. “I sent you in to get that stuff hours ago.”
“It was not hours, stop it,” I admonished, dropping the buns on a table.
Leo dropped a kiss on my lips as he rubbed my belly before pushing his sunglasses down his nose. “Were you crying again?”
“She’s a regular spout that one,” Sandy said before shouting at her son Robbie. “Hey, do you want to lose that finger, kid?”
He pulled his finger away from the cake he had just had it in. I narrowed my eyes at Lenny, who was also standing too close to the cake.
“Don’t even think about it, little Pesciano.”
“Grandma said I can have cake,” he argued.
“I said after dinner,” my mother admonished, with her hand on her hip. She shooed the kids away from the table of treats, shaking her head.
She had really come into the whole grandmother thing easier than I would have ever expected. I thought it would take her a long time to warm up to Theo and then Lenny a few months later, but I guess she took it as a second chance to get it right, to make up for the mother she wasn’t by being the best grandmother she could be. With Tack residing in France, there was no reason for my parents to stay in New Jersey. They moved to Miami four years ago and lived a few miles away. My mom took back her life. She made friends and joined a dance class. She spent a lot of time with Leonardo Jr.—Lenny—and our two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Adriana. She spoiled them senseless, and gave them affection that I never knew she had inside of her. My dad started working for Leo, overseeing the operation of Leo’s and Leo’s On the Bay. He worked a much lighter schedule than he used to. He became a different person. He and Leo got along great and were always fishing, going to sporting events, and smoking cigars on the patio that cost way more than I wanted to know. Dad also liked to come hang out with me and the kids a lot, and initiated a father-daughter lunch once a week. He was definitely more affectionate, especially with my mother. Once, I caught him kissing her neck with his hands on her ass. I had a weird mixture of disgust because it was my parents, and tenderness because I had never seen them look so…content. Our relationship wasn’t perfect, but it was good, and I couldn’t ask for more than that.
Sandy and Rob married weeks after Leo and me, the copycats. They just had to go to Vegas as we did and get hitched and get pregnant right away. Their son Robbie was only a month younger than Lenny, but their daughter Sylvie must have been conceived the moment the doctor cleared them to have sex, because she was born less than a year later. Sandy swore that at least one of our kids would marry each other. She and her family were visiting for a few days
before heading to Disney World to finish out their family vacation. She was my best friend and had become like a sister to me over the years. I never worried about our friendship, though, I had no reason to. There were no secrets separating us, no crazy codes, and no unspoken words. It was how a friendship should be.
“Are you finished cooking yet, Leo? I’m starving!” Christina said as she and her husband came off of the beach with Adriana between them, holding each of their hands. They didn’t have any children of their own, and they were content with that. They loved to travel, often at the last minute, and she had secured a cushy job with a largely circulated newspaper as a fashion consultant.
“This bitch,” Sandy muttered within hearing range of Chris and gestured to her with her thumb. “She’ll eat four burgers and not gain an ounce.”
“And a hot dog,” Christina said smugly. “And some chips and dip and a half a gallon of ice cream.”
The two adult women in their thirties stuck their tongues out at each other. Very mature.
“There’s my piccola principessa,” Leo said when he saw our daughter.
Adriana ran into his arms, giggling and holding on to him as if it hadn’t only been twenty minutes since she last saw him. She was such a daddy’s girl. While Lenny looked very much like me with brown hair but hazel eyes, Adri looked just like Leo. She had a headful of thick dark hair that curled at the ends and his incredible sea-colored eyes. I watched as he kissed and hugged her adoringly and told her how beautiful she was. She placed her pudgy little hands on his face and gave him a sloppy toddler kiss that left him grinning from ear to ear. He was so smitten, not just with her, but with Lenny, too. Leo was the most attentive, involved, and loving father I had ever seen. It didn’t matter what else was going on in our lives or what kind of conflicts arose, he stole every moment he could for our children. He showed them every day how much they are adored and loved. Already, he was teaching Lenny how to be a good man and showing Adriana that she deserved nothing but the best out of a husband.