by Olivia Fox
“Come on, Carlos. You’re a manly man. You can’t get away with skipping the daily shower. Not that I don’t enjoy your musk.” She placed her fists on either side of her hips and attempted to shift herself into a comfortable position, but ended up biting her lip in pain.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“Finer than frog hair.” She opened her eyes and looked sideways at me. “How do you think I feel? I feel like I’ve been run over by a horse. And I’m starving.” She clenched her jaw and thrashed on top of the mattress. “Jesus, where’s the nurse. These pain meds are not working.”
“Let me get her. I’ll be right back. My cousin’s are right outside if you need anything.” I ran as fast as I could to the nursing station, the charge nurse saw me coming. “She’s awake and her meds have worn off again. She needs something for the pain.”
The nurse smiled at me indulgently, “Tell her we’ll be right there Mr. Drago.”
“Hurry.” I grit out between my teeth.
“Yes, Sir. Right away.”
For fucking ever later, the shot of pain meds into her IV kicked in and Gabriella settled on her mattress.
“Will you stop it?” she said, eyes closed again.
“Stop what? I didn’t do anything.” I sounded like a pouty child. She’d done that to me, knocked my feet out from under me, pulling the covers back on the insanity that waited for me if I ever lost her.
“Stop watching me as if I’m going to disappear. I can feel your eyes on me even when mine are closed.” She plucked at the bandage on the back of her hand.
“Stop messing with your IV,” I ordered.
“It itches,” she replied.
I marked twenty machine beeps to see if she’d fall back asleep.
“I just want to go home. When can I go home?” She asked and started pushing buttons on her bed to readjust.
“Just a week or so longer, if you remain stable.” I told her.
“Did you let them know I wasn’t stable in the first place?” She slid her hand to her ribs again, “Ugh, stop it. I told you not to make me laugh.”
“It wasn’t me this time, Gabriela. You’re laughing at your own jokes.” I brushed her beautiful but in need of a bath hair back from her forehead, “You gave me quite a scare you know.”
“I’m sorry, Carlos. It was that damned Appaloosa. They’re fucking flighty as shit. Prancer’s okay,” she said.
She was confirming, not asking about her horse, knowing I’d have told her if there were anything wrong.
“Fit as a fiddle that guy. Vida settles him.” I rubbed the back of her fingers beneath mine, thinking that she was my Vida, and realizing if I compared her out loud to a goat, she’d kick my ass. “Anyway, I’m not leaving this room, baby. Your daddy’s here for the long haul so you’d better get used to the stench of me.”
32
Gabriela
This was getting old.
I was awakened, yet again, by the sound of my dad arguing with my husband in the hallway outside my hospital room.
“You didn’t seriously…?” even with his back to me, I could visualize the sneer on my handsome husband’s face while he spoke to my father. And that was unusual for him, he’d shown nothing but respect for my father up to now.
In accordance with our family tradition: respect your elders.
“Sí, señor.” Muttered my father.
“You just…” My husband sounded dumbfounded which made me want to pry. I needed to know what they were talking about.
“Yup.” Bit out my papá.
“Does that mean…?”
“Probably, yes. It’s because of me she’s in here and it’ll kill me if she doesn’t make a full recovery.”
“Lucky for you, she’ll be fine. That’s the only thing keeping me from spilling your blood on the floor of this house of healing. What were you thinking?” Carlos’s last word came out in a prolonged growl that sent a shiver up my spine.
I could see my father scrubbing his face in his hands, choosing his words carefully.
“The thought of my only daughter, the apple of my eye, getting hurt on some unpredictable beast. The image of losing her in some stupid horse race—it was more than I could bear.” The color drained from his splash-of-coffee skin.
“So you freaking torched the stable? The place where her precious racehorse lives?” It sounded like he wanted to pull a hammer's claw back, and crack Señor Serrano’s skull like an eggshell.
Heat flushed through my body and I wanted to punch something.
“It was you? You set the barn on fire?” I accused my own blood, experiencing some homicidal tendencies of my own, and frustrated that I was stuck in this stupid bed.
“I only wanted to scare you, mi amor. To convince you that whoever keeps trying to kidnap you is deadly serious and you need to stay within the fortress walls of your new home. But the fire got away from my man, Santiago.” He was pacing the room, unable to stay in one place and rubbing his wrists. “But then one day I overheard you while waiting outside in that very hallway, telling Carlos that you didn’t want to live if it meant you couldn’t race anymore. Until that moment, I never truly understood how much it meant to you.”
He sat in the chair at my side and did something I’d never seen him do before. His elbows were on the mattress beside me, hands held in prayer position in front of him.
For the first time in my life, I saw my father beg a woman for her forgiveness.
And that woman was me.
“I can never lose you, not to some foolish accident. Not to some failed kidnapping attempt. But most of all, I can’t lose you by driving you away with my attempts to shield you from the world. I knew you'd come through this.” He looked me straight in the eye, watching to see my reaction. “You’re my daughter. You’re tough. Not some fragile flower that needs a hot house and artificial fertilizer to survive. I’ve got to work on trusting you and your husband. You’re both survivors.”
He twisted his hands in knots in front of me, “I’m so sorry mi niña. I want you to live your dreams, to wake up to every day knowing you’ll live it to the fullest. It took me over twenty years and a horrible accident to learn how wrong I’ve been with you all along.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, and clenched my fists. “Well pops, in this particular case, forgiveness just isn’t an option. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone, please.”
No matter how deep I dug, in that moment, my heart just didn’t have it in me to forgive him.
Right on cue, my mom came through the door, her rosary hanging from her hands. She’d been praying in the hallway the whole time, begging God to save not only me, but to save us all. That was her drill.
It was like putting a band-aide on an arterial wound. The only way she had some illusion of control was to pretend it was all in God’s hands, that the man she married didn’t almost get her daughter killed.
I didn’t know which one of my parents pissed me off more.
“I’m fucking tired, papá.”
A little over a week ago, I’d no more imagine swearing in front of my father than winning the Triple Crown on the back of a burro. But things changed. That being, I finally got it.
DNA doesn’t make a family.
33
Carlos
Four Months Later
I’d skipped breakfast and lunch due to my tossing and turning stomach, and shook my head at what I was about to say over dinner, “No more distractions. This is what you were born to do. I can no more clip your wings than squash a butterfly under foot—you’ve got to race.“
Gabriela plopped a mountain sized serving of pasta on my plate and said, “I don’t mean to be overly skeptical, but this announcement of yours reeks of an ulterior motive.”
“How do you figure?” I asked, tilting my head to the side and leaned towards her.
“I figure it’s make up sex. My body is barely healed to the point where physical exertion is even allowed, and you’re already talking a
bout me racing again. I think you’re twitterpated beyond all recognition.”
“I’m not talking about being hasty, we’ll wait til the doc says it’s okay. I just want you to know that even though it kills me to let you ride again after what happened to you because of that fucking appaloosa, I could never keep you away from your God given talent.” I put my hand on her arm.
“Plus, I’ve been such a good girl. Eating right. Sticking to my PT regimen…” she said.
Good girls got what they deserved.
A slow smile smeared itself across my features. One day soon I’d be able to spank her again, just for fun. “Oh please, you’re probably the worst behaved wife in the history of the planet,” I said.
“Thanks for the encouragement,” she snapped, spreading a thick layer of butter across the freshly cooked bread in her hand.
“You know, you’re the only woman to ever sass me like that and get away with it.” I ran my hand up her thigh, showing her without words that I wanted to be between her legs.
Soon.
But only if she was ready.
I’d seen so much blood in my life, I was tattooed with violence, but Gabriela could make me do anything with a snap of her fingers.
“I have a surprise for you after dinner.” I told her.
She rolled her eyes and replied, “Oh boy, like that’s not a line I’ve heard before.”
“Bet you’ve never seen a surprise like this. And it’s also doctor approved.”
She gave me a questioning look, knowing I’d never give it away, and I stood up to clear the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher.
Gabriela was no longer on bed rest, but she still had to limit her activity, and that meant saving it all up for what I had in store.
Dessert.
Dishes done, I held her hand in mine, and walked her slowly to the backyard where “fairy lights,” as she called them, lined the walkway to the big leafed maple that had to be going on a hundred.
“What did you do?” she gasped, covering her fuckable mouth with her fingers.
“You said you always wanted one, right?” I raised up slightly on my heels to emphasize my words.
She threw her hands around me in a crushing embrace and bounced on her toes, “You did this for me?”
“My cousin Dante did it for me while you were at the hospital.”
“It’s beautiful, daddy,” she said.
The term of affection had the odd effect of tugging at my heart and stroking my dick at the same time.
"I realized I never got you a wedding present, and you never got to be a kid growing up. You've always been the mafia princess, albeit a rebellious one. It’s my plan to indulge you for the rest of your life.”
She leaned against my chest with a sigh of contentment and asked, “Can we go inside?”
“You’ll tell me if climbing hurts?” I’d asked Dante to build a ramp up to the tree house, but she was still getting her strength back and I didn’t know if the incline would be hard for her.
“I’m okay.” She said and used the wooden rail to help pull herself up the walkway. Once at the top, her breathing was heavy.
I swung the door open for her, and turned on the dimmer light. The custom-made bed wasn’t visible, shrouded as it was by what did the decorator call it? “Gossamer. Like fairy wings.”
Which is what she was, my gorgeous little fairy.
I didn’t strike most people as a professional criminal, and that’s what made me good at it. But not a single cell in her body feared me.
She knew I’d never cause her pain.
Ever.
“What’s this?” she gasped and pulled away, her pretty mouth slightly ajar.
I wanted to plunge my dick right in.
Shit.
Four months without sex and my penis was ready to blow from the slightest breeze. And I couldn’t touch her, it would be wrong.
She needed to tell me when it was time.
Time again to suck at those delicious buds on her breasts, to feel them tighten under my teeth and time to get off a little just from the feel of her tugging my hair and dragging my mouth closer.
I pulled her against the solid surface of my body. The rigid line of my cock rested snugly in the crease of her buttocks.
“It’s a blanket fort, only it’s permanent. We can sleep here if you’re up for it. I guarantee you it’ll be fun, and it’ll be dirty. And I won’t even kick you out of bed for eating a slice of my devil’s food cake in it.”
She turned to face me, and took a quick glance at the intruder below my belt.
It had no place to hide.
“Looks like I’m not the only one up for it.” She wagged her eyebrows at me.
“Careful, baby. It responds very forcefully to your flattery.” I said, pulling her to me and lowering my mouth to bite at hers and we sucked and tasted each other’s essence in the fairy light glow.
Great.
Four months horny, and not only was I ready to slay dragons for her, I sounded like a girl.
Fucking “fairy light glow.”
“Let’s check it out.” She made a sound of feminine anticipation and my dick throbbed so hard it hurt.
34
Gabriela
Carlos lowered himself to the exact spot that had become a burning inferno and said, “Be a good girl and spread your legs. I’m not going to touch you until you beg for it.”
I had no shame, even though the bandage stuck to my side served as an awkward reminder that fire and horses don’t mix.
“I want to taste you so bad, I’ve been starving for your pussy for months now. Dreaming about the sound of you moaning my name. But not unless you tell me you’re ready.” The love in his eyes healed me in ways I couldn’t imagine.
He kept his word by not touching me there. Just using his breath to melt a trail across my pounding clit.
For the first time in so long I felt untroubled.
Sure, I hadn’t spoken to my father or mother this whole time in spite of their messages, cards, calls…
But I had Carlos, the man who knew I could get hurt racing, and wanted me to follow my dreams anyway. A male who was more of a man than my father was able to be. My man couldn’t stand to see me unhappy and would do anything to make me feel alive.
The realization made every inch of me light up with the burning, urgent need to possess him. “Oh God, Carlos. Put your mouth on me, please.”
He raised up and said, “Not unless you ask properly.” And issued an affectionate smack to my sex.
“Please, daddy, lick my pussy. Put your fingers inside me while you do it.” My last word became a moan when he pushed a thick finger inside.
There was something irresistible about the sight of a sizeable man, a man big and strong enough to be a real warrior, his back bulging with muscle and arms wrapped around your thighs to pull the most intimate place of all towards his mouth—to feast.
His eyes were closed, the thick black lashes kissing his cheeks, and I dropped my head back onto the pillow, rocketing towards my first release.
There would be many more.
He pulled at my nerved-up nub, rolling me between his lips and savoring me on his tongue like some after dinner aperitif.
“Mmmm, do you like that?” I asked, a hum of satisfaction slipping from my lips.
His eyes were blanketed in a sexual haze, “Fucking delicious,” he said, putting a second finger inside me and swirling both in erotic circles to ignite my lust, “Like sugar on my tongue.” He groaned and went back to work with his mouth until I tried to lift my hips off the bed to shove at him, wincing slightly at the scissoring pain at my side.
“What’s wrong?” He asked, his brow knitted with concern.
“It’s nothing. It’s going to be sore for a bit, the doctor said.”
Carlos climbed up the mattress to sit beside me, his eyebrows still drawn together.
The fur on his chest tickled my breasts when he pulled me close.
Every
thing about him was just right.
“You have no idea how much I want you, Gabriela. But I can’t stand the thought of hurting you.”
His impressive erection jutted up from his seated position beside me, and I wrapped my fingers around it, loving the way it arched towards his belly button.
Nothing was keeping me from having him all the way inside me tonight.
I had an idea. “Why don’t you just lay back and let me take care of you? You’ve been taking care of me for months now. Time to let me return the favor.” I purred at him, confident in my feminine power and encouraged by the way he couldn’t take his eyes off my breasts.
“Go ahead. Climb on board,” he said and his look was a dare.
I grabbed the top of the tall headboard and positioned myself on my knees, my pussy directly above his swollen cock. “I can’t reach down to put you inside. It’ll hurt too much.”
The sight of his fist wrapping around his rigid erection was hot, and even hotter when he bumped up against my opening, “You look so fucking sexy right now, Gabriela and it’s been so long. I don’t know how long I can last.” As if to prove a point, a droplet of pre-cum spilled over his hand, dripping a clear line of desire down to his wrist.
“That’s okay, daddy. Put your big cock inside me. After you come I’ll lick you clean and get you hard again.” I plunged down on top of him, loving his expression which reflected ecstasy and agony all at once.
I had a couple gashes stitched shut in my side but there was one thing months of inactivity couldn’t diminish. My thighs were still in great shape and I used them to gyrate my hips in slow circles around his cock, until his breath slammed against my chest in rough puffs, his lips pursed, trying so hard to hold back. The strain of doing so furrowed his brow and made him purse his lips.
“Your cock fits in me so perfectly, daddy. Just relax, lie back and let me make you come.” It was as instinctual as riding Prancer.