by Emerson Rose
We go our separate ways but it’s a small store and we bump awkwardly into each other two times before I just grab whatever and leave. I’m glad we didn’t walk, it’s blistering hot outside and I don’t feel like chit chatting with every person I pass on the street.
At home I consider calling Julián to tell him about my run in with Caleb. We have been convinced that he was up to something sinister, this might ease his worries. Or intensify them when he knows I agreed to meet Caleb alone tomorrow.
We are honest with each other about everything though, right? Well, we were until he decided to keep Caleb’s interest in Grayson to himself. He did it to protect me but if I didn’t mention this to him it would be to protect him, too.
I love him, I don’t want him to worry about losing Grayson and me to Caleb. That will never happen. Julián saved me, he loved me when Caleb tossed me aside and I am going to marry him. We are perfect for each other, he is my pair of warm fuzzy socks and I am his pudding.
I’ll figure this thing out with Caleb on my own if I can. After seeing him today the situation doesn’t seem as daunting. Whatever his intentions are I don’t think he is out to destroy our lives. Not on purpose anyway.
Chapter 20
Garcia
Detective Brown informed me that my idiot brothers are still in North Carolina. He put a tail on them starting today to see if it’s me they are here for, or if they are here on business for my father.
I’m doubtful that it’s business. Good old dad tends to stick to Southern states and the West Coast when it comes to distributing his products. But they haven’t bothered us again so maybe he is branching out and making contacts on the East Coast, who knows?
Either way, it makes me uneasy knowing they are out there with ammunition that could destroy my new family. I need to tell Kimber about my past or find a way to keep them quiet forever. I can’t live my life waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I already messed up once when I kept the truth about Caleb wanting shared custody of Grayson from her. I can’t risk damaging her trust again, but how do I tell her?
I can’t just bring it up at dinner one night. Oh, by the way, baby, did I ever tell you my dad is on America’s Most Wanted list for drug trafficking and money laundering?
No, you didn’t sweetheart, that’s nice, should we invite them for Christmas? Yeah right, it would be more like I’m leaving you, Garcia. I don’t associate with felons.
There has to be a way to tell her so that she understands I am not, and have never been a part of that. She also needs to know that she and Grayson are safe with me. I would never let my dishonorable family hurt her or tarnish her name and reputation.
I didn’t know until she started working again recently what a well-known designer she was. She hadn’t been working for most of her pregnancy due to the divorce and moving out to California. When she took on Tiana’s house and started calling in favors, people were falling all over themselves to be a part of her new project.
I don’t want her name smeared because I was born into a family of whores and criminals.
I pull into the driveway and sit in my car. I drop my head against the headrest and stare at the sky through my sunroof hoping for inspiration. I get nothing and fifteen minutes later the Rover is getting too hot inside with the engine shut off.
I blow out a deep sigh before I get out and take the porch steps three at a time. I go to open the door and remember that I told Kimber to lock all of the doors and windows. I raise my key but decide to check the lock first instead.
Unlocked. Dammit, why wouldn’t she listen to me? I go inside and look around the first floor for her. She’s not in the living room where she usually hangs out and I promised to make dinner so she’s not in the kitchen. Work, she wanted to work today. I’ll check her home office.
Upstairs I find her sitting at her desk with swatches of material and paint spread out in front of her and a design program pulled up on her computer screen. She’s wearing her glasses. They make her look like a sexy school teacher and she’s wearing a white button up blouse with the top three buttons open. If she stands up and has on a plaid mini skirt, I might have to bend her over her desk and fuck her from behind.
I lean against the doorframe and watch her work for a while. She’s listening to music with her ear buds and Grayson is sleeping right next to her in his swing. God, I love these two. I can’t wait to have a few more and get my Garcia soccer team going. If she doesn’t bail on me before the wedding, that is, I have to tell her and soon.
She glances up at the computer screen and catches me watching her.
“Hey, I didn’t know you were home,” she says pulling the ear buds out by their cord.
“The front door was unlocked, I’ve been standing here for five minutes.”
I wasn’t going to lead with that but I couldn’t help it. She isn’t being safe.
“I’m sorry, I did lock it when you told me to earlier. I swear. But we ran to the grocery store and when I got back Grayson needed to eat and it must have skipped my mind.” She stands and rounds the desk on her way to me. She’s not wearing a Catholic schoolgirl plaid skirt but her daisy duke shorts and fuzzy socks have the same effect on my cock. I’m hard and ready to go but I want her to remember she should be safe when I’m not home so I resist the urge to take her.
“You have to be careful, I could have been any random psycho rapist/thief. That’s not so far fetched, you know? Don’t forget Tiana’s brother went ballistic right across the street.”
She cringes, “I hadn’t thought of it like that. I promise to be more careful.”
“Thank you.” She’s within my reach. She smells like cherry shampoo and baby powder, a powerful combination. I reach out to take her hand and pull her forward against my chest. I press my erection into her belly and her eyes go wide.
“What’s got you so…”
“So hard? You and those shorts, that’s what. You should go put your hair in pigtails so we can play school.”
She smiles wide and I start envisioning the scene. Her bent over the desk, shorts around her ankles, legs spread wide, pussy dripping wet for me. Her pigtails would bounce up and down every time I pumped my cock into her and she would cry out my name when I fucked her so hard her feet came off the floor.
She threads her fingers with mine and pushes my hands back against the wall with a thrust as if she were restraining me. It’s an aggressive alpha move that no one has ever tried on me, I kind of like it.
She cocks her head to the side and her eyes shift from one of mine to the other searching for something, what I can’t tell.
“Does this work both ways? Do I get to tie you up and do as I please with you sometimes?”
Tie me up? I’ve tied up, handcuffed, and zip-tied a lot of women’s hands and feet but not one ever asked me if they could have a turn dominating me.
“Sure. But don’t leave me stranded when you go to feed the baby.” I dip down and place my lips on hers without opening my mouth. I kiss her softly at first but that never lasts long with us.
Within a minute I have taken charge and walked her, with our fingers still laced together, across the room to her desk. Making good on my fantasy, I turn her around and move her hair from one shoulder to the other so I can kiss her neck while placing her hands on the flat surface of the desk palms down. She has the most beautiful long sexy neck. I take a selfish nip of her flesh leaving a small bruise toward the back so it’s easily covered by her hair.
“Stay,” I growl in her ear and of course she does. I don’t need all of her right now, just the soaking wet part between her soft tanned legs. I wrap my hands around her waist and unbutton her too short jean shorts and push them down along with her pink polka dotted panties.
I place my hand on the center of her back and ease her down until her cheek is flat on the desk. I glance over at Grayson who is still sleeping soundly in his swing. We may as well take advantage of this time when he won’t remember what he sees going on
around him.
I lean back keeping my feet just inside of hers to make sure she doesn’t move while I unbuckle my pants. The view is priceless, her round ass bare and perfect, I can hardly wait to get my cock inside of her. I take out my dick and it bobs in front of me while I place my hands on her cheeks. I spread them apart and squeeze her silky flesh letting my tip bump the pucker of her ass.
I moan and take ahold of her hips ready to go in deep when I remember a condom. She’s still nursing and hasn’t been on the pill more than a few days. As much as I want more kids it’s way to risky to have unprotected sex right now and we haven’t even discussed when we want to have number two. I’m also almost positive she doesn’t want to walk down the isle pregnant in a few months.
“In the top drawer,” she says when I hesitate.
“You keep condoms in your desk drawer?”
Her shoulders rise in a small shrug. “I was hoping we would do this sometime, what can I say?”
“God, I fucking love you. Don’t move a muscle.” I walk around the desk pull open the center drawer and find not one but three condoms right on top. She was more than hopeful, she was confident.
I round the desk and take her in for a second making a permanent mental picture of her for the future.
Grayson wiggles in his swing and her head pops up to check on him. I press it back down gently, “He’s fine.”
She doesn’t say anything. I think we are both on the same wavelength here, get what we need before little man wakes up.
I roll on the condom and take ahold of her hips again. Leaning forward I slide my hands up her arms and my cock into her wet pussy. She’s positioned at the perfect height for me to enter without guidance and true to my fantasy earlier her feet are off the floor with the first thrust.
Her fingers splay on the surface of the desk and I hold onto her hips while I work up a punishing rhythm that brings us to climax. We come together and we do it just in time.
I lay over her body and press my face against her back still inside of her. “Too bad he’s awake, you have two condoms left in your drawer.” I smile against her white shirt and feel her body shift under me when she chuckles.
“Being prepared is my specialty.”
“I think I’ll start being prepared, too. Don’t be surprised to find condoms stashed all over the house.”
Grayson’s eyes are open now and he’s working toward a full meltdown. I lift myself off of her and give her gorgeous ass a slap before I pull out. She yelps and pushes off the desk turning to pull up her shorts and get our crying son out of his swing.
“What was that for?” she says lifting him out of his seat and bouncing him up and down on her way to her enormous leather office chair.
“A love pat.” I wink at her and zip up my pants.
Her eyebrows shoot up and she considers my answer.
“A love pat, huh? I like it.”
Her enthusiasm for my love of kink isn’t exactly surprising. I always suspected she would be down for some fun. But now that I’m on the verge of a perfect future it’s pretty ironic that I might lose it all because of a past I had no control over.
“You okay?” she asks. A frown darkens her face as she tries to get comfortable so she can feed the baby.
“Uh, yeah, we just had awesome office sex. I’m more than okay.” I plaster a smile on my face but she knows it’s fake.
“It’s not the sex, it’s something else. What’s the matter? Talk to me.”
The perfect opening, all I have to do is prop my ass on the desk and tell her about my family, easy. But I don’t, my feet won’t move and my voice is frozen in my throat.
“Julián, hey… Garcia, what the hell is going on?”
I snap to attention when she says Garcia partially due to being called by my last name for ten years in the Corps but also because that’s what she calls me when she’s being serious.
“Nothing, baby, I’m fine. I’m going to go start the grill, you still up for steaks?”
She narrows her eyes, she knows something is wrong but she also knows I’ll come to her when I’m ready.
“Yeah, I guess so. If you’re sure everything’s alright. You didn’t find out something about Caleb today, did you?”
She doesn’t know I hired a PI. She thinks I’m checking on the information available in the computer system on base but there wasn’t shit there.
“Not much, just that he lives in a pretty ritzy part of town. I don’t know how he affords that house. Oh, and a couple guys mentioned that he broke up with his girlfriend. That’s it, though, nothing big.”
She looks down at Grayson and I feel like she’s using him as a distraction so she doesn’t have to look directly at me. She adjusts him and fiddles with his blanket.
“He broke up with his girlfriend? That’s weird, he’s been with her for two years, I wonder what happened.”
I don’t like that she chose to comment on his ex-girlfriend instead of his big swanky house. I also don’t like that she seems to be avoiding eye contact.
“I don’t know.” Hurtful words can’t be unsaid and I’m afraid I’m about to say a few so I leave without saying anything at all.
I shouldn’t be jealous or angry or even irritated but I am all three. She didn’t do or say anything wrong, we just had great spontaneous sex and I’m hiding something from her. She should be mad at me and she would be, if she knew my secret.
Chapter 21
Kimber
What is wrong with me? Why did I ruin a perfect beautiful moment with the man I love by asking about my ex’s relationship with his girlfriend, or ex-girlfriend, I should say.
It was like my old self, the one that used to love Caleb, took over and made me sabotage myself. I don’t give a shit about his whore ex-girlfriend Crystal or his fancy house that he can’t afford but something was bothering my Julián and I pushed until he told me.
But he didn’t really tell me, that bit about Caleb wasn’t what’s eating him. I’ve noticed something was off since we moved to North Carolina. It went to the wayside when Grayson was born but it’s back, I can see it in his eyes.
I asked for it, if I hadn’t I wouldn’t be sitting her worrying about my dumbass reaction. We need to sit down and have a heart-to-heart. I need to tell him about today with Caleb and that I have absolutely no feelings left for him and he needs to tell me what’s bugging him.
I finish nursing Grayson, change his diaper, and make my way downstairs quietly. He’s cooking outside. I’ve been listening to him go in and out the patio door. I stand at the bottom of the stairs swaying back and forth while I pat Grayson on his back hoping for a burp.
He’s outside, the grill is heating up and the meat is in a covered dish on the patio table. He’s got a Corona in one hand and the other on the edge of the deck. He’s staring out into the line of woods that runs along the far edge of our yard. The sun is setting and the sky is streaked with brilliant pink and yellow clouds. The door is open but the screen is closed so he can’t see me.
I wanted to watch him, get a feel of his mood, and analyze what’s going on in his troubled mind. There’s something going on alright, he’s never this quiet or still. Julián is a happy lighthearted man who wants everyone around him to feel the same way. That’s what attracted me to him in the first place.
Caleb was fun and social and everyone loved him, the him they knew, the him he let them see. He was Mr. Party all the time, Mr. Gambler, and in the end Mr. Asshole, as far as I was concerned.
Julián is fun and outgoing too but in a genuine way. He also knows how to rein it in and be responsible and caring and loving. Caleb didn’t.
What am I doing? Why did I agree to meeting up with Caleb tomorrow without Julián? Does he still have some sort of hold on me? Maybe we didn’t have closure? Everybody’s always talking about closure and how therapeutic it is.
When Caleb said he didn’t want our baby or our marriage anymore he moved out and that was it, our marriage was over just because h
e said so. I guess that’s not very good closure.
His abandonment carved a wound deeper and wider than the Grand Canyon but he waltzed into that grocery store today and manipulated me like putty in his hands. The worst part is I allowed it. No more.
I take out my phone from the back pocket of my jeans and text Caleb that tomorrow’s off. I tell him if he wants to see Grayson he needs to schedule a visit at our house on our time when Julián and I are both home.
It doesn’t take two seconds for him to respond.
5:50 p.m. Caleb -- What happened? I was really looking forward to spending some time with Grayson. Have Garcia come along, I don’t mind, whatever it takes. I need to see my son.
5:51 p.m. Me – He has to work, and now that I think about it, you do too, don’t you?
5:52 p.m. Caleb – I will make time.
He is being so flexible it makes me feel a little guilty for telling him no. Is that what he wants? Probably.
5:55 p.m. Me – Julian used all of his vacation time when I delivered, if he can’t be there I’m not comfortable meeting. Have your lawyer contact ours and we can set up a time when we are all available.
This time it takes him longer to reply, like he’s planning his next course of action.
6:20 p.m. Caleb – Alright, if that’s how you want it. I’m willing to jump through hoops. I just need to see my son. I fell in love with him today and now I can’t stop thinking about him.
I squint when I re-read his text. Did he really just say that? He wouldn’t have to jump through any hoops if he had stayed and been a father and a husband to me. I roll my eyes and shoot him one last message before I push the power button and turn my phone off.
Me – I’ll wait for the call from our lawyer.