Here to Stay

by Adriana Herrera

  I stood up and held her tight as I crushed my mouth over hers and moved us farther up the bed. She was limp in my arms and still trembling from her orgasm as our tongues tangled together. She hooked her arms around my neck, clinging to me, with complete and utter trust. She made me feel like a man worth taking chances on. And with her in this room, I wanted so much to believe I was.

  She pulled back, with my bottom lip caught between her lips, and moved one hand down from my neck to the front of my shorts where my cock was still hard as a rock.

  She let go of my lip and smiled at me as she worked my dick.

  “Que vamos a hacer con esto?”

  My hips pushed in helplessly, the need to get inside her overwhelming me. I felt lost to the things Julia made me feel. Like I’d never ever get to all the things I wanted to do with her.

  “I don’t know. What do you want to do with it?”

  Without answering, she pushed down my shorts and turned around to bend over the bed. She rested her forearms on the mattress and presented me with that perfect ass. Without a word, I went to my bag and grabbed a couple of condoms. I suited up while I admired the curves of her body. The way her waist curved in and her hips flared out, her perfect round ass and all that brown skin. I couldn’t resist taking a bite, and was rewarded with a husky laugh.

  No matter where things went between us, I was ruined. She’d be the standard of beauty, the embodiment of everything I wanted in a woman, forever.

  Once I had the condom on, I got closer, leaned down so my mouth was against her ear as one of my hands looked for her clit. When I found it, I flicked it once, and then brought my fingers up to her mouth. She sucked on it just like she did with my cock and we both trembled.

  “Your ass makes me crazy.” Instead of responding, she pressed said ass to my groin and circled her hips. The friction was enough to make me come. It was heady the way we were together. Completely uninhibited, there were no hang-ups, no awkward moments. We fed off each other’s bodies. We let our desire run wild and it made every time we came together earth-shattering.

  I went back to playing with her and whispered in her ear, “Is this how you want it?”

  She nodded frantically as she moaned from what my fingers were doing.

  “No. Now, Rocco, please. I need it.”

  I grabbed my cock and poised it right at her entrance. She was wet and needy, as I teased her with the tip of my cock.

  “You need what?”

  She let out a frustrated laugh and she pushed her ass back, her hips undulating in that way that drove me crazy. “You. Come on, give it to me.” That last part was reedy and I could not hold off any longer.

  I entered her and we both sighed in relief, her body so ready for me, gripping me tight as I seated myself in her. And then we both started moving together. She pushed up on her hands and met the thrusts of my hips as I rocked into her.

  The only sounds in the room were her moans and my gasps of pleasure. I felt my orgasm building, tightening and sending waves of pleasure though me, but I didn’t want to be done. I wanted more. I wanted to stay locked with her. I stopped and she looked back, frustrated with me. I laughed and shook my head.

  “Turn over, muñeca. I want to see your face.” Her eyes softened and she lay on her back. I stood at the edge and brought her hips up and surged inside her again, both of us moaning at the sensation. I put my thumb on her clit again and rubbed it as I pistoned into her.

  “I’m gonna come like this, Rocco.”

  “Good. I want to see you come when I’m still deep in you. Tell me how it feels, Julia, when I’m inside you like this.”

  “Perfect.”

  Just as her walls contracted on me, my own orgasm razed through my body. My hips lost their rhythm and my fingers curled on her hips. After a few more thrusts, I collapsed on top of her. My brain completely whited out.

  We lay there hanging on the edge of the bed for a minute, until our breathing evened out. Then I moved us up and under the covers.

  Once we were tangled together, I looked at her. She was sated and happy, a little sleepy, and I wanted to be brave enough to tell her what I was feeling. That having her in my arms right now felt like a gift.

  Instead I said, “That was amazing.”

  She nodded and looked up at me, a little shy now. “I don’t know what it is about you, but when we’re together, my hang-ups just evaporate. The way you look at me, like you could devour me, it turns me on so much.”

  “I could devour you. I can’t get enough of you. Thanks for coming over tonight. This was exactly what I needed.”

  “A thirty-minute fuck session, when I let you do me like a porn star with my ass hanging off the bed?”

  I may have blushed at that. “Well, that didn’t hurt, but I was more talking about your company. Having you here is good.”

  “I’m glad I came, but.” She sat up and put her feet on the floor. “I need to go to the bathroom.” I rolled my eyes at the goofy face she made. “But when I come back, will you tell me what happened?”

  “Yeah,” I said to her naked back as she walked to the bathroom.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Rocco

  When people talked about contentment, true absolute bliss, I always envisioned a billionaire somewhere in some exotic location. Lounging without a care in the world.

  No. This was bliss. Julia del Mar Ortiz, naked and still warm from making love, draped over my chest while I ran my fingers over her back.

  This was what being whole felt like.

  She’d come back from the bathroom and brought us water. We’d kissed and touched for what felt like hours and now in the darkness of the room, our silence felt sacred.

  She turned around, running her leg over mine, and looked up. Her face was barely visible in the darkness of the room, but I knew the question was coming. “What happened?”

  Usually I didn’t want to discuss my family, or at least not my parents. The scars still felt so raw at times like this. I never went over this stuff with Sofia, because hers were pretty raw too. So other than Coach and my therapist, I never talked about my family. But right now with Julia here, for the first time in a very long time I felt like I was safe to open up.

  I sighed as I pulled her up and tightened my arms around her.

  “Honestly, the same shit as always. You’d think I’d learn to not let my dad get to me like that. But he knows how to push my buttons, and I end up acting as bad as he does.”

  I could feel the tension in her body as she quietly listened. She’d told me before she tried not to “therapize” her friends, but I also knew how hard it was for her to not help.

  She kissed my shoulder before she spoke, and when she did her voice was so gentle. “It’s not easy going back into a place that has never felt safe for you. People talk about resilience and how kids just get over bad stuff that happens in childhood, and in many ways they do. You can heal, you can develop ways to cope, but your body and your brain hasn’t forgotten how scary and unsafe you felt as a kid around your dad, in your home.”

  I exhaled, not sure how deeply I wanted to go into this shit. “The thing is, I’d gotten past this, or at least tried to find ways to manage the fight-or-flight instinct that takes over my brain when I’m around them, and for the most part it works. Except with my dad. He just takes me right back to square one.” I sighed, feeling the tension in my shoulders as I remembered how ugly he’d been today. “I almost punched him in front of the baby.”

  She ran a hand over my chest and in a very low voice whispered, “Oh, babe.”

  The way that endearment slipped out, like it was the most natural thing in the world. It was hard not to want to take every risk if it meant there’d be some kind of future where this was my life.

  “He was about to say hateful, nasty shit and I just lost it. I knew he did it on purpose too. Be
cause he knows I can take anything he wants to spew about me, but I won’t stand for him talking about Sofia.”

  She shook her head. “Abusive people are masters at manipulation. He knows you’d protect your sister.”

  “He told me I was just like him and even though I know it’s not true, I can’t deny that the first thing I did was lunge at him. I reacted exactly like he would. He’s never going to change and Sofia can’t stop herself from going over there. I don’t know if she feels guilty or what the fuck it is, but it’s not a good environment for her or for Blue.”

  Julia’s soothing hands were the only thing keeping me from going to a bad headspace. “It’s hard to walk away from your parents. Honestly, kids who grow up in abusive homes sometimes have the hardest times severing ties. Trauma is complicated.”

  I sighed, and tipped my head up. “I need to get her out of here. She feels bad for them and ends up bringing the baby. I found out today my dad talked her into letting my mom watch Blue a couple of afternoons a week. It’s on the days my father isn’t home, and that usually means my mom isn’t drinking or stressed out from having him around, but with them you never know. And I know my mom loves the baby, and wants to be able to help Sofia, but they’re just not reliable.”

  “It must he exhausting, worrying about them all the time. And feeling guilty because you feel that way about your parents. It’s a lot, baby.”

  That was it. The guilt about not trusting my parents.

  “Yeah.” The word came out in a rush of breath. I felt tired and on edge from thinking about my parents and the pressure I felt to act before something bad happened to Sofia or Blue.

  I looked down at her again, the care and worry so obvious on her face. This was all so much. I never knew I could have all this. A woman who made me burn for her, who gave herself to me exactly like I needed it. Someone who fulfilled every want, every desire and then could sit with me in the same bed and make me feel safe enough to say the things I could barely tell myself. I slunk down until we were on our sides, face-to-face, and pressed my mouth to hers.

  “You’re incredible. Thank you for coming tonight.”

  She returned the kiss and licked the seam of my mouth before pulling away. “It’s the least I can do, since you’ll have to put up with the Ortizes tomorrow.”

  I smiled at that and pushed closer, a warm feeling spreading in my chest when I thought of spending time with her family.

  “I like hanging out with your folks, and I can’t wait to try the sancocho. I’ve only ever had it in restaurants and I know it’s gotta be better homemade.”

  I felt a ghost of a smile on my shoulder, and when she spoke I could hear it in her voice. “Pura and Yolanda don’t mess around when it comes to sancocho. Prepare yourself to go into meat shock. They put so many kinds in that thing.”

  “I can’t wait. It’ll be nice to go to your place.”

  Neither of us had to say how different being with her family would be from being with mine.

  I was drifting in the silence when Julia spoke. “You have to get your sister and yourself out of here. It’s not good for any of you.”

  She held herself tightly and just out of my reach. Like she knew it was the right thing to do and say but also meant that we’d lose what we had right now. Or maybe when she said it like me, she thought of Dallas as a possible place for the three of us to start fresh. Maybe the city where I’d found her could be the right amount of distance between me and my parents. But I didn’t ask her. I couldn’t bear to hear her tell me that the thought of me permanently in Dallas had never occurred to her.

  Julia

  “I can’t believe you’re already leaving in two days. We’ll miss you.”

  I froze in the middle of rolling up a pair of jeans and found my mom standing in the doorway of my bedroom. Rocco had left earlier and after some heated kisses on my parents’ porch he’d gone back to his hotel. We would see each other when I got back, but I was already fretting about the more permanent separation coming in just a few weeks.

  As soon as he left, I’d come back into the house and started arranging my clothes in my suitcase as if packing would make the time go faster. Everything about what I was feeling confused me. Rocco had obligations to his sister and I needed to keep living my life, making a go of things in Dallas. Those two things were not happening in the same place. I could’ve told him last night to consider a move south. That maybe the New York City suburbs weren’t far enough for their parents’ influence to wane, but I chickened out. I didn’t want to hear it when he told me he didn’t want to do it. That my being there wasn’t enough of a reason for him to leave New York behind.

  “Lita, where did you go, mija?”

  “Sorry, Mami.” I tried to remember what she’d asked me. “Yeah, I’ll miss you guys too. We have plans for New Year’s with the Exiles, so I just wanted to make sure I didn’t forget the dress I wore for Nochebuena, in case I want to use it.”

  “He really likes you.” The tone in my mother’s voice made it clear that she was well aware of the way things were between Rocco and me. I’d tried not to be obvious, but I’d caught him looking at me like he wanted to tear me apart a few times, over the sancocho. I was sure I’d been looking at him the same way all night, and neither of my parents was blind—nor was my grandmother, for that matter.

  “I like him. He’s been a good friend.”

  My mother dipped her head and gave me a lopsided smile, which I knew meant that she was seeing right through me. She sat on the bed and began folding clothes, without looking at me.

  “Friends, you say? I never knew you kissed your friends the way you were kissing that man on our porch, mija.”

  Damn Rocco and his irresistible mouth.

  “Mami, it’s complicated, okay? He has to stick around here. His relationship with his parents is really hard and it’s taking a toll on his sister and his niece. He’s got a plan to get a place in Westchester. I’m in Dallas. Long distance doesn’t work; he can’t just change the plans he has with his sister. I don’t even want him to. So it’s pointless.”

  “Okay, so why can’t you come back here?” The hopeful note in her voice almost killed me.

  I shook my head and zipped up my bag a little more forcefully than necessary. “I’m not doing that. I’m not moving across the country for a man ever again.”

  My mother looked at me with such concern. I hoped that she had a way to fix it, because I was out of ideas that didn’t involve me hating myself in the end. “Mija, don’t let what Matt did dictate your life. I’m not going to act like I wouldn’t love to have you closer, but believe me that’s not the reason why I’m saying you could always come back.”

  I sat down next to her, not knowing what to say. How to explain all the conflicting feelings inside me. I wanted to be the kind of person who wasn’t swept away by a feeling or my need for someone. I wanted to be someone who could stick to my plan and not be unraveled by a relationship.

  “Mami, I can’t keep uprooting my life to follow men. I can’t.” My voice broke then, from how fucking agonizing all this felt. “What about me? What about my loyalty to myself and my own needs?”

  She nodded and held my hand. “Of course, baby, that’s the most important thing—being happy with yourself. But it’s more than Rocco, although...the way he looks at you, sweetheart. That’s not easy to walk away from.” She rolled her eyes and looked toward the open door. “Your abuelita is smitten. Esos ojos azules.” We both laughed at my grandmother’s swooning for Rocco’s blue eyes. “What I meant was, you seemed happy in Dallas. You love your job, the friends you’ve made. You made a life there, honey. You found yourself in a bad situation and you really made the best of it. I just want you to know that you don’t have to feel like you can’t come back here just because the last move didn’t work the way you thought it would.”

  I didn’t know what to say.
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br />   “Thanks, Mami.”

  My mom got up then and left the room. I thought she was just letting me be but a moment later she came back with my dad, and he looked like he was primed to give me one of his “talks.”

  When they were in lecture mode, it was better to just let them say their piece.

  “Oh, God. Is this about to become a ‘Growth Moment’?”

  My father was not amused. “Yes, it is, young lady. Just because you’re grown and living in another state doesn’t mean your parents can’t still tell you what’s what.”

  My mom held my hand and looked at my dad before she spoke. “Did you know that right before we went to California for your dad’s PhD, I left him and went back to Santo Domingo without even saying goodbye?”

  My mouth was gaping. My parents were my OTP, the type of couple people wrote about. Over thirty-five years together and they were still in each other’s pockets. I couldn’t imagine my mom doing that to him.

  My dad just sat there, letting my mom tell the story, with that besotted expression he always had when he looked at her. “Right before we left, your abuela called and said that your grandpa was sick. I got so scared. Being in New York already felt so incredibly far and I thought, ‘If I go to California I’ll never see my dad again.’ I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to go with your dad, but we weren’t married even. I thought if I go with him, people will judge. Say nasty things about me.” She waved a hand in the air. “Santo Domingo, you know people talk. So I left. I thought my duty was to be there. As soon as I got there, your abuela and your abuelo made me promise I’d come back. They told me, ‘You did not leave this country to be tied down to the backward machismo thinking you were trying to get away from.’ So I called your dad and explained. I got to see my dad, who recovered, and then I came home to him.”