M y mother never liked Jamie. God knows she told me that enough .

“He’s going to hold you down.” It was a dictum she was sure of, said she knew it like she knew when rain was coming and how twisters would inch into Willow Heights before the weathermen had even spotted them .

“He’s needy, and you’re the thing he needs most .”

Ten years later, my mother still warned me about Jamie Vega, but this time she did it with a lot of more cursing .

“Vindicitive, misanthropic, revolting son of a bitch !”

“Ina.” My voice did nothing to calm her. She’d been gearing up for the lecture for more than a week. I knew it was coming which was why I had avoided her calls .

“How often did I tell you? So many times, Iris. I told you over and over that he was a user and look now …”

“You aren’t telling me anything I don’t know .”

Her sigh was heavy, lilted with something I recognized as impatience. My mother loved being right, probably because it happened so often, but where Jamie was concerned, she took greater joy in being proved right about him .

“Your lawyer is an idiot, by the way. No attorney worth their salt is going to tuck their tails between their legs when it comes to suing a celebrity. Especially one who is so blatant and obvious. Not one who has a multi-million dollar record label behind them.” She inhaled, the sound issuing a quick rasp that she tried to cover up by clearing her throat. “You should sue .”

She wasn’t any more interested in money than I was. My mother didn’t raise me with a sense that wealth equaled success. Instead, she encouraged me to make big plans, set big goals. I had. I’d done a lot more than anyone expected. My work was good. My reputation, up until a week ago, had been stellar, despite the small hiccup of pissing off Kylie as an intern .

Now I was starting over. Now I had a game plan to put me back in the fold and turn this…situation on its ear. In the process, Jamie would be dealt with, but I had no plans to inform my mother of how I’d go about seeing this through .

“I’m not interested in suing him. I’m interested in doing something great. You taught me to make good in bad situations .”

“I also taught you to steer clear of Jamie Vega. You didn’t listen .”

“Yes, Ina . I know. Lesson learned .”

“Good. Now tell me what you have planned .”

I didn’t. Not really. She was marginally satisfied with vague mentions of getting something from him, of the chance I might have exaggerated, to restore my reputation with an exclusive interview. I just neglected to mention who’d promised me that exclusivity .

“How long will you be gone?” she asked, droning on over something I didn’t quite catch .

“A few months.” The sigh was loud and it signaled her irritation. “What now ?”

“It just makes no sense to me why you can’t find something stable. An office, with a nine-to-five schedule, maybe a great retirement. Iris, you’re so smart …”

On she went. It was the same lecture I’d heard since I was ten. “Get something stable. Something that will set you up for an early reitrement.” My mother had pushed me to excel, but had never understood that could be done anywhere, in any field. She loved books, loved newspapers and politics, especially when the focus was women championing women, but she’d never understood why I couldn’t fight the good fight while punching a clock or doing something that would provide some stability .

“Journalism, especially print, is so fickle, tuzueca and it’s dying. Everyone knows that .”

“Maybe…” I tried, not able to get more than a grunt of acknowledgement out before she started in on law school. It had broken her heart that I’d abandoned that game plan .

“You’re not too old, you know. Laura Anders has a niece, around your age, and she got into Yale just last fall and …”

She always knew someone who didn’t give up. My mother made sure she surrounded herself with “tryers” and people who tipped their noses at hurdles. There was always a story, most told to show me how much more I could do with my life if only I’d give up on writing about music and the industry .

My mother didn’t understand what it was to live with a passion—that one thing that lit you from the inside. It was craving and sweetness, what I felt for music. It was also tied up in the kid I’d been and the boy I’d loved so completely. Her story went on, droning into details I’d never remember, and I let her talk, walking around my apartment as she continued .

It was a small place, cheap for Washington Heights. I was a slave to the A train and there was little night life to speak of, but the pre-war building was rent controlled because my college roomate, Desi, married the building manager and they took pity on me when I’d shifted from one magazine to the next and got close to moving back to Indiana. Thank God, I hadn’t sunk so low that I returned to my childhood home .

The place was cozy, but homey, and mine for as long as I wanted it. I’d fallen in love on spec, smiling at the four oversized southern windows that let in the sunlight all along the front of the building. The floors were oak with mahogany trim and the lobby looked like something out of Doris Day and Rock Hudson Rom-Com. The building was at least seventy-five years old and had wide terrazzo hallways, two elevators and wrought iron doors leading to the street. No more than one person could be in the galley kitchen at a time, but the appliances were new and the white subway tile freshly grouted .

If those oversized windows and view of the park hadn’t swayed me, then the spacious closets had. It was there, among boxes and bins of my old Willow Heights junk that I sat, pulling out shoe boxes and envelopes to search for something I promised I’d never look at again. But seeing Jamie tonight had me reverting; curiosity was a hell of a thing. Especially when we’re curious about things that are immensely bad for us .

“Are you still there?” my mom said, voice coming out in a half sigh .

“Yes, Ina, I am, but I need to organize a few things and do laundry so I can pack, okay?” I didn’t give her the chance to start in on another story. They all ended with the same point: Iris, get a grown-up job .

“Fine,” she said, and I heard the pause, the intake of breath, that told me she had no intention of hanging up .

I stopped her before the lecture could continue. “Ina, really. I’ve got to go. I’ll call you when we get to Chicago.” I ended the call, ignoring her low exhale and brief “wait” before she could go on talking. The phone rang again three seconds after I hung up and I spotted her picture—my mother wearing a floppy garden hat, winking at the camera—but didn’t answer. My attention got diverted by a worn envelope in the last box on the top shelf .

The label was curled and the adhesive on the back had long-since dried, but the looped scroll of his handwriting was intact. “Florecita ,” it read. Jamie had given me the card for my sixteenth birthday, and the envelope was large enough to hold most of our pictures. The card was gone, but the envelope was still there, the nickname he gave me embellished with filigree and flowers along the bottom .

Inside there was a small stack of Polaroid pictures, the edges rounded by wear. We looked fearless, so young. My face was round then, the curves of my body still layered in a small amount of baby fat. Jamie looked sweet, so different from the man I’d seen tonight. His eyes were brighter, his smile soft and genuine and as I stared down at those faces, I wondered where those kids had gone. I wondered if we lose the best parts of ourselves in the mad dash to loosen the shackles of childhood. We were in such a hurry to be free of Willow Heights that we both somehow forgot to take the best parts of who we were with us when we left .

There were at least a dozen pictures, some sweet—Jamie kissing my temple as I slept; me on his back, getting a piggyback as I smiled with my chin on his shoulder; Isaiah and Jamie playing in the basement of Hector’s shop, eyes closed, brows pushed together in concentration. There was so much passion, so much heart in each expression. But not all the pictures were innocent. It had been my idea to buy that camera. Jamie and Isaiah’s band, Omen, had landed regional gigs, most in Chicago or Cincinnati and he’d be gone sometimes the entire weekend. I’d wanted to remind him what waited at home for him .

In one shot, I knelt on my small bed. The linens were black and gray, some pathetic attempt, I imagined, to not seem like the little girl I had been at eighteen. But there was a stuffed unicorn on my headboard and a Hogwarts poster hanging on the wall. In the center of all that innocent seduction, I sported nothing but red boy shorts and one of Jamie’s denim shirts. There was a soft, barely there smile on my face and a hell of a lot of fire burning in my eyes .

I laughed, thumbing through the other pictures, coming to one of Jamie’s naked chest, that defined stomach and the low fall of his boxers. I remembered the night vividly: Jamie undressing for me, his right hand holding the camera, his left slipping beneath the band of his shorts to grasp his hardening cock .

God, we were young .

Careless.

Free.

Completely in love .

The last picture was my favorite and it showed in the frayed edges and the slip of film coming apart. Me and Jamie together, his mouth against my forehead, dead asleep. He held my naked breast and was draped over my body. That had been the weekend I followed him to Cincinnati, despite my mother’s protests. She’d called me foolish, irresponsible, but didn’t stop me from going .

We had a room to ourselves for the first time; no distractions, no sneaking around to avoid being discovered alone and naked. Just the two of us, high off the incredible show Omen had pulled off, uninterested in anything but each other .

“Tan bueno,” he’d whispered over and over, every time my mouth met his skin. And it had been. So very good. Every time with Jamie had been like the first. Every time together had been magic. It hadn’t ended that way. It had ended in anger and fury and rage. But once, there had been a beginning. Once there had been him leaning on me, touching me, wanting me to take the pain away .

I did .

For a little while .

* * *

T here was a lot to celebrate that Saturday afternoon. The SAT had seemed easier this time around and I didn’t struggle through the Trig section like I had the summer before when I took the practice test. Internally, I congratulated myself, shooting up a small prayer for having a bossy boyfriend .

“One more time,” he’d said the week before, nudging my knee when I fell back against the sofa. Behind us in the kitchen, my mother cooked garlic chicken and quinoa. The scent had my mouth watering and I’d flashed a look over Jamie’s shoulder, smiling when I heard my mother humming .

“No, florecita .” Jamie had laughed when I glared at him. “What? You wanted to study. Hola ? The test is next weekend. Let’s go over the formulas again.” My stomach growled and I went on glaring at him, rolling my eyes when Jamie refused to break my stare. “So vicious. You should be my bodyguard .”

“I don’t want to guard your body.” I’d looked again toward the kitchen, contemplating an escape, but he knew me too well, dropped the flash cards on the floor and knelt in front of me .

“Si , you do,” he’d say, “and you can.” Jamie stretched, moving his body to hover above me, pulling my leg over his hip. I hissed, holding my breath when he slid his fingers against my thigh, pulling on my hips to bring our centers close together. “You study hard, and I work you harder,” he’d whispered, stealing a quick, hard kiss before he broke away from me. He’d glanced over his shoulder, smiling when my mother went on ignoring us, focused on cooking before he faced me, flash cards back in his hand. “Then you can eat .”

His irritating persistence paid off. I was confident I’d done well, didn’t struggle at all, and Jamie’s text that morning added to my good mood. He was excited, the demo he and Isaiah recorded the night before had come out “badass” in his words and he hoped it might land them more gigs in Chicago, maybe even set up dates in New York when we finally graduated .

My Blackberry sounded off with a message, and I frowned looking at it .

Another one bites the dust .

Isaiah’s number flashed against the screen and I stopped walking from the bus stop near my house, bundled my coat closer to my neck and my hat farther down my head, and ran in the other direction, heading for the four block trek into downtown and toward the Vega’s home .

“Another one” meant a man. Jamie’s mother had rotten luck when it came to keeping anyone more than a few months and when those relationships went south, the entire town knew about it. She didn’t let them go quietly .

I was winded, and my side ached a little by the time I reached Jamie’s house. The screen door hung off the hinge, and I stopped short, shifting my bag on my shoulder as Isaiah worked to fix it .

“Hey,” I said to him, coming onto the front porch, gaze shifting inside through the open front door. But no one was there and there was a deathly quiet I didn’t like coming from inside .

“Hola ,” Isaiah said, biting a screw between his teeth. “It was bad, chica . Real bad .”

“Did he try to get in the middle of it this time?” Isaiah glanced up me, arching one eyebrow. That look was answer enough. “He’s in his room ?”

“Yes, and my tia is probably already passed out.” Isaiah stood, taking the screw from his mouth. “She followed this one into the street, screaming at him like some sort of loca bitch. It made me sick, and when Jamie tried to stop her, she slapped him.” I covered my mouth, already moving in front of Isaiah to walk inside. I only stopped when he called my name. “He might not be in the mood for you coddling him. He might want to just be still and quiet .”

“Yeah,” I told him already walking inside and toward the stairs. “I know what he wants.” But the truth was, I hadn’t a clue. Jamie had so many different moods, so many worries when it came to his mother. He was embarrassed by her and who wouldn’t be? She’d somehow landed in Willow Heights because of a man; one that promised he’d marry her, give her the life she wanted. But Ms. Vega was a bit of a drunk and a lot clingy. “She calls it passion,” Jamie had told me one night two years ago when yet another boyfriend, this one only a few years older than Jamie, had left in the middle of the night. “I call it weak and pathetic. She’s clingy. Muchachos

don’t like that .”

Jamie liked it even less. He swore he liked strong women; women who did things for themselves. Women like my mother, in fact, who’d been so damaged by love that she had completely turned her back on it altogether. Her focus was me and the work she did at the university. She got paid to be a researcher, and it kept her busy. Too busy for anything but me. Too busy for any social life at all .

I made it to the top landing, peering over the railing to glance inside Ms. Vega’s open bedroom. She was passed out horizontally across her bed. An empty tequila bottle was on the floor next to her open hand, and I could make out her loud snores from the second floor. She was out for the night, something that would likely keep Jamie from lashing out. It would at least give me peace and quiet to pull him from his mood .

The only noise coming from underneath Jamie’s closed door was the low, sweet sound of Hawthorne, Lager singing something haunting. Something sad. It seemed to fit Jamie’s mood and got only marginally louder when I opened the door .

The room was dark, lit only by a grouping of blue and purple lava lamps near the radiator cover by the window, and there was a mild smell of smoke, likely weed, that clung to the curtains. The window was open, and a quick whip of cold air moved the curtains back and forth. I reached them first, pulling the window closed as I looked to my right, catching Jamie’s gaze when he stared up at me .

“It’s cold in here,” I told him, dropping my bag before I got to my knees in front of him as he leaned against his double bed. He trembled when I ran my hand up his bare arm, hoping the friction from my gloves would warm him. “You’re gonna get sick with that window open and no shirt on. It’s dropping down to almost freezing tonight .”

“No importa,” he said, not looking at me .

“It’s important to me,” I fussed, moving my hands faster up and down his arms .

Jamie focused on his fingers, held together in front of his face. He didn’t move close when I squatted in front of him or move at all when I continued to rub my hands over his chilled arms. “You shouldn’t have come.” He swallowed, clearing his throat to hazard a glance at my face, making a double take when he looked up at my hat and coat. “You walked here?” He sat up straight, frowning as he leaned toward me .

I didn’t let him get too far, stopping him with my hands against his cheek. I moved his face, angling it to the right to examine the small blue bruise that had formed against his mouth and the cut on the right side of his lip. Thumbing against it gently, Jamie let me touch him, let me have a look without an argument at all .

“I should wake her up and smack her around a little. See how she likes it .”

“She was drunk,” he told me, seeming more embarrassed than mad at how his mother had lashed out at him. “She’s always drunk when they leave .”

“Jamie…” He exhaled when I brought our foreheads together, feeling my chest tighten as he circled my waist with his long arms. He smelled good and though his skin was still cold from the chill in the room, my body warmed the closer he came to me. His hold was tight, it always was, but this time when Jamie held on to me, I got the impression that he didn’t want to let go. Just then, I knew he needed something solid, something steady to keep him anchored. I’d do anything to give him that .

“Sometimes, I want to run. Pack a bag and steal you away. I want to be alone with you with no one else in the world to stop us from just…being .”

I sat back, watching his features when he frowned. He looked so young then, staring at me, like he wanted me to make his world make sense. Like he expected me to have answers I couldn’t possibly give him. Still, I did my best .

“We can be. Right here. Right now. No one will stop us .”

He watched me for a long time, pulling off my hat and tugging my body closer to his. I didn’t know what to make of the look in his eyes; they were lit with hope, as always, but something else made them seem darker, like there was so much hiding beneath all that black color that he wanted to keep to himself. It scared me. It thrilled me, and I wasn’t sure which sensation I liked best .

“You save me. My florecita, you always save me .”

That look deepened, became something that shifted between sweet and seductive as Jamie went on looking at me, fingers pulling at my coat. He wanted me close, I knew that. It was written in his features .

“Jamie?” It was all I could manage. Two syllables, one question that demanded a lot and expected very little. I loved him. Right then, I loved him more than I understood. I’d have given anything he wanted to make that look leave his face. He was lost and I wanted to help him find his way, wherever that might be .

But he shook his head, watching, staring as he pulled my gloves off and popped open the buttons of my coat. “Come here, mami .” Like always, I listened, letting him hold me, kiss me because he needed it, because I wanted it. “The only time I feel alive is when I’m here…” Jamie touched my chest, his fingers stroking up my neck. “You’re my life line.” He planted an open mouth kiss against the hollow of my throat, shifting us as he came to his knees, pulling my coat to my arms, but he didn’t lower it beyond my elbows. Instead, Jamie turned me, leaning my body against the bed as he continued to kiss my neck. “I can’t breathe without you. I don’t want to .”

He grabbed my hair, fingers between the thick strands, and moved my head, pulling me out of the haze his mouth and tongue had put me in as he kissed against my skin .

“Four years. Four years I’ve wanted you and it feels like seconds. Sometimes it feels like a hundred years.” Jamie moved the coat from my arms, picking me up by my thighs to lay me in the center of his bed. He hovered above me, fingers slipping along my ribs because he knew how much I liked it. “Four years I spent on this bed daydreaming, wishing you were here with me, just like you are right now.” He lowered his body over mine, bringing the small shock of coolness from his touch underneath my shirt and onto my stomach. “You’re my dream.” He set a kiss on my stomach, fingernails against each rib, shifting up until the flat of his hand rested under my breast. He felt heavy against me, his knee on my thigh, his mouth against my cheek, over my forehead until Jamie pulled back to stare down at me .

“You know, don’t you, mami ?” I shook my head, pretending to be clueless but couldn’t keep the slow pulsing twitch to move the side of my mouth upward. “You have to know .”

“Tell me anyway.” I wanted the words. I wanted impossible promises that I’d believe right then. Jamie never disappointed .

“There’s only space enough for you in my heart.” He looked across the room, toward the door. “She made a mess of love. She doesn’t respect it. But you…” Jamie looked down at me, hand moving along my stomach. “You made me realize love shouldn’t be a mess. You made me realize what I wanted .”

He smiled against my palm when I touched his face. “What do you want ?”

Jamie exhaled, and the sweet scent of mint and clove fanned against my face. “Mi amada, with everything in me…I love you .”

My mouth open, I was ready to tell him I loved him too. It was there, flirting against my tongue, but Jamie shook his head, lowered over me to steal a kiss. “I don’t need you to tell me,” he said, shifting to his side with his hand firmly on my stomach. He looked nervous, swallowing like his throat had gone dry before he would look at me again. “But will you show me ?”

I paused, watching him, not sure why he wanted this now. Why he seemed a little manic, just then, eyes wide, breath held until I answered him. “I touch you and it’s…coño , it’s so sweet. It’s so good. I love the way you feel.” He moved closer, leaving an open-mouth kiss against my stomach. “I don’t want to pressure you…” Jamie shot a look at me, wary, a little hesitant before he moved his fingers under my shirt. “I want to get closer. I want to be as close to you as I can.” He exhaled, eyes shut tight as he shook his head. “I want to be inside you. So much .”

Something happened to me then. Something sure. Something determined. The only answer I gave him was a smile and then Jamie kissed me, holding my face, slipping his tongue inside my mouth until the only sensation I knew was the taste of him, filling me up. Then I pulled away, pushing his shoulder so he’d lay against the mattress .

He’d been my only friend for four years. We spent weekends together and most school breaks except when my mother dragged me off to the desert. There wasn’t much social interaction Jamie and I had with other people. That meant there had never really been time for experiences that didn’t include each other. We were both inexperienced, but we weren’t innocent. There is a lot of play that happens when you’re finding your feet. There is a lot of touch and testing limits that happens when lust and affection collide. We’d tried and touched many times before this night, but had never moved past the point of no return .

We would now .

I sat up, straddling Jamie, loving how quiet he went, like the shock of the movement had rendered him mute, but he still touched me, holding my hips, helping me when I pulled my shirt over my head. There was a half-smile on his face, the left side threatening to twist into a grin, but the expression left him when I pulled his hand against my breast .

He didn’t breathe just then and moved his eyebrows together as I directed his fingers over the curve of my breast, leaving them over my nipple as I reached behind me to unhook my bra .

“What do you like?” he asked, voice awed. “Before, when I’ve touched you …”

“This,” I said, showing him with my free hand on my other breast. I pinched my nipple between my fingers, eyes closing for a long blink when the sweet ache left me tingling. “I like it to hurt, just a little .”

He sat up, taking both breasts into his hands. “Do you…have you touched yourself like this?” He demonstrated by running his thumbs over my nipples, making them pebble when his touch grew sharp .

“Yes,” I moaned, arching back a little. “I think of you doing that to me, just like that.” The pinching got sharper and I felt myself growing wet. “Harder. Please .”

He was hard against me, his jeans tightening, and I moved one hand down to his button, popping it open, and he teased my nipples and kissed my collar .

“This…this okay?” he asked, licking one nipple, holding it onto his mouth. I moaned, fingering his hair, guiding his lips and tongue with a shift of his head .

“That’s more than okay. Suck it. Yes…like that …”

He was awkward, a little nervous and it unsettled me, just a bit. Jamie was so confident most of the time expect with this. “I want to taste you, mami .” He flipped us over and I bounced against the mattress, pussy throbbing and wet when he reached for my boots and pulled then off, in a hurry to divest me of my jeans. There was no stealth to his movements, no slow seduction like what I’d read in some of my steamier romance novels, but everything Jamie did put me closer to the edge. He tugged down my jeans, kissing his way along my calf, to the inside of my thigh and then he stopped, staring up at me as he rubbed his thumb right next to my hip .

“Um…Isaiah said …”

“Isaiah’s done it ?”

Jamie nodded laughing when my mouth dropped open. “Last summer with Daphne. They fuck a lot .”

“Still?”

He nodded again, that half smile returning. “He said…” his voice went soft, low, as though he thought his cousin might be listening. “He said it helps, if the girl hasn’t done it before…it helps to get her really wet .”

I sat up, leaning against the pillows on my elbows, shooting a quick glance the bedside table. “Do you think maybe lotion or baby oil ?”

“I wanted…” Jamie cleared his throat, moving his fingers against the top of my thong. “Can I use my mouth ?”

No one had ever kissed me there, but it was something I thought about. Something, in fact, I thought of Jamie doing if I ever worked up the nerve to ask him. “Um…yeah .”

He was slow, kept glancing at my face, some silent confirmation that I was okay with him kissing my hip, along my stomach, that I didn’t mind his fingers against my skin, pulling down my thong .

When I was naked, Jamie slid down my body, landing awkward, slow kisses over my hipbone, to the top of my pubic area, right along the cleft of bone and skin that joined my leg and ass—everywhere but on my clit .

He managed one more look, then licked along my pussy, moving his warm tongue between my lips, using his thumbs to spread them apart. Then Jamie brought my clit into his mouth, sucking, teasing around my skin like he didn’t mind the taste, like the sounds I made all heady and moaning, encouraged him onward .

“Like this?” he’d ask, but I was never able to answer. The sensation he worked inside me, the heat and wetness grew too much. and I could only manage to shake my head or move my body this way and that to get him closer, to have him touching the right spot .

“Use…use your fingers,” I told him, shuddering, gasping when his listened, slipping two inside of me, feeling around, listening for the sounds I made to know what I liked best .

“Mami…” he started moving faster, finding a spot deep inside that had me out of breath, had me clutching onto his hair, the pillow at my side .

“There! Right there …”

And whatever he did to me, whatever his fingers touched got full, got teased enough that my orgasm shot inside me all at once, sending me rocking toward oblivion. It wasn’t like all the times I’d touched myself. I had vibrators and bullets. I’d chased that edge for a long time, but nothing had every made me soar like Jamie’s mouth on me or his long fingers deep inside .

It took two full minutes for me to catch my breath. Jamie laid beside me, kissing against my neck, fingers still damp as his circled my nipple, then licked it clean. He did not wait, seemed unable to, before he stood, and I watched him at my side, unbuckling his jeans, lowering the zipper .

“We don’t have to…” he started. The words were sweet, and I knew he meant them, but he’d never looked so worked up. Those dark eyes had never been so black .

I controlled my breathing, sitting up to touch him, hand over his and I brushed his fingers aside, finishing the job of lowering his zipper. I wanted to taste him too, feel that thick, warm skin against my tongue. Moving forward, I opened my mouth, seeing him, long and thick, licking the head just once before Jamie held my shoulders, pushing me back .

“That’s… coño, que rico . It would be too good.” He shoved off his jeans and boxers, standing in front of me naked. My mouth watered as I watched him, sliding my palm against his hard cock. Jamie shuddered, head shaking. “If you went on touching me like that, we wouldn’t need this.” He grabbed a condom from the bedside table and waved it between his fingers, ripping the foil edge before he stroked himself, slipping on the latex. “And I really want to need this .”

Jamie wobbled when I laid back, grabbing his hands to get him on the bed with me. His laugh was loud, surprise making him yelp, but the humor died quickly when he bounced on the mattress, his cock nearly slipping inside me when he moved over me .

He lowered to kiss me, tongue thick, eager, hands sweaty as he held one side of my face. “You… Dios mío, you sure?” he asked, gripping himself, rubbing the head against my pussy. His voice was breathy, gasping, as though he could barely manage to control myself .

“I’m sure. Come take what’s yours.” Jamie’s arms shook as he hovered above me, gaze shifting between my face and the space where he guided his dick against my wet lips. “Am I…wet enough?” I asked, getting only a quick head shake .

When he slipped the head inside, Jamie closed his eyes, nostrils flaring. “Coño, que rico,” he breathed, holding the headboard above my head as inched deeper inside. “Que…que bueno …”

He moved closer, filling me up but when I grabbed his arms, nails sinking into his skin and hissed, Jamie stopped, eyes shooting open to watch me. “Belleza …I’m sorry …”

“No,” I told him, moving my hips. “Kiss me…behind my ear…my neck and go slow .”

Jamie listened, shifting over me to lean on one arm, licking a hot path up my neck, biting on the curve of my ear. The sensation was immediate, shot chills and tingles over my skin and I felt myself relaxing, legs spreading wide to accommodate his small movements. He moved his hips, lifting my leg with his free hand and in one swift thrust, breached deep inside, earning the smallest hiss from me before I urged him on .

“Jamie, yes…like that. Keep…keep going .”

We lost ourselves just then, movement and moment coming together as our sweat slick bodies glided and slid and became a tumble of delicious friction .

“Mi amor...ay…” he cried, hips moving fast, holding my leg and I loved the jarring way he moved. This was Jamie at his most vulnerable. This was Jamie raw .

Minutes more and he worked hard inside me, movement sloppy and awkward, but sweet. I felt tight, filled up to the brim and my pussy throbbed, wet and hot and greedy for everything he gave me .

“Keep going…Jamie! Oh, God, Jamie!” And I crested once more, nails once against scratching along his arms, nipples against his chest as Jamie landed on top of me, holding me closer, hips slamming hard, harder still until he cursed and shouted and went slowly still .

Above me, Jamie issued a litany of words I didn’t understand. They were sweet and unrecognizable. He didn’t move, except for the throb of him still nestled inside me and slow shift of his mouth against my neck .

Then, I felt the warm drip of wetness slipping down his cheek coming to stop against my chest. “Jamie?” I asked, holding his face between my hands. There were tears brimming from his eyes and he tried to hide them, pushing his face between my breasts. “Did you …”

“I love you, mami ,” he whispered, nestling against me, holding my arms. “No one has ever made me this happy. Please…please, ” he begged, voice low. “Don’t ever stop .”

He went quiet and the air around us cooled. My skin was sticky, my hips ached but I couldn’t keep the smile from my face. Jamie owned me. He had a part of me that no one in the world ever would. I moved my nails in his hair, loving the feeling of his breath on my damp skin, casting glances around the room, my gaze stopping on the calendar pinned to his wall .

“December twenty-first,” I said, thinking he couldn’t hear me .

But Jamie looked up, shooting a look at the calendar before he kissed me, face dry now. “Are you my early Christmas present ?”

“Maybe…” I tried, my skin tingling, chilling as he looked at me. His eyes were lighter, somehow, and sweet as he touched my lips .

“No, florecita. You’re no present. You’re mi tesoro, my treasure. My forever .”

And he was mine .