Page 10

Chapter Ten

Aline

I didn’t know what kind of gene pool these people came from, but Xochil’s Dad pretty much brought my kitchen to a standstill. He was exceedingly good-looking. He was main-character-in-a-Mexican-telenovela good-looking, and the suit he was wearing only made him look more handsome. And for some reason, my orixa was going a bit crazy with his urgent nudges. He was going to be important.

We sat down at the table to eat, and my people slowly started working again. I felt a little self-conscious sitting in my dirty chef’s jacket while he was so well put together.

“I knew this would be a good place to eat,” he said, looking at all the food, in the middle of the table. He pulled off his suit jacket, unbuttoned his sleeves, and rolled them up while looking around excitedly. “I haven’t eaten good Brazilian since I came back to the States.”

“You lived in Brazil?” I asked.

“For a good few years. Great food, great music. Great everything, but the heat and politics,” he chuckled, grabbing the tongs and beginning to pile food onto his plate.

“Hey, Rory, can we get another three orders of rodizios?” I called out. “I don’t think I made enough food.”

Xochil and Miguel began laughing while her dad’s face reddened a little.

“Sorry, it’s been a long morning with no breakfast,” he mumbled, taking a bit of food and groaning appreciatively.

“Don’t apologize. I’m well acquainted with Miguel and Xochil’s appetite, even after just two days. I’m just anticipating the food disappearing since they clearly appear to take after their parents.”

“I want to know how come I didn’t know this place existed until now. I know there’s one other Brazilian restaurant on the other side of the city, but frankly, it wasn’t this good.”

“Thank you,” I answered, unbelievably happy that he liked my food. “My avó taught me how to make it.”

“Your grandmother? Did she grow up in Brazil?” he asked.

“Yes. She’s there now, actually.”

“Were you born there, too?”

“Sure was. We moved here when I was nine. She went back a few years ago, but I stayed here to finish school and open the restaurant.”

“Are your parents still here?” he asked.

“No. My parents passed away when I was nine,” I answered, shaking my head.

“I apologize,” Helios stated, looking contrite.

“It’s alright. It was a long time ago.” I assured him, though I couldn’t help feeling that flash of hurt that came whenever I thought of my parents. Thankfully, Rory stopped at our table with a couple of orders of coxhinas. “Thanks, Rory.”

“No problem, boss.”

“These are great,” Miguel told his uncle, grabbing a few potato fritters and adding them to his uncle’s plate.

“We should exchange some recipes. I always wanted to learn to cook authentic Brazilian, and I know a lot of good Mexican recipes,” Helios said, after taking a bite of one.

“You’re not the first person to want Avó’s coxhina’s recipe,” I chuckled as Rory brought the rodizios I’d requested.

“Vou ter que garantir que minha filha n?o deixe você ir ent?o,” (I'll have to make sure my daughter doesn't let you go, then) he said in Portuguese, surprising me and making my eyes go comically wide.

I looked at Xochil, who was narrowing her eyes at her dad.

“Acabamos de nos conhecer,” (We only just met) I replied.

“Levei menos de uma semana para me apaixonar pela m?e dela. Quando você sabe, você sabe, e eu conheco minha filha. Ela parece que poderia flutuar em uma nuvem.” (Took me less than a week to fall in love with her mother. When you know you know, and I know my daughter. She looks like she could float on a cloud.)

“Ela n?o pode me amar sem me conhecer. Ela n?o sabe tudo sobre mim,” (She can’t love me without knowing me. She doesn’t know everything about me.) I told him, and I realized my words were very similar to the ones Xochil used earlier this morning.

Was she hiding something, too?

“Segredos s?o apenas detalhes. O amor n?o se importa com os detalhes.” (Secrets are just details. Love doesn’t care about the details.)

“You know it’s rude to speak another language in front of us small potatoes who only know Spanish and English,” Xochil said, sparing me from having to answer her father.

“I was just trying to get her to fess up her grandmother’s secret ingredient,” her dad mentioned, smiling warmly at me.

We talked for a little while longer about random things, and I found myself relaxing with all of them.

It was odd. Usually, I wasn’t a very trusting person. Not only because of what happened to my parents, but because my orixa tended to tell me if someone was going to be important, so I never tried to make friendly chit-chat unless he nudged me forward.

Eventually, though, it was time to end lunch and get back to work, so I stood from my seat.

“Can I get you guys any dessert?” I asked.

“Are you going back to work?” Xochil asked me, signs of disappointment on her face.

“Nope. She’s not,” Rory answered for me.

“Wha—”

“You’ve been going strong for like three weeks by yourself. I know you’re the owner, but I’m kicking you out of the kitchen. We’ve got it covered. In fact, I don’t want to see you around for the next three days.”

“You can’—”

“Mutiny,” Guillermo said, winking. “Have some fun for once, boss.”

“The new fridge is being delivered in two days,” I pointed out.

“Fine. If you feel the need to, you are allowed inside the restaurant for the delivery, and then I want you out,” Rory acquiesced, rolling her eyes.

“Bu—”

“Deal! I won’t let her get near!” Xochil said from behind me, wrapping an arm around my waist and guiding me toward the door.

“My purse,” I protested weakly.

“I’ve got it!” Miguel called out from behind us.

Xochil didn’t stop walking until we were outside. I barely managed to throw a call out to Cassidy, to let her know I was leaving and to call if she needed anything urgent.

“Alright. The world is our oyster this afternoon. What do you want to do?” Xochil asked me excitedly once we were outside.

“Oh, you mean I actually get a say this time?” I asked, teasing her.

I enjoyed the tint on her cheeks as her father laughed at her.

“Oh, she’s going to keep you on your toes, mija. This is going to be payback for all the teasing I’ve had to endure from you about how I am with your mother,” he teased.

“How about we go back to your house, and I show you what we did to it? Then we can decide from there if you want us to add more things to protect you from your stalker?” Miguel suggested, giving his cousin an out.

“She has a stalker?” Helios asked, suddenly serious.

“Yeah. Xochil saw them hanging around last night, uncle,” Miguel answered.

“Let’s go, then. I have a bunch of supplies left over from my meeting. I’m sure some of them might be useful.”

Xochil nodded at him and turned to me. “Is that alright with you?”

“That works. I have to change from my work clothes before we do anything, anyway,” I responded.

“Uncle, I’m going to drop my car off at the hotel. Can you follow me and pick me up so we don’t all cram into her driveway?” Miguel asked.

“Yeah. Let’s go. We’ll see you in a bit,” he nodded our way and headed to a black SUV in the back of the parking lot.

I got into my car and headed home, watching Xochil’s vehicle in my rearview mirror. The anticipation in my stomach rose at the prospect of being alone with her in my home again. I wanted to kiss her so badly. The need for it was so primal that it made my entire body tremble.

I didn’t understand why I was having such a visceral reaction to this woman. Yes, she was gorgeous and sexy, but this felt like it went beyond a physical attraction. Every time I was near her, I was surrounded by this wonderful scent of hibiscus and the tropics. It was hard to explain. It wasn’t a perfume, as far as I could tell. It was like the scent was embedded in her skin, and all I wanted to do was lick it. Lick her.

I parked in the driveway and walked toward the door, pushing it open as I watched her park behind me. When she saw I was waiting for her, she gave me a blinding smile that took my breath away. I walked inside after her, and the moment I closed the door, I felt her hands wrapping around my waist.

“I’ve been wanting to do this all morning,” she sighed, resting her cheek against my back. “You’re too diligent with your work. You never take breaks.”

“I need my restaurant to succeed. It’s my life’s work,” I answered honestly.

“I get that. I just missed touching you, is all,” she murmured.

I smiled and turned around in her arms.

“I missed touching you, too,” I confessed, wrapping myself around her.

She was looking up at me, but then she looked forward for a moment and looked up at me with a wolfish smile.

“You know, I’ve always hated being the short one in my family, but now I see it has some advantages,” she whispered before she looked down again and leaned forward, kissing the cleavage visible above my camisole.

And suddenly, I was out of breath as I felt the static shock spreading from the place her warm lips connected to my skin. A wave of heat pulsed through me, and when she looked up at me with those gorgeous amber eyes, I couldn’t help myself. I pulled her closer and crashed my lips against hers.

A sexy growl left her chest as she allowed me to kiss her. Her hands trailed up my stomach until she was cupping my chest, ripping a moan from my throat. I pulled her closer, my hands kneading her ass as my tongue explored her mouth. She tasted just like she smelled, like the best glass of Jamaica in the middle of a tropical vacation.

“I should get changed before your dad and cousin arrive,” I panted when I pulled back to breathe.

“That sounds like a great idea,” she murmured.

She took a step back and I started moving toward the hallway to change, a little disappointed that she agreed with me so quickly. But the moment I reached my bedroom door, her hands were back on my waist, pulling me back a step. She pulled the camisole out of my pants and began pulling it up.

“Let me help you with that,” she whispered, her lips following behind the fabric.

My knees went weak, and I had to hang on to the frame of the door before I landed on my knees.

“Xochil,” I whimpered, when I felt her hands rub against my nipple from the outside of my bra, as she continued to push the camisole upward.

“I got you, beautiful,” she whispered, and I gasped when she picked me up again.

In three steps, she was sitting me down on the bed. The look on her face disarmed me. I’d never had a person look at me with such intense desire and hunger before. It was a heady feeling.

I lifted my arms as she pulled the shirt off my body. She stopped there for a moment, her eyes drinking every inch of me. She stepped forward until she was standing between my legs, and her hands went around my back. I felt the strap of my bra release the heaviness of my breasts, and I sighed with relief. Xochil pulled the straps down my arms and threw the bra in a corner. Her eyes took in my exposed torso, her pupils dilating until they were almost fully black.

I started to get self-conscious, and my hands were twitching to cover myself, but then she finally placed her hands on my breasts. Her thumbs traced the outline of my nipples, making me whimper as heat shot through my frame.

“You’re so beautiful,” she whispered in a reverent voice.

One of her hands moved from my breast up to my throat. She collared me gently, but added enough pressure that I felt it all the way down to my core. She pushed me back onto the bed, crawling up after me until she was straddling me.

She bent down and kissed me. Her hungry lips and tongue devoured me and made me light-headed. She moved her lips down my neck to the same spot she’d been sucking on this morning, making me squirm as desire and pleasure set fire to my veins.

“Soon,” she promised.

It felt like she was talking to herself more than she was talking to me because moments later, she left the spot that seemed to fascinate her and continued to move further down.

I moaned and pushed my hand through her hair as her lips closed around my nipple to keep her there. She chuckled, her tongue twirling and flicking my nipple until I was moaning and trying to feed more of my breast into her mouth.

“I’d love to spend a few hours on these delicious nipples, but we don’t have enough time, my love. I promise I’ll make it up to you later,” she groaned, kissing the pebble and moving her lips further down my body.

I felt her hands massaging my waist before her fingers dipped under the band of my work pants. I raised my head to catch her eye, and she smiled before she pulled on the band, taking my underwear with her.

Instinct had my hands covering my most intimate parts. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of my body. It had just been a long time since I’d shown it to anyone. My eyes connected with Xochil’s again, and when I did, she placed her hands lightly on top of mine.

“May I?” she asked, and when I nodded, she gently moved my hands until I was completely bared to her. “Beautiful,” she whispered, and I felt heat trail after her eyes as she looked at my whole body. “I want to make you feel good, Aline. Will you grant me that honor?”

“I… yes,” I managed to breathe out.

Her hands came back to my thighs, and she began kneading them as she sank down to her knees between my open legs. She leaned down and kissed the inside of my thigh, inhaling deeply and groaning.

“You smell divine. Better than the most decadent dessert,” she moaned.

I had no chance to respond or feel flustered because the next moment, her tongue was parting my folds and licking from my entrance to my clit and back down. All I could do after that was arch my back and moan. Her hand went to my stomach to keep me in place as she began to devour me with a voraciousness that left me floating above my body.

Heaven and sin. It was the only way to describe the way she was touching me. Her hands and her lips on me were like magic, like unexpected lightning sending my body into a frenzy. I rode her mouth, then her fingers as they pushed me into a state of pleasure I wasn’t sure I would survive.

I came with a scream, my body trying to leave the bed with the force of pleasure as I arched and tensed. Xochil’s approving growl as she lapped up my release only kept me in that state of perpetual pleasure. Eventually, she expertly helped bring my body down to Earth as she massaged my legs, my stomach and my breasts. I opened my eyes to find her lying down next to me, her face so close to mine that I could do nothing but lean forward and kiss her lips, tasting the remnants of myself on her tongue.

I pulled her close, and she shifted until she was snuggled in my arms, her head resting on my shoulder. I closed my eyes and basked in the post-orgasm glow, wondering how I could have gotten so lucky as to meet her in the middle of my worst streak of luck in years.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Blissful,” I answered honestly, then frowned. “I should probably put on clothes before your family arrives.”

She gave a deep sigh, and then I felt her kiss that spot she appeared to love on my shoulder before sitting up.

“Yeah. They’re probably not far out. Why don’t you take a shower, and I’ll play host if they get here before you’re back out?”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” I told her, but instead of standing up, I grabbed her hand and pulled her on top of me. I let one of my hands massage her ass while the other wrapped around the back of her neck, and I pulled her down for a kiss. “We’ll be picking this up again later, right?” I asked her, wanting to be able to touch her, to bring her as much pleasure as she’d brought me.

“Hordes of zombies wouldn’t keep me from you,” she promised.

I let out a little giggle at the extremeness of her statement. Her smile broadened as she watched me, and then she rolled off me and placed a hand over her face.

“Go shower, Aline, before I text my family to fuck off, and don’t let you out of this room for the next three weeks.”

I giggled again, feeling like a teenager in love. I stood, grabbed a dress I rarely got to wear from my closet, and headed to the shower.