Page 102 of Sombra
I’ll have to be.
As I turn to him and kiss him, I resolve to find a happy medium. I don’t have to throw myself into an entirely different milieu to be myself. I’m not going back to needing a cage. I can be myself rightnow.
Starting now.
I deepen the kiss. With my tongue searching for his, I feel I’m being fully myself, but a gentler version. Not so extreme that I need to rebel and do everything just because I wasn’t allowed before.
Just. Me.
His hands clasp my hair, and he kisses me back.
I trust my feelings. I trust that Tavo has feelings for me. I trust that everything happensfor a reason.
Even if that everything is a baby.
His hands now slip up my torso, pulling my shirt off. He’s kissing, stroking, holding me now. I kiss him back just as thoroughly, just as gently, running my fingers over his strong back, his soft, warm skin, his sinewy muscles. Down into his pants.
He gives me a little smile, gets up, and locks the door.
“Amor,” he saysin his bedroom voice, hooks his fingers in my yoga pants, and pulls them down my legs.
After he kisses every part of me, worshiping me, making me gasp, he drops his jeans and enters me.
We don’t need protection from each other. I’m already pregnant. I love feeling him in me, tender. Kind.
He has to know how I feel about him.
Monday is a crisp,mid-November day, cooler than yesterday, and once I step outside in my thin sweater, I realize I’m going to be too cold to handle school all day. The Mediterranean aspect of southern Spain is misleading. You’d think it would be beaches and summer year-round, but it’s not. Snow is starting to appear on the distant Sierra Nevada mountains. It’snot Iowa cold, but it’s colder than I’d expected.
“I think I need my jacket.”
Turning to go back and get it, I stop and look up at him. Tavo pulls my hair back from my face, smiles, and kisses me softly.
With the passage of a week, I’ve become increasingly embarrassed at how I’ve been acting. We were careless. I accept that. I thought we’d fixed it with the pill, and I neverthought the results of one night of lax behavior would be so permanent.
Butterflies run in my stomach. “I’m so sorry how I acted last week.”
“You were in shock. We both were.”
Letting out my breath, I reach for his hand. “And Tavo, I need to tell you something. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. You said it, and I need to tell you—”
But before I can get thewords “I love you” out, a new blue Fiat approaches, creeping into view.
“¿Quién es?” Tavo asks, his brows furrowing. While there’s plenty of activity on the farm, we normally don’t get any strangers. And harvest isn’t for a few days still, when we’re expecting lots of help.
I don’t recognize the car either. “No tengo ni idea.” It continues all the way up by Tavo’s car.
Thecar stops. Parks. The door opens.
And the familiar form of Shane lumbers out.
“Oh my God,”I rasp. “That’s Shane.” I’m not processing. He’s in slow motion. I’m nauseous, and I don’t think it’s from the pregnancy. I think it’s from his face.
Tavo looks atme sharply. “From Iowa?”
I nod.
His nostrils flare, and his forehead creases into a frown. “The one you broke up with?”
