“How materialistic of you, Sarina. You should be ashamed.” My father maintains a stoic front, but I can feel the mischief and smugness radiating from him. “Your grandmother. My mother!” Fake tears line his eyes. “Is gone and here you are being so selfish.”
“I’m not being selfish. That ring is sentimental. It was promised to me. It’s all I have left of her aside from the memories.”
Within an instant all the raw emotional theatrics he put on dissipates.
“Engagement rings are for the engaged. You made it clear you didn’t want the engagement I went out of my way to secure for you. Change your mind and it’s yours,” is what he says, butwhat he’s really saying is, ‘Bend to my rules and you get what you want.’
I refuse.
If memories are all I will have to keep from my grandmother, then so be it.
It’s always his way or no way.
It’s always the promise of unconditional love amongst endless conditions.
I rise to my feet, say my goodbyes to everyone but him, and I leave for New York…for good.
CHAPTER 25
TOMÁS
I never thought that drool staining the pillow or snoring could be endearing. Then again, I never have been given the opportunity for mornings like this. Any hook up I’ve had felt transactional. A quick get each other off, and an even quicker goodbye. Something that, with the way I’ve allowed work to rule my life, I had come to terms with. Accepting the prospect of being a perpetual bachelor. Technically, I still am. This isn’t real, even if with each passing day it deceivingly feels like it is.
But even in mypre-Sarinabachelor days, I’ve never done what we’re doing now. Lying in comfortable silence with the mood relaxed and guards down.
I lose track of how long I’ve been staring at her. It’s only when she begins to stir that I snap out of it, forcing myself to look away before she opens her eyes to see me gawking at her like a creep.
Fighting the strong urge I have to drift my gaze back to her, I peer straight ahead. Or at least I try to. Kind of difficult when the blanket draped over us is tented on my side.
I debate lowering my hand under the covers to discreetly alleviate the pent-up need intensifying by the second, but theopportunity is disrupted by Sarina’s leg lifting and curling around me. My body becoming a replacement for the pillow she slept with sandwiched between her thighs.
This newfound proximity makes the blood flowing to my groin borderline painful, and it only heightens when her hips begin to subtly rock back and forth, creating friction against my shaft. I lean into it. Not fighting it. Unable to will myself against it even if I tried. In subtle motions I meld into her body. Thrusting my hips up, closing the space between her thigh and my dick.
This feels so good, but it also feels wrong.
I should stop.
She’s asleep.
She isn’t aware of what she’s doing —or what I’m doing in turn.
My body freezes for a beat as I comb through the mental Rolodex I have of all our conversations, settling on the one we had when we first met, when she mentioned something about somnophilia. Not knowing what it was, I looked it up, and now I’m wondering if what is happening now is some form of that.
As curious as I am to try it, I feel like that requires some sort of conversation first. One that we haven’t had, so even if her subconscious is giving me the green light, I need to refrain until I get the verbal okay from her.
I begin —painful as it is— to scoot away from her, when her leg lifts once more, this time locking around my waist.
Her eyes open, scaring me half to death as she speaks. “Really?”
I can’t help but gasp. “Jesus Christ. I thought you were sleeping.”
“Surprise!” she singsongs. “You’re over here hard as can be, and I’m practically dry humping you, and you’re trying to escape me?”
“Sorry. It’s just that I thought you were sleeping.”
“So?”
“I didn’t have your permission.”
