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She cocked her head. “With my people all around us?”
His jaw tightened briefly. “If they know what’s good for them, they’ll stay the fuck away.” He crooked his fingers. “Take your clothes off, Sera. I want to get you wet.”
“Too late.” Seriously.
He licked his lips, lust darkening his eyes as he watched her get to her feet and strip off the dress. That meant she was naked since she wasn’t wearing any undergarments. The appreciation in his gaze sent a flash of heat over her skin, and she found herself now looking forward to getting into the pool.
“Go on.” His voice was gravelly, teeth digging into his bottom lip as he eyed her from head to toe. “Let me watch you get in.”
So she strode past him, naked as the day she was born, and walked around to the steps that led into the pool. She entered without looking back, breath leaving her on a gasp when the cool water hit her skin. With her back to him, she waded out to the deep end, where the water covered her tits when she stood flat-footed, and sank under.
Arms wrapped around her, dragging her back to the shallow end, and she went willingly. When she came up for air, she turned in his arms immediately, seeking and finding his mouth, kissing him with her eyes closed, greedy hands stroking his naked muscular chest. The unmistakable texture of lightly raised scars under her fingertips stopped her in her tracks and she opened her eyes, breaking the kiss and pulling back slightly.
Staring at his chest.
12
“I knewI was different before I learned to tie my laces.” Toro stared into Seraphina’s eyes, fear a massive writhing thing inside him. He’d decided no more waiting, but now that the time had arrived, now that there was no going back, his insides shook. “It took some more years before I was able to put a voice to that difference.”
There were so many questions in her eyes. Her gaze kept dropping from his eyes to his chest. Confusion wrinkled her brow, apprehension too. And even though she looked as if she wanted to ask questions, even though her mouth opened and closed, she didn’t speak.
It unnerved him, so he kept talking even though they stood inches apart in the middle of the pool, water lapping at their bodies gently.
“I was AFAB—Assigned Female At Birth,” he clarified. “My mother named me Miranda.” His lips twitched. “It never bothered me to speak that name because it was never mine. I never owned it. I had no personal attachment to it.”
Seraphina’s thumb stroked him, featherlight, over the scar on the left side of his chest, then her hands fell away, dropping into the water with a splash. Toro pretended that loss didn’t matter, that her hands falling off him didn’t serve as a harbinger of things to come.
“I came out at twelve, to my father first. I figured he was a man, and he was always talking about wanting a son. I thought he’d be happy to know he already had a son. Even though I told him while I wore a frilly pink-and-white dress and ruffled socks with white heels.” He grinned crookedly. “We’d just come from church.” He would never forget that moment, how it had felt to voice the battle inside him finally. And the look on his father’s face, the way he’d dismissed Toro’s words with a pat on the head and told him to watch his mouth.
“I get it now.” She stared at him. “What you said earlier about your father not understanding your change.”
“Yeah, he didn’t get it. He brought me to my mother and started yelling at her, blaming her for some shit.” He scoffed. “As if there was something anyone could do.” He couldn’t help himself, cupping Seraphina’s cheek. He had to touch her, but he couldn’t read her anymore. She was too quiet. Withdrawn. What did it mean for them? Was he throwing everything away by showing her who he truly was?
“When my father left, I told my mother what I’d told him. She listened.” She’d truly listened, making him feel heard for the first time. Seen, understood. “She didn’t hesitate to start doing research, start figuring out how I could be who I was supposed to be. My father was of no help.” An understatement. “But my uncle Daniel was. He didn’t even bat an eye when my mother sat him down in our kitchen and told him what I’d told her. His acceptance made it bearable when I got made fun of, when the kids were mean.” And boy were they mean. The girls had made fun of him from a distance. The boys had beaten him up for having the audacity to want to look and be like them. “It took a few more years before I had options beyond the clothes I wore and the bindings I used to restrict my body, flatten my chest.” Miranda’s body had started to blossom then and it had gutted him. His mind and his body went to war with each other, and he’d sunk into depression as a result.
Fingers skated over his abdomen and he glanced down to find Seraphina’s hands on him. Well, one hand. She was once again ogling his body, which under normal circumstances would get him all hot and bothered, but he didn’t know what she was thinking and it killed him.
“My uncle got me on meds, shit that made me feel the way I’d always wanted to.” He inhaled. “He got me on T, paid for my surgeries.”
Seraphina’s head jerked up then, their gazes clashed. He remained unsure of what he saw in the depths of her dark eyes.
“The most pain and anguish I’ve ever endured in my life,” he told her softly. There were times he couldn’t move, couldn’t eat from the pain. He fell asleep crying and woke himself up crying. Toro pinched Seraphina’s chin between thumb and forefinger, holding her stare. “But I wouldn’t change a thing,” he swore. “Not one thing. Even when I was writhing in pain, throat hoarse from crying, I was happy.” His voice cracked and he glanced away, composing himself. “My mother and my uncle were with me. Not my father, because although he didn’t have a son, that wasn’t the way he wanted one. He called it unnatural. Me, his child.” He touched his chest. “I was unnatural to him. He wanted his little girl back. Wanted me back in dresses and pigtails.”
“Julián.” She clasped his face in both hands, then rose on tiptoe, releasing him to wrap her arms around his shoulders, burying her face in his neck.
Toro hugged her to him, squeezing his eyes shut. It didn’t hurt as much as it used to, his father’s rejection of him. Toro didn’t miss him, didn’t love him the way he loved his uncle. Antonio was dead now and Toro never mourned him.
“What are you thinking?” he asked Seraphina.
She shrugged in his embrace. “I don’t know.” The words came out muffled against his skin and he leaned back until she did the same, lifting her head to blink at him. “What?”
He searched her face. “I can’t tell what you’re thinking. Do you see me differently?” He shouldn’t ask that question. Fucking heartbreak hid behind that door, but he opened it anyway.
“Shouldn’t I?” she asked. “I thought—”
He lifted a brow when she didn’t continue. “What did you think? That I was a man? Am I not?”
She broke their gaze.
