Not Santo, though. Never Santo. Being an inducted brother at such a young age meant constant vigilance and never taking anything for granted.
So we met in the war room because I wanted to see his new ink.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said. Still bandaged at first, when he removed them to show me, his new tats looked like fresh slaps across bare skin, red and angry to the touch.
“It’s your name, Rosa,” he said softly, pointing a finger to the swirl of text along the edge. “It’s discreet so no one will ever think it anything but a rose stem. But I’ll know what it is. I’ll know what it says.”
“Oh, Santo,” I said. I cried that night. It seemed most of my memories with Santo involved my tears. “It’s… beautiful.”
“Where are you?”
Santo kneels over me, half naked, his stern eyes probing and curious.
“I was remembering the night you got that ink. Remembering how it made me cry.”
A soft smile ghosts his lips before he sobers. “It did.”
“Santo,” I say softly, my fingers edging into his jeans. I grip him tight so he doesn’t move.
“Yeah, baby?”
“You said that night that you took vows to my brothers and to my father. Why say it that way?”
A look I can’t identify flickers across his face before he shrugs. “Not sure why you remember it that way.”
“I just do. Was there meaning in that?”
“There’s meaning in everything, Rosa.”
He bends and kisses me, silencing my mouth and quieting my mind. “Finish undressing me, baby,” he whispers. “Tonight will be special, and I want to savor this.”
I give a quick nod before I unbutton his jeans. My hands tremble when I push them over his hips, and he helps me get him out of them by pushing them down, his hands atop mine.
I take them off and pile them beside his other clothes until he kneels before me wearing nothing but boxer briefs stretched tight across his muscled hips and firm ass.
“I remember when you used to play baseball.”
“One season, twenty years ago.”
“Perhaps, but the sight of your ass in those tight pants… mmm, a girl doesn’t forget a thing like that.”
I grip his ass and squeeze. His cock, already stiff, throbs in his boxers and stiffens even more, the hard length obvious and arousing. I want to feel him inside me. I’ve never had Santo inside me, and I can’t think beyond the need to feel him.
With the firm touch of a man who knows what he wants, he captures my arms in his strong fingers and places them by my sides. Slowly, he lowers his weight on me in a way that isn’t stifling but reassuring, his mouth caressing mine in an almost-kiss that hints at things to come.
“I want you,” he whispers in my ear. “I want you so bad I can taste you.”
Between the foreplay earlier and his control over me, and the slow revealing of his naked skin next to me, I shiver in need and want. I swallow hard and my eyelids flutter closed. He kisses one, then the other, as if blessing my dreams, but when his mouth meets mine, this time he’s more insistent than ever.
Tonight’s the night. Tonight, Santo will make me his in every possible way. Tonight, we become one.
My eyes stay closed as he kisses me, his tongue licks mine and I release a guttural groan which he swallows with the next kiss. I graze my teeth along his lip, and a low, deep moan, all male and all Santo, permeates my pores. I inhale the deep, masculine scent of pine and strength, clean and vivid and mesmerizing. I lose myself to the firm exploration of his fingers, the possessive grip that only affirms what I already know: Santo loves me, and I love him. Only a lover could hold a woman like that.
My heart races when he nips my lip. Tongues and teeth and hurried breaths, whispers and promises and prayers. His fingers stab into my hair and mine grip his muscled shoulders. My hips rise to meet his, and he glides his legs over mine. I feel his hardened length through the fabric of his boxers, and my own barely clad body meets his in wanton abandon.
“Rosa,” he groans in my ear, thrusting his still-clad cock against my body. “Fuck, woman.”
“I want you, Santo.”
“And I’ll have you.”
I nod, so eager to feel him in me, I make short work of pushing down his boxers. I savor the feel of him on top of me, his large hands roving over my bare skin as if memorizing every curve and plane. His lips along my neck make my skin erupt in fire, his fingers soothing the burn only to deepen the heady feel of need.
He moves his hips in time with mine, and the wait is agonizing bliss, a yearning need that says all of you, now while savoring every breath and touch. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can feel and touch, ignited by his every breath and movement.