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I raised my brow since my mouth was currently occupied by an egg roll.

She grinned. “Angel’s had someone interested in adopting her, but they’re waiting on legal to get back to us on whether the family is actually gone. I’ll have Missy call you with the details. They expect them to get back to us by Monday morning.”

I held a thumb’s up, and she grinned.

As Mary left, I turned my accusing eyes on Mya.

“You didn’t tell me that all the hoopla with the cop shooting the pregnant woman was Nico,” I hissed.

She grimaced. “I didn’t want you to worry. You were in your last months of school. What would you have done if you’d known?”

I deflated somewhat.

She knew exactly what I would’ve done. I would’ve been there for him.

Now I felt like a complete shit.

I may have been avoiding this place like the plague, but I wasn’t avoiding him.

Or at least that’s what I told myself.

My mind wandered back to that night. The night before my life was ruined.

My eyes were closed, and I was trying in vain to go to sleep.

Nikki was snoring away beside me, her glass of water sat untouched next to her bed.

She’d ruined my potential kiss for nothing.

I rolled over on the couch and my eyes snagged on the muted light pouring out from underneath Nico’s door.

My eyes went to the wall clock in the corner, noting that it was less than three hours until I had to get up for the day and be back home.

I don’t know what made me do it.

But, suddenly, I found myself in front of Nico’s door.

I listened to the sound of the TV through the closed door, wondering what exactly he was watching. It sounded like a comedy of some sort, because there was laughing in the background.

I found myself knocking without conscious thought.

And I froze for a solid two seconds before I decided to make a run for it.

I was two steps into my flee when a steely arm slid around my belly and pulled me into the room.

I gasped in surprise and stared at the closed bedroom door in shock. The wrong side of the closed bedroom door.

I could feel the hard length of Nico at my back.

My bare thighs, the ones no longer ensconced in shorts, were pressed up against the thin fabric covering Nico’s
lower half. I started panting in
anticipation of what he’d do next.

“Why are you running?”
He rumbled against my back.

I shook.

“Um,” I licked my lips. “I forgot to put my shorts back on.”

I felt him pause, and then, very slowly, he let his free hand slip down the outside of my thigh.

He started at my hip where my t-shirt came to a stop. But it ended just below the curve of my ass. Then…nothing but my panties.

I hated sleeping in restrictive clothing.

If I didn’t live with a house full of brothers, it’d probably be even less than panties and a t-shirt.

His hand froze once he felt the smooth expanse of my thigh.

Everything I’d ever thought was true about Nico was put into crystal clear clarity in the next moment.

For instance, his beard did feel wonderful against the soft skin of my neck.

Also, his body felt perfect around my own. His arms felt like they were made to wrap around me.

And his penis. There were no words. His penis was definitely large. Larger than I’d ever imagined as I felt him pressing against my backside.

I swallowed thickly and took the chance.

I turned in his arms.

He let me, and suddenly I had an eye full of hot, sexy Nico. My best friend’s brother. The man I never, ever thought I’d have a shot in the dark with.

His hands froze as I turned, and, slowly, returned to where they’d been before. Which had been the front of my thighs. Except now they weren’t the front of my thighs anymore, it was the back of my thighs. And he was extremely close to the part of me that felt like molten lava was pouring out of it.

I inhaled, and the smell of him entered my lungs. Spicy, like I’d always imagined he’d smell up close.

I leaned forward and kissed his collarbone, causing him to inhale as well.

“You’re playing with fire, niña,” he rumbled darkly.

I looked up at him, saw his taught, clenched jaw, and the tic at the corner of his eye.

I held my hand up and ran the tips of my fingers along the scruff of his beard, coming to a stop when I reached the seam of his lips.

His mouth opened, and the tip of his tongue licked the pad of my thumb.

I hissed in a breath and pressed more fully into him.

He growled, and suddenly I found myself not standing anymore.

Instead, I was on his bed with Nico between my thighs.

And he was kissing me.

Kissing me well, too.

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” he breathed.

I concurred.

It was awful to want your best friend’s brother.

I felt like I was betraying Nikki by wanting him.

Right now, though, she wasn’t even the least bit on my mind. Only him. Only this. Only now.

“Alright,” Mya said, standing up. “I’ve got to go to work again. I just wanted to run your lunch back.”

I jolted back into the here and now, surprised that I’d not had a spontaneous orgasm like I usually did when I thought back to that night.

How embarrassing would that have been?

I stood hastily and smiled at her. “Thanks for lunch.”

She smiled at me warmly.

Mya knew how I was.

I was what one would call a dreamer.

I spent a lot of time inside my head or admiring the world around me.

That was why Nico and I worked so well.

He didn’t talk, and I didn’t care if he didn’t talk.

“No problem. I’ll see you later,” she whispered.

The rest of the afternoon was uneventful as I worked through the mountain of paperwork, getting to know each individual child that would soon be under my charge.

They were all cute kiddos, ranging from ages four months all the way up to fifteen years old.

The fifteen year old would, by far, be my hardest to place.

From what I’d learned over my time interning, and then my rotations during school, I’d found that potential adoptive parents weren’t looking to go with teenagers. Especially older ones.

They wanted something new, something that wouldn’t be hard to handle, and teenagers were already set in their way at their age.

I’d do whatever I had to do to find her a home, though. She deserved nothing less.

I hope you fall down with your hands in your pockets.

-E-Card

Georgia

“I’ve missed you so much,
hija
,” Mrs. Pena whispered fiercely.

Lolita Pena was a beautiful woman. She didn’t look a day over forty, and her personality made her seem even younger.
She was two inches below five foot and she looked like a child from behind. She liked to say that it was her kids that kept her young, but it more contributed by her good genes, because even her mother didn’t look much more than sixty, and I knew for a fact that she was nearing seventy.

I hugged her back fiercely. “I’ve missed you even more.”

The smell of her perfume was like a soothing balm against my bruised soul, and I was so happy to be back in her arms that I couldn’t begin to express my happiness.

Our missed Friday dinner had been rescheduled for today.

They’d gone to church and I’d met them back at Lolita and Sol’s new place in the city.

Sol was Nico’s father, and the spitting image of Nico. Nico, surprisingly, had gray hair when Sol didn’t, not that I’d remind him of that fact.

Sol’s face was much more weathered from being out in the sun day in and day out for the previous forty five years. He was a third generation farmer. I’d heard he’d been upset when none of his children had expressed a desire to continue with the family business, but he wasn’t bitter about it. He loved his children fiercely, even though he denied their legitimacy every chance he got.

Apparently,
they acted bad and embarrassed him. Which I couldn’t deny. They did. Whenever they could, just because it drove Sol insane.

Me, however, he loved.

Which he proved moments later when he gathered me up in a bear hug.

Sol was smaller than Nico as well. More of a whipcord body type rather than bulky. He also talked. A lot.

“Oh,
hija
, how I’ve missed you!” Sol crowed.

I giggled and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

“Hi, daddy Sol. How are you?” I asked. “I see that you still look just as young and vibrant now
as you did eight years ago.”

He winked. “So you’ve decided to come home. I’ve been waiting for forever to see you again. You owe me a race.”

Lolita rolled her eyes and started a diatribe in Spanish
that I didn’t even try to interpret. The woman could talk about a million miles an hour.

“I’ll see what I can do about the race. I’m not promising anything, though. I haven’t been on the back of a horse in
over
eight years. Nautica will have to be gentle with me later this week when I finally take her out for a ride
,” I whispered.

He looked at me solemnly. “You’re okay, though?”

I nodded. “I’m okay. I promise.”

His eyes scanned my face for the longest time, but he must’ve found what he was looking for because he let me go, setting me gently down on my feet.

“Alright, Lolita, let’s eat,” Sol demanded.

Lolita shook her head. “Nicolas isn’t here yet.”

“Nicolas obviously isn’t hungry. He knows what time we eat lunch. Besides, he didn’t come for mass. He doesn’t deserve lunch,” Sol informed her.

A snort from behind us had us all turning to see Nico strolling up the front walk.

He was dressed in his Sunday’s finest.

Black form fitting slacks, a black leather belt, a royal blue button down shirt, and a blue and white striped tie.

He looked edible.

I’d always admired him when he got dressed up.

Then he’d been merely handsome. Now, he was captivating.

He grinned at me, then stopped to give his mother a kiss.

He repeated the process with me, except instead of a kiss on the cheek, he gave me a soft, lingering kiss on the mouth.

“Afternoon,
niña
,” he grinned.

“Hey,” I breathed out.

He leaned down and gave me another kiss on the nose before holding the door open for all of us to walk inside.

His parents were both frozen, staring at us in shock.

I was frozen, too. Though, only because I couldn’t seem to make my legs work.

Nico chuckled and pulled my arm.

I became freed, mostly because I didn’t want to fall on my face. Although, he wouldn’t have let me fall.

He never had and never would.

I heard both of Nico’s parents speaking ninety miles an hour to each other in Spanish, and I couldn’t interpret what they were saying. I was fairly good at the language when they went slow, but at the pace they were setting, only the most fluent could understand.

Which obviously Nico was, because he had a killer smile on his face.

“What are they saying?” I asked.

It came out huskily. Breathily.

“They’re saying something about babies in the future,” Nico grinned.

My mouth opened and shut like a guppy searching for food on the top of a pond.

“W-wh-what?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, but I distinctly heard the word
percado
. Mainly because
Lolita had shrieked it, and I’d heard it all the way into the kitchen.

And I knew what percado meant. Sin.

Oh, dear.

We entered the kitchen, and every one of the Pena children, adults and teenagers alike, were all staring rapturously out the window speaking a million miles an hour to each other.

This, at least, I could understand.

They used English.

Nikki was sitting on top of the counter, trying valiantly to see outside.

Nikki looked like a younger version of her mother.

Her hair was shorter, though, cut right above her chin in a stylish bob. She was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, and had what I suspected was a flour handprint on her ass.

There were six kids in the Pena bunch. Nicolas, Nikki, Natalie, Noel, Nova, and Nina. Nina was the youngest at a little over sixteen. Nicolas the oldest at thirty one.

Sol liked to say he was lucky that he got his boy first, because if the girls had come first, he’d have been too crazy to raise Nico to be a real man.

“What are y’all doing?” Nico asked loudly.

All five girls shrieked in surprise.

Nico grinned.

Then I was pulled into a hug that was both humbling and perfect.

I’d missed these ladies.

Like crazy.

“Oh, my God, Nina! You’re taller than me!” I squealed.

Nina laughed, reminding me of Nikki at that age. She was beautiful, and I bet her big brother wasn’t too happy with how she’d attract the eye of any man. He’d have to be gay not to see these ladies’ beauty.

“Oh, you’re exactly the same,” Nina replied.

Our little huddle was pushed over, and we all tippy-toed walked to the side as Nico pushed by us so he could get to the refrigerator.

He reached inside and withdrew a beer, walking over to the bar stools to the
side of the kitchen and sat down. He’d grabbed the TV
remote off the counter and turned on what looked to be Sports Center.

What a surprise!

Not.

It was either that or a soccer game. I guess we were lucky.

“I can’t believe he kissed you. What the hell, hoe?” Nikki whispered quietly.

Well, whispered was a relative term. She more said it in a normal voice, but the high-pitch tone of it brought everyone’s attention in the room.

Nico and his parents alike.

Lolita joined our hug, fitting herself in between the counter and the fridge door. “Oh,
niña
. I’m glad you’ve finally come home.”