FAEAs we prepared for the Saturday night party, another issue arose with the evening dress I planned to wear.I really wanted to wear one of the dresses the stylist sent over for the party. They were designs from Tammy Marquez's fashion line. Tammy was the hostess of the party. I loved the floral print with swirls of magenta and lavender. The problem was, it had a deep V-neck in both the front and back. It was sleeveless, made of organza, and had a banded waist. The hem reached my ankles, but there was a slit on the left side that went halfway up my right thigh. I knew I could manage the slit because I’d done it before when Jigo and I went to Invictus II. But the neckline might be too much.When I showed it to him on the hanger, he immediately disapproved, which was annoying because he asked me to put on the evening dress for him in the first place. Like a private showing. And his eyes and his whole face, plus the bulge down there, all told me he liked what he saw.The dress fit me p
FAE"Jigo? Where are we going?" I asked, still feeling nervous and needing to talk."You need to relax," he insisted. "Come here."He pushed through glass doors and we stepped through, and were greeted by a blast of air conditioning, stronger here where fewer people were. I heard the faint but steady jazz from the speakers. The ambient lighting and the spaced-out tables in the bar area inside the hotel helped me beat the feeling of being overwhelmed. Immediately, I could breathe better.Jigo's hand shifted to my lower back as we headed towards the bar. Soon, he was ordering a shot of tequila for me and vodka for himself. The bartender, an older man, politely smiled at me before he started preparing our drinks.I leaned against the bar, sneaking a thankful smile at Jigo. Compared to the noise and chaos in the lobby, it was peaceful here in the bar. We were alone in our corner and it gave us a semblance of privacy."I'm sorry. I panicked with all those people around us," I admitted as s
SARAH“I can't believe it. I’d watched this so many times but it’s still giving me butterflies!”“I couldn’t believe it either! Who would have thought that our Spencer would finally fall in love like this? Look... he was so sweet and tender with Fae here! Thank goodness there was a video; otherwise, no one would have believed it. He’s always so reserved… but kissing and dancing on the dance floor? I’d never seen that boy act like this before!”“I heard that Donya Leah was restless when she saw the video of her grandson and favorite debutante. She’s been calling her friends and already wants to plan a wedding!”The two women laughed uproariously.“I remember during the wedding, I felt so sorry for that girl because even though it was very hard for her, she chose to be there for Carl and the family. You know, even Carl’s grandparents didn’t come home. But I’m not worried anymore. It’s good that she ended up with Spencer. Spencer is far more handsome and successful than Carl! And she’s s
CARLThis isn’t be possible. It can’t be happening.My eyes were glued to the screen of my tablet, at the clip of the dancing couple posted as a reel in one of our friends’ Facebook account. Gabrielle was trying to seem like she was over the moon over Jigo’s first ever obvious romantic affair and she was doing the works. But she would be secretly seething because she wanted Jigo herself.What’s happening? Jigo and Fae… together? How did it happen? I told him specifically to keep an eye on her. I never told him to pounce on her when she was vulnerable. My head felt overblown. Never have I imagined my bestfriend and the young woman I still see as a girl and a sister together like this. Never.And I felt confused. Where was this resentment coming from? Why did I feel betrayed? Both of them didn’t owe me anything. And I didn’t see Fae like that… like a possession or something. Maybe it was because I took my big brother role seriously that I felt like they should have asked for my permissi
FAEOur Sunday plans with my friends went through as expected. My friends arrived as early as nine, picked up by Jigo’s driver. After a quick snack, we started showing Joanna, Pam, and Kacey around the property.Thanks to our nightclubbing before, the three were no longer awkward around Jigo. The conversation was lively and loud. They teased us about the pictures from last night’s party going viral on social media, even more so than our clubbing photos, because the press was there. We hadn't checked our social media, but Jigo spoke to the family publicist on the phone earlier so we knew that Lola Leah already heard about it. She saw a video of our moments on the dance floor because many guests recorded it on their personal phones. Jigo needed to schedule a visit to his grandmother before she got impatient for news about her grandson!But we knew we had one more day of impasse before we could proceed with our plan to tell Lola Leah the truth about our relationship. We talked earlier ab
FAEWe took a nap after making love and I would say, cuddled in him while I lose myself in sleep was as good as the best. Waking up surrounded by his presence about an hour later, I remained in his embrace, my eyes closed, until he stirred.“Hmm… did you get a good rest?” he asked in his bedroom voice.I nodded. “I did. thank you.” I raised my face and got lazily kissed by my darling husband for as long as we could manage. Unfortunately, we both knew we had to get up because our guests were needing our attention after their own naps.We slid into swimming wears. I put on white bikinis that were really just simple, except there was nothing simple about his kiss when he got his hands on me before I could remind him we had to go downstairs already. I laughed when he had to re-settle his ‘cargo’ inside his boyleg trunks, which would be what he would wear at the pool. We put covers on, his a thin cotton robe and mine a sarong, before we went down to our guests who were already cavorting wi
FAEI didn't know how long Carl and I had been staring at each other, but I could imagine what he saw in this scene. All of us, semi-naked, having a good time. I was practically draped over Jigo on the recliner, his long limbs wrapped around me. And, obviously, he saw our kiss. Kisses.In all our years of friendship, this was the first time he had seen me intimate with a man. I had never given any other man more than a passing glance whether Carl was around or not. I suddenly realized that, in Carl’s mind, I was still an innocent twelve-year-old even though I had grown up right before his very eyes.Even now, it was clear that he still saw me as the teenager who only had eyes for him, adored him almost all her life, and gave no other man special attention. Maybe that’s why he looked so shaken up. He was pale, glassy-eyed, and slack-jawed.Because this was the first time he was seeing this version of me… the freed me.I suddenly remembered what Jigo said.Once Carl saw another man shar
FAEJigo’s eyes were on me, his look questioning silently. I nodded. He’s already handling Carl so, yes, I can handle Sarah.Sarah had come closer. “Can I talk to you?”I glanced at her but immediately looked back at Jigo because Carl’s voice was getting louder. Their argument was heating up and I hadn’t even seen Jigo saying much.“Fae, can I talk to you?” Sarah repeated.I looked at her again, frowning, my patience wearing thin. This wasn’t as important as what’s happening with our husbands. I saw in my periphery Carl’s hand pushing Jigo in the chest. So of course, my eyes went back to them again.Whoa. Why the fuck is Carl so angry? “Fae, what the hell? I want to talk to you.” Sarah blocked my way just as I was about to run to the guys. I was about to tell her off but my friends did that first.“What the…! Can’t you see she doesn’t want to talk to you?” Pam said angrily.“Go away, Sarah. No one wants you here,” was Joana.“Ditto,” was Kelsey. “And bring the fart with you. We don’t
JIGOFae looked like she was about to bolt, but she stayed put. I had to look at her first before I opened the doors. I saw her square her jaw before she nodded. I reached for the brass door handles to the knobs and turned them.Music blasted us from the inside. And… well, giggling bunnies greeted us in the foyer in blood-red lipstick shades and sexy bunny suits.“Hi!” Joana. “Come in!”“Hello, gorgeous couple!” That’s Pam.“Welcome to the House of Love where your wet dreams await to be realized!” And that’s Kacey, delivering an obviously scripted spiel that sounded painful to the ears. Another giggling fit followed as Fae recovered from her nervousness quickly to tease her friends about their outfits. They were all flushed as they cackled there like witches.Before I knew it, we were ushered in. Fae stared slack-jawed in the hall when we got there. I shook my head but I couldn’t control the grin that split my face.The idiots designed the hall like a Las Vegas strip club. But it wasn
JIGOThe wedding day was fast approaching and the grandmothers were in full-blown acting mode about panicking when I knew all along they were pinnacles of ice hearts inside those wrinkly, talc-perfumed bodies. Of course, it was to make sure everyone around them panicked the way they did. That’s how I knew this wedding would be perfect.Fae humored them, too, but her eyes had become honed. After being exposed to administering a transition house of about thirty homeless or orphaned female teenagers by now (after a month-and-a-half after Vivian walked in to the first dormitory building) and in active negotiation of buying a second building, she could see how organized the lolas (grandmothers) were and that everything was running smoothly and on schedule.A public wedding was pretty much a moot point, really, as anyone who would care to notice would know in multiplying sources that I had been married to my wife for months now. In fact, a month
FAEBefore she walked through the entrance to the lobby of the dormitory, I knew who she was. No, Carl hadn’t let me see a picture. It’s just that her face might be different, but the way she stood, the hunch of her shoulders before she remembered keeping them squared, the tilt of her head, the way her hair fell on her shoulders. She kept her long hair. Her elbows had a shape that wasn’t the same as the others, tilting a little bit in the corners. Her butt and waist were also shaped like Sarah’s butt and waist. She’d lived with me for two years. In all that time, I learned to love her like a sister. If she removed her shoes, I could tell if the toes were hers or not. But I saw enough to know that this five-foot-six-inched woman who walked through the door holding a cane and who walked with a slight limp was Sarah.Now Vivian Arnaiz. Carl told us her new name.Her eyes roamed the lobby before they landed on mine. Then she
FAE “You’ve gone very quiet,” he said after a moment, his tone asking me something else—did he get me upset? Was I angry at him? “Have I gone too far?” This time, his voice sounded more than worried. He sounded scared.I raised my eyes to him again. “I want to know why.”“Why I want something like that? I have been trying to understand myself since I started feeling it. It was different when we were young… in college… dreaming about having you even if I had to share you with him. I thought that was how it was going to be if I had a chance for your attention. That if Carl didn’t really care about you, I could try and woo you and have you even if I knew you wanted him. I could live with that.”“Wha-aa-t?!” I was so surprised by this confession that I raised myself from the bed and sat there and stared down at his guilty face. I couldn’t believe what I just heard.He nodded. “I had wanted you so much I could stand just being the second choice.”“Oh baby, baby—are you crazy?! You ca
FAEHe pulled me to him and there was one of those mind-numbing kisses again. I was quivering after he’d released my lips. He moved with me near the window ledge, and it had just enough edge for me to be able to lean on to as he placed me where he wanted me. With his eyes on mine, he lowered himself on his knees between my open thighs and slowly slid the hem of my dress upward my thighs until my apex was exposed, still covered in sexily cut cotton panties, but with a spot already dewy with my arousal.I had to look just casually sitting there from whoever could see outside while my husband slid that cloth to the side so he could tongue my quivering pussy. And if I wasn’t of stronger stuff, I would have melted right there on the ledge to the floor. But the game was up, and my back was erect and my head was tilted to the side a little, as if I was conversing with someone, while my thighs twitched at every damn flick and slide of that wonderful, flexible tongue. I couldn’t help my moan w
SARAHI could hear his voice. For days now, I have been able to hear him talking to me. I couldn’t open my eyes. They had something covering them. I couldn’t speak but for a few moans. I thought I lost some of my teeth when Vega beat me up. My face didn’t feel like my face. I tried to raise my hand to touch it, but it was on a cast… I wasn’t sure but they told me later. There was a kind nurse who told me what she thought I should know about my injuries. She called Carl my husband. She told me he stayed by my bedside at all hours and when he would leave, it was only for a very short time. She told me I was lucky to have a husband like him. She didn’t know the full story and that we were getting our marriage annulled, but what the hell. It hurt too much to try to speak. It hurt worse to think. A good thing I was always asleep. It weakened me so much to plan. Sometimes I would also hear Fae’s voice. She told me she was staying in the same private hospital and that she had her leg inju
SARAH The door opened with a crash and the next thing I knew, someone had hauled me off the day bed with a hand clutching my throat.“Akh!” I tried to pry the hand off, but he wouldn’t let me. It was Vega. I could smell him before I could see his face. And his hand on my throat wasn’t anything new.Except this time, I thought he would actually kill me. His face was blotched with red patches of rage.“What did you do? What did you do, you bitch!”Thankfully, he threw me on the bed after that because I could breathe. I wasn’t dead yet. He’d found out. But I knew he would. I was ready.“What do you mean?” I turned to him with tears in my eyes. Having your throat on a vise grip could do that. “I didn’t do anything!”“You were with that husband of yours! He’s been coming to our sauna and you’ve been entertaining him and fucking him without telling me!” He was fuming with anger, his voice like a thunderclap inside the room.“Carl?” I scoffed. “I have been playing with him… been playi
FAEThey’re trying to break the windows. I could see Klyd starting to move where he fell unconscious after our vehicle was upturned from the crash. It was his body that protected me but his head hit something and he lost consciousness after that. Ben was still crouch over me, as bloody as he was, trying to protect me. His phone was still on and I knew Jigo was still on the line, listening as I was hoping others moved on his end quickly to help us get out of here alive—or me from getting kidnapped.I heard Ben say the men outside were after me. They were going to take me. I could see Mang Chito’s head as he swung from the seatbelt that still strapped him to the chair. I thought he was dead. His neck… I closed my eyes tightly and clenched my jaws to fight off vomiting. I must think. I must calm down and think. I couldn’t die here or have the other two men die because of me. I couldn’t even get past thinking what would happen if those men outside were able to kidnap me. I would rather di
FAEWe’ve fucked twice and he’s insatiable. We hadn’t even left the office and noone had disturbed us since we came here. I was too happy to worry about the embarrassment I would feel once we went outside, and I could see the faces of the guys and the employees here. I got my husband back. And it wasn’t just our honest fuck life, but his worries and fears.In the last hour, he told me everything he was holding back about the problem with the clubs. He also confessed the plans he and his lawyers plus the investigators came up with to eliminate the problem once and for all in the coming months—by setting up a trap for this druglord, dismantling his organization, and either putting him in jail or eliminating him forever in a legitimate operation.I listened and did not feel any judgment at all about everything he’d confessed. Years of listening, deliberate or not, in the background as her father conferred and negotiated for his clients and listening to what wasn’t being said by discussing