Moonbeams! I'm so excited! I will be featured in the Harlem Book Fair New Voices segment this year! July 31! Stay tuned for more details!!! 🔥🔥🔥

Ok so I'm going to try to post a chapter every Sunday (or Tuesday) and hopefully that will make me finish this thing and send it to print! Thank you so much for sticking with me and encouraging me Moonbeams!!!  ❤️❤️❤️

Finally and most importantly:

WARNING: MATURE CONTENT

THE FOLLOWING CHAPTER CONTAINS DEPICTIONS OF EXTREME GROOMING AND BRAINWASHING, WHICH COULD BE TRIGGERING TO SURVIVORS.

Chapter 65

When we got home, Rico and I went our separate ways. I went into the room to unpack, and Rico immediately went to the liquor cabinet to pour himself a drink. I guess it had been a long trip for both of us. As soon as Rico was sure that I was settled, he left right back out of the house again.

I went back to bed.

Later that day, I was finally waking up from my nap and wandered out into the living room. Rico, Remmey, Rah and Ruby were all leaned forward like they were discussing something serious. When they saw me coming, Ruby stood up and handed two large packages to Rico. Rah also stood up and followed Ruby out the door.

Before he left with them, Remmey walked over to me and gave me a long hug. Then he held me tighter and whispered in my ear, "You did good, Jazzy Baby. Real good."

He left, too, after that, nodding to Rico on his way out. I watched Remmey leave, and then stayed there, still staring at the closed door, long after Remmey was gone.

I could still feel his lips brushing softly against my ear.

"My love," Rico interrupted my thoughts and held his arms out to me. I went to him, and he pulled me onto his lap. "Thank you."

He kissed my face and wrapped his arms around my hips.

"None of that went as planned." He looked into my eyes and his face reddened. "Helena fucked up, but she fixed it." His legs shifted underneath me. "She sent her cousin back to the hotel with us." He rubbed my backside and hips slowly as he spoke. "A spoiled, pompous bitch. But she got what we needed done."

His voice trailed off as he read the hurt in my eyes. I knew he was lying. The woman I spoke to wasn't spoiled or pompous at all.

"She talked her daddy into doing what Helena couldn't, my love," he mumbled into my neck and then kissed me. "It's all part of the game, Jazz. You know that, right?" I didn't answer. Instead, I dropped my eyes. "Baby girl, you're my heart." He lifted my face to his. "I only love you. Everything else just bidness. You my Queen, my love."

I fought tears.

I felt more like a fool than a Queen.

Nobody thought I was anything but background on that trip. I was only there to get us back across the border, just like the rest of the girls.

All the girls but Ruby.

She was there to run shit.

Next to Rico.

The King.

Rico read me in silence and then patted my hip for me to stand up. When I did, he reached down to pick up both of the plain white boxes that Ruby left with him. He patted his lap for me to sit back down, and then slinked his arm around my waist again.

"For you, my love." He handed me the first box. I looked at it and then looked at him. "Open it," he coaxed gently.

He brushed my hair back and kissed my neck as I pulled out a handwritten note that was folded over once and sat on top of a pile of soft white cotton cloth.

It was written in Spanish.

"La solucion," Rico read quietly, and I looked over at him. "The solution," he said and kissed my cheek tenderly. He hadn't kissed my face like that in a long time.

When I unwrapped the mounds of cotton, a small bracelet was waiting for me at the bottom.

I recognized it immediately.

It was the same bracelet that had gleamed out at me when I first laid eyes on Miss Mexico. I turned it over and read the inscription.

"If she is my mother, I must be something."

Rico looked up at me, surprised that I was able to translate the silver inscription without his help, but he didn't say anything about it.

I gazed silently at Rico, full of questions, not sure which ones to ask out loud and which ones to keep to myself.

Rico ran his thumb across my bottom lip. "She wanted you to have it, my love. We didn't ask her to give it to you."

We.

I just stared at him, too many emotions running through me at once, but I knew better than to let any of them show.

Rico handed me the second box.

This one was much heavier, also topped with a pile of soft white cloth. When I got to the bottom of this mound of cotton, the box was full of diamonds. Uncut, but cleaned and polished. There had to be at least forty diamonds in there.

Rico grinned when my mouth dropped open.

I picked one up and inspected it. I had never seen an uncut diamond before. When I turned it in my fingers, the sun's setting rays split through it and bounced off all of the walls before finally settling down around Rico and me.

I marveled at the pattern that it made across his face.

IIt reminded me of our first time trying Tantra, when I had somehow seen lights shooting out all over the place and then falling back down around us.

I didn't want to think about it.

Whatever we had been doing when that happened was too strange to even describe. I never told anyone about it. Not to mention how quickly Rico's personality changed as soon as we were done. I looked into his eyes and hoped that he never asked me to do that with him again. 

He looked directly back into mine like he knew exactly what I was thinking.

After gazing thoughtfully at me for what felt like too long, Rico took the boxes from me and set them down on the table beside him. After I was done playing with the loose diamond in my hand, he took that one from me, too, and sat it carefully down into the bottom of the box with the rest.

"Whatever you said to her, my love," he kissed my lips, "it was exactly what she needed to hear." He put his hands on either side of my face and gave me an intent look, like he wanted me to hear him well. "That's why I brought you, Jazz. I know who you are. I see you. I dreamed you..." He kissed my cheek again. "Thank you."

Rico wrapped his arms back around my hips.

"Ruby gone take you to the jeweler tomorrow. Have them make you anything you want. Anything."

Rico gave me another tender kiss and watched my eyes.

Then he kissed me again.

"No one should sparkle more than my Queen, my love. You tha ma' fuggin' Queen, Jazz. No one else."

He touched his nose to my nose and looked deep into my soul.

Again, it reminded me of our uncomfortable first try at Tantra.

I knew he was going to ask me to do it again before he even knew it.

"Just you, my love. Just you." His gaze was relentless. I couldn't look away. "Jazz..." He slid his hand up the back of my shirt and ran his fingers over my scars.

I shifted uneasily.

I could tell the way I shifted turned him on.

"Baby girl...I heard you." I stopped moving and stared. "I heard you talking to her. About your Papa..."

I dropped my eyes immediately.

"Do you miss him?" I shook my head no. He lifted my face up to his. "What do you need, Jazzy?" He never called me Jazzy. It reminded me of Remmey and I dropped my eyes again. "Do you need a daddy?" I tried to keep my eyes cast downward. I didn't want to talk about that with him. "Jazzy, baby..."

He definitely had never said that to me before.

Only Remmey called me "Jazzy Baby."

I looked up at Rico, confused. Why was he talking to me like this?

His fingers stopped tracing my scars and his hands moved back down to my hips.

"I can be that for you...if that's what you need..." He kissed me again and started stroking my skin so lightly that I could barely feel it. "Just tell me what you need, baby girl, and I can give it to you."

Our eyes locked.

"Rah take care of you on the plane?" I blinked and looked away, then nodded. Rico moved my face back to his and his eyes bore into mine. "He touch you?" I shook my head no. "Huh..." Rico's eyes lingered in my gaze just long enough to make me extremely uncomfortable. It reminded me of when we first met. "I asked him to hold your hand."

I smiled.

Rico didn't.

"Did he? Hold your hand, my love?" I nodded yes, eyes wide, now worried that I had done something wrong. I couldn't figure out what. Rico locked his eyes with mine. "Why did you say that he didn't touch you? If you know that he did? He touched your hand, yes?" I nodded. "Then why did you say that he didn't touch you?"

I just stared at him.

I honestly wasn't sure why I said that.

"Remmey take care of you?" I nodded and shifted uncomfortably. Again, Rico seemed like he liked it. "He kiss you?" I nodded. "He fuck you?" My breathing sped up and I nodded again.

Rico just gazed at me.

No emotion.

At all.

"I asked him to do that, too, my love." He started stroking my skin again. "Whatever you need, I make sure you have it. If I'm too far away to give it to you, I still make sure you have what you need."

I didn't know how I was supposed to feel right then, so I willed myself not to feel anything at all. I didn't want to react the wrong way.

"So...if you need a daddy..." his hand ran down my hip and under the hem of my shorts. I was reminded again of when we first met, the day he came to sit down and talk to me on Remmey's porch. "...I can do that for you, too. Protect you." He kissed me. "Keep you safe..."

He stroked his fingers lightly back and forth across the top of my thigh. Then he wrapped his arms around my hips and pulled me closer to him. He knew that's what I liked for him to do whenever we were talking.

"Everything Remmey do for Claire..." Rico watched me and waited for me to react. He knew that would feel like a dagger to the heart before he said it. "...I can do for you." He slipped his hands beneath my shirt again and slipped it off over my head. "Anything Remmey do for you, I can do that, too, baby girl." He cupped his hand softly around my breast and brought it close to his face, but didn't touch his lips to it.

He took my other breast in his other hand and massage me the way that he knew I liked to by touched.

"You don't need to go nowhere to nobody for nuthin'. All you need is me, baby girl." He gave me that intense stare again and I felt a rumbling deep in his chest.

I tensed as soon as I heard it.

"Rico...I don't want...to do that with you."

Anger crossed over his face.

"What?"

"Tantra. I...I don't like when we do...that. You...you treated me really bad when it was over." I looked into his eyes. "You hit me..."

Rico took his hands off me and sat back and away from me.

"You know why I hit you, Jazz."

I dropped my eyes.

He stayed silent and waited for me to say something else. When, after a while, I still wouldn't, Rico started touching me again and had me stand up so that he could pull off my shorts.

Now I was completely naked, and he was still fully clothed.

He had me sit back down on his lap and wrapped my legs around his waist.

"We need this, my love." His touch was light. He kissed me and breathed into me. I felt myself opening up, but I didn't want to. "The trip divided us, and we need to come back together." He touched his lips to mine and breathed into me again. Then he pulled back and stared into my eyes. "Kiss me."

I knew I didn't have a choice.

So, I kissed him and breathed into him, too.

Just like we had done before.

"Jazz...I love you." He pulled me closer to him and I could feel his heart beating against mine. I knew he meant it. "I'm sorry I made you feel like...I didn't need you on the trip with me. I did. I do...I need you so much."

He breathed into me again before I could ask him how he knew I felt that way. We weren't even around each other. The whole time we were in Mexico.

"I need you, baby. I would do anything for you. I would...I would kill for you." He pulled back to gaze intently at me again. "Would you kill for me?"

I nodded.

I would.

"You would?" An amused look passed over his face. I nodded again. He nodded, too, and then hovered his lips just above mine, as close as he could get without actually kissing me. "Good."

He stroked the inside of my thigh and I started to have an out-of-control sensation.

I wrapped my arms tighter around his neck to stop the falling feeling and braced myself.

"Relax baby girl, relax." He moved his hands up to my arms and lightly trailed his fingers up and down them. "If I take you somewhere you don't want to go, just tell me." He smiled at me in a way that always made my heart flutter, from the day that I met him. "If I take you too far, baby girl, just ask me to stop."

I knew that I would never ask him to stop, and I knew that he wouldn't stop, even if I did ask him to.

"Has anyone ever loved you like this, Jazz?" I didn't know how to answer. "Has anyone ever loved you at all?"

I thought briefly about Remmey.

Maybe Remmey loved me...

But then I thought about how ready he was to hurt me when I started talking bad about Claire. How quick he turned on me when I accused him of doing to her what he always did to me.

How his blood started to boil when I said that he did to her what he always did to me.

I could feel a deep crease forming in my forehead the more I thought about it. Rico kissed my forehead and then smoothed the crease away. He didn't ask me why I was frowning. 

I think he already knew.

"I can be whatever you need me to be, Jazz. You don't need nobody but me."

I started to cry.

For no reason.

I hated being that open.

It...scared me.

Rico wrapped his arms around me tight and kissed my nose quickly, like he was kissing a baby. Then he rubbed his nose gently across mine and the kiss started to feel...different. Light affection flowed easily into deep passion when he moved the kiss to my lips and stuck his tongue deep into my mouth.

His fingers traveled slowly up my thigh and then stopped between my legs.

But he didn't touch me. He just hovered there and kept kissing me.

For some reason I didn't want him to touch me right then, either. Something didn't...feel...right.

"Rico?" I pulled back and looked into his eyes, trying to read what was off about what was going on between us.

"Yes, my love?" He lowered his face down to mine so that I could see his eyes more clearly. "Nothing's wrong in there, my love." He knew what I was trying to do. "Nothing that we do is ever wrong." He stroked me in a way that I usually liked, but this time I just...didn't. "What we do together could never be wrong." He put his hand over my heart, and then he put my hand over his. "Because it all comes from here." He moved his fingertips slowly up to the center of my forehead. "And here."

He wouldn't let me look away from him.

"We do things that not everyone understands, but..." his voice trailed off and his hand slipped back down between my legs, "...that's why we don't tell them. That doesn't make it wrong, does it, baby girl?"

I shook my head no.

"I'm the only one who knows how to love you like you need to be loved, Jazz. I'm the only one who can give you everything you need." He felt between my legs like he was checking for something, and scanned my eyes like he was reading something. "Does anyone else do this for you?" I shook my head no.

He shook his head no at the same time.

"Does Remmey touch you like this?" He pushed two fingers inside of me and slowly slid them back and forth to the rhythm that only he had been able to hear and feel.

His fingers were moving to my heartbeat.

I shivered and didn't answer.

"It's because he doesn't know how." Rico kissed me slowly and his tongue moved to the same rhythm. "He doesn't know what you need, Jazz. He doesn't know how you like to be talked to, how to open you up. He doesn't know where to find your heart, Jazz."

His fingers pulsated further into me.

When I clenched up and closed my eyes tight, Rico grinned.

"Hold it." He crooked one finger up and knew that I couldn't. "Hold it, baby girl. Hold it."

This was the part that I hated.

I hated not being able to control my own body.

But Rico said that he would teach me to have better control over myself, and I guess right then that's what he was doing.

"Rico...I c-can't..."

I started crying.

I hated this feeling, and he knew it.

It broke me to know that I kept disappointing him and couldn't stop.

"Jazz...don't cry." He stopped stroking, but kept his fingers where they were when I started dripping all over them. "I'm not mad. We just have to practice and try harder." He grinned wickedly into my eyes. "You'll get it right. The more I work with you..." His face kind of changed. "I told you I only want you to cum with me, right? Not before me."

I nodded and dropped my eyes.

"How many times am I telling you this?"

"Three," I whispered.

Rico shook his head and slid his fingers out of me. On the way out, he slid up against my spot and I came again.

Then I cried again.

I was too open, and I couldn't stop myself from doing anything that I was doing.

That's why I didn't want to do this with him. I didn't understand how to keep it from getting out of hand. To be honest, I didn't even know if "Tantra" was what we were really doing. And if it was, I didn't think we were doing it right.

We couldn't have been.

It felt too wrong.

"Rico...please stop," I panted.

He backed up a little, which surprised me.

"Baby girl, nobody can care for you like I can. Nobody can teach you like I can. How to control your own body, your own mind..." he kissed me and held me close. "I'm the only one who can do these things for you because I'm the only one who knows what you need, how out of control you feel..."

I pulled back and looked at him.

"I know you feel that way, Jazz."