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2022-01-22
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After Burn

Chapter 13

Summary:

Raquel flirts back.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Apparently, being five and a half months pregnant made her feeble like a maple leaf. She had to argue with Gabriela Marquina for close to a quarter-hour in order to be permitted to help out with the dishes. Marquina offered too, quite possibly to take the brunt of the workload. Dick.

Or maybe… this is the exact opportunity she was seeking.

But just before peeling off to the kitchen with him, she was presented with quite possibly her biggest tribulation yet. 

“Would you like to look at Sergio’s baby pictures?” Gabriela asked.

Raquel could just feel the saliva filling her mouth.

This is was it. The opportunity of a lifetime to gain infinite blackmail material of one Sergio Marquina. There was nothing he could say or do to her if he knew she had seen a picture of his 3-year-old self smearing his own poop all over the bathroom walls. 

She knew very well Gabriela was only doing this to tempt her to sit down, but hell, it was working.

Raquel only came back to her senses at the very last second.

“Maybe later,” she forced out of her mouth. “Let me help with the dishes first.”

This sacrifice was vast but necessary. She really needed to be alone with Marquina. She needed to know what was wrong with him. After what Andrés had told her, she could no longer ignore how he acted like a major blood vessel had ruptured in his brain. 

Gabriela reluctantly accepted this and left them alone in the kitchen. Finally.

Just as she expected, Marquina immediately took most of the plates from her side of the sink, yanking them off like candy from a baby and moving them in front of him. Raquel suppressed a sigh.

“Everything alright with you? Even waterboarding Old Raquel wouldn’t have made her give up on my baby pictures,” Marquina quipped, rinsing the plates. 

Raquel gave him a pinched smile. Don’t let him see how you suffer.

“There was one where I am, quite literally, eating dirt as I pretend to be a worm. Naked as a jaybird too,” he added, driving the knife in deeper.

She had to pinch herself to keep from launching out of the kitchen and making a dive for the photo album. 

“I just wanted to be alone with you,” she eventually managed to get out.

"Is that so?"

The change in his tone of voice was instantaneous. There was his usual grumpy baritone, and then there something even lower, something he seemed to have perfected for the highly specified use of Raquel-torture.

“Do you want me to lock the door?” he murmured.

The dark look made her drop a cup from her hand into the dishwater. Flustered, she avoided meeting his eyes. This is what she wanted to dig into, once and for all – what could make him push so hard against his physical revulsion to her that he was able to say something like this?

Could he be in pain like his brother had suggested? She peered at him, hard. She didn’t see any signs of internal torment, though there was something in his eyes that hinted at slight unhingedness – but she wasn’t sure if that had always been there. It was Marquina, after all. 

But then, she got an idea. 

There was a stray dog that kept barking at her every day on her way back home from work. One day, she had been so drained and frustrated that she’d simply barked back like a lunatic. The dog had instantly shut up, his tail between his legs. The next time she’d encountered it, he’d looked up to her with respect as if she was the dominant dog of this neighborhood. 

It was time for Raquel to dominate this man-dog as well. 

"You probably should,” she said in a low voice.

He turned to look at her, the very picture of a personified loading screen. 

Just that reaction would have been satisfying enough any other day. But not tonight.

It all went down at a ruthless pace.

She swiveled around. She grabbed him by the collar. With the fabric bunched around her fingers, she drove him to the wall. 

Thump. 

She pressed against him with intention, her mouth landing dangerously close to the spot he'd robbed a kiss from just an hour before. She gave a pleased little hum, lifting her hand to cup his jaw at the same time as she pushed a knee between his legs. Something too shallow and throaty to be a proper breath escaped him at that.

Marquina stared down at her like she had just pierced a knife through his ribs. 

"What are you doing?" he rasped out.

For someone physically so much bigger than her, Marquina submitted quickly when forced against a wall. He had not made a single effort to move or resist. Raquel bent her knee, wedging it farther between his legs, up toward his crotch. His Adam's apple jerked under her thumb as he swallowed. The sensation was fascinating.

"What? Is this not what you have been begging for all week?" she exhaled. 

Marquina’s face was a hurricane of conflicting emotions, the most apparent of them desperation. Desperation for what, she was not sure. But she would find out.

She was struck with a thought of how easy it would be, to get him off just by rubbing up against him like this. Weirdly enough, she was tempted. Seeing his smug face unravel, witness how his head would roll back, hear how his breathing would labor, how he would beg, maybe even grab her in order to chase the sweet relief of the friction she would dangle just out of his reach – it would all be exquisite. Unbearably delicious.

Her lower abdomen knotted hotly. 

It was one of her more embarrassing recent pregnancy symptoms, being easily aroused. She pushed the sensation down with a strained breath and focused on her mission.

At the very least she would steal back that kiss. And she would make it feel like the kiss of death for him.

She leaned in.

Just then, the door cracked open.

“Forgot this one,” Gabriela hummed, walking in with a single, teeny-tiny cup in her hands.

Raquel stepped calmly away while Marquina started flailing like a fish against the wall, trying to assume a position that least indicated anything sexual had been going on. His mother lifted her hand to her mouth.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” the woman apologized, though she looked the opposite of embarrassed.

Her expression more so hinted at the delight that her son had actually found someone who wanted to throw his beanpole body against kitchen walls. He wouldn’t be dying alone, after all.

She quickly left, the pleased expression not exactly covert on her face. 

Raquel set her hands on her hips.

“You’re welcome. Now she won’t suspect a thing,”

She looked at him innocently, as if this had been her plan all along. Put on a convincing show for his nosy mother who she had anticipated to come sniffing around after a short while.

Marquina looked like someone had stuffed him into a salt shaker and rattled away. It would be a while until he would be able to breathe and blink normally again.

She wondered whether she should feel bad about messing with his head.

That depended on how stubborn he would be about yielding her what she wanted to know. His reaction had been interesting, but it raised more questions than answers. He had been flirting with her but was shocked that she would flirt back. Was that not the general aim of flirting, to get a positive response?

She was not ready to fully rule out brain-eating bacteria, but her primal theory was that Marquina was treating her as a science experiment, a lab mouse to poke around until something interesting happened – though Raquel couldn’t imagine an outcome where he didn’t end up in a back alley strangled by his own tie.

Very well. She would continue performing experiments on him in turn. 


Three days.

Three days was all it took for Raquel to become the top dog of the office.

On Monday, she made him coffee in his stupid mug. He eyed her suspiciously which was justified as she could have very easily poisoned the drink, but the apprehensive looks continued well after he had tasted the coffee without detecting any apparent aftertaste. 

Unaware of the trap set for him, he made one of his usual teasing comments. “Was this just an excuse to come see me?”

Raquel pounced on it like a hyena. 

“Of course. Why do you think I wore this blouse?”

Marquina blinked. Once, then twice.

She had gone up a cup size which she generously presented in today’s outfit. But just to keep Marquina guessing, she had a bluff stored up in her sleeve.

“This white ruffle part makes me look like it’s an apron,” she explained with a sweet smile. “Makes me feel like a server at a little coffee shop.”

He nodded, somewhat jerkily. 

“Tell me if you need anything else,” she twittered, leaving him in a way that gave him one last good look into her cleavage. 

She was rather pleased with herself as she noticed he had been left staring blankly in front of him.

On Tuesday, she thanked him for getting the elevator fixed for her with several of their coworkers within earshot. When his cheeks started flushing, she moved in for the fatal blow. 

She gave him her most beautiful smile and told him that she thought about him last night, long after midnight. Trying to think of ways to show her appreciation for him. Maybe she even dreamed of it a little.

With a meaningful touch to his arm, she left him standing there like a popsicle in permafrost.

On Wednesday, she was actually somewhat sincere. She came to him with her hand on her stomach as he was in the middle of decimating yet another box of cookies, telling him what had happened the day before.

The baby had started kicking.

She had felt it last evening while coming home from work. While waiting for an elevator at her building, the baby gave her a tiny little kick as if to protest the fact that she had stopped moving and swaying her to sleep. 

Her heart had instantly cracked wide open. 

“What? She’s kicking?” he asked, immediately placing his hand on her stomach.

There was a smile on his face. A real, proper smile. What a strange sight that was, and what strange things it made her feel inside. 

“Not now, silly,” she chuckled, trying to push back deeper contemplations on his smile and why it would be nice to see more often.

“Oh,” he said, removing his hand, his smile withering.

“She’s probably asleep and will wake up only in the evening,” she explained.

“Well, maybe if we ever work late…”

He trailed off, seemingly rethinking what he’d said. It was apparent he did not want to be alone with her. That was a new development, and she didn’t know how to interpret it.

“Hmm, maybe,” Raquel parroted. 

She filled the following silence with flirtatious remarks as was her habit nowadays.

“I don’t know if you knew but there was an actual smile on your face just now. I should have snapped a picture when I had the chance. The website could use a photo of someone as photogenic as you when you are not looking like a serial killer with a grudge.”

“I am sure there’s at least one picture of me smiling,” he grumbled.

“Did I hear right? Would you actually be okay with me putting a picture of you on the website?”

This far, Marquina had actively fought against it as if people would doxx him if they saw as much as a corner of his left cheek.

“If you can find a good picture of me, why not.”

Something brightened up inside her. 

It was as if a huge burden had fallen from her shoulders. His cooperation with the website had been all she had needed this entire year.

“Fucking finally.”

She did not why she did it. It was certainly not a part of her plan, but she found herself pulling him in for a hug regardless.

It did not last long. Only the amount of time it took for her heart to beat three times against his chest.

He was the one to break away first. He shuffled his limbs awkwardly away as if making sure no part of him was even in danger of brushing up against her anymore. 

“I should get back to work,” he said hoarsely.

Raquel nodded. 

With nothing more left to say, he quickly left. 

And that was the end of it.

On Thursday, there was no fight left in him. She’d expected a teasing remark about the hug the previous day, but the man was silent, staring at his computer screen with his shoulders slouched.

It seemed the more she answered fire with fire, the more Marquina dialed down – until it just looked like he was suffering. The jeans stayed on. Various snack foods were consumed over the sink. One time she even caught him googling for pet tortoises with the search perimeter of how likely they were to outlive you.

His brother appeared to be right. He was in pain, and the situation was even more drastic than either of them had thought.

But why?

Her idea had been to break him. Get him to reveal what was up by the method of sophisticated and fine-tuned psychological warfare – a.k.a. she would make it seem like she wanted in his pants. 

But it was hard not to feel the pangs of remorse now. Her flirting was clearly very distasteful to him, hence the increasing velocity of his downward spiral. 

Was she really any better than someone holding a knife to his neck for information? Or was it on him, equating her lips with a machete?

Just as she wondered whether it was ethical to even bat her lashes at him, Sofía approached her desk. This was her first day back at work after her long absence which probably covered her nervous breakdown over the fact that Marquina would rather screw someone he was 60% convinced had vagina dentata than her.

“I think I haven't had the chance to offer my congratulations yet,” she said. 

Raquel swiveled her chair around to face her, instantly suspicious.

"I so admire what you're doing,” she drawled. “It's so hard, being a single mother. Sure, it is going to get pretty much impossible to ever date again, but you're a strong woman. I believe in you.”

Narrowing her eyes into the tiniest of slits, Raquel offered her an appreciative smile.

The second she was out of eyesight, she slipped the ring Marquina had given her into her finger.

It did not take even two minutes for Sofía to return back to her desk.

“What is that?” she asked, her voice fraught.

“An engagement ring,” Raquel stated matter-of-factly.

“Where did that come from?!”

“I was given it last week.”

In hindsight, the fact that she hadn’t specified that even though she had had it in her possession since last weekend, it was only now that she had put it on was probably not the most altruistic approach. Sofía looked down at her with wild eyes, probably thinking that it had been there the whole time, but something in her psychology had prevented her from seeing it.

Not long after, she called in sick and went back home. 

Just as Raquel contemplated whether accidentally gaslighting someone was grounds for termination, Irene walked in. 

“Just wanted to pop in, see how everyone is doing,” she said with her most grandmotherly smile on, making one of her usual weekly wellness checks.

The smile quickly vanished as her eyes dropped down to what was on Raquel’s finger.

She turned on her heel and walked straight back out of the door.

Now she had collateral damage in her hands. She should probably focus on work before she committed any more acts of emotional terrorism against the employees of this nonprofit.

With her head held low, she woke her computer from sleep mode and started browsing her photo files.

She’d thought the hardest part of updating the website was getting Marquina’s permission to use a photo of his. She’d had no idea the actually impossible mission was finding photo evidence of something even resembling a smile on him. 

In all pictures, he was either frowning or brooding. In pictures he wasn’t, he was drinking coffee. It proved something she’d had been long suspecting – Marquina only ever experienced the closest thing to happiness when he was holding that hideous mug. 

She scrolled down, far down to find pictures from TBTM (Time before the mug). Just as she had expected, he was brooding even harder.

She was just about to give up, mindlessly flipping through the photos with a rapid-fire clack-clack-clack of her keyboard – until something made her perk up. It was like a hidden frame in a movie. Blink and you’ll miss it. 

She had to go back several dozen photos, but finally, she found it.

Lo and behold. It was Marquina. 

And there was a radiant smile on his face.

She felt like the first paleontologist ever to dig up a dinosaur. She stared at the picture, mesmerized. 

What could have caused him to smile like that?

The picture itself offered no evidence. The mug did not exist yet nor was he looking at a particularly sexy-looking table of numerical data. He was simply sitting at his desk, staring at something to the right of him and smiling like his cheeks were going to crack. 

Just for the fun of it, Raquel flipped back to the previous picture to see if it could offer up even a small hint.

What she hadn’t expected was to discover one big hint.

She stared at the previous picture that revealed exactly what Marquina was looking at, stupefied. Her whole body in shutdown mode.

And then, all of a sudden, it hit her like a freight train.

Everything made sense now.

After the initial, eternity-long shock where she mentally flopped around like a fish out of water, her mind cleared. And instantly darkened. 

Oh, that motherfucker.


The entire way she stomped over to his desk turned out to be a useless trip. Marquina had already gone home. This was one of his half-days.

It was no matter. She took the rest of the day off as well.

The office was now down four employees, three due to her own actions. She would probably draft an apology letter about that at some point. But not now, not when everything she looked at was the color of screaming scarlet red.

She showed up at his door an hour later. The address she knew of old, probably due to the fact that she’d once planned on sending him a glitter bomb. 

Raquel resisted the urge to pound on his door with both of her fists. Instead, she forced in a deep breath. 

She could just not break down his door. There should be a methodological approach to this. Something sophisticated that would confirm her hypothesis once and for all.

So when he finally opened his door for her, she offered him her thought-out, elegant opening line.

“Let’s have sex. Right now.”

Marquina had been surprised to see her, but the words that had left her mouth made him then adopt an expression that couldn’t adequately be described with ‘surprise’. Perhaps a ‘stroke’ was a better term. 

“Wait, wha–”

She barged inside, wrenching off her jacket. His apartment was unshockingly immaculate, decorated with a minimalistic style ripped straight out of an interior decor magazine. She had no doubt she couldn’t find one dust particle even after months dedicated to searching.

She dropped her old, battered handbag right in the middle of all that spotlessness. 

“I almost got you off at your mother’s house. This is the natural progression of things, isn’t it?” she said, letting her jacket slip down to that same pile.

“You cannot be serious,” he said, incredulous.

“Try me.”

She grabbed him by the jaw and yanked his lips to hers.

Only after their mouths mashed together she realized she had only meant to threaten to do this. Oh well, it was too late now. She prodded at the seam of his mouth insistently, both of her hands now holding onto his head, urging him on in case he actually would

With shocking force, his hands wound around her upper body. She thought at first it was to push her away, but soon enough his lips were open and he had her engulfed in a deep, soul-shakingly intense kiss. His mouth moved against her like burning liquid, something so hot she felt a disturbing, knee-buckling sensation down at her legs.

She staggered a little at the strength of his hold on her but eventually was able to gain her balance and some of her control back. She started raking her fingers roughly through his hair, pulling him to her, pressing them so tightly against each other you couldn’t wedge in a needle between them.

Raquel closed her eyes, letting whatever this was overtake her. 

Without any forewarning, Marquina suddenly broke off the kiss. He reeled back from her, his back slamming against the wall.

“No, no, no. Not again,” he hissed out.

Raquel looked at him sharply, struggling to catch her breath. “What do you–”

“I had had it with your temporary madnesses. First the elevator, the kitchen and now– Díos, I cannot take it anymore!”

The exclamation stole the majority of the little oxygen she had managed to gather back in her lungs.

Marquina looked genuinely distraught. She had no idea what to think. Was she right?

Had she managed to wrest the truth out of him just by kissing him?

Raquel examined him, long and hard.

“And why is that?” she asked carefully.

He just tilted his head contemptuously at her.

“Why do you think?”

They stared at each other, daring the other to say it. 

It was the highest stake game of chicken they’d ever had. 

But she was not having it. With her shoulders locked near the back of her head, she pivoted and marched back to the door. Her bag and jacket were wrenched up from the floor.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

She turned to levy him with her most withering look. “If you do not say it now, you’re a fucking coward, Sergio Marquina. For the rest of your days.”

She placed her hand on his doorknob. 

“Consider this the end of my last remnants of respect for you.”

She knew he wouldn’t be able to resist a challenge like that, and still it made her nearly jump out of her skin when he slammed his hand against her door, blocking her exit.

Raquel had never seen him like this. He was breathing hard, shaking like he was about to split from his seams. 

Alright. You win, everything about him seemed to say.

Looking down at her like she was the very snake from the garden of Eden, he began. 

“I,” he breathed out.

“Love,” he went on, his voice the lowest rumble she’d ever heard from him.

“You,” he growled.

Her heart plummeted down so hard it was a wonder it did not drive down several floors of this building with her.

Upright. Stay upright, commanded her brain to her body. She could only barely follow the order.

Raquel forced her mouth shut so he wouldn’t hear her gasp out, though there was still an annoying amount of oxygen flaring into her nose. And yet, not enough. She felt faint. 

But then the red mist returned, overtaking all other feelings and bodily urges. 

“I knew it!”

She raised her finger at him, though the effect of the dagger-like pointing was hampered by the shaking of her hand.

“Who says ‘they are not you’ about other women who could be pregnant with your baby unless you were in love with this one!” she said, turning to quite aggressively point at herself.

Sergio watched her violently gesture with a blank look on his face. It was as if his soul had vacated his body upon his confession which was ironic, considering it was Raquel who would need an out-of-body experience right about now. She was feeling awfully a lot like a single sock tumbling about in a washing machine. If she did not get out soon, she was going to break the whole device.

“And you know what else I found? A picture of you smiling like the fucking sun!” she flung out breathlessly like it was the gravest accusation of them all. 

“You know what you were looking at?”

Sergio looked like he had a good guess. He mouthed one single word, looking like it had been wrested from him with iron tongs. Raquel’s whole body slouched like she had been sucker-punched by a professional boxer.

You.

It had been her in the picture. She with her head thrown back, laughing so hard she had to take support from a table. The next picture revealed Sergio had been watching her from afar.

She wanted to command him to deny it, but knew he wouldn’t. Oh god. This really was it. The end of the world. If she was lucky, brimstone would start raining from the sky and take them both out. Even just a liquid, burning shower of sulfur would be better than thinking about what Sergio might answer to her next question.

“That picture was almost two years ago. Start talking, asshole. How long have you been hiding this?”

This had a gutting effect on him.

He started throwing his head around like a horse about to bolt, probably deeply regretting ever airing out his secret. Well, it was too late now. The cat was out of the back and it was coming for his throat.

“Raquel, if I knew I had been in love with you for two years, I would have drunk bleach by now. Do you seriously think I would have willingly subjected myself to that for that long?” he ended up hissing out.

She resisted the urge to throw something at him. Most preferably a grenade.

Raquel started backing out from his hallway to the kitchen, feeling like a circus ringmaster provoking a lion to follow him. Sergio followed her, and for a while, they just circled each other like two sumo wrestlers about to launch at each other. The problem at hand could feasibly be either of their faults. The winner of the scuffle got to decide.

“What, are you claiming you didn’t know?” Raquel asked incredulously. It was hard to believe he hadn’t been holding this over her like a secret weapon – though if she thought about it, his recent physical and mental deterioration did not seem like much of an advantage. 

This made him finally step away from her. He leaned against a wall, groaning deeply. “My brain must have been protecting me. A psychological coping mechanism.”

“Well why did it fail?” she asked, her arms crossed like she was an indignant customer whose car had just broken down. 

“Maybe I started thinking a bit more than I should have once you rejected me,” he said, looking very much like he wanted to swallow glass. “Thinking — what a bad idea.”

“Ugh. I take it back,” she said, waving her arms around. 

Sergio quirked one brow.

“Your rejection or the fact that you brought the whole thing up in the first place?” 

Raquel balked.

“The latter of course. I am not– I do not feel the same way.”

The last few words spurted out of her like from a hose about to burst. 

“I know,” he gritted out, turning her gaze firmly away from her. “That is why I did not want to tell you.”

“So you were just going to sit on this for the rest of your life?

Sergio shrugged.

“Pretty much.”

He then stepped right past her. Raquel let out the most mortifying little squawk at the sudden action and bounced from his path. He went on to his cabinet. She saw him open it and take out a bottle of scotch.

“Though I had my hopes a car would hit me eventually and cut my misery short,” he said, pouring himself a glass as Raquel watched, speechless. “This is not exactly an ideal situation for me. I think the past few weeks have made me lose more pounds than a gym ever has. Hmm. Maybe WeightWatchers should hire you.”

This was not happening. She couldn’t allow a world to exist where she was apparently the object of his most tender feelings. It was as if Sofía was suddenly her best friend, her mother an assassin hired to take her out, Alicia the queen of Spain, and she herself the prime minister. It just didn’t make any sense.

“Well snap out of it!” she commanded.

Sergio let out a snort-like laugh and then turned to her with a lopsided smile.

“It’s cute that you think I have any control over this. You’re cute,” he said, the liquor in his glass swirling about as he waved it in his hand.

“There is that again, that flirting!” Raquel exclaimed, stepping closer. “What is that?”

One of his shoulders bopped up a hint. “Might as well have fun while I suffer. I know you hate it, but the pleasure you derive from seeing me in pain should even things out.”

With this said, he took a long swig of his scotch.

Infuriated, Raquel grabbed one of the bland-colored throw pillows from his couch.

“I don’t want you to be in pain, idiot!” she said, flinging it at him.

It only barely missed.

Sergio gave the pillow that had landed at his feet one glance before tipping his scotch to his lips and downing most of it in one gulp.

“There is nothing you can do about it,” he then huskily offered. “You cannot stop me from loving you anymore you can make yourself stop hating me.”

This made her propel another pillow at him. After it hit him in the stomach, Sergio decided to set down his glass out of concern for his hardwood floors. 

“This doesn’t even make any sense. Why would you even love me!?” Raquel yelled. 

Something flared up in Sergio’s eyes. It was as if she had thrown another pillow at him — this one had been filled with rocks and had made its mark. He swiveled around and walked up to her. 

“Hah!” he barked out. “You seriously don’t know?”

“I don’t–”

He cut her mercilessly off, settling right in front of her.

“You’re the most tenacious woman I know. You do not give up, not ever. You always place the needs of the people who suffer far above your own. Your laugh— your laugh is the best thing I have ever heard. I wish I could fucking bottle it up. You are kind and too clever for your own good and absolutely, infuriatingly gorgeous.”

Raquel stared at him, her jaw hanging approximately one meter off from the rest of her. This did not deter him.

“I love how messy your desk is. I love that you seem to carry the whole world with you in your purse. I love your horrible taste in music. I love how close you are to your mom. I love the little pen in your hair. I love that most of the time your wit slices me in half before I can even start to think of a comeback. I love how competitive you are even about the smallest of things. I love that you challenge me about everything and I— I just love you, Raquel.”

After he was done, silence descended into the room. Only Sergio’s labored breaths filled the air.

Fuck. He really is in love with me.

In an instant, panic set in.

“Okay, okay. Let me think,” she said, flailing a little as she tried to conjure up an idea. Any idea that could help fix this.

After a minute of Sergio staring at her as she paced like a frantic madman, she got it. 

She planted her ass on his couch, gesturing him closer.

“The sexy little image of Raquel you have in your head, teasing you and smiling prettily and fighting the good fight – I’m not that. I’m a disgusting little gremlin like most people.”

She patted down on a seat next to her on the sofa, encouraging him to sit down. 

When he hesitantly did just so, she launched into her sales pitch. 

“Just hear out the pregnancy symptoms I am currently having. First off — the gas. You cannot even imagine. I am so gassy all the time you couldn’t light a match under me without killing every single soul in this building. I have no control of which end of me it comes out of which is probably for the best, not having to make the decision whether to burp or fart in an elevator with your boss.”

Sergio had no reaction to this. She suppressed a frown and kept going.

“There are parts of me that are so itchy that I am seriously thinking about getting a scratching post for cats. You heard right. For cats. In an ideal life, my home would be made entirely of that sweet, sweet material. And that’s not all. My pelvic muscles are so shit now that I pee myself. At least once a week if I happen to sneeze or laugh too loud. I have started to wear pads and not only because of the pee issue – my doctor wants me to watch what kind of discharge I get. Yes, there might be some freaky discharge because that is what I am now, a leaky bag of gross things.”

One of the symptoms she left out was the fact that she was constantly at least a little aroused. Even now, going through the pregnancy WebMD page with him, she was wet. It was an interesting evolutionary feature, getting wet just because a man was breathing near you even though you were already pregnant.

Despite all this, Sergio had not made a single queasy expression. Raquel sighed. 

“Is this having the opposite effect?”

He nodded.

“All you’re doing is reminding me that you’re carrying my baby.”

Raquel shuffled her ass far away from him on the couch. 

God, why couldn’t he just let it go? She wasn’t anything special. No one that she had ever dated or even married had thought she was anything special.

“You should have told me this before I let you knock me up,” she grumbled, rising to her feet. 

Sergio feigned deep contemplation, following her up.

“Hmm. I think I was too deep in denial and in your cunt to really stop and consider the implications of my actions in relation to my feelings,” he said in the most insufferable tone of voice possible.

Raquel’s found herself grabbing him by his shirt front, clutching the fabric between her fingers. She couldn’t take it anymore.

“Stop!” she demanded. 

“Stop what?” Sergio asked calmly, infuriatingly calmly.

Then his eyes drifted down, fixing on one spot in particular. 

The gorgeous engagement ring sparkled on her finger.

“Are you wearing my ring?” he breathed out, every word stretched out torturously slow.

She instantly let go of him, covering the ring with her other hand.

“Just to annoy Sofía,” she explained hoarsely.

The words sounded so idiotic, leaving her mouth just now. Raquel clenched her eyes shut.

“Why do you care so much about that woman’s silly crush on me?” Sergio demanded.

No form of answer left Raquel. She just stared up at him, unbreathing, angry.

At her silence, Sergio moved to grab her hand. With a gentle hold on her wrist, he examined the ring for a while before starting to carefully remove it. The usually-cool metal felt hot moved across her skin.

“You have to stop doing this if you mean nothing by it,” he whispered, not looking at her.

The ring slid off. It was immediately enclosed in his fist.

“I don’t,” Raquel sputtered out.

Sergio gave her a fleeting, dark glance before turning his head away.

“That’s what I keep telling myself.”

He placed the ring on a table.

Gazing down at it, the urge to say something was booming inside Raquel. Something biting, something that would feel good leaving her mouth and striking Sergio –  something that would relieve this strange, tearing ache inside her.

She stepped closer in full battle stance. Just at that second, Sergio swiveled around too. They ended up face to face, staring at each other wildly, shallow breaths dripping from their lips.

Close enough to be able to rip each other’s throats out.

Arousal lurched inside her. Oh fucking hell.

Not now.

How could she ever be able to gain victory over him when she was constantly so wet and prone to hysterics over something as small as her biggest nemesis confessing his love for her? This pregnancy truly had her at a disadvantage.

She was just about to suggest Sergio punch himself in the dick to make it a fair fight – but 
then something else lurched inside her.

Raquel froze.

“The baby,” she exhaled sharply. “The baby is kicking.”

Sergio staggered a step back as if the words had had a physical effect on him.

She gave a snorting little chuckle, looking down at her stomach. The little one had gotten fed up with the arguing and had started steadily drumming against the bottom of her belly with her little feet. The sensation made her lower lip instantly wobble.

“Come. Feel it,” she urged, approaching him. He absolutely could not miss out on this.

But instead of eagerly reaching out his hand as earlier in the week, he backed out some more.

“I don’t think I should,” he rasped out.

Raquel rolled her eyes so hard it was a miracle they did not pop out of her skull. 

“You shouldn’t let this thing come between you and your child,” she asserted. It was not as if he had confessed to planning on murdering her. Though, psychologically, this love thing had been the next closest thing. 

“C’mon, just feel her.”

She once again offered her stomach up to him, even rolling her shirt up a little for closer contact, but Sergio just looked away, appearing absolutely miserable. 

What an idiot. An utter moron. Fool enough to think…

She paused as she noted the clench of Sergio’s jaw.

Oh.

Raquel recognized it from a moment that now seemed so abstract and remote, yet crystal-clear in her mind; the elevator. That was what he’d looked like as she’d straddled him.

He wanted her.

She could see it now. Their fight had lit a fire inside him, and now he was hesitant to touch her. His mask might slip, or something akin to physical torment would engulf him at the feel of her skin.

Raquel swallowed, her throat feeling unbearably scratchy all of a sudden. He wanted her. She was not sure why this revelation was so shocking, considering that he already had deep romantic feelings for her.

Or did he?

She blinked her eyes repeatedly in rapid succession as the idea took hold of her.

“Are you sure it’s not lust?” she blurted out.

Sergio swung his head around. “What?”

“Are you sure it’s not lust instead of love?” she repeated again, taking a hopeful step toward him.

He still did not seem to understand her meaning. She would have to break this down for him like ABC to a first-grader.

“Do you want to sleep with me?” she asked slowly.

He considered this for a long moment, as if not quite sure if this was a trap or not. But then something in his brain seemed to take a look back at what he’d revealed this far and consequently give up. His shoulders slumped.

“Yes,” he said, somewhat haughtily, as if the question itself was silly. Not letting this startle her, Raquel went on.

“Do you constantly feel blue-balled when I am around?”

“I suppose,” he said, after considering his answer for a long moment. His face was a little sunken as if didn’t have even a shred of pride left.

A smile broke out on her face. She walked up to him, grabbing him by the shoulders.

“Sergio, you would hardly be the first man in the world to imagine yourself in love just because your dick is!”

“Why are you smiling?” Sergio asked, more stupefied by that than anything. 

Indeed, the thought of Sergio’s penis feelings should have the opposite effect on her – but not this time. 

“Because this is fixable,” she said cheerily. “This is something that we can get out of your system.”

“How so?”

How do you think? she thought, rolling her eyes in her mind.

She drew in a deep breath.

“Sergio, it gives me no pleasure to say this…”

She took a tighter grip on his shoulders and looked deep into his eyes.

“...but next Saturday, I will fuck the living daylights out of you.”

Notes:

There is one hint in this chapter about why Raquel struggles to accept Sergio's love for her. Let me know if you found it.