Betrayed (The New Yorker) (7 page)

Reno laughed as he watched Daniela
and DJ go back and forth. When he felt Lisette’s hand squeeze his thigh he
turned toward her and realized two things—she had once again gone unnoticed
when he was in the presence of his siblings and she would always be there for
him.

“I think I like you even more, with
every passing second.” He brushed his lips against her ear as he whispered to
her. With one arm he pulled her in to his side and kissed her temple.

“You’re growing on me,” she said
with a smile as she looked up at him.

“If Brian is staying, he and Reno
cannot be on the same team tomorrow.”
Catalella
pulled him out of his love bubble.

“Why? Do you play?” Brian asked
excitedly.

“I do.” Reno tried to block out the
pride Dennis had when he brought up football.

“I think we should wait to draw up
teams when AJ gets here tomorrow,” Adrian said.

* * * *

He was back
in that small stinky apartment. The air was thick and stagnant, the smell of
smoke and alcohol septic in the air now. Reno could hear someone calling him
from afar. It was a small tiny voice that sounded so much like
Rhyne
.

“
Rhyne
?”
Reno scrambled out of bed. He shot a
glance at his sister’s bed in the far corner of the room. It was empty. Jumping
out of bed in a mad dash he followed
Rhyne’s
desperate cries.

“Reno!”

“
Rhyne
!Rhyne
!” Reno called out as
he tried to make his way around the sparse furniture in the thick darkness.
“I’m coming
Rhyne
, I promise, I’m coming!”
Desperately he yelled out. The thick feeling of dread weighed his heart down
sending it crushing into his stomach.

Reno’s feet
froze; he stood rooted to the ground as he watched the darkness shaped like a
man, pulling his sister with him. “No!” he shouted. “Let go of her!” Reno
launched his body into the dark figure and all his tiny hands could grab was a
thick cloud of smoke. He landed on the ground head first, and when the darkness
subsided, Reno watched as his sister was dragged outside and tossed into a
waiting car. Pushing his battered body to his feet, he begun to ran after the
car. But no matter how fast he ran or how hard he yelled out for their mother’s
help, it was useless.

Reno woke up at the darkest hour of
the night, drenched in sweat, and the bedding pulled out of their neat corners
as if someone had been thrashing around in the bed. Although it was just a
dream, his body seemed to be working just as hard as his mind. He got out of
the bed and headed to the kitchen for a glass of cold milk. Staring out the
glass doors, he saw the light shimmering and bouncing off the waves of the calm
ocean. How he wished he could be so tranquil.

Reno sat on the grainy sand beach
looking out into the still waters, hoping he would be able to absorb its
peacefulness. He didn’t know how he was going to do it, how he would get his
revenge from Dennis without hurting and alienating his siblings, or how he
would find
Rhyne
. As thoughts bombarded his mind, a
voice of reason echoed through the chaos in his mind. What if he just told
Dennis the truth and asked him to help
Rhyne
? But why
would Dennis want to help now—he had spent all these years absent from his
children’s life. Why should Reno believe that Dennis had grown a sliver of
decency that would compel him to do right by his children?

Reno let out a defeated sigh and
lay back in the sand. But instead of the dark sky littered with spots of
shining stars, Reno’s eyes looked up to a pair of tanned legs, under a robe. He
quickly shut his eyes. “I didn’t see anything.”

He heard Lisette let out a throaty
laugh and a smile crept on his lips. He kept his eyes closed even when he felt
Lisette’s weight ease down on his body. She lay on top of him, her head
snuggling on his chest. Reno let out a purr when he heard Lisette sigh in
content.

“I don’t mind,” she murmured.

“Of course you don’t.” Reno opened
his eyes and stared into the midnight curls spread out on his chest in waves.
“You are the girl who asked me to take her virginity under a bridge.”

“The bridge was there, we were
there, and besides we would have done the horizontal rumba in the back of my
car,” Lisette murmured again before trying to stifle a yawn.

“You are sleepy and tired, why
don’t you go back to bed.” Reno combed his fingers through her hair, his
actions speaking volumes in contradiction of what he had just said. He didn’t
want Lisette to ever leave him. He felt complete like this. Her tiny body
seemed to fill the void left by his past. With his free hand he trapped Lisette
where she was, pressing her body closer to his.

“You say one thing but your body
demands another,” she chuckled.

“Well, I am a man, and a beautiful
girl is lying on top of me. You can’t blame me for not wanting to let her go.”

“Oh? This girl is beautiful you
say?”

“Very.”

“If this girl asked you to kiss her
what would you do?”

Reno let out a low growl as his
groin responded to Lisette. He didn’t want to frighten her, or make her feel
obligated to help him ease his uncomfortable erection. With one fluid move he
rolled Lisette on her back and positioned himself over of her, so that she
wouldn’t bear his weight or feel his need for her.

* * * *

“I would kiss her,” his lips
whispered over the surface of hers.

Lisette’s breath hitched in her
chest. Inhaling deeply she caught the scent of him, strong, male and seductive.
She stared into his eyes as his lips brushed against hers. As her mind
anticipated the touch of his lips on hers, her body wondered when his hands
would explore her. Not willing to wait any longer for contact, Lisette’s hands
roamed his hard muscled frame and her body shuddered and relaxed at the same
time.

She felt Reno stiffen, and then his
lips came down on her, lust ignited like a match to a naked flame. Their mouths
locked into an erotic dance as Lisette’s hands took its feel from his body. She
wanted everything from him, her mind was made up, she was ready and if Reno
would have her he could take her on the open beach under the moon light.

“Please,” she moaned when his lips
found her neck, his fingers kneading into her breast. Lisette didn’t think he
had heard her, so she arched the lower half on her body into his. She gasped in
shock when she came into contact with his groin. The lust quickly turned into
fear, but her curiosity was not deterred. With her hands she reached in between
his thighs and felt his long, thick hardness. There was no way she could fit
all of him into her.

Lisette was pulled out of her
curious inspection when she felt Reno’s mouth encircle her naked nipple. How
the hell did he get there so fast? That was the only thought her mind could
compose before his greedy suckle turned her into knotted nerves of lust. The
fear was gone and now all she
needed
was
for him to fill her.

“Please, Reno, please.”

* * * *

Lisette’s gasping breath tickled
his ear, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t force his muddy mind to
comprehend what she was saying. He needed more of her. His impatient hand
sneaked under her robe and smoothed over her thigh searching for her center. He
found her velvet lips, and her wet core. He didn’t spare a thought before his
fingers dug inside her, his thumb teasing the responsive nub.

Reno could feel Lisette’s body
begin to tremble under his touch. It wouldn’t be long before she climaxed. His
mouth and fingers worked feverishly toward the finish line.

“Please, Reno, I want you inside
me.”

Somehow his fuzzy mind understood
what she was asking. What was he doing? Reno rolled away as he took a deep
breath to clear his mind. He couldn’t just take her without any concern. He
promised to make her first time special and this wasn’t it. He chanced a glance
at Lisette. Her hand was over her eyes, the other grabbed fistfuls of sand as
her body shook from the interrupted orgasm.

A fist of regret squeezed his
heart. He couldn’t just leave her like that. Once he thought he had his
hormones under control, Reno moved to the lower part of her body. He bent her
knees and pushed her legs to her chest. He needed her open to his wanting eyes.
As if she understood, Lisette held her knees to her chest, her dark lustful
eyes watching his every move.

“You can’t touch me, if you touch
me I won’t be able to stop.” Reno looked into her eyes to make sure she
understood. “Your first time will not be a quickie. I want to take my time with
you, make sure you know how much I am honored you chose me for your first.
Right now I’m just going to give you release and nothing more.”

Nothing
more,
he chanted as he stared at her glistening center. It wouldn’t take
much to make her come. He licked his lips as his mouth descended on her. He
smiled when he heard Lisette sigh, but as he went on with his ministrations he
heard her breathing quicken, her moaning grow louder and wild. He didn’t stop,
even when he felt her body stiffen and stretch and tasted her orgasm. Even if
he could only have her in this way, for now, he wanted to milk every orgasm he
could from her.

Reno’s hands tightened around her
thighs and held her firmly in place, when she tried to move away from his
mouth. He could feel her body grow weak from the intensity of her orgasms, but
he wanted one more.

* * * *

Lisette let out a scream as her
body slumped back on the white sand. She couldn’t take it anymore. She closed
her eyes as her body tried to recuperate from Reno’s punishing mouth. She
sighed in relief when he pulled her robe down and lay next to her. Pulling her
into his arms, he let out a low laugh that rippled along her nerve endings.

“Is it always going to be
that…intense?” she gasped out.

“It’s going to be better. When I’m
inside you, it will be like a piece of heaven.”

“Why didn’t you do it now? I
wouldn’t have stopped you. I want you just as much, if not more.”

“I want to take my time with you.
As beautiful and exciting as it would be making love under the moon, the last
thing I want is for your father to catch us. He’s going to kill me.”

“You are right.”

Lisette and Reno lay there for a
while, listening to the gentle crushing of the waves. She had followed him out
to ask him what was wrong but was quickly sidelined. Now she didn’t know if it
was appropriate to pry after what he had just done to her.

“Reno?”

“
Mmmmh
?”

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

A cloak of silence settled over
them before she spoke again. “I saw you come down here. You looked like
something was bothering you.”

“It’s in my past, and I would
rather just concentrate on the beautiful woman in my arms.”

Lisette let out a defeated sigh.
They had crossed the sexual part of their relationship, but it was obvious to
her that trust between them was still nonexistent. “Sit up. I want to tell you
something.”

“What is it?” Reno looked at her
with a worried frown.

Lisette was about to share her past
with Reno. She thought that was the best way to establish trust. Maybe he would
confide in her after she told him her story. Once she had Reno’s full
attention, Lisette grew frightened and unsure.

“You know you can trust me with
anything you tell me.”

Lisette gave him a nod, before she
begun. “I wasn’t born in the U.S. My mother and I lived in Mexico before we
moved here. Actually we didn’t just move, we were running away—”

Lisette
could remember her mother’s screams as they pierced the night air. The daily
pleadings and begging was something she always kept with her. Rosalinda was the
traditional catholic girl. She didn’t believe in divorce, she always hoped and
prayed that her marriage would get better. But then, it seemed each one of her
prayers hit the ceiling and came back down. There was no way of taming the evil
monster that her father, Ricardo, had turned into, back into the loving man she
had met. So Lisette decided to help her mother pray, but she didn’t pray for
her father to change. She prayed for her mother to grow a backbone and take
them out of there. She was five years old and yet she seemed to have grown wise
to the ways of the world.

Lisette
turned away when faced with her mother’s purple swollen face, or her father’s
drunken demands of affection. Until this day the picture of alcohol and
violence had kept her sober. There was no way she was going to try that bottled
evil, she had vowed to herself. That was when she believed that alcohol was the
root of all evil.

It had
taken her father’s untimed punch that had got Rosalinda back to her God given
senses. Her father had planned on hitting Rosalinda but instead caught Lisette
in the jaw. The ferocious weight of the pump was too much for her little body
to bear. All Lisette could remember was the pain that was followed by a cloud
of darkness engulfing her. When she woke up she was in her grandfather’s truck
and they were heading away from home.