Off in the cluster of trees, a shadow appeared, and a dark figure moved closer. Lex held my hand and gave it a squeeze.
“There’s someone I would like you to meet,” he said and gestured to a lady who came out of hiding. She was small in stature, and her hair was cut short in a flattering bob, but her eyes – oh god! Her eyes.
They were my eyes.
The same wide–angled shape, the same warm flecks, with long dark eyelashes. I could’ve been looking into a mirror. My knees almost gave way, and a rush of panic caught in my throat; I thought I was going to faint but Lex, my rock, kept me steady.
The lady stared at me, and I stared back; she looked as stunned as I was, and I hadn’t the first idea of what to say. My mind was a muddle of jumbled words, and I saw no hope of being able to pick out the right ones to form a coherent sentence.
“Aimee?” Lex said, holding my elbow. “Please meet Rita, your birth mother. She’s been very anxious to see you.”
“Rita? Meet your daughter, Aimee,” Lex continued.
The flood of tears that flowed down my cheeks couldn’t be stopped. I stepped away from Lex’s side and tentatively closed the gap between me and Rita.
Was it truly her? There was absolutely no doubt in my mind.
All of a sudden, as if on cue, we both reached for each other and embraced, hanging on for dear life.
“My baby,” her sweet voice whispered, and I held on tighter and cried into her shoulder.
“I have so many questions,” I managed to say.
“It’s OK,” she said soothing my back, “I’ll answer every last one of them, but for now, all that matters is we found each other; that Alexandre found me, and brought me to you.”
Chapter Nine
The afternoon went by in a blur; I longed to cling to each moment, and I savoured every word that Rita, my mom, spoke.
My mom, I repeated in my mind. Lex had done the impossible to track her down, to bring us back together, and I would be forever grateful. He amazed me, and a part of me felt a little in awe of him.
We talked for hours in the garden, sitting cross–legged on the grass. Phoebe and Lex stayed mostly quiet as Rita and I answered each other’s questions. Every once in a while we’d stop and stare, taking in the other person’s features and then come all over quite giddy.
It came as a bit of a shock that I’d been forcibly adopted, all done in secret, with no papers to my name. Rita, at 16, only a child herself at the time, had been pressured by her parents to give me up, and when she wouldn’t, they took matters into their own hands, shuffling me off to a distant aunt far away. Rita had been devastated, and my grandparents had kept the whole thing a secret from her, never revealing the truth until Lex had words with Loretta and forced her to spill the beans and reveal all.
“Happy?” Lex asked once we were back in my apartment. I’d been reluctant for the day to end, but Rita planned to stay in town for a long while so we could get to know each other better.
“Deliriously,” I replied as we lay snuggled into one another, never daring to let go. “You’ve been quite busy lately; anyone would think you were Santa Claus!”
He kissed a trail up my elongated neck, and I sighed. “Phoebe is over the moon, too, you know.”
His lips were buried in my hair near my ear. The tip of his tongue darted out and licked my velvety earlobe. My breath faltered, but I continued to speak, still amazed at what he’d managed to accomplish.
“I can’t believe you found her; I couldn’t even manage to get Loretta on the phone to talk to me.”
His nibbling stopped and he whispered into my ear, “That was probably my fault. I warned her never to come near you or speak to you again. But you know, my darling, I’d do anything for you.”
“Anything?” I asked, raising my eyebrows questioningly and running my hands through his hair.
“Anything,” he responded, and my nipples went taut.
With a gentle pressure from my palm that lay against his head, I motioned for him to slide down under the covers.
He knew instinctively what I wanted. His hands traced over my waist and belly as he journeyed in between my legs. I opened up wide and threw the covers from the bed so I could see him between my thighs.
Lex kissed my inner thighs first and ran his fingers down my bikini line. He knew this drove me crazy; he was so near yet so far away from where I wanted him to be.
My clit throbbed in anticipation, and I held onto my breasts, heavy in my hands, ready to give my nipples a hard pinch.
His fingertips parted my sodden folds.
“So beautiful,” he murmured, “I’m going to eat you up till you can’t stand it anymore.”