Delgano: A Dark Contemporary Interracial Romance

“Stop moving,” she said.

“I’m not. It’s your aim. Wait.” He trailed his hands up her thighs—tonight, it felt like she was wearing a shorter nightgown—and didn’t stop until he secured one hand behind her head. The other rested at her lower back. “Now come to me.”

She bent.

Their lips touched.

As she went to pull away, he helped himself to a lick and suck of her sweet and salty bottom lip.

“Now, tell me about your Portuguese.”

“I’m trying to learn a song, actually,” she explained. “It’s the one you told me you like. ‘Ainda é tempo pra ser feliz.’ I know my pronunciation is horrible, though.”

“It’s to be expected, Sayeda,” he reassured her, stealing another kiss. “When I first started to learn English, Brazilians who didn’t speak English still understood me. That’s how bad my pronunciation was. At least, do you know what the song title means?”

“‘There’s still time to be happy.’ Do you believe that?”

“I don’t know anymore.” He tested the chocolate, but it was still too stiff for dipping or sticking his finger into for her to suck off. “So, how much have you learned?”

“I’m still working on the chorus.”

“Sing it for me?”

“Sure.”

“Just like that? You must have a lovely voice. You just want to show it off, don’t you?”

She cleared her throat. “Maybe, maybe.”

They positioned themselves so that she faced him, still on her knees, between his legs. While she hummed a few bars, he found himself smiling up at her and wondering if it was normal to find a girlfriend he’d never seen adorable.

“Okay, here goes.” She inhaled, exhaled. “Vem…pros…meus braços, meu amor, meu acalanto, right?”

“The thing with Brazilian Portuguese is that, to non-speakers, it can sound like Spanish people speaking French,” he said. “So, the ‘s’ in meus, make it sound more like ‘sh.’”

She tried it a few times.

He set his thumb in the center of her bottom lip. “Beautiful. Keep going.”

She continued.

“That ‘deixe’? Make it sound kind of like you’re saying ‘day-shay.’”

“Day-shay?”

“Lovely.” He moved closer. “Okay, from the top. I’ll start, and you will repeat after me. Then, when we reach the chorus, I will let you soar, okay? Now, one, two, three…”

She laughed and started from the beginning.

She set her hands on his shoulders and swayed her hips. In the quiet room, he heard the guitars, the drums. Eventually, she put her head on his shoulder, and he moved with her, holding her close.

“Okay, querida, it’s coming. Are you ready?”

She rose. “Ready.”

He let her run through the chorus alone and felt the hairs on his arms rise. A commotion much like the one her “my love” had stirred toiled in his stomach.

“We’ll keep going,” he said.