Lily: I can’t be compared to them.
Link: No. Maybe not. Trust me, I saw where they were. You’re definitely living in better circumstances, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need liberating as much as they did.
Lily: I’m here by my own choice.
Link: You just said it yourself. You’re not. You have eyes on you.
Lily: By choice. I know what I’m doing.
Link: Said no one. Ever.
Lily: No. I really do. I need to do this. I need to be the one who takes him down.
Link: And how are you going to do that without spending the rest of your life behind bars?
Lily: I’m going to do what he did to my mom. Simple.
Link: Not simple.
Lily: Maybe not. But I HAVE to do it. I have to make him pay, and I want all my mother’s money. All of it. Not just a slice. I want to take it back from him, and I want to dismantle his stupid empire.
Link: There’s more to life than vengeance, and I say that from the position of someone who’d know.
Lily: Who did you want to avenge?
Link: Not me. A brother. It burns inside him. I used to think it rotted him away from the inside out, but I was wrong.
Lily: Why? I can’t see you being wrong on that score.
Link: What do you mean?
Lily: I think you’re quite astute. Adept at reading between the lines, you know?
Link: We’ve barely talked.
Lily: Now who can’t take a compliment?
Link: True. Well, I try my best. But I was wrong because he fell in love.
Lily: Did that make him stop needing vengeance?
Link: No. I think his focus has just changed.
Lily: Onto what?
Link: Your father.
Lily: Oh. It’s Giulia Fontaine’s partner? The brother you’re talking about?
Link: Yeah. He came from a bad situation, his sister killed herself because of it, and ever since, that fire’s been burning away inside him.
Lily: I know you can’t and WON’T say, but did it help him? Whatever he did to find it, did it ease it?
Link: No. And that’s how I know that doing what you want to do isn’t worth it in the long run. Live your life, Lily. Get out of there while he’s away.
Lily: You don’t understand his reach.
Link: I can help you. Let me.
Lily: You can’t. Nobody can. I have to help myself.
Link: You’re not as alone as you think.
Lily: You barely know me. Why would you even try to help me?
Link: Because I’m a decent guy. Someone I just met called me astute. You’re dying in that place. I can feel it.
Lily: I’ll be fine.
Link: If you say so. When you decide I’m right, I’m here to help. Pinkie promise.
Lily: Pinkie promise? Haha. Not scout’s honor?
Link: Ain’t never been a scout and will never be one either.
Lily: Now you really do surprise me. Lol. Are you seriously watching Blackadder tonight?
Link: I am. Most seriously. Need a laugh. Things aren’t going well for another brother of mine.
Lily: No? What’s wrong?
Link: His wife left him. He needs to pull his head out of his ass.
Lily: You’re obsessed with things being inside someone’s butt.
Link: Lol. You’ve no idea.
Lily: O.o no. I don’t. Do I want to know?
Link: Maybe. :P
Lily: Okay, I have a question that isn’t butt related.
Link: You wound me.
Lily: Lol. I’ll bet. But…you don’t take me as a rosary-wearing kind of guy.
Link: Was my Grandma’s. She pretty much raised me. Mom was useless and as she got older, she got weirder. Couldn’t rely on her to make toast without freaking the fuck out about something.
Lily: You wear it to honor her?
Link: Not really. She wouldn’t approve of what I do. So, in her eyes, I’d probably be besmirching the rosary. But I wear it as a reminder. She used to say that if someone dies and you think of them often, then they’re never truly dead.
Lily: I like that.
Link: Me too. So I wear the rosary and think of her. I had a shitty childhood. Lots of crap going down. It made me who I am, made me accept things most decent people wouldn’t. But anything inside me that IS decent? Grandma gave me that.
Lily: I’ll think of her too when I see your rosary next. What was her name?
Link: Rosa. Simple name for a simple lady. And she was. We might have been dirt poor but she was a lady.
Lily: I believe it. Thank you for telling me that, Link.
Link: No big deal. I’m going to watch Blackadder now.
Lily: You want to watch it together? Like, over the phone? I have it on DVD.
Link: I’d be down for that.
Six
Link
Three days later
“Link?”
“Hmm?”
Tink scowled at me, then slapped her hand down on my thigh. “You gonna do something with that log between your legs or what?”
I hummed again, my attention on my phone. I had one hand behind my head propping me up enough to see the screen, and the other I used to tap out a message to a woman who—surprise, surprise—I actually fucking liked.
Liked.
As in, she didn’t irritate me.
As in, she was amusing.
As in, she had character, a character that she clung to with both hands in the face of forces that wanted to turn her into a robot.
I admired that.
Me.
Admiring someone, and not just for how well they filled out a pair of yoga pants. Although, she filled hers out to perfection that was for damn sure. Just thinking about her swaggering out of the coffee shop that morning made the ‘log’ between my legs twitch at the memory.
Me: You serious, right now?
“Link!” Tink whined. “I’m—”
“Don’t care what you are, babe,” I muttered, too engrossed in my conversation to give a shit. “Go fuck one of the others if you’re that desperate for some dick.”
A gasp escaped her, and not because she was insulted. It took a lot to insult a sweetbutt, especially if you were a brother. I wasn’t going to say that you couldn’t hurt their feelings, because you could, and we routinely did and sure, that made us shits, but that was the life.
That was their choice.
Choice.
Something I didn’t realize, until recently, was a precious thing.
“You being serious right now?” she whispered, and her hand came up to touch my forehead. She twisted it around so the back of her fingers tested my temp. “Are you sick?”
I scowled at her, swatting her hand away. “Nope. Just don’t want to fuck you. Fuck off, Tink. I’m in the middle of something.”
She strode off at that, huffing as she walked that admittedly fine ass of hers out of my room. I didn’t notice. I was too taken aback.
Lily: Why would I lie? :P
Me: Because your truth is fucked up, babe. Like, beyond fucked up. No one, and I mean no one, likes the Chopped judges. They’re assholes. I mean, they watch the dudes busting their guts for a measly ten grand, then literally piss on the dishes when they taste them.
Lily: You do know what ‘literally’ means, don’t you?
Me: Yup.
Lily: I think people would stop watching if one of the judges whipped out their dicks or dropped a squat and took a leak on one of the dishes.
Me: You think? I think it would make shit more interesting.
Lily: Lol. You would. As for me, I think the judges are paid to be mean. That doesn’t make them mean.
Me: Gah.
Lily: :P You don’t have to like it to know I’m right.
Me: You’re wrong, babe. They were born evil.
Lily: *snorts* Regular Hitlers. God, I wonder what you think of Simon Cowell.
Me: Don’t get me started.
Lily: I’m still
getting over the fact you watch Chopped.
Me: I’m feeling stereotyped.
Lily: Feel it all you want. Do you even cook?
Me: Nope. Caught an episode once by accident and that was it. I was done for.
Lily: You’re crazy.
Me: Only just figuring that out?
Lily: That’s probably why I like you.
My brows quirked at that, and I was totally aware I was wearing a dopey ass grin.
Me: You like me, huh? As in, you LIKE like me?
Lily: Are we in high school?
Me: I’d PAY to see you in one of those private school uniforms. All plaid miniskirts and legs up to your armpits.
Lily: Perv.
Me: My fantasies are all nineteen and above.
Lily: You think I graduated a year late?
Me: Nope. Eighteen is too young.
Lily: Not according to the law.
Me: Fuck the law. Nineteen is when the corruption starts.
Lily: Lol. You say the weirdest shit. Explain.
Me: Eighteen is when you’re trying not to squirm when someone fucks you. Still hurts. Nineteen? You’ve done all the screwing around, been groped. Probably gagged on a dick a few times. You know the score. Ya get me?
Lily: Not sure anyone ‘gets’ you, Link. But I admit, I find that refreshing.
Me: That’s me. Better than a cold beer on a hot summer’s day.
Lily: Your ego is massive.
Me: I have the inches to back it up.
Lily: Good to know. :P
I grinned, for some stupid fucking reason, proud that she could banter with me like this. She looked like she had a stick shoved up her ass and fuck, I wasn’t averse to the idea of her having her butt stuffed with something, just not a stick.
Sticks were pointy.
Not fun.
Lily?
She was fun.
Hell, she was fucking fun. Like, I’d been shooting the shit with her ever since the morning I’d given her the burner cell. Rex wouldn’t have approved of the burner, fuck, I hadn’t even asked him if I should give it to her. I’d bought it out of my own money and why?
Because those texts she sent me?
I’d just known something was off, and it had been. I wasn’t sure how, but someone monitored her cellphone. Read her messages. And it didn’t take a fucking genius to figure out who.
The apple didn’t fall far from the tree where Luke Lancaster was concerned, but Lily? She was an orange amid those apples. An orange I couldn’t wait to peel because, yeah, there was going to be some peeling going on. A lot of it if I had my way.
She sent a picture, and the sight of her wineglass, her legs crossed at the ankle revealing hot pink toenails, and the vista a pool that was glowing a bright blue, had me damn panting.
Hot pink?
I’d have thought she’d be a dusky pink. Something sedate. Something bland.
My lips quirked up.
Me: If I were you, I’d be in the pool drinking that.
Lily: If you were here, I’d do that.
Eyes widening at that come back, I felt my dick go from the semi just regular conversation with her caused, a semi that had made Tink think I was locked and loaded and primed for action, to a full-on erection.
That was the first time she’d said anything like that. Made any mention of the fact that she was into me in any small way.
Truth was, I found it incredible that I was into her.
She wasn’t my type at all.
I liked ‘em wild. Unrestrained. Free of inhibitions.
Lily? Well, hell, she was the exact opposite of that. She was pretty much a walking mummy. Tied up in inhibitions, forced to conform to someone else’s will. And while a part of me wondered why she put up with it, another part got it.
Her brother had bought four women and held them captive in a shack in the middle of nowhere. He’d caged them. Done only the fuck knew what to them when he visited them. Had let them shit and piss in a corner and had still done whatever he wanted to them…
Yeah.
Her brother had done all that.
Her father had killed her mother.
Escaping from a messed up situation wasn’t always easy. Take Keira, Storm’s Old Lady. I loved her like she was my sister, and when one of the clubwhores had told her Storm had been fucking around on her from the start? She’d moved out and moved on. Broke my brother’s stupid prick of a heart in the process, but she’d taken action.
Lily couldn’t do that.
Maybe a week ago, I’d have sneered at that. Said that, of course, she had a choice. Of course, she could run. She was rich, wasn’t she? She could easily slip out and make a life of her own. I’d even think she was sticking around just for the money, for the lifestyle it could bring. But now I knew different.
Irony being, of course, that a part of her was sticking around for the money. But I got that too. It was the principle. However, also, she could argue until she was blue in the damn face and I knew, point blank, that she wasn’t just there for the money. She was there because she couldn’t get out. Because she was trapped. So damn trapped that the only way out that she could see was to kill her father.
And that?
Messed up.
Which was my jam.
I liked chaos. I liked that it took you to the edges of your control, made you do shit you’d never usually do. And while most wouldn’t be turned on at the idea of boning someone with murder literally on their mind—and yeah, I knew what the definition of ‘literally’ was—I wasn’t most people.
Me: I’d take you up on that if you didn’t have eyes on you.
Lily: Really?
Me: Really.
Lily: I can’t believe I’m asking this, but if I figured something out…
My lips curved in a grin and I sat up, my dick on red alert now that potential pussy was on the table.
Me: ‘Something out’ how?
Lily: If I visited a friend’s place. She lives in a pool house. She’d probably let me borrow it.
Thank fuck for friends like that.
Me: You tell me when and where, I’ll be there.
Lily: Okay.
Well, that response wasn’t as excited as I’d have liked, but I could deal. Wasn’t like you could show a lot of emotion through a text message. Emojis could only do so much—
Lily: Link?
Me: Yeah?
Lily: I should probably tell you something.
Me: All ears, babe.
Lily: Did you know you’re the first guy to call me ‘babe?’
A laugh escaped me.
Me: Good to know, BABE. But I don’t think that’s what you wanted to tell me, was it?
Lily: No.
I didn’t reply to that, just waited for her to get whatever it was she wanted to share off her chest. She did this sometimes, and I understood her reticence.
It took a good five minutes of me twiddling my fucking thumbs and ignoring a text from Rex to head to his office for her to tap out a message.
Lily: I haven’t actually done what we’re talking about before.
Me: Hook up?
That didn’t surprise me. Not with her Nazi of a father and sick fuck of a brother. She had more eyes on her than the Mona fucking Lisa.
Lily: Well, that, and what happens when you hook up.
For a second, I wasn’t sure if I was reading that right. Because there was no way in fuck Lily was telling me she was a goddamn virgin, right?
I knew she’d gone to college, knew she preferred her life there over her current one as she had more freedom. But seriously? Was she for real right now?
Lily: Link?
I blinked a few times, then grimaced at a flurry of texts from Rex which told me I needed to get my ass in gear.
Me: Yeah, babe. It’s all good.
Sucking in a breath, I came to a decision.
I didn’t take virgins. That was like the one rule I had.
But Lily?
She was wor
th breaking that rule over because, fuck, if I hadn’t laughed more in these last few days than I had in a while, and the clubhouse made a morgue look cheerful at the moment. There was jack shit to be smiling about, but Lily had helped cheer me up. And that Blackadder shit? Fucking epic. And watching it with her? Double fucking epic.
Me: Tell me where and when, I’ll be there.
Lily: Okay. x
My lips curved at that small ‘x.’
Was this what I’d been reduced to?
Because it amused me, I replied: x.
Was this how people dated now? Fuck me. Life with Tinder might seem easy, but it was even easier to have a stable of bitches around. Of course, that was why Keira’s heart was fucking broken and Storm was walking around like he’d been kicked in the balls because she’d moved out.
I rubbed my chin at the thought, then got to my feet and made my way down to Rex’s office.
“Fuck, you finally decided to show up?”
Because I was in a relatively good mood thanks to Lily, even if the idea of popping her cherry took some of the vibes away from shit, I took a deep bow. “At your service.”
Rex scowled at me then he pinched the bridge of his nose, blew out a breath, and grumbled, “God grant me strength.”
That had me smirking at him. “Dude, he abandoned us a long time ago.”
“Maybe.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “What the fuck took you so long?”
“Was on the phone.”
“That’s your excuse?” The glower deepened.
I shrugged. “It was with Lily Lancaster.”
At that, the Prez stilled, then arched a brow at me. “Why you talking to her?”
“Like her.” I shrugged again. “She’s funny.”
“She’s funny,” he repeated blandly. “Funny?”
“Yeah. You know. Har-har? Surprising me too.”
“She’s the fucking enemy.”
I snorted. “Nope. Not even close. I told you, she wants her dad dead.”
“And only you would think she was dating material. Fuck me, I can just imagine how that conversation went down. Her gagging on your dick, and in between you letting her up for air and her telling you that she wants to murder her dad.” He rolled his eyes. “And they say romance is dead.”
Though I smirked at him, I admitted, “Ain’t boned her yet. All her holes are Link-free.”
He pulled a face. “You’re fucking gross sometimes.”
Link: SATAN’S SINNERS’ MC: TWO Page 12
