They listened in silence, simply staring at one another. The need to wrap her in his arms, to just hold her again was too much.
He held his hand out to her. “Will you dance with me Lilly?” he asked. She hesitated. It seemed like hours that he stood helpless before her with his hand outstretched. Then, to her amazement, to his utter disbelief, Lilly placed her hand in his and Simon folded her in his arms.
The feel of her hands resting on his narrow hips, her head tucked under his chin, and the slow motion of her body moving in rhythm with his made him explode. It wasn’t just a physical reaction, but an explosion of the sweetest security. He was a boy again, locked away in a cage, but this time, it was a welcome capture.
It was a tiny space that he would gladly die in.
“What did you want to talk about, Simon?” She raised her head.
He shrugged his shoulders, never losing his rhythm, but most definitely unsure of what to say. Lilly must have recognized his discomfort, because with an ease straight out of the past, using that same psychic connection, she rescued him from his inability to say what he was afraid to say.
“You want to talk about that night?” She ducked her head to avoid eye contact with him.
“I wish that night had never happened.”
“So do I.” Lilly looked at Simon and smiled.
“I wish I could explain it away.”
“So do I.” She took a step toward him.
“It never should have happened. I have no excuse, Lilly.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I misunderstood what was going on.”
“I know.”
“What did you say?” Her understanding of his actions was the last thing he had expected.
“I think I’ve always known you misunderstood what was happening. I was afraid to admit it. You’re not an evil person, Simon. Don’t confuse my admission with absolution of the action itself, because it isn’t.” Again she gave him an incredibly beaming smile.
“Tell me how to make it better. What is it you need me to do so I can have your total forgiveness for all the things I did wrong? Not just my treatment of you that night, but for all the lies I told you, for not sharing more with you, for not trusting all of me to you the way you gave all of yourself to me.”
“I want you to pay for it all. I want you to feel the same pain that I felt.”
“Then make me pay Lilly, whatever it takes.”
“I said that was what I wanted. You can’t give me what I want, Simon.”
Simon stopped moving, stood stark still, but did not let her go. Although her arms fell to her side, he held on tight…tighter.
“Please, Lilly.” He closed his eyes.
“You’re misunderstanding me, baby.” Those words snapped his heavy lids open. “It’s my problem to fix. Not yours. Even if I knew how to make you pay, and I were given the opportunity, the chances of my actually doing it are…improbable.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Do you know why I left Chicago, Simon? I thought there was nothing left for me there. So I ran.”
“Lilly—”
“Let me tell you this, and then it will be your turn to speak.” Lilly placed her finger over his lips. Simon grabbed her hand and pursed his lips over her palm; then he slid her hand onto his shoulder. He felt the tremble that ran through her body.
Simon gripped her waist. His nostrils flared; he could smell her sex and knew her need was definitely parallel to his. Simon’s senses exploded as he remembered the tanginess of her taste, the way he’d blow against her clit and watch her shudder.
“I know how that night happened,” she said. “I think if I were honest, while it was happening, I knew what was going on in your head. It was…it still is…my inability to reconcile what my heart says and what my mind thinks.
“I know what I should do. I know what people think I should do, and that is my problem. I have to resolve it. I have obsessed over what society deems right and wrong. You can’t help me with that, Simon.” She stepped back and folded her arms along her midsection.
“I never meant to hurt you.”
“I know…I have always known that. You can’t help me with that night, short of falling down on your knees, kissing my ass, and begging forgiveness.” She laughed nervously and laid her hand flat over her mouth.
“If that’s what it takes, baby.”
“Seriously.” She sobered. “During the last two days I have come to the conclusion that an apology from you, no matter how earnest, will not help me with my conflict. I am still in need of therapy.”
“I did this shit to you.” Simon jerked back and ran his fingers through his hair.
“Baby,” Lilly grabbed Simon’s arm. “I’m not in trouble, Simon. If I didn’t recognize I had a problem, then I would be in trouble. That night is not your problem Simon; the events that led to it are. Not just Jamie, but all of your lies, secrecy, and deceit. I used that night to justify leaving Chicago but my leaving was bound to happen. You can change that. If you let me in, if you trust me like I trust you, if you believe in me like I believe in you, if you work with me and if I work with you, then baby, I swear to you, I swear to you that yesterday never happened. I want to be what you need, but only if you are what I need.”
“Anything, Lilly. I’ll do anything you say.”
“No Simon! It’s not what I say. It’s what you feel and what you’re willing to give. I can’t provide you a list of dos and don’ts.”
“I will do whatever it takes to ensure we are together.”
“Be sure.” She hugged him. “Be sure because our happiness is going to break a heart. And it’s a terrible feeling. My heart was broken, and then I opened my door to you. I let you in. I want you all the way in, but Simon, I don’t want short-term happiness and then find it gone. Not only will I be broken, but your fiancé’s life will be destroyed, too.”
“God help me, Lilly…” Simon bowed his head, resting his forehead against hers. “I’m a selfish son of a bitch when it comes to you. Help me make it right, because I just can’t stay away from you. God knows I tried, but I can’t stay away.” The tips of his fingers ran along her arm. “I’m not as strong as I was back then. I’m not strong enough to just walk away from you, even though I know you deserve better than me.”
“I deserve you,” she cried.
“I’m a selfish son of a bitch, Lilly, because if I can have you, I don’t give a damn about the circumstances. I know that makes me a shit. I have thought about you every day, from the beginning. Every day, Lilly. I know I have obligations, and it isn’t fair to ask anything of you until I resolve them. But Lilly, I need to know, I have to know if there is a chance, the slimmest chance for us? Do you want me to walk away from you, Lilly? Do you want me to leave you alone?”
“No, Simon. No.” Lilly itched to reach out to Simon, but held back.
“As far as Millicent is concerned —” He stopped abruptly. Shaking his head, he continued, “Do you believe me when I say I desperately want to do what is right by her? But I love you. That is a fact that is irrefutable and she knew it…she knows it. I never lied to her, ever. What Millie and I shared … damn, I am a rat bastard, Lilly, but it has always been you. I never intentionally set out to hurt her. Tell me to do the right thing Lilly. Unless you tell me to go, to leave… Tell me to do the right thing.”
“I don’t think either of us can do the right thing.”
Lilly laid her hand against his cheek, captured a handful of his hair with the other, and kissed him. His groan was lost somewhere in her burning kiss, and her touch…her touch was like molten lava against his sensitive skin. Shuddering with need, his limbs felt as heavy as his swollen cock with the longing to be inside her warmth.
He pushed her flat against wall, took complete control of the kiss, and ground his aching dick against her center. Simon’s tongue fought with hers; his entire body went up in flames. Lilly raised her leg and stood prone on her tiptoes, moved her body in rhy
thm with his, and ground in tempo against his dick. Simon lifted her into his arms, never taking his mouth from hers, and walked to her dining room table.
He set her down, and with rapid speed, began tugging at her pajamas. With the same intent, Lilly maneuvered and worked ferociously at his belt, zipper, and finally, finally, he was as free of the offending garments as she was. Simon seized the curve of Lilly’s ankles, leveling them on the table, and then spread her legs. Moving between them, Simon stroked his cock.
“Nice and easy or hard and fast?” Simon asked. He was so ready to slam his cock where it had always belonged, that it was an effort to get the words out.
“What do you think?”
Simon gritted his teeth. He laid his palm on her abdomen and then slowly moved his fingers lower, until they rested at his treasure between her legs. With one hand, he pressed several fingers against her clit and made use of his other hand by swiping her cream from between her glistening lips.
“Play later Simon…I swear you can visit down there as long as you want, but please Simon…please fuck me. With your dick Simon. Tongue later, dick right now, Simon.” Her throaty response was classic Lilly.
“Still my nasty girl?”
“Do it Simon!” Her foot shot out and slammed his arm. He growled.
“Say it Lilly. Say those twelve words I’ve always begged for. Tell me you love me today, Lilly.”
“I love you today, and all is finally right with the world. I mean it Simon; I really, really mean it.” She whimpered and Simon responded by slamming his cock home.
He pumped into her soaked, wet, hot channel, fast and hard. There was no pretense or false modesty between them. This was how they made love. It was always like this, hard as a boulder falling from a canyon wall. They never bothered with sweet or vanilla, and definitely no hesitation.
Lilly and Simon indulged and catered to one another, as only together they could. They made love the old-fashioned way; Lilly and Simon captured the other’s very soul by melding their bodies together in an act as old as time itself. Lilly fingers dug into his ass, and for the first time in ten years, Simon was at home.
Lilly was his home.
Chapter Fourteen
Lilly laid beside Simon, content to watch him sleep. Her fingers rested gently on his stomach, twitching to run along his exceptionally well-defined abdominal muscles, upward to his heart. Her Heart! Lilly eased out of the bed, grabbed her robe, and covered her naked, sated body as she walked languorously to the sliding glass door. She walked out onto the patio, held her head high, and smiled.
“Thank you,” she murmured to the heavens above. Completely ignoring the sounds below her, she stood mesmerized, clutching her robe together and watching the moonlight peeking through the drifting clouds. She felt free for the first time in years. Here, in his arms, was where she belonged.
She put that night in the past and chose Simon for her future.
“When I woke up you were gone,” Simon whispered against her ear. Wrapping his loving arms around her waist, he tugged at her to turn around. Lilly burrowed her head in the safety of his chest.
“Get used to it baby, because I’m through fighting the difference between what is right and what is wrong. Especially if right means being apart from you. I’m not going anywhere again, Simon. I’m not running anymore. But if I lapse,” Lilly looked up at him and asked, “you’ll come for me right? You’ll bring me home, right?”
“I’ll bring you home.” Simon lowered his mouth to her parting lips and kissed her slowly, languidly. Pulling her against his chest, he rested his chin on the top of her head and looked out into the night, just happy to be where he was. Unfortunately, the moment was fleeting.
Simon’s eyes narrowed on the sleek little red Audi 500 and then zeroed in on the owner who stood beside the driver’s door, dressed to kill in a little black dress, clutching the Michael Kors handbag he had given her as a gift. What struck him as odd was her lack of gloves.
Where the hell are Millicent’s gloves? Simon wondered.
The street light shone on Millie’s face like the stage lights at an Opera House. The moment was shockingly surreal as Simon watched the varied emotions dance across her face. The anger so prominent in her expression grew into a morbid look of fear, only to be replaced by pain, and then, regret. Finally, her face relaxed and a faint smile darted across her lips. Millicent stood strangely erect, her head held high, the picture of grace, and bore the nobility of a person resigned to their fate. It didn’t take a genius to figure out the words she mouthed.
“Good luck,” she had whispered up to him. Simon watched as Millie opened the driver’s door, hesitated for barely a moment, and then removed her engagement ring. Simon’s eyes narrowed, and Millicent, in what Simon could only label acquiescence to the inevitable, beamed a genuine smile, and flung the ring forward like a handful of rice at a wedding.
Simon smiled at the message behind the gesture and clamped down on the overwhelming urge to yell, Same to you and Parker. Despite both Millicent’s and Parker’s abject denial of their feelings for one another, Simon wasn’t completely blind and ignorant to the pull between them. Instead, he watched her wave to him and then slide inside the car and start the engine.
The revving of the motor propelled Lilly around.
“Is that…”
“Millicent.” Simon moved back so Lilly could turn completely around.
“How long has she been there?” Lilly asked.
“I’m not sure.” They watched the car move toward the complex’s exit.
“You should go to her Simon…try to explain —”
“She already knows. I think she came to say goodbye.”
“Will she be okay?”
“Oh yeah,” Simon said as the Audi’s red rear lights disappeared from the parking area onto the city street. “I can think of someone who will make sure she is. Isn’t it funny how things work out?”
“I know,” she whispered. He squeezed her in reassurance.
“I’m going to do right by you, this time, Lilly.” Simon held his woman close, closed his eyes, and inhaled her scent. “I have to. The ease with which you have let me back into your life is extraordinary.”
“It was the only choice I could make, Simon.”
He took several steps back and took her hand. “That’s my point. Choices Lilly, choices. And I am telling you that from this moment forward, until my last moment in life, my choice is my future with you, not the past. This time I am going to get it right. No more lies, no more manipulations and no more believing the ravings of an abusive, good-for-nothing son of a bitch who called himself my father.”
“Your father,” Lilly was shocked. “I thought you never knew him.”
“I lied to you Lilly; a lie by omission, but still a lie. Big surprise, right?” Simon said. He tugged her arm and led her inside. “Come on, there are a lot of things I need to come clean on about my past. The good news is, I trust you, Lilly, to hear and know all about me, without fear that you will run away from the ugliness of it.”
“Never, Simon. Nothing you can say will chase me away. Nothing can be said that is worse than what we’ve been through already.”
“I believe in you, Lilly, and I am going to share the lessons he taught me from the time I was a snot-nose kid until now. I’ve learned, Lilly. I’ve learned that the old bastard was right.” He took a deep breath you. “Because I let him and his words be true, and it cost me you. Well, no more. I’m going to come clean with you, because the days of that old son of a bitch’s nay saying are over. He will not control me anymore.”
Simon’s education was complete.
Epilogue
Millicent Rogers pulled to the side of the road. Visibility was bad. Tears blurred her vision. She cried because all her hard work was for naught. Simon Lane
—her fiancé—was with Lillian Rouilard, the true love of his life. It was bound to happen, Simon and Lilly back together again.
Millicent’s maneuve
rings had failed; her perfect plans had gone up in smoke. Granted, her union with Simon hadn’t been a love-match. It had been devised on her part out of necessity, and now…now she had to think of some other way to garner the protection a marriage to Simon Lane
would have given her.
“Forget about Simon! Think, think, think!” she said to her reflection in the rearview mirror. If her secret were ever revealed… She shuddered at the thought.
The way Millicent saw it, she had two options. Option number one would be to tell Parker Crane, Simon’s closest friend and the reason for her current dilemma, the truth. Maybe, just maybe, Parker would see that she had no choice in the matter. Would he understand? Marrying Parker’s best friend would have kept Parker at arm’s length, from digging too deep, discovering what transpired all those years ago—her secret.
“He might even sympathize with you,” she said. The minute her engagement to Simon had been announced, Parker had backed off. He went so far as to really, really try to close himself up emotionally to her, just as she knew he would. But never physically. Her impending marriage could not still that flame. Parker was as addicted to her as she was to him.
Millicent shivered. Who was she kidding? He would go ballistic and hand me my own ass on a silver platter.
“He’d kill me,” she murmured to the darkness. “Parker would never, ever, not-in-a-million-fucking-years understand.”
Option two suddenly seemed infinitely more appealing.
Disappear.
There was nothing left for her here, and besides, no matter what happened—if he discovered the truth or if she just vanished—the end result would be the same. Parker Crane would be completely and utterly out of her life.
“So what,” she told her dry-eyed reflection. “To hell with him. It’s his fault, anyway. Goodbye Chicago, and fuck you Parker Crane, you shit of all shits! If you hadn’t married Jamie, none of this would be happening.”
Millicent decided at that moment that she would leave, find a place in the world where Parker would never learn the truth, a place where her secret would be safe. That is, until the time was right to reveal it.
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