Love with Every Beat

by K. L. Shandwick

  Drew got beside me as soon as I was back with the group. “Dude, I knew this wasn’t going to work.” Biting my lip but staring at Lily, and watching that guy hanging over her was taking all of my restraint.

  “She is so full of bullshit, Drew, I’ve just had her in my arms, I’ve just felt what I do to her, what she does to me, this thing here,” nodding my head at them, “this is merely an intermission, dude. I’m not giving up she’d be fucking miserable with that guy instead of me.”

  Ignoring Zoe for most of the night, I conceded to dance with her before we went home. As soon as I did, Lily and Luca ceased the opportunity to leave. When I found out they were gone I was incensed.

  Lily was being true to form. When she didn’t like something she left…always fucking left. Never facing whatever was difficult all the time. Thinking about her being with that turd, Luca, there was no salacious smile for him, like the one she gave me.

  No goose flesh when he was holding her, I actually watched for that. It convinced me that she wasn’t feeling what she felt when I touched her. Any feelings that guy could draw out of her we nothing compared to the chemistry she had with me. And, if Lily was willing to settle for less I sure wasn’t.

  Holly was on the dance floor with Brett and her cell was lying on the table. Seeing it light up and vibrate, my attention was drawn to it. Lily’s ID was displaying, she’d sent a text. Before I knew what I was doing, I was reading the display as the whole text registered as it came through at the top of the screen.

  Lily Parnell: Just letting you know I’m home…alone. Luca drew a line tonight.

  With disbelief I stared at the cell, thinking, did I just see what I thought I had? Now, not one for believing in fate and all that hippy, happy clappy shit, but maybe there was a message in it, an omen. Maybe, I was more of hippy than I let on.

  There was no hesitation, I had Holly’s apartment door keys out of her purse, dragged Des aside and told him Zoe was going home with him and was heading out of the club.

  Des came running after me. “Don’t be so fucking stupid, Alfie. Get a grip on yourself. You’re acting like a fucking mad man. Think rationally about this. You can’t go waltzing into her apartment without an invite, dude, you are setting yourself up for a stalking charge,” he reasoned.

  “Thanks for the advice, Oprah, but I got this.” Snickering, I stared him down. Des let go of my jacket. “It’s your funeral, Alfie, bear that in mind,” he shouted.

  “Indeed,” I threw over my shoulder after him.

  Chapter 49 – Keys

  Grabbing a cab, I was lucky there was only the security guys on the door and one couple outside when I left. The guy did a double take, and must have decided that his girl would be too engrossed in me, because he left me alone.

  Arriving at the apartment block, the doorman, Tom gave me a look, and I waved the keys at him.

  “Lily’s upstairs and Holly gave me her keys, dude.” With that snippet of information Tom wouldn’t be warning Lily I was on my way. In the elevator, my emotions went through a rapid fire catalogue of possible reactions from Lily from, “What the fuck are you doing here?” And to the other extreme with, “Oh my God I love you.”

  After running through about twenty more and my possible answers I was feeling that number one was the most likely outcome. However, I still felt I had to try.

  Opening the door, the pulse in my neck was ticking wildly and my mouth was dry. I was either going to pull off the coup of the century or get arrested. Wiping my palms on my jeans, I headed to the bedroom. I could hear sounds like sniffling and realized Lily was crying.

  Lily was lying in bed covered by a sheet, sobbing quietly when I opened the bedroom door.

  “I’m fine Holly, just leave me alone,” she sniffed and I walked around to the side she was facing. Sitting down beside her I hesitated, then placed my hand gently on her back.

  Seeing her, and hearing her sounding so miserable because of me was tearing me apart. I knew she was frightened about us, and that was why she fought so fucking hard not to love me, but this was bigger than the both of us.

  She threw the sheet back and struggled hurriedly into a sitting position.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” Shock clearly registering on Lily’s face.

  “I knew you needed me,” I said quietly because the emotion of what I was doing and the chance I was taking was making me a desperate man. Lily shook her head, and I knew if she got out of the bed, then any chance I had of making her listen to me would be lost. So I pushed her gently back against her pillow and leaned over her, my hands caging her in on either side, my face close to hers.

  “Alfie you’re the last person I needed tonight. How did you get in here?”

  “Holly’s phone was on the table in the club when your text arrived. Her keys were in her purse. I saw the text was from you and read the text as it displayed when it came through. So I took her keys. I wanted to know if you were okay.”

  “I was okay until I saw you again, Alfie. My life was coming together and now you’re back—here, in my bedroom, giving me the same mind fuck that you always do.”

  “No, Lily. I gave up that particular line of pursuit with you a long time ago. My life has been a meaningless without you. I. Can’t. Fucking. Live. Without. You. I don’t want to,” I whispered softly.

  Searching her eyes, I was willing her to believe me and give me a chance.

  “I fucking know you love me, Lily. Don’t try to deny it.” I gripped her arms, willing her to admit it.

  Placing her hands on my chest, she pushed me backwards and sat up at the same time. I took her face in my hands and pulled her toward me, my face only a few inches from hers, and I stared into her eyes.

  “Say it, damn it. The truth. You need to tell me you feel the same way as I do.” Staring intensely at each other, I was determined this time. She wasn’t running, and she wasn’t giving me her bullshit party line response on this.

  Slowly tears choked my throat and rolled down my face. Frankly, by that point I couldn’t give a fuck if the queen saw me crying. I didn’t blink just let them well and run down my face. “Please…” I mouthed silently and swallowed hard.

  Lily caught a tear on my cheek with her forefinger, and I caught her hand and brought her finger to my lips, kissing her finger and the tear away.

  Closing her eyes, Lily exhaled, “Of course I love you. There’s never been anyone else to love since you.” She began to sob as her confession rolled off her tongue.

  When she finally said it, I couldn’t believe I had heard her properly.

  “Say it again!” Sitting open mouthed, I cupped her face again. Desperate to hear it again because I was worried I thought I had just made it up in my mind because I wanted it so badly.

  “I love you with everything I am, Alfie. It doesn’t mean we’re going to be together again.” She shook her head slowly, and her tone was flat.

  I closed my eyes, “No. Fuck. Lily. Don’t do this. Don’t throw away our last chance to be together. What do I have to do? Name it. I can’t live without you. I’ll do whatever it takes to have you in my life.”

  She looked concerned. “Sure you can do it, Alfie. You have Zoe now. She’s a lovely girl.” Standing up and running my hands through my hair, I then shoved both hands in his pockets.

  “I’m sad that I might hurt her, but she knows the score. She isn’t you, Lily. I can’t and won’t be without you again. I can’t bear not seeing you. Not touching you.” I paused, thinking and shaking my head.

  “The thought of some guy touching you, Lily. Touching what’s mine.” I shook my head again, my closed fist banging on my chest. “Doing things I should be doing with you…to you. Please, I can’t…” I whispered.

  Crying softly, both of us were dealing with our own personal demons. For Lily, the girl had driven me crazy, but I deserved it, because I’d been downright nasty in the beginning. I couldn’t blame her for not believing me, all the other shit had disappeared from my life, but
now she was scared of the music.

  Kneeling in front of her I grasped her hand.

  Placing her palm over my heart. My heart was beating rapidly, the panic of what I was doing, had my adrenaline flowing. Lily sat expressionless staring at me. So I stood up and pulled my t- shirt from my pants and pulled it over my head. Taking her small, soft hand again, I placed her palm back at the center of my chest.

  “Alfie…”

  Glaring at her, I said, “Shush.”

  Staring intensely into her eyes, I said, “You feel that? You feel my skin? How warm my body is? You feel my strong heart beating inside of me?”

  “I do,” she said deadpan.

  “My heart beats strongly, because you are in my heart. My skin is warm, because you are under it. You. Own. Me. You are my heart. If you choose not to be, everything stops. I can’t go on without you. Each day without you, I die a little more.”

  She looked panicked. “Alfie, you have your life, and I have mine.”

  “Bullshit, Lily. I don’t want my fucking life if you aren’t in it. Can’t I get that through your thick skull? This fucking stops now. Today. I am not doing this shit with you another minute.” I wagged my finger.

  Pointing at her. “You’re mine,” then pointing at myself, “And I am yours, Lily. We’re never going to be over.”

  “Tell me Alfie, what do you see happening if we did this?” she frowned, because she just didn’t get it.

  “We’d be happy for a start,” I said flatly.

  “Sure we would…at first.” Lily waited for more reasons.

  “We’d have fun, make music, travel, settle down, have babies, and have a hell-of-a- time making those babies,” I smirked.

  “Yeah? Exactly how do we both make music? I’m in a band that’s going in one direction, and you’re going in another.”

  That was the one part that had taken up a huge amount of my thoughts lately.

  “Don’t you see? It’s even better than where we’ve been before?” Lily shook her head looking puzzled.

  “Enlighten me.”

  “You get on great with the guys in my band. They’re all cool guys in your band. We’d have a blast touring together. You’d get time to spend with Elle on the road, play music, and be with me.” I could see her digesting it.

  “Okay, so you just go to the record label and say, ‘Oh by the way, XrAid is going to be the resident supporting band for Crakt Soundzz from now on?’”

  Smirking because this was where I got to be Alfie Black, the rock star, I said, “Fuck, Lily, I’m in the hottest band in the world right now, I could tell the ‘suits’ I’ll only speak to them if they are dressed in chicken suits and pretending to peck on corn from the floor when I walk in the room, and they’d do it.”

  She grinned at that thought. “Well Alfie you have this all figured out in your mind, don’t you?”

  Smirking again, I replied, “Don’t ask, you don’t get.” Putting on my thick southern accent and rubbed my chin, trying for a bit of light relief in this heavy conversation.

  “What about everyone else involved, Alfie? This is what you want. What about what everyone else wants?”

  Scowling, I rubbed my hands together. “I’m sure what’s best for me is best for the band.” Lily sighed.

  “What about XrAid, Alfie? The guys have free will. They won’t want to hang with you guys all the time. It might work in the early days, but what if…what if…we get to be just as successful in our own right? We won’t be supporting anymore and then there are two lots of tours to negotiate. Are we all going to be all cozy on one bus? How do we travel? How do you envision all of us taking turns with the one big room on the tour bus?”

  Growling, I snapped, “Stop! Just fucking stop, will you? Your need to know the end of the movie frustrates the fuck out of me. What we have right here is a love song. People would sing about us until the fucking cows came home. We have a once in a lifetime thing right here. That’s not enough for you to throw caution to the wind?”

  By then I was ranting, “Oh no. You’re going on about fucking buses and sharing bedrooms, and…and…jeez, you’re fucking crazy. You ought to be certified, girl.”

  Pacing the room while I thought, Lily started giggling.

  “Now it’s funny…you think this is fucking funny, Lily?” She stopped laughing and looked at me seriously.

  “I don’t think it’s funny at all, apart from the part where you abandoned your girlfriend, stole someone’s keys and intruded on my privacy by breaking into my home. You came into my bedroom, and I’m the one who’s certifiable?”

  “I didn’t break in, I had a key remember?” Throwing myself on the bed, I lay on my side with my head raised up on my elbow.

  “I love you, Lily Parnell. Me. Alfie Black. And. You. Love. Me. Back. I fucking know you do. We’ll find a way. You need to take that stick out of your ass and beat yourself with it. I’m never going to leave you alone, Lily. You need to let yourself take that leap of faith and get by my side.”

  “Get off the bed, Alfie.” She was smirking, so I grinned and played into that. “Or? What? You’ll get down here with me?”

  “You need to leave Alfie. I don’t want you here. You have a girlfriend, and I’ve made enough mistakes since I met you. What happened at our launch night should never have happened. Zoe doesn’t deserve it.”

  Standing up, I said, “You’re right. I need her to go.”

  “Just like that, huh?” Lily’s tone sound sarcastic.

  Spinning around to face her, I replied, “You think? She knows the deal. She just doesn’t know that you’re the one.”

  Lily’s mouth was a silent ‘O’ until she collected herself. “You told her you love someone else, and she’s with you anyway?”

  Nodding, I said, “Things are rarely what they seem, Lily. You should know that about me by now. Zoe knows the score. I’ve never lied to her. Our relationship is built on sex.” Lily walked to her front door.

  Grabbing the handle she flung it the door open, “Get out.”

  Folding my arms, I stared arrogantly. “Why? Is it because I’m having sex with Zoe?”

  “No Alfie, it’s because the poor girl has fallen for your ‘fuck buddy’ lines, except this time, you’ve used me as the excuse why she shouldn’t love you.”

  Pulling my bottom lip, I pretended to think, “Nope, not the same… and Zoe…she doesn’t love me.”

  Lily hugged herself, and I could see how this situation was affecting her. She was reliving a lot of what had happened to us.

  “Listen, we could do this all day, Alfie, but I’d rather not.”

  Smirking, I said, “I can think of better things to do with you instead, as well.” I was smiling at her, because I could see she was starting to get worn down by our conversation and her tone was changing.

  Sighing, she said, “Just go, Alfie.” Seeing the couch, I walked over and planted myself down heavily, thrusting my hands deep into the pockets of my leather jacket and shook my head.

  “Nah, I can’t do that, Lily. This might be my one shot at making you see sense and getting you back.” I smirked but had never said anything more serious in my life.

  Lily sat down near me, and we stared at each other in a silence that was so loaded neither of us could breathe property. I was completely fucking obsessed with her. Everyone and everything paled in comparison to Lily.

  “You’re so fucking stunning. I know you’ve heard me say that before, but right now? Damn it, Lily. I’m blown away by you. You get more fucking beautiful with every year that passes.”

  I was meant to be there fighting for all that we meant to each other and yet, I couldn’t stop myself from lusting after her.

  Feeling her mood change, Lily touched her lips gently, and I knew she wanted me.

  “You want me to kiss you?” When she closed her eyes I knew that was exactly what she was thinking. I was so attuned to Lily’s body and her responses. Her eyes flicked to my lips then to my eyes. “No,” she squeaked,
lying to me.

  “I want to kiss you, Lily. I want to kiss you so fucking badly. I want to kiss you everywhere. I want to feel your fabulous ass in my hands as your pubic bone grinds against me, and your heels and nails dig into my butt in your effort to draw me closer. I want to strip you bare and lay you down in front of me. Look at you until I’ve teased myself so much that I can’t keep my hands off of you. I want to taste you, devour you. I want to tease and pleasure you, until you’re screaming my name and pulling my hair, while you drag those same fingernails down my back.”

  Swallowing hard with emotion and whispered, “Most of all, I just want to be with you and love you and for you to want to be with me and love me back.”

  Lily leaning forward on the couch then stood. For all our flaws, we did love each other desperately. There was no doubt in my mind about that.

  Suddenly she pushed me back on the couch and straddled me. In a split second my hands skimmed up her tank top and cupped my breasts, and I was kissing her—a kiss that affected me so deep in my soul. “Oh. God… God,” I growled, as my body vibrated at her touch.

  Stripping her of her top, I threw it behind me, while my hands went back to the soft, firm flesh of her breasts.

  Moving swiftly from the couch to the floor I pinned her on her back, and took my weight on my forearms, cocooning her head in them.

  Gazing into her eyes, I could see the mental shift happening right before my eyes, all the pain and anguish was dissipating, and she was going to be mine.

  Kissing her hungrily, she kissed me back, in a kiss so loaded with need we became breathless, and then slowed to a tender languishing one. When I broke the kiss, I asked, “Do you know how much I wanted to do that to you earlier in the club? I wanted to wipe that fucking guy’s taste from your mouth.”

  Swallowing, Lily, stopped me, “Don’t…” My mouth crushed hers again, my tongue exploring her. God, I had missed the taste of her.