by Gaja J. Kos
He’d seen that his secrecy hurt her—he wasn’t that big a tosser to pretend otherwise—but despite being unable to give her what she needed, Lily had never pressed. Never demanded more.
She was simply there for him, her silent support a lifeline that kept him from the darkness.
Even now.
And all of it made him feel even lousier about what he had to do.
“Lily, I’m not good for you,” he confessed. The words sounded laughable compared to all he wanted to say, but there was hardly anything more he had to offer. “But I want to be. Maybe in a month, three, a year… Christ, I don’t know how long it will take, but I want to clear the bullshit from my life before I welcome you in it. If you’ll still want me.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little late for that?” A sad half smile fell upon her lips. “Welcoming me into your life, I mean.”
It was. And he’d beaten himself over it to the point where it nearly drove him mad.
Meeting her. Getting to know the person behind those fuckable lips and intelligent eyes… It detached him from reality, sent him soaring.
Only to slap him in the face once he came back down.
He wanted her. Not because of that bloody garter belt or that exquisite expression that appeared on her face whenever he made her come.
He wanted Lily because in her, William found something he’d always longed for.
A lifelong companion.
A friend who knew him in and out, despite the secrets.
Lily had let him beyond her walls. Now he needed to kick himself in the arse until he could do the same.
He reached over and took her hand in his. “I’m sorry, Lily. More than I can say.”
“God, I wish I could be angry with you,” she whispered, eyes lined with silver. “But I’m not. I’ve seen how you get William. I fucking hate it, but if you feel this is what’s right for you…”
He kissed her before he could think about how deep down the rabbit hole he’d fallen.
15
Alley
She should have shoved him away. Tossed him on his bloody arse for having the audacity to cast her aside without as much as an explanation.
Instead, Lily kissed him back with all she had.
If this was to be their last time together, then she wouldn’t waste it by being brassed off. There would be more than enough opportunities for that after the night ended.
William’s hand touched her knee, then slid underneath the hem of her dress. Higher. He skimmed past the lace trim of her stockings, the tips of his fingers flirting dangerously with the apex of her thighs.
Fucking hell.
Everything about the way he touched and kissed her was intimate, gentle, yet at the same time saturated with barely leashed need that made her want to groan out loud. They were a potent mix just waiting to combust—and if they hadn’t been in the middle of a pub, they would have, too, those offensive trousers of his long gone, right alongside her panties.
William whispered something into her mouth, but Lily’s mind refused to translate the sound into any discernible words. All her senses were attuned to how he felt, towering over her body as they both backed deeper against the wall where the shadows wrapped around them and shielded them from sight.
“Do you want to?” he asked as they came up for air.
“What?”
Her voice was low, nothing more than a whisper as she fought the urge to unbutton that damn black shirt and run her hands across the silver curls adorning his chest.
“Do you want to be with me one last time, Lily?”
As if there was any question about it.
Still, William waited, although visibly strained, until she gave him a curt, eager dip of her chin.
The next minute—or maybe it had been two—passed in a blur. All Lily remembered was William tossing the money on the table and helping her slip into her coat. They pressed through the now-packed pub and emerged into the crisp night, but as fast as those street lamps bathed them in yellow light, the shadows returned.
It was only once her back landed against the wall that she realized he had taken her to an alley.
They seemed to be alone, but as his lips closed over hers again, it wouldn’t have mattered if they had an entire stadium watching them. She groaned into his mouth, her fingers fumbling with his belt for a second before she reached into his trousers and wrapped her hand around his thick, hard shaft. William thrust into her palm, his cock twitching as she increased the pressure—but even more so when his own fingers slipped into her panties and found her molten core.
Fuck, it felt good. He felt good.
His thumb played with her clit as he continued to stroke her, occasionally dipping inside and grazing her walls until she trembled. She knew that if he kept it up, she would orgasm so hard half of London would hear her.
“Do it, pet. I want to feel you come on my hand,” he whispered and placed a kiss on her neck.
Right before he clamped down on that fucking sensitive spot with his teeth.
Her orgasm hit her with such force it was only William’s strength that kept her standing.
Fucking hell…
She moaned his name, her gaze finding his—and erupted in another cascade of pleasure.
“That’s right.” His fingers kept working their devilish magic. “Give me more, love. I want it all.”
Shit, if she gave him any more, she was going to collapse. But William was relentless, working her clit and pumping his fingers until her orgasm extended, riding her harder than ever before.
With her back against the wall and those bloody elegant fingers inside her, Lily let go.
She couldn’t tell if this was the third climax or just one unbelievably brilliant roller-coaster of release, but she dropped her guard, her shields, and gave him what he wanted.
Gave him her all.
William swore as she came on his hand one last time, her thighs slick with her own pleasure. It was only when the haze cleared from her mind that she remembered her own fingers wrapped around his throbbing cock. But before she could even begin to return the favor, William lifted her up.
He ripped her flimsy, soaked panties into shreds as she settled her legs around his waist, then filled her in one hard thrust. She cried out, nails digging into his shoulders as his hips took on a wild, demanding rhythm.
Trapped between the cool caress of the bricks and the burning heat of the man in front of her, she writhed, her senses thrown in overdrive. Each thrust sent a new ripple of pleasure through her flesh, adding to that fucking sweet tension that had once again started to build up in her core.
Fuck. No one could ever make her come like him. No one had ever made her climax border so intensely on the verge of arousing pain. Again. And again.
He was impossibly big inside her, filling her to the point when she thought she couldn’t take any more.
But she did.
The stirrings of her own orgasm made William even harder, his cock so thick that even the smallest movement threatened to throw her overboard. But her body knew how to wait. How to extend the mind-shattering tension until William, too, was ready.
She always did love it how they came together.
How their pleasure became irrefutably linked, making it seem as if they really were one, not just two individuals looking for their own release.
“Fuck, I feel you, Lily. I feel you,” William rasped, their gazes meeting as his rhythm faltered ever so slightly. “Come with me, yeah?”
As he filled her one last time, she did.
And London heard their screams.
16
Bastard
He was a bastard. He was a rotten bloody bastard who liked fucking young girls in back alleys then telling them to get lost.
Fuck.
If he thought his relationship with Trisha was the lowest point in his life, he’d been dead wrong. Taking Lily like that… Christ, it was the most disrespectful thing he’d ever done.
Ye
t at the same time, William knew what had happened in the alley had been as much her choice as it had been his. And regardless of how much he hated himself for even thinking this way, he couldn’t deny that it had also felt right.
The sex, not the leaving.
He ran his hands through his hair, standing before his building and seriously contemplating running all the way to Lily’s place to tell her that he was a sorry sod who wanted to take it all back. He’d beg for forgiveness, if he had to.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
What he’d done, he’d done it for a reason.
The same fucking one that just materialized from the inky darkness on his right, scaring the shit out of him.
“Hello, William,” Trisha drawled, her jaw thrust slightly forward as it always was when she wanted something. How he ever thought that was attractive was beyond him…
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he snapped, trying to control his erratic pulse.
No such luck.
“Waiting for you.” A coy smile lingered on Trisha’s lips, but her pale blue eyes were icy. Like her bloody heart. “I came for that hard drive you still owe me.”
It took him several moments to even realize what she was referring to. Right. Their vacation photos from all those years ago, filled with false smiles and memories he’d rather erase from his mind entirely.
Somehow, Trisha had conveniently forgotten to take those when she finally cleared out of his apartment. As she had a glass vase. Then her old, beat-up bicycle. Then a selection of books he was fairly certain had never even been hers in the first place.
At the rate her requests were coming, it would be another five years before she collected everything she’d manage to think of.
Unfortunately, it was easier to just hand the shit over than go through another one of her tantrums. He drew his keys from his pocket, but stopped right before he opened the door.
What was he doing? Was he really going to let her in? Again?
This was precisely why he’d pushed away the single woman who brought meaning back into his life. He had to break the cycle if he ever wanted to even stand a chance with Lily—stand a chance with himself, actually.
But right now?
He wasn’t ready to face the consequences.
Trisha would unlock the floodgates of shitville until it dragged him under if he turned her away, and William wasn’t certain if he could take it. Submitting himself to his ex’s presence for a couple of hours seemed like the lesser of two evils. The one that wouldn’t make him drink until he was plastered enough that all that was left was for him to pass out.
Or so he hoped.
“What?” she barked, the false sweetness slipping from her tone faster than a drunk on a slippery road. “Don’t want me seeing your floozy’s things all over the flat, Will? Thought you’d get her out of your system after four months. Or are you still fucking her to add a few more ego-stroking articles to your name?”
His reply burned the tip of his tongue, but he shoved it down. He knew better than to take the bait. Regardless of how much he ached to defend Lily.
“So, what, you’re one of those men who date prepubescent girls now?” She grimaced. “What’s the catch? A shaved pussy and her parents to keep you company and chat about old times?”
He would not take the bait. He would not take the bait.
He just had to keep repeating that to himself.
“I don’t think you coming up is a good idea, Trish,” he said evenly. “It’s been a long day. And if you want something from the flat or me, our lawyers will make the exchange.”
“Really?” Her hand snaked around his wrist, yanking him back as he turned to walk away. “I let my fucking career, what would have been the best years of my life, go to waste because nothing could hold the fucking prodigy photographer down, and you won’t even take the time to hand over my shit? After all I’ve done for you, Will?”
Tremors snaked through his insides, the familiarity of the situation tightening his stomach into a nauseating knot.
So many times.
They had done this so many times, all of them ending with him bruised and her throwing things against the walls.
Again, an apology crawled up his throat, cold sweat soaking his shirt while his mind felt as if it were being torn in two.
“I never asked you to give up your career.” The words were out before he could stop them. “I might have been a shit partner who didn’t know what you needed because you refused to communicate those things with me, but I never told you to pass up any opportunity on my account. I wasn’t the one who suggested we should relocate when you got that better offer. It wasn’t my fault none of the flats were good enough. Or that you started acting like a brat because you didn’t feel like commuting like the rest of us peons had to.
“For Christ’s sake, you used my credit cards to pay for all the hotels you hired with your bloody lovers when you were supposedly too knackered to drive back home. Because having sex all night was less exhausting than sitting behind the wheel for an hour. And it certainly wasn’t me who asked you to fuck that painter and compromise your position at the gallery. I’m not the reason they fired you.” He exhaled. “Everything that happened, Trish, it was you.”
It was the truth, down to the last painful detail, but he never had the guts to say it to her face. He’d tried, once, but was cut off when Trisha smashed his camera in retaliation, then cried uncle as he attempted to contain her before her outburst turned into a full-blown rampage and wrecked their rented flat. She had threatened to report him for the small bruise blooming on her bicep, obviously not caring that the only reason it was even there was because she had been littering his own body with blotches of violet and blue.
Something—something broke deep inside him.
Fuck. For all those years, he believed that kind of relationship was normal. That he was doing something wrong, making her miserable. She wouldn’t have said those things if they weren’t true, if he didn’t deserve to hear them…
Bile burned at the back of his throat. For a moment, he thought he might throw up, but his body was too catatonic to even manage that.
He’d believed her. Believed he didn’t offer her enough freedom—that he crowded her with his affection and attention alike. A bloody arse who should consider himself lucky she even put up with him.
It was only with Lily that he began to understand just how toxic Trisha had been. How seriously he needed to get his shit together if he didn’t want his past to drag down something that had the potential to be outstanding.
Yeah, he knew that. But it hadn’t hit him just how truly fucked up all of it was. Until now.
Telling Trisha his mind, not accepting the blame for something he never did… It was a start.
Unfortunately, his ex disagreed.
The slap came out of nowhere.
His cheek stung, stomach rolling as all those memories he desperately wanted to bury came flooding to the surface all at once.
Trisha wasn’t finished. It was never over this fast.
“You bastard,” she screeched, making a move for his balls.
He spun out of the way, clamping down hard on the impulse to fight back even as the nausea grew worse. As his entire body shook. Trisha advanced again, her fingers digging into his arm and her jaw set hard.
“You won’t send me away like I’m some—”
Her words cut off abruptly as a voice sliced through the night.
“Get the fuck away from him before your charges get any worse than they already are.”
17
The Deepest Circle of Hell
William had said he wanted to be left alone, and that was precisely what Lily planned to do. He would call when he was ready. If he was ever ready.
But that was his decision to make.
With that in mind, she left the alley—and the man—behind. She had every intention of heading back home and opening a bottle of wine to soothe the sting of their par
ting. Maybe even put on some Lana del Rey, give it a good cry and all that. Yeah, it definitely sounded like a plan.
She was nearly halfway to her flat when she realized she couldn’t actually get home. She swore, biting back the burn of tears. Now wasn’t this just lovely?
Her keys weren’t in her handbag. Or in any of her pockets.
Either she’d dropped them in that alley while William was ravaging her senseless, or she hadn’t taken them with her at all.
It wasn’t like she had been in her right mind before meeting William, exactly—and with her door locking automatically, it was more than fair to assume she had forgotten to slip the keys into her handbag. Ah, balls…
Her mood growing fouler by the second, she caught a taxi, gave the driver William’s address, and hoped to god the man had gone home and not on a bender. With Audrey out of town for the weekend and him the only one who had a spare set, she was fucked if she couldn’t find him.
Or, well, sentenced to shell out money she really didn’t have on a hotel.
Bloody hell, she didn’t even have panties, thanks to William ripping them apart.
Still, the thought of materializing on his doorstep grazed her insides. It was just too awkward, too raw. And what if he thought she was doing it on purpose? Finding excuses just to see him again? God that would have been humiliating…
Staying at a hotel started to sound like a bloody great idea, but by the time she’d almost made up her mind and blurted out a new address, the taxi pulled over on the bus stop opposite William’s building.
All it took was one split second.
One split second in which everything changed.
All this time, she trusted William to handle his own problems. She wasn’t a busybody, and she had zero desire to force herself onto his private matters, regardless of how difficult it was to keep herself at a distance.
