Lily in Bloom

by Morgan Ash bury

  "Who the hell do you think you are barging in on a man that way? And who the hell are you, anyway?"

  Lily smiled. “Ms. Hardy, Children's Aid, please meet Ryan Kincaid. As you can see, there is absolutely nothing minor about him."

  Lily couldn't say who, of the three people in her kitchen with her, appeared the most shocked.

  "You're Ryan Kincaid?” The cop's voice dripped with disbelief

  Lily could see Ryan putting two and two together very quickly.

  "Wait here,” he ordered as he turned and raced back upstairs. No one in the kitchen moved, or said a word. Lily didn't know if she wanted to laugh or cry. A burning sensation began in her stomach, and for a moment, she thought that she might be sick. But the moment passed, and in the place of nausea a fine, shimmering anger grew.

  Ryan returned in less than three minutes. He'd pulled on his clean jeans. In his hand, he held his wallet. Opening it, he tossed three things onto the table: his driver's license, his health card, and a credit card.

  "If you need to see my passport, I'll have to go next door, to my house, and get it."

  Constable Ross picked up Ryan's driver's license, examining it closely. “If you live next door, why are you showering here?"

  "None of your fucking business."

  Lily slowly got to her feet. “Obviously, your unimpeachable source is quite impeachable. I would suggest, very strongly, that you both leave here. Now."

  When Ms. Hardy looked as if she would argue further, the Constable simply shook his head. “This has been a mistake. There's no crime here. I'm sorry for the inconvenience."

  The intruders left, leaving Lily alone with Ryan. She could tell he was still pissed by his breathing.

  "I ... I don't know what to say. How to apologize to you for—"

  "Don't you dare apologize for what just happened here."

  "I think I really do have to apologize. There's only one person who could have been responsible for this. Remember my mother's phone call, and her nasty accusation? But ... but I thought she only said that to get under my skin. I never thought she actually believed...” Lily sat down because she had begun to shake. She was so grateful when Ryan sat next to her and put his arms around her.

  "That cop didn't get rough with you, did he?"

  She heard the concern in his voice, and didn't think, all things considered, that she deserved it. “A little pushy, but nothing, really."

  "You promised me tea and cookies."

  Lily looked up then and her gaze locked with Ryan's. She couldn't hold back the tears, and when he gathered her more tightly into his arms, she clung to him. And cried silent tears of misery onto his chest.

  * * * *

  "I don't know what to do,” Lily said quietly.

  Ryan helped himself to another sugar cookie, breaking it in half, dipping one piece into his tea. Popping the sodden cookie into his mouth, he considered the situation. He didn't know what to do, either. But his concern wasn't so much what to do about Lily's mother, as the woman herself. He could see her sliding into a pit of guilt and shame. He needed a rope to yank her out.

  "Well, we ignored the real estate episode, thinking that she might call and you could act as if nothing at all had happened. A harmless stunt, that."

  "And this wasn't so harmless."

  "I don't think I have a word strong enough in my vocabulary for what she just did to you."

  "Me? You're the one violated. So to speak."

  "Big deal. Some sexually repressed broad saw my cock. Your own mother, on the other hand, set you up. What if I hadn't been here? What if that cop had arrested you?” Just the thought of it had Ryan's stomach churning. He'd been arrested once, in his younger days. It had been a mistake, but before that mistake had been ironed out, he'd been stripped and searched. The cops hadn't been overly nice about it, either. Thinking of Lily being put through that infuriated him.

  "The important thing is you were here, and I wasn't arrested."

  But she had been humiliated. Ryan could still see the remnants of it on her face. He knew it would be a long, long time before memories of today would come easy.

  "What do you want to do?"

  "Well, there's what I want to do and what I can do. I want to go right over to my mother's house and smack her across the face. And that shames me."

  "You'd never do that, really. But to want to? Who wouldn't? Don't let the urge shame you, sweetheart. It's a natural enough one.” One, in fact, Ryan had entertained briefly, himself.

  "In the past, she would interfere, harass, and insult, until everyone close to me agreed with her. But she's never done anything like this before. Did she think, somehow, that causing trouble for me would push you away?"

  "If that's her plan, she's doomed to failure."

  He waited until Lily looked him in the eye. “Nothing, and no one, could ever make me turn away from you, sweetheart."

  He saw it in her eyes, the emotion, and the response that he had been hoping for. All things considered, he didn't mind being the one to say it first. And it would be a first. He'd never said these words to a woman before.

  Swallowing his pride, he picked up her hand and kissed it. “I love you, Lily. I love you almost beyond reason."

  He watched as tears filled her eyes. The smile that began to spread across her face warmed him to his very soul.

  "I love you, too. I thought to just have an affair with you. But I love you so much. Will you hold on to me? I need to feel your arms around me. I need to feel safe there, knowing you love me."

  "Come here, sweetheart."

  This need went beyond sex. Ryan scooped her onto his lap and enfolded her within his arms. He needed this, too. This closeness of heart, soul and spirit. This unity of two into one. Together, they forged a fortress against the rest of the world that could sometimes be cruel and unfair.

  "We love each other, Lily. As long as you hang onto that, then no one and nothing can touch us."

  Chapter 14

  For Lily, nothing could overshadow the glorious bloom of being in love. What Ryan had said—that some people refused to see the positive—kept playing over and over in her mind. By the next day, she realized she'd turned a corner when at last she understood. In the past, whenever her mother expressed disappointment, accusing her of whatever flaw struck her fancy, Lily would allow the hurt and the guilt to eat away at her, and to cow her. But now, she could look back over her life with new eyes, seeing through the layers of quilt and acquiescence.

  Lily never had been the cause of her mother's coldness. Finally gratefully, she let go of the past.

  She felt remade, and free. Though late summer, it could have been spring for the emotions coursing through her. Her life stretched ahead of her with endless possibilities.

  Ryan had returned to his own place for a few hours. He needed to work, and while she enjoyed every minute spent with him and knew he felt the same, they each appreciated time alone. Lily used hers to take care of the household chores. As she did her housework this day, she performed more than just routine cleaning. As she worked, she envisioned the possibilities. Oh, she had ideas of things she could do to this house, painting and decorating and freshening that would make it perfect—that would make it hers. Styles she'd always loved but had never been able to embrace, whims she'd had to ignore, whatever she wanted to do, she could do.

  Perhaps she always could have done so. Perhaps all she ever would have had to do in the past was to put her foot down, stand up for herself, and refuse to be intimidated, or dominated. But she had never believed in herself before. Lily laughed right out loud, and didn't care. She didn't have to look far to know why she believed in herself now.

  Because Ryan truly loved her, truly believed in her, she could love and believe in herself. She had confidence in herself as a person. She felt ... God, she felt like a whole woman for the first time in her life!

  New horizons didn't have to be about doing, after all. They could just as easily be about being. Each new dawn br
ought a wonderful new day. Life was, finally and at last, something to be lived.

  Everything in her home would be renewed and fresh and vital, and she would begin at the top and work her way down. Filled with energy, she gathered cleaning supplies and garbage bags and ran up to the second story, then up the small staircase to the attic. So what if she decided to do spring cleaning in August? She could do any damn thing she pleased.

  "Oh, my."

  She'd avoided the attic before today, and now she wondered if she hadn't suspected that here awaited a job with a capital ‘J'.

  Boxes had been stacked on top of boxes, taking up nearly every bit of floor space—of which there was not a great deal to begin with.

  She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. Scent, she knew, formed the strongest and oldest memory. She could recall coming up here with her grandfather when she'd been little more than a child. It smelled exactly the same now, as then. This scent Lily would forever associate with that man she could barely otherwise remember. Perhaps, she thought, this was the scent of history, of roots. Opening her eyes, she surveyed the cramped space. Two old steamer trunks had been tucked under the eaves, and Lily wondered if she would find treasures within, or only trash. Some of the cartons looked brand new, and she thought Uncle Mark had done a bit of cleaning and organizing of his own before he died.

  Sitting on the landing, she pulled one of the newer boxes closer, and opened it. She would make three piles, she decided. What she would keep, what she would donate to some charity, and what could be thrown away.

  This first box contained papers, mostly correspondence addressed to her grandmother. Since the letters had been sent to Millicent Robertson, she thought most of them might be trash. But she found a few items concerning the Women's Institute, the Garden Club, and the Ladies’ Auxiliary at the church that the local heritage society might want. A stack of letters tied together with a ribbon caught her eye. A quick flip through showed them all addressed to her grandmother from someone named Corrine Westerly of Toronto. At the bottom of the box, a leather-bound book waited. Curious, Lily pulled it out. No title or etching graced the outside of it. But she had only to open the cover to know what she held.

  Dated January 1950, this diary had belonged to Eloise Robertson—Lily's mother.

  * * * *

  All the time that Ryan worked to finish up his current software program, anger grew within him. He couldn't seem to let it go.

  He'd been eleven when his own mother had died, the result of a car accident. He remembered homemade soup on cold winter days and fresh chocolate chip cookies after school. He remembered that even when there wasn't much money about, his mother managed to make a fine Christmas. He remembered being cuddled in the wake of nightmares, and having his forehead bathed through the night when he'd been very sick with measles.

  And he realized Lily likely had been given none of those kinds of memories. Ryan had always held that parents, being parents, deserved respect. But now he had to rethink that view. How could anyone respect a mother who would accuse falsely, or out of spite? Had it indeed truly been spite, or did Lily's mother really believe a false impression John had fed her?

  Lily had decided to do nothing in response to her mother's actions. And on principal, he agreed with her. If the old bat wanted to stir trouble between the two of them, the best response would be to act as if her interference meant nothing at all.

  However, he was having a hell of a hard time letting it go. Someone had attacked the woman he loved, and he needed to do something. If the villain had been a man, he'd have already sought the bastard out and punched him in the face. But of course, he couldn't do that to Lily's mother.

  It wouldn't hurt, though, to see how much information he could get on the woman. He had a vague notion of where she lived, but no idea what she looked like. He wanted specifics. He excelled at finding answers, and investigating. And while in investigator mode, he'd snoop out the particulars on her ex-husband, too.

  If trouble came looking for them again, he wanted to damn well be ready for it.

  * * * *

  "How did I ever manage to live without a pool before now?"

  "My question would be how did you manage to live without swimming naked before? You seem very comfortable in your skin these days, my Lily."

  Floating on her back with her eyes closed, she smiled. She was comfortable in her skin, and not just when it came to skinny-dipping. “Mmm, I am. This is the only way to decompress after a heavy day of attic cleaning."

  "No, it's not."

  "All right, I'll rephrase that. This is the only way to begin to decompress."

  Lily sensed him coming closer, even with her eyes still closed. When she felt his touch, a hand caressing a breast, it didn't startle her at all. She simply enjoyed.

  "So if this is the beginning, what comes next?” The airflow from his huskily whispered question vibrated against her wet nipple. His sucking, as always, aroused her. Reaching out, reaching down, she stroked his already hard cock.

  "This time,” she replied, “you're going to be the one tied up."

  Getting out of the pool, they dried quickly. Then Lily took his hand, leading him inside. She'd chosen the bedroom. She'd been planning this for most of the afternoon. She'd made certain preparations ahead of time, confident that he would let her have her way with him.

  He certainly didn't disappoint her.

  She used some braided cords she found in the attic. The drapes they'd been attached to she'd trashed, but the cords themselves felt soft, silky, and despite their age, still had incredible strength. Ryan looked good, spread out on her bed, each arm tied to the headboard, each leg leashed to a leg of the bed.

  Over his eyes, she tied a black, silken scarf.

  "So ... what's my safe word?"

  Lily raised one eyebrow. “Do you need one?” And she ran a hand down over his chest and continued on to gently to stroke his groin.

  "Well ... you know ... in the interest of fair play."

  She bent over him and laid her mouth on his. Her tongue dipped and teased his, then licked the corner of his mouth.

  "Very well. Your safe word is ‘fair play.’”

  Lily had never had a man at her mercy before. She'd never had someone trust her so completely, or hand control over to her so totally. Doing so, he'd given her the most incredible high she'd ever known. Not a feeling of power, so much, as a sense of empowerment. Ryan had been the first, the only, who treated her as a person of value. He asked for everything, but was willing to give everything in return.

  She could give him all that she held in her heart, and he would cherish the gift.

  She opened the bedside table drawer, and withdrew the first item she'd secreted there. Long, lush, and purple, the feather had caught her fancy. She used it now to gently trace, back and forth, from one male nipple to the other.

  "Soft,” he said, then frowned.

  She understood his frown, totally. “Yes, you may speak freely. I've never done this before. I want to know how it feels ... what you think ... what you want."

  She giggled when he squirmed as the feather brushed against his armpits. She licked and nibbled his nipples while she used the feather to caress his cock and scrotum, She purred in pleasure when his hips strained. How alike they behaved in this, their sex seeking the touch of the other even when that seeking was thwarted.

  "I've been thinking a long time about this,” Lily confessed as she reached into the drawer. “You kept repeating that word ‘everything,’ and hearing it over and over again opened the door to my imagination.” She pulled out one of the toys she'd borrowed from the barn. A piece of leather, about five inches long and two wide, she'd tested it on the inside of her arm that very afternoon.

  She let one finger trail from the base of his cock to the knob. How beautifully swollen the head, how rigid the shaft. Truly glorious, half pink, half beige, and all hers. She waited until Ryan groaned in bliss. Then she brought the strap down on his hip.

 
"Shit.” He cursed and jumped at the same time.

  "I begin to see the appeal in this. How did that feel?"

  "Do it again."

  "Some place, a bit more sensitive, maybe.” As she continued to stroke his cock, she brought the strap down on the inside of his right thigh.

  "Fuck, that's ... different."

  "Unpleasant?"

  "Not entirely."

  She knew the truth of his words, for his cock had hardened and strained perceptibly.

  "I'll use it again, but you won't know when until it happens."

  Getting up from the bed, she walked over to her dresser and picked up her digital camera.

  "Your cock is very photogenic."

  She smiled when he frowned, as he considered, she imagined, being on the other end of the lens. “Especially when I use the zoom,” she added, delighted with his blush. Setting the camera aside, she took another item from a cup on her dresser, then detoured into the bathroom for the bottle of massage oil, that she'd set in a bowl of warm water. Sitting again on the edge of the bed, her left hand enveloped his cock, and began a slow, measured stroking.

  "I love the feel of your cock in my hand. It's so hot and hard, yet the skin is silky soft. Mmm, it is so very, very hot and getting hotter. Oh, and Ryan? Don't come."

  "Sweetheart, that feels wonderful, so good ... holy shit!"

  Lily held an ice cube against his shaft, and began to slide it up and down. Her fingers stroked against his flesh and against his belly and aroused him. The ice cube, she held between her palm and the other side of his rod.

  "Good?"

  "Damn, honey, when you open your imagination, you really open it. Good. Powerful. Too much and not enough at the same time."

  "Cold, darling?"

  "Fucking freezing."

  "Let me just fix that for you."

  She tossed the remainder of the ice cube into the bowl of water. Then, liberally, she began to dribble the warmed massage oil on his penis. The scent of strawberries filled the air.