“I’ll be right back, love,” I say quickly, wanting that look to disappear from her face. “I have to get a condom…and lube.” I grin at this, and I wait a second to watch her expression flip.
Her whole face lights up with delight. “But…I thought…” she starts.
I’m already backing away towards the bedroom. My dick feels like it might explode any minute, and I can’t prolong waiting much longer to get my own fucking release. Fear crosses me for a brief second, realizing I’m leaving her naked, horny, and alone.
Halfway up the stairs, she’s still watching me but her hands have edged closer and closer to the inside of her thighs. “Don’t fuck yourself,” I say roughly. “Or else I won’t fuck you.” It’s a threat I don’t like giving, considering my own arousal has almost peaked. I want to shove my cock inside her right now.
She nods eagerly, and I accept it, trying desperately to put faith in her. I just need her to be strong, but I know masturbation is one of her compulsions.
After reaching the second floor, I enter the darkened bedroom and quickly fumble around the desk drawer, grabbing a pack of condoms and lube. I haven’t used up either in two weeks, which should be a record for us.
When I return to the living room, I find Lily still lying on the rug but she covers her face with her hands. She’s concentrating too hard to hear me come in, and I take the time to kick off my pants and pull off my shirt. I lie down beside her and rub the top of her head easily. Her hands slide down, exposing her face and her eyes and the look that says, fuck me now.
“Lo, I almost touched myself.”
I kiss her forehead and take one of her hands in mine. “But you didn’t.”
She shakes her head. “But I want to…so badly,” she admits. “I can’t remember what I feel like. Isn’t that weird? That’s weird, right? I mean it’s my body, but I’m not allowed to touch really, and I…I…”
Jesus Christ. I take her in my arms, and she buries her head into my chest, near tears. This is not going as planned, and I feel like it’s partly my fault. I shouldn’t have left her alone and given her the opportunity to crawl inside her head. Maybe I can fix this.
“It’s okay, Lil,” I whisper. “If you want to touch yourself, just ask me.”
With her hand in mine, I guide it down her stomach, past her belly button and in between her legs. She gasps as I rub her fingers over her clit and then down farther, letting her feel how wet she has become.
“Better?” I ask, pulling her hand and glistening fingers back up to her chest.
She nods, her shoulders relaxing, and I kiss the base of her neck.
I turn her on her side and lie right against her back. I can almost see her start to smile.
I rip the condom package.
“Can I put it on you?” she asks hopefully, hearing the paper tear.
“If you can do it quickly,” I tell her, wanting to be inside of her more than she probably even knows. She flips over to face me, and I hand her the condom. Her eyes drop to my cock and I watch her entire expression practically glow. Her happiness is easy to bring, which I suppose is the problem, but I relish in sending her body into shockwaves and seeing her face lit up like the city.
Not listening to me, she gently and slowly rolls the condom on my dick. I let out a heavy breath and then groan. Dear God. “Faster, Lil,” I demand.
Her eyes flicker up, surprisingly, since it takes her great effort to look anywhere but my dick at times. She gives me a doe-eyed look and I can’t help but smile, yet I don’t give in. “Faster,” I repeat, stretching out the syllables.
She finishes rolling the condom up my shaft and then reaches for the lube. I grab her wrist and motion for her to turn around. I know she wants to be in control. I know she misses it. But she has to make me believe she can be on top and not get carried away. Right now, she’s not even close to being able to handle that type of position without going crazy.
Before she flips over, she bends down and places a soft kiss on the head of my cock. Then she rolls onto her side, sticking out her ass for me.
I rub some lube on, and she squirms a little, but I hold her steady. My cock throbs and I know I can’t hold out on going nice and slow. So when I have her ready, I thrust inside of her as fast and deep as I can without hurting her.
She lets out a long pleasurable moan and begins to writhe again. But I hold her tight, one arm around her neck and the other around her waist, grabbing her breast as I start pumping inside of her. Every thrust sends waves of ecstasy crashing through my cock and it feels too good to even stop for a second. I quicken my pace, her moans and half-screams perpetuating my speed.
Within another few minutes, I can feel her reach her edge. I move faster and harder, closing my eyes as I try not to release. And after my hand descends between her legs, her body convulses in waves of pleasure. She shakes with each intense tremor, and then her breath comes out ragged and heavy.
I pull out, still hard and aching, and toss the condom off. Her eyes are heavy, but she reaches out to me. Quickly, I roll her onto her back and grab her leg, bringing it up over my shoulder. The new position reinvigorates her energy and her eyes hit mine. With one swift motion, I’m inside her soaked pussy and she’s bucking up her hips.
I start thrusting harder, filling her deeply. My cock aches for release but I keep pulsing, keep feeding her needs. My free hand takes her chin and I lean down, our lips connecting. I kiss her while I move in and out, in and out. I hit something and she breaks away from my mouth, grinning. I smile back and then press my nose up against her cheek as I push harder, my lips parting once a noise catches. My hot breath on her neck, my hand on across her lips, muffling her sounds and heightening her arousal.
Everything I ever wanted is right here in my arms. I wish I could stay like this forever, but eventually we come together—in a surge of bliss and longing.
***
We’re on the floor, curled up in two throw blankets and a couple of pillows. Lily has fallen asleep in my arms, her steady breaths warming my bare chest.
She’s never asked me why I can fuck better than the sloppy lay at fourteen. Granted, our first time together was actually my first. But I always knew I’d eventually get her back in my arms. I vowed to be better than all her other conquests. To keep Lily Calloway meant that I’d have to be able to satiate her every need.
So I practiced. I dated girls for a week or so, nothing too serious, but I made sure the sex was always about their desires, their pleasure, never mine. It helped figure out what would work for Lil—what sets off women the most. And I guess I just became good at it. So in most ways I succeeded.
I mean, I can satisfy my twenty-year-old sex addict girlfriend, for Christ’s sake.
What I can’t seem to do is fall asleep, but at least holding her takes my mind off finding a drink. Kind of.
Suddenly, I hear the back door open, and the kitchen light flicks on. Shit. Shit. Shit.
I forgot Rose lives here. How the hell did I forget that?
I glance down at Lily, completely naked like me. Oh…yeah. Her left breast is exposed, her nipple red and swollen from all the times I sucked on it. I cover her with the blanket and count the clap of Rose’s heels on the marble of the kitchen, waiting for that bomb to explode.
Maybe she won’t see us.
“Loren,” she says coldly, in her normal octave.
I lift my head. Rose gives me a death glare that I’m sure has sent children to tears. Her hands rest haughtily on her hips, and her mouth is downturned in a perpetual frown. She is about to bitch me out, but I put my finger to my lips and nod to Lily.
She’s asleep, finally. Hours usually have to pass before she relaxes, but after she came a second time, she dozed right off. I could have raced around the room and pumped my fists in the air. Sure, sex—her vice—helped her sleep. It’s not exactly a triumphant win. But it’s a small victory nonetheless.
Rose’s eyes flicker between us. She points at me and then jabs her finge
r at the kitchen. I mouth, okay and then carefully maneuver out from under Lily without waking her. She barely stirs, and I readjust the blanket so she’s covered completely.
“Loren!” Rose hisses at me.
I frown and look up to see her covering her eyes. Oh, right, I’m naked.
I try not to grin as I grab my boxer-briefs. Nope, can’t find those. I snatch a throw from the couch and tie it around my waist. I walk into the kitchen and she immediately assaults me with her leather purse.
“Okay, okay,” I whisper, blocking the hits with my arms. “I forgot you lived here, my apologies.”
She holsters her fucking weapon and uses her death glare again. “You can’t have sex in the living room, Loren. You broke a rule.”
“What?” No way. I know that list front to back…but so does Rose.
“No public sex,” she reminds me.
“The living room is not public.”
“It is now that you live with me. It’s a public space.” She motions around her. “Like the kitchen, and the garage, and everything that isn’t shared by only you and Lily. I didn’t think I had to explain that to you.”
A pain shoots up in my chest and I sink down on the nearest bar stool. “I didn’t…I…” I frown. Holy fuck. I’m such a goddamn idiot.
And the urge to vomit rises.
“Loren,” Rose says, her voice somehow soft. I meet her eyes and they look shockingly sympathetic. “It was one mistake. It won’t happen again.” Her voice is cold, but her optimism helps a little.
“It won’t.”
She lets out a small breath. “How did she do tonight?”
It’s like Lily had a quiz she needed to pass, and I guess partly that’s what sex is going to be like for her from now on—a test to see if she chooses to feed the compulsions or not.
“Better than usual,” I say. “She listened to me more, and she fell asleep after the hour. But I think that may be because I finally took her from behind.”
Rose talks about sex like we’re in a psychology class, nothing more than science, health and the human anatomy, which makes it frighteningly easier to discuss. “Did you two have anal sex often?”
I let out a low laugh. “Every day.”
I hear the garage door grind open or closed, and I immediately shoot to my feet.
Rose holds up a hand. “It’s just Connor.”
“He’s sleeping here?” I say in disbelief and then my lips rise. “Are you finally popping that cherry, Miss Rose Calloway?”
She looks about ready to tear out my vocal cords. My smile only grows.
“He has an early meeting in New York,” she says. Must be for Cobalt Inc., his family’s ink and magnet company, that is almost as profitable as Hale Co. baby products, but not quite. “It was last minute, so I told him it might be easier if he slept here…on the couch.” Oh. Fuck.
I grimace, not able to glimpse at the couch from the kitchen. But through the archway, I imagine pillows astray on the floor and one of the cushions perilously hanging over the edge. Basically I left the room a disaster with Lily swaddled in a blanket. A bystander would assume we fucked on the couch, even though I was thoughtful enough to move her to the rug.
“There are two guestrooms,” I say. “Why the couch?”
“He didn’t want to cause a fuss after he left,” Rose says. Her neurotic self would have to rearrange all of the pillows on the bed, wash the sheets, and probably iron the curtains just to be sure he didn’t touch those too.
Connor walks through the door, a small duffel bag slung over his shoulder and his hand preoccupied by texting on his cell.
When he looks up, his eyes meet mine and then drift down to my nearly naked body, stopping at my blanket, and then right back up.
“Hey beautiful,” I say with a grin.
He barely blinks. “Pants have been invented in this century.” He walks farther into the kitchen to give Rose a light kiss on the cheek. He must add the fact that I’m wearing a living room throw blanket because he says, “I thought you weren’t allowed to have public sex.”
Of course Rose told him about the list. She’ll take any lengths to make sure Lily stays on track in her recovery.
“No one was here. It seemed private enough to me.”
I can’t read Connor’s calm expression, but he looks to Rose. She already shakes her head—as though she knows exactly what he’s about to say. “I told you that you should have clarified for them,” Connor tells her.
“I told you? What are you, one?” Rose snaps, but she’s just pissed she was wrong and he was right.
“Most one-year-olds can barely speak, let alone utter an entire idiom like I told you so.”
She looks like she wants to slap him. “Why are we dating?”
“Because I asked you out and you said yes,” he tells her with a burgeoning smile. “And you’re madly in love with me.”
“I never said such a thing.”
He replies in French, and I can’t even process the words.
She smacks his arm, and he whispers deeper in her ear, his arm spindling around her waist as he draws her to his chest. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Rose so flushed before.
She puts a hand on his black button-down, making sure there’s space between them. He kisses her on the head and keeps his arm around her, but he turns to me. “The couch isn’t vacant then.” His eyes fall to Rose, waiting for her to offer another solution. Like her bed, but she has solidified to stone.
She’s not one-hundred percent ready to share a bed with a guy, which isn’t a bad thing. I take pride in pissing Rose off, but causing her this type of fear—even unintentionally—makes me feel horrible.
Rose says, “The guestroom in the basement is free. I put clean sheets on the bed the other day.”
Connor nods, accepting the offer, and if he’s disappointed, I can’t tell at all.
I leave Connor and Rose to talk quietly amongst themselves, and I carefully lift Lily in my arms. I successfully carry her back to bed without waking her. She sighs, dreaming peacefully as I place her onto the mattress and tuck the comforter around her.
“Lo,” she says in a sleepy voice and rolls over onto a pillow, hugging it tightly in her arms. I’ve never been so jealous of a damn pillow.
But I let myself smile.
A year ago it would have been another man in her arms.
Oh, how far we’ve come.
{ 16 }
LOREN HALE
We made a deal not to put ourselves in stressful situations. Like the Sunday luncheon with Lily’s parents. Like any communication with my father.
Today I’m breaking that deal.
Lily is busy with Sebastian, pretending to be tutored. I told her I was going to work out with Ryke at the Penn gym, but when I drive to Philadelphia, I make the turn into Villanova. Some of the houses have acres and acres of trimmed lawns, decorative fountains gushing in the front yard and glittering Lamborghinis parked in the driveway—a place more suited for Beverly Hills than the suburbs of Philly. My nerves ricochet every mile down the road.
Before I talked to Connor last night, I had no intention of seeing my father. But I asked him the probability of finding the blackmailer before the information leaked. He told me that I had the same chance as the sun exploding in less than a billion years. I looked it up, and apparently the sun won’t explode for another four to five billion, so in Connor Cobalt’s words—I’m fucked.
Then Lily’s phone vibrated on the nightstand. She was in the shower, so I answered it. An unknown number texted her. The word pounding in my head. Slut. It felt like someone punched me in the ribs, and just before I went into the bathroom to talk to her, I had a sudden impulse to check her other texts.
Seventy-five of them.
That’s how many times she’d been texted with insults—some more colorful than others. I’m not upset that she didn’t tell me about them. But now she can’t be upset when I talk to my dad. This has already gone too far. And I’m out of options.
My father, he has more power in his right pinky than I do in my whole body. And if this is what it takes to ensure Lily’s safety, then so be it.
I pass the gates and park the car into the circular driveway. It takes a moment for me to muster the courage to ring the doorbell. I can hear the chime reverberating throughout the house.
After a couple minutes the door swings open, and I expect the staff to stand on the other side, ushering me in to see my father. Maybe Jonathan’s assistant. Maybe the groundskeeper, who sometimes finds his way indoors.
But my father has done the impossible and answered his own door. His forceful posture fills the frame, nearly goading me to take a step down the stone stairs and plant my feet on the sidewalk in defeat. Somehow, I stand my ground.
He wears a tight-lipped expression, eyes darkened by booze and soul blackened by hate. I focus on the wrinkles by the creases of his eyes, weathered since the last I saw him. I think, in this moment, I should have a sudden undeniable resentment towards this man. He spit on me when I asked for help. He took away my trust fund when I told him I was going to rehab. He lied to me for twenty-one years.
My emotions tangle together, and yet, bitterness is so far from what I feel. Pity is closer to the surface. I realize that I could have become him. Hell, I still can go that direction and be alone in a mansion, drinking away my problems and wishing away the “could-have-beens” with the “nows.” As much as I hate to believe it, he is me—without Lily. Without Ryke or Connor. He’s my future if I drink again.
I don’t say anything, partly because he should lead me inside without me asking. He can’t pretend he never sent all those messages about wanting to meet up or have lunch. He wants to see me, even if he denies it, even if he’s barely moved an inch from the door.
“You’re on my fucking doorstep,” he finally says. “Would you like to explain why, or are you waiting for an invitation?”
I hold in a strained breath. “I wanted to talk.”
Addicted for Now (Addicted Series 2) Page 16
