by Jolie, Mika
Chapter Twenty-One
I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife.”
Hozier – Take Me to Church
The metallic shower head hung above Adam. He pulled the lever to the right and a stream of cold water rained onto his skin like an electric shock. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. Goosebumps slithered up his arms and legs. He clenched his jaws and reached for the shampoo, washed his hair, and rinsed off the suds.
He grabbed the soap, scrubbed his neck, and closed his eyes. Typically, he preferred a steamy hot shower but damn it, he’d been fighting a raging hard-on since Lily was released from the hospital. Actually, since he’d fondled her in the emergency room.
Sick. Fucking sick.
Who fondles a woman while she lays on a gurney waiting to be admitted?
Me.
He dragged the soap over his body. The action soothed his skin but failed to alleviate his desire or aching bulge. Instead it caressed him like Lily’s kisses, running along his torso.
Something else had emerged inside him. An ache that clawed at his limbs, not the sexual one, something deeper. Although he had been scared out of his mind over the possibility of her miscarrying, Lily’s well-being through the whole ordeal had been his main priority.
She affected him.
His mind wandered to the woman in his bed, and his breath caught. He was feeling shit he never wanted to experience. Feelings. Emotions. Those things had made his birth mother weak, caused her to do some dumb crazy shit. Because of feelings, she became dependent on a pimp and sold her body for money. Those who didn’t pay in cash had provided her drugs to satisfy her favorite pastime.
Disgust and anger washed over him.
He should probably run in the opposite direction as fast as he could and drop his marriage quest. Time and time again, Lily had made it clear she would not settle for anything less than the whole enchilada. She wanted love.
Yeah, he should definitely run. He didn’t do love, at least not the kind she asked for. He loved his parents, his extended family and friends, but the love Lily wanted meant getting the heart involve and becoming exposed, vulnerable.
Run wasn’t the word. He should be sprinting out of her life.
But something told him it was too late. She had already penetrated his layers.
His gut tightened. Needing to numb everything inside, Adam turned the knob to the max, and hissed. The bitter cold water spread over his back and his muscles flexed in response. One hand planted firmly on the wet tile facing him, while the other tightened around his throbbing erection, and glided over firm flesh. His head fell forward as he continued the slow and steady motion, sliding up and down. Images of Lily stimulated the searing heat inside. His speed increased.
Shit. His hand loosened around his shaft.
“What the fuck!” He shook his head with disgust, not because he was ashamed of jerking off. Hell that had been his go-to move since he was fourteen. The first night he woke up with a hard-on over some girl in school. But he enjoyed it most when Lily watched him while she touched herself.
Yeah…that’s what he needed. A little jerking off while she gently stroked the delicate softness between her thighs. But she couldn’t do shit. Completely out of commission for at least two more days. The bleeding had stopped a day after they returned home, but Peter had advised they continued to sustain from intercourse.
Intercourse. The word sounded so technical.
He and Lily fucked. Hard. Anywhere they could. And since her fall he wanted to throw that bullshit no sex rule out the window, slide inside that moist, needy place he called home and pummel himself into her fiery furnace.
He was an asshole.
On top of the accident, the nausea had returned full force. Even now while she lay in bed, pale as a ghost, all he could think about was having her legs up in the air, preferably resting over his shoulders, or maybe have her on her knees. Take her from behind this time with her sweet round ass in the air.
Yup, that made him an asshole. A thirty-one year old horny, fucking asshole.
He needed to control his desire to fuck her brains out every second of the day and think. Slowly, his world was shifting off its axis and she was the culprit. The horror of her fall, fear for her safety, and the thought of what they might have lost. All of that had consumed him, making him less guarded. Another wall was lowered. But not all. There were still things he needed to tell her, expose what existed inside and show her all that he was. He needed to walk down that street completely naked and vulnerable. He let out a ragged breath. At least his hard-on was under control; well, sort of.
Turning off the water, he quickly dried off and wrapped a towel around his waist before stepping into the bedroom. His gaze automatically went to the bed where she was half propped under the covers with her cell phone in her hand and a slight frown on her forehead.
He fought the longing to go over and kiss her, pull her in his arms as they usually greet each other. Instead he walked over to the nearby chair and picked up his favorite pair of grey sweats. His lounging sweats; no underwear needed for those.
He felt her honey-colored eyes watching him. “How are you feeling?” he asked while tying the knot of his sweats. She continued to watch him.
“We need to talk.”
The seriousness in her voice caught his attention. He met her gaze and a heavy numbness invaded his chest. “Whatever you read on the internet is not true.”
“I didn’t Google you. I’d much rather you tell me.” Silence fell between them as her gaze fixed on his face. “Everything, Adam. I want to know who this man was and what he wants.”
He picked up the towel from the armchair. “He’s a reporter.”
Recognition flickered in her eyes. “The one who badgered Claire with questions about you?”
He nodded.
“Your parents had him demoted.”
“I can’t control how my parents react to things.”
She smiled. “They love you very much.”
“Yes they do.” He’d never deny that he got lucky in the adoptive parents pool.
She continued to watch him. Adam waited for the questions to come. It was inevitable and he was ready. Well, as ready as he could ever be. But she picked up the cell phone again.
“I did some research on your birth condition.”
“Addicted babies,” he said in a low, rough voice. “Say it, Liliana, then everything about who I am becomes real.”
She flinched at his words, but said nothing. His lungs burned.
“You can still abort if you want.” Adam watched Lily. She struggled to shift her gaze but his eyes were locked on hers, willing the connection to hold. Even in his ears the words sounded callous. But shit, that was an option they should have talked about from the moment he found out she was pregnant with his child. “I never wanted to be a father, so I’d understand.”
Her face glazed for a split-second and then she frowned, her lips pursed together and her eyes were unblinking. At that moment, if her eyes were a weapon, the piercing look in them could have caused serious destruction. She became a lioness. He had come into her territory and she was about to attack.
* * * *
Although Adam’s voice grazed with pain, the words still delivered a massive blow to Lily’s chest. She surveyed his stance. The hard ridges of his chest flexed with controlled anguish. The sweatpants hung low to his hips. The material clung to him like a lover, outlining that part of him that made him male. “You think that’s what I want?”
He shrugged with indifference. “It’s something we should have talked about.”
His eyes stared at her with such intensity that it made her uncomfortable, and she squirmed and writhed under his gaze.
“It’s an option.”
Funny, the possibility of terminating the pregnancy; however, unanticipated, never crossed her mind. Sure her life had taken a surprising twist, but she’d adjust. Yet, here Adam stood, admitting he never wanted to be
a father and giving her a choice to cut their ties. “I don’t want a fucking abortion.” Her chin spasmed and Lily bit the inside of her mouth to control the anger knifing her insides. “I want this child. With or without you. And all of whatever flaws you think he may have.”
“Liliana.” He took a step forward in her direction.
“Don’t.” Her voice trembled and she buried her face in her hand. “Don’t say my name in that voice. Don’t touch me.” She paused, exhaled, and lifted her face to meet his eyes. “Don’t do anything.”
Lily shifted her gaze to the window so Adam couldn’t see the amount of pain his words inflicted. “I need a few minutes alone.”
He hesitated then walked out of the room. It wasn’t until the door closed that Lily let the hot torrents of grief course down her face. Frustrated, she punched the pillow with her fist and buried her face in it as the deep emotions stirred with no other outlet but through her long-lasting sobs.
Paige had sent her several links on drug addiction in infants. The statistics were grim. More than fifteen-hundred babies were born addicted to heroin, crack cocaine, and other drugs every year, approximately four babies a day born dependent on something through no fault of their own. The findings shocked and horrified her.
Adam fell in that statistic.
The images she saw on the internet and the reality of what Adam had to endure as a baby in the womb, innocently absorbing the nutrients laced with coke or whatever else his mother injected into her system had not been easy to absorb. Lily’s stomach bubbled like the sea boiling in a storm, wanting to heave the visions of the man she loved as a baby screaming, shaking with withdrawal pain.
Several times she had rushed out of the room to the nearest bathroom and relieved the disgust in her chest. Although physically sickened, she kept on and read all the information. She needed to familiarize herself with the side effects Adam experienced as a child. Easily irritated was one of them, and appeared to still be a work in progress. She loved him, a man she was still learning about. She loved him, with all his flaws and traits. She loved Adam Aquilani.
Through no choice of his own, he had suffered an addiction that came straight from what was meant to be the most perfect environment—his mother’s womb. Instead, Adam, and these other faultless babies born into the trauma of addiction were given a tragic start in life. And because addiction had an inherited component, passing down from parent to child by way of genes, their baby without a choice, through no fault of theirs, had become a fallen heir.
She understood Adam. He was haunted by fear, by his past.
Still, to hear him admit he didn’t want to be a father was a terrible blow. She felt empty and joyless, like a sheet of white paper.
“You’re crying.”
With her face buried on the pillow, she sniffled. “Go away.”
His weight dropped onto the bed next to her. “I don’t like to be the reason for your tears.”
“I’m crying because I’m an emotional wreck. My hormones are out of whack. Not because your words hurt me.” She sniffled again. “Or because you admitted to what I always knew in my heart.”
“What’s that?” His hand stroked her back. The touch made her inhale sharply.
She turned her face and peered at him through heavy lids, tears still tickling down her cheeks. “I trapped you. We are here because of a baby you don’t even want.”
His eyes grew darker. His expression had all sorts of emotions. “I want the baby, Liliana.”
“Don’t say things you don’t mean,” she pleaded, her voice trembling.
“Had it been up to me, no, I would not have chosen to father a child. But I did.” He removed his hand from her. “You and I have made a permanent mark and when I thought you could have miscarried, I was scared shitless.”
He expelled his breath in a slow, steady hiss. “Guillermo and I are related.”
She watched him. He was opening to her again. The look on his face told her it wasn’t an easy thing for him to do, but the fact that he was doing it anyway pulled at her heartstrings.
“He’s my mother’s cousin. Claudio is his son. I found them when I lived in Brazil.”
Lily brought herself to a sitting position and brushed the tear stains from her face. “You’re Brazilian?”
He smiled and shook his head. “I guess in a way, yes. My mother was Brazilian and my father was American. But I was born in Queens, New York with two junkies for parents.” Disgust twisted his mouth into a sneer. “I learned Portuguese when I lived in Brazil. My parents, adoptive parents,” he clarified, “insisted I learned about my Brazilian roots.”
“You said was.” She swallowed. “Both of your parents are…dead?”
He nodded. “I lived in hell for eight years of my life. Due to the drugs in me, I was a fussy child, slow at developing and had difficulty processing things.” Pain grated his voice. He raked a hand through his hair. “I got hit a lot.”
Lily leaned into him, and gently caressed the scar on his left eyebrow. All the things she had in her life, peace, stability, loving parents and siblings. For eight years of his life, those things didn’t exist for Adam.
“That’s really from playing fútbol or soccer as it’s called here. But my nose was broken from a blow once.”
Lily’s spirit quivered. “God, Adam…my heart hurts for you.”
“After my parents’ death, I became a part of the system. I moved from foster home to foster home. Some were nice, some not so much. And some,” he shrugged. “Just weren’t equipped to deal with someone like me.”
A solemn tear fell down her cheek. “I’m sorry you had to go through all of that.”
“I was a handful. Very hyperactive.” He chuckled. “I still struggle with that now.” He admitted. “Hence all the crazy things I do.”
She smiled. “I thought it was because you wanted to die.”
He shook his head, scrubbed his face again then met her gaze. “Maybe I do deserve to die. But that’s not why. The racing and everything else help control everything else inside me. Actually, so do you, Liliana.” His eyes darkened and grew more intense. “You bring me peace.”
Butterflies went crazy low in her belly, and her heartbeat raged out of control. She remembered the first time he uttered those words to her. Lily had dismissed them as a result of mind-blowing sex talk. Now she understood how heavy that admission was for him.
So many unspoken questions, but no más. No more. They had time. Possibly a lifetime. She pressed her body against his bare chest, wrapped a hand around the nape of his neck and drew him into a hot, tongue-thrusting kiss.
“We can’t have sex, Liliana,” he said, disconnecting their lips.
Lily heard the torment in his voice. Just for confirmation, her fingertips traced the bulging muscles in his back. “What if we could?”
He groaned. “Then I’d be buried inside you already.” His mouth took a hungry possession of hers. “And you’re not doing me any favors today.”
She smiled and tightened her arms around his neck. “I’m very selfish, Adam. I love having you in my mouth.”
“You can’t say things like that.” He cupped her swollen breasts through her tank and molded them in his palm.
Lily moaned. “More,” she begged, her lips trailing open-mouth kisses along his neck. “I want more.”
Adam wrapped his fingers around her wrist, stopping her movement and gently pulled her away. He stood up, looked at her once more then walked over to stand by the window. “There’s more, Liliana. I want to tell you everything.”
A fluttery, empty feeling sat in her stomach. Lily pressed her lips together and waited.
“My mother died of an overdose,” he said over his shoulder. “She was shooting up with my father. He was her pimp.”
A dark, sickening grief filled her heart. “Adam.” She wanted to touch and comfort him but he was sending her that stay away vibe.
He turned to face her, across the room, their eyes locked. “That night
I shot him. I killed him.” He let out a tortured breath. “At the age of eight I shot and killed my father.”
An involuntary gasp escaped her lips. Lily felt her heart trampled beneath her feet. Not out of shame or disgust, but love and pain.
“There.” He exhaled, dark eyes continued to strip her soul. “I’ve laid down my armor, Liliana. If you want, come slay me.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“When love is not madness, it is not love.”
Pedro Calderón de la Barca
For several seconds Lily sat silently, hunched over with a sense of loss so powerful that her muscles wouldn’t respond to commands. First her limbs went numb with absolute shock over Adam’s revelation, and then replaced by waves of pain. Her stomach churned over as grief swept through her system, enveloping her whole body, leaving her with nothing but physical pain.
The only time she’d ever shot at someone was during a game of paintball. Zander, her Navy SEAL brother, insisted that she learn how to fire a weapon for protection, took her to a shooting range. She’d felt the recoil of overwhelming force in her hands, the destruction that came from the other end of the gun. The evidence of its power, the sound, and the holes, fluff blasted and torn from dummy targets had left her shaken. She never applied for a permit, didn’t want one in her home.
Yet, here Adam stood before her, confessing to have pulled a trigger and to have taken a life, all at the tender age of eight. His innocence lost so early in his lifetime. She drew a deep, shaky breath. As more tears came, more thoughts of Adam going through the motion of life, like nightmares whirled through her head.
Her phone vibrated next to her on the bed. She swiped her face with the back of her hand, broke her connection with Adam and eyed the screen.
Lily, it’s me, Nate. Where R U?
