“So, Aunt Coral ended up living with us after that,” I told him, shrugging a shoulder as I looked down at my feet getting lost in the shallow waves.
“And you never found out why she stayed so long?”
“Mum and Dad may have told me, but I was so young when she showed up and first stayed with us, so if they did, I forgot almost straight away.”
“And you’ve never thought to ask again?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
When I glanced up at his face, the desire I felt for him kicked me in the stomach like it had the weight of a soldier behind its boot. “I think she’d tell me if she wanted me to know the details. I have my suspicions, anyway.”
“Is she a spy on the run? In witness protection and just pretending to be your aunt?”
“No.” I chuckled, unable to stop my smile growing. “I think she possibly loved a man too much and it made her heart break in a way she couldn’t repair it afterwards.”
Toby’s face faltered for a small second before he corrected it. “Imagine that.”
“She always told me to be careful with who I chose to be with—who I eventually trusted to take care of my feelings.”
“What did she say?”
“Love is a sickness. An infestation. A rotting of the mind, but, oh, how the heart adores it,” I said, mimicking my Aunt’s soothing tone before I looked up into Toby’s eyes.
He blinked suddenly, a small smile betraying his lips. “Sounds about right.”
“You think so?”
“You’ve been rotting my mind for years, Lilac.”
“Charming.”
“That came out wrong,” he added. “I mean… you’ve been a good disease for me to have.”
“Disease?” I asked, wide-eyed.
“Wait. That’s not—”
“Stop talking.” I laughed again and caught him shaking his head at himself and smiling that twisted smile of his.
“I need to work on my charm,” he said with a sigh.
“You seem pretty perfect to me.”
I did think he was perfect, and a lot of his perfection was because of his flaws. His uncertainty was endearing enough to keep me intrigued instead of pushing me away. I had no idea how someone so physically strong and morally confident could be so unsure of himself.
“Here we are,” he told me, cutting my thoughts off as he looked up at the building in front of him. It took me a couple of seconds to blink away the vision of him, but when I did, and I saw where we were, I found myself smiling.
“The Electric Picture Palace,” I whispered, as I took in the cream bricked building and let my eyes trail across the black iron lettering of the smallest cinema house I’d ever seen.
“I used to be fascinated with this place as a kid,” he admitted quietly. “It’s so tiny.”
“Mum and Aunt Coral used to make me believe that this wasn’t a cinema for us. It was for all the elves and fairies who would come out at night. I believed them, too, just because this place has always seemed so… magical.”
“You ever been inside?”
“Never.” I shook my head.
“Because of the fairies and the elves?”
I let my eyes drift to his. “They deserve their own place, too, you know?”
“Maybe. But let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you could go in there tonight. Would you? If the person you were with had permission from said elves, fairies, and other woodland creatures?”
“If the person I was with had permission, of course.”
“Of course.” He scowled, struggling to tame his smile.
“But… isn’t it shut most of the time? And don’t you need special membership or something?”
“I have tricks and secrets you can’t even imagine, Lilac,” he whispered before he leaned in to place a sweet tender kiss on the corner of my mouth. “I’m also on first name terms with all the fairies around here. They know how to hook a brother up,” he breathed on me, intoxicating my senses, making my eyelashes flicker as I inhaled.
“Well, aren’t I the lucky, connected girl of the day?”
He didn’t say another thing. Instead, he guided me closer towards the picture house doors where the commissionaire of the cinema appeared from nowhere with a knowing smile on his face. He gave a bow of his head before he opened the door for us to step inside.
The Electric Picture Palace’s foyer was like something from the 1920s, so much so that it somehow managed to smell old but new all at once. The scents of experience twisted with polish made the air intoxicating. An usherette greeted us and waved her arm to the side to guide us through, again smiling all the while like we were important people and she couldn’t have been more thrilled to be the one to serve us.
As we stepped inside the small screen, I gasped and looked around in complete awe. It was exactly as I’d always imagined it. Deep ruby reds and golds lined the walls, with pillars, and arches around us. The room only held a few red velour armchairs for guests, all which looked as though they dated back to the mid-twentieth century.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” I gasped, looking up at the gold ceiling, spotting the delicate crystal chandelier that hung from the centre of it. Spotlights lined the side walls, each of them aimed at the incredibly small theatre stage at the very end, which held an equally tiny projector screen in the middle of it all.
“Something special, huh?”
“Toby, this is…”
“I know.” He smiled when I turned to face him, his eyes sparkling as he studied my excitement.
“What are we watching?”
“Well, I wanted this to be special—to last—so, I asked them to pick the longest film they could find. Apparently, we’re in for four hours of Gone With the Wind… whatever the hell that is.”
The air was growing colder and the skies darker when we left, yet my blood was on fire, and the night seemed brighter than ever.
I swung my skirt around like I was Scarlett O’Hara, and Toby recited words spoken by Rhett Butler to prove to me that he had been paying attention when I thought I’d caught him drifting to sleep at one point.
“See. I was totally listening,” he said through a yawn.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Hunter. Am I keeping you awake?”
Toby shook his head as his yawn tailed off, stepping closer to me and wrapping an arm around my back to pull me closer to him. “I’m very drunk, and I intend on getting still drunker before the evening’s over,” he growled in a Southern American accent, just like Rhett again.
“But you haven’t touched a drop of alcohol.”
Toby’s smirk crept into one cheek before he leaned in to kiss me. The soft moan that escaped the back of my throat when his tongue slid over mine made him pull me harder against him. I could feel his arousal pressing back. Whenever I’d felt Chris get turned on, my mind had raced into panic mode, desperately thinking of excuses to get away from him or reasons why I had to leave and go home right at that very moment.
With Toby, all I thought about was how far away from a bed we were, and how tacky would it be for me to lose my virginity on a sandy beach with potential witnesses around.
“I’m going to need you to take me home soon.”
“Are you sure?” he asked breathlessly as his other hand slid up to the exposed skin of my back, his nails digging in.
“My stomach hurts.”
“Here?” he panted, pressing his erection up against the very place that ached with want and need.
“Right there,” I squeaked.
“What about here?” Toby’s hand slid around to my chest, where his thumb gently coasted over my hard nipple. It caused a jolt of pleasure to shoot straight from my breast down to the very place where his erection was pulsating against me.
“There, too.”
“Jesus.”
“Take me home,” I pleaded desperately.
“Are you sure you’re sure?”
“As God is my witness,” I panted like Scarlett.
FIFTEEN
Toby
“This is the wrong way. Where are you going?”
I towed her along, her quick, little footsteps struggling to keep up with my enthusiasm.
“Toby!”
I stayed silent, taking a left across the road outside The Sole Bay Inn and hitting the decline that would take us back down to the beach.
“As beautiful as the beach is, we see it every single day,” she mumbled.
I marched faster, curling my fingers in hers and squeezing her palm even harder as I tried to contain myself.
When I’d woken up with her earlier that day, I’d been so happy that we were together, I knew I had to get out of her house and get started on the plans before I picked her up again. The first job of the day had been to sort out the cinema surprise with my friend Duke—an old guy who had lived in Southwold his whole life and knew every person there was to know in this old fishing town. A guy I’d had many a conversation with on the beachfront over the years. A guy who was lonely, having lost all his family and friends over the years, leaving him with no one but strangers to talk to. I’d been one of those strangers. Now he called me a friend because I’d always given him the time of day and a bit of company he so desperately craved.
The second surprise I’d had to sort was about twenty footsteps away and getting closer by the second.
“Toby!”
I spun around quickly, catching her by surprise as I pushed my fingers into the back of her hair, gripped tightly and pressed my lips against hers.
“Stop pouting,” I gasped as I pulled away, watching her eyes flutter open, her cheeks flame to life, and her swollen lips hang open in surprise. “We aren’t going home. We’re staying at the beach tonight.”
Lilac closed her eyes again, squeezing them shut to try and regain some clarity of thought before she unleashed her beautiful ambers on me and licked her lips. I tilted my head to the side and gestured she turn the other way.
When she saw the eight-foot square wooden beach house we were standing in front of, her eyes lit up.
“Woah. More elves and fairies hooking you up?” Lilac asked, studying the mints and pale blues of the hut’s exterior decor.
“Not exactly. This is my parents’ beach hut.”
“Fancy.” She smiled. “Don’t these things sell for about hundred-thousand pounds these days?”
“So they say.”
Her hands slid around my neck before she turned back to give me her full attention. “I had no idea I lived next door to a secret a rich kid.”
“Definitely not rich.” I huffed out a laugh. “At least, I wasn’t until some girl kissed me on the edge of Southwold Pier this morning. Then I felt loaded.”
Lilac sank her teeth into her bottom lip and blushed even brighter. That’s all it took for me to pull away from her, dig around in my pocket for the key and guide her up the few wooden steps that led to the porch. The sound of the night ocean waves was a calming reminder for me not to fuck this up. I was about to have the most significant moment of my life with the most incredible girl on the damn planet.
The pressure should have felt explosive.
Instead, it felt overdue.
When we stepped inside, I closed the door behind us and opened the curtains wider, allowing her to feel the warmth of the indoors, while she watched the ocean do its thing. It wasn’t a vast space. These beach huts never were. But there was a sofa at the far end, running from wall to wall. I’d visited earlier to fill it with pillows, blankets, and a thin duvet I stole from Mum’s laundry cupboard. On the floor sat a bottle of fizzy wine stuff that I knew girls sometimes liked, and two champagne flutes placed side by side, plus a picnic box full of food if she needed time to get her head together before anything happened.
I was just about to open my mouth and give her the whole speech of how she shouldn’t feel pressured into anything. Just because we were there, and we were horny, it didn’t mean she couldn’t back out at any time. I wanted to tell her to get a drink, relax, watch the sea a while before I closed the curtains on the world and got cosy with her. I wanted to ask her over and over again if she was sure because I’d seen Lilac uncertain around a boy before, and I’d seen her almost give into his demands because it felt easier. I never wanted her to do any of that for me.
But everything I wanted to say was shot to shit the moment she spun around, fisted my T-shirt, and yanked me towards her with a force I didn’t know she was capable of.
Our mouths collided together in a crash of heat and her head fell back, taking me with her as her free hand fisted my hair fiercely.
The second she hooked a leg over my hip, I was gone. I gripped her thigh and held onto it while my other arm curled around the base of her back enough to support her as she ground into me.
Everything south of my heart was begging to get closer to her, the only thing standing in our way was our clothes. I could feel the heat pooling between her legs and the rhythm of her body as it stroked the length of me. I could feel the desperation in her fingertips. I could taste her desire on my tongue as she let everything she wanted fall free.
Game on.
Our heads twisted together frantically, and our kiss became aggressive too quickly until neither of us could drag in a breath, instead, stealing each other’s as we inhaled through our noses and exhaled in growls and grunts of appreciation.
Her knees soon hit the back of the sofa, and I guided her down as carefully as I could, my hands moving around her like they’d been touching her body for years. I brought her skin to life with goosebumps, trailing the backs of my fingers up and down until I moved over to the curve of her breasts. Lilac pushed her chest out, enticing me in, and I had to force myself to break away from her kiss so I could pull down the edge of her dress and close my mouth around her nipple.
The arch of her back made everything in me buzz. I was throbbing, burning, all the heat rushing to the deepest pit of my stomach, my thighs vibrating with a need to start driving into her. I licked, grazed, and sucked, mesmerised by every clench of her stomach and breathless whisper she released. Her hands ran over my head, her nails dragging over my scalp slowly, driving me crazy. Good fucking crazy. The best crazy I’d ever felt in my life, and I was buried in seven hundred levels of that shit most days.
My body already knew her body. My hands already knew her skin. My tongue knew her taste. Everything was instinctual like we’d done this a thousand times before and there wasn’t a single damn reason for us to worry.
I released her nipple with a pop and pulled away to look down on her, my breathing ragged, my mouth hanging open with lust.
“You look incredible like this.”
She was glowing in the moonlit room. Her face was already damp, and her chest rose and fell slowly, enticing me in.
“This feels so right,” she whispered with a sly smile. “And nice.”
I fell back on my knees and dropped my hands to her silky thighs before I pushed the material of her dress up and over her body.
She raised her arms, letting me strip her until all she was wearing in front of me was a delicate pair of white lacy briefs.
Lilac looked up, doe-eyed and waiting. Her breasts were perfect and pert, her taut nipples standing proudly, begging for my attention. Her stomach was toned and tight, already clenched with burning desire. When I let my eyes rise, the pink blush on her delicate cheek had me reaching out to run a thumb over it, my fingertips pushing into the edges of her hair.
“You’re beautiful, Lilac.”
She moved closer, her fingers reaching up to release the buttons of my shirt before she rid me of it completely, and then her hands fell to the belt buckle on my jeans. It took us a few moments and a bit of shuffling, but we were soon sitting there in nothing but our underwear.
I took her face in my hands and pulled her closer to me.
Her finger pressed against my mouth quickly. “Before you even think about asking me, yes, I’m sure. Never wanted anything more in
my life. Let’s go.”
My grin exploded behind her touch.
“Oh, and I’m on the pill,” she said suddenly. I blinked, wondering why the hell she would be on the pill, but Lilac being Lilac didn’t give me a chance to ruin the moment. “Not because of who I was with before. Mainly for girl reasons. But, I just wanted you to know… I needed you to be sure that we couldn’t—”
I yanked her finger away and pressed my lips to hers hungrily, guiding her back on the sofa as gently as I could until I was nestled between her legs, right where I needed to be.
“Whatever,” I mumbled between kisses, grinding into her, adoring the way she wrapped her legs around my waist and clenched tightly. Her returning smile against my lips said enough. She was sure, and dammit, so was I.
I kissed her with everything I had, taking my time to tease her when my fingers slipped beneath the lacy material and slid through her arousal. Every moan she released was a guide to how she felt. The pleasurable ones were low, drawn out. When it came to the tender touches that hurt her more, the ones that made her breathing falter as I discovered new places no boy had ever been, she would hiss a little through her teeth, her muscles tightening everywhere until I’d relaxed her enough to turn the sweet sting into a humming vibration of pleasure.
I should have felt the pressure of the moment she was giving up to me, but the two of us were oddly relaxed.
It didn’t take long for me to peel that underwear from her completely and throw it to the floor. It didn’t take me long to rid myself of the last thing standing between me being inside her, either. And when we were both naked, and the moment was about to happen, I let myself study her face and watch every reaction she had as I slowly pushed myself inside the only girl I’d ever wanted—ever loved.
The most intense slippery heat surrounded me, cradling me with uncertainty as she took some time to adjust. My mouth fell open and stayed that way, while her wide eyes remained glued to mine, her fingers digging into the flesh of my shoulders until I began to move as carefully as I could, the steady rhythm of my thrusts making her body melt beneath mine.
A Girl Like Lilac Page 13
