by Apryl Baker
He chuckled. “You should be, Milaya. You should be terrified of me.”
“I know,” she told him, her voice breathy, and his own breathing hitched in reaction. He leaned in closer, his shoulder brushing hers. She gasped, her mouth parting as the sound slipped out. His eyes focused on her lips. They were full, lush, and had inspired all sorts of fantasies the last few days. It would be so easy to lean in and brush her lips with his. She tilted her head up, her eyes questioning.
Nikoli leaned in, so close he could smell the strawberry and vanilla scent of her shampoo and body wash. It drove him slightly crazy every time he was in close proximity to her.
“Would you be okay if I kissed you?” He inhaled the sweet scent of her that was sure to drive him mad.
“Maybe.” Lily drew in a ragged breath, but didn’t move away. She moved closer to him, and Nikoli groaned. He’d been fantasizing about her lips all day. Just the thought of actually kissing her nearly sent him over the edge right then.
He lowered his head to hers, his nose brushing hers. She didn’t flinch. She went completely still, but she didn’t flinch. He heard her gasp, the soft intake of breath. His eyes looked into hers. He saw the desire. Saw the fear, but mostly he saw trust. She trusted him not to force her to do anything she couldn’t do. She trusted him not to become angry if she couldn’t do it.
That, more than anything else, made Lily Holmes the most dangerous creature he’d ever encountered. She could break him, and he didn’t care.
His breath feathered across her lips. He waited. She still hadn’t moved, but he could see her fingers tearing at each other. She was scared and nervous. He’d go slowly if it killed him. And it just might. “Are you good, Milaya?”
“Yes,” she whispered. He could smell the peppermint on her breath.
“Good girl,” he said and started to move closer, to close the tiny gap between their lips…
“Lily!” The pounding on the door started seconds after the bellow. Nikoli groaned.
“Ignore it,” he pleaded, even as Lily started to move away.
“I can’t.” She sounded just as frustrated as he did, but she got up and answered the door.
Nikoli sighed and let himself fall backward on her bed. So close. So damn close. He wasn’t sure if she’d let him try again. She’d been so nervous to begin with, she might have seen the door as the proverbial bell that saved her. Not kissing her might even set them back in their progress, dammit. She’d get all nervous and start having doubts. He had to keep her in the now, not let her past haunt her.
The two girls at Lily’s door kept peeking around her to catch a glimpse of him, and an idea started to form. A grin slid across his face. She wasn’t going to remember her own fears. Nope, she was going to remember laughter instead. He sat up and pulled his shirt off. The girls’ eyes widened, and one of them stammered. Lily turned her head toward him when the girl in question didn’t answer for the third time. Lily’s own eyes went round. She glanced from him to the girls, her face flaming. Nikoli chuckled. Well, he’d laugh, anyway. She might go to bed screaming in rage.
He watched as she hurried the girls up and then shut her door, before turning to face him. She stayed where she was, but that was okay with him. He loved watching her reactions.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded after a minute.
“Doing?” he asked innocently.
“Put your shirt back on!” She did the whisper shout thing, which only caused him to laugh.
“I don’t want to,” he told her and then grinned. Her eyes widened. She knew his I’m-up-to-no-good grin. He bounced the bed.
Lily’s mouth dropped open in a silent O. He bounced it again, the mattress squeaking.
“Stop that!” She ran over to stand in front of him. “I mean it, Nikoli, stop it right now. You know they’re out there listening.”
“Make me.” He started to bounce the bed again, harder, forcing the old mattress to groan in protest. Lily looked mortified, and when he groaned loudly, using his hand to knock the headboard against the wall, he thought she might faint.
“This isn’t funny!” she seethed. “People are listening!”
He knew that. He’d heard the footsteps and the whispering too. He chuckled and bounced the bed faster and harder, his hand forcing the headboard to hit the wall repeatedly. He let out another long, deep moan and said, “Lily…”
She grabbed him and hauled him off the bed, falling with him. He turned mid-fall so his back hit the floor, and she landed on top of him. Her leg landed between his, and it took every ounce of control he had not to hiss. He was hard, and the simple touch actually hurt.
Lily stared nonplussed at him, and Nikoli bit back a groan. She moved and rubbed along his length. “Lily, if you move, I won’t guarantee you’ll walk away unscathed.”
“I…” She shifted, trying to push away from him, and her knee pressed in on him. It was too much. He rolled, keeping her safe until the last minute. She hit the floor and he caged her, careful not to touch her. “I told you not to move,” he bit out.
She took a shaky breath, and he could see the panic starting to rise up in her eyes. “Am I touching you, Lily Bells?” he asked. She shook her head. “Then don’t panic. I’m not going to touch you.”
“Then will you move so I can get up?” she asked, her voice panicked. “Please, Nikoli…I can’t…this…” She started to stutter in her panic.
“No,” he said. He saw how afraid she was, but she had to trust him. “I like you caged in, trapped. We’ve already established earlier today how happy it makes me.”
“You’re perverse,” she stammered, a smile tugging at her lips, despite her unease. He let out a small sigh. She was almost to her breaking point. He could see it in her eyes, feel it in the tenseness of her body.
“I just like making you blush,” he told her. “I can’t wait to see where your blush starts so I can follow it all the way up, tasting every inch of you as I go.”
She took a ragged breath, her eyes wide and panicked. He bent his head and let his nose rub alongside hers for a moment before pulling back.
“You always say you’re not going to touch me and then you do,” she accused.
“But you like it when I do that, don’t you, Milaya?”
“Yes,” she answered honestly, and Nikoli wanted to fist pump at the small victory. Until he looked into her eyes. Weariness tinged them, and Nikoli became concerned. She’d been through a lot the last few days. As badly as he wanted to kiss her, he couldn’t push her any more tonight.
He pushed himself up and off her. Lily scrambled back faster than he would have liked, but at least she didn’t move more than a foot away from him. Last night she’d have been on the other side of the room. Progress was progress.
“What time is your first class tomorrow?” he asked, picking his shirt up off the floor.
“Nine.”
He tugged it over his head. “I’ll swing by and pick you up for breakfast then. There’s this little dive I know about ten minutes from campus that serves the absolute best breakfast. Even your frou-frou stuff.”
“Frou-frou stuff?” she asked, a laugh escaping.
“Don’t think I didn’t see you giving Mike all those disgusting looks this morning.” He winked. “They serve a lighter breakfast for all the health nuts along with my steak and eggs.”
Her nose scrunched up, and he found it adorable. He wanted to slap himself for finding it adorable, but there it was.
“Do they have fresh fruit?” She inched closer to him.
“Barney gets a fresh delivery every morning just for his fruit crepes.” Nikoli said, keeping still. He wanted to see what she’d do.
“How many restaurant owners do you know?” Lily moved to within a few inches of him.
“Enough to keep you supplied in good food until we graduate.”
Nikoli held his breath as Lily stared, her expression terrified, but determined.
“Promise not to move,” sh
e whispered.
“Scout’s honor,” he said.
She smiled and shook her head. “Put your hand out, palm up.”
Nikoli did as she asked and simply waited. She placed her hand on top of his. Barely. He felt her fingertips mostly, but it was something he didn’t think she could do, at least not yet.
“Your hand looks massive next to mine,” she murmured. She flattened her hand out and let it sit there on his. He felt it sizzle through every nerve ending in his body like a white hot branding iron. He wanted to pull her close, to kiss her, to tell her how proud he was of her, but he did none of those things. He held himself perfectly still until she pulled her hand away.
“You did good, Lily Bells,” he told her. “Very good.”
“I didn’t know if I could,” she said, her voice low and soft. “Thank you, Nikoli.”
“For what, Milaya?”
“For keeping still? For everything?” Her smile was tired, but she looked happy. “For being the manwhore that you are and making me do something I didn’t want to do, even if the girls are already texting everyone that we’re...”
He grinned. “Means my car stays with me if they all think you’ve lost already.”
“Not a chance, Kincaid.” She grinned right back. “That car is mine.”
He laughed and opened the door. There were several girls staring straight at him. “Her virtue is still safe, ladies. Little Miss Prude over there didn’t appreciate my joke very much.”
“I’m not a prude!” she gasped.
“Have sex with me?”
“No!”
“Prude.”
“Manwhore!”
The girls in the hallway were giggling like a bunch of twelve year olds, and that was fine with him. He’d done what he needed to and made sure they wouldn’t be spreading rumors around about Lily. She was fragile right now, and rumors might destroy all the progress they’d made.
“I’ll pick you up at seven, Prude,” he reminded her.
“Out!” she shouted, pointing her finger at him.
He chuckled and walked on down the hall to the elevator. Lily was coming along nicely. Yes, indeed.
Chapter Thirteen
Lily stood gazing out the window onto the street below. Traffic crawled by. Downtown Boston was almost as bad as New York City during rush hour. There was a good portion of the city that took the bus or walked. The bus was out of the question for her. She’d gotten Mike to bring her to her shrink’s office. After the last few days, she needed to talk. Badly.
The office door opened, and a middle aged man scurried out, looking emotionally battered. She recognized the look, having worn it herself more times than she could count after an office visit with Rebekha.
Dr. Rebekha Purdue popped her head out and smiled at Lily. She was in her mid to late forties, about the age of Lily’s mom, with chestnut brown hair and warm brown eyes. She reminded Lily a lot of her mother. Maybe that was why she had connected with her after seeing three other psychiatrists in the greater Boston area when she’d moved here.
“Lily, come in, come in.” Rebekha stepped back so Lily could enter. The office was warm and cozy, done in soothing shades of blue and gray, with a random yellow throw pillow nestled on one of the couches.
“Thank you so much for fitting me in.” Lily dropped down on the couch nearest the door and grabbed the throw pillow.
“Of course.” Rebekha took her seat in the armchair across from Lily. “It’s not often you call and ask for an emergency meeting. The last one was a year ago, I believe. Is everything okay?”
She’d been seeing Rebekha twice a week when she’d first started therapy sessions three years ago. Now she was down to a visit twice a month as needed. The last emergency session had been when Brian tried to hug her and she’d flipped out. Hiding her phobia from everyone after that had been impossible. All the guys she’d tutored had become extremely protective of her after Adam explained it to them. That was part of the reason they rode Nikoli so hard over her. Sometimes she thought they’d all adopted her as an honorary little sister.
“I met someone.” Lily stared at her fingers twisting the end of the pillow. Rebekha waited for her to go on. She’d learned from the beginning to let Lily talk at her own pace, something Lily truly appreciated. Talking about her feelings and her phobia was hard for her. “He says he can help me learn to deal with my phobia.”
“Help you?” Rebekha shifted in her seat and gave her a questioning stare.
Lily spent the next twenty minutes going over the last few days and told her about Nikoli and his crazy proposition, about all the crazy emotions she’d been feeling, and how Nikoli made her feel.
“That’s crazy, right?” Lily finally looked up. “I don’t understand why my panic level doesn’t skyrocket around him, or why he can touch me when Adam can’t.”
“It’s not crazy at all,” Rebekah assured her. “Lily, your phobia is not extreme or as severe as some of the other patients I treat. I have patients who can’t even leave their apartment because they are so petrified of physical contact. You are a functioning member of society. You have limits, yes, like cutting your own hair instead of going to a salon, but your fear is a controlled one. You don’t let it stop you. Let’s look at what we know about your phobia. Your fear is centered more around your family than the general public. You are afraid that showing them love or any emotion through physical contact can somehow cause them harm or even death. You think of Adam as family, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Adam became part of your fear, but Nikoli is new, he’s not someone you consider family.”
“Still, I shouldn’t want him to touch me. I’ve known most of the football team for years, and I can’t even give Mikey a hug. I don’t understand what is going on with me. Why is he different?”
Rebehka smiled, and Lily fidgeted. “Maybe he’s different because you are attracted to him?”
Lily swept her eyes back down, but she couldn’t hide the blush that bloomed on her cheeks. “Only a blind woman wouldn’t be attracted to him.”
“Lily, this isn’t a bad thing. It means you are finally ready to start to forgive yourself. You want to get better. It’s what we’ve been talking about for months. This isn’t all of a sudden. It’s been a long time coming. Your mind needed a way to let you express yourself, to let you touch someone who isn’t family, and somewhere in the last few days, you’ve decided that someone is Nikoli.”
Lily groaned and let herself fall back against the cushion. The need to be normal had been driving her nuts for months, especially now that she was graduating college and starting her life. All she wanted was to be normal. Was that where this willingness to let Nikoli touch her came from?
“Tell me about Nikoli,” Rebekha encouraged. “You said he’s different than Adam. What’s so different?”
“He doesn’t treat me like I’m his little sister who’s going to break apart at the first gust of wind.” Lily opened her eyes and looked at the abstract art lining the walls. “There’s something else.”
“Hmm?”
“Adam…well, Adam and I are not talking right now. He acted like an ass when he found out I was going on a date with Nikoli, and then he…he used my phobia against me to make me feel worthless.”
“Why would he do that?” Rebekha kept her face neutral, but concerned.
“Nikoli says he’s jealous, and part of me hopes he is. All I’ve ever wanted is for him to see me.”
“His wedding is soon, isn’t it?”
“Christmas.” Lily stood and paced the room. “I’ve wondered if maybe my willingness to let Nikoli touch me is part of that.”
“Is it?”
“I don’t know.” Lily sank back down on the couch. “I just don’t know. All I know is I’m confused. Nikoli makes me feel things, want things, things I’ve never felt or needed from Adam. I love Adam, but what if I’m not in love with him? What if I just latched onto the one person who made me feel safe, the per
son who’s always there for me?”
“Maybe this little experiment of yours with Nikoli will help you answer those questions, Lily.”
Maybe. Lily had been thinking about this for days. Nikoli sparked a response in her that she’d never felt in Adam’s presence. It was probably just lust, but it also said to her that her feelings for Adam may have been morphed into something bigger in her own head. Adam was her constant.
“Do you think we can go back to two sessions a week for a little while?” she asked abruptly. “I feel so out of control right now. All these emotions and sensations are new to me, and I feel overwhelmed.”
“Of course, Lily, if you feel you need it.” Rebekha smiled at her in such a motherly fashion it made her miss her mother in that instant. Her mama would help her hash this out, but she was miles and miles away in Florida.
“For a little while,” she said absently. “Nikoli pushes me, he won’t let me hide, but he never pushes me too far, or at least he hasn’t yet. I need to talk about it, though. I can’t talk to Adam about this, especially not right now.”
“Now, tell me how you are feeling in regards to your argument with Adam.” Rebekha moved the conversation back to Adam.
Lily’s shoulders sagged. “Adam has always been there, never unkind, always supportive, until I started dating Nikoli. I never knew he could be so cruel. He hurt me more than I can express. He’s sorry, but I can’t get past what he said to me, how he made me feel.”
“Sometimes those we love hurt us more than anyone else, Lily.”
Lily fiddled with the cushion again. “I’m trying to forgive him. I need him in my life, even if from a distance. He is the one stable person in my life, the one person who never made me feel guilty about Laney. Sometimes my mom looks at me, and I can still see the pain in her eyes and just a little bit of blame. I don’t know if I imagine it or not, but I see it.” Lily rubbed her neck, trying to loosen the tension knot. “I’ve been talking about Laney with Nikoli.”
Rebekha’s eyebrows went up just a bit. Lily refused to willingly talk about her sister with anyone, but with Nikoli, she found she could talk about her. She wasn’t sure why.
