Craving Lily

by Nicole Jacquelyn

“I’d want to if I was you.”

  “Hell,” I murmured, my hand tightening in her hair. “I’m so fuckin’ proud of you, Dandelion. Any anger I had about you leavin’ was gone when your dad came in wavin’ that first report card around like a flag.”

  “I would’ve stayed,” she whispered. “I would’ve stayed if you’d asked me to.”

  “Don’t say that,” I groaned, finally losing any restraint I had when it came to her.

  Both of us moved at the same time, but the kiss I’d been planning on giving her, full of frustration and need, never happened. Instead, our lips barely brushed. It was the first time I’d had my mouth on hers in so long that I couldn’t help but savor it.

  “I should’ve been here with you,” she said against my mouth.

  I shook my head gently and pressed my mouth more firmly against hers to shut her up. My hands were shaking as I traced her body from shoulders to thighs and back up again. She was bigger than when she’d left. Her breasts were bigger, her ass was bigger, her waist was bigger, her thighs were bigger. It wasn’t something most people would have noticed, it wasn’t a huge difference, but I knew. I’d held her before. Had carried her and grabbed her ass and had felt her pressed up against me. The experience had been something that I’d never been able to forget, and I could feel the differences between then and now.

  For some reason, those changes in her body turned me on even more. It was like physical proof of all the ways we had changed since that first time I’d kissed her. She wasn’t a kid anymore. She’d been on her own and had experiences outside the bubble she’d grown up in. I knew she’d met far more interesting people than me, smarter, richer, well-traveled and yet, she was in my arms. Her tongue was in my mouth, and her nails were digging into my lower back.

  She’d left and she’d come back to me, something I’d never thought would happen.

  “You’re fuckin’ beautiful,” I murmured, my voice almost surprised. “Shit, I—”

  “I’m the same as I’ve always been,” she said distractedly as she pushed my cut off my shoulders.

  “You’re not,” I argued, helping her. I pulled my t-shirt off and closed my eyes at the feeling of her hands on my chest.

  For the past week, my mind had been racing non-stop. I hadn’t been able to escape it even after I’d closed my eyes at night. But right then, feeling her soft fingers tracing my chest and belly, everything else disappeared and my mind was finally silent.

  “You’re the same,” she said, leaning forward to press her lips against my sternum. “You’re exactly how I remembered you.”

  “I’m not,” I argued, my hands shoving her coat off her shoulders and immediately finding the bottom of her shirt so I could pull it over her head.

  “You love me?” she asked, meeting my eyes as she stood there in her jeans and bra.

  “Impossible for me to stop,” I replied honestly.

  “Then you’re the same,” she said with a shrug.

  After that, we didn’t talk much. I stripped her slowly, discovering every inch that I’d never seen before, her belly button, the underside of her breasts and the nipples that pointed faintly upward, her hipbones and the short thatch of hair in between. I traced the curve where her ass cheeks met the backs of her thighs with my tongue and pressed my thumbs into the dimples at her lower back.

  While I was marveling at all the places that I’d never before touched, she was doing her own exploring. Her hands drifted over my chest and arms, ran along the waistband of my jeans and then slowly peeled them off, gripped me through my boxers, then ran down the backs of my thighs and in between them.

  Every movement was unhurried. There wasn’t a second of awkwardness or fumbling, not even when we had to pause to kick off our shoes. Instead, we just took shit as it came, unable to stop and unwilling to rush.

  By the time I had her spread out below me and was rolling the condom down my cock, it felt like I had just run a mile, but still had the energy to run a marathon.

  “It feels like I’ve been waiting forever,” she said, making me shudder as she used one finger to trace down the inside of my hip.

  “You waited?” I asked, my throat tight as I met her eyes.

  She winced and barely shook her head. “I’m not a virgin,” she said, filling me with relief and jealousy that I’d never in a million years admit. “But it wasn’t like this.”

  “I don’t want to know,” I murmured, coming down on top of her so that our mouths were level.

  “It was only once,” she said, running her nose along the side of mine.

  “I don’t want to know,” I repeated.

  “It—” her breath came out in a rush as I slid inside.

  She was snug and warm and wet and so goddamn perfect.

  “Leo,” she said, her eyes wet. “Finally.”

  I kissed her face as I started to move, breathing her in.

  It didn’t take long before both of us were pushing for more. I lifted one of her legs over my shoulder as her nails dug into the back of my neck. Her hand ran between us and explored where we were connected as I worshiped her nipples, biting and sucking and leaving marks on her breasts that would be there for days. It was almost a fight, the way we went at each other once the thrill of exploration had turned into a craving for connection. Both of us struggled to get closer, to feel more and squeeze out every ounce of pleasure we could get.

  She came with a whimper, her teeth clenched as she shuddered and as soon as her body went boneless, I had both of her knees on my shoulders. It didn’t take me long to follow her over the edge, and when I did, it was better than any high I’d ever had.

  Less than ten minutes later reality intruded and my quieted mind started to spin again. All it took were a few words from her.

  “I’m going to transfer to a school out here,” she whispered, snuggling closer against my chest as my stomach sank. “I can go to U of O. It’s a good school.”

  “No,” I blurted, unable to keep my mouth shut. “No, you’re not.”

  “What do you mean, I’m not?” she asked, her entire body stiffening.

  “You go to Yale,” I said, staring down at the top of her head. “You’re goin’ to a fuckin’ crazy good school. You’re not ruinin’ that.”

  “I wouldn’t be ‘ruining’ anything,” she said, lifting up to look at me.

  “Your life’s out there. You’ve got a couple more years—”

  “So, what was this?” she asked, pulling away until our bodies were no longer touching. “A one-off? Letting off some steam?”

  “Does it gotta mean you completely change your life?” I asked, sitting up so she was no longer hovering above me. “Your life ain’t here with me.”

  “It could be,” she snapped, crawling off the bed.

  “I’ve got a kid, Lily,” I reminded her. “I go to work and I take care of my boy. That’s my life. That the life you want?”

  “I want a life with you,” she ground out.

  “What, you’re just gonna come back here and play house with me?”

  “Why do you keep using that phrase, ‘playing house’? It’s fucking insulting. I’m saying I want to live out here and go to school near my family and you, and that’s a bad thing?”

  “You think you’re gonna stick with school when you’re makin’ a life with me? Be able to keep up with all that work when you’ve got a two year old that’s askin’ for milk and a story and his blanket and for you to play with him?”

  “A lot of people do it,” she yelled, throwing her arms up in annoyance. “Even people at Yale.”

  “You know that Ashley had a good job when she got pregnant with Gray?” I asked, sliding to the edge of the bed so I could pull my jeans on. “Gray got sick a few times when he was baby and she had to take off work, so they fired her. Went from being the manager in an office to waitin’ tables at a fuckin’ restaurant at the mall.”

  “What does that have to do with me?” she asked, angrily pulling on her clothes.

&
nbsp; “Priorities fuckin’ shift,” I said. My head was starting to pound. “I’m not gonna be the reason that you don’t finish school.”

  “I will finish,” she replied stubbornly.

  “I know you will,” I said, throwing on my t-shirt and cut. “Cause you’re staying in fuckin’ Connecticut and going to fuckin’ Yale.”

  I shook my head and turned to leave, but I couldn’t make myself do it. Turning around, I found her standing there with her arms wrapped around her waist, her eyes filled with tears.

  “You’re so much better than me,” I said quietly, reaching out to cup her face in my hand. I leaned forward and kissed her gently. “It’s only a couple more years, alright?”

  Then I left before the look in her eyes could make me change my mind.

  Chapter 21

  Lily

  I was livid. Even after refusing to meet Leo’s eyes as I got into my dad’s truck, and leaving the clubhouse in a spray of gravel, I still couldn’t get my temper under control.

  I understood where Leo was coming from and I loved him for it, I really did. He was trying to protect me, the way he’d done for as long as I could remember. But he’d forgotten one simple fact as he’d tried to make my decisions for me back in his room.

  I was no longer a child.

  He may be older than me, but I’d been making my own decisions for a while now. I wasn’t a scared, seventeen-year-old kid who ran when things got hard. I also wasn’t a pushover.

  My phone rang as I parked in front of my parents’ house.

  “Hello?” I barked, annoyed that anyone was interrupting my internal tirade.

  “Wow, you sound chipper,” my sister-in-law replied, laughing. “Bad time?”

  “No,” I said shortly, then felt instantly like shit. “Sorry, I got into it with your brother today, and I’m still pissed.”

  “Oh no, what did he do?”

  “It’s nothing,” I replied, unwilling to discuss any of it with Trix. She was Leo’s sister and she was married to my brother, and I’d realized early on that it wouldn’t be fair of me to complain about Leo to her. “What’s up?”

  “I was just wondering if you were going to the party tonight?”

  “No,” I replied instantly.

  Trix laughed. “Don’t feel like celebrating Cecilia?”

  “I’d rather break my own arm,” I replied dryly.

  “That’s imaginative,” she said in surprise. “I was just calling to see if you weren’t going, if you could watch the boys tonight? I’m not sure how late we’ll be home, but you could just crash at our place if you wanted.”

  “Sure,” I said as I climbed out of the truck.

  As I walked inside, Trix filled me in on the details of when she needed me, and I was paying close attention, so I didn’t realize how quiet the house was until I’d gotten off the phone. I retraced my steps back to the entryway and found my dad reading in his bed in the living room.

  “Hey, how’d you get left here alone?” I asked, grinning when he snarled at me.

  “Ceecee took your mom and Charlie to get their nails done,” he replied.

  “What’s she driving? I had the truck.”

  “Rented a car,” he said easily.

  “Well, isn’t she fancy?” I mumbled under my breath.

  My dad made an annoyed sound in his throat, and I immediately regretted saying a word. I usually tried to keep my thoughts to myself when it came to Cecilia. My parents loved us all equally, and they hated when one of us said anything bad about the other. As far as they were concerned, family loyalty trumped everything. I agreed with them, to a point. I wouldn’t bitch about Ceecee to anyone, but I kind of hated that I couldn’t even say a word against her to my own parents. Nonetheless, I knew better, and if I hadn’t still been pissed about Leo, I would’ve kept my mouth shut.

  I made a face of apology and sat down gingerly at the foot of his bed. “Why did you drop out of Yale?”

  “You thinkin’ of droppin’ out?” he asked, dropping his book into his lap. I almost rolled my eyes when I saw a very famous theoretical physicist on the back cover.

  “No,” I said, meeting his eyes. “But maybe transferring?”

  “Is that a question?”

  “I don’t know,” I mumbled.

  “You wanna transfer schools, I’m not gonna talk you out of it,” he said, surprising me.

  “What? You practically bullied me into going to Yale.”

  “Nah,” he argued with a wave of his hand. “Did I want you to go? Hell, yeah. Wanted you to see what was out there. Spread your wings a little. There’s a lot more in this life than the Aces’ clubhouse, Lilybug.”

  “I just don’t know if I want to be anywhere else.”

  “I can understand that,” he said with a nod. “To answer your question, I dropped out because my family needed me.”

  “Because of Aunt Callie?” I asked, getting more comfortable on the bed.

  “Yeah, your Aunt Callie. Also, your great gram. She was gettin’ older, and every time I came home to visit, I’d notice her slowin’ down more and more. Scared the hell outta me.” He chuckled. “Also hated that place with the fuckin’ trust fund babies and chicks that cared more about their hair than what they were studyin’.”

  “And you ended up with a woman who won’t leave the house without full makeup,” I joked.

  “Far more to your ma than her looks,” he said with a soft smile.

  “True,” I said with my own smile.

  “Leo got anythin’ to do with this decision?” he asked, his face growing serious.

  “Yes,” I replied honestly. “But it’s not only him. I want to be home. I miss seeing everyone and going to Charlie’s basketball games and hanging out at the parties that I’m finally old enough to drink at—”

  “Not quite old enough,” he mumbled.

  “He doesn’t want me to stay,” I said with a grimace. “He says that I’ll end up dropping out of school.”

  “That your plan?”

  “No. I want to finish college. I’m not sure what I want to do yet, but I want to have that degree.”

  “Then that’s what you’ll do,” my dad said simply. “I’ve never seen you give up on anythin’ you set your mind to, kiddo. That ain’t your style.”

  “You really won’t be mad if I come home?”

  “Not a bit,” he said immediately. “You do what’s best for you, Lily. I’ll support ya.”

  “Thanks, Daddio,” I said softly, giving his foot a squeeze.

  I was still sitting on the end of his bed when my mom and sisters came in the door, laughing.

  “I like the black,” Charlie said, looking at her nails instead of where she was walking. “They make me look fierce.”

  “You do look pretty fierce,” Cecilia replied with a smile. She glanced up at me and my dad and her smile disappeared.

  “I’m gonna go take a shower,” I said, glancing back at my dad. “I told Trix I’d keep the boys tonight.”

  I left the room and detoured to the kitchen to grab a glass of water before I headed upstairs. For some reason, I figured that Cecilia would avoid me since I’d been giving her the cold shoulder, but of course, my sister never made things easy.

  “Where were you today?” she asked as she sat down at the counter. “You could’ve come with us.”

  I don’t know what made me say it. Maybe it was a mixture of leftover anger at Leo and frustration that my mom was acting the happiest I’d seen her in years. Maybe it was just that I wanted to aim a well-placed arrow at Cecilia for once instead of the other way around, but whatever it was, it had my mouth opening and the words spilling out before I could stop them.

  “I was busy fucking Leo.”

  “Jesus Christ, Lily,” my mom said in frustration as she stepped into the kitchen.

  I didn’t even look up. I was too busy staring at my sister’s emotionless face.

  “Well, I hope it was good,” she said finally, turning away.

 
“Much better than a manicure,” I said smugly as I walked out of the kitchen.

  It wasn’t until I hit the stairs that my stomach churned with disgust. I’d used something between me and Leo, something that was significant and special, to make a dig at my older sister. A dig that hadn’t even seemed to hit the mark.

  I grabbed some clothes and hopped in the shower, still castigating myself about what I’d said. It wasn’t anyone’s business that I’d slept with Leo, and somehow I’d made it into something it wasn’t. Something that looked a lot like revenge, when in reality, it hadn’t had a single thing to do with Cecilia.

  I was washing my hair when her voice piped up beyond the shower curtain.

  “I know you’re still mad at me.”

  “Goddamnit, Ceecee,” I yelled as shampoo got into my eyes and nose. “I locked the fucking door!”

  “That lock is easy to jimmy. Don’t you remember when you were little and accidentally locked yourself in when I was babysitting? I thought you were going to have a heart attack, and you just kept telling me to slide fruit snacks under the door so you wouldn’t starve.”

  “And of course, you didn’t,” I snapped.

  “Nope, I unlocked the door instead and got you some ice cream, if I remember correctly.”

  “What do you want?” I asked, wiping the last of the shampoo from my face. “Spit it out and then get out.”

  “Why are you still so mad, Lily? Jesus. It’s been years.”

  “Exactly,” I ground out. “We haven’t seen you in years and suddenly you’re back and renting cars and taking Mom to get her nails done, and I’m supposed to… what? Welcome you with open arms?”

  “That’s the general idea,” she said dryly.

  “No. Fuck you. You left me. You left and you didn’t even come back when I needed you.”

  “When you got your sight back?” she asked curiously. “Is that when you needed me? Because I thought about it. I even asked Mom if I should.”

  “Right,” I replied derisively.

  “She told me to stay where I was. Said that you were having a hard time and she didn’t want anything making you more upset. I think she was afraid that something was going to trigger you and make you lose your sight again.”