Fear started to close around her throat again. “If you are still in danger, then—”
“Don’t worry about it.” He gave her a tired smile. “I’ve dealt with worse situations than this.”
But never enough to have someone else adopt Bethany. “Will you be keeping parental rights?”
Philip gave her a startled look. He straightened with a frown. “Of course. I need you to adopt her so that she will have a good, stable place to go if anything does happen. She adores you, and I can see that you adore her right back. I’ve always worried if something happened to me what would happen to her. You’d have a legal battle on your hands since I’m pretty certain her mother has never formally given up rights and the family would want to keep her.”
Lizzie waved a hand. Legal battles were old news to her. “I have an army of lawyers at my disposal. As successful as the family is, I very much doubt that they have billions up their sleeve. I might not be rich as Varton, but he’d give me every last penny if it meant keeping Bethany safe. I’m sure of that.”
“Good. Good.” Philip smiled, relaxing once more. “I’m sure it will all be fine. I just want to make sure all my bases are covered.”
Of course, he did. Bethany was the most important thing in the world to him. She had doubted it before, but after spending so much time with him, she knew differently. His world would collapse without Bethany. More than that, she was the one who kept him sane, who kept him striving to be a better person than circumstances would seem to let him. He gave her so much… He didn’t expect anything back from Bethany, either, other than to be a kid. He tried so hard to give her a normal life.
Unbidden, the private investigator that Lizzie had hired came across her mind. Guilt hit her hard in the stomach. Perhaps she should have spent more time getting to know Philip, before hiring someone to find out all the dirt so she could get him into jail. Melodi had been right. As far as criminals go, Philip wasn’t one of the bad ones. It was circumstances that forced him into this life, and circumstances keeping him there. It wasn’t like he could just march up to the crime boss and ask politely to be free to go to school and become a dentist, after all.
She chewed her lip as she stared at Philip’s profile. He did seem exhausted, but there was a pleased curve to his mouth, as though this had sorted out far better than he had thought it would. Should she admit to him what she had thought, that he was a horrible person who probably abused his daughter, using her as a pawn to make people feel sorry for him if nothing else? He probably knew that she thought that way of him.
But he didn’t know about the PI. The investigator who was trying to get the information she needed to get him put in jail. As soon as she got back home, she was going to call him off. There was no need for his services anymore. As for telling Philip… well, he probably knew already. He was good at this sort of thing and had had to dodge investigations before. The only reason he hadn’t brought it up was that he didn’t want to embarrass her.
“Philip—"
“You have to know,” Philip interrupted slowly as he opened his eyes. “I’m going to have you adopt Bethany and have shared custody of her, but she lives with me.”
Lizzie had gone so far from what they were talking about that it took her a moment to remember. When she did, she opened her mouth to say that she understood, but Philip was already continuing.
“We’ll arrange for weekends or something. She does adore you and I want you to continue to get to know each other, in case something does happen to me. I pray to God it doesn’t, but I want that in place if it does. And I don’t want her to lose her connection with you.” His gaze became even more intense as he stared at her. “And, you also should know that there will be times when I have to drop her off with you unexpectedly. It’s going to seem out of the blue sometimes. And I need you not to ask me why.”
Of course, as soon as he said that she wanted to ask why. She pressed her lips together tightly, her brow furrowing. It was obvious, wasn’t it? He’d have to drop Bethany off suddenly because he had to go do some criminal activity. Unless he was able to get out of that life entirely.
A lead ball sank in her stomach. She had forgiven him for the incident at the lake, for the fear and betrayal she had gone through there. But could she forgive him for continued crimes? If she knew everything that he had done… The dead man’s eyes flashed in her mind and she flinched. How many people had he killed?
It wasn’t a question she could ask. It wasn’t an answer she wanted. But… how could she share a child with him when she didn’t know? If she didn’t know him, if she didn’t know what sort of thing he was, ultimately, willing to do.
Would there come a day when Melodi would bring her into the precinct and have to ask her about her relationship with Philip, when he picked up Bethany, how he looked? Or would Melodi come to her saying that Philip had been killed in a firefight? Or… or would he one day simply disappear, never to be seen again? And she would know what happened, but still try to convince herself that there could be another way, that one day he’d show up with that cocky smile and tell her that he just had to wait for them to get off his tail?
Philip was watching her, and she was certain he saw every emotion that crossed her face. She was certain he knew every single thought in her head. His gaze softened, and pity and guilt warred in it.
He took her hand and squeezed it gently. “They’ll put me in more dangerous situations if they forgive me. But I can look after myself, okay? I’ll be fine. You don’t have to—"
“There is something else we have never talked about,” she interrupted. “What if I was able to buy your freedom? That works, right? If they get enough money, they’ll back off and let you live your life? You want out, I have the money and—”
“I am not going to—”
“Don’t.” Lizzie held up her hand, all her emotions mixing up and condensing. She shoved them away, focusing only on the here and now, about what she could do to help him. He put his life in danger for her; surely that was worth a few million dollars! “Don’t say that you’re not going to take my money or go into debt to me or anything like that. Got it? Think. Think about Bethany. Yes, we can put together all the safeguards we can for her, but in the end, it would still be ridiculously easy for them to kill you and steal her. Kids disappear all the time. It would be easy for her to do the same, legal protections in place or not.”
Philip’s mouth closed. He turned his face away, not looking too thrilled but not arguing either.
“The best thing for her,” Lizzie continued, her heart starting to beat a little faster. “The best thing for her would be for you to be free. You know it as much as I do.”
Philip hesitated a moment before reluctantly nodding.
“So, don’t you dare say that your pride, that whatever you were going to argue with me about, is worth more than her.”
He flinched, then chuckled lightly. “You’ve got a good point, there. I just… I don’t know how it would work. I don’t know if the Godfather would even accept your offer. After everything here, after everything that has happened… and the threat you already pose…”
“But that’s being sorted out.”
He didn’t respond to that. She didn’t know what the look on his face meant. Part of her was frustrated with him being so closed off, but there was something else, too. Something welling in her. Desperation, perhaps, or maybe something else entirely. She knew what he wasn’t saying about this whole arrangement of theirs. That as soon as she was back in her life and he was back in his, whatever was between them was over.
Their worlds were too different to make it work. Too apart from each other, and there was far too much that wasn’t being said. Couldn’t be said.
Before that happened, though, there was something she wanted. And she was damn well getting it. “Philip. Don’t answer right now. Right now, let’s just be us.”
***
What did she mean by that? Philip’s brow furrowed. Had she not been hersel
f for the last few days?
He opened his mouth to ask, but she answered him before he had a chance. And by that, she threw herself at him. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her fingers tangled in his hair, and her mouth crushed against his. The suddenness meant he wasn’t entirely prepared, and their teeth clinked. A shock of pain ran from the corner of his mouth, but even as Lizzie started to pull back, her eyes wide, he didn’t care.
He caught her around the waist and turned her over, pinning her against the couch as he nudged her legs open with his knee. Lizzie sighed as her grip on him eased a little. He fondled her breast through her clothing as he captured her mouth again. Lizzie arched her body to him, rocking her hips as much as she could. He buried his face into her neck.
“If this is being us,” he said between kisses, “then yes, by all means. Let’s just be us.”
“There’s just something…”
He pulled back, cocking his head. He knew what she meant. He listened hard. “Bethany’s still asleep. We can’t be as noisy as we were on the dock but—”
“That’s not what I want to say.” Lizzie’s face turned such a bright red that he had to chuckle. She gave him a half-glare before hesitancy returned to her expression. “I… On the docks, I was a virgin.”
Philip sobered at that. She didn’t regret their encounter, did she? No, of course not. If she did, then she wouldn’t be here, wanting to do it again. There had to be something else causing her hesitation. She twitched and fiddled with his collar, ruffling it and then smoothing it flat. Eventually, she glanced up into his eyes. Finding his brow arched, she flushed an even deeper red and cleared her throat.
“When I was in my teens, my first boyfriend… I told him some of the things I’d like to try, and he thought it was disgusting. He broke up with me shortly after, and even though he didn’t say it outright, he thought that I was some sort of freak…”
“What, because you wanted to be dominated? Lots of women like that. Lots of men, too,” he added. “The only problem I see is that our society is so sex-repressed that we don’t talk about things. And so, nobody knows what’s normal and what’s not, except for the extremes. Porn doesn’t help matters. I’m not just saying it gives people unrealistic expectations, there is a whole social thing around it that makes the sex argument even—”
Lizzie sighed.
Philip paused, then grinned. “Guess I let my mouth go away with me, huh?”
“Maybe.” Lizzie started to undo the buttons on his shirt. “As I was saying. I wanted to be dominated. And I enjoyed it. But I also want to do the dominating from time to time. And right now, when everything feels like it’s so far out of my control…”
Philip understood what she was saying. He arched a brow as he considered it. He’d had fantasies, of course, of undeniable women who would take what they wanted from him. In some of his younger days, those fantasies had gotten close to fruition, but he had never met a woman who outright stated that it was what she wanted.
“What did you have in mind?” he asked, keeping his voice even.
“Um…” Lizzie’s face went red again. “I was just thinking maybe… tying you?”
Philip laughed, amused at her continued hesitancy, but nodded. He kissed her one more time before he withdrew, pulling her to her feet with him. They might as well try it out, after all. What was the harm in that? He led her to her bedroom and there turned to her.
“Would you like me to undress or do you want to do that yourself?”
She laughed, her face still flushed, then looked him up and down. “I think… I want you to undress first. Slowly.”
He nodded as he picked up undoing his shirt, popping each button lazily. Lizzie watched, her pupils dilating, and he felt himself hardening at the look in her eyes. God, she was so beautiful! His nostrils flared as he took in her scent, musky with arousal, and dropped his shirt to the floor. Lizzie’s hands started to move up and down her own thighs, and the way she bit her lip like that was so alluring that it took all his self-control not to forget about the whole tying thing and just take her again.
Once he was naked before her, while she was still dressed, she directed him onto the bed. Her hands roved lightly over his skin as she laid him down, pressing her firm body to his. It made him moan, his abdomen twitching with the effort to stay still. Lizzie straddled him, rubbing herself along his length as she snapped his belt in her hands, then looped it around the slats in the headboard. He placed his wrists up there obediently, and she clumsily tied him in place.
He could have given her a few pointers but wanted her to feel empowered, so said nothing. It was secure enough to hold him.
And when her mouth started to move down his body, he needed that restraint. He groaned when Lizzie took one of his nipples between her teeth, biting softly. It didn’t quite get to the point of pain, and he found himself wanting to tell her to bite even harder. He swelled with desire as she moved down his abdomen, her hands already on his thighs. When she kissed down his length and then took his tip into her mouth, his head fell back onto the pillow. He clenched his teeth tight to hold in the expletives he wanted to say. He knew he was already on edge and more sensitive for the emotional toll the day had taken on him.
But the way she was working her mouth and tongue, he never would have guessed she had been a virgin only a couple weeks ago.
“You’re a—fast learner,” he gasped out.
Lizzie purred in response, moving her head and hand in firm strokes. He hardened quickly, and it was only after she pulled away and straddled his legs that he realized that sometime in all that, she had shed her clothing. Philip blinked in surprise, not understanding how she had managed to get undressed while pleasuring him.
“I want to be on top of you,” she whispered, then bit her lip. “Can I?”
Philip grinned. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“Well… Am I too heavy?”
“No,” he assured her. “You are all curves and I want to see your breasts bouncing while you bounce on me.”
“If you’re sure…”
“I am.”
When she sat over him, moving him over her slick entrance, she held herself up, breathing heavily. She didn’t trust herself? He nodded encouragingly, and she started to move back and forth, hardening him further.
“Lizzie,” he groaned out, pulling against the belt that held him bound.
“Shhhh.” Lizzie pressed one of her hands to his chest, leaning over him as she pressed her other over his mouth. “We don’t want to be caught now, do we? Who knows what terrible things the vampires might do to us then?”
Philip stifled laughter. It was more likely that the vampires would want to join in—a flash of jealousy rushed up in him as he imagined some other man’s hands on Lizzie’s creamy flesh. Hurriedly, he tried to imagine a woman instead—it was a fantasy he harbored. To his surprise and chagrin, even imagining another woman there, trading kisses between him and her, made the jealousy knot in his stomach and chest. He didn’t want anybody else touching her. He didn’t want anybody else giving her pleasure.
She was his. And he would have her.
His hands yanked against the belt and Lizzie smirked down at him. He wasn’t inside, though the need to be throbbed so powerful that he could feel himself twitching against her. She continued to rub herself along him, her clit swelling as friction took over. The need to bury himself into her was growing more overwhelming, and he pulled against the belt again.
“Lizzie.”
Her face was flushed, a grin playing on her face. “Yes?”
He couldn’t tell her to untie him. She would do it. And then he would take her, as roughly as he had on the dock. While he was certain that she would enjoy it, that wasn’t what she wanted this time. She wanted to see him in the exquisite agony, the torture of pleasure. She wanted to see what she could do with him.
With a frustrated groan, he let his head fall back. “Please.”
It was Lizzie’s turn to groan, though i
f it was because she had found just the right angle or if she liked hearing him beg, he didn’t know. He didn’t care, either, because he got what he wanted. She lifted off him and, with one hand to angle him, stiff and hard, she lowered herself down. She was tight, almost as tight as she had been in their first session. Now, being able to see her face, Philip felt everything clench inside of him.
Lizzie’s mouth was open slightly, her pink lips making an ‘o’, her eyes half-closed. Her head fell back, her body so firm and luscious that he wanted to rip his hands free and pull her so close until neither of them knew where one started and the other ended. Lizzie leaned over him, her hands on his chest, as she started to lift and lower her hips. The first few times were awkward, hesitant, but she soon found a steady rhythm.
Philip answered her rhythm, matching her thrust for thrust. Her heat sucked around him, making greedy noises as they moved their bodies together. Everything was so tight inside of him that he panted with the effort to hold himself back. He was going to last long enough for her to find her pleasure—of that he would damn well make certain.
Soon, Lizzie was panting, small mewling noises coming from her throat. Her movements became jerkier and she dropped her head, shaking it. “I… I can’t…”
“You can.” Philip didn’t recognize the growl of his own voice. “Just keep going.”
“I… I can’t.”
“You can.”
Lizzie panted hard, starting to move her hips again. Her chest was flushed with pleasure, and the redness started to creep up her neck. He could almost see when her orgasm took her. She clenched down on him, still moving her hips. The pressure was almost too much, but Philip was able to grind his teeth, holding out for a little while longer. It was only after Lizzie’s movements started to become jerky, her body folding in half over his, that he allowed himself completion.
The Wolf’s Surprise Babies Page 10