Love with Every Beat

by K. L. Shandwick

  Lily was tense, eyes dark, mouth pressed into a line, shoulders bunched up. In an instant my finger reached out and trailed over the soft skin on the back of her hand in an effort to soothe her, while her fingers tightened on the steering wheel.

  “You’re my favorite girl, Lily. You are so much more than them. They picked me, Lily, but I picked you.” I sounded like some sadistic bastard who enjoyed the emotional angst I was causing. Saying one thing to her and acting in contrary to that. I ran my fingers through my hair, it was all becoming too much for me. I liked Lily, like…really liked her, but this could never go anywhere. Yet I was damned if I could leave her the fuck alone.

  “I don’t want to be your favorite Alfie, I just want to have a normal relationship and be respected for who I am.” Seeing the hurt cloud her eyes crucified me, I almost made a grab for her, I wanted…no needed to hold her. I wanted to make her feel better—to make myself feel better.

  The pained expression on her face was what held me back, so I clasped my fingers and stretched my arms out, turning my palms out in front of me. “You want me to pretend that I’m your boyfriend, is that it?” The girl was a saint; I’d have at least hired a guy to beat me up by now.

  Our conversation was becoming more and more bazaar. “No Alfie. Listen, I enjoyed what we did, our connection was amazing. I don’t want you to feel bad about any of it. I was as much invested as you were. However, I’ve moved on. I can’t be with you… that way, any more.” She was so damned hurt, and it was my fault.

  I put my hand on the steering wheel. “Stop the fucking car.”

  Lily’s eyes flashing wildly at me, her body steeled, and she bit her lip nervously, but she continued to drive. “Stop the fucking car now, Lily.” She pulled the car over and turned the engine off. Lily sat completely still, staring out of the window, without any visible signs of what might have been going on in her beautiful head.

  “Look at me.” She turned her body to face me. “Can I try something?” I asked more softly. “Don’t worry babe, I won’t hurt you.”

  She bit her lip and said quietly, “You do Alfie, every day you do this, you do hurt me.”

  “That’s not what I’m trying to achieve here, Lily, far from it.”

  When her eyes connected with mine, I could sense her feelings bubbling up from the depths of her soul.

  “Can I try something?” Lily gave me a worried look. “Trust me.” She turned her head away quickly, and I sat staring at the back of it, willing her to look back at me.

  She finally did, and I felt relieved. “Okay,” she said almost inaudible. I leaned forward and reached for the seat lever. I pushed her back and away from the steering wheel. “Face me Lily.” I was surprised because in spite of everything that had gone on earlier she just did what I asked and swung her legs and body around to face me.

  Cupping her face in my hands, I began stroking her cheeks with my thumbs. A single, perfectly formed tear sprung from her eye and streaked down her cheek. I caught it with my thumb and brought it to my mouth. The taste of her hot, wet, salty tear made me feel so damn low for how I was being with her.

  My heart wanted to pick her up and take her to my goddamn bed and get us both lost in a whole different set of feelings than the ones currently going on between us. To push against what my head had been screaming at me all day about her.

  How could I leave her alone? Where the fuck was I supposed to find the strength to do that when she was everything my heart seemed to desire right at that moment? Almost involuntarily, my body drew nearer to hers—the pull she had on me made me helpless.

  I felt myself surrendering to the magnetism we shared. It wasn’t really a conscious decision but more of a compulsion to go with the flow. The draw we’d had several times already that day, but this time I wasn’t going to be able to stop. That was until I read the silent plea in her eyes, a plea that screamed stop right before she closed her eyes, shutting me out.

  My mouth was too close for my lips not to touch her, but tilting my head upwards, I let it brush against one eye, then the other, while my hand concentrated on the feel of her skin. I was remembering how it felt when my arms had been wrapped around her from behind, and I’d kissed her on her shoulder.

  It wasn’t a passionate embrace. It was a tight soft, warming hug of…I wasn’t sure what. “Lily, I really don’t want to hurt you honey, all I want is to make you feel good.” I sounded like such a liar with my words saying one thing and my body reacting to hers like it was independent of my mind. I was trying to soothe her, but I was just so fucked up I was making things worse. Lily pushed me back.

  “I’ve told you it doesn’t make me feel good. It’s killing me, Alfie, please stop,” she pleaded, her eyes full of tears that were yet to brim over.

  Her rejection cut so deep inside me, making my heart heave and my chest feel tight.

  The clarity in her voice made me drop my hands from her and pull away. My breathing was ragged from being so near her, from touching her. The desolate look on her face and the chaotic feelings going on inside my body rendered me powerless to help her. My fingers dug into the sides of the car seat, gripping the sides so that I was restraining myself from touching her again.

  Both of us sat in an uneasy silence, the air thick with all the fucked-up feelings that were incapacitating the both of us. I was suddenly fascinated by the inside seam on my jeans. My throat constricted as I forced down a jagged swallow, and I dragged my eyes up slowly to meet hers again.

  “Don’t do that again, don’t touch me. I’m starting the car, and I’m going to take you home now.” She seemed stoic at first, that sweet determined look on her face, lips pinched together, but I could see that she was desperately trying to hold back her tears, and it was all down to me—I was punishing her with this.

  Her turmoil was almost as bad as my own. One minute determined and strong, the next a bundle of feelings that had no name, just a compulsion to do whatever emotion bubbled to the surface first. It was a hell of a feeling to deal with.

  Turning down my street, a sob escaped Lily’s throat and tears streamed freely down her face. She was pulling up in front of my driveway and just didn’t seem to have anything left in her to hide how I was making her feel.

  When she started to cry, she lost control completely and became distraught. She was just sitting there in the car staring ahead. The way the sobs racked her body will haunt me forever. I had no words for how I was feeling.

  Seeing her crying made me feel desolate about that, but I was devoid of any feeling at that moment. “Shush,” I whispered pulling her into a hug and wrapping my arms around her. For the first time since that first day, there was no chemistry between us at all. I wasn’t getting high or feeling euphoric after pulling her against me, like I usually did.

  “I really don’t want to hurt you, honey. You need to stay here tonight. You can’t drive home like this,” I murmured into her long silky hair and not being able to help catch a small curl between my fingers and played with it absentmindedly.

  Immediately, she stiffened, and I sat back from her and rubbed her back. “I promise I won’t come near you. I’ll sleep on the couch.” Lily was dead against it at first and protested, but she was so worn down with all the shit that was going on inside her head, that getting into the nearest bed was about all she could muster.

  Going into my house first with her following, I went to the kitchen then followed her upstairs. I wanted to give her a bottle of water and some painkillers. Hesitant to go up there to her in the first place, I wondered what reaction I might have. The woman I’d give my left nut to be inside again was lying in my bed upstairs again but out of bounds. In fact, she should have had a couple of snipers waiting to pick me off the way I had been behaving toward her.

  When I went upstairs, the bedroom door was open. From the hallway I could see her hugging my pillow, sobbing quietly into it. My initial thoughts were that I could lie down beside her and just hug her to sleep after pulling her close to my ch
est.

  The need to tell her it would be okay was gnawing at me, but it wouldn’t be okay. We couldn’t be together. So I didn’t say or do anything, just placed some pain relief and a bottle of water on the nightstand and walked away from her without looking back.

  Back downstairs, I wondered how the hell I was supposed to sleep knowing she was lying upstairs crying and that I was the cause of her distress.

  All these fucked-up, alien feelings were going on inside of me, and they were making me feel like I was having a break down. What the hell was I doing? I did and didn’t want to get involved. I was like some desperately dried up sexual predator, fucking her every which way for my satisfaction.

  Of course the same voices were going around and around, my thoughts in complete conflict with what my whole body was screaming for. Her. How the hell was I going to resist her? By the time daylight came I had decided to talk to her. Tell her why all of this was a bad idea. But then again, decided that would be a bad idea as well.

  For her to know about Kara and Poppy would be a risk to the both of them. Then there was the escorting. Fuck, she’d go bat shit crazy if I told her about that. Whichever way I argued it out in my head, I sounded like a real fuckwad.

  I pushed myself off of the couch, sweating and uncomfortable, having laid there for hours thinking about her. I snuck upstairs and watched her through the doorway, curled up on her side, her thick dark hair strewn around my sheet and pillow, thinking it really would never get old—the feeling I got from looking at her.

  What a strange concept this was for me, I hadn’t lusted after a girl since high school, but that was chump change compared to what was going on with me right now. I mean Lily’s name only had to come into my head, and I was as hard as a rock, like some hard up teenager passing a girl he liked in the school corridor.

  Chapter 20 – Douche

  By the time I heard her stirring upstairs, my mind had worked its way through just about every permutation of our scenario, as to how this morning would play out when she came downstairs. I’d had her wrapping her arms around me and kissing me good morning, and from there her on the floor with me hovering over her, burying my dick deep inside of her.

  The other extreme had her slapping me hard and taking off, and every imaginable scenario in between. She was like some crazy kind of brainwash. There wasn’t another single thought in my head that didn’t involve her from the moment I’d seen her at Mandy’s place.

  Thinking I would have done better—behaved differently—if she hadn’t been with Will, hell I never even expected her to be there. How was I supposed to know how I would react when faced with that, but the feelings that rose to the surface about the possibility of them together, whoa!

  The passionate jealousy I felt at seeing him, his hands on her, made me fucking sick. Even thinking about it afterwards, I could feel my teeth grinding against each other. I was so fucking done with this. These feelings were sucking the life from me.

  Understanding how I felt would probably take months of therapy. I had no idea what I was going to do from one minute to the next, and no way of dealing with the riot of emotions inside of me.

  Since my parents died, I’d had little in the way of emotion. Seriously there was nothing but numbness except in the moment when I’ve taken a girl for my pleasure.

  I’m not a selfish lover, I’ve always gotten as much pleasure from seeing and making a woman cum as I did in finishing myself. Depending on my mood, sometimes I’ve set quite a punishing pace as well.

  Some girls thought they wanted me to unleash, except that on the odd occasion when I did, they found me too hard to handle. Not her though. Lily. Despite her inexperience, she was open and giving, experimental and kind of fearless.

  She had an amazing stamina for sex and was open to trying new things. I didn’t think I’d ever been with someone who trusted me completely with her mind and body, the way she did when we were getting it on.

  But it was sex right? This ‘thing’ between us, like that movie with Glenn Close and that guy, what’shisname…anyway, Fatal Attraction this time, it was the guy who was not able to accept what happened and move on.

  That thought triggered another. How could she just move on from what we did and get with that cowboy a few weeks later, when even the scent of her was etched in my memory? That was something I was really struggling with. I was the one who was stuck while she could move on from me to the next. Yet, seeing the state she was in last night? Damn, she’d fallen hard for me, and I was damned if I knew what to do about it.

  Stuck in a field of land mines, that was what it felt like. I felt like no matter which way this played out—whichever direction I took—I was going to be emotionally screwed. Apart from the obvious reason not to get involved, there were plenty of others. For a start, our lives were in different places, opposite stages of our lives. She was just starting out her college degree, new life, friends who were all focused and on the same page as her.

  A square peg in a round hole, I didn’t fit in there. I’d been there already and then there was my band. We were getting bigger. Not that we’d get much bigger. Just that stuff was happening for us.

  Weird stuff. Like longer tours and established bands taking notice of us, offers to support state headliners at events that were bigger than anything we’d played before. It meant us disappearing for weeks on end. Like I had already, and look how long it had taken for her to be with someone else.

  Would she be like that—if I was with her and I wasn’t around? How long would it take for her to be with someone else? Lily was quite a sexual being. The first time we were together, it was like an awakening in her sex drive.

  She was tentative at first, but I saw that sexual confidence move at lightning speed. By the end of that first long session we had together—fuck…she was the most amazing woman I’d ever been with.

  Hearing footsteps on the stairs I turned and Jesus, she was a vision coming down toward me. There was no way I could peruse her without her seeing me do it, but no way could I stop myself either.

  Even her feet. God, her feet were so dainty and pretty with her slender ankles and her cute n’ sexy deep red nail varnish. My eyes made a slow, painful journey up the slender, bare skin of legs, my dick thickening and standing more and more to attention with every inch my eyes traveled north.

  As I neared the apex of her legs, a visual from memory of her soft, wet, swollen pussy tortured me. My eyes didn’t linger on her any longer, and I forced them upwards to meet her eyes. We connected, and I saw her hesitate briefly as a flash of uncertainty flit across them.

  She looked as awkward as I felt, so I tried to put her at her ease. “Feeling better?”

  “Yeah, yesterday kind of sucked,” she replied. Lily’s voice was hoarse, and she sounded so sad that it made my heart shatter. She tried her best to smile but it looked more like a grimace. Time stopped again, even now, in what was an uneasy silence; I couldn’t stop myself from taking her in.

  Her beauty was truly remarkable to me. She was tired though, her eyelids were puffy from crying but her eyes were so bright and clear in spite of that. I only realized I had been staring at her for so long when she blushed, her arms covering the front of her torso as she hugged herself and started heading for the door.

  “Okay, well, thanks for the bed, but I need to run. All my stuff is back at my place. Do you need a ride to your car or can you get someone to help you?” She was gesturing at the door with her thumb over her shoulder.

  Not knowing what to think I said, “I could come by, and you could take me after college.” She shrugged, but I already knew by the fleeting look of panic right there in her eyes, that there was no way she was going to take me anywhere after last night.

  Conscious I was pulling my lip when her eyes fell on my mouth and stayed there, watching me, I was thinking that I might not get the chance to talk to her again, and I needed to know what her thoughts were about Will. After seeing the way he looked at her, I figured she was on bo
rrowed time until he made his move on her. “Lily, can I ask you something?”

  She nodded but didn’t speak. “Is it better with Will? Is he a stronger lover? You both play together like you are lovers, when he’s blowing his sax I wonder if he’s imagining he’s blowing you Lily.” I even smirked at myself with that one.

  From her reaction I knew I’d get her true feelings about him, and she began to laugh hysterically. “You’re absurd! You do know that, right?”

  Pretending I was straight up about what I’d just said, even though it sounded corny, I played her with my best serious face, pouring myself a coffee, trying to look remorseful. “I’m sorry, my bad, it’s none of my business.”

  She was pissed and sighed tiredly. “Damn right it isn’t. What Will and I have… is much stronger than anything physical. Will doesn’t get my body, Alfie. What he does do is he fucks my heart and soul, emotional stuff, that’s where our connection comes from.”

  Lily’s reply had me steaming inside. So full of anger that she’d say the douche was anything to her and yet she was talking about him as if she was becoming attached. She had just made me hate the shit even more. “I don’t like to think of him with you, Lily,” I voiced openly.

  When her jaw dropped, and I realized how I sounded. Green with envy. “You’re jealous? That’s an emotion, Alfie.”

  “It isn’t jealousy, but if you’re having sex with him, then that lessens my chances.” Giving her something to think about, I was determined to say or do anything that prevented him from getting into her panties.

  “How can you even say stuff like that and think it’s okay? Anyway, what Will and I do is none of your business, Alfie. All you need to know is that you and I aren’t sleeping together.”

  My whole body was screaming at me whenever she was near me. “Any chance we can fix this, Lily?” For the first time, I heard an unfamiliar plea in my voice.