by Eden Butler
“Stupid? I mend hearts every day, you know.” He moved left when Lily slipped around him and caught her elbow. “In fact, I teach your niece how to mend them on occasion.”
“Oh, yes, she told me all about you. The Mighty Dr. K.” She stopped running when Keilen trapped her against the wall, caging her between his large arms and the weathered stone of the fireplace. Lily stopped pretending she wanted to escape him. “She’s got this whole hero worship thing happening with you.”
“Ah, like you did when we were in high school.” Lily thought that grin was smug and wanted to smack him, just a little to get the expression clear from his features.
“I did not worship you…”
“You stared. A lot.”
“I was young and impressionable,” she said, shaking her head as though he made claims that were pure fiction. “I also had incredibly bad taste.”
“You were in love.” Keilen’s voice went high and exaggerated, mocking Lily for the stupid things she’d done as a kid.
“Lust.”
“You wanted me.”
“Yes,” she finally admitted, ignoring how breathless she sounded. That one word shifted the tone in their banter. It leveled up the tension and Lily liked how that sensation thrilled her, how it seemed to do the same to Keilen. “I did, if you recall. That night at Tommy’s.” She lifted her hand, meaning to touch his face, but thought better of it, her nerve failing. “I…I wanted you badly that night.”
“And now? Do I…” he paused, shifting his weight from one foot to another and the movement brought his mouth to just within inches of Lily’s. “Do I still scare you, Lil?”
She didn’t answer, though a reply was surfing on the tip of her tongue. He wanted to relive that night at Tommy’s. He wanted a repeat of the tarty word play she’d given him; the one that had him virtually panting after her all night. But Keilen’s proximity was sharp; the closeness of his limbs seemed to alight every pore on Lily’s skin. There was a tingle moving between them, mixed with the scent of their breaths and the sweet heat of their bodies just inches apart.
“I don’t scare so easily now,” she answered, slipping her fingers up his sides. The muscle there was pronounced, well defined and Lily swallowed, her mouth drying at the feel of all that trim, perfect muscle under her fingertips.
Keilen’s reaction to her claim was quick and Lily wondered how she could make such a strong, intimidating man moan and tremble at the same time.
“Lil?” he asked when she opened her mouth again, another teasing retort ready to release. Keilen’s face had lost its humor. There wasn’t amusement lighting his dark eyes now, but fire; something that promised Lily things she’d always wanted from this man but never had the chance to take. Now she did. Now she was the only thing stopping her from taking what she’d always wanted.
She moved her gaze, staring right into his eyes instead of answering. “I could scare you,” he promised. “I could scare you into forgetting what you’ve become. I could scare you until you remember who you were with me.”
“I…I was never with you, Keilen.”
He nodded, and for a half second, the amusement came back into his eyes. “I’m about to change that.”
Lily had no time to prepare when Keilen pulled on her hips, moving her body against his like they were dancing—a slow, swift seduction that didn’t require permission. She hadn’t spoken what she wanted, not like he had, but everything was there, in the reaction that came from her as Keilen kissed her.
“It’s been too long,” he admitted, the heat and quick passion that had spurred him forward, slowing as he held her face and kissed her. Lips and tongue moved slow, then sped as Lily reacted, as she tasted and touched like his mouth was a meal and she’d starved herself senselessly. “Too damn long.”
Lily’s head clouded and swam with sensation. Logic reminded her that he hadn’t explained himself about Malini. That professional, analytical brain of hers wanted facts and details, examinations to his motives. She wanted to know if Keilen was still attached to his ex-wife. God knew Malini hadn’t let go.
But those internal worries were half-hearted, and her body wanted more. Her need to take and touch was greater than the want to know why Keilen had believed that little liar. It didn’t bother her that Keilen held her against the wall that had once held her kindergarten artwork. She gave no pause over the fact that just decades before Liam had sanded and stained the wood island that Keilen had pushed her against. The same one he now moved her toward, then lifted her on top of as he went for her neck.
“God,” she moaned when he fished his fingers under her shirt, fingertips tickling over her ribs, shooting sensation after sensation across her skin. Lily shuddered, an ancient anxious movement she couldn’t control. “Do that again.” It had been his tongue she liked, the hot, wet feel of it over her collarbone, down to the cleft between her breasts.
Keilen obeyed and was rewarded with Lily’s gripping touch, tugging his T-shirt free, clawing against him like only the taste of his skin would satisfy her. And he obliged, his movements constant, his touches greedy as he kissed a path from her jaw, along her neck to the hollow at the base of her throat.
“I…I didn’t pine for you,” he admitted, tracing his mouth along her neck, pulling the bottom of one ear between his lips. “But I never stopped thinking about you.” Lily let Keilen release the top two buttons of her thin shirt, his fingers flirting against the tops of her breasts. Every touch he made electrified her and somewhere deep inside her mind, that shy, gawking fifteen-year-old mentally shot the bird to Malini Wilson.
“You thought of me?” she asked not expecting a clear answer.
“All the time. I wanted you then, I kept on wanting you.” He pulled back, watching her reaction as he moved his fingers slowly, working over her shirt, taunting until her nipples pebbled. “I still want you, Lil.”
She swallowed, her throat dry, heart drumming a staccato beat that had her feeling like she might explode from the rhythm. “Then take what you want, Keilen.”
There might have been a noise, something like a groan, maybe a growl most men make when they’re beyond arousal. Lily thought that’s what released from Keilen’s throat as he reached for her, touch surer, stronger than it had been just seconds before.
He held her tight, his body a live wire of movement as he kissed her, as he managed to loosen her bra and respond to the slip of her fingers tugging his tee over his head and her demanding grip of her hand at his zipper.
“I want to taste you, everywhere, Lil…” he slipped his hand over her breast, testing the shape, the size, pinching the nipple until Lily moaned against his mouth. “Do you want that? My mouth on your skin? Me inside you?”
“Yes…yes, please,” Lily said, slipping off the island when Keilen led her toward the leather sofa in the living room.
She silenced that voice shouting to her. It told her to slow down. It begged her to remember that nothing she’d planned for this trip had been done. She hadn’t made Zee understand how irresponsible it was to marry Ano after only a few months. Lily hadn’t bothered to check in with Lincoln or Ellis and find out her fate for nearly a week.
But thought and consideration wasn’t important just then. There was only Keilen and the way he touched her. There was only the ripple of muscle over his chest and stomach and the soft, sweet noises he made every time she kissed him.
Her skin felt fevered with every graze of his mouth and tongue smoothing between her breasts, as Keilen pulled off her shirt, exposing her fully to him. There was a reverential, awed expression on his face, then his gaze focused on her reaction as he teased and caressed her breasts.
“Perfect, Lil. You feel perfect.”
He came over her, covered her, and Lily hummed when their chests touched, loving the sensation of their skin sliding together, the warmth of their bodies making her feel lit from the inside. Keilen moved lower, fingers grazing her ribs, pushing away her skirt, inching closer to her stomach as he kissed
a path from her ribs to the defined dips and bends of her stomach. Keilen rubbed the coarse hairs of his beard against Lily’s torso, pulling her closer with his hands on her back and his tongue moving lower, below her navel, to the brink of her skirt and the thin material of her thong.
“I want to dip inside you.” He cupped her curves, from ass to thigh, pushing up the flowy skirt she wore until the touch of coolness brushed her bare legs from the vent above them. Keilen’s touch was light but certain, mouth against her hip, one finger twisted under the thin strap of her thong, tugging it down, slowing to caress the soft, downy hair he discovered the lower that material fell.
“Lil?” Keilen paused, catching her gaze, expression inscrutable. “You want this? You want me tasting you here? You sure?”
“I want this. I want this more than anything…”
He managed to kiss along one hip, keeping Lily’s skirt around her waist and his teeth against the swirl of her hip before she moved to tangle her fingers in his hair, loving the feel of its softness and the anticipation that came over her as Keilen slowed his movement; like he wanted to delay sensation. Like he wanted this to last, every touch, every sensation that his mouth and touch and wet grazes worked between them.
She could have held her breath, waiting for the next touch, the next step that would bring her closer to what she’d dreamed of since she first saw Keilen all those years ago. But it took too long, the teasing was nearly too much as he slowed every touch, teasing, working up inside her an anticipation that felt like it would consume her.
“Keilen…”
“Wait,” he said, turning her, hands on her ass, adjusting her, putting her exactly where he wanted her. “Be patient.”
She could wait, she knew. She’d waited for him, watched him for four years through high school. Wanted him for far longer, but the loud, shrieking refrain of Zinnia’s scream halted everything but worry and the sensation of being doused with cold water. That loud screech stalled everything but the mad dash to readjust clothing, refasten, re-button where needed and Lily darted from Keilen’s sofa, through his back patio and to the side of the home in time to see Ano running to his black Equus and gunning the vehicle from the driveway with a screech of burning rubber on pavement.
“Fine! Leave. I don’t care!” Zee shouted, her face red, her eyes swollen with tears and congestion.
“Oh, no,” Lily said, running toward her niece as she ran back through her front door. “Keilen…” she started, touching his arm when he tried following behind her. “Do you know where Ano could have gone?”
He nodded, as though deciding something, and then Keilen kissed Lily on the lips, deeper than she expected with his full mouth, his whole tongue leaving an impression she doubted she’d forget.
“We’re going to finish this,” he promised her, moving his touch to her cheek before he slipped a knuckle under her chin to lift her mouth toward his. “No matter what else happens, this thing between us? That keeps going forward.” Keilen waited for a response, almost smiling when Lily nodded. “This time, Lil, I expect you to keep your promise.”
More than anything, she prayed she could.
Chapter Ten
Lily found Zinnia in her room, lying on her bed with a pillow tucked between her knees. She seemed so small—younger than the girl Lily remembered crying, sobbing when she was eleven and Lily left the hospital and her brother’s bed in the ICU to fetch Zee from the sleepover the night of the fire.
Melissa Owens had turned twelve and Zinnia, as the girl’s best friend, was expected. She hadn’t wanted to go. Lily remembered that so clearly: Zee fighting with Ellen as she tried braiding the girls’ hair and that eleven-year-old complaint that Missy Owens wasn’t really her best friend anymore. Not since she started hanging around all those “lolo hula dancers.”
“I was a hula dancer when I was your age,” Lily had offered, earning a look of horror from her niece.
“Do I really have to go?” she’d asked her mother. “I can’t dance,” she explained. “Besides, Aunt Lil is home. I want to play dominoes with her…”
“You’re going,” Ellen interrupted.
Zee left for the sleepover not speaking to her mother. Later, when she and Lily had left the island, the girl had nightmares, vicious ones where Ellen burned and Zinnia laughed. It had mortified her for years, and every night when the nightmare came, Lily crawled next to her niece and held her until her tears had dried and she didn’t cling so tightly to the pillow she hugged against her chest.
“You always lay like that when you’re scared,” Lily said, stepping into the room slowly, as though Zinnia was a bomb ticking down until detonation. But Lily knew the triggers, small warnings when her niece could not contain her frustration or fear; she knew how to defuse the situation. “I guess you’re more mad than worried?”
“A little of both,” she answered, her back to Lily as she came to the bed. She didn’t sit until Zinnia reached out a hand, expecting Lily to grab it and snuggle against her. They had done that for years, often when their struggles and worries became too overwhelming. They’d really just been two kids raising each other; most times doing a pathetic job of it.
“You want to tell me what happened?” Lily rested on her elbow, looking down at Zee as she stared out of the window, eyes unblinking, tears drying on her face. “He step out on you?” The girl’s only response was a quick glance at her aunt that instantly became an eye roll. Lily nodded, a small apology that took the sneer from Zinnia’s expression. “Okay, so fess up. What did he do?”
Zee took a minute to swallow and clear the remaining tears collected beneath her lids before she turned onto her back, looking up at Lily. “He won’t listen and he won’t fight.”
“Him not fighting is bad?” Lily frowned, confused.
“Him not fighting for me is bad.” Zee sat up to face Lily, inhaling deeply before her words came out in a rush. “It’s all so screwed up. His family, how they are. He understands about my career and wanting to be my best. I’ve explained. Dr. K has explained, and Ano supports me completely.” Zinnia breathed, her voice wobbling, but becoming steadier the more she spoke, as her words came with a small realization, the things she’d bottled up finally freeing from her.
“But when his grandmother asks about how we’ll live, how many children we’ll have, where we’ll be and our answers aren’t to her liking…it all goes stupid. She frowns and shakes her head, starts mumbling under her breath about me not taking care of her grandson, about how selfish I am, and he just…sits there.” Zee waved her hand, landing a quiet punch against her pillow as she continued. “He doesn’t do a thing. He doesn’t want there to be an argument, and now she’s insisting that we have the wedding at her restaurant, and it’s not big enough. This morning, she called and we were on our way to Mokuleia Beach and Ano turns around just to appease her so we can ‘look at the restaurant’ for the millionth time.”
She released a quick laugh, not remotely amused, and gestured as though her words were unbelievable. “My God, we were just there and she kept showing me the private rooms and the beach patio like…God, Lil, I just…”
Some of Zinnia’s irritation dimmed when Lily took her hand, let her lean against her chest. It was something she’d done a thousand times when her niece was younger, when she needed someone to listen without interrupting her. As Zee’s breathing calmed, and her body stopped shaking from what Lily thought was likely suppressed anger, she realized this small breakdown had been a long time coming.
“His family demands so much, and he just lets them talk and go on and on and doesn’t want there to be any fighting, so I get told to let her say her peace or give Leanni her way ‘just this time,’ but there are a whole lot of ‘just this times’ milling together and I just, I lost it this morning…”
“You’re allowed, sweetie.” Lily took a moment, organizing her thoughts. She had opinions, God knew, but now wasn’t the time to voice them. Figuring out what Zee needed had always been the biggest chal
lenge about raising her, but Lily had managed. She listened, she waited, and when her niece was ready, she’d ask for Lily’s opinion. But just then, Zinnia went on shaking, letting her breath and racing heartbeat settle to something resembling normal.
“I just…I love him so much, Lil, but, my God can he be so damn stupid.” Lily made a noise, the smallest agreement and went on listening, went on waiting until Zinnia’s upset settled and she sat up, wiping her face once more before she looked directly at Lily. “So, what do you think? Ano says I’m being dramatic. Am I being dramatic?”
“I think you can be.” When Zinnia frowned and opened her mouth as though she had an argument that couldn’t be explained away, Lily held up a hand, keeping her niece quiet. “That you can’t help. It’s written in our DNA, I’m afraid.”
“Being dramatic?”
“Well, I like to call it a ‘flare for the dramatic.’” Lily brushed away the loosened hair from Zee’s messy bun, and gave her the biggest smile she could muster. She hoped it was a comforting, that it didn’t seem forced. “It keeps things interesting, at least.”
“He thinks I’m crazy. I know he does.” The bed bounced, pillows rustling when Zinnia fell back, with a classic Campbell exaggeration, arms flailing next to her as she adjusted her position on the mattress. “I’m sure his granny can find him the perfect island girl. She keeps mentioning all the single women that work for her and the ones that come in with their families to the restaurant. I’ve seen them. They’re all beautiful. Hell, I’d date them.”
“Wait a minute…” Lily said, pulling on Zinnia’s arm until she sat up. “Excuse me, but I didn’t realize I raised a weak ass bitch.”
Zee blinked, lifting her brows as she tilted her head, stare astounded, dumbfounded. “What did you say?”
“I mean it. I thought for sure I raised a woman who didn’t do well with bullshit or threats meddling old biddies make.” The insult stung, had Zinnia straightened her shoulders and scooted back against the headboard. Lily nodded, a little relieved that her niece at least looked embarrassed. “Was I wrong?”