by Alix Labelle
Chapter Five
The orchestra was amazing. Corbin had wrapped his arm around Lily and let her lean into him as they listened, and she'd rested her head on his shoulder, watching the musicians move with the music. When it had ended, she wished it hadn't.
She wished none of this night had to end. But they were pulling into his driveway, and it would be over a few minutes. She would have to go back to her house and her father and her life, and she sat quietly as he turned the car off and came to open her door, setting her hand in his and allowing him to help her out.
"Lily."
She raised her eyes to meet Corbin's.
"Why don't you come inside with me? We could have a drink."
She knew very well that she shouldn't. Her father would be home. Someone needed to check on him. But she glanced from her own house to his, and she nodded.
"I would like that."
His smile was bright even in the dim light of the streetlamps, and he led her up to the door, opening it for her and inviting her in with a sweep of his hand. The home was very similar to her own—entry with a living room to the side of it, the kitchen straight ahead, stairs leading up to the bedrooms on the upper floor. His furniture looked almost new, and his carpet was pristinely white, unlike her own. Lily almost felt guilty for walking on it when she moved over to the couch and sat down.
"I'll be right back."
She took the opportunity of Corbin ducking into the kitchen to look around a little further. There were no little knick-knacks sitting on the shelves or the mantle over the gas fireplace. There were a few frames. One held an image of Corbin and a man and woman who must have been his parents. The other was him posing with a guy a little younger than himself, same dark eyes and hair. A brother, maybe. The third was just a picture of a rocky seashore, maybe somewhere on the northwest coast. She wondered when it had been taken.
Corbin reappeared with drinks in hand, and held one out to her. She took it with a smile and a thank you, then sipped at the liquor. It had been a while since she'd had a drink. She hadn't wanted to, after her father. For a long time she'd been afraid that she would end up the way he had. But here, with Corbin, she felt safe enough to have one. It burned on the way down, warming her. Carefully, she set the glass on the coffee table, and turned to face him.
"I had a good time tonight. Thank you for taking me."
He smiled.
"I did too."
They were sitting close enough that she could feel the warmth of his leg against her own. She looked up and found herself caught in his gaze, moving in closer. His hand lifted, his fingertips brushing along her cheek as his palm settled into place against her jaw, and Lily leaned into it, eyelids dropping shut as they drew near enough that she could feel his breath on her lips.
"May I?"
She almost laughed.
"Yes," she answered without opening her eyes. "Please do."
His lips were warmer than she had expected, gentle. For a moment, the kiss was almost chaste. Then his tongue traced the seam of her lips, careful and tender. She opened under the silent coaxing, allowing him in.
They shifted closer together, his arm wrapping around her waist and pulling her nearly into his lap, her arms sliding around his neck.
When the kiss broke, it was only for a moment, long enough to catch their breath before they were wrapped up in each other again. The hand that had been on her face moved back, deftly freeing pins from her hair. Lily didn't have breath enough to complain. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders and his fingers tangled in it, a quiet sigh catching in the kiss. That was something to remember, then, Lily thought a little distantly. He liked her hair.
This time, when the kiss broke, they drew back far enough to look each other in the eye. Both of them were smiling, a little breathless.
"Tell me what you're comfortable with?" he asked gently. "I don't want to push you anywhere you don't want to go."
God, he was sweet.
"There's nowhere I don't want to go with you," she said, knowing as she spoke them that the words were true.
He leaned in again and kissed her hard, his hand tightening in her hair.
"If you want me to stop, ever, tell me. I promise I will," he said against her mouth when he pulled back to let them breathe.
She smiled against his lips, and promised she would tell him. But she didn't want to stop. She wanted closer, wanted more.
The arm around her waist pulled her into Corbin's lap, and she pressed against him until there wasn't space for even air between them, her fingers sliding up to run through his hair, making him moan softly. She really liked that sound. His fingers found the zipper of her dress, drawing it down.
Part of Lily knew they were moving fast, that maybe they should slow it down, but it wasn't like he was a stranger. She trusted Corbin. And it had been so long since she'd been allowed to just enjoy herself. She wanted him, and she wanted him tonight. So she pulled back enough to reach for the buttons of his shirt, undoing them with an urgency that matched his as he slid her dress off her shoulders. She had to pause to let it fall down her arms and pull her wrists from the sleeves, and then she went back to the shirt, pulling it off of him as the last button was undone, and yanking his undershirt over his head. He laughed, muffled, from inside it, and Lily grinned.
"I guess I don't have to worry about you making your desires clear," he said when she could see his face again. His hair was in disarray, falling loose around his face. He was grinning.
"Not a bit," Lily agreed.
He leaned down and pressed his mouth to her neck, pulling a gasp from her as he kissed along the arch of her throat and down to her collarbone, tracing the same line back up with gentle little bites. His hands slid up her sides to cup her breasts through the black lace of her bra, and she was glad she'd worn the nice lingerie.
"I've wanted you for so long," he breathed against her skin. "God, Lily. You don't even know."
"Really?"
Her hands were still in his hair, a silent request for more of the kisses.
"Since the day you moved in," he admitted. He lifted his head to look up at her. "I saw you carrying that enormous box you insisted on taking in yourself, refusing to let anyone else lift it for you, and I just... wanted you."
Lily's cheeks flushed.
"I looked awful that day. My hair was a mess."
"No." He smiled at her, reached back to unfasten her bra. "You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And you can laugh all you want. I know it’s overdone. But it’s true.”
His fingers fumbled a little with the catch, but he got it before she felt the need to reach back and help him, and then he tossed it to the side, his eyes sliding over her skin, lingering like a touch on her breasts. Lily's blush deepened; she wanted to reach up and cover herself. She wasn't used to men looking at her like that, like they had all the time in the world to just explore her with their eyes.
"You're beautiful," Corbin said, voice a little rough in his throat.
His hands were there, then, shaping the curves of them, thumbs stroking over her nipples. Lily's breath hitched. He caught them between thumb and forefinger, gently rolling them until she writhed in his lap. It was... God, she didn't know how to describe it. His gaze was intent, like he was focusing all of his attention on this one thing, on pleasing her. Like he was studying her reaction to his touch so he knew how to make it exactly right.
Lily reached out and ran her hands up his chest, then stroked back down with her nails, just hard enough to leave quickly-fading red lines behind. He made a soft sound, his fingers faltering only for a moment. Then he was lifting her, settling her over him so that she straddled his lap, her dress riding high up her thighs. She could feel how hard he was already, and she rocked down against him. His hands tightened around her hips.
He caught the hem of her dress in his hands, and pulled the whole thing up over her head, leaving her in just her underwear. She looked down at him, teeth pulling at her lower lip
, a little shy, and found him looking up at her with something like reverence in his expression.
"Can we take this to my bedroom?"
She nodded. Yeah. They could.
He picked her up like she weighed nothing, and Lily laughed and clutched at him, her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms around his neck. She buried her face against his shoulder as he started up the stairs, not really sure that it was a good idea for him to carry her up them, but trusting that he wouldn't drop her. They didn't seem to trouble him at all. He dropped her lightly on the mattress in his room, and then he stepped back to strip out of his own pants before he joined her on the bed.
With them both nearly naked, he seemed a little less confident.
Lily reached out and stroked a hand along his cheek, and he turned his head and kissed her palm.
"Are you okay?" she asked gently.
He nodded. "It's just been a while since I've done this," he said, not quite meeting her eyes.
Lily smiled. "It's been a while since I've done this too. We'll relearn it together."
She rolled over and settled herself on his hips, her knees on either side of his thighs. His hands curled around her legs, and he looked up at her with eyes that were a little wide, and an expression of obvious admiration. Lily leaned down and kissed him, rolling her hips to feel the hard length of him through their underwear. He bucked up against her with a groan, and she answered with a little sound of her own. It was nice to be appreciated.
Abruptly, he flipped them both over so that she was laying beneath him, her hair spilled out across the pillow and her thighs still pressed against his hips. She hooked her ankles together behind him, and he leaned down onto his forearms, her hard nipples brushing against his chest as they moved. Their mouths met again, and for moments that stretched out long, it was just them, moving together, connected at every point.
"Do you have protection?" she asked when they broke apart again, gasping.
Corbin nodded, then reached for the drawer in the nightstand.
"Good. Then get these off."
Lily hooked her fingers in the waistband of his underwear, pulled them down as far as they would go with him kneeling over her. Her tongue slipped out to wet her lips. He looked good almost naked. All lean muscle and smooth, fair skin. She sat up enough to wrap her hand around him, making him gasp and rock into the touch. He stripped out of his underwear, then settled back on to his knees as she pulled her own off and tossed them over the side of the bed.
She rolled the condom on for him, listening to the gasps and sighs her touch coaxed from his throat, then stroked him again, once, teasing. When she dropped her hand, he caught her around the thighs and pulled, dumping her onto her back in the rumpled sheets. Lily's laughter was soft and delighted, edged with a moan.
One hand pressed her leg outward until she was spread wide under him, her cheeks flushing anew, and he reached down and stroked his fingers up her labia, the touch at first so gentle, nothing more than a whisper over her skin, making her whimper and writhe, pleading without words for more. Obliging, he slipped them between her folds, rubbing them over the entrance to her body but not pressing inside, sliding up with only slight hesitation to find her clit, rubbing over it and making her jolt and moan. He looked, she thought, entirely too pleased with himself over the matter, and his fingers kept up their circling until she clutched at the sheets and begged him to fuck her.
He slid in carefully, one arm bracing his weight over hers. Lily's spine arched, and her arms lifted to wrap around him, her nails digging faint marks into the skin over his shoulder blades. The expression on his face was almost startled, open and wanting, pleasure written across it. The press of him inside her was a stretch after so long, but the slide of it was easy, and there was only pleasure, building as he began to move, shifting with each thrust until he found the angle that made her sob his name and rock up to meet him. Corbin leaned down and silenced her with kisses.
It was slow, and intimate, and Lily moved with him, wanting him deeper, closer. Wanting more.
The pleasure built slowly, rising between them until she could feel Corbin trembling with the strain of holding back. He reached down with the hand that wasn’t holding his weight, pressed his thumb to her clit and rubbed in slow, firm circles until she sobbed and arched and came with his name on her lips. He followed her over the edge, teeth sinking into her shoulder with a shock of pain that only made the pleasure sharper.
After, they lay side by side for long moments, remembering together how to breathe. Then Corbin drew her into his arms and they slept. Lily woke in the middle of the night to find him looking down at her, his expression contemplative and almost sad in the pale reflected glow of the streetlights beyond his window, but when she asked him what was wrong he reached out and slid his fingers through her hair, whispering for her to go back to sleep, and she sank into dreams before she could find the words.
Chapter Six
Days became weeks, one date became two, became five, and Lily was happy. Her father was not. She tried to avoid fighting with him when Corbin was around, but it seemed as though he always knew when she had anyway. She wasn’t sure if it was that or something else bothering him, but as the months wore on, he seemed more and more stressed. He was still gentle, still attentive and warm, but she could see the worry behind his smiles, and some nights she woke to find him sitting slumped in the chair in front of his desk, running his fingers distractedly through his hair. Trying to coax the reason out of him had been unsuccessful. Every time she tried, he turned the conversation around to her, to her father. He was insisting that she get him help.
Lily knew, of course, that Corbin was right, that something had to be done. She struggled against the knowledge until a day in late August, and then she gave her father an ultimatum: either he went to rehab, or he found a new place to live. He’d yelled at her, accused her of not caring about him, but she’d held her ground until rage had turned to tears and he’d agreed to go.
Two days later, she had dropped him off. After a week, he’d called to tell her that he was glad she had made him go, that he was thinking clearly for the first time in a long time. Lily had been so relieved she’d cried.
It was September, and Lily was thinking about broaching the subject of moving in together, when Corbin told her they needed to talk. She settled onto his couch with nerves twisting in her stomach, her hands clasped together in her lap, and waited for him to speak.
“There is something that, if this is to go any further, I have to tell you,” he said quietly, staring down at his hands. “Something very big that you don’t know.”
He was a criminal. He’d been divorced. He had a child. The possibilities flicked through Lily’s thoughts, and she clenched her hands together tighter.
“I’m not sure you’re going to believe it.” Corbin took a deep breath, and dragged his gaze up to meet hers. “I’m not human.”
That was not a possibility she had considered.
“You’re not what?”
He looked as sick as she felt. “I’m an alien.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up a hand. “Not the body-snatching kind.” If he was trying for a joke, it fell flat, and the smile he’d attempted faltered. His voice got very quiet. “The shapeshifting kind, actually.”
“You’re a shapeshifting alien.”
Corbin nodded.
“Prove it,” Lily demanded.
He looked startled, as though that wasn’t quite the reaction he’d expected, but then he nodded again. The change was subtle, at first, a shift she couldn’t quite explain, and then it was rapid, his body folding in on itself until suddenly there was a large black bird sitting in a puddle of fabric where he had been. It tilted its head, and looked at her through one dark eye.
Lily stared at it in startled silence.
“You… That was you,” she said finally.
Corbin squawked something that was maybe bird for yes, and then the change was reversing itself, and he was
sitting in front of her as a human again, though his clothes hadn’t made the transition as gracefully as he had. He didn’t seem bothered by his nudity.
“It was me,” he said, in the tone of a confession. “I know that it was an invasion of privacy, though I didn’t at first.” He looked down. “I only wanted to be sure you were okay.”
For a moment, Lily was angry. He had no right. She didn’t need him spying on her to make sure she was okay. Then she remembered the way he had stopped the fight with her father the day he’d been angry enough to scare her. She remembered the little black cat she had seen only once.
“The cat?”
He nodded without looking up.
Lily rubbed her fingers against her abruptly aching temples and let out her breath in a slow sigh.
“So what happens now?”
He finally raised his head to look at her.
“I have to leave.”
“What?” The word was ripped from her. “Why?”
“Because there were rules. And I’ve broken them. I wasn’t supposed to date you. I wasn’t supposed to tell you any of this. And I certainly wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you.” A laugh, soft and bitter, escaped him. “Love is not something we’re supposed to even be capable of.” He ran a hand through his hair, his eyes still locked on hers. “I was sent as a spy, and I’ve failed utterly in my duty. They know where I am. As long as I’m here, I’m in danger, and so are you. And I won’t allow that.”
I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you.
It was the first time either of them had said it.
She should wish him goodbye and good riddance. She should walk out and let him leave and not care. He was an alien. A shapeshifting alien spy, for heaven’s sake. She should do a lot of things. It was absolutely crazy to do what she was contemplating.
“So take me with you.”
“What?”