Nick and Lilac

by Marian Tee

  Jilly’s head started to ache.

  Greek gods could really be the worst thing to happen to women on earth.

  The Second Encounter

  Hearts beat fast

  Colors and promises

  How to be brave

  How can I love when I’m afraid?

  Lilac hummed along as Christina Perri sang in her ears and she started highlighting phrases from the University of Minnesota-Duluth paper she had printed from the Internet.

  People who stuttered (PWS)…share some similar traits…not as outgoing as they normally would be…unwilling to express anger…depression…guilt…speech is out of their control…

  She moved to another printout, an Arizona Western College essay on daydreams, and applied her marker to it as well.

  Two of the most common daydream plots…the conquering hero…and the suffering martyr…

  Daydreaming typically serves as a positive function.

  Lilac flipped to the next blank page on her notebook, preferring to write her first drafts the old fashioned way.

  This student proposes to utilize her daydreams and struggles with PWS as research to supplement plot development for a work of fiction.

  She leaned back to re-read what she had written. She added a few more paragraphs for the introduction before closing her notebook and reaching for her iPad next. In the background, Christina Perri continued to sing, soothing her ears and never failing to help Lilac internalize.

  Time stands still

  Beauty in all she is

  I will be brave

  I will not let anything

  take away

  what’s standing in front of me.

  Lilac started tapping on the iPad’s keyboard.

  Lilia was an earl’s daughter as well as a well-traveled bluestocking. Her first Season has so far been a disaster.

  She wrote and wrote until Christina Perri had sung her song about six times and her alarm went off, signaling the end of her last class, which Professor Flynn had told her to use for library research.

  On her way out, Lilac bumped into what felt like a sexy hard wall of pectoral muscles. Lilac looked up, fully intending to apologize – and found herself trapped, again.

  She stumbled on her First Step of her First Waltz during her First Appearance at Almack’s.

  If not for the duke’s quick reflexes, it might also have been her First Scandal and he would have been embroiled in it as well. But before she could even panic, he had already twirled her around and swept them across the dance floor.

  Everyone around them sighed. The duke smiled. She shivered.

  Lilac blinked, the smile of dark amusement playing on Nick Christakos’ lips making her fantasy vanish as reality reasserted itself.

  Got you again, manari mou, Nick mentally purred in satisfaction as he glanced down in surprise at the soft and curvy missile that tried to go through him.

  Around them, a silent sort of pandemonium slowly took place, women enviously cursing Lilac for having the fortune of bumping into Nick Christakos. Lilac was unaware of it, but Nick was – and he didn’t give a fuck about any of them.

  She’s not for someone like you.

  Jilly’s warning echoed in his mind, but Nick pushed it away. Still, he tried his best to curb his lust for now, knowing it would just frighten his little lamb away.

  He tried to distract himself with his surroundings, finding them more interesting than the girls who kept trying to catch his eye. The Christopoulos University’s three-story library was renowned throughout the world, its lavish décor resembling a hall straight from the Versailles Palace. A room made of circular fifty-foot walls that reached all the way to the domed glass ceiling, all of them stacked with books, the library’s magnificent architecture never failed to inspire awe.

  People often caught their breaths on their first visit. Nick did so, too, today, when Carole Richards had given him a blowjob behind the last-row shelves on the ground floor.

  Carole had been extremely skillful, and coming in her mouth had been fantastic. But now that he stood before Lilac, Nick thought with a frown, somehow it did not feel right anymore.

  He glanced back down at the beautiful girl who captivated him without seemingly being aware of it. “Hello, Lilac.” Nick savored the way her name flowed silkily past his lips. No one hearing him would ever have guessed that in the six days that passed since they first met, he had been fucking every hot girl who came on to him.

  He watched with amusement as she took a careless step back, only to bump into one of his security detail. She tried backing away in another direction, only to bounce back towards him. He did his very best not to smile as she tried this several times, much like a pinball, before realizing there was no escape.

  Lilac stilled, and it gave him a chance to just look at her. Beautiful as she was, it only made Nick hate her clothes more, which belonged inside a garbage bin than outside it. Yet somehow it did nothing to dampen his interest. Looking at Lilac, Nick knew all the other girls he had taken to bed the past week had been nothing but mere distractions.

  Lilac was what he really wanted, Lilac he wanted to fuck, Lilac he wanted to claim as his own.

  He had been true to his promise to Jilly. He had deliberately gone out of his way to avoid Lilac, but it was as if the Fates were insisting his shy little lamb was his to seduce and possess.

  Cringing at the realization that Nick’s security team had practically caged her in with Nick Christakos, Lilac made herself look at Nick. Why, she wanted to ask him. Why did a billionaire like him waste time talking to her?

  Lust slammed back into his body in full force when Lilac blinked at Nick, her air of perplexed silence suggesting she could not figure out why he was blocking her way. Ah, sweetheart, do you really want me to fuck you here? How could she not know what kind of power those blinking doll eyes of her wielded?

  “Still not going to talk to me?” Nick’s voice was all sexy challenge and dark amusement – the voice, she thought miserably, of a consummate playboy that she stood no chance against.

  Lilac pursed her lips as Nick Christakos sent her a devastatingly gorgeous smile, doing her best to stay aloof. The way he gazed at her was criminal, and the way his smile sent butterflies flying inside her tummy like they were drunk was even more worrying.

  When he only continued to look at her, Lilac made herself nod – before shaking her head, realizing that her action may be misconstrued as her agreement to ignoring him. She paused and nodded, realizing that a shake of her head could also be misunderstood.

  “Lilac.” Nick’s rich dark drawl hinted at barely suppressed laughter.

  She froze, realizing she had just made a fool of herself.

  “Just answer me with a yes or no,” he urged with a faint teasing tone in his voice.

  Lilac wanted to glare at him. That was the problem! She did not want to speak to him at all!

  A smile tugged at his lips. Lilac’s face was unreadable, but her pale violet eyes were more than expressive, and right now they were bright with frustration, the question in them almost audible. Why don’t you just go away?

  Make me, the mocking gleam in his eyes answered back.

  Lilac saw Nick gave a small nod, and his security team dispersed like shadows under command. It confused her, and when she looked back at Nick, he was gazing at her body. Lilac crossed her arms over her chest with a silent gasp.

  Too late, sweetheart, Nick thought. Her breasts were magnificently bountiful, very obvious even with the loose grandmother’s shirt she was wearing over brown leggings. Chuckling, he said teasingly, “See what you make me do if you continue to ignore me?”

  Her doll eyes widened.

  His cock swelled.

  “Do you have any plans for today?” Nick hoped his words were enough to distract Lilac from the fact that he was again painfully aroused. It was too soon, and he didn’t want his pretty little lamb to run away scared.

  Silence answered him, but this time Nick wasn’t both
ered by it. He was already getting more attuned to the little nuances that revealed the real Lilac York behind her appallingly boring disguise. Right now, she was extremely nervous, made obvious by the way she was clenching and unclenching her fists on the sides.

  Why, Lilac wondered anxiously, did Nick Christakos even care to ask what she did with the rest of her day? What kind of game was he playing?

  “Lilac?” she heard Nick prod.

  Trying to unknot her tongue without him noticing, she said slowly, “Yes. I have plans.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m…going…home.”

  Nick flashed Lilac a smile. Ah, manari mou, did you really think that’s going to stop me from having you in my bed?

  “Perfect then.”

  Her eyes widened once more.

  He almost laughed. But he decided to tease her further by swiftly taking hold of her hand and then pulling her with him, pretending he didn’t hear the way she quickly drew in several breaths. When she started to breathe more easily, Nick slowly caressed her knuckles, and Lilac started taking deep breaths once more.

  But when he looked at her, she looked right back – and blinked curiously at him.

  Nick laughed.

  A confused frown marred her smooth forehead. What was so funny? When Nick’s laughter died down, she tried tugging her hand away but it was like trying to escape from steel cuffs. “Please…let me go.” It took everything in her not to stutter.

  “No. I want you with me.”

  Surely she hadn’t heard Nick Christakos say he wanted her with him? Frowning, Lilac asked in a perfectly polite voice, “Excuse me?”

  He had an insane desire to laugh again. Any other girl would have been thrilled to hear those words from him, but Lilac York was acting like he had just spoken in Chinese. Even his security team was amused by it, if their hastily muffled coughs were any indication.

  Nick tipped her chin, intending to tease her more, but when Lilac blinked at him again, Nick forgot whatever he was about to say. This close, her eyes were exquisite, and the way her lashes seemed to flutter was even more exquisitely…erotic.

  Something primitive inside him burned and he bit out harshly, “Don’t ever do that in front other men.”

  Another unintentional flutter of lashes followed, followed by a cute little frown. You are so peculiar, Lilac’s perplexed gaze seemed to say.

  Nick scowled back. And you are too goddamn naïve for your hot body to remain untouched. He hoped that was what his scowl said, but even if it did he doubted Lilac would have understood. She was just too innocent, and the thought of having her blink those doll eyes up close at another man was a fucking nightmarish vision he didn’t want to become reality.

  He turned to his head of security, uttered a command in Greek, and in seconds he had one of his spare pairs of aviator glasses handed to him. He always had spares for everything. It was one of the perks of his wealth, and right now it was a perk he was goddamn grateful for.

  Before Lilac knew what Nick was doing, he had already slapped a pair of glasses on her face.

  She automatically adjusted the dark designer sunglasses perched on her nose even as she asked in a bemused tone, “What…is this for?”

  “The sun,” Nick answered curtly. “I don’t want it to hurt your eyes.”

  Lilac opened her mouth to answer before thinking better of it. She shut her mouth again, feeling it was the lesser of two evils. Arguing with an arrogant billionaire over a pair of sunglasses just wasn’t worth it.

  Satisfied that Lilac wasn’t going to argue, he made an effort to soften his voice as he asked, “Shall we go?” Lilac opened her mouth again, and this time Nick knew she was going to argue. “Never mind,” he told her. “It wasn’t a question.”

  Before she knew it, Nick’s security team had swiftly cleared a path for them, and Lilac did her best to ignore the way all the other students were so obviously gossiping about them. Did they notice how impervious Nick was to their gawking eyes as he walked past them? He acted as if he knew he was worth staring at – and he wasn’t even going to bother pretending he wasn’t aware of it.

  And oh dear Lord, Lilac hoped none of them noticed how tightly Nick Christakos was holding her hand. Because if they did, then they would all have noticed how tightly she held him back, too. Lilac didn’t want to, but somehow she couldn’t help not doing it either.

  Nick only stopped walking when he reached his car in the school’s indoor parking lot, and he pulled Lilac to a stop next to him.

  Her silence had surprised him. Most girls would have talked a mile a minute or at least loudly enough for people to notice that they had the honor of being Nick Christakos’ arm candy for the day. Yet even now, she didn’t speak. It should have been bliss, but it only made her feel more unreachable – and he did not fucking want that.

  Nick turned to his security head. “I’m driving.” He didn’t say anything more, didn’t need to check if they knew what to do after that. They were paid to have every contingency planned and executed without fail.

  When he returned his attention to Lilac, Nick told her unnecessarily, “This is my car,” and cynically waited for her to react. Women always did, considering the fact that his car was one of only a handful of units made available by Lamborghini for their limited edition Billionaires model.

  Lilac’s head cocked to the side. “What…are we doing in front your car?”

  Less than ten words – and they were so damn apt, so fucking good at shaming Nick in a way he had never felt for years.

  When Nick had first seen her today, all he could think of doing was how to get Lilac out of her clothes in the shortest time possible. He had planned to woo her with a candlelit dinner, an unlimited shopping spree, and of course an exciting drive in his fucking Billionaires edition car. All the women he had dated would want that. The particulars would change, but the bottom line would remain the same, with most women getting off the fact that being his arm candy, even just for a night, had long-term benefits.

  Nick heard himself saying gruffly, “I’m going to take you home.”

  Lilac was visibly stunned. He didn’t blame her. He was stunned as well. If this continued, he might just apply to be a priest the next day.

  “I---”

  “---need you to get in now,” he finished for Lilac, again not giving her a chance to protest as he practically carried her to the small passenger seat in front.

  Lilac tried to protest once more, but Nick was all speed and grace as he moved. In the next second, he was already seated behind the wheel. When he slammed his door shut, the world suddenly felt too hot and too small.

  Lilac’s scent teased him, reminding Nick of flowers that bloomed shyly in the morning. And then he thought about another kind of flower, of silky soft petals he could help unfurl with the touch of his fingers, the lick of his tongue, and the possession of his aching cock.

  Nick adjusted himself in his seat with a silent curse. He caught sight of movement, Lilac gripping the door handle, apprehension written all over her face. “I don’t…want you to take me home.”

  The rustiness in her voice made him pause and frown, but he knew better than to ask Lilac about it. One day, he would know the truth – and hopefully the day would come when Nick would figure out just why the hell he was so damnably drawn to Lilac York.

  Unable to help it, Nick reached out to touch her hair. It was beautiful to touch, just as he had imagined it. “But I want to take you home, Lilac.”

  She was quiet, as if carefully weighing her answer. And then, she asked calmly, “Why?”

  “Because…” He wound a lock of her hair around his finger, a part of him relaxing even more at the contact. “Because I think I’d like it if we were friends.”

  Again, the words stunned both of them. Be friends with someone like him? Be friends with someone he wanted to fuck the first they met? It sounded ludicrous, even to his ears.

  Yes, he thought with self-disgust, he was definitely on his way
to becoming a priest. But for some reason he couldn’t take the words back. Nick involuntarily tensed when Lilac’s lips start to move, wondering what he would do if she refused his friendship.

  “I…would like that, too.” This time, Lilac was the one who succeeded in stunning them both.

  They stared at each other for a moment, blue and violet merging into something yet undefined but promising.

  He released her hair and moved back into his seat. “Good.”

  Nick smiled at her, one filled with charm but underneath it was a relief he couldn’t hide, and the sight of it made Lilac swallow and look away.

  The rest of the ride was quiet. Lilac wasn’t even surprised he did not ask her where she lived. He was a billionaire. Of course he’d know she wasn’t staying in any of the dorms on campus.

  A part of her was still uneasy about what just happened, urging her to put a stop to this while it wasn’t too late. It was the right thing, but she couldn’t – not with the way he had looked at her earlier. Not when Lilac could so easily picture how he looked whenever Karla’s name was mentioned.

  She stole a look at Nick and was surprised to catch him staring.

  Nick watched Lilac’s brows pucker into a charming little frown. Even though the glasses coveringhalf her face made her more unreadable, he instinctively guessed what she was frowning about.

  Why are you staring at me like a stalker?

  In a rough voice unusual for someone known for his polished manners, Nick said with rare honesty, “I’m strangely happy…we’re friends.” The words did not come easy. He didn’t like being beholden to anyone. But right now, he didn’t like the idea of not having Lilac York in his life even more.