by Nikki Wild
What a stupid fucking move.
Delfino’s voice came wafting from the living room mere steps away. “Lucy?”
Lulu shoved my hand away. Frantically, she tried to tuck her blouse back into her skirt. In doing so, she dropped the laundry basket. It clattered noisily to the floor, a sound that echoed like a gunshot.
Fuck.
I felt like a total asshole leaving her there, scampering up the stairs like a child trying to avoid the belt. But it was the only move that made sense. Lucy was already flustered, her cheeks red, her blouse suspiciously rumpled. Having me nearby would have made her look even guiltier. I told myself it was the right call, but I was seething on the inside. Fuck Delfino, and not just for the cockblock, but for making me feel like I was back home walking on eggshells around my drunken fuck of a father all over again.
Quickly, she picked up the laundry basket and held it in front of her, shielding the disheveled nature of her shirt from Delfino’s prying eyes. When he came around the corner, I opened and close the door to my room, walking out to the landing as though I’d just decided to come down. It would look like a coincidence. I hoped.
“You look afraid,” Delfino said, his gaze steadily roaming over Lucy from head to toe. “Is something the matter?”
“You startled me, is all,” she replied. Goddamn, I hated the way her voice changed—how airy and meek it became in his presence. “I guess I was in my own little world.”
Delfino affected a small, noncommittal nod, then glanced up at me as I leaned on the rail above them. Yeah, fucker, I thought. I’m watching you. But he didn’t seem to mind.
“I’m going out. Remember,” he said to Lucy as he moved past her to retrieve his hat and coat from the nearby rack, “while I’m gone, you’re expected to afford Mr. Richards every consideration.”
I wrinkled my nose. That wasn’t the first time he’d said some shit like that. It was almost like he was giving her permission. But that couldn’t be right, could it? I had to be reading this all wrong.
“Certainly,” Lucy replied, seeing him off onto the front porch. When he leaned down and turned his head, prompting her to kiss his cheek, my blood fuckin’ boiled. The only comfort I took was the fact that she gave such a clear moment’s hesitation before complying, but even that was tainted by my worry any change in her behavior would let Delfino know what we were up to. At this point, though, I really wasn’t sure I cared anymore.
She stood there, the door open behind her, watching as he got into his car and backed out of the drive. The breeze ruffled her long skirt and drew a few strands of hair out of her face, but she didn’t move. Not until Delfino put his shitty car in drive and passed the mailbox.
The moment she crossed the threshold and closed the door I was on her again, only this time I wasn’t pawing at her for sex. That bastard and their goodbye ritual had snuffed the light in her eyes, leaving her hollow, vacant, shell-shocked all over again. I couldn’t stand to see her like that. Lucy deserved to shine, no matter what was going on around her. That someone would dare to take that from her…
“I’m here, baby,” I whispered, wrapping my arms tight around her delicate body. With a squeeze, I reminded her, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Her gaze lifted to meet mine. I wanted to kiss her so badly it made my teeth hurt, but when I leaned down, she put her finger to my lips. Cocking her head just slightly, she closed her eyes, brows knitting in concentration.
“All right,” she said after a few moments had passed. I watched the tension in her muscles melt and she opened her eyes again. The light had reappeared in them. “He’s past the block now. He won’t be back for a while.”
“You were listening for his car?” I asked, running my fingers through her soft hair. This time, when she tilted her head, it was toward my hand. “How the hell can you hear it from in here?”
Lucy shrugged, her expression deadening once more. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve just spent so much time dreading that sound that I learned to pick up on it, even through closed doors.”
The very idea that she had spent so long learning to anticipate the sound of that engine from a block away struck me right in my heart. I wanted to rip Delfino’s goddamn throat out.
“He’s gone now,” I assured her, lightly taking her chin between my fingers and turning her to face me. “We can do whatever we want now. Whatever you want.” I smirked, my eyes darting toward the underside of the stairs. “We can pick up where we left off, if that’s what you’re into.”
Chuckling, she dipped her head. “I have laundry.” But when she peeked up at me from beneath her brow, I could see a spark of mischief in her gaze.
“Mm. Well, don’t get me wrong—that sounds like fun, but…” I stepped forward, edging her back toward the railing. She grinned and let me take the basket from her. “…I can think of at least twelve better things us mice could be doing while the cat’s away.”
“Twelve?” Intrigue widened Lucy’s eyes. “Name three, and I’m yours.”
I dropped the basket unceremoniously to the floor, placing my hands on either side of the banister to trap her between my arms. She didn’t seem to mind. “I could put my hands back up your blouse, roll those pretty nipples with both sets of fingers this time.”
“And what would I be doing?” she asked. “While all this was going on, I mean.”
I grinned. “You’d be letting me.”
“Hmm.” Lucy’s hands came to rest on my belt. “What else?”
I pressed my hips forward, changing her focus from my buckle to the bulge in my pants. She giggled, but didn’t move away. “I could kiss your neck the way you like. Spin you around, lift that skirt up over your hips, pull your panties down, and…”
She looked up at me. “What if I’m not wearing any?”
I groaned. My cock gave a low, hard throb against her palms and she gasped. “Then that brings us to the third thing.”
I could see the flush creeping up her throat and into her face. Where the collar of her blouse was parted, a little pink even skimmed over her chest. “Which would be…?”
“Sliding my dick so deep into you, you can taste it,” I muttered, moaning again as Lucy’s hands went to work across my length, fondling me from balls to tip. The ache in me turned more shrill and sharp. “Fuck, Lu… tell me you weren’t kidding. Tell me you’re not wearing any panties right now.”
The answer she gave me was much better than a simple yes. “Why don’t you lift up my skirt and find out?”
Immediately I obeyed, shoving the fabric up her thighs. Maybe I should’ve taken my time, letting her feel my hands as they slid along the outer curves of her thighs, but I so badly craved what was between them I couldn’t help myself.
“Holy shit,” I breathed. “You weren’t kidding.”
Lucy chuckled and went to work on my belt and pants. “I’d never joke about something as serious as a lack of panties,” she quipped.
This was the Lucy I remembered—the girl with the quick wit and the devil-may-care rebellious streak. This was the girl who routinely made my knees weak with just a smile, the girl whose sarcasm could fell a man like she shot bullets out her mouth. Currently she was the girl with no panties on and a pussy that, I could tell just by looking at it, was ripe and wet for me. When she unsheathed my cock from my jeans, the tip of it was just as wet for her. Like she’d done this all her life, Lucy rubbed her thumb across the glistening drop of precome, moving in slow, delicate circles that made my arousal seem like a tight, maddening spiral.
I surged forward, closer, trying to fit into her seam and hoping she would guide me there. But Lucy stayed my thrust, allowing me no nearer than I already was. It was tempting to press my thumb against some of those bruises I’d left in her hip, remind her who was boss.
“You gave me an idea,” she murmured, throttling me in her grasp. The pressure made me buck. “Just now, when you said how deep you’d like to be inside me. So deep I could taste you.”
“Uh
-huh.” I fumbled for the zipper on her skirt. I had to be around here somewhere. “And?”
“And I want to,” Lucy replied, offering no help in the realm of undressing her. She was much too busy stoking a fire that was already burning so bright I was certain NASA could see it from space. “Taste you.”
Despite the filthy gutter that served as home to my state of mind, it still took a moment for her intentions to register. When they did, I gave way to a full-body shudder. “Christ…”
And then she sank to her knees, her bright eyes holding mine as she boldly ran her tongue along the path between my balls.
They tensed and I sucked in air through my teeth, digging my hands into Lulu’s hair. I pulled it away from her face so I could watch the progress of her slow, curious licks. She’d never done this before—not that I knew of, anyway—and oh, the way she took her time… I swelled for her, another dribble of lust founting from me. When she lapped me clean and kisses my buzzing tip, I almost lost it. And that would’ve been a damn shame, because now that I knew the heat and curl of her tongue, I wanted to know what it felt like to have it sweeping along me while inside her mouth.
“Slow, slow, slow,” I prayed, allowing her to explore, unimpeded, every wanting inch of me. If she went any faster, this wasn’t gonna take long at all.
With a small nod, Lulu flickered her tongue around the ridge of my crown, dragging from me another rumble of bliss. I tilted my hips a little, pressing against her mouth, and as she opened to receive me I glimpsed, for just a moment, the sight of my dick pillowed on her plush lower lip. A spasm overtook me and I slid further in, gliding across the surface of her tongue, stretching her lips as she endeavored to cover her teeth with them.
“Fuck…” It was such a slow crawl. Inch by inch I disappeared into her mouth, my flesh already so slick from her attentions that her lips offered no resistance. I stroked my base hungrily while she worked me in, granting myself some of that sweet friction I so desperately craved, until finally I was fully seated in her throat.
The sound she made as we interlocked was heavenly. I tipped my head back and closed my eyes, teeth firmly embedded in my lip as Lucy slowly began to test my limits.
It was so hard not to thrust into her. I sawed my hips just a little instead, a rocking motion that never pushed me too far back or drew me too far out, just to help her work into a rhythm. Goddamn, she was a natural, following my lead and then snatching the reins just as soon as she could. I’d had my dick sucked before, and by women who were considerably more experienced—but having Lucy do it meant something else entirely. It meant more. Maybe it was because of how hard I’d fallen for her, how we’d maintained this unbreakable emotional connection over all these years. Maybe it was seeing an angel on her knees that did it for me. Whatever the case, Lucy’s ministrations proved a religious experience. She was worshiping me in the same way I worshiped her.
And right in front of the door Delfino could come walking through at any minute. Having sex with Lucy upstairs, in my room, was risky enough—but this was downright stupid of us. Stupid, and yet mind-blowingly hot. I could see it in her eyes every time she glanced up at me. She was getting off on it too, this blatant fuck-you to the man who held her prisoner. Knowing that made every undulation of her tongue, every pull of her cheeks, that much sexier. I liked Lulu best when she was holding up both middle fingers to the world. My dick twitched hard at the thought that I’d inspired some change in her, that my return wasn’t just saving her—it was helping her to save herself.
“I’m gonna—” I plaintively gasped as she trailed her fingernails over my balls. They tightened at the sensation, a tell-tale sign that the complement it provided to her sucking was sending me over the edge. “Oh, Jesus, baby!”
Whimpering like a dog, I clutched the back of Lucy’s head to tether myself to something on earth while her mouth shot me up into the stars. Hard, hot pulses struck through me like lightning bolts, channeling the pinnacle of my lust right into her throat. She swallowed as I grunted and writhed, her lack of hesitation making the gesture that much sweeter. The way she accepted my climax was the same as the way she’d always accepted me: fully, and without question.
I doubled over her, panting, but the sharp twist of pain that electrified my ribs only served to drive me higher, make me crash harder, and leave me with the comfortable emptiness I’d seen men kill for. It wasn’t the vacancy of trauma or the numbness that came with emotional wreckage. This was peace. This was… heaven.
“God,” I whispered, using the banister behind Lucy to straighten again, wincing as another shock of agony curled through my side. As I withdrew from her to pull her body up against mine, to hold her tight enough that she could feel my heart pounding as a testament of what she did to me, I heard her chuckle in reply.
“I prefer Lucy or Lulu,” she said, licking her lips as they spread into a cheeky grin. “But I guess God will do, too.”
I shook my head in disbelief. This girl was all I’d ever wanted, all I’d ever needed, but even the summery haze of afterglow couldn’t hold off the cold tide of clarity forever. And in that moment, I remembered two very important things.
The first was that, in all my life, I had never once been able to hold onto anything that made me happy. No matter how hard I fought, no matter how much I sacrificed, any light in my life, in my darkness, was inevitably snatched away.
The second was that we were both still at the mercy of an unknown variable—a man who had a plan neither of us could fathom. As much fun as it was to act like teenagers in his absence, we needed to do something other than wait for the other shoe to drop. We needed to be ready for whatever bullshit Delfino was going to pull, because we both knew it wasn’t so much a question of if, but when.
I wasn’t going to let this all come crashing down around us. Not when I’d poured blood, sweat, and tears into getting here. Not when I’d braved broken bones and shredded skin just to lay eyes on the girl of my dreams again.
I hugged Lulu close. This time, come what may, I was going to hold on to the light—even if that meant I’d burn up in the process.
Fourteen
Lucy
Something wasn’t right.
It had been over a week since Leo had come to live in the house with us, a week of Delfino disappearing until all hours of the night for whatever “preparations” he was making. Every single morning he would remind me to keep Leo captivated, stressing that I should attend to his needs in every possible way. Every word seemed purposefully chosen. Every syllable struck me with the sharpness of a razor’s edge.
These were deliberate commands. I could tell myself all day long that Delfino hadn’t the first idea about how Leo and I might take those orders to heart, but the fact was that—despite how slippery he was, how unreadable and unknowable—I knew Delfino wasn’t a stupid man. On the contrary, he was sly as a fox.
He was a charlatan. A snake-oil salesman. A conman who knew how to manipulate, how to get exactly what he wanted. What he said he wanted was to protect me, but then he seemed so keen to leave me and Leo alone together, to throw me into the den of a lion—a man with the character of a predator, by Delfino’s account. He was only too happy to list his grievances with Leo in the hospital, and at our nightly dinners, to ensure Leo never forgot he was a criminal.
And yet every day, he left us alone. Every day, he left me with a man who, by Delfino’s own surmising, could easily take advantage of me. And not only that, but he expressly told me—in Leo’s presence—to see to his every… single… whim.
So the question was: could Delfino really be that oblivious, that stupid, that distracted with all these preparations he was making? Or was there something else going on beneath the surface, as there so often was?
Having lived with him for so long, I was far more inclined to believe the latter, even if Delfino clearly wanted me to believe the former.
Or did he? This was the trouble with a master manipulator—you never quite knew where you stood. Yo
u ended up examining the situation in circles. Does he know I know? Is he counting on me believing he’s got something up his sleeve? Is this just a distraction for something greater? If it is, did he know I would know that he knew? They were the kinds of questions that would drive even the sanest person stark, raving mad.
Dread coiled tight and hard in my stomach as I lay in bed that night, considering the possibilities. As much as I wanted to think of something, anything else—something more pleasant, more likely to allow me to sleep tonight—I couldn’t stop the spiral. And the worst part was wondering if that was part of his plan, as well.
How much did Delfino know? Had he been aware of mine and Leo’s tryst from the beginning? Had he been on to us this whole time? And to what end? What purpose could Leo and I having sex possibly serve? If he had a greater plan for me, or for Pleasant Lakes in general, how did that factor in? I couldn’t see a point to it. And that made me all the more worried about what the hell part of this equation I was missing.
Fear and frustration soon gave way to paranoia. Dimly, I wondered if the missing link was Leo—if Delfino had somehow managed to rope him into all of this. It would explain his hospitality, his willingness to shell out cash to pay for Leo’s medical bills, and the wide berth he seemed to give the man he supposedly despised. It would explain why Leo had taken no action against him, why he insisted we stay in this town, under this roof, with no real plan for escape. Why a man like him, a thug who’d spent years as part of a motorcycle gang, would deign to wait for the right opportunity instead of making one for himself. Maybe it even explained why he’d shown up in my life again, after all this time…
No. That was impossible. Wasn’t it? Oh, how I wished I could be sure…
I closed my eyes tight, trying to ignore the slivers of twilight filtering through my blinds, casting shadows that made it seem like the walls were closing in all around me. No, Leo being involved didn’t add up either, and I inwardly kicked myself for even thinking of it. He wouldn’t have faked a massive accident and wrecked his bike just to garner sympathy—clearly the ruins and the wreckage were real. And I recalled that night I’d first heard he was back in town, how angry Father had been. That couldn’t have just been an act for my benefit. He couldn’t have known I was listening from the top of the stairs.