Lily's Mirage (Hell Yeah! )

by Sable Hunter

  “What did you do?” Lily could tell by his sheepish smile that he’d made some type of mistake.

  “I should’ve realized he wanted me to shovel the chicken droppings into the bucket, but I didn’t. Instead, I put water in the five-gallon containers and set them up like little commodes.”

  Lily covered her mouth, trying to contain the giggles. “Did you expect them to perch up there and…”

  “Yes, I did! Of course, looking back, I don’t know how I expected them to hop up there and then turn around so their bottoms would be hanging over the water and they could make their…deposits.”

  “Deposits?” Lily lost it, she bent double laughing. “I guess your grandfather straightened you out.”

  “Oh, he did in many ways.” He sobered and began to stroke Lily’s hair. “My dad died when I was eight and my mother couldn’t handle the pressure, one day she just up and left.” He offered the words so casually that she feared it was practiced, Lily understood, she’d done the same thing many times.

  To make him feel more comfortable about sharing, she told him some of her own dysfunctional childhood. “I’m sure you remember the circumstances of my mother’s death.”

  “Yea, she accidentally shot herself on set.”

  Lily shivered at the memory. “By all accounts, she didn’t intend to hurt herself. She was just messing around, picked up the gun and pointed it at herself in a joking way. The gun went off, and even though it was filled with blanks, the close range of the shot made it deadly. After she died, my father started drinking and when he pointed a gun at himself, his death was no accident.”

  “You were devastated,” Blade stated, knowing he spoke the truth.

  Lily nodded. “It was a very hard time. If it wasn’t for my mother’s brother, Jack Bastien, there’s no telling where my headstrong sister, Flora, and I would be. He stepped up, took us in and gave us a home.” She smiled, taking his hand. “We moved into his Garden District mansion, right next door to Anne Rice. We rode the streetcar to go shopping, took walks along the river, and played hide-and-seek in the labyrinth by the stables on Laurel Street.”

  “Sounds idyllic.” Blade was listening, but he was also placing tiny kisses on the side of her face. “How did you get in the art business?”

  “I wanted to do more with my inheritance than travel through Europe.” Lily shrugged. “I’ve always loved to gaze at paintings and wonder about the artist and what inspired them. Every city we ever traveled to, my tutor would make sure Flora and I visited the best museums and galleries. I never forgot the joy I felt when I would lose myself in great art. Each piece tells a story, gives a glimpse of another time or a great truth. I learned as much as I could in college and after graduation I found Charlotte’s. You wouldn’t believe it, but when I first found what would become my home and business, it was a book store. The owner put it up for sale because he was moving to Scotland. When I walked in, there was a painting hanging behind his register of Oak Hill Plantation, where Lily grew up. It wasn’t just a landscape,” she said, leaning her head back on his shoulder, “there was so much detail. In fact, I visited a gallery on Saint Helena after I arrived here and saw some paintings that reminded me of that one. You could almost step into it and go back in time. I asked Mr. Ollie about the piece and he said he’d found it hidden in a secret room in his attic.”

  “Wow, a secret room.” Blade squeezed her tight, looking around. “I wonder if there are any surprises in the attic here at Lili, Lily?” he buzzed her on the cheek and she laughed.

  “I don’t know, maybe we should go up and see.” She let out a contented breath. “Anyway, I fell in love with the shop and the house. And what I found within those walls changed my life.” She picked up his hand and traced the prominent vein on top. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I’ve met a woman who, even though she’s been gone for over a century, has inspired me to be…better.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  Blade’s interest warmed her almost as much as his embrace. “She was this amazing woman, the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner, who was ahead of her time. When she was about fifteen, her uncle passed away in a tragic steamboat explosion. This uncle had fathered a child by a beautiful octoroon woman. Jolie, who was now an orphan, came to live at Oak Hill. She and her father were glad, but her mother and grandmother hated the fact that this innocent girl didn’t know her place. After Charlotte’s father died in a duel, the grandmother sold Jolie into slavery and Charlotte didn’t rest until she found her. She and Jolie’s cousin, Abraham, a freed former slave, traveled from New Orleans to East Texas to rescue her.” Lily smiled and turned her head into Blade’s shoulder. “Of course, when they got there, they found her happily married to Austin McCoy.”

  Blade perked up. “McCoy? Any relation to Aron McCoy and his brothers?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. Cady McCoy, Joseph’s wife found a painting of Jolie and Austin in the attic of Tebow ranch that Abraham painted of them.”

  “Did Charlotte and Abraham get together?” Blade whispered in her ear.

  “No, they were the best of friends, more like sister and brother. This was before the civil war, she battled prejudice and discrimination to show her support to this talented man. They each had their own lives, both married other people, but together they made this magical place where the love of art rose above bigotry and racism. Their children did marry, according to the diary, but I’m not even sure who Charlotte’s husband was, there’s really no mention of him. It’s odd.”

  “Well, she sounds like an amazing woman, like you. When you told me about Grief Share, especially considering my own loss, I knew you were someone special.”

  “Not like her, she took risks.” Lily sat up and he let her, keeping one hand on her shoulder. “I want to do more to help inner city kids. My background wasn’t one of poverty, but I know what it’s like to feel abandoned.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do whatever you set out to do, Lily. You have plenty of time, I have faith in you. Let me know your plans and I’d love to back you financially.”

  His offer made her smile on the outside, but inside she was sad. Lily wished she did have plenty of time, but she didn’t. Maybe she could set the ball rolling and someone else could pick up the mantle when she was gone. “Thank you, that’s a lovely offer.”

  “I can’t wait to come visit you in New Orleans, tell me about it.”

  Even as she spoke, telling Blade about the Quarter, about her friend Gene who owned a Snow Cone truck and about Bliss, Isaiah’s sister, she tried to imagine Blade visiting her in New Orleans. This was just talk, she knew that. He could very easily be the hero in her Wish Book. If this was a perfect world, she’d welcome his attention with her whole heart – but it wasn’t. Besides, their association was just casual. Temporary. Still, she enjoyed talking to him, sharing her world. She even told him about her friend Glory Bee, who married a Cajun named T-Rex.

  “T-Rex? Are you kidding me?”

  Lily giggled and explained how the letter T in Cajun Country meant little or son of. “T’s father was a Rex too, although T was not little. The man is six and half foot tall, if he’s an inch.”

  “I’d like to meet them. Do they live in New Orleans?”

  “No, they live in bayou country, near a little town called Loreauville. I’m working up a show featuring another artist from there, by the name of Harper Jones.”

  One topic led to another, they moved from art to literature, discussing their favorite book and favorite authors, his was Mark Twain and hers was Stephen King. Together, they debated music, religion, and politics, finding that they agreed on health care and immigration. Lily talked more about her parents and Blade talked of Katy.

  “She was so smart.” He laughed, dry-scrubbing his face. “I read her a story before bed every chance I got and one night when she was five, I was reading her favorite story and she took the book from my hands and read to me. Katy was kind, too. Austin has this overabundance of panhandlers wh
o stand at intersections with signs asking for money. She couldn’t bear to pass one by and if the person had a dog with them, to gain sympathy, she wanted to take them home. I tried to tell her they needed to get a job, but she wouldn’t have it. Katy wanted to feed every squirrel, every rabbit, and every bird.”

  “She sounds like the perfect little girl.”

  “She was.” When his voice fell off and he stared at the floor, she reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “Let’s think about something else, tell me a funny story from your childhood.”

  “Well, let me see, what can I tell you, hmmm…” Even though she understood the world he lived in, that’s where their similarities ended. She might’ve been the equivalent of a modern-day Shirley Temple, but after she left the public arena at age eleven and traded the spotlight for the monotonous buzzing of the fluorescent lighting of a children’s cancer ward, her life had changed dramatically. This evening, they sat cross-legged, facing one another. Lily was soaking all this in, saving it in her memory bank. The time that she, Lily Bastien had spent with America’s Sexiest Man Alive. He was wearing a black tank top and she enjoyed the sight of his muscles flexing deliciously when he moved. “I went through a chubby phase,” she confessed.

  This made him snort and chuckle. “Oh, no. I don’t believe it.”

  “Oh, yes. When my parents were alive, we had this chef who made sure we all ate healthy. I thought they starved me to death when I was playing Princess. So, when I went to live with my uncle, I ate like a caterpillar. He kept a vegetable garden as well as a small orchard and during the summer, on any given day, I could eat a variety of fruits and vegetables – everything from peaches and figs to turnips and tomatoes – right out of the garden.”

  “I bet you were cute.”

  “Oh, I’m sure.” She laughed. “So, my uncle told me I could eat anything in the garden except these certain peppers. He told me they were too hot. I knew I loved bell pepper, so I figured they wouldn’t be much different. I stuffed my little cheeks full of pepper, then realized my face was on fire. I spit out as much as I could, but the heat wouldn’t go away. Yelling at the top of my lungs, I ran in the house and threw open the refrigerator. All I could find was some peaches in a bowl with juice, so I started dipping into it with both hands like I was trying to drink water from a stream. My uncle said, that’s what you get for wanting to put everything in your mouth.” She deepened her voice to sound like a man.

  Blade was holding his chest, he was laughing so hard. “Is this where you developed your love of…cucumbers?”

  Lily gasped, then joined him in his laughter. “I suppose you could say that.”

  He stopped laughing as his attention fell to her lips. “If you want to put something in your mouth right now, I wouldn’t object.”

  “You wouldn’t?” She went to her knees on the floor in front of him, a seductive smile on her face, her hands going to the zipper of his jeans. Blade helped her, raising up enough to discard them completely, leaving himself completely bare from the waist down.

  “Not even a little bit,” he whispered as his head fell back against the couch.

  Lily pushed his shirt up, so she could have access to his chest, moving forward to lick his left nipple, then the right. Blade pulled it up and over his head, letting the tank fall where it may. The teasing was gone and a bolt of pure erotic hunger jolted through Lily as her mouth slid from his abdomen and down the narrow line of dark blond hair that led to the darker thatch framing his manhood, and she could call it nothing more descriptive, because it defined all that a man should be. “You’re beautiful, Blade.” She took his dick in her hand, her fingers unable to meet around it, placing a feathery kiss on the blunt leaking tip.

  Blade was unable to respond, all his focus was on her mouth as she enclosed the pulsing head, swirling her tongue around and around, before gliding down to midway on his shaft. Attune to her every move, he pressed down on the floor with the balls of his feet, his eyes focused on the woman who held his gaze with her big doe eyes. When she braced her hands on his thighs and rose higher to take the rest of his considerable length down her throat, she made a little humming noise of satisfaction that caused his balls to swell. “Fuck!” he groaned, grasping the edge of the couch. It was all he could do to keep from thrusting up hard as she sucked her way back to the tip.

  Lily couldn’t take her eyes off him, she gloried in the pleasure she saw on his face. Every time she licked or sucked, his eyes would squeeze shut as if he were relishing every sensation. Sliding her lips all the way up, she lifted the heavy shaft to lick the path of the throbbing vein that ran from the base all the way to the tip. Her eyes fell to his sac, drawn so tight, and she couldn’t resist taking one of the hard balls between her lips to tease it with her tongue.

  Her heart was beating, tapping out its own version of Morse code. She couldn’t hold back the needy, purring sounds coming from her throat if she tried. And she was wet, really wet, her pussy clenching in on itself. She needed to be filled, taken. When his thighs began to shake, she knew he was in the same place that she was – desperate.

  “God, Lily, I need you. I want…”

  Taking her by the arm, he started to haul her up, but she resisted. Lily was greedy. She wanted to experience this with him. His arousal was so big in her mouth, so rigid. He tangled his fingers in her hair, tugging on the long strands until her scalp stung. She didn’t care, she loved his passion. When he jerked in her mouth, she slid her hands around his hips to dig into his ass, anchoring him down as he jetted his cum down her throat. “Fuck!” Despite her weight as she leaned on him, he lifted off the couch. “So good!” he bellowed.

  Lily stayed where she was, tending him in her mouth, sucking and licking until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Up here, now!” He tugged her up into his lap until she sat astraddle of him. Capturing her lips, he cupped her cheek, kissing Lily deeply. As he ate at her lips, his free hand delved under her skirt and into her panties, finding her soaked and quivering.

  At his touch between her legs, Lily whimpered, fingers rising to clutch at his biceps. Massaging her pussy, he pushed two fingers deep inside, setting up a rhythm designed to give her just what she needed. It didn’t take long, she was too far gone. Lily buried her face in his neck as a surge of blissful heat swirled in her sex, setting off a series of quaking contractions that stole her breath. “Blade?”

  Blade collared her neck at the nape, loving how she bucked in his arms, how her tight little pussy clamped down on his fingers. Her cries sounded as if the pleasure took her by surprise. Did she think he didn’t know how turned on she was? The knowledge made him feel like a fuckin’ king. She was so turned on by his cock in her mouth that she craved his touch. Did she think he’d leave her unsatisfied? No way in hell. “Hold on to me,” he commanded as his thumb dragged over her hot clit. “You wanted orgasms, I’m committed to giving you all you want, pretty girl. All you need. I’ll be all you need.”

  Lily struggled to breathe as she came…and came. “Oh, God, oh, God.” She held onto him as he whispered amazing words in her ear, telling her how much he wanted her, how much he needed her.

  “I’m going to make love to you over and over again.” He rubbed his lips on her shoulder, his finger still rubbing her between her thighs. “I want you so much, I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you.”

  Lily was hypnotized by his voice, her body trembling with sweet aftershocks. Relaxing against him completely, she let him hold her, ultra-aware of how their hearts were beating in perfect harmony.

  Being in his arms felt so right.

  The realization of just how right made Lily very sad.

  4

  The sheer white curtains billowed into the room, rising on a breeze that blew in from the ocean. A huge full moon hung low on the horizon, the biggest jewel set in a black velvet sky scattered with a dusting of bright stars. Cradled in Blade Jensen’s strong arms, Lily felt completely content. For a big bear of a man, he was a
cuddler, his arm was wrapped around her, hugging her close with one of her legs tucked between his. His face was buried in her hair and he cupped her breast in one big hand. He held her securely to him, she couldn’t have moved even if she would’ve wanted to.

  And she didn’t want to.

  Blade made her feel so many things. Desirable. Safe.

  Hopeful.

  Which for her, was a dangerous thing to feel.

  “Hey, baby.” He nuzzled Lily on her neck. “Can’t sleep?”

  “Just thinking.” She turned her head to meet his lips for a slow, sensual kiss.

  “About what?”

  Lily tried to come up with an answer that might adequately explain how she was feeling, without revealing her pitiful secret. She didn’t want Blade’s pity. Their time together was a gift and she wanted it to be good – for them both. “I…um…” A grin came to her face, he might be asking a hard question, but there was another hard part of him that was speaking even louder. He bucked his hips forward and she could feel his big erection nudging her backside. “I’m thinking about you and how good you make me feel.”

  His hand on her breast began to knead the sensitive flesh, making her nipple swell and burn against his palm. “Your kisses are addictive, kitten. I can’t keep my hands off you. I want you all the time.”

  Lily loved the exquisite caresses, the tenderness he showed her. “Make love to me, Blade,” she murmured, her hand going up to weave in his hair. She loved his curls, they were so full of life, like him.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” he said softly against her mouth as his hand slid down her thigh to lift her knee, levering her legs apart. “Open, baby, let me come inside.”

  Lily’s mouth fell open and a moan of ecstasy slipped from her lips as he flexed his hips and entered her. “You take my breath away, every time,” she whispered.