by K. I. Lynn
I tilted my head to the side as I looked at her. “You confound me.”
She stared back, her brow still scrunched.
“You have such a poor view of yourself.” It was a constant with her that I didn’t understand, and wasn’t sure I wanted to. There was a strong sense that I would be very violent against another human if I knew the details. “How did you get this way?”
She kept her eyes away from me. “Doesn’t matter. Damage done, and I’m working to get past it.”
Bullshit answer for the win.
We were a fucking pair.
I leaned against the counter and watched her move. It was fluid, smooth, but there were nuances in her posture. The way her head was always bowed down, elbows kept close to her ribs. Even her footsteps were small and light to avoid making any sound. She may have been out of it, but she was far from over it.
“Hiding it doesn’t help you get past it.”
She set a pot in the sink and turned on the faucet, filling it with water. Her avoidance tactics were well honed, but not with someone like me.
“No, it doesn’t. You know that all too well. The thing is, I’ve at least gotten a little better over the years. Have you?” she asked as she set the filled pot on the stove.
“Your eyes say differently,” I said as I ignored her question.
“I said I’ve gotten better, not that I was healed. Downers don’t help. That’s why I don’t go out drinking with people…you’ve seen what happens.”
I had. Years of repression, of sadness and despair, came pouring out of her. Darkness that she drowned in. She risked the memories for a few hours of shutting it all down.
“Yes, but that also shows you aren’t better.”
“You make me better,” she whispered.
I froze.
No. No, no, no.
Those words were the exact reason I didn’t want to get so involved with her. Not that I didn’t want her to get better, but her saying that it was me and the way she said it—they were tells that she had feelings for me. Feelings that could get her killed.
“You make me feel like I’m all of the things they said I wasn’t. Beautiful, smart, sexy…worth something.”
“Who are ‘they’?” I asked after a moment of silence as I tried to ignore what she was saying. “What did ‘they’ do to you?”
She slammed the box of pasta down on the counter. “You want to know? You’re certain you want me to tell you how every day I was told how insignificant I was?”
The way her voice shuddered cut at me.
“You’re not forthcoming with information, and I get that, I do. I hope one day you’ll be able to tell me. As for me… Well, when you’re young, and the people in your life tell you these things every day, you begin to believe them. They become ingrained into who you are, and I’ve worked damn hard to push them away. Years of therapy. I’ve seen a psychiatrist from the time I was seventeen. Twelve years later, I have more confidence, but everything still haunts me.”
Her hands shook as she stared down at the counter. Broken and beaten down. What happened to me was instantaneous, but Lila was stripped away little by little until she was barely human by the time they were done with her.
“I’ve done that to you, haven’t I? I’ve said something to trigger you?”
When I first met her, I was certain I said something. She turned to me and shrugged before returning her attention to the counter.
“You didn’t know. Alcohol is a double-edged sword for me. It helps me sleep, but my depression spikes.”
“Yet you drink every Friday, letting everything come back.” I’d seen it, the transformation in her. I didn’t know anything about her insomnia, because I seemed to fuck her to sleep.
“Stalking me now?” she said with a teasing tone in an obvious attempt to change the heavy mood that surrounded us.
“No, just observant.”
“Well, Mr. Observant, can you hand me the bread sitting next to you?”
Diversion was obviously one of her coping mechanisms. I’d seen it before, but with just the two of us in the most honest conversation we’d ever had, I was a bit surprised.
I handed her the uncut loaf, then moved my hand to caress her cheek. She was so beautifully broken, and I wondered how different she would be if she’d grown up in a loving home.
“You are so much more than pretty. That was what I wanted to say to you that night. Instead, I was inadvertently mean to push you away.” I pushed her back with my body until she was settled against the counter, my forehead against hers. Those intriguing eyes of hers stared at me. “How do you do this to me?”
She tilted her head in a tentative move, and I waited, unmoving, as she moved to press her lips to mine. It was a rarity for her to make the first move, but when she did, it just made me want her more.
I didn’t move at first, didn’t breathe, just to test myself, but there was no resisting her. I’d long given up on that. She parted her lips, and I slipped my tongue in, then bit down on her lower lip. It was so much softer and intimate and had my cock hardening as lust took over.
“Fuck, you taste so good. Could fucking eat you for dinner,” I said as I rocked my hips, making sure she felt what she did to me.
“Please.”
A shudder rolled through me at the simple word. I fucking loved it when she said it, when she begged for me.
“Please what?” I grabbed her ass and pulled her closer.
Her hands fisted in the fabric of my shirt. “Please, Nathan, I need you to fuck me. I need you inside me. I’ve waited all day.”
It took me only seconds to pick her up and put her on the counter, my dick pressing against her hot core.
“You like that? Little wanton slut begging for my cock. Is that what you want? Me to shove my cock in you? Make you scream?”
“Yes, fuck yes!”
She pulled my lips down to hers. The touch, the taste, of her fueled the need to get inside her. Lila managed to get my cock free, her small hands stroking me.
“Fuck.” I groaned. “God, you are so fucking insatiable.”
That was part of the problem. Her need for a connection skyrocketed her sex drive to a level that matched my own.
“Good thing you can keep up,” she said as I pressed forward.
A gasp left her as inch by inch disappeared inside her.
“So wet for me,” I groaned as I pulled out, exposing the glistening sheen on my cock. I slid back in and held it there while I took her nipple between my teeth.
She bucked against me, trying to get me to move, but I wasn’t having it. I fisted her hair and pulled her head back, forcing her body to arch, her neck exposed.
There was excitement in her eyes, and I glared at her.
“I’ll fuck you when I’m good and ready. Until then you will sit there with my cock shoved up your cunt and be happy it’s there.”
She let out a moan, which became hitches in her breath when I slipped my hand between us and found her clit. I teased it and her nipple, but before long, the desire for friction won over and my hips began to move in short strokes.
I kept teasing her and pulled on one of her nipples with my teeth. She was tight around me, but I didn’t realize how close she was until her body tensed, then released, a small, high-pitched whine leaving her as she shook.
“That’s it, baby, come all over my cock.”
The feel of her squeezing me only heightened my need to come. I let go of her hair and moved to grip her hips, giving me the leverage I needed to pound into her.
Lila was still sensitive, her cries and screams fucking music when each thrust bottomed out. She was left as nothing more than a vessel to receive the pleasure I gave her.
“Fuck!” I hissed as I slammed into her. “God fucking damn tight pussy.”
Each thrust in drove me close as she squeezed me harder, building up to another milking orgasm. She shattered, falling apart around me for a second time, and I lost it.
“Shit, shit
, shit!” I cursed as I slammed my hips all the way against her, my cock firing off in the mind-wiping pleasure I craved.
The tension fell away, our harsh breaths in time as we slowly came down from the ultimate high. “Lila…fuck, Lila.”
She shook her head against mine. “No. No fuck Lila. Lila done for tonight. Try back in the morning,”
I chuckled against her neck and kissed the skin there.
“I suppose I could wait a few more hours, maybe fuck you while you’re asleep in the middle of the night. Wouldn’t that be a nice way to wake up? My cock buried inside of you?”
A moan slipped through her lips. “Oh God!”
“I’ll take that as a hell yes, Miss Palmer.”
“I am all for wake up calls like that, Mr. Thorne.”
I let my imagination begin to drift, when reality interjected. The pot we had on the stove was emitting a steam cloud. Stepping back, leaving her warmth, was always hard.
Though not as difficult as I watched my come drip from her pussy onto the floor.
I helped her down before stepping to the sink for a towel. It was a good thing I had only gone a few feet because Lila’s legs gave out, and she stumbled.
My new mission was to make certain she had difficulty walking every time. I chuckled and placed a kiss on her neck.
“Hmm, maybe we should have something delivered instead of putting you near a pot of boiling water right now.”
“You may be on to something,” she agreed as her legs gave out and we sank to the ground, laughing.
After she had some time to recover, I ran up to my place and grabbed my stockpile of delivery menus. An hour later, we were stuffed with fried rice and cashew chicken.
We watched some television, then moved to her bed. I had her in my arms, her head on my chest as I began drifting off to sleep.
“Hey, Nathan?”
“Hmm?” I was almost asleep, no strength to actually form words.
“I’m yours, just so you know,” she mumbled.
My eyes shot open, and I looked down at her. Her eyes were closed, her soft breath against my chest.
The beast purred at what she said, but it was panic that overtook me. I had let her get too deep.
CHAPTER 17
Lila’s words didn’t sit well. She had developed feelings for me that seemed to grow deeper every day. I didn’t want to think about it, and I wished she’d never said anything.
It left me agitated, the anxiety piling upon me a little more every day.
Her words spurred on the nightmares that terrorized me. They’d morphed. No longer just of my wife, but many starring her.
I didn’t want to put her into harm’s way. That was the whole reason I tried to keep my distance. The problem was that she was just another drug to me, and like all the others, I’d become dependent on her without even knowing it.
I was burning through some of my medication faster than normal just to keep my heart from beating out of my fucking chest. The stress, the weight of her declaration, was too much for me to handle. I’d been running and avoiding for years, and suddenly there was a declaration hanging in front of me that could make everything come crumbling down.
I tried to keep things lighter, our usual banter and sex, even though my dreams were turbulent.
A week later when she handed me the key to her condo, I froze. A key meant a lot. A key implied a relationship of sorts. And a key also was almost too much for me to handle.
Still, I took it, and gave her one to my place.
Turned out having her key came in handy for more than just going over for a fuck. It also made me feel better knowing her door wasn’t unlocked.
I was used to seeing Lila in mainly two forms of clothing—work attire and loungewear—so when she stepped out onto my balcony in a knee-length dress with a sweater looking every bit innocent and corruptible, it was hard to keep on schedule.
Come here, little girl, and sit on my lap, the beast purred.
She stepped closer, almost close enough to reach out and run my hand around her exposed thigh.
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
“Sometimes,” I said as I blew out.
She stared at me with those eyes, digging into me. Lila was smart, observant, much more so than she let on.
“It bothers you that much…my feelings?”
Did it? The easy answer was yes, but it amazed me that she’d picked up on it just by seeing me with a cigarette. Smoking was a habit I’d almost given up until she opened up to me.
“Yes. I don’t want you to feel that way.”
She took a deep breath and moved to sit next to me. Her fingers landing on the scar on the inside of my forearm, a few soft caresses on the white lines before she pulled my arm to her for a drag. It was a move I wasn’t prepared for. She always seemed so innocent, but when she expertly took a drag, I remembered there was a lot I didn’t know and didn’t want to know about her.
Like ex-boyfriends that suddenly show up.
The anger that lit in my veins…two of the holes in my entryway were because of that fucker. Andrew was too familiar with her, too casual, too intent.
Andrew wanted her.
“What?” she asked, making me wonder what kind of look I was sporting.
“I don’t like the way he looks at you.”
“And?”
I scrunched my face, hating the emotions, the admissions. But a grin spread as I realized how I could get my point across. I reached over and slipped my hand between her thighs and cupped her pussy.
“For me only.”
She stared at me before shaking her head. “You are such a fucking contradiction.”
“What?” Maybe she had caught on to just how screwed up she made me.
“I wish I knew what was going on in that head of yours sometimes.”
I leaned over and snuffed the cigarette out on the ground. “No, you don’t.” I tapped my skull. “It’s dark in here.”
And dangerous. And so fucked up I didn’t think she’d be able to handle the load.
Just knowing about the beast would send her running.
I stood and held my hand out to help her up. “Ready?”
She nodded and slipped her hand in mine. I wanted to keep it there, but once she was upright, I let go and we headed out.
“Are we starting with shots?” I asked as we walked to the bar. Nipps had become a regular part of my weekly routine.
“Sounds perfect.”
Two hours and two shots later, I was working on my second beer and munching on chips from the nacho plate we’d ordered.
I pulled out another cigarette, amazed how fast I fell back into them, though I hadn’t fully stopped. They were just a crutch, something that gave me a feeling other than pain.
“So with all the sleeping you’re doing lately, why still drink?” I asked.
It shouldn’t have amazed me that my dick had the power to cure insomnia. I’d just never tested it out before.
She reached for my hand and took a drag from my newly lit cigarette. I watched intently as her lips wrapped around the end, her cheeks hollowing out as she drew in, and my dick stirred. It’d been half hard from the moment I saw her in her dress, and the ideas of what I could do with her began to form.
“I need to unwind after dealing with you and your fanclub all week.”
I chuckled. “They are fucking something. I just don’t understand how they think that’s attractive. I mean, yeah, breasts are great, love them, but showing me your rack isn’t going to get you a ride on my dick.”
We both laughed, but were soon interrupted.
“Delilah Anne Palmer!”
We turned, and a growl left me as the image of her fucking Mr. Perfect ex-boyfriend appeared.
“Smoking? You worked so hard to quit, and now you’re at it again?”
Scratch that, Mr. Fucking Perfect Boy Scout.
She let out a sigh. “It was just a drag, Andrew.”
“A gateway drag.”
>
Is this douche serious? I almost laughed.
The sound of his voice irked me, but not as much as his goody-goody disapproval. She was a fucking adult and could do whatever the fuck she wanted. And I was right that she had smoked in her life.
She didn’t seem to like his chastising either. “What are you doing here?”
He pulled the bar stool out from beside her and sat down like he was invited to our fucking party before signaling to John.
“Well, I was thinking we could have a celebratory drink.”
Three days prior, Jack had announced a new employee, and it infuriated me when Andrew walked through the door. He hadn’t been around the office much in his first few days, but his appearance at the bar, knowing full well she’d be there, was a taste of things to come.
“Whatever.”
What a fucking joke.
That was the moment the fucker noticed me. He had been so fixated on her, he was oblivious to everything else.
His expression soured, and I resisted flipping him off.
I was here first, asshole.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
The guy was just asking for a fucking beat down. I didn’t like him to begin with. His whole savior complex made me want to puke. Add in that he stuck his dick in Lila at one point, and I was ready to shove my fist in his face to get him the fuck away from us.
“It’s Friday night, this is the closest bar to my house, and I needed a drink.” Not that I owed him any fucking explanation.
“Cool. Just stay away from Lila.”
The beast growled while I practiced my counting-to-ten skills. The last thing I needed was to call my parents to bail me out of jail.
“Andrew!” Lila admonished him.
Every muscle tensed, and I shifted to stand. I couldn’t fucking stand the guy, and I was more than ready to lay him out. “What did you say?”
Andrew’s body shifted as well, both of us ready to beat the shit out of one another. “You heard me. You’re bad news, I can tell.”
Bad news?
My lip curled up. “What the hell do you know about me? Nothing. So shut the fuck up.”
Andrew stood. “I’ve seen the way you look at her. Stay the fuck away.”
“What way do I ‘look’ at her?” I asked as I stood.