by Daya Daniels
“Lily, in another month we will be out of here, okay. The people around here are beginning to get to me.”
Gabriel wrapped his heavy arm over my shoulders.
“How many times has Abigail tried to pry about you and me?”
“I don’t know, Gabriel, a few times I guess,” I answered honestly.
Gabriel stopped and turned me to face him, allowing me to take in his agitated expression. “I’d prefer that you tell her nothing, but I doubt Abigail would let you get away with that. So, what do you tell her?”
“We’re friends, Gabriel. I tell her we are just friends. Aren’t we friends?”
Gabriel grunted and nudged me to keep walking. The snow crunched beneath our feet. The cottage was only a short distance ahead. Rocco waited on the porch and began to pace back and forth, waiting for us to arrive.
“Who invited Cynthia to that dinner anyhow and why was she dressed like she was going to a fucking wedding?”
I laughed. “I asked and Abigail said she hadn’t invited her. Madison did. Madison hates me and Cynthia doesn’t even make any effort to say hello to me. She acts like I don’t even exist.
“When I first met Madison, she said you and Cynthia used to date years ago. I guess she wanted Cynthia to get some time with you, Gabriel, now that you’re back, I don’t know.”
He huffed, running his hands through his thick dark hair. “Madison and Cynthia are whores,” he said bluntly.
“I never dated Cynthia. I fucked Cynthia a few times and she moaned like a cow.”
I shut my eyes, cringing at the image. I didn’t want to know the details about him fucking another woman.
“Cynthia gave it up to every guy around here during the summers when we were younger. She was never anything special to me, Lily. I don’t think I’ve ever even had a real conversation with her.”
“I’m sorry, it’s none of my business anyways, Gabriel.”
“Lily,” he warned.
“Gabriel, really, it’s none of my business,” I repeated putting my hand up.
***
I lay in bed later that night staring at the ceiling for a while, thinking.
Gabriel slid over to me and kissed me, parting my lips just slightly, sliding his tongue in. I could get lost in his kiss. I slid my camisole off and Gabriel nestled partially on top of me, trying not to crush me, his hardness pressing against my leg. I was soaking wet.
He ran his hand through my hair and cradled the back of my head in his large palm possessively. He slipped his other hand between my legs parting them and pulled my panties off slowly. I was completely naked. He slipped his fingers in between my folds and groaned.
“Lily, you’re soaking wet.” I placed my hand on top of his forearm stilling him there.
He kissed me firmly and moved his mouth down kissing my breasts gently. He sucked each nipple firmly, lightly grazing each one with his teeth and sucked again. The feeling shot straight to my clit.
“I want to make you come again, Lily.”
I grabbed his wrist, taking his thick forefinger and sliding it in my wet center. I grinded hard against his hand unable to help myself.
“You like that, huh?” he whispered as he kissed my neck.
“Yes.”
He slipped a second finger in, dragging it in and out, back and forth while he used his big thumb to rub against my clit simultaneously. A small squeak left my throat as I held on to his forearm, sinking into the sensation that was building between my legs. His fingers delved further inside of me. He stroked me long and hard while his thumb gently but firmly caressed my clit. I never knew a man’s fingers could feel so fucking good. I was moaning and mewling in pleasure while he looked down into my face with hooded eyes. I could feel his hard cock brushing against my leg through his boxer briefs and then I felt the wet patch against my skin.
“Your pussy feels so good around my fingers. So wet and tight.”
I chewed on my lip. Gabriel’s fingers pushed in further. I helplessly widened my thighs, welcoming him. I was going to come. I was on the edge, waiting for him to push me over it. In and out while he pressed on my clit hard. Gabriel’s large hand was coated in my wetness. Then he slowed, pressing my clit harder. I couldn’t hold back the desperate sounds coming from my throat. He glared at me with his brown eyes and just then my pussy began to throb. I was coming and I couldn’t stop it. My muscles clenched around him and my stomach tightened when I looked into his eyes and came.
“That’s it. Come for me, baby. Just like that, beautiful,” he said firmly, cooing into my ear, while my thighs quivered.
“That’s it, Lily, just like that,” Gabriel said to me without breaking eye contact. “You look beautiful when you come for me,” he groaned.
I rested there limp, enjoying the sensations as they subsided. Gabriel nestled closer, wrapped his arms around me and eventually we both fell off to sleep.
I rolled over looking at the digital clock that sat on the night table. It was three seventeen in the morning. Gabriel wasn’t in bed. I couldn’t sleep. I sighed accepting that the fullness in my stomach told me I had to pee. I got up sleepily and headed towards the bathroom. The door was closed.
I knocked lightly. There was no answer. I pushed the door open slowly and saw Gabriel standing at the bathroom counter. He made direct eye contact with me. His brown eyes looked lost somewhere and there was a fierce look on his perfect face as his mouth twisted, letting out a noise. Gabriel was naked and rubbing the pink cotton panties that I had on early today softly against his nose. The entire sight startled me.
Gabriel’s chest was covered in sweat. He was pumping himself viciously from root to tip. His cock was shiny, covered in lube. I stood a few feet away in front of him stunned, unable to move. He made no attempts to stop when he saw me.
I felt my own heart rate spike as I watched him, feeling the tender spot between my legs warm. The view of his hard cock fisted between his hands made me wet. I couldn’t look away from what he was doing to himself. Gabriel’s muscular thighs tensed and flexed each time he moved into his hand. His cock was thick and hard and long. I couldn’t think of one woman, that was sane anyway, that would pass it up. I wanted it so badly inside me but I wasn’t ready for what that meant.
The realization that he was rubbing my panties against his nose made my temperature rise even more. Gabriel was thinking of me as he pleasured himself. My mouth parted but I couldn’t speak. I licked my lips watching him. I could only watch him and listen to the low groans escaping his throat. I could imagine Gabriel making the sounds into my ear while he fucked me beneath him.
God, I wanted it. It was right there in front of me. All I had to do was let him. I steadied myself against the bathroom vanity, feeling dizzy and turned on by the sight in front of me. Gabriel kept my gaze and narrowed his eyes on me, rocking his hips into his hand and came into the panties in his other hand, groaning and breathing heavily.
When he finished, he hung his head low for a moment and then looked at me. A few trickles of semen dripped from the panties and splattered on the bathroom floor. There was no shame or embarrassment in Gabriel’s face. He pulled his boxer briefs back on and wiped the semen up with a T-shirt.
Leaving the bathroom, Gabriel kissed me on the lips softly and went back to bed.
“How have you been sleeping?” Dr. Lin asked.
“A little better.”
I’d been having regular sessions with Dr. Lin once a week for the last few weeks. I wasn’t sure if it was helping but I was willing to try anything to feel normal again.
“That’s good.”
I gave her a half-smile and sighed.
“You seem like something specific is bothering you today.”
I breathed in deep again, studying the texture of the cream carpet on the floor beneath me. “People always think my name is so pretty but did you know that the lily is actually known throughout the world as being the official funeral flower.”
Dr. Lin quirked her mouth into an awkward smile. �
��Why would you say something like that, Lily? You seem especially negative today.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Tell me about the dreams when you’re being buried. You said something about trash.”
I took a deep breath. “It’s always the same dream. I’m sinking further and further down as the trash around me piles higher and higher, until I can’t breathe.”
“When I think of trash, Lily, I think of it as something you might throw out. Is that how you feel? Like people always toss you away?” Dr. Lin’s eyes squinted when she asked me the question.
“I don’t know, maybe.”
“I want to tell you something and this is off the record. This is just me talking to you as friend to friend, not as a doctor to a patient. I’ve spent some time listening to you over the past few weeks and you’ve been through a lot.
“I know you want to move forward as fast as possible but the human psyche is a delicate thing and yours is still healing from a very traumatic experience. You have to stop being so hard on yourself.”
She reached over and touched my hand.
“You can’t force healing. It just happens on its own when you least expect it. Give it time.” She sat back in her chair, flipping a page over on her notepad. “You always smile when you talk about Gabriel. Let’s talk about him a little more.”
I nodded.
“How does he make you feel?”
Gabriel was everything to me. He was my friend, my nurse, my lover, my protector. He tracked my menstrual cycle for goodness’ sake. He was so intertwined in me, there were times I swore I breathed him. He was deeply embedded in every fiber in me. There would be no escaping him. He took care of me better than I could take care of myself.
“Loved,” I said.
She nodded and smiled. “Isn’t that what you want?”
I nodded and stayed quiet for a while. “I’m afraid I can’t give him what he needs sometimes. I’m too fucked up.”
“How often do you talk?” she asked. “Does he know how you feel?”
“We talk at night. I don’t tell him about everything I think and feel but we do talk.”
Her brows met in the middle of her forehead. “You see each other every single night? You both live together?” she asked curiously.
I nodded.
“You sleep in the same bed?” she stuttered out.
I nodded again, without speaking. She tapped her black pen on the edge of her notepad three times as it rested on her knee.
“That’s interesting,” she muttered.
I was getting sick of listening to her utter that sentence without elaborating. “What’s so interesting?” I asked, raising my voice higher than was really necessary.
“Well, Lily, sleeping is an intimate act. A person is at rest, vulnerable, physically and emotionally. Any mask we might wear during waking life is no longer there and we are exposed to anyone who might be watching.
“Although you both may not be having sex, you’re still being very intimate,” she explained.
“I sleep better when he’s with me.”
“This Gabriel surely seems to be a patient man,” she chuckled. “You’re a beautiful girl.”
“Thanks,” I said in a small voice.
Gabriel undoubtedly had the patience of the prophet Job in all things.
“You’ve listed a lot of things that Gabriel has shown you since you’ve been living with him. It seems like you spend a lot of time together, doing activities like you said.”
“Yeah, we do. He’s taught me a lot and shown me things. Gabriel has told me a lot about his family and growing up in Montana. He talks to me.”
“Could you compare that time spent to being actual dates? They sound like they are dates to me.” She laughed.
I squinted my eyes at her and thought for a moment.
“Gabriel is spending time with you, like how a man would with a woman that he is dating.”
I hadn’t looked at it that way.
“Lily,” Gabriel said, leaning next to me against the kitchen counter while I stirred my tea.
He moved my hair with his hand gently over my shoulder exposing my neck. “Why didn’t you tell me you saw your friend Nina at McGavy’s a few weeks ago?”
My stomach dropped. Ever since the Vomit Incident, I agreed to see Dr. Lin. Gabriel hadn’t mentioned Nina or the situation again. He gazed at me, waiting for me to respond. I froze trying to find my words.
“Were you not going to tell me, Lily?” He moved closer into my space until his warm breath puffed against my cheek.
“I was, Gabriel, but I didn’t think it meant anything, so I didn’t.
“You were already upset at me because of Miles and I didn’t want to make it worse.” I reached for the sugar and Gabriel grabbed my hand turning my attention back to him.
“Lily, if Nina followed you here it would have been very important for you to tell me,” he said softly.
“Your friend is bad news. She preys on your weakness, Lily. She knows you care about her. If she followed you here, imagine what trails behind her.
“Nina manages to drag you down the rabbit hole with her every time, Lily, and I won’t let that happen again. You’ve been through enough.”
I hung my head at Gabriel’s words.
“If Nina knows that you’re here in Helena, what do you think she is going to do with that information, Lily, huh?”
He gave the impression he already knew the answer to that question. I honestly couldn’t say what Nina would do with it.
“I’m sorry, Gabriel. Nina looked so desperate when I saw her. She does crazy things when she’s cornered and can be deceitful and vindictive when provoked, not to mention paranoid and delusional.”
“I don’t want her around you.”
“I just wanted to keep her calm so she would leave. I was trying to handle it on my own. Nina won’t be coming back here ever.”
“No, she won’t,” Gabriel muttered under his breath.
I reached for the sugar again, feeling my nerves scatter. I dropped the silver spoon and it clanked along the tile of the counter. Gabriel placed his hand on it, silencing the noise.
“How was your session with Dr. Lin today?” Gabriel hadn’t moved away from me.
“It was okay.”
He grunted. “Do you talk about me?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “A little.”
“Don’t tell her anything you shouldn’t,” he said giving me a smirk and a kiss on the cheek.
Meridian, Idaho
“Boss?” the man repeated, pulling Dawson out of his train of thought.
“I said that the man she has been seen with is Bear Preston. Gabriel Bear Preston. I don’t know if you know him, boss, but he’s a scary motherfucker.
“I’ve seen him before a few years back. He doesn’t say much but he’s real smart. He did some time in Corcoran for murder. I don’t know the exact details but they never found the other two bodies or something, only could put him away for one.” The man’s voice trailed off, shaking his head, chuckling quietly.
“Yes. I heard you!” Dawson screamed, looking up from the floor.
“I don’t know, boss, they say Bear disappeared a few years back but stayed in Montana, never left the state. He stays low on the radar these days,” the man continued.
Dawson gathered his thoughts.
“I know who he is. What the fuck is Lily doing with him? Reed buried her. I told Reed to bury her. She was dead!
“What the fuck is she even doing alive? Find Reed and bring him the fuck here!” Dawson roared at the man, swiping everything off his desk in one lunge.
Cynthia was waiting on the porch of the cottage when I arrived back from going to see Abigail. Her presence was unexpected. I slowed my gait as I got closer to the house, taking in the scene ahead of me. She stood up from the steps just as Gabriel walked out of the double front door screen that was left swaying behind him. She approached Gabriel and flirtatiously touched his arm while
smoothing her hair and flipping it over her shoulder a few times. They made conversation for a few minutes before Gabriel began moving some boxes around on the porch.
I was hoping she would head off before I got close enough to the cottage but instead she remained there chatting and smiling standing next to Gabriel. I couldn’t stand this woman.
Miles called out to me as he rode past slowly on a ATV, carrying a huge brown sack on the seat in front of him. I gave him a small wave and kept walking. When I made it to the bottom of the steps to the cottage, Cynthia gave me an odd look.
“Hello, Lily,” she said in her typically sweet voice that was laced with venom. “What are you doing here?”
Funny, I was asking myself the same about her. I looked her over carefully, noting her teenage outfit. I didn’t think her clothes could get any tighter.
“I live here, Cynthia. And you?”
Cynthia pursed her lips and glared at me. “Sorry, I thought it was only Gabriel on Jacob and Abigail Preston’s property. I figured you were staying at a motel somewhere.”
Gabriel gave Cynthia an agitated look and walked down the stairs to me, extending his hand out. I grabbed it and Gabriel pulled me up the steps. Cynthia eyed the gesture cooly and smiled.
“Cynthia,” Gabriel said. “Brenda takes any custom wood orders over in the office. It would be best to see her about having work done on your property. We have a few qualified guys that can do the job.”
“Okay, no problem, Gabriel. I’ll see you on Friday then,” she said as she sauntered off.
Cynthia’s pink sweatpants read Juicy on the bottoms in silver glittery writing. The woman was officially tacky.
Gabriel ran a hand through his thick hair and looked down at me. “I didn’t invite her here. She just showed up.”
“It’s none of my business, Gabriel. It’s your house.” I waved a hand over my shoulder, walking inside.
He followed behind me. “I’m taking a walk over to the stables. Could you come with me, Lily?” he asked grabbing my arm, halting my quick stride.
“I’m tired and it looks like Rocco is too, so we will just stay here.”