Discreet: The Discreet Duet: Book I

by French, Nicole

  “I don’t want to leave you alone,” I said softly as I stepped up onto my toes. “And I don’t think you want me to either. I think you think about this, imagine this, want this just as much as I do.”

  Our lips weren’t quite level, but it was close enough. Will stared down at me—at my lips—with his mouth slightly open, like a starving man looking at a row of pastries kept behind glass. I understood it because I felt the same way.

  Well, I was tired of starving. I was tired of looking at a buffet when all I wanted to do was splurge. To hell with doing the right thing. If kissing Will Baker was wrong, then I was well on my way to hell and happy to be there.

  I leaned in and closed my eyes. But just before our lips met for that ferocious yet sweet connection that I knew was waiting for me, Will spoke.

  “Pine cone.”

  I blinked. “Wha-what?”

  His eyes, which were currently glued to my lips, slowly dragged up to meet mine. They held them for a second or two before he opened his mouth and articulated the word loudly and clearly: “Pine. Cone.”

  I shook my head, but before I could ask him what the hell was going on, Will ducked away and started back the way we’d come, across the bank and up the stairs again.

  “Where are you going?” I called as I scrambled after him. God, my thighs would be burning in the morning. I’d been up and down stairs all damn day. “Hey, I thought you had to take care of something down here.”

  “Pine cone, Lily,” he called over his shoulder. “Go the fuck home!”

  “What the fuck is this, Chutes and Ladders?” I yelped as I tramped up the stairs behind him, trying my best not to slip on the mounds of dried pine needles collected everywhere. “Stay in one fucking place, Baker, and have a conversation like a grownup!”

  He didn’t respond, just ran back up the stairs two at a time, to the point where I couldn’t keep up with him and shout at the same time.

  “Will!” I cried as we finally reached the top of the stairs. “Will, stop and talk to me!”

  He whirled around, shaking and red in the face.

  “Pine cone!” he roared. “I said pine cone, Lily! Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck good is a safe word if you’re not going to use it!”

  I took a step toward him, but as I did, my toe brushed something sharp and pointy. I looked down: it was, of course, a freaking pine cone. I stared at it, then picked it up, and with everything I had, hurled it at Will. It hit him square on the forehead, and he backed up a few steps, pressing a hand to his head.

  “Hey!” he yelped. “What the hell was that?”

  “Fuck the pine cone!” I cried back. “And fuck the safe word! I’m not hurting you here, and you’re using it as a crutch. What the fuck is triggering about my songs, my kiss, huh? You have to run off because I sang a song that you pressured me into playing in the first place! Was it really so bad you had to sprint up a goddamn hill?”

  My voice trembled on the end of the sentence. I hadn’t realized I’d felt that way until I said it. That maybe, deep down, my music wasn’t that good. That maybe that’s why I’d failed, why I’d never be anything more than a girl who was uncommonly good at mimicking others, but who couldn’t create anything worth hearing on her own. Maybe that was why I’d let go, had found it so easy to allow a man to consume my life and push my dreams aside.

  “Well, it’s better than seeing you dance with Lucas Forster,” he spat, like I hadn’t just asked him a direct question. “Just looking at that fucking ogre’s hands on you, I felt violent, Maggie. I wanted to break both his fucking arms so he physically couldn’t touch you anymore.”

  I shook my head and looked up. Where was this coming from? “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Believe me, I fucking wish I were.”

  “You’re jealous? That’s what this is about? You came over there to help me!”

  Will took a few steps toward me. “I didn’t know. Maybe you liked it. Maybe you wanted him to grab your ass in the middle of the goddamn room, like you were his cheap date. All I knew was that I couldn’t fucking deal with it!”

  “Stop it,” I said, stepping backward.

  “I don’t know, Lil. Maybe it’s familiar. Maybe you like the way he treats you like an old baseball glove he forgot in his basement. A toy he used to have, and now he wants to play with because some other kid wants it too.”

  “Be careful, Baker,” I warned him with a pointed finger. “That’s some sexist crap you’re spouting right now. I’m no one’s toy.”

  “No, you’re not,” he agreed. “You’re fucking amazing. Too good for him, and certainly too fucking good for me.” He bent over, like it physically hurt him to say all of this. “You loved him at some point. Once, Lucas Forster had something to offer, didn’t he?” He pushed his hands through his hair and clenched his jaw so tightly, a vein popped out in his forehead.

  “Stop it,” I whispered, though my heart wasn’t in this fight anymore. I just wanted to stop the pain I saw etched across Will’s face.

  “Tell me what it was,” Will commanded as his gaze burned up and down my body. I didn’t know how he did it. I was absolutely furious with him, and at the same time, two seconds from yanking off my clothes and tackling him.

  He stepped toward me, and I took another step back. It was like we were back on the floor at the tavern all over again, a fucked-up dance of intimidation that turned me on and made me want to run at the same time.

  “Tell me what he has,” Will ordered. “I want to know what a guy like that does to deserve someone like you.”

  This time neither of us moved. And one thought—only one—echoed through my head.

  “Lucas Forster isn’t scared of me,” I said.

  The wind rose through the trees, like it was whispering my words back to us.

  Will cocked his head. “Is that so?”

  I forced myself not to cower, straightening to my full five feet and five inches tall. “Y-yes,” I managed, trying to sound stronger than I felt. “That’s so.”

  “Lucas Forster,” Will growled as he took another step, then another until he had me trapped against the long counter of an old outdoor kitchen wrapped around the house, “is absolutely terrified of you. Lucas Forster wouldn’t know what to do with a woman like you if he had the fucking manual.”

  His eyes dropped to my lips. He took a deep breath. I couldn’t breathe at all.

  And then…then Will attacked. And to my surprise, I fought back. Our mouths, hands, limbs—everything—clawed, grappled with each other. Pushing away, yet trying to get closer. Will kissed me like he was engaging a battle for his life. His soul. Daring me to fight it, and fight it I did. I grabbed a handful of his thick hair—that erratic mane I both wanted to comb and cut, depending on my mood—and yanked, forcing him to look at me.

  “Oh?” I panted, already breathless. “And you do?”

  Will reached past my ass, and in one brusque move, scooped me up from the ground and set me on the counter. His broad hands pushed up the tops of my thighs, then wrenched them apart as he conquered my mouth with another vicious kiss that left me gasping for breath. He ground against me in slow, measured strokes, letting me feel just exactly what he had packing under those pants of his. And…yeah. Let’s just say it took him some very nice, long movements to get from one end to the other. I squirmed against him, and he devoured me all over again.

  He sucked hard on my lower lip. I moaned. Will grunted. “I knew how to do this before I met you, Lily pad. I was born knowing how to kiss you. How to touch you. How to fuck you.”

  His harsh words made me shiver. But still, I fought. “And is that all I’m worth to you?”

  I bit his earlobe, and my fingernails dug into the curve of his shoulder. Will hissed, but didn’t stop kissing me, back and back again, tongue dipping deeper inside, like he couldn’t get enough.

  “One fuck?” I gasped. “And then you’re gone again, right? Isn’t that what you do?”

  Still squeezing my thighs
hard enough that I thought he might leave bruises, Will froze. He stood back up, his full mouth half open, his green eyes intense and bright, and inhaled sharply, enough that his shoulders and chest rose and fell with the movement. My hand slid up his shirt, feeling his solid bones, smooth skin, the light sprinkle of hair over his impossibly hard chest. He caught it—over his heart—and trapped it there.

  “You want to know why I ran away?” he asked.

  I licked my lips, unable to help myself. Our mouths were maybe a half inch from each other, close enough that our breaths, our scents mingled, harbingers of what our bodies longed to do. I wanted more, wanted it so badly my chest hurt. I was panting, a sheen of sweat built across my brow from pure desire while my eyes were squeezed shut.

  “Y-yes,” I managed, trying and failing to ignore the way my lips throbbed with want. With need.

  “Lily.”

  The anger in Will’s voice was gone. Instead, all I heard, right on pitch, was a curious harmony of confusion. Resignation. Desire.

  I opened my eyes and found Will staring, his mouth half open in that same pucker of want I knew was on mine. But his eyes, those deep green, gold-flecked pools of sadness that I couldn’t quite reach, didn’t waver or shutter. For once, it felt like he was wide open.

  “I was scared, yeah,” he said. “But your song…goddammit, it was stunning, Lil. It was so fucking beautiful, it scared the hell out of me. Just…just like you.”

  He shook his head and pushed a hand through his hair, yanking at the ends meditatively. But his gaze didn’t move.

  “You make me feel…like a dying man in the desert. And you’re the fresh spring, the oasis. The water for my parched fucking soul.” He shuddered, a movement that spread through his whole body. “But I’m terrified,” he whispered, “absolutely fucking terrified…that you’re just a mirage.”

  The wind rose again through the trees, blowing around us in a chorus that echoed through my soul. The lust I’d experienced just moments before wasn’t gone, but it was second to whatever else this was that I was feeling. Like it or not, I was connected to this man. I didn’t know why or how, or what it meant, but I knew that. And I wanted him to know it too.

  “I’m not a mirage,” I said softly as I framed his face with my hands, brushing his cheekbones with my thumbs. “I’m very real, Will. And I’m right here. For you.”

  Will’s eyes closed, as if he were wincing, so I leaned in and delivered a soft kiss onto his lips. His mouth opened to me, welcoming me while he pressed closer, aligning our bodies at every point.

  “Stay,” he rumbled, low and fierce, into my mouth. He kissed me again, tasting my lips, savoring every bit of me. “Stay. And show me.”

  17

  He carried me effortlessly into the house and down the stairs. I wasn’t a big person to start with, but I wasn’t particularly tiny either. Still, Will’s lean muscles kept me firmly wrapped around him as our lips remained fused, our eyes half shut with longing, so I barely registered the row of closed doors we passed on our way to his bedroom, and hardly noticed the open space with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out into the darkness of forest and water, but which would be flooded with light come morning. Will laid me on the bed, his arms still firmly wrapped around my back while he drifted his lips around my jaw, down my neck, and just below the collar of my shirt.

  His mouth was warm, almost sweet, and addictive to the point where it genuinely scared me that I wouldn’t be able to stop kissing him when it came time. And it would. People like me and Will always had expiration dates. Our issues were too much to put on another person. But right now, I didn’t care.

  Then Will stood up. My eyes popped open at his sudden absence.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Wait here,” he said, then disappeared, leaving me in darkness.

  I stared up at the exposed rafters of the ceiling, trying to convince myself that this wasn’t a bad idea. That getting involved with Will and his metric ton of intimacy problems didn’t spell a load of trouble. That kissing him didn’t feel like the best thing in the entire fucking world.

  I failed. Miserably.

  “Close your eyes, Lil.”

  Will’s deep, sonorous voice broke through my doubts, and I did as he said, smiling as I covered my eyes with my hands. I heard the sound of shuffling, but kept my hands firmly in place, not wanting to spoil whatever surprise he was preparing.

  “All right. You can open them now.”

  When I did, the first thing I saw was a balance of shadows and light dancing on the ceiling. Will had set up candles around several corners of his bedroom, and the effect illuminated the open space with a warm, yellow glow that cast every edge, every line under a softly moving haze. Chiarascuro, I thought to myself, remembering for a moment the paintings one of my Cultural Foundations professors had showed us in college, referencing the paintings of Caravaggio—a master of light. His use of light, the contrast between light and dark, had made his paintings of the body even more lifelike than so many of his contemporaries. He was known for making a painting seem like it was a person in the room with you. More than just paint and canvas. His work was raw. Real. Immediate.

  But Caravaggio’s work had nothing on the gleaming Adonis who stood in front of me. I had never met anyone more immediate than Will. More physical. More…present. When Will was around, I had a hard time sensing anything but him. Everything else seemed to fade away—the lake, the bar, my friends, my mother. And now, in this room, between four enclosed walls when it was only him and me, our lips still throbbing from the kisses we’d given and the kisses we had yet to give, he simply overwhelmed me.

  I gasped. And then I did the only thing I could think of to ease the strange tension. I joked.

  “Candles?” I giggled. “Really? What are we, in some cheesy romance movie?”

  His hopeful expression faltered, and immediately, I regretted my words. Shit, he was trying to do something nice, and here I was making fun of him. Again. It was all right to do when he was being too serious for his own good, but this was my issue.

  And just then, it occurred to me how long it had been—how long it had really been—since someone had tried to do anything nice. For me. Only me. No motives. No half-assed attempts. Just for me.

  The thought erased any lingering humor as I burst into tears.

  “Lil?”

  I curled onto my side, mortified as I tried and failed to hide. Fuck. Fuck! What was wrong with me? I never cried. Sharp women didn’t cry.

  “Lil.” Will lay down on the bed behind me, and the movement caused me to roll back into him. A tentative arm crept over my waist as he pulled me into his warmth. “Baby, what’s with the tears?”

  The sweet, common pet name only made me cry harder.

  “Sh-shit.” Viciously, I swiped under my eyes. I hadn’t even realized I was about to cry until he’d said something. That was how lost I already was in him, and we hadn’t really done anything else but kiss. How could I feel this way about someone I hardly knew?

  Because he’s yours. And you’re his.

  The thought came unbidden, and I wasn’t sure from where. Will pulled me around, gently guiding me so I was turned toward him. We lay on our sides, facing each other, our heads pillowed on our arms. He reached out and wiped a tear from underneath my eye.

  “Lil,” he said quietly. “We don’t have to…I mean, you can still change your mind…if you want to go to sleep, or just drive home… Whatever you want, all right? No pressure.”

  I bit my lip. No! Every particle in my body was paralyzed, but also seemed to scream with want. Will looked at me with a clenched jaw, unable to keep his gaze from slipping to my mouth. He wanted to kiss me again. Even with my tear-streaked face, he still wanted that connection I craved too. We were the definition of misery loving company. But then I wondered if the combination of our two miseries could make something beautiful. Maybe it could create joy.

  I shook my head.

  “No, it’s not t
hat,” I managed. “I’m just—I’m scared too. It’s been a long time.”

  Will frowned. He took my hand and started to toy with my fingers. His warm touch was soothing.

  “I thought you had a boyfriend back in New York.”

  I shook my head. “I did. But we broke up a long time ago. I just meant it’s been a long time since anyone’s done…well, anything for me. Even something as small as candles.”

  I reached out, hovering my hand for a moment over his bicep before dropping it with relief and trailing a knuckle down his arm. Will watched its progress, rapt. The candlelight flickered in his big green eyes. When my hand reached his elbow and fell to the sheets, he looked up.

  “It’s been a long time for me too,” he said softly. “I’m probably not supposed to admit that, but what the fuck? I’m doing a lot of things tonight that I shouldn’t.”

  I nodded. “I know the feeling.”

  “But I don’t want to stop.”

  “Me neither.”

  He leaned in. “I’m going to kiss you again, Lil.”

  I nodded again. “Okay.”

  “And when I start…that’s it. You have no idea. No idea how badly I want you.”

  His hand traced the opposite path of mine up my arm, pausing on my elbow. Suddenly, my tears and worries had evaporated, and I was right back where I was ten minutes before—overcome with a pending tidal wave of lust that turned everything else to dust.

  “Do it,” I whispered. “And for God’s sake. Don’t stop.”

  Will had already snaked his hand around the nape of my neck and was pulling me close.

  “Done,” he growled before he kissed me again.

  This time, he consumed me. I had thought he was a good kisser before, but in his movements, Will let go. His hands were suddenly everywhere, sliding over my back and around my ass, rolling us over so that I was on top of him, yet relinquishing absolutely none of the control as he pinned me over his body, keeping me captive to the onslaught of lips, tongue, breath, life.