Gilded Lily

by Hart, Staci

  “Don’t be afraid. Don’t ever be afraid, not of me.”

  “No, never of you. Afraid of losing you.” I swallowed a dry knot, meeting his gaze with all the strength I had in me. “I understand this isn’t what you proposed. You said the only risk was to the reboundee, but it’s not. You’ve told me time and again that this is a distraction, nothing more. So I understand if you say no, but I need to know. If I asked you for more, would you give it?”

  A thundering heartbeat marked the time for him to draw a breath. “Lila, I’d give you anything you asked. I think you know that.”

  Tears pricked the corners of my eyes. “Even this? Even your heart?”

  At that, he bestowed the full extent of his smile on me. “Especially that. All I ever wanted was you, any way I could get you. I wasn’t foolish enough to imagine you’d ever want anything more from me.”

  “But why?” I asked, confused.

  “Because …” He paused, eyes flicking beyond us to the crowd. “Because I’m not like you. I’m not like them.” He nodded to the dance floor. “I’m just a filthy, uneducated gardener who lives with his parents.”

  “You think that’s all I care about?” I breathed, the echo of Natasha’s words in my ears.

  “No, I know it’s not. But you date guys like Brock. He represents a life I can’t give you, a person I can never be.”

  “But Kash, that’s exactly why I want you. Because you are nothing like them.”

  For a moment, he watched me, something uncertain behind his eyes as he searched mine. “What do you want, Lila? What do you want us to be?”

  The question jolted me, simple and straightforward as it was, and it gave me pause, pause that deepened the uncertainty in his eyes. So I said what was in my head without reservation.

  “I don’t know what we are, what I want us to be, not exactly. All I know is that I want you, all of you.”

  He stroked my hair, traced my face. “I didn’t think we’d ever get here, to this moment. I’ve wanted to tell you for so long, but I didn’t want to lose you. I didn’t know if you were ready for this. For me. For more.”

  “I was. I am.” A pause. “I was going to, you know. I was going to tell you the day we planted Ophelia, but you said you’d be my rebound guy, and it broke my heart.”

  “I wish you had.”

  I watched him, thinking through all the missed opportunities, all the wasted time. “What do you want, Kash? Tell me so I can give it to you.”

  “For you to be happy. That’s all.”

  Sweet were those words, selfless and true, and I felt every one. “I am,” I said before kissing him to prove it.

  The crowd behind us cheered. The balloons fell. The music started again.

  But we didn’t notice and didn’t care as we kissed in a dark alcove.

  And I didn’t let him go until I was certain he knew he was mine.

  20

  A Certain Rightness

  KASH

  I could have kissed her forever.

  We hung there in time, suspended and oblivious to anything beyond our hearts and our wishes. But despite what we wanted, the clock began to tick once more. She was called away, and I was left there to consider my luck as the night went on.

  Fortunately for all of us, without incident.

  Natasha was too hammered and busy with her friends to bother with Lila, and Brock stuck close enough to her that it bordered on lewd. And I mean that honestly—there was a point when they were grinding on the dance floor that I couldn’t be certain he wasn’t actually fucking her.

  But with the lion’s share of her duties done, I did mine—I kept her back to the peep show and her eyes on me.

  The clock mercifully struck two, and the house lights glared everyone toward the exit. As the stumbling, chattering crowd moved in that direction, Natasha climbed into the DJ booth, stole his mic, and instructed everyone to meet them at an afterhours club a few blocks away. When she dropped the microphone, the feedback nearly deafened us all, but she was unfazed, strutting her way to the exit with surprising grace for someone so tanked.

  As she and Brock passed, she caught sight of Lila and shifted, beelining in our direction, her face darkening. She was looking for a fight and had Lila in her crosshairs. I moved to put myself in her path, prepared to throw her over my shoulder if I had to, but fortunately, I didn’t. To his credit, Brock kept ahold of her, whispering something in her ear that made her laugh. That laugh was at Lila’s expense—I knew strictly through observation. With a spiteful glance in our direction, they walked away.

  When Lila exhaled, it was a thousand years of relief she let go. She brightened by increment, giving me a fleeting kiss before bounding off to wrap up her last duties. And I leaned back on the bar and watched her go, my foot hooked on the barstool rung and my heart on fire.

  All I’d wished for, all I’d wanted, she’d delivered with the deepest affection. The admission had released me, the truth of her feelings sunshine on the fog of my doubt.

  She wanted more. She wanted me. And this wouldn’t end. At least not because we didn’t try.

  And I hoped beyond hope that we could find a way to make that work.

  Find a way, I vowed as she strode toward me.

  The smile on her face shouldn’t have been as fresh as it was for two in the morning. “You ready?” she asked.

  With a nod, I stood, offering my arm. And out the door we went, into the cold New York night. I stepped to the curb, hand in the air and whistle on my lips. And within a minute, we were sliding into the warm cab, closing the night out behind us.

  I gave him the address as Lila slid across the bench to nestle into my side with another sigh, this one lazy, sleepy.

  “You finally run out of energy?” I asked, kissing the top of her head where it rested on my shoulder.

  “Maybe a little,” she admitted. “This always happens—the letdown after a long night. It feels so good to not have to wear that mask anymore.”

  “I don’t know how you do it.”

  “Sometimes, I don’t either. I just turn it on when it needs to be on, and I leave it on without regard for how much electricity it takes. That is, until I get the bill.” She shifted to stretch her legs a little, rolling her ankles.

  “Feet hurt?”

  “Nope.”

  I leaned back to look at her.

  “I can’t feel them.”

  A laugh slipped out of me. “Well, I’ll get you out of them soon enough. And the rest of this.”

  She mock pouted. “What, you don’t like the rest of this?”

  “Oh, trust me, I do. I just like you out of them even more.”

  A happy sigh left her. “Thank you. For coming with me. I thought it would never end.”

  “Psh, please. That was the most fun people-watching I’ve had in ages.”

  “The rich and ridiculous are entertaining, if not a nightmare to work for. Did you see Ariana Grande trying to climb onto the aerial setup?”

  “When she was on Shawn Mendes’s shoulders, trying to reach one of the girls? I don’t know if she was sober enough to realize she was short by at least fifteen feet.”

  She laughed. “No, when she climbed up on the catwalk. It took three security guards to get her down.”

  “Thank God she didn’t fall. What about when Katy Perry came out in that pineapple costume?”

  “Her hat was a paper umbrella! I don’t even know why she did it, but watching her dance in it the rest of the night was the highlight of the whole ordeal.”

  “Better than having to clean up Gwyneth Paltrow’s sick?” I asked.

  She groaned, still laughing. “I have never seen so much vomit come out of a single human being in my life.”

  “Ninety percent kale, ten percent gin.”

  Another groan, this one coupled with a swat to my chest. “I mean, it was awfully green.”

  I shuddered. “File under Things I’d Never Like to See. I totally had a thing for her when I was a kid.”


  She twisted in my arms to give me a look. “You. A fan of Gwyneth Paltrow movies.”

  “I’ll have you know, I have a very diverse movie repertoire.”

  Her look intensified.

  “I have an older sister, you know,” I admitted, which only eased the look by a hair. “And we take turns distracting my mother by watching period dramas with her. Emma is one of her favorites.”

  “Distracting her from what?”

  “Oh, you know. Sneaking out. Sneaking people in.” I paused. “Actually, that’s pretty much it.”

  “Emma, huh?”

  “And Shakespeare in Love. But Sliding Doors is my favorite.”

  “That’s not a historical.”

  “No, but it is a great movie. That Scottish dork ending up with Gwyneth Paltrow gave me hope that I had a shot.”

  “With Gwyneth?” she asked on a laugh.

  “Nah. Just in general.”

  “Please. I can’t believe you ever doubted you could get any girl you wanted. Most guys too, I’d wager.”

  “Believe it or not, I wasn’t always this dashing,” I said with a British accent.

  “Impossible. You forget I knew you as a teenager.”

  “Ask any of my siblings. Or my mom, but be prepared to spend the next three hours looking through photo albums. I was the runt of the litter, Laney not included.”

  “You’re six-two.”

  “Not until I was eighteen,” I noted.

  “Kassius Bennet,” she said, leaning away with a stern look on her face, “I personally know at least five girls in high school who you ruined for life.”

  I frowned. “You’re thinking of Luke.”

  “Brenna Jacobs, Leah Fairview, Portia Chambers”—she ticked off on her fingers—“Evelyn Morley, and Cassie Argyle. Should I go on?”

  “None of those girls actually liked me,” I insisted.

  “That’s not what Evelyn said after prom. She said she was in love with you, but you brutally dumped her in the middle of the dance.”

  “Because I caught her making out with Brian Sears under the bleachers.”

  Her mouth popped open. “No.”

  “Yup. Right behind the punch bowl. I saw her dress between the slats. Couldn’t miss it.”

  “No one could. She looked like a safety cone.”

  “Those girls didn’t like me, trust me. In fact, most of them were more interested in getting close to Luke than being with me.”

  “Why?” she asked, face screwed up.

  “I think you could ask your sister that question,” I joked, seeing as how Ivy and Luke had been friends with benefits through high school and then some.

  “I never got the appeal. He was too …”

  “Uninhibited?”

  “Exactly. How’d you guess?”

  “You like rules too much for a guy like Luke.”

  “That’s true. But really, I just didn’t think he was as hot as everybody made him out to be.”

  “Everybody says we look alike,” I said with a brow arched.

  “You don’t. He looks like trouble.”

  “And what do I look like?”

  She considered the question with a smile on her face, which tilted back and forth as she inspected me. “Safety.”

  I reached for her, drawing her to my arms, into my chest where the word had struck like an arrow. “I am, you know.”

  “I do,” she said, her hand on my face and her eyes bright with honesty.

  I kissed her so she wouldn’t say more, a tender seam of our lips. And I wondered how to stop myself from falling. Once in motion, was there anything I could do? Would I be too late to throw out my hands, to minimize the damage? Or was I already doomed?

  I knew the answer without fully acknowledging it, glancing over it, through it, anywhere but directly in the eye. There was no way to separate myself from the truth—I was in over my head. I was at her mercy. And I couldn’t turn back if I wanted to. Which I didn’t.

  So I kissed her until our breaths were heavy, until the function of my brain quieted to only the most necessary of functions necessary to hold her. I kissed her until the car had been still long enough for the cabbie to clear his throat. And the second we were through the lobby and into the elevator of the hotel, I kissed her again. I kissed her down the hallway in a blind stumble for our room, swallowed her sighs and her laughter. I kissed her into our room, the one we’d shared for weeks, long enough that the suite was filled with us—our memories, our nights, all the whispers and all the laughter.

  And all I wanted, all I wanted in the world, was for her to be mine.

  And she finally was.

  The room was dark, unfathomably black. I could see nothing in the infinite darkness, but I could feel her. Hear her breath, the shuffle of fabric and abandoned shoes and bare feet on carpet, and the sound of our lips as they met, parted, met again. Electric was the feeling, and I imagined that if I opened my eyes, I would catch sight of a spark when fingertips brushed skin, where our bodies met, skating over our lips in a crackling web.

  Her hands. They were all I could consider as they held my face, the scratch of my stubble loud against her soft palms. Down my chest they roamed with fire in their wake, down to the buckle of my pants.

  Her lips disappeared, but her breath puffed against mine, a noisy pant that I matched as she tugged my belt loose with a jingle. The vibration of my zipper zinged against my cock, and once freed, the silken warmth of her hand wrapped itself around me, stroking as if her fingertips wanted a taste strictly for their own pleasure. Blindly, I reached for her face, cupped her jaw, found her nose with mine, then her lips for a kiss. But her hands didn’t stop their slow path up my shaft, cupping my crown before sliding down once more. Her fingers fanned each time they finished the circuit, brushing my sack with gentle authority.

  My fingers slipped into her hair and tightened, tugging to tilt her face, to moan around her tongue, into her mouth, down her throat. But still, she didn’t stop. My feet were planted, knees locked—if they hadn’t been, I feared they would have buckled. Her mouth moved in time with her fist and fingers, drawing that feeling from deep in my belly, from low in my base.

  Again, her mouth disappeared, this time with the lowering of her body too fast to be considered anything but desperate. As if she needed me, every inch of me, for herself. A tug of my pants, and they slid down my thighs, one hand still clutching my shaft, angling it toward her lips—I could feel her breath against my crown, a pulse of desire flexing through me at the sensation. Anticipation was thick, my hands smoothing her hair, sweeping it over her shoulder, gathering it in my fist to keep it out of the way. Without sight, I waited with anxious breath tight in my lungs for the moment of contact. But the truth of the feeling was beyond my imagination—a wet, warm taste. The flat of her tongue in the ridge of my crown. The very tip of me in the humid chamber of her mouth before it closed around me. And when I could breathe again, it was with a shaky sigh.

  My senses exploded, raw and attuned and humming. The hot hollow of her mouth, the feel of her tongue, the soft pull of suction, her hand fisted at my base, shifting in time to the motion of her neck. Her silky hair in my hand, the curve of her neck under my palm, the line of her jaw against my thumb. The sound of her breath and of mine, the wet kiss of her mouth, the hum from deep in her throat, an answering hum of my own.

  It was an eternity. It was a heartbeat. And I would wait for her no longer.

  With a flex, I retreated, surprising a gasp out of her. I urged her to stand with my hands on her face, taking her lips the second I could find them in the darkness. Tasted the salt of my body until it mingled into the taste of us. Threaded an arm around her waist, moving blindly for the bed. Delicately, I laid her down, slipping my thigh between hers to pin her hips. But they wouldn’t stay still whether I desired it or not, shifting slow circles and waves to use the weight of my body to apply pressure where she wanted it, needed it. I propped on my elbow, my free hand worked her clothes, and
her hands joined the task. First the suit coat, shrugged off and disappearing into the void of blackness. Then the small buttons of her shirt, too dainty for my big, clumsy fingers. I kissed her as she made easy work of them, taking the opportunity to unbutton her pants, to slip my fingers into the space between her hip and the fabric, to drag them over the swell and down her thighs. With a shimmy, they were gone, as was her shirt. And on inspection by my hungry hands, her bra was gone too.

  Naked before me in the utter darkness. Filling my palm with soft flesh. Breathing her breath, the drum of her heart against my fingertips.

  My lips parted with hers in favor of her jaw. Her neck. The hollow of her throat. Her breast in my palm, tight peak brushing my lips. A flick of my tongue. Then a sweep. Then a deep draw. A sigh, her fingers in my hair as I paid my homage to her body by way of her breasts. Down the valley of her breastbone. Over the soft swell of her stomach.

  I spread her legs, settled my chest between them, found her heat first with my fingertips, then with my tongue, the taste, the sweetness of her flooding me with desire. My tongue did the job that my cock wanted, but with more finesse, a long, languid lapping. A silken, scandalous sucking. A shift of my face, never releasing my latch, a draw of my tongue that set her thighs trembling against my shoulders and back arching. A tightening of her body around my finger. Another, with a shift of her hips into my mouth. A sharp gasp, the lock of her body for a single, frozen moment, and she came with a hot burst and a galloping pulse from the very depths of her.

  Swiftly, before she came down, I climbed up to meet her. And knowing, she reached for me, made room for me, room that I filled with my body, pressing her into the bed, slipping into her with a flex and a sigh of relief. As if I had been waiting for this moment always. As if this was the place I was most right. Stripped bare and laid before her, plain as day in the darkest of night.

  A roll of my hips, and she pulsed around me. Another thrust, teasing her orgasm, coaxing it to life again. The embers flamed with a cry from her lips, the sound stoking the fire in me. My name. She whispered my name, the sound dissolving into a moan as my awareness slipped away, drawing toward the place where our bodies met. Unbound, without control, my restraint falling away like shackles, I slammed into her, my body curling around her, holding her in place, where she belonged. With me.