18. Lilith
LILITH
Nerves skitter up my spine when I see the doorman from the first time I was in Alaric’s building. He’s right there, sitting behind the desk. Any minute now, he might lift his head. He might recognize me.
In the near future, once I tell Alaric I’ve been stalking him for a while, I won’t care.
But today is not that day.
“Sorry, I’m not ignoring you,” I whisper to Alaric as I bow my head to type out a message. My face is half hidden behind my hair and the hood pulled low over my head. “I forgot to tell Hope I won’t be coming home tonight.”
Lies.
I wanted to text Hope as soon as he asked me to spend the night. Then I remembered I needed an excuse to hide my face from the doorman, and well…
“Don’t apologize.” He draws circles over my wrist with his thumb. Small. Slow. Electrifying. “You can use your phone any time you like. You’re not a prisoner. You’re just mine.”
My thighs clench from that innocent touch. From his reassuring words.
“Hello, Dr. Lockwood,” the doorman greets, and my heart stops.
“Lenny,” Alaric responds.
To stay unnoticed and to make it clear to Alaric I’m not interested in being introduced, rude as that is, I keep my eyes on my phone, pretending to text.
By some miracle, it works. Alaric doesn’t linger to tell the doorman I’m with him or that I should be let through from now on. He simply steers me to the elevators.
Letting out a relieved sigh, I pocket my phone and lift my head in time to see Alaric pressing the button for the elevator.
“I’m really glad you came.” He tilts his long body to the side once the door slides open, letting me walk in first. Being a gentleman. Making my cheeks heat. “And…”
When he joins me, I have to fight the instinct to reach for the control panel.
After all, I’m not supposed to know what floor he lives on.
“And what?”
The door slides closed with a quiet whoosh. He turns to me, his knuckles brushing my cheek. My jaw. Leaning into the back of his hand is heaven. He’s warm, as if he’s been saving his body heat for me.
“I can’t stop thinking about what could’ve happened if your foster parents had been assholes.
” He grinds his teeth and shakes his head, his expression tormented.
His shoulders tense beneath the black sweatshirt he slipped on before we left the hospital.
“If you’d ended up with shitty foster siblings.
If any of them had hurt you as badly as your mother had.
You were in another state. You wouldn’t have been admitted to my hospital. I wouldn’t have been able to help you.”
“Alaric.” The elevator pings. Once more, he lets me walk out ahead of him, then interlaces our fingers. “You’ve done more for me than most people ever have. It wasn’t your job to keep tabs on me.”
“It’s pure luck that it all worked out well.” His hand squeezes me tighter, briefly. He releases me when we reach his apartment. “Doesn’t mean I did enough.”
The way he says it is strange. There’s regret in his voice.
I’m about to reassure him again, tell him he did everything he could for me. But then he pushes open the door to his home. Just like that, my past is cast aside in favor of my curiosity.
While he puts his backpack away and locks up, I pull my hood back and stroll inside, eager to learn more about him. I take in the high ceilings, the dark wood floors, and the comfy, heavy furniture warming up the open space. A smile tugs at my lips because it feels like he’s made this place a home.
But then my gaze travels to the kitchen, and my smile falters.
As beautiful as it is, opening right into the living space, it’s almost too sterile.
The counters are empty. A dark ceramic bowl without a single fruit in it sits dead center on the island.
Even the knives resting in the butcher block are so clean they might as well have been bought today.
I’m about to mention it when Alaric comes up behind me. His presence is overpowering, comforting, and mind-numbing all at once.
So much so that I forget what I want to say.
I lose myself to him a little more when a strong arm envelops my middle, pinning my back to his front. The other one joins it after Alaric brushes my hair to one side.
His mouth presses to the crook of my neck, and I shudder.
“Dinner?” he asks, his cock throbbing against my back.
Oh, right. That’s what’s bothering me. “You cook?”
His answer is the slow glide of his lips high along my neck. The sinful scrape of his stubble makes my jaw tighten. My thighs squeeze together, my pulse picking up.
I moan when his hand pinches my nipple hard enough for me to feel it through my sweatshirt, T-shirt, and bra. I moan louder when he soothes me, rubbing it gently as if he isn’t the one who just worked the sensitive flesh to the point of pain.
“I remember asking you something first.” He tugs on my hair, pulling my head to the side to grant him more access. His lips kiss, graze, and tease my skin until I can hardly think straight. “Lilith.”
“I’ll answer later.” My jaw, my cheek, my temple—they all tingle under his attention. Shamelessly, I grind my ass back against his cock. My arms go up to his neck. “Promise. After I have you.”
“You’ll have me when you tell me”—snap and my jeans button comes undone—“if you want dinner or not.”
“Fuck,” I hiss as he lowers the zipper. “Okay, fine. No dinner. Please.”
He makes a low, satisfied sound in the back of his throat. It’s husky and hot, reaching straight to my pussy.
I’m so high on him that I roll my hips, whimpering every time I feel him throb against me. But then Alaric’s finger slides over my panties and settles on my clit. I cry out, my need echoing off the high ceilings of his apartment.
That gets me a guttural, sexy growl. With his mouth pressed to my neck, I feel every vibration, and my raw nerves light up.
“Please,” I beg like I swore I never would again. Alaric isn’t Mom. He’s everything she’s not. It’s safe to relinquish control to him. “Please.”
“Lilith.”
“What?” I ask, hoping he’ll say bend over or something even filthier.
What comes out of his mouth instead is, “No, I don’t cook,” as he slides his finger under my panties.
This man is on a mission to make me lose my mind. “Can’t we talk about it later?”
“Patience. You’ll like where I’m going with this.” His fingertip trails lower, leaving heat and goosebumps in its wake as it brushes over my lips. “I have my meals delivered. They’re pretty good, actually. In case you change your mind about dinner.”
“No.” An electric shock jolts me when two thick fingers spear my center. My heels fly off the floor. “Regrets.”
“I could get you wine, or water with it.”
He curls his fingers inside me. Finds that spot that swells beneath his touch. Tears roll from my eyes, dropping onto my sweatshirt.
Not because he’s careless. Because he isn’t touching me the way I need him to. He’s being so infuriatingly gentle.
More begging rushes past my lips. I’m rewarded with the heel of his hand pinned to my clit, but that’s it.
That’s.
It.
“I could set the table for you.”
“No.” Unable to control myself, I writhe on his fingers. “No dinner.”
“Sure about that?” The darkness in his voice doesn’t scare me. I feel so safe that it turns me on. “It’s good. It’ll taste better if I put a small piece of potato on my fingers. Shove them between your lips. Feed you.”
“No.” His cock. His maddening lips. That’s what I want. “You. Being rough. Like you took me in the alley. Not food.”
As much as I love that he’s been considerate and careful over the past three days, I’m in a different place now. I ache for the ruthless man I know is in there.
“What if…” After gathering juices from my sex, he starts stroking my clit at a slow, torturous pace. “You have dinner in the living room with your legs spread…” He darts his tongue out to lick the crook of my neck, and I whimper. “Naked and soaking my face while I eat you out.”
Fuck me, that’s beyond tempting. My body melts at his dirty words, my legs wobbling.
But my pussy is swollen and empty. Painfully, horribly empty.
“Your cock. I need you to f-fuck me.”
“You’re so pretty when you beg.” Finally, his fingers rub me faster. Send me high, high, higher. “We’ll have dinner later then.”
I sob as desire floods me. Then, with one swipe of his tongue along my neck, I’m done. I come on his fingers. My pussy clenches and unclenches. My mouth parts in a silent scream.
Alaric doesn’t let up even when my knees buckle, when I tell him to stop, that it’s too much.
“We’re going to take a shower.” He rocks his hips into me. His cock is hard and thicker than before. “I have to be clean before…”
The ache from losing his fingers barely has time to register before Alaric turns me toward him. His hand closes around my throat as he drags me in for a bruising kiss.
He doesn’t hold back as he claims my lips. My tongue.
The air I breathe.
He can have everything. I’ve always been his anyway.
“Before I put you on your knees.” His teeth nip at my lip. My hands claw at his neck. “And fuck that pretty face.”
A thrill spreads through my chest and down my spine.
“Yes,” I rasp, my voice choked with want.
Alaric’s smirk is there and gone. He tears off my clothes and shoes, his hands skimming my bare skin as he goes. My nipples pebble at his touch, at his intense focus on every inch of my body.
His eyes darken when his gaze lands on my wet thighs. My pussy.
I feel his growl down to my core.
“That cunt.” He kicks my legs apart, cupping my pussy in a possessive, primal way. “She’s really fucking needy, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“So fucking needy,” he groans, before he releases me so he can lose his clothes too.
Once we’re both naked, Alaric scoops me up and carries me into what must be his bedroom. The walls are painted the same muted gray-blue as the rest of the apartment, the windows stretching almost wall to wall, overlooking the city.