Chapter 23
CAL
Imake it to her apartment before I completely lose my mind, driving through dark streets with her voice playing on a loop in my head.
Boys with dirty mouths and a little degradation streak.
Said across a family dinner table, for fuck’s sake. Said with that innocent face she can put on like a coat. Said while I sat there choking on my own tongue because Rome was right fucking there and she knew it.
She knew exactly what she was doing. She probably thinks she's hilarious. And the thing is, she kind of is. Under any other circumstances I'd be laughing about this, but I'm not laughing.
I'm driving with my blood at a low boil, and every time I blink I see her sitting there with her wine, pressing her tongue against the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.
She called me vanilla. In front of everyone I know. And the worst part, the part that's currently rewiring something fundamental in my brain, is that she got me figured out in one go.
This is exactly why I never fuck anyone in the same zip code, it took exactly one time and the words connected too close to me.
This is also exactly why I've kept that line drawn for so long when it comes to her.
Because I knew, somewhere underneath all the rationalizing, that if I ever let myself have her I wouldn't be able to stop.
That whatever careful, controlled thing I'd built would come apart the second she pushed back.
And boy did she push back. Now whatever was holding that line in place has let go completely.
I find myself in the parking lot outside her building without any memory of the last stretch here. My phone is in my hand before I've finished turning off the engine.
Me
Unlock your door.
Trouble
That was fast.
Me
Lily.
The response comes with a yawn emoji, because of course it does.
Trouble
It's unlocked.
The night is late and humid, summer heat clinging to my skin as I cross the parking lot. Usually there'd be people on the streets at this hour, voices carrying from open windows, but I don't notice any of it. My blood is pounding in my ears and the only thing that's going to still it is her.
I go into her apartment without knocking, without announcing myself. She's standing in the kitchen with a glass of water in both hands, leaning against the counter in white panties and a tight white t-shirt that leaves her midriff bare.
Her hair is down, still a little wild from a shower. Her face is clean of makeup. She looks like an underwear ad pulled directly from my filthiest fantasies, and she's completely at ease. A woman who lit a match and came home to wait for the fire.
"I'm pleasantly surprised, Callahan."
Her voice is light, amused, utterly unbothered. "Figured you'd stand in your kitchen for a while longer. Maybe have a conversation with your ceiling first."
I close the door behind me. Turn the lock. The click is loud in the small apartment. Her mouth is still arranged in that smile, the one she wears when she thinks she's in control, but I catch the way her eyes track the movement of my hand on the lock.
Her feet are bare on the tile. Pretty, like the rest of her.
Every time I see her, I'm overwhelmed with the need to scoop her up and hold her, to pull her against me, and keep her there because that's where she belongs. Where I belong. But right now I'm something else entirely.
"Vanilla, huh?"
The smile holds. She shrugs. "That was for Rome's benefit. You know that."
"I know exactly who it was for."
I take my shoes off and place them next to hers by the door, as if I've been doing it for years.
Another shrug from her, smaller this time. "I thought it was funny."
"I almost choked to death."
"Now that," she smirks, "was funnier."
She holds her ground. Chin up, shoulders back, the brat fully operational. She's enjoying this. She thinks this is the same game we've been playing all year, push and pull, tease and retreat, the endless dance of pretending we don't want to tear each other apart.
In about thirty seconds, she's going to find out it isn't.
"Put the water down, Trouble."
She doesn't. She takes another sip, watching me over the rim. Testing.
"Put. It. Down."
For the first time since I walked in, the smile slips. I would stop if it was fear, but no. This is Lily Moreland reaping exactly what she sowed, and the expression on her face says she's starting to understand that.
She sets the glass on the counter.
"You called me vanilla in front of everyone I know." I start walking toward her. "You sat there with your wine and your smart mouth and I had to sit there and take it because your brother was watching."
"Callahan." My name, but the usual edge is missing.
"Rome's not here now."
I stop in front of her, close enough to see her pulse jumping in her throat. Her hands are gripping the counter behind her like she needs something to hold onto.
I put one hand on the counter beside her hip, closing the space between us. So she understands it belongs to me now.
"What I showed you last night was me being careful with you. I was gentle because it was our first time and I didn't know what you could handle. I was sweet because you deserve sweet."
I lean closer, my mouth next to her ear. A shiver runs through her before I've said a word.
"Tonight you deserve something else."
Her breath hitches. A small, involuntary catch she couldn't have hidden if she tried.
"You're going to walk into that bedroom right now," I tell her, "and you're not going to say a single smart thing between here and there."
She stares up at me, eyes wide open, the brat gone. I see her fighting it, the instinct to fire back, to say something sharp and reclaim the upper hand. It's written across her face like a war.
Then she slides out from between me and the counter and walks toward the bedroom without a word.
I stay in the kitchen for a full minute.
Partly because I want her to sit with the anticipation, to sit in the silence and wonder what's coming.
Partly because I need sixty seconds to get my own pulse under control.
The sight of her doing what she's told without argument has just done more damage to my composure than anything at that dinner table.
I roll my sleeves to my elbows. I turn off the kitchen light. Then I go to her. She's sitting on the edge of the bed when I reach the doorway. Hands in her lap, knees together, back straight. She looks like she’s waiting for a job interview. Under any other circumstances it would be funny.
I stop in the doorway and lean against the frame. The overhead light is off. She's turned on the lamp by the bed, a small one with a warm bulb that casts her in gold and shadow.
"Stand up."
She stands. Her hands stay at her sides, her eyes stay on mine.
I see the effort that stillness is costing her.
Lily's natural state is motion, talking and teasing and fidgeting and filling every space with her energy.
Making her be still is its own kind of provocation.
She knows it, and I know she knows it, and the knowing is part of it.
"Take it off."
She reaches for the hem of her shirt and pulls it over her head in one smooth movement, dropping it on the floor beside her.
No bra underneath. Just her, bare from the waist up.
Those small breasts she'd been self-conscious about last night, the ones that have my mouth watering, are on full display.
Collarbones sharp in the lamplight. The bruise I left above the left one fully visible, purple at the edges.
She stands there, the same shamelessness from last night, that refusal to shrink or cover or apologize for any part of herself. I love her like this.
"The rest."
Her thumbs hook into the waistband of her panties. She pushes them down, steps out of them, straightens up.
She stands very still, eyes locked on mine across the room.
"I'm going to do as I please tonight," I say. "If you want to stop, you say stop and everything stops. No questions, no discussion. That's the only rule."
"Okay," she breathes.
"If I ask you something, you answer honestly. Not what you think I want to hear."
"Okay."
"And Lily."
I cross to her and lean down until my mouth is close to hers. Not touching, just the heat of proximity, the charge of the space between us.
"When I tell you to use your words, you use them. All of them. Even the ones that embarrass you."
Her breath comes out shaky against my lips. "Okay."
"Good."
I kiss her once, almost chaste. The contrast between that kiss and everything I've just said makes her exhale hard through her nose, like she doesn't know what to do with the whiplash.
"Get on the bed."
She sits, then lies back. I stand over her for a moment because I need to. I need to look at her like this, spread out on her white sheets with her hair dark against the pillow and her chest rising and falling too fast for someone lying still.
"Spread them," I tell her. "Show me your cunt."
She does, her legs spreading so easily. I stare exactly where she's showing me, and I can't look away.
She's wet already, pink and glistening in the lamplight, and the sight of her spread open like this because I told her to, cracks me wide open.
I stand there and let myself enjoy the sight of her, let her understand that this is what she does to me.
I undress without hurry, pulling my shirt over my head and reaching for my belt.
The sound of the buckle makes her lips part — just slightly, just enough for me to catch it.
I slow down on purpose, letting the leather slide through the loops, and her throat moves on a swallow that gives me a satisfaction bordering on criminal.
She studies me with an attention I feel like a physical thing on my skin, tracking every inch of exposed muscle as the rest of my clothes go. Her gaze catches on the left side of my ribs and stays there.
"I didn't notice it last night," she says softly. "What does it say?"
My tattoo. The last thing I want to talk about right now.
"I'll tell you after."