Chapter Forty Lily
CHAPTER FORTY
Lily
A fter our trip to the cemetery, Lorenzo asks if I want to have dinner together. Since I hardly ate much of my lunch, I agree, so we head back to his house, where he gets to cooking while I play with Daisy outside.
Once I tire her out, I rejoin Lorenzo in the kitchen, and we talk about random subjects, like what Healing Hearts plans on doing with all the money they raised. I tell him about how I tried and failed to win a silent auction item, which seems to surprise him.
“What were you bidding on?” he asks while checking an expiration date on the same bottle for a second time.
“Fifty thousand frequent flyer miles,” I say wistfully.
“Where do you want to go?”
“Netherlands,” I reply without hesitating.
“What for?”
I stare at him like he must be joking, except he doesn’t laugh.
“Lorenzo. Do you know me at all?”
His eyes narrow. “I’m going to guess it has something to do with flowers.”
“Yes!” I throw my hands into the air. “I was about to call off this entire engagement.”
“I’ll have to brush up on my international flower knowledge, then.” His tone is teasing.
“Please do. I recommend familiarizing yourself with every important festival on the planet to be safe.”
“My kind of trivia night.”
I laugh. He smiles.
He goes back to cooking our chicken with his trusty food thermometer, which at one point reads 175 degrees.
“I think we’re good,” I say when I catch him stabbing the chicken in a fourth spot.
Lorenzo clearly takes food safety seriously, along with our personal safety, given the insane alarm system he has set up. Every time he lets Daisy outside, he disables it, and at one point I joke if he has a bunker.
The answer is Not yet .
After a minute, he still hasn’t let go of the thermometer, so I pry it out of his hands.
“You good?”
He shuts his eyes. “I’m out of it today.”
I want to broach a subject with him, but I don’t know the best way to start.
Thankfully he sees the strained look on my face and asks, “What are you thinking about?”
“I was wondering…and please don’t take offense, but I… Ugh.” My nose crinkles.
“Lily. Just say it.”
“Would it help if you talked to someone?”
He laughs so hard, he ends up needing to drink some water. “There’s no way that’s happening.”
“Why not?”
“Because what good will that do?”
I place my hands on my hips. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who don’t believe in therapy.”
“And if I was?”
“Then I’d ask what happened to make you think that.”
He looks away. “I went before. Back in Vegas, but I didn’t last long.”
“Why not?”
“Turns out confidentiality has a price, and my uncle was easily able to pay his way into knowing everything about me.”
My chest aches for all the shit his uncle put him through. “So this is a trust issue.”
“Which is kind of a problem since therapy requires it, don’t you agree?”
“Fair, but let me ask you a different question, then.”
“What?”
“Do you trust me ?”
He looks up at the ceiling before answering, “Surprisingly, yes.”
His honest answer fills me with warmth, and I use it as motivation to push the issue. “What if I know a therapist who couldn’t be bought by anyone?”
“Everyone has a price.”
“From what I hear, her hourly rate is expensive, but she’s worth every single minute of it.” My sister has said as much, but I can’t personally confirm.
“What’s her name?”
“Doctor Martin.”
“Haven’t heard of her.”
“Exactly. It’s by design, I can assure you.”
He tilts his head. “How does she find new clients?”
“People find her, not the other way around.”
He stays quiet as he serves us dinner, and we both sit at the island.
I don’t expect him to give me an answer tonight, so I decide to give him an out. “Tell me you’ll think about it?”
“If I were to say yes…” he says, and I hold my breath. “Don’t expect much from it.”
“Me? Never.” I smile, feeling victorious against the demons holding him hostage.
We stick to lighter topics until both our plates are clean and we head to the living room. I should go home soon, but my will to leave dies when Lorenzo and Daisy climb onto the couch.
I join them because there is no way I can resist at least thirty more minutes of their company. Lorenzo wraps an arm around my waist, tucks me against his side, and passes me a remote.
“Put something on.”
“What kind of mood are we in?”
“Whatever makes you laugh.”
I dip my head so he can’t see the goofy little smile on my face because there can only be one reason why he wants that, and damn if it doesn’t make me fall in love with him a little bit more.
At some point, I must’ve fallen asleep on the couch during our movie night, so I’m surprised to wake up in Lorenzo’s bed. He lies beside me, shirtless with the comforter draped over his lower half.
Compared to earlier, he looks at peace, with his hand holding mine like he couldn’t help himself from touching me. I’m tempted to shut my eyes and fall back asleep, but then I notice the clock on his nightstand.
For once, I’m the one breaking my mom’s curfew. Usually Dahlia is the one to do so with how often she falls asleep at Julian’s house, and I always tease her about it because is falling asleep with her boyfriend worth sneaking back into our house at four a.m.?
One look at Lorenzo has me understanding that maybe my sister’s reasons make sense.
I’m tempted to stay, but my mom has been through enough this week without me giving her another situation to hyperventilate over.
Rather reluctantly, I pull my hand back. Lorenzo doesn’t wake up, but a furrow forms between his brows.
It dawns on me that Lorenzo is sleeping on the left side of the bed this time, and I have no idea why.
Not like you can wake him up and ask for an answer.
I slide off the bed, and I’m nearly halfway across the room when Daisy, who I didn’t know had her own bed in Lorenzo’s room, starts barking.
I try to shush her, but it’s too late.
Lorenzo rubs the sleep from his eyes before slowly rising onto his elbows. “Sneaking out on me?”
“No,” I say, although that’s totally what I’m doing.
He smirks. “Were you planning on giving me a kiss goodbye?”
“Seeing as I’m not into somnophilia, can’t say I was.”
“I’m wide awake now, and even if I wasn’t, you tripping the alarm system would’ve done the trick.”
Damn . I can’t believe I forgot about the system after him checking it multiple times last night.
I should ask him to type in the code so I can leave, but there’s something about that smirk on his face that draws me in. Daisy quickly loses interest as I head over to Lorenzo’s side of the bed.
Since I don’t want him to gloat, I drop a kiss onto the top of his head like he always does to me and toss him his phone, which was on the nightstand. “Okay, now disarm the system. Thanks! Bye!”
He snatches my hand before I can escape. “Kiss me like you mean it.”
“Then I’ll never leave.”
“If it were up to me, you never would.”
Even if I could manage to get my legs to cooperate, there is no way I can go home after he spoke those words into existence.
“Fine,” I say, feigning reluctance. “But first tell me why you’re sleeping on the left side of the bed tonight.”
His gaze darts to my mouth before returning to my eyes. “Turns out I don’t like the idea of you sleeping closest to the door.”
I might as well tattoo his name across my heart because the way it bleeds for him after that confession… Yeah .
There is not a single doubt in my mind that I am falling for this man, so I kiss him like I mean it.
Like I love him.
It feels like a first, and in some ways, it is. Without an audience or a story to tell, I can enjoy the feel of his lips pressed to mine without any rush.
No person to convince. No romance to fake. Nothing but me and Lorenzo, finally embracing what we’ve spent nearly a year avoiding.
Eventually I end up underneath him, staring up at his dark eyes.
“Stay,” he commands.
“And risk my mom getting mad at me when she finds me missing tomorrow morning?”
“You can get home before she wakes up. Seems to work well for Dahlia.” He kisses the corner of my mouth. “Are you done making excuses now?”
I pretend to think about it. “I suppose I can stay for a little while—”
He seals his mouth over mine, kissing me until I’m no longer able to form coherent thoughts. My head is full of white noise as Lorenzo kisses his way down my body before pausing at the top of my waistband.
When a man looks up at me like he is imagining all of the different ways he wants to make me come, the last thing I have on my mind is leaving.
So, I throw my inhibitions out the window and part my thighs. “Now it’s your turn to kiss me like you mean it.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
My fingertips tingle with anticipation as Lorenzo slides my dress up my thighs until it pools around my hips, leaving me and my nude underwear on full display.
My brain has a difficult time keeping up with the fact that after so long denying our connection, we are finally together in his bed, the air heavy with anticipation.
“I’ve been thinking about this since last night,” he confesses in a raspy whisper. “Before we were interrupted.”
I tremble as Lorenzo drags his nose down my center, the deep inhale he takes adding to the growing heat in my belly, along with his soft kisses down the inside of my thighs.
“You told me you wanted to be obsessed over?” He rips my underwear off and tosses them beside me. “That you wanted to be possessed ?”
“I want to be fucked , Lorenzo. Does that answer your question? Or do you want me to go into heavy detail about how I want you to fuck me so hard that my sore pussy will think of you all day tomorrow?”
He nudges my legs father apart with a smirk, and I shiver.
“If you’re not thinking of me all week, then I didn’t do my job right.”
Oh.
I like the sound of that even better.
Finally, after what feels like forever, he leans forward and runs his tongue over my oversensitive center.
His enthusiasm is electric, and my body pulses with every stroke of his tongue. He proves to be an excellent listener who clearly pays attention to my moans, repeating the same moves with his mouth and fingers whenever I get louder.
His burning gaze locks onto mine as he rubs my clit with the pad of his thumb, only for my vision to go black when he curls his fingers inside me and strokes. I curse up at the ceiling, my entire body trembling as I fall apart.
I’m so out of it, I don’t notice Daisy barking until Lorenzo is sliding off the bed to get her. He is walking funny thanks to his erection, and I take in the view of his backside as he carries Daisy outside and shuts the door in her cute little face.
She whines, but he must be taking the time to train her because she goes quiet when he orders her to.
“She wants to hang out with us.” I pout as he climbs back onto the bed and crawls up my body.
“I’d rather her not interrupt what I have planned next.”
I flash him a smile. “And what’s that?”
“Whatever you want.” He brushes his mouth over mine. “So long as it doesn’t include us leaving this bed before I make you come again.”
A man obsessed with giving me pleasure? I might’ve not won the actual lottery, but I sure hit the fiancé jackpot.
And with the way he smiles down at me, it makes me think he might feel the same way.