26. LILLY
26
LILLY
“ W hat are you so cheery about?” Fern says as she hands Mum a blanket in her Shackleton chair.
“Nothing.” I finish tidying Mum’s room, putting her favourite snacks in her cupboard.
“I know that look,” Mum says with a glint in her eye. She leans over her bed frame and whispers to Fern, “I think the nurse has a new beau.”
I spin around, away from Fern and Mum, my heart racing with excitement as my thoughts wander to my new beau. Not even Mum calling me the nurse can dampen my spirits today. My fingertips trace the bite beneath the fabric of my top and how it’s missing a section where his chipped tooth couldn’t imprint on my skin.
“I think you’re right,” Fern says. “Or maybe an old beau is back on the scene.”
I jerk my hand away from the soreness he left on my skin and crane my neck, heat prickling through my body, making me itch. Fern’s not wrong. But it’s not the man she’s thinking of. Turning around with a smile, I say, “Do you need anything else before your nap?”
“No, thank you, my dear.” Mum leans back in the chair, unable to keep her eyes open.
“Want to grab a coffee?” Fern glances at her watch. “I don’t have to pick Harry up for another hour.”
“Sure.” I straighten Mum’s blanket around her legs and tuck it into the sides of her chair, then stroll out of the room with a smile I just can’t contain.
Fern follows, throwing her bag over her shoulder. “Let’s go to the Lakeside cafe for a cuppa and cake.”
“You know I don’t go there. Kane would?—”
“Kane’s not here, and I thought you said things were over between you? You don’t need to avoid his enemies now you’re not together.” Her brow pinches. “Is that why you haven’t stopped grinning all morning? Has he hypnotised you with his magical dick?”
“You mean dickmatised?” I throw my head back and let out a laugh, but it’s short-lived as reality hits me. She’s right. I am dickmatised, but it’s not Kane’s. “I never said he had a magical dick.”
She stops walking and spins on her boot heel to face me. “So you did get laid last night. You’re not denying it.”
I roll my eyes as I drop into her car. “Yes, I had the best sex of my life.” My fingers trace my lips, then my cheeks, where my masked man kissed every broken capillary.
Fern stares at me from the driver’s seat, a bewildered look on her face. “Who the heck was it if not Kane?”
I drop my hand into my lap, fiddling with the rips in my jeans where my chunky flesh bulges through the frayed gaps. “I don’t know.” My teeth sink into my bottom lip, hoping she believes the lie that I have no clue who this man is who made me come so hard my pussy needs time out to recover. I’m an electrically charged mess of pulses and aftershocks with every thought from last night as the ghost of him lingers in my centre.
Our breaths fog up the interior of the car. Fern starts the engine, putting the blowers on to stop the winter chill, but she doesn’t drive. Just stares at me.
“What? Can’t a girl have a good time?” I can’t look her in the eye. The longer she stares at me, the more I shuffle in my seat and the more I shuffle, the more the seam of my jeans rubs against my core and I’m burning up at the memory of my masked shadow.
“You had a one-night stand with a stranger who you don’t know, and it was the best sex of your life?”
“You catch on fast.” I pull the seatbelt across my chest and buckle up.
She presses her foot against the accelerator, driving out of the care home car park. Fern’s right, I don’t need to worry about Kane catching me at the lakeside cafe, but as Shane’s his best friend, it still feels like a betrayal, even if they stock the best cakes around.
My mouth waters just thinking about them. Though to be fair, my mouth hasn’t stopped watering since last night. The events keep playing over and over in my head, sending tingles to my centre.
“The Black Crow’s just around the corner. Let’s go there.”
Fern gives me a sideways glance as she reluctantly indicates left.
“What? I’m sure they serve tea. It’s a bar. They serve everything.” It’s not her style. It wasn’t mine either, but I’ve grown to love the place recently.
Wind whips my hair around my face as I climb out of the car at the Black Crow country pub. The usual crowd of bikes line one side of the car park.
Fern lifts her bag onto her shoulder, checking she’s locked the car, twice. “I hate this place. I can’t believe you suggested this dive.”
“Relax. We’ll sit in the quiet side of the bar.” I push the large wooden door open and turn left through another door, leading to the quieter room with plush booths and old wooden tables.
After placing our order with Heather behind the bar, Fern and I sit down with plenty of free tables to choose from.
Heather isn’t long in placing a cup of tea in front of my sister. “I brought sugar and a biscuit for you, love.”
“Thanks, Heather,” Fern says, plastering on a smile.
She places a glass in front of me. “And a usual rum and coke for you. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Thank you.”
Fern stirs a sachet of sugar into her tea as she sniffs the air. “Doesn’t it smell musty to you?”
I roll my eyes. “Stop whinging. It’s better than giving money to the Bennett brothers at the cafe.”
“Soooo.” She leans over the table and whispers, “Is he here?”
Hairs prickle on the back of my neck. He could be here for all I know. But if it’s who I think it is, he’s working now. A seed of doubt creeps in, wondering if this is wishful thinking on my part. I want it to be Shane so badly. But another part of me hopes it isn’t Shane. I want it to be another man, one I can have a relationship with. Though waking up alone this morning reminded me of all the times I would wake up alone in Kane’s bed.
I made a promise I wouldn’t put myself through that again, yet here we are. Another man I’ve fallen for with commitment issues. Worse. This one has identity issues as well. It’s just my luck.
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t know what he looks like.” I slump back in my seat and sip my rum and coke through a straw, waiting for my sister to give me a lecture. As if she has to lecture me on the risks involved with one-night stands. It’s not my style. The STD’s alone are enough to deter me.
And on cue, Fern’s eyes widen. “How can you hook up with someone and not know what they look like?”
“I met him on an app, and we’ve been chatting for a while now. He wears a mask.” I don’t need to tell her the app is my camgirl adult only app that I make extra money from on the side.
“You’ve been having sex with a man in a mask who you have no clue who he is or what he looks like?” she whisper yells over the table.
“For goodness’ sake. Keep your voice down.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Probably.” I slink further into my seat, sipping my drink. I am crazy for letting him come inside me without a condom. That was a stupid move, but somehow I trust him with my life. I wanted his cum inside me. I wanted him inside me with no barrier between us. And I can’t wait to do it all again.
“Anyway, enough about my sex life. How was your date? You haven’t told me much about this guy you’re seeing.”
Fern’s scowl turns to a bright smile. “It’s going well. His name’s Ant, and he’s a doctor. You might know him, actually.”
I sip my drink as she talks, not really hearing what she’s saying as I think about my shadow. Remembering a previous conversation where he said he’d had a vasectomy. At least I won’t get pregnant. That’s one good thing, I guess. “Did you and Shane ever try for a baby?”
She stops talking about her date, not that I was listening, and furrows her brow. “Yes, why? Has he said something?”
I shuffle in my seat and lean over the table. “No, I just wondered why he’s never settled down or had a family of his own. He didn’t have a vasectomy then?”
“No. We tried for about two years and nothing happened.”
“Is that why you left him?” I chew on my bottom lip. He was a broken man when he came out of the army, and even more broken when Fern upped and left. I never really understood what happened between them. I was nineteen at the time and had my own life to live, but I haven’t forgotten how sad I was that he wasn’t going to be around much after that. Turns out I was wrong. He was still there for me when I needed him, even though he wasn’t with Fern.
“Of course not. Things just fizzled out. But I did wonder if he was firing blanks. We were gonna get tests done, but I took it as a sign and realised that it wasn’t meant to be.” She leans back in the booth and waves a hand in the air. “We’d grown apart.”
“So he never got things checked out?”
“Not as far as I know. Why, do you have some juicy gossip? Does he have a love child or something?”
I spit my drink out as a burst of laughter leaves my lips. “No. I’ve never even known him to have a woman, not even a one-night stand. I just thought it was odd.”
“Shane is odd. I don’t know what happened on tour, but he wasn’t the same when he came back.”
“How so?”
“He wasn’t the same person I fell in love with. He was distant. The sparkle in his eyes was gone. He used to be carefree and fun, and when he came back, he was just this straight laced cop that had to do everything by the book.”
“Well, obviously, or he’d get the sack.” I fold my arms over my chest. “He only took that job for you because you wanted him home with you. Or have you forgotten?”
She swallows the last of her tea. “I know he left the army for me. And I still feel bad about him giving up his dream. But I tried to make things work. We were just very young when we got together. We should never have married so young.”
As I glance up, my mouth parts. Through the bar in the other room is Shane in full uniform, talking to Draven, the owner. Our eyes meet, and I can practically hear the electricity crackling in the air.
He nods at something Draven says, then meets my gaze again, before walking away.
“What’s going on? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Fern says as she scans the area.
“Apparently, this place is haunted.” I sit up and take a big gulp of my drink, needing something to calm my nerves. The memory of my masked man still lingers as the seam of my jeans presses against that delicious spot.
The internal door to our quiet side of the pub creaks as it swings open. Without the band playing, I hear every sound as Shane’s boots tread across the old wooden floor.
My breath halts. The handcuffs attached to his belt glint in the afternoon sun shining through the window. I pull my jumper away from my neck, needing some air.
Fern turns around, following my gaze.
Shane stops walking towards us when he sees Fern, leaving a table distance between them. “Fern.” He nods at her, forcing a smile.
“Hi.” Fern’s eyes roam over his black tie tucked under his police vest where the radio’s clipped, then down to the buckle on his belt. “Speak of the devil, and he’s sure to appear.”
Shane chuckles. “I thought my ears were burning.”
I butt-in before he gets the wrong idea, or the right one. “We were just talking about how nice it was that you paid for Mum’s care package.” I kick Fern under the table and smile at Shane.
Fern says, “Yes thank you for doing that, but you didn’t?—”
Shane clears his throat. “I wanted to. She was like a mother to me.”
Tension crackles between the three of us, the room becoming incredibly hot. “What are you doing here?” I ask, trying to change the subject before he realises what we were actually talking about.
“There was some trouble at the bar last night with some bikers. I just came to see Draven, check everything’s okay.” He scratches the back of his neck, watching me fan myself with the opening of my jumper at my collarbone.
My nipples pebble under his heated gaze and a prickly heat rises in my chest. I wonder if he feels it, too. Unless, of course, I’m losing my mind and he isn’t my shadow and is probably thinking I’m coming down with some sort of fever.
His tongue runs along his top teeth, poking at the chipped tooth there. The same tongue that was teasing my ass.
Heat floods my face and I’m grateful for my full coverage foundation. I’m sure underneath I’m the colour of beetroot right now as I’m transported back to last night.
Fuck me, this is torturous. Especially as my sister sits between the two of us. The tension stretches between us like a dark cloud. My pulse pounds, thumping in my ears and my breaths come in shallow bursts as if all the oxygen is sucked from the room.
Shane’s radio crackles, breaking the stifling void of silence. Voices come through about an incident elsewhere. Shane clears his throat. “I better get back to work. Good to see you, Fern.” He nods at me. “Lilly.” Then he walks away, those handcuffs secured at the side of his belt.
I relax back against my seat and knock back what’s left of my drink.
Fern gazes at me wide-eyed as if she’s uncovered the secret of the holy grail. “Oh my. You could cut the tension in here with a knife.”
My fingers wrapping around my empty glass, I brace myself for an onslaught of questions.
Eyes wide and palms flat against the table, Fern says, “I didn’t want to believe it, but he clearly still has feelings for me.” She shakes her head. “It all makes sense why he’s never settled down with anyone else.” She reaches over the table and squeezes my hand. “That’s why he paid for Mum’s care.”
I gulp, mirroring her wide eyes. I’m not sure what’s worse, her knowing I have feelings for him, or her reigniting her feelings for him. Unable to speak, I give her a sheepish smile. She can think what she likes as long as long as they don't get back together, or find out the truth. Whatever that may be.