Chapter 23
Brady
“Brady!” Lily screamed.
I glanced up from between her legs, where I’d been licking and sucking and fingering since I’d woken up a few minutes ago, and took in that gorgeous face. The way her mouth opened when she was getting close. How her head tilted back, lengthening her neck. How her legs clenched around me—whether it was my face or waist, she always tightened up.
Before we’d gone to bed last night, she’d told me she didn’t think she could come again for a long time. Because things hadn’t ended in the hot tub. I’d tasted her in the pool and again in the shower.
When my eyes had opened this morning, I’d decided to show her how wrong she was.
“Come on my face,” I told her. “I want to fucking taste it on my tongue.”
She was there—her clit was hardening, my finger was getting wetter as it dived in and out of her, her screams were heightening.
She just needed me to pop her past that edge.
I already knew her body like I’d spent the last ten years devouring it.
So, I knew that speed and pressure were exactly what she needed.
I gave it to her.
“Shit!” She tugged at the roots of my hair. “Ah!”
That sound, the feel of her body when an orgasm was rushing through it, the taste, the look on her face—it was everything I’d been waiting for.
Everything I fucking craved.
Within a few more licks and arches of my finger, she was shuddering.
Ripples pummeled through her navel, and as each one passed, she yelled louder; she thrust against my face even harder, bucking, riding the orgasm out.
“Yes!” she cried. “Oh my God!”
As she was on her way down, I slowed my licks to laps, dragging my tongue across the whole length of her clit, transitioning things to a crawl until her breathing told me she was done.
I didn’t hide my smirk. “I’m not going to say I told you so.”
She let out a small laugh. “I’m terrified to tell you I truly don’t think I can come again after this—so you didn’t just hear me say it. Instead, you’re hearing me say that I’m positive I can come a hundred more times.”
I licked her off my mouth and gave her pussy a kiss.
A slow one.
A tender one.
A final one that soaked up the last of her wetness, holding it in my mouth, savoring it before I swallowed.
There was nothing in this world as sweet or addictive as Lily’s pussy.
I moaned as the last of her went down my throat, and I worked my way up her body until I was hovered over her. “Want some coffee?”
She folded her arms behind her head. “I realize you just ate your breakfast, but I didn’t.”
I chuckled. “Eggs?”
“And bacon and yes to coffee and all the other things too.”
“Let me see what I can cook up.” I gave her a light kiss before I went into the bathroom, washing my face and brushing my teeth, and headed into my closet to put on some shorts.
Lily sat up as I walked back into the bedroom. “You know what’s so funny? Ladies always talk about gray sweatpants and their obsession with men wearing them. But in my opinion, shorts are the new gray sweatpants.”
“I’m lost.”
She nodded toward my waist. “Mesh shorts are severely underrated.”
I scratched my bare chest, trying to process what she was saying. “Still lost here, Lily.”
“You know how a thong shows a woman’s butt cheeks?”
I nodded.
“Gray sweatpants and mesh shorts, like the ones you have on, show your whole package.”
“They what?” I glanced down to see what she was describing.
“I can see your crown and every delicious inch of your shaft.”
I tried craning my neck forward to get a better frontal view. “You’re fucking shitting me. I’m not even hard.”
“You don’t have to be. The material is lying right across your dick.” When I gazed back at her, she added, “I might have just changed my mind about not being able to come again.” She pointed at the door. “But breakfast first … before I die.”
I didn’t know what I was going to replace these shorts with and the thirty pairs I had just like them, but as soon as she left to check in to the hotel in Beverly Hills, they were all going in the trash.
“I’ll see you in the kitchen,” I told her.
I headed straight for the coffee maker, brewing two cups, and held the first mug, the contents black and bitter, up to my mouth to take a long sip. It was still early. I had plenty of time to fuck off for a little while before I needed to go to the office—something that had to happen at some point today so I could discuss the details of Edinburgh with the executive team. They were waiting for updates, and I’d been too preoccupied with Lily to fill them in.
“Mine?” she asked as she joined me in the kitchen, pointing at the mug still under the brewer.
She had on the button-down I’d worn yesterday and had clasped the middle three buttons, letting the top fall open, which gave off hints of her tits, and the bottom reached her mid-thighs, teasing me with her beautiful legs.
“God, you look sexy in my clothes.” I took several dips down her body. “I didn’t know how you took your coffee, or I would have gotten it ready for you.”
She lifted the cup to her mouth and came over, leaning against the front of me. “I take it just like this.” She closed her eyes as she sipped and swallowed. “What are you feeding me?”
I gave her ass a light slap and went over to the fridge, inventorying what Klark, my family’s personal chef, had shopped and prepped. The meals that he’d prepared were in glass containers, the contents labeled and dated.
I looked at her over my shoulder. “I’m going to fry up some eggs and bacon, but tell me if any of these side dishes sound good to you—” My voice cut off when the tablet on the wall started ringing, notifying me that someone was at my gate. “One second. I need to get that.”
I hit several buttons on the tablet to pull up the camera feed. Multiple angles were captured of the gate and call box, each showing a van, commercially wrapped with a logo and phone number and social media icons.
“Yes?” I said into the speaker.
“This is LA Flowers and Gifts,” the driver replied, confirming the name on the van. “I have a delivery for Brady Spade.”
I couldn’t imagine who the hell would send me flowers or a gift from there. Maybe one of the guys was fucking around to be funny, knowing flowers would piss me off, or my assistant was being thoughtful since I was nearing the end of the Edinburgh closing.
I hit a button that opened the gate and said to Lily, “I’ll be right back.”
I went to the front door, waiting for the driver to pull up, and met him on the front steps, taking the long box out of his hand and locking the door behind me once I was back inside. I set the box on the counter and peeled the card off that had been taped.
“Flowers, huh?” She grinned from the other side of the counter.
“The guys are going to get a fucking earful from me?—”
A bolt of rage erupted inside my chest as I read what was written on the card. My hands crumpled the edges as my grip tightened. My lips sank around my teeth as a goddamn snarl came out.
“What the hell?!” I released an unhinged breath. “That bastard is fucking with the wrong motherfucker.”
“Brady?” She rushed to my side of the counter. “What’s wrong? What happened?” She pulled at my arm, but it didn’t move. “Who sent this?” When I didn’t reply, she continued, “What does the card say?”
I didn’t want to show her.
I didn’t want to scare her; she was already terrified about the situation with him—a man who had now been confirmed as David—and this would only make things worse.
But I had to say something.
Something that couldn’t be a fucking lie—that wasn’t who I was, and it wasn’t what she deserved.
“Lily …”
I held the card at my side, away from her line of sight because, shit, I didn’t know how to tell her.
“Brady?” As she stared at me, taking in my face and the fury I couldn’t hide in my expression, I could tell she was piecing it together.
Her entire demeanor changed with each second that passed.
Her shoulders rounded forward, her arms wrapped across her stomach, her body was sinking inward.
And on her face, the emotion, the fear, and the worry all returned.
“No.” Her hand went over her mouth, her eyes widening as she said, “Don’t tell me. Oh God, please don’t tell me.” Her head shook, her eyes beginning to well with tears. “It’s from David, isn’t it?”
Setting the card on the counter was the last thing I wanted. The thought of her seeing those goddamn words and getting instantly triggered made the rage in my chest come to a screaming boil.
That asshole had balls—I had to give him that.
But they were balls that I was going to fucking destroy.
This no longer involved just Lily and him. That had ended in Edinburgh the moment she became mine.
Now, this involved me.
“Please, Brady. Talk to me.” She paused. “Tell me.”
I lifted my hand from my side, glancing at the words again, my temper peaking.
My beautiful blue-eyed wife, you will always be mine …
—David
“Brady, please …”
It took everything in me to point the card in her direction.
As I watched her scan his message, her face crumbling, her body shrinking, my heart fucking shattered. The first tear dripped down her cheek, and instead of wiping it away, I dropped the card and pulled her into my arms. My mouth pressed against the top of her head, and I held her tighter than I ever had before.
“Wife?” she cried. “Is he fucking serious?”
“This will never happen again—I promise you that.”
Her fingers dug into my bare back. “Why?” She sucked in more air. “Whhhy?”
I knew that wasn’t a response to my statement.
She was questioning why David had done this.
“Brady, he won’t stop. He’s never going to stop.” She pulled her face back to look at me. “He asked about you when he was texting me on the plane.” She swallowed, her voice getting choked up from her tears. “Somehow—and I have no idea how—he found out about you. I lied. I told him there was nothing between us just to avoid this. And yet it happened. He did this because he knows, and …” Her voice trailed off, like she couldn’t come to terms with what she was about to say.
I knew what those words were going to be and why she was shaking in fear.
She thought he was going to do something to me.
She was fucking wrong.
“He’s finished—do you hear me?”
Her head shook, her crying now amplified. “It’s not that easy.”
I’d met very few people in my life who couldn’t be touched.
I doubted he was one.
“I need you to tell me everything you know about this guy. The more information I have, the faster I’ll be able to demolish him?—”
“You can’t.” The loudness in her tone was gone. In its place was a voice so soft, just slightly above a whisper. “He’s untouchable.”
Now, I was really intrigued, and now, I needed some goddamn answers.
I gripped the back of her legs and lifted her onto the island, moving her thighs apart so I could stand between them. I kept my voice mellow and calm as I said, “Lily, I’ve given you time. I haven’t pressured you. I’ve waited patiently for you to tell me about him. But that time has passed. My patience is long gone. You need to tell me everything.”
Her hands covered her face, her neck dropping, the cries racking through her body.
Fuck me, I could barely take this.
I leaned into the side of her face, hugging my arms around her. “Nothing is going to happen to you, Lily. I’ve got you.”
“It’s not that.” Her hands slowly slid down until her face was fully revealed. “This is the reason I didn’t want us. Because of him. Because of what I knew he would do.” Her eyes squinted shut, causing more wetness to drip down her cheeks. “Because of what he did to Preston and he’s going to do it to you too.”
I would address her concerns, but she’d just dropped a bomb that I couldn’t ignore.
“Who’s Preston?”
As her eyes opened, her hand went to her chest, as if she needed it to breathe. “A friend from work. One of the few I had.” She paused to take a couple more breaths. “Preston didn’t know the details of my relationship with David. I told no one. But he could tell I was torn up when we broke up, and to try to get my mind off things, he’d bring wine to my apartment or drag me out to a bar.”
“And David found out.”
She nodded. “He finds out everything. Always.”
Another topic I’d circle back to, but first, what was Preston’s role in her life?
She’d told me she hadn’t dated anyone or been with anyone since David.
That I had been her first.
Was that not the truth?
“What did he do to Preston?” I asked.
“David went to his apartment.” Her eyes turned into pools of tears, her lips quivering, even her fucking shoulders were shaking. “And he beat Preston to within an inch of his life.”
The news didn’t rattle me in a way where I was afraid David would do the same thing to me. David wouldn’t touch me. But it rattled me for Preston, who was clearly someone Lily cared about.
“Brady, he spent almost a month in the hospital—that’s how badly David had hurt him. I couldn’t even go see him. I was scared that if I did, David would show up there and do something even worse.”
She rubbed her hands over her thighs. “The thing is, Preston and I weren’t even together. Our relationship wasn’t anything like that or even close to that. We were friends—and Preston was in a relationship with another man. He was just a really good guy, Brady. I’d told David that a million times. He didn’t believe me.” She reached for my arm that was already around her. “I even showed David pictures of Preston’s boyfriend and the two of them vacationing together, and David claimed that I’d Photoshopped the picture.”
There was a bit of relief in hearing that Preston’s preference wasn’t Lily and that what she’d told me had held up.
But that David had almost killed a man?
That was some fucked-up shit.
The questions were multiplying in my head.
“How is David finding out these things about you? Is he following you? Tracking you?”
“I don’t know.” Her arms dropped to her sides. “Part of me thinks both since he seems to know where I am at all times—or at least some of the time.” She gripped the edge of the counter. “He’ll make random comments about my location or send photos of me walking into a hotel or getting off the plane, grabbing food, going to an appointment.” She glanced down, no longer looking at me. “It’s gotten to the point where I just stay in my hotel room. I’ve traveled to all these amazing places, and I don’t explore them. I’m constantly nervous he’s going to show up or come to my hotel room. I’m terrified of him, and I think he’s so angry about our breakup that he’ll hurt me. I don’t know … I don’t know what he’d do, but I don’t trust him. I …” She slowly glanced up, the movement causing the tears to stream again. “I feel like a prisoner.”
I fucking ached for her.
For what this despicable human had put her through.
For the anguish and uneasiness she had to live with on a daily basis.
“Two things. One, you’re no longer living that way. When you travel with the Daltons, assuming you’ll have time off, I want you out. I want you seeing every sight. I want you hitting up restaurants and boutiques. Whatever you would do if David wasn’t a concern, that’s what I want for you.” I put my face closer to hers. “What I expect from you.”
My hands went to the center of her thighs. “The second thing is, he will never step foot on any of my properties.” I tried to keep my voice even, but the thought of him showing up at a Cole and Spade Hotel made my blood pressure skyrocket. “You have nothing to worry about. He will be stopped before he gets anywhere near your room.”
She was quiet until she whispered, “But can you really stop him?”
I chuckled. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
Stopping him would be one of the simpler pieces of this puzzle. But there were certain aspects I still didn’t understand. That made no sense even though she was opening up more than she ever had.
“Why didn’t David go to jail for what he did to Preston?”
“I told you, he’s untouchable.” She chewed the corner of her lip. “And when he does something, it’s untraceable. That’s who I got myself involved with. Out of all the guys I could have picked, I chose a man who’s over-the-top obsessive. Irrational. Dangerous. Who creates scenarios in his head that aren’t true. That’s why I can’t do this to you?—”
“Lily—”
“Brady, it’s only going to get worse.” She was clutching me. Holding on like I was a rope. “This is just the beginning. Flowers are nothing compared to what he’ll do.”
“Not a fucking thing is going to happen to either of us.”
I would repeat that over and over until it registered.
Until she believed it.
Until she could say the words and speak them with confidence.
“Rewind for me,” I instructed. “Fill in some blanks by telling me how you two met and what he’s like as a person. The more I know, the better it’ll help me.”
She was silent while she stared at me, her grip gradually lightening. “We met at a bar. I’d gone out with Aubrey one night, and he was there with some of his friends. He didn’t come on super strong. That was what I needed—space and time to heal because, mentally, I wasn’t in the best place. I was mourning my parents and emotionally wrecked and vulnerable.”
“He picked up on that fast.”
Which set off my anger again.
“Yep. He knew just what to say and how to get me to trust him, and at first, he was perfect,” she continued. “But that didn’t last.” Her eyes turned haunted. “I should have run the second he began to change. My gut told me everything was wrong, and I didn’t listen to it.”
“He would have dragged you right back. I know the type.”
The manipulators. They were all the same.
I’d done business with plenty of them. I could write a fucking handbook on their practices.
I ground my teeth together. “What did he do when he changed?”
“It started with control. Who I talked to. Where I went. Without me even realizing it, he was making decisions for me, like paying off the remainder of my lease so I could move in with him. But it didn’t end there …”
She glanced at the ceiling. “I can’t even believe I’m about to say this, but he told me to quit my job, and I listened to him.” Several seconds passed before she locked eyes with me again. “He wanted me at his home. Accessible. That’s what he said anyway, but I know it goes way deeper. He couldn’t handle that I was gone, that I was with people who weren’t him. That I was staying places overnight. He was constantly accusing me of cheating, of not being there for him, of being a terrible girlfriend.”
The dude was a fucking psycho, and Lily hadn’t been strong enough to fight him off, so he had taken full advantage of her.
But this was what manipulators did.
The way they acted, their timeline of events.
They didn’t stop until they got everything they wanted.
“He treated you like property,” I spit.
“And I stayed.”
I cupped her cheeks. “But you found the courage to leave. That’s what matters. And you must have found it because you’re here.”
She focused on my right eye and then my left. “I fled when I no longer recognized myself. That’s when I knew it was time—when I couldn’t stand another second of him.”
The pain in her voice, the rawness—that was what I couldn’t fucking handle.
Along with the thought of her running from him, knowing he would do everything in his power to make her life hell once she did.
My fingers tightened on her face. “Did he ever hurt you?”
“He physically never laid a hand on me. He threatened to many times, and after the whole Preston thing, I took those threats much more seriously. As far as if he verbally abused me”—she gasped—“yes, he beat me down.”
My hands caught the tears that fell next.
“He made me believe I was worthless. That I was lucky he’d even given me a chance and that I didn’t deserve him or anyone. The things he would call me, words he still uses—they’re horrific.”
“Baby …” I pressed my forehead against hers, stroking my thumbs over the corners of her mouth, thinking of how I was going to wrap her up and take her straight back to bed the moment this conversation was over. How I wasn’t leaving her side until she was due to fly again with the Daltons.
The executive team could wait to hear the Edinburgh news. Lily needed me more.
I carefully pulled back, still keeping our faces close. “How did you get out?”
“I had to outsmart him, which was so difficult, given how much access he had to me.” She put her hand on top of mine. “I had to move quickly, leaving when he was out on a job, renting the first apartment I found, getting my job back at the airline. I was in the air the next day.”
“When he figured out you were gone, he blew the fuck up, didn’t he?”
She sighed. “Within a week, he found out where I lived and would bang on my door for hours. I’d destroy my phone and get a new one, and like I told you, he’d somehow get the number. But that’s not all …” Her exhale this time was labored. “He’d show up at the airport and at my favorite coffee shop. Wherever I was, he was there, too, trying to bully me into being with him, ridiculing me for the decision I’d made.” She paused to catch her breath.
“When I couldn’t take it anymore, I moved into a hotel. At least there, he couldn’t knock for hours without getting kicked out. The knocking did stop when I relocated to the hotel, but he would still wait for me in the lobby and follow me to the elevator.”
“When Aubrey told me she was going on maternity leave and that the Daltons were looking to hire a temporary flight attendant, I literally jumped at the opportunity.”
With every description she gave, I hurt even more for her.
This wasn’t a way to live.
And that was the whole thing—she hadn’t been living. She’d been surviving because this motherfucker wouldn’t stop punishing her.
“How long has this been going on?”
“A little over a year.”
My brows shot up. “You’re fucking kidding me …”
“Twelve-plus months, and he’s still texting and calling, screaming when I don’t answer, tossing every accusation my way.”
“Verbally abusing you.”
Fat tears immediately filled her eyes. “I hate that I have to admit that, that it even happened to me, that I allowed it.”
The pieces were finally fitting together.
“Now, I know why my assistant couldn’t find you online,” I told her. “If you had a social media presence, who knows what he’d do?”
She nodded.
He had ruined her life for long enough.
As of today, that was coming to an end.
I wasn’t a perfect man. Shit, I was so fucking far from that. But I could give her two things that she hadn’t had in over a year.
Or possibly ever.
The first was love.
I didn’t exactly know what that was, what it entailed, what it even meant, but the way I felt about her, the way I wanted to protect her, the things I wanted to give her, the amount of time I wanted to spend with her was different than I’d ever felt before.
That had to be love.
The second was freedom. She didn’t have to worry about him showing up wherever she was, her phone filled with texts and voice mails of his abuse. She was going to live her life and experience the things she’d missed out on because of him.
That I would guarantee.
But there was one thing she hadn’t yet told me.
One piece that didn’t quite fit into the whole picture.
“Why didn’t you ever call the police on him?” I pointed her face up at me. “You told me he’s untouchable, but you never told me why.”
She closed her legs around mine. “David comes from a family who’s involved in underground activity where he’s high up in the chain of command. You’d think the police would be dying to get their hands on him and his family, but it’s the opposite. He’s in bed with the police—delivers an envelope of cash to the chief on the first of every month like clockwork.” Her voice continuously softened with each sentence. “David and his family can do no wrong in Atlanta. So, you see, I couldn’t go to anyone for help.”
I’d suspected David was a bad dude, or Lily would have gone to the authorities. Therefore, I wasn’t taken aback by the news. I just wondered how nefarious his family was, so I asked, “What type of illegal work are we talking about, Lily?”
“He supplies companies with illegal workers to keep their labor costs down. It’s an empire, working off nothing but cash, that’s completely off the books from both ends—theirs and the clients who hire them.”
I almost wanted to laugh.
They could supply the entire East Coast with workers, and they still wouldn’t bring in the revenue that the Spade and Cole families did.
If she’d said Mafia, organ trading, sex trafficking, drugs, or guns, his family’s connections would run deep in a world that I wouldn’t want to become the enemy of—but I would for her.
Sure, he had local connections that ran through Atlanta PD, possibly extending through surrounding states, but that didn’t give him ties on a national level.
That also didn’t downplay what he had done and continued to do to her; it just showed what I would be dealing with when I faced the bastard.
“Listen to me.” I positioned my lips above hers. “I know what you’re afraid of. I know you think I’m going to end up like Preston, that you were avoiding any type of commitment so you didn’t get me involved. It’s too late for that. I’m already involved, and I’m getting you out of this fucking mess.”
“Brady …”
“And I’m doing it because I care about you. Because, at this point, I can’t imagine my life without you. And because I won’t allow him to destroy another second of your life.”
She flattened her hands over mine. “If what happened to Preston happens to you, I’ll never forgive myself, Brady. I won’t survive it. I barely survived it then.”
“Not something you even need to think about, never mind worry about.”
She focused on my eyes, so much emotion still pouring from hers. “I can’t imagine my life without you either.” She ran her thumbs over my lips. “Or what I did to deserve you.”
“I need you to do me a favor.”
She didn’t immediately huff out a laugh, but it happened after a bit of silence. “Okay.”
“I need you to wrap your arms around me and kiss me.”