14. Marie Antoinette
FOURTEEN
Marie Antoinette
Harry
T hat evening, his dogs going crazy told Harry Lillian had arrived.
He and his pups moved through his house and out to the front door. When he got to his porch, he saw her parking her dark-blue Subaru, which was at least seven years old, next to his truck.
His pups raced toward her car until Harry put his teeth to his lip and whistled.
They stopped dead and sat, long tails sweeping the grass, tongues lolling with excitement, eyes locked on Lillian getting out of her car.
His dogs were social, but Harry didn’t often have company.
Something else that needed, and was going to (imminently), change.
Lillian had a bottle cradled in her arm with a big bow on it.
She shot a smile to him but moved right to his dogs. He knew she knew animals when she did it slowly, crouching a little and offering a hand low that they could smell.
Once they all got in a good sniff, he called, “Alright,” and all three dogs got up and bounded around her.
He heard her laugh as she made her way to Harry at the same time giving pets to his dogs when they were within touching distance.
Harry stood at the top of the steps, with only enough space for her to wedge herself in front of him when she arrived.
This meant her smile was even bigger when she got to him.
He glanced at the bottle.
It was Jameson.
He raised his brows at her.
“Ronetta knows Sean Stoll’s mom. She did the sleuth work for me,” she explained.
Sean was one of his deputies.
“I didn’t bring you anything when I came to yours for dinner,” he pointed out.
“You don’t live next to Ronnie. If she knew I came to your house without a host’s gift, she might take me off her Christmas list.”
Harry smiled.
Lillian returned the smile.
That was when Harry took the bottle from her, and then he kissed her.
The dogs milled around them as they did what they seemed to always do when they kissed, losing themselves to it, to each other, the world abating, it was just them, Harry and Lillian, in a universe that actually worked, and all of the shit of it just faded away.
And every time, the hunger deepened.
So now, it almost seemed desperate how greedy he was for her smell, her taste, her tits pressed to his chest, the feel of her fingers in his hair, and as ever, she gave as good as she got, communicating how voracious she was for what she could get from him.
This meant Harry had to stop it.
They weren’t going there until after they had answers about her parents.
He was not going to be that guy.
So, no matter how hard it was, he stopped it, touched the tip of her nose with his and whispered, “Let’s get you inside.”
She looked a mix of disappointed and hazy, both of which he liked, but she nodded.
He took her hand and led her in.
He didn’t plan on being curious about what she thought about his house, but he found himself watching her as he led her into the front room.
And he then found himself shocked when her eyes lit with pleasure.
He looked to the living room, one his parents had gotten to before his mom got sick.
Huge sectional. Stone walls. Big media center. Terracotta tile floors, Native woven rugs. Rustic wood coffee and end tables.
“Okay, if you told a Hollywood set designer, ‘Design a living room for a hot guy rural Washington State sheriff,’ they’d design this,” she declared, recapturing his attention. “It’s perfect. I love it. And I really have to teach you how to chill out. This is chillout central.”
Harry turned back to the living room, suddenly seeing it differently.
Seeing it now as the room his mom designed so her boys could truck in from whatever they were doing outside, lay about, be comfortable, spill drinks and track mud and drop potato chip crumbles.
It wasn’t ugly, if it was dated.
What it was, was sturdy, warm and welcoming.
He looked again to Lillian to see Smokey had claimed her.
But more, she’d claimed Smokey.
Another surprise.
People tended to be skittish around pit bulls, even if that breed was loyal and affectionate.
But not Lillian.
Before Harry got him, Smokey had been starved nearly to death, so he didn’t trust easily.
But there he was, leaning against Lillian’s leg while she scratched behind his ears.
Fuck. This woman.
He had to clear his throat before he spoke.
“Hungry?” he asked.
She nodded.
He moved her way, grabbed her hand and walked her to the kitchen.
He watched for her reaction to that room as well and saw what he expected to see this time. She masked her expression to hide she was unimpressed.
“I lived here growing up,” he told her. “Bought it off Dad when he wanted to downsize, before he retired and moved to Arizona. Mom and Dad got this place as a fixer-upper. They did the important stuff first, putting on a new roof, installing a new furnace and water heater, kitting out the bathrooms, the living room, their boys’ rooms. She got sick before they tackled the kitchen.”
“Ah,” she replied.
“Winnie wasn’t a cook,” he stated, and her gaze darted to his, shock that he put Winnie out there easily read in it. “And honestly, I didn’t give much of a fuck about anything after I lost her.”
“Harry,” she whispered.
He set the bottle aside and gathered her into his arms.
“I know I said we’d keep it light,” he began. “But I saw you staring at her picture in my office.”
She immediately appeared uncomfortable.
“She lived,” he said quietly, and her gaze grew intent on his. “I loved her. I married her. I was destroyed when I lost her. But that was years ago and something you need to know. I’m stubborn.”
Her eyes got big at this admission, and she mumbled, “Um…okay.”
“Being stubborn,” he went on, “I held on to her loss longer than I should.” He gave her a squeeze and warned, “I’m not over her, Lillian. I’ll never be over her. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with her, but that isn’t what fucks me about her breaking her neck when she was twenty-eight. What fucks me about it is she was hilarious. She was up for anything. She wanted to eat pizza in Italy and sushi in Japan and curry in India, and she never went to any of those places. It fucks me not only that we had a beautiful life together we didn’t get to live, but she had a beautiful life she didn’t get to live. That’s what fucks me.”
“I can imagine,” Lillian whispered, still studying him intensely.
“She’ll always be in my heart. But, not so recently, a friend told me Winnie would be pissed as shit I stopped living when she did. He was right. It took me until meeting you to understand how right he was.”
Her body melted into his as her gaze on him warmed so much, the green in her eyes seemed to turn to liquid jade.
“But I need to be able to talk about her,” Harry gently continued. “I don’t want her to be the elephant in the room. I want her to be what she was. A woman I loved who I lost, and I hated that, but I’m still here.”
She lifted a hand, stroked his jaw and said, “Okay, honey.”
“Same with Mom,” he pushed it.
She blinked then tucked her lips between her teeth.
He gave her a slight shake. “I saw your expression when I mentioned I lost her. It was a long time ago, and, sweetheart,”—he dipped his face closer to hers and his voice lower—“you know you never get over that either.”
“No,” she whispered. “You never do.”
“You don’t have to hurt for me because I was hurt. You’ve got enough on your plate right now. But, one way or the other, no one in this world escapes what I’ve experienced. It’s just life.”
“Okay,” she repeated.
“So can we make lettuce wrapped burgers and Asian slaw?” he asked.
She scrunched her nose at the mention of lettuce wraps.
“I bought you a fresh bun at the bakery counter at the market, and I grabbed you a slice of carrot cake from Aromacobana,” he told her.
Her eyes lit up.
He grinned at her.
Then he kissed her again, this time making it quick and closed-mouthed.
He let her go, poured her a glass of wine, and they got down to making dinner in his ugly-as-fuck kitchen while his dogs meandered around hoping they’d drop food to the outdated linoleum.
There was only so much a man could take.
So, after they finished their second episode of their ongoing binge of We Are Lady Parts , and Lillian attacked him, they were now stretched on the couch, Harry’s long body pressing Lillian’s soft one into the cushions, their mouths fused.
And he had to end it, because things were getting out of hand.
They were doing this because Harry finally got his hand on Lillian’s round ass.
He’d touched her, got his fingers under her top the night before, feeling the warm silk of her skin, going so far as to brush the side of her breast, but no farther.
But the instant his hand cupped a cheek of her ass over her jeans, she arched into him, pressing her hips to his, and his cock, hard and beginning to ache, got harder and definitely ached.
He broke the kiss but not the touch of their lips and whispered, “Baby.”
Her eyes were hooded, hot, but when he said that word, her fingers that had been threaded in his hair, fisted in it, she tilted her head and again captured his mouth.
Her hunger flooded into him, and Harry ground his painfully restrained cock into her soft hips, swallowing her moan and groaning into her mouth.
Christ, he had to stop this.
He didn’t stop it when her fingers brushed agonizingly against his dick while she frantically undid her jeans.
He pulled away again. “Lilly.”
She kissed him again at the same time she captured his hand, tugging it around, up, and pressing it in , before her hand retreated.
Feeling the sleek, soaked folds between her legs, he grunted, his dick jerked, he instinctively circled her clit with more than a hint of pressure, and she tore her mouth from his, her neck arching, her back too, and she ground into his fingers as she whimpered.
Fucking fuck .
It took everything he had to cup her sex and whisper, “Baby, we need to slow this down.”
She righted her head, her eyes now lost, lost to what they were doing, lost to him, and she begged, “Please don’t.”
“This is a big step,” he reminded her.
“We’re ready,” she said instantly.
His lips tipped up. “I’m ready, but I need to be sure you are.”
“Have you lost feeling in your fingers?” she demanded.
That surprised a laugh out of him.
“Harry, I’m not being funny,” she snapped, impatient.
“Sweetheart.”
“Harry.”
“Lillian.”
“ Harry .”
Experimentally, he circled her clit again.
Her eyes fluttered closed, her lips parted, and he felt his cock beading.
Okay then.
Fuck it.
He kissed her and he fingered her, and then he stopped kissing her so he could watch as he made her come.
And fucking hell, the show was spectacular .
As she recovered, he ran his lips along her jaw, down her neck, across her throat, and up to her ear, and when he felt her fingers relax in his hair and she started stroking it, he slid his hand out of her jeans.
He lifted his head and looked down at her.
She had just the barest sprinkle of freckles across her nose, her skin was rosy from her orgasm, her gaze hazy with it.
He already knew he could look at her for a lifetime.
But seeing her like this, he knew he could give that to her for a lifetime.
“Good?” he asked softly.
“Your turn,” she said as answer.
He shook his head. “Unh-unh.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Sorry?”
“I’m good,” he stated.
“Uh…Harry, I can feel you’re not.”
He smiled at her. “It isn’t a fatal condition.”
“I know. But does it matter to you that I want to alleviate your… condition ?” she asked.
“What matters to me is that I like spending time with you, I intend to spend a damned sight more of it, and as that time wears on, I don’t want you to have that first reason to question my motives.”
Her chin ducked into her neck in shock.
“So as I said, I’m good,” he reiterated.
His body jerked as, abruptly, she caught his face in her hands.
“We’ll wait,” she said in a harsh whisper, feeling—so much fucking feeling—pouring out of her green eyes, deluging his body, his bones, his soul, all of which had felt so damned empty, so brittle, starting with losing his mom, watching his father and brother do it too, then finding Winnie, always so animated, lying so still on the ground among the pines. “We’ll wait because you’re such a danged good guy, I sense what you need is to wait. You couldn’t live with not waiting. But just so you know, I’m ready whenever you are,” she finished.
“I’ll file that away,” he whispered in return, but his wasn’t harsh, it was low, heavy, but weighted with the good she was offering, like the bad he’d been carrying since he was eleven never existed.
“And I’ll spend time trying to figure out how I found myself dating a super good guy at the same time wishing he was a little bad.”
“Oh, I can be bad, sweetheart,” he promised.
Her eyes rounded and she smacked his arm. “Don’t be hot when you won’t allow me to get you hotter.”
“But I’m allowed to get you hotter.”
“ Quid pro quo from here on out,” she sniffed.
Harry frowned. “I don’t agree to that.”
“It’s not fair, I get me some and you don’t let me give you anything.”
“You are so very wrong I didn’t get anything out of that, Lillian.”
Her eyes got even rounder, and she smacked his arm even harder. “Stop being an even better guy, Harry,” she demanded.
He started laughing.
“Oh my God, now I’m annoyed because the guy I’m dating is even more awesome than I thought. And he’s a miracle man with his fingers.”
“Wait ’til you get my mouth.”
Her gaze thinned and she snapped, “Stop it, Harry.”
“I’m also filing away that I need to make you come harder, it seems like it wears off quick,” he teased.
For a second, she stiffened under him.
Then she dissolved into giggles.
Watching her laugh was almost better than watching her come.
“Another episode over carrot cake?” he suggested when her giggles diminished.
“Are you going to have a bite?”
He nodded.
“Okay then,” she mumbled.
He angled to the side, did up her jeans, then pulled her up to sitting before he took his feet.
“Want some coffee too, baby?” he asked.
“Do you have herbal tea?”
He didn’t, but Aromacobana had the good shit for sale, so he’d be getting some.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“That’s okay. Decaf?” she asked.
“Definitely fell down on this job,” he said.
“No you didn’t. I’ve just always had trouble sleeping, even when I was a kid. So I don’t drink caffeine after three in the afternoon.”
Harry’s neck tightened at learning this. “You’ve always had trouble sleeping?”
She nodded. “All my life. Though, the last two nights I dropped right off.”
Now, learning that, his chest burned as he stared at her
She smirked at him and said, “So there, Harry. This is what I’m dealing with.” She circled her hand in the air. “All the goodness that is you.”
He reached, dragged her out of the couch, and kissed her hard and long, until they were both breathless.
“I’ll get some tea at Aromacobana,” he said when he broke it. “What’s your favorite?”
“You suck,” she lied wispily, still recovering from the kiss. “And anything. Mint. Chamomile. Hibiscus. Passionflower. One of their herbal blends.”
“I’ll get decaf too.”
“And you suck even more.”
He grinned at her.
She frowned at it. “Stop being hot.”
“I’ll try.”
Her eyes lifted to his. “You’ll fail.”
He shrugged.
She rolled her eyes, touched her mouth to his and demanded, “Get me cake.”
“As you wish, Marie Antoinette.”
Another eye roll, but she ended this one smiling.
He put her back into his couch.
Smokey stayed with her, but Lucy and Linus came with Harry as he got his girl some cake.