Chapter 26
Lily
Nothing was okay at all, but I wanted it to be. I thought saying it out loud to Dean, to reassure him, might change how I felt too, but it hadn’t. I only felt worse. My stomach was in knots, and my anxiety was doing a number on the slight ache forming in my temples.
Saturday started so well. Yes, I had general nerves while at Jane’s game, but that was a regular feeling for me.
I was a naturally anxious person, slowly healing after something traumatic.
I even felt okay enough to maybe not go to a psychologist after all.
Instead, I had fallen into a false sense of hope — hope that was ripped out from under me the second Dean told me who that man was.
Gabriele Gimello. Another mob boss. Another threat. Another reason for my brain to remind me of what I went through, even if they weren’t directly connected.
You’re fine. I shuddered as I practiced slow breathing. Nothing is going to happen. Antonio’s kids don’t care about me, they have no reason to— They had every reason to if they’re as bad as Dean says…
He hadn’t said a lot about them on the way home, I think to not worry me about how dangerous they could be, but it didn’t stop my thoughts from conducting worst-case scenarios. Even in the shower, where I had a quick rinse, those thoughts plagued my mind.
I swiped my phone off the coffee table. Not entirely sure why other than to get my mind off everything.
I landed on Pinterest and began doom-scrolling through the main page, scrolling by aesthetically pleasing images of books and art, sunsets and flowers, feel-good quotes and—
An image of blood-covered hands. Fake blood.
I shut off my phone and set it aside.
If one image was triggering enough… How was it that I felt like my mind was slowly spiraling out of control, yet I was sitting completely still?
I tried the slow breathing again as I cast my gaze to the kitchen on my left, where Dean was making tea and lunch. He had misplaced the hot dogs on his way back to me at the flea market. Since arriving home, he had also gone extremely quiet.
My hand drifted across to the underside of my arm, where the pinch mark from last week lay beneath the sleeve of my shirt.
It helped last time…
Dean finished in the kitchen.
I moved my hand away from my arm as he joined me on the couch and set down my tea and a large plate of loaded grilled cheese sandwiches.
Tomato, ham, and cheese all stuffed into a lightly seasoned bun with charring on the edges.
It smelled good, but neither of us made a move to eat any of the slices.
“Might be a little hot.” He dropped heavily into the space beside me. “You okay?”
“Are you?” I smiled meekly.
He huffed tiredly and rubbed the heel of his palm against his eye. He didn’t have to voice how he felt when it was written on his face.
“It’s not every day a gangster flirts with you at a flea market,” I continued, trying for humor.
Dean didn’t exactly laugh, but he smiled — probably out of sympathy.
I picked up the tea, sipped it, and set it back down before breaking off some of the grilled cheese sandwich. I popped it into my mouth, decided I wasn’t so anxious I couldn’t eat, and picked up more for a bigger bite.
“I want you to promise me that if you ever see him again, you run the other way.” The seriousness in his voice remained from earlier.
I swallowed and brought the plate to my lap. “Trust me, I don’t plan on talking to him again.”
Dean hummed and then tapped his thigh with his hand. An invite. I lifted my legs across his lap, and he absentmindedly began massaging my calves, thighs, and the bottom of my feet.
Touch was his love language, but I wondered if the extra need for closeness was more to reassure himself that I was fine. That I was there.
“I think we need a distraction.” I put the sandwich on the plate and dusted off my fingers.
“What’d you have in mind?” His hand came to a stop on my thigh while he rested his head back, exposing the side of his throat and the moth tattooed across the front of it.
The way he watched me through half closed eyes made my heart flutter as if this was our first kiss.
I returned the plate to the coffee table and then wrapped my hand around his bicep and tugged him closer.
He fell into the kiss easily. With my legs still draped over his lap while he leaned into me, I combed my fingers through the back of his hair.
He hummed against my lips. “This works.”
All my previous thoughts were slowly evaporating and quickly being replaced with his presence. His sandalwood and leather cologne filled my senses, and the sensation of his hands on my waist caused my stomach to dip and flutter.
I shifted my hips, aware that at this angle he would feel it.
Dean’s stomach growled.
I smiled and pulled away an inch. “Did you want to eat first?”
He shook his head, looking breathless with his kiss-swollen lips and dilated pupils. “I have something else in mind.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
Dean grinned, the kind to dimple his cheek, and got off the couch. As I straightened in my seat, watching his every move, he removed his hoodie. It lifted his T-shirt a little before he leaned over me, hands braced on the back of the couch.
He kissed my lips first, and then my jaw, neck, and shoulder as he pulled the neckline of my shirt aside. All as he lowered himself to kneel between my legs.
While I melted under the burning touch of his mouth on my skin, he untucked my shirt from my jeans and slid his hand up beneath it.
“Watchin’ you drive my car today.” He moved down, skimming his mouth along my shirt above my breasts. His mouth found the bare skin of my stomach while his hands came to the button on my jeans. “Fuckin’ irresistible.”
“When can we go driving again?” I breathed.
“Soon.” He sat back and slowly unzipped and peeled my jeans off.
Once those were discarded on the floor, he brought his mouth to my lower abdomen. He brushed a kiss over my scar, acknowledging it but not lingering, and then trailed several more on a straight route down.
I rolled my head back as his hot breath fanned across my underwear.
God, I hope Kira doesn’t come home right now—Maybe she’s at the markets too—The triplets might still be there.
The thought was a mistake that sent a barrage of memories from today flooding back. I saw Gabriele’s face as he attempted to flirt with me. Now that I knew what he was, I suddenly pictured him with a gun on his hip.
Suddenly, he was Aiden, pointing a gun at me.
My chest tightened until I gasped in pleasure. Thrust back out of my thoughts as Dean kissed me through my underwear.
I focused on what he was doing to stay present.
Running his touch along my thighs, his hands came to my underwear, and he slowly tugged them off and spread my legs.
I thrummed under his gaze as my body relaxed.
He hooked my knees over his shoulders, pulling me down so my ass was on the edge of the couch, and kissed my inner thigh before he gently bit the flesh.
I sucked in a breath, writhing slightly.
“You’re also irresistible when you lose control,” he continued. Arousal was laced in his deep voice as he lowered his mouth to hover above where I desperately needed him to touch me. With the lightest and slowest lick, he teased my clit with his tongue, sending a shiver through my body.
I whimpered softly.
“And those sounds. They make me so fuckin’ hard.
” He cupped himself through his jeans and simultaneously slid his fingers over my entrance, wetting them.
When he slowly plunged two into me and curled them up, I moaned quietly and arched off the couch.
A fist full of cushion in one hand and the palm of my other hand against my forehead.
“Just like that.” He wrapped his mouth over my clit and sucked gently while he continued pressing up with his fingers, getting me there quickly.
“Oh, fuck,” I whispered.
Dean palmed my hips and thighs, dragging his tongue across me as his eyes darkened and sparked with an idea.
He took hold of my waist, supporting my weight as he rolled us in one easy motion.
I squealed and laughed as I went, finding myself kneeling on the couch while his head remained between my legs.
I held myself up while my hands gripped the back of the couch, panting as the pleasure still pulsed readily through my body.
“What are you doing?”
“Sit down, Lily.”
I tucked my hair behind my ears. “I know people do this all the time, but aren’t you worried about not breathing? Should I hover?”
“Lily.” His voice was husky. “I wanna fuck you with my tongue until all I can taste is you. Breathing can come into the equation later. Sit on my face.”
Hot and bothered, I hesitated.
“Sit on my face, please?”
I bit my lip and carefully lowered myself.
Dean brushed his nose against my clit as he half smiled, happy to have gotten his way, before he spread me with his thumbs and proceeded to drive me crazy. A good kind of crazy, as his tongue did things that caused my legs to tremble.
“Huh,” I breathed in surprise, smiling in a pleasure-filled daze as my fingers threaded through his hair.
My other hand remained on the back of the couch, gripping it tightly as I fought the urge to roll my hips.
I didn’t want to completely suffocate him, even if he said otherwise.
Dean knew this. He gripped my hips and coaxed me into rocking them, nodding with encouragement as he feasted on my pleasure.
I gripped the couch with both hands again and rocked my hips.
My walls tightened, and my body shuddered. I was about to orgasm, all over his face. Then, when I thought I might explode, Dean plunged his fingers into me again, forcing my climax to rush forward.
He wrapped his arm around my quaking thigh and pressed his thumb to my clit.
My eyes rolled back and my mouth fell open, but nothing came out. Instead, I buried my nails into the couch as my orgasm reached its peak, flooding my system with warmth and electricity as it obliterated my worries from earlier.