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She was pliant in my arms, breath quivering. For once, her eyes weren’t wide with surprise, but rather hooded and waiting. I could have her right there, and we both knew it. I flexed my fingers experimentally, imagining pushing her up against the stucco side of the wall and shoving that flimsy black fabric up around her waist. I’d lift her up, cover her mouth with one hand, and plow into her.
I saw it all.
Including what came after.
Disgusted with myself, I shoved her away before I could make the fantasy a reality. “Stay away from me, Lily,” I growled, staying in the shadows even as she stumbled back out into the streetlamps. “Or I’ll send you back to Ohio where you belong.”
Her gaze narrowed, glittered. Her mouth, swollen from my bruising kiss earlier in the club, dropped open at the viciousness in my voice. She started to say something, but she must have thought better of it because suddenly she was turning away, practically running down the street. I watched, hands curled into fists, as she crossed the street and hurried to the front entrance of the condo building. She looked back when she reached the light spilling out from the lobby, one hand on the door. She couldn’t see me still standing in the shadows, but she knew I was there. Watching her.
It took every bit of self-control I’d built up over the years not to go after her. To step even further back into the shadows and wait for her to go inside.
When she finally did, I began walking to my car. Fury and frustrated lust surged through me. It had been a narrow escape or a colossal mistake, or both. If it had been a mistake, I wanted to go back and see it through. Really fuck things up. Why not if I was going to feel like shit about it anyway? But a very, very small part of me retained a shred of sanity. Remembered that Lily wasn’t just off limits because she was an employee in my agency, she was Halley’s best friend. Fucking her would fuck me in the end. Between the Me Too movement and my daughter, I’d lose everything I’d worked for if this came out.
I got a chill under my collar, realizing how easily it could have come out. Thank God for those girls in the bar. If their camera flash hadn’t jolted me out of my stupor, God only knew what I would have done to Lily in a public place. With another Walker Agency employee in the building. A sour pool formed in my gut, thinking about it. There was still a chance Victoria had seen us. If she had, she’d tell all of Brand Development. It would spread like a virus through the agency. If that was the case, by Monday, my executive assistant would have the unwelcome job of telling me about the rumor.
I’d find out soon enough.
I didn’t sleep that night, or the next two for that matter. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Lily’s face again. Felt her in my arms. Her body curving into mine, her lips parting willingly beneath mine. I didn’t know if it was better or worse knowing that if I’d said the word, I could have her entire body beneath mine.
On the third night, I did something I thought I’d never do. I logged in to The Walker Agency Instagram account, went to Halley’s page, and found Lily’s account. It was private, but I could see her profile picture. She was sitting on what I recognized as the east lawn of her college campus, leaning back on her arms, her legs bare in denim cut offs so short I could see the curve of her ass. She was smiling wide, her sunglasses pushed up on top of her head, eyes glowing up at the photographer.
A visceral desire to be the one standing over Lily grabbed me by the balls. Not in some wide-open field though. I wanted her in my bed, leaning back on her arms, smiling up at me as I stood over her. I’d push her knees apart, yank those denim shorts off her hips, down the length of her legs, over her ankles.
I leaned back in my chair and unzipped my fly. It had been a long ass time since I’d had to take care of myself, but there was no other option right now. I couldn’t have Lily, and I didn’t want a substitute. I stared at her picture, imagining it was her hands with the seashell pink nails wrapped around my shaft, jerking slowly up and down. Imagining how her lips would feel, taking their place, her blue eyes still wide and gazing up into mine.
I had to move to the shower for that image. The hot spray pounded down on my shoulders as I braced myself against the wall with one hand and finished myself off with the other. Lily’s face imprinted against the back of my closed eyelids. In my imagination, I took her every way there was, and she begged me for more.
It was a long time before I got to sleep that night.
When the sky outside began to lighten on Monday morning, going from deep indigo to a foggy blue gray over the course of an hour, I felt like shit. My head was pounding from lack of sleep, and I was physically tired as though I had been chasing Lily around all night on foot, not just in my mind. I took another shower–cold this time–both to wake up and to drive out the lingering desire that tugged at my groin when I thought about her. It woke me up, but it did nothing to drive her out. Or improve my mood.
I went by Landon’s office on my way to work to hear the latest with Kim. The PI she had tailing me was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t know if it was because she’d given up or if she’d hired someone more discreet. I hoped it was the former.
“Looks like she’s still retaining them,” Landon said when I mentioned it. “And she even paid them some of what she owes them.”
“But not all?”
He shook his head, and I breathed out a sigh of relief. The PI hadn’t been around last night to see me with Lily, I was sure of it. If he had been, he’d have rolled down the window to congratulate me. He’d have snapped a picture with a blinding flash, and then laughed about it.
Landon studied me over his computer monitor. “You have something to hide all of a sudden?”
His voice was carefully neutral, but I knew what he was implying. “I’m not fucking the girl, if that’s what you’re asking,” I said flatly.
“It was,” Landon said. “And good. Keep it that way. The last thing you want is for Kim to get a picture of your dick in your daughter’s best friend. She’ll own you.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, digging my thumb and forefinger deep into my painfully dry tear ducts. “Eight more months and I’ll be done with her.”
“Financially, yes,” Landon agreed cautiously.
“I’m going to throw a party. A fucking funeral.”
The corners of Landon’s mouth tugged into a faint smile. “She won’t actually be dead though, pal. You’ll still see her at Halley’s graduation. Her wedding. You two will share grandkids. Remember that before you dance on her grave.”
My anticipation soured. I’d known abstractly that Kim would always be in my life, but I hadn’t thought about the details. I selfishly wished, not for the first time, that she had been a shitty mother instead of just a subpar one. One who would have taken a lump sum and swanned off to Bora Bora, never to think of her daughter again. The trouble was, Kim was just good enough a mother that Halley loved her, and so I was chained to her for the rest of my life. “You’ve got to give me something to bury her with at least,” I said to Landon. “Who is she fucking, and who is she screwing?”
Landon ran through what his PI had gotten on her. It was nothing that surprised me. She was in a relationship with an investment banker, and she was suing a resort wear company that had promised her a bonus every time she posted a picture in their clothing that got over a thousand likes.
