Nick and Lilac (9 page)

As she undid her seatbelt, she heard the pilot jump out and report about the ride to another person. When Lilac heard the deep, dark voice that answered the pilot, she froze.

Lud,
she thought numbly. And just when her heart had started to calm down, there it went again. Her thoughts were all scrambled.
Yes, no, yes---
she just couldn’t make up her mind if she wanted it to be him or not.

“Lilac?”

Her heart fluttered. Inside her tummy, butterfly wings also fluttered. Her own
fingers
fluttered over her chest, unsure where to rest. And then the choice was being taken from her, Lilac’s hand encased in a strong warm grip.

Lilac lifted her head.

It was him.

“Stop,” the duke commanded just as she was about to flee the drawing room when she realized just who her mysterious caller was.

How was it that the duke was everywhere she went, Lilia wondered in despair. She had left London to escape him and yet here he was, showing up during her second night in Bath. What would a man about town like him – the Season’s most prized catch – do in a place like this?

Here, the mornings and evenings were all the same, with old and young women having only brief chats in the public baths to look forward to and not much else. There were no balls that went on till the wee hours of dawn, no fashionable walks down Bond Street, no carriage rides in Hyde Park.

So why was he here? 

“Lilia.”

Slowly, she turned around, unable to ignore the beguiling command in his voice.

“What’s wrong?” the duke asked very, very gently.

She wanted to weep at his tone. “What’s wrong with YOU?” She could not believe she was Screaming. It was Unladylike. And yet, it was also proof that the duke should never have anything to do with her. “Why are you wasting your time with someone like me?”

The duke took a step towards her. She stepped back. It went on until the back of her knees bumped into the settee and she fell upon it like a sack of potatoes.

Before she could scramble to a sitting position, the duke was already there, helping her up, his hands gentle and caressing as they shaped her legs. His touch was so warm and familiar, reminding her of the times the duke had done the same thing in the past. Always, his touch would stoke the fires of her body and it was the same now.

She was trembling so very badly when the duke finally lowered her skirts, smoothing them down. He held her hands, and she had a sudden silly urge to weep.

Oh, how she longed for his touch but it just couldn’t be!

“Why?” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand like a child, and by doing so she missed the tender amusement that lit the duke’s bright eyes. “You shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be seen with me. So I just don’t see why---”

“My darling girl,” the duke said softly, and it made her look up, her heart beating hard as the duke knelt down in front her. “You are always asking the wrong question,” he chided gently. “It should be – always was – the other way around.” He tipped her chin up. His blue eyes were dark and indefinable as he asked quietly, “Why did you ever waste your time with someone like me?”

The fantasy faded, but the feelings it evoked remained, and Lilac could feel a smile tugging at her lips because of it. A shiver came over her, brought about by the icy-cold fingers of serendipity weaving its magic around them, intertwining the threads of their lives closer and closer.

Nick’s gorgeous face was tense as they looked at each other, both their gazes concealed behind dark shades. He was wearing Ray-Bans, she was wearing…
his.

Nick looked intimidating as usual, too beautiful and impeccable for words. He was dressed in a black polo, the first two buttons unbuttoned, its red-blue sailor stripes drawing attention to the slice of naked golden skin it revealed. He had paired it with slim-fitting navy pants and matching loafers. It was
extremely
preppy, but somehow Nick just made it look completely lord-of-the-manor-takes-casual-and-sexy instead.

She sighed.

A slight smile touched Nick’s lips at the sound.

It tempted Lilac to sigh again.

His grip tightened and then he was helping her out of the chopper. He whipped her – his – sunglasses off, making her gasp.

Then he took his off, too, and looked at her again, as if wanting their gazes to meet unhindered. Blue met violet once more, and what Lilac saw in Nick’s brilliantly bright gaze made her swallow. But it was what he said after that broke her heart.

“I want us to be friends, Lilac. I can’t promise not to want you, not try to make you want me back, but I can promise that I’ll try just as hard to be the kind of friend you deserve. But before we can become that – we need to be honest with each other.”

Her heartbeat stilled when Nick paused, as if struggling to breathe. The torment in his face reached her. Lilac opened her mouth to protest, but Nick shook his head.

“Lilac---”

She had an urge to weep for no reason, just like Lilia wanted to do in her stories and daydreams.

Nick paused, as if struggling to breathe. “When I was sixteen, I was raped.”

Nausea hit Lilac, making it seem as if she was hearing someone distant speak the words. It hurt to think of the tall, strong, and handsome man in front of her to be the one saying them.

Nick’s beautiful thin lips twisted. “Some might say it’s not even rape. They only managed to shove a bottle up my ass before my guards and the police caught up with us.”

She tried reaching for him, but he shook his head and her hand fell. “Not until you hear everything,” Nick said in a savage tone. “Karla – she saw me being attacked. She called 911 at the risk of her own life. She saved me, in every way. She made me feel like a man even when I woke up crying like a goddamn baby every night because I couldn’t forget what happened.”

Lilac bit her lip hard, stemming the words that wanted to leave her lips, words that would surely be imperfect and unworthy.

“When we were nineteen – we had been going out for three years and it was the first time I was able to tell Karla that I…”

Nick’s gaze turned dark and lifeless. “It was the first and last time I was able to tell her I loved her.”

****

“Now, Nick, now,” Karla urged as she arched her back on top of Nick, head falling back, the tips of her long blond hair brushing against his balls.

The accidental tickling contact made Nick curse and he pumped his hips more furiously, gripping Karla by the waist as he thrust up. “Ride me harder,” he growled. Her tits swayed above him, tempting Nick with her large rosy nipples.

He rose partially up and drew one in, sucking so hard he made her cry out.

“More,” Karla screamed.

And then there were no more words to say. Only his grunts and her moans filled Nick’s sprawling bedroom as their senses were completely taken over by mindless rutting. The sounds of their bodies slapping hard against each other pushed Nick towards the edge. Words he thought he could never utter were torn out of him before he could even think of what he was saying.

“I love you.” The words were like chains to his soul.

Karla’s stunning face revealed shock before turning into triumph.

Seeing it, Nick told himself that was fine – that he was also the victor here, having a girl like Karla in his life. The whole world saw her as the supermodel who had clawed her way out of poverty. But for Nick, she was Karla – the girl who gave him a reason to live.

And then Karla’s face was all he could see. She was lowering herself onto him, kissing him open-mouthed, her tongue aggressively seeking his. “Yes, yes, yes,” she whispered as she moved lower. Nick growled as her pussy squeezed his cock tightly.

“I love you,” Karla whispered, her eyes glittering just before he felt her hand drifting to the side of his hip.

Her fingers slipped under his body and then she was wriggling one finger into his ass.

“Karla, no, dammit!”

But it was too late, his back curving like a bow. The rush of release swept through Nick like a fucking tsunami, making him black out for a second. When he came back, Karla was gripping his shoulders as she rode him wildly, lost in her own sensual release.

Nick nearly pushed her away the moment he sensed she had finished climaxing, his skin crawling at the revolting memory of how hard he had come at being finger-fucked in the ass.

“Nick, I’m sorry!”

He whipped around to face her, fury marking his every movement, bitter betrayal turning his gaze into a fiery blue. “Why did you fucking do that?” Revulsion blanketed him as he realized just how weak he still was, unable to get over an incident that hadn’t even left a single mark on his skin.

“I did it because I knew somehow it would make you feel good!”

It had. Fuck his life to hell, but having Karla finger-fuck him in the ass had felt goddamn good and that was what was driving him over the edge.

“I just wanted to make you feel good,” Karla whispered as she rose naked on her knees on the bed.

The words made sense, but somehow they didn’t ring true.

“Nick, please, don’t get angry---I won’t do it again.” Tears trailed down her beautiful face.

His heart clenched. They had been through so much, and even though he still thought she had fucked up now, Nick couldn’t bear seeing her cry.

“Come here,” he said roughly.

She flew to him, and his arms wrapped around her body, the frailty of her bones reminding him as always of her impoverished past, of how she had always trailed after him when they were kids – and how he had always ignored her until that very night.

“We’re going to be fine, won’t we, Nick?” Karla whispered against his chest.

He nodded, tightening his arms around her.

“But what about the takeover?” she asked. “Why won’t you just sell? And then we won’t ever have to worry about money again---”

“Trust me,” he said quietly.

But she hadn’t.

****

Nick’s blue eyes were lost in the past as he continued tonelessly, “I can’t even completely blame her for leaving me. She got scared that I couldn’t save her the way she had saved me. She couldn’t go back to being poor and I didn’t know at that time she was deeply in debt.” His lips twisted again. “But I
was
furious, I did feel betrayed, and because of that I finally accepted my family’s help. They had the cash I needed to turn Christakos Industries around the way I wanted to---”

At Lilac’s frown, he laughed mirthlessly. “You’re thinking about my billion-dollar trust fund, aren’t you?”

She nodded.

“Until I turn 25, I can’t use it in its entirety. I’m given a monthly stipend and it just wasn’t enough for what I needed back then. And since I was only 19, none of the banks had the confidence I’d make it.”

“But…you did.”

Nick answered with his own curt nod. “My mother sold her business while my brother gave up his inheritance and quit school to help me. They risked their entire fortunes on me.”

“N-Nick…” Lilac couldn’t help it. She hurt for him so, so badly, reading between the lines, hearing what he couldn’t say.

Now, it was her turn to be brave - the only thing she could do to show Nick how much his honesty meant to her. “I know…you’re trying to tell me…without saying it straight…” A smile flashed on her lips. “We can’t be more…than friends…like the other girls…would have wanted.” She looked at him knowingly. “Right?”

“Right.” He couldn’t help smiling back even though he was still tense because they hadn’t yet spoken about whythis got started.

“And…” Lilac inhaled sharply, and Nick stiffened when he saw it.

“Y-you k-know…about me, don’t you?” Lilac didn’t wait for him to answer, reaching out to touch Nick’s hand, this time being the first to twine her fingers with his, telling him silently that she was…okay.

But he wasn’t.

Pain and anger – for
Lilac
– hit him and he said savagely, “Yes. I know what that asshole did.  And I promise you, sweetheart, the moment I get my hands on that motherfucking son of a bitch---”

Lilac shook her head and she said simply, “I don’t care…about him…anymore.”

The smile that curved her lips made Nick swallow. Her smile was filled with such understanding it was positively heartbreaking. At that moment, Lilac York was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen on earth– so much so that he was afraid he would be the one who’d fucking stammer if he spoke.

He watched her take a deep breath, as if preparing herself. “I want us t-to try again and b-be friends. I-it won’t be easy. W-we’re still messed up b-but I w-would really like it if w-we were friends.”