A Woman Gone Mad (15 page)

“Nah, Wes. Make it thirty, baby. Ya’ll have fun.” I smile and wink at him.

He mouths, “I love you,” while walking backwards toward the stairs with Riley in tow.

I know, right? I’m like cupid—so caring.

“Shit, Lil. Here comes Nick,” Amy says under her breath. I try to calm my nerves before he gets over to us.

See, Nick has been on my radar for months now. He makes it hard for me to make my move or use my witty banter and charm though because he’s so damn quiet. Well, that and he is so fucking hot that I develop a stutter or just lose all ability to speak or form words. He isn’t forward or flirtatious, and I fall short in the ‘making the first move’ department.

Amy smiles when he gets to our circle. “Hey, Nick. Have you met Lillian before?”

I look up at him and give him a shy smile because, yes, I’ve gone shy. This guy makes me want to be good and pure. But I’m not. I’m tainted as hell and fucked up, and if he ever sees behind my shy smile or this fake-ass mask I slip on every time he is within a mile radius, he is going to haul ass and I know it.

“Yeah, we’ve met.” His voice is husky and low, and it has me blushing.

How does this guy make me blush? I was just literally spitting words like daggers at Riley two seconds ago and now I’m blushing?

“Shhh, he’s sweet. He brings out the goodness in you, Lil. Don’t think it to death, for God’s sake,”
Lilly says in my head. And the bitch is wearing a church dress and a cardigan. She looks like a freaking Stepford Wife!

“Hey, Nick. How are you?” I am so proud of myself. I didn’t stutter and I sound quasi-normal.

“I’m good, Lil. What are you drinking?” He nods to the empty drink in my hand.

Shit. He’s going to think I am an alcoholic!
So I drop the double and just say, “Jack and Diet Coke.”

“Here.” His fingers brush mine as he takes the cup away from me, and it zings electricity through my nerve endings. “Let me go get you another. Yours looks like it needs a refill.”

“Thank you,” I say as he begins to walk away.

Amy shoves me and I run into the back of him.
Bitch.

My hands grab a hold of both of his hard, broad shoulders with my entire front crushed up to his back. After I get my balance, I whisper, “Oopsie daisy. I’m sorry. I tripped.”

He chuckles then gives me his bent elbow.
Oh wow. I’m used to…well, not this gentleman’s approach.

I loop my arm through his and we walk towards the bar. He finally says, “Well, I’m glad I have you tripping over yourself. Especially if it gets you tripping into me. And I appreciate the company on the walk over to the bar as well.”

After he gets my drink refilled, he extends his elbow out to me again. I gladly accept.

He asks, “Would you like to go back over to your group of friends or…”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. Wherever. Are your friends here?” I’m chewing a hole through my lip.

“None that I’d like to divide your attention with, no,” he says.

“Oh, well. Ahhh…” There she is, Miss No Words.

“Lillian, would you like to step outside? Find a quiet place so we can talk?” His eyes are moving over my face, looking for the answer.

I smile up at him. “Sure. That sounds perfect.”

We step into the backyard. Now keep in mind this is the first time I have laid eyes on the lake since
that
night. So as soon as I see it in the distance, I immediately lose my breath and go as still as a statue.

“Lil?” Nick comes up, cups one huge hand under my chin, and lifts my face so that he is the only thing I see. “It’s okay. I won’t let you get hurt.”

Lilly is still in her Stepford Wife attire.
“See, Lil? He won’t let you get hurt. He is everything I have ever wanted in a man.”

“Come on, Lillian. There is a tree swing right over here. You can sit and drink your drink, and if it’s okay, I’ll push the swing and we can talk. Sound good?” His face is serious with concern.

“I would love that, Nick.” A huge smile is pulling my lips up and everything Leo slips into the far corners of my mind.

Settling his hand on the small of my back, he leads me toward the swing. I notice he has a small smile and a relieved look on his face.

“Here we go,” Nick says, holding the tree swing still for me. I—very much like a lady in my short skirt and high heels—slide onto the seat, and Nick slowly yet barely pulls it back and releases me into a slight swing. “That okay, Lil?”

“Yes. God, it’s been years since I’ve been on a swing, Nick.” I lay my head back on his next push. “You know, when I was a little girl, any time you caught me at a park or at recess in school, I was always on the swings. I used to think that if I could swing high enough and long enough I could fly away. I know it’s silly. But I stilled tried every weekday at recess and every weekend at the park.”

“Ahh, so Lillian Shaw is a thrill seeker, huh?”

“What? No I’m not. What makes you say that?”
Shit. He already sees straight through me!

“Oh nothing really. I’ve just read somewhere that you can tell a lot about how a child will be when they grow up based on the playground equipment they prefer. Like, take for instance the monkey bar climbers, using and testing their strength over and over to make it back and forth across—those are your physical over achievers. They will become or at least attempt to become the MVPs in sports or cheerleading or gymnastics. Then you have the sliders. They usually tend to become more down-to-earth people. Not overachieving but not underachieving. Just, let’s say, middle-achieving—your ‘I graduated with a Bachelors in General Studies.’ And then there are ones who swing. I mean, really swing, only swing, with their heads back and their eyes closed. They’re the ones more likely to be thrill seekers, full of life, and bursting at the seams to fly. However, they remain content enough to be alone and just swing.”

Ummm…is this guy for real? I am both intrigued and ready to snore from boredom because I am such a bitch. However, the intrigue wins and I find myself mesmerized. I also feel my witty tongue sharpen and the need to bust his balls a bit rise inside me.

I let my heel catch in the grass and spin so that I’m facing him. With a smirk on my face, I pin his eyes with mine. “Okay, Mr. Psychology Professor, please, do tell exactly where would one find you on the playground in elementary school?”

“Well, until you were in the fourth grade, when I was in the fifth, you could find me about twenty feet away, sitting on top of the tire, watching you swing,” he deadpans.

What the fuck. What. The. Fuck. Did. He. Just. Say?
I stop the swing with both heels, digging into the earth, and stare up at him.

“I’ve said too much. I can tell by the look that just fell onto your face.” He looks down, averting his eyes from mine, and studies the ground.

I say nothing. My jaw is hanging to the ground. What the hell does he expect from me right now?

“Shit, Lil. Say something. Please,” he pleads.

“I don’t…” I whisper, looking up at him, begging his gunmetal and sky blue eyes to look into mine. Bam! Our eyes clash.
Fuck it,
I think. Then Lilly screams,
“Fuck it!”
as she strips off the Stepford Wife outfit and stands in nothing more than a corset with garter belts and hose.

I stand up, grab his face in my hands, and pull it down to mine, molding my mouth to his. I run my tongue along his lower lip, seeking the warm, wet heat of his mouth. Once he grants me access, I let myself go and allow my mouth to devour him with this kiss.

Nick groans into my mouth, grabbing me up with his hands and pulling me closer to him by the small of my back. He returns the kiss with a fervor that has electricity shooting through my nerve endings and straight into my core.

We separate, gasping for breath. With the lake making barely a sound as it laps against the shore, our heavy breaths cut through the nearly silent night with a resonant sound.

“Lillian, please tell me you felt that. Fuck, please tell me…” Nick whispers.

“I felt it, Nick. Shit, did I feel it,” I say through my choppy breaths.

“Yeah?” I look up and see him smirking. “You did? You felt it too, Lil?”

“Yeah, I did. So now what? I just recently found out two things simultaneously, one being that I have been on your radar a LOT longer than you’ve been on mine, then that we have HOT—and I mean fucking HOT—chemistry.”

His face lights up with the biggest smile. “Shit, I mean… Shit, Lil, I’m just so… I don’t know what to say right now.”

Fucking hell! Are you kidding me?

He is immensely tall—Jolly Green Giant big—with hair like ink, so thick and lustrous I want to rake my fingers through it, and eyes like thunder clouds, so gray they are nearly silver, zeroing in on me. I almost swallow my tongue as I avert my gaze and find his body to be another distraction altogether. Sex personified seems a bit cliché, but it fits him so perfectly. He’s like a masterpiece, Adonis beautiful, and I find myself wanting to fall at his feet and worship every anatomically correct inch of him. A sound makes me look up and I find him smiling, a boyish smile that displays glorious dimples.

“Well you could always tell me that you want me to be your girl… That would be a nice thing to hear.”

“You wanna be my girl, Lillian Shaw?” he asks, looking down at my lips before searing my eyes with his sky blue ones.

“I do, Nicolas James. I would love to be your girl.” I smile.

“Okay, well then, Lillian Shaw. You are MY girl. You are not Wes’s girl, Clark’s girl, or any other asshole’s girl. You are mine, Lillian. Mine and mine alone.”

And I am his. I become Nick’s that night—Nick’s and Nick’s alone. I found my Prince Charming. I found my knight in shining armor. I found my perfect.

And the first time I hear ‘Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman’ by Bryan Adams a month after Brad’s party, I know that a man really and truly loves me for the first time in my whole entire life.

S
chool starts tomorrow and it will be a very bittersweet year for me because I will begin my last year—my senior year of high school—but it will be without Nick at my side because he graduated last May. After I became Nicolas James’s girl that chilly February night, my life changed forever.

And on my birthday in May, when Nick took me downtown to one of the ritziest restaurants in the city, we sat out by the river on the balcony, secluded from the other restaurant patrons, with candles all around us, eating marinated crab claws and sipping champagne from little, fragile champagne flutes. We feasted on filet mignon smothered in a crawfish Creole sauce. Then, after the waiter cleared the table, he set a platter of white chocolate-dipped strawberries in front of us.

I wasn’t much of a drinker anymore. Honestly, the last sip of alcohol I had had was the Jack and Diet Coke Nick had refilled for me, so the champagne was more than making my mind fuzzy and my lips numb.

“I really love champagne, Nick,” I told him on a giggle.

“I really love you in that dress, Lillian. When you walked into the living room, I got hard as fuck! Do you know how long I had to sit there and picture your dad beating my ass to get that shit to go down?”

I burst out in a squealing fit of laughter, remembering that I had wondered why he’d taken a solid ten minutes to get up off the couch. “Oh, Nick! I ran back to the bathroom to make sure I didn’t have lipstick on my teeth,” I said. “Your eyes were as big as freaking saucers!” I burst out laughing again until my eyes blurred with tears.

I was trying to blink them and blot them away with the cloth napkin from my lap when I heard Nick say, “Lillian?”

I looked up at him, thankful the tears were gone. “Yes, Nicolas?”

“You are an absolutely amazing woman. Do you know that?” he asked seriously.

“Well, I know that you think so. However, I’m afraid you may be my only fan,” I said and winked at him while reaching for a strawberry. When Nick noticed my hand headed in that direction, he picked up a strawberry and fed it to me.

Mmmmm, good God, I have died and gone to heaven.
I heard Nick clear his throat and my eyes locked onto his.

Hunger—stark raving primal hunger—is the only thing I saw on Nick’s face, and it made my body light up like the opening night of a Christmas light festival.

“Lillian,” he said in a husky growl.

I felt my face blush and glanced down to the strawberry platter. I was in the middle for reaching for my champagne flute when my hand, heart, breath—my entire body—froze. My eyes flew up from the small, black felt box in the middle of the strawberry platter to Nick’s eyes in question.

“Lillian,” he repeated, grabbing my left hand with his and the felt box with his right. He got down on one knee at my feet, where my heels started to nervously click against the cobblestone balcony floor.

Using his thumb, he swiped the box open, placed it on my knee, and curled his head around it to lay in my lap. I felt his hot breath on the tops of my thighs where my dress stopped.

A single solitaire diamond surrounded in black felt twinkled up at me. Then my eyes searched his profile, his face still in my lap, looking out toward the river. I was feeling two very strong yet very conflicting emotions. They were dueling and waging a war inside my heart. I wanted to run in fear and never look back and I wanted to grab Nick, hold on for dear life, and never ever let him go all in that twenty seconds before I could find my voice and piece together the English language.