Addicted After All (6 page)

There are moments with Lily where I feel like we’re one person. Where we share every sensation that bites our skin.

No one is in the kitchen but us.

And yet, they are. I become aware of this fact the moment Rose shouts something loud in French.

Lily and I abruptly part.

Rose is pointing at us while she yells, and Connor is quick to shout back, the seriousness of the conversation illuminated the moment Connor grips her wrists, clutching her so she stops flailing around.

Lily and I rise quickly to our feet. “What’s going on?” Lily asks the only person who would know besides the couple fighting.

Ryke has a hand on Daisy’s thigh while he watches Rose, his brows hardened. “She’s saying that she can’t do it,” he translates. Daisy clicks off her phone and sets her camera aside.

“Do what?” I frown. She can’t be that scared to have a boy.

“See the gender,” Ryke clarifies. “Connor is telling her that she needs to stop acting like it’s not happening.”

Lily’s mouth falls and her head whips between her sister and Ryke. “And?” she prods. Having a translator is nice, which begs the question…

“Why haven’t you done this before?” I snap.

His hand rises on Daisy’s thigh, who swings her legs that dangle off the counter. “Because it hasn’t been fucking important before now. You don’t want to hear the things they say to each other on a daily basis. Fucking trust me.”

Yeah, I do.

Lily rocks forward on her feet. “What did Rose say?”

Ryke listens for a second. “That it doesn’t matter if they find out the gender now or when the baby is born.”

Connor breathes heavily, more emotions coursing through his features: anger, concern, determination—things that he usually conceals. He speaks again. In French. They’re in their own world. Kind of like the one Lily and I were just in. Blocking out our surroundings for one serious moment.

Ryke continues to translate, “He says,
don’t you want to prepare in any way that you can?
”

Rose jerks in his grasp and snaps back.

“She says,
I can’t prepare for a baby, no matter how much I read and study. I’ll never be ready.
” A weight drops in the room with that truth. It’s a fear I think we all share, but Rose has never liked kids, so it’s different for her, maybe. I don’t know. I shake my head. It goes beyond having a boy, having a girl—it’s just having a child at all.

Ryke sighs like this translating thing is frustrating him. “I can’t hear Connor.” Because he’s whispering in Rose’s ear.

And then Rose tries to untangle out of her husband’s strong grasp again. “Let me go, Richard,” she says, finally switching to English.

“
Rose
,” he forces her name, his voice so cold that the hairs on my arms rise.

“Connor,” she says just as icily. “
Stop.
” Her yellow-green eyes assault him.

He releases her arms, and I notice the white envelope clenched in her fist.

“We’re having a girl,” she states like it’s a fact. It’s definitely not one. And then she starts opening and closing kitchen drawers, searching for something.

“Rose,” Connor says again, his tone more even and temperate. “It’s okay. Just stop and breathe for a second.” She’s tuning him out. “
Rose.
”

I shake my head as I watch Rose slam the fourth drawer shut. “She’s lost it.”

“Shut up, Loren!” Rose shouts.

 I flinch. I honestly didn’t think she was listening to me either. And then in the fifth drawer, she finds a packet of matches.

“Rose!” Daisy and Lily scream in unison, but Connor is beside his wife before her sisters can swarm her. She’s already lit a match and holds it to the paper.

The flame eats the document quickly, and Connor steals it out of her hand and tosses it in the sink. He holds her from behind, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist, and as he murmurs in her ear, her rigid body starts to uncoil, like he’s expelling every volatile, toxic emotion and leaving her bare.

My face is stuck in a permanent cringe again. Her breakdowns happen more often since her pregnancy.

Connor spins her around and then presses her head into his shoulder. His eyes flit up to mine and I read them well enough. He needs privacy.

Daisy hops off the counter, and she leaves to the living room with Ryke. Lily and I follow close behind, my hand in hers. There’s no way anyone is finding out the sex of Rose’s baby. We’re not going to know until the day he or she is born.

When we’re out of earshot from the kitchen, Daisy walks backwards and she says, “Maximoff Hale. He’s going to have the coolest parents alive.” She holds her fist out to Lily, who actually smiles brightly now. It falters only a little when she glances at me—to make sure it’s okay.

I hate that she worries about upsetting me. For
smiling.
I nod to her and try to relax.

Lily fist-bumps her sister.

Then Daisy raises her fist to me with a sunny expression that makes my life seem better than it is. I look up at my brother who meets my eyes. I get it. Why he loves her.

She’s a light in a dark place. Even when she’s going through deep shit too. Daisy and Ryke are the definition of selfless. In comparison, I’m the monster, the asshole, the villain. But in Lily Calloway’s eyes I’m the hero.

That has to count for something.

{ 6 }

LOREN HALE

My best friend, my girlfriend, my someday wife is insatiable.

I’m drenched in sweat, my hair slick while I push inside of Lily, my hands gripping her wrists above her head on our mattress. I kiss her deeply and rock my pelvis harder. She tears away from my lips to cry out, her mouth permanently open, gasping. I watch her eyes shut, her limbs trembling for release, and my body lights on fire. My cock screams to come.

Right now.

I ignore its demand. With shallow breaths and a groan aching my throat, I thrust rhythmically against Lil and try to make this good enough for her. I let go of her wrist to reach down between our bodies, my fingers brushing her swollen clit.

She loses it, her back arching, her pelvis digging right into mine. “Lo!” she screams.

Don’t come
, I force myself in my head. Even as I feel her pulse around my dick as she hits a climax. I don’t want to peak. Not yet.

Still hard and full inside Lil, I keep moving, and her free hand massages her tender breast, her chest much larger since her pregnancy. I lightly push her hand aside and pinch her erect nipple with my fingers. She buries her cheek into the pillow. “
Yes
,” I hear her breathe.

Christ.
I’m going to come soon. I press my lips to her temple. I hit a spot that blinds me for a second, and I grunt, “Lil.”

She whimpers, her legs vibrating around my waist.

My body is welded against hers. No separation between us. At fourteen, we had sex together and it felt wrong, even if I begged for it to be right.

Ten years later, I fit inside of her like we’ve never been apart. And maybe it’s still not the “right” that every other couple has—but this isn’t a wrong kind of love. It’s just the kind that belongs to us.

I push hard, and I come, my nerves firing and my skin blazing. I keep her full while my chest falls and rises for air. She stretches her arms across my shoulders and squeezes her thighs tighter around my waist. I’m almost rock hard again. I stifle a groan and study her expression. The only exhaustion lies in her eyelids that sag. Just slightly.

“Again,” she whispers, trying to thrust up against me with what energy she has left.

Pregnant Lily is the horniest Lily I’ve ever encountered. She was hard to please before. But I always managed to. Now it’s literally impossible.

I roll onto my side while she’s still tucked against me. I don’t pull out. I comb her damp hair away from her face, and she eyes my lips like they’re calling out to her. And then she kisses me hungrily, rocking her hips while we lie on our sides together. The sheets are bunched at the foot of the bed, the comforter hanging off. The dim lights illuminate her features perfectly for me, and every inch of her skin is just flooded with arousal that I can’t squash.

“Lil,” I breathe, breaking the kiss to whisper in her ear. “Shhh.”

“Just one more…” she says, one of her hands dips down like she’s going to touch herself to get off if I don’t help.

I seize her wrist again and pull her arm to my shoulder, forcing her clutch there. “Look at me, love.”

She tilts her head, but her eyes pin to my lips.

“Higher,” I say. I recognize that my body for Lily is the equivalent of me being tucked in bed with a bottle of bourbon.

Her green irises finally flit up to my amber ones, her lips parted in need. She subconsciously rocks forward, especially as she trails my jawline.

I place a firm hand on her hip, and I have to shut my eyes not to harden all the way. When I open them, she’s staring at
me
, not my lips or body.
Good job, Lil.
I lean closer so that my arm is behind her head, nestling her to me.

“Once more,” she says with wide eyes. “I promise it’ll be the last time. Cross my heart.”

I hate rejecting her, especially when her hormones are fucking with her body. “My cock belongs to you, but you can’t fuck it all night, Lil.” I might as well be her personal sex toy, which honestly, I would have no problem with if she wasn’t addicted to
sex
.

She flushes, and her breath shallows. I watch her gaze descend to my shaft, the rest of me disappeared between her legs, one thigh draped over my waist.

She starts, “I can blow—”

“No, listen to me, Lil,” I say forcefully. “We’re going to sleep, and later…” I check the clock. 3 a.m. “…in the morning, we’ll have sex again. But you have to wait.” I’m not even going to fantasize that she can last twenty-four hours without another climax.

“Okay,” she breathes, and I go to pull out. But she grips my biceps, her fingers digging deep. “Waitwaitwait.”

I hesitate and then ease back into her.

Her big green eyes look up at me. “I just…want you inside of me.”

My skin heats at her words. I’d love to stay inside of her, but… “You can’t move.”

“I won’t!” she says, her chest lifting in eagerness. “I’ll be really still, I promise.”

Any giddy promises that she makes during sex are adorable—but completely unreliable. I skim the length of her body for a second, her skin beaded with sweat, her lankiness and bony hips actually healthy, feminine and delicate.

“Let me try,” she pleads.

And this does it for me. I won’t steal an accomplishment from her, even if I think it’ll end in defeat. “You can try, love.” I kiss right outside of her lips, as a small test. She restrains herself from kissing me more, but I feel her pulse around my dick, a sensation that almost causes me to grow inside of her.

I let out a deep breath, and train my body to cooperate with me. For her. I can’t be hard, or else she’ll start thrusting and I won’t be able to control my wants either.

“Close your eyes,” I remind her. “Sleep.”

With her cheek on the pillow, she finally shuts her eyes. “I still see you in my sleep,” she says, her lips rising in a smile.

I’m smiling too. “Try to imagine an ugly version of me.”

“No,” she says with this adorable pout.

I kiss her quickly on the lips, my palm pressed to the small of her back, above her ass. I’m familiar with every inch of her body, and that knowledge likes to grip my shaft harder than Lily’s best hand job. I whisper in her ear, “Dream of a mutant war with dozens of superpowers at work and even more casualties.” It’s the least sexy thing I can think of right now.

Her shoulders relax, and she exhales strongly.

Exhaustion starts to unwind my muscles. But concern for her binds them back again. I want to make sure she falls asleep before I do.

Mere minutes pass before she bucks up into me.
Goddammit.
The pressure causes me to harden, and she lets out the most breathless, pleasured cry. I almost come in seconds.

“Lil,” I chastise while her eyes snap open. “What happened?”

She grips my shoulder. “I pictured…” Her cheeks roast. “…Hellion screwing X-23. It’snotmyfault!” she slurs. “They were a part of the mutant war that you said I should imagine.”

“No more mutants for you, love.”

“
Nonono
,” she says quickly. “I can handle them. And you. And your…” Her eyes drop to our pelvises. Her legs and arms tremble, willing herself not to move. Right now I just want to grind deep against her until I fill her full of my cum.

But we’re straddling a bad line.

“You’re going to move, right?” she whispers. “Please, Lo. You’re hard, and it feels…” she bucks up again.

Jesus Christ.
My nerves light up. “Easy…easy,” I whisper. I rest my forehead on hers and take a long breath. “What’d you imagine?” I run my hand up her belly to her breast, and I rub her nipple with my thumb.

“Hmm?”

“With Hellion and Laura?” I ask, bringing up my favorite
X-Men
couple.

“His hardness…between my legs…I mean
her
legs,” she says softly. “
Please
…”

I dip my head down and flick her nipple with my tongue, and she hits another high that rolls her eyes, her mouth frozen open. I clutch her ass and push her up, much harder into me while she contracts around my cock.
God.

Dammit.

Even though my mind bursts with my veins, I somehow don’t come with her. Force of habit. I held back.

“
Again
,” she breathes.

Insatiable.

No matter how many times we fuck, she will keep saying
again.

“Later,” I tell her.

“You’re hard,” she notes, her eyes on my lips for the thousandth time.

“Ignore my cock, Lily Calloway.”

She gawks. “Never.”

I shouldn’t smile, but I do. “Guess what, Lil?”

“What?” Her eyes light.

“I’m going to fuck you slowly, and then I’m going to stay right inside of you. You come again after that, and I pull out.” I literally cannot handle Lily contracting and pulsing and clenching against my cock. The intensity and pressure is too much for me.