Cason
Any other person would be dead now.
I don’t know why I haven’t pulled my gun and shot her in the fucking head for that shit downstairs. I can’t, though. But I have no idea why I can’t.
It’s not that the idea hasn’t occurred to me. More than once, my hand has twitched, needing to reach for my gun, but I stopped myself every time. I make excuses for her to keep myself from doing what I would do to any other person who’s done what she has.
Her father’s wrongs aren’t hers.
She’s innocent. That one isn’t really working much anymore, to be honest.
This whole thing is only going to last for a few more days.
I wasn’t even supposed to take her to get her father to pay up, so killing her would probably be a step too far, even for Victor.
The excuses rotate like a carousel of justifications for going against my nature. I’ve never done this for another soul in this world. Look at Creighton. I made no excuses for him. I just killed him without a second thought.
I can’t do that with Lily.
She looks up at me and I see those tears that always seem to be in her eyes. “Please don’t kill me.”
Shaking my head, I climb onto the bed next to her and let out a deep breath that feels like I’ve been holding it in since she pulled that knife on me. I’m not going to kill her, so if I’m going to keep her here for the rest of the seven days, I have to accept who she is.
Lily moves her body next to me, brushing her thigh against mine, and it’s almost as if it’s the only natural thing to pull her close. I feel her trembling as I wrap my arm around her shoulders, her terrified body melding with mine. She’s warm and smells new, like the clothes I bought her today.
I should be enraged that she tried to run away after I did that for her, but somehow that’s not what I feel. I don’t know why, but as I lay here holding her to me, I’m more relaxed than I can ever remember feeling.
Leaning forward, I drag her up with me as I reposition myself to remove my gun. I set it down on the nightstand next to the bed and turn to see her staring at it, her eyes wide and filled with fear again.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you,” I say matter-of-factly before gently pulling her back down onto the bed next to me.
Still shaking, she doesn’t say a word but tentatively rests her head on my shoulder. Her warm breath brushes my cheek when she sighs a minute later, and slowly, she relaxes against my side.
She’s so small in my arms. I could crush her with little effort, if I wanted to. It would take next to nothing and the breath would be squeezed right out of her slight body. But that decision’s already been made, so the thought of that quickly passes from my mind. It’s replaced by another far more pleasing idea.
My cock stiffens, and I pull her on top of me. Lifting my hips from the bed, I press against the front of her yoga pants. Lily watches with wide eyes, probably unsure what to do. One minute I act like I’m going to end her life, and the next minute I’m rock hard and craving to be buried balls deep in her tight cunt.
But she can’t hide what her body wants either. I watch her nipples tighten under the pink T-shirt I knew would look fucking incredible on her, and that was without imagining seeing her tits through it.
“You should be afraid of me, Lily. But you’re not. Why’s that?” I ask while my hands burrow under that T-shirt to get to what’s beneath it.
She arches her back, jutting out her chest for me, and closes her eyes just as my fingers reach her hard nipples. Cupping her soft flesh in my palms, I squeeze them roughly and hear a tiny moan come from her.
“I am afraid of you. Just not at this exact moment,” she answers softly as I continue to pinch her tender skin.
I sit up and pull her shirt over her head to expose those beautiful tits all for me. Leaning in toward her body, I suck a hardened nipple into my mouth and crudely tug on it with my teeth. I’m not gentle and I’m not careful, yet she moans her pleasure, giving me the green light to do as I desire.
My front teeth sink into her deep pink flesh around her nipple, and Lily slides her hands over my head to hold me there. The harder I bite and suck, the tighter her hold becomes. All the while my cock feels like it’s going to explode in my pants if I don’t get inside her cunt now, and Lily rocks her hips, grinding her pussy against me.
Releasing her from my mouth, I push her off my lap and rip my jeans down my legs while she wriggles out of her yoga pants. A willing participant, she’s naked before I am and reaches over to lift my shirt over my head, the two of us frantically trying to shed the clothes that keep us from what we both want.
My mind races with how I want to take her first, and memories from the last time we fucked flash through my head. I don’t understand why, but I need to see the look in her eyes this time, so I pull her back on top of me. She straddles my hips and lifts herself up over my cock that’s standing at attention.
As much as I want to be inside her, I pull her head down to me and kiss her. My tongue snakes into her mouth, and she sucks on the tip of it, teasing me even more than the mere thought of feeling her tight cunt around me.
She stares down at me, and I see a hint of fear still in her eyes. Holding her to me, I move my lips to her ear and kiss her softly before whispering, “I’m not going to kill you, Lily. I promise.”
Those are words I’ve never said before in my life. Not to any man or woman. But I mean them, and even though she likely thinks I won’t kill her at this very moment right before we sleep together, that’s not what I mean.
Lily lifts herself off my chest and looks down at me for a brief second before everything between us begins to move in a flash, but for that single moment, I see the fear is gone now. It’s been replaced by that softness that hope brings to her dark eyes.
I can’t offer her that. Only that I won’t kill her, even if her father is stupid enough not to pay off his debt to my father. But right now, none of that matters. All that I care about is being inside her and what she makes me feel when I fuck her.
My hands hold her where I need her to stay, and with one hard thrust of my hips, my cock sinks deep into her cunt. She’s warm and wet and perfect, and I need this more than I can explain right now.
Neither of us make a sound as we move in unison, two people surrounded by madness searching for a few precious seconds of peace. Lily rolls her hips, taking every inch of me, and I push into her body craving that sense of losing myself only it provides.
She bites her lower lip when I slam into her, and a second later, I roll the two of us over on the bed so I’m on top. I want to look down into her eyes as I fuck her. That hope that shines in them makes me want more of it, even if I’m destined to never have that like she does.
I watch that glimmer mix with an innocence that seems wrong at the same time I fill her with my cock. She’s tight and sweet around me, and still it’s not innocence that rocks against me and sends waves of need racing through my body.
The memory of her telling me she’d been with someone older than me marches through my mind, leaving behind a feeling of wanting to protect her when it disappears into nothingness. I shouldn’t care who she’s been with. She has no idea who’s been in my bed before her.
Yet, still I wonder about what her world was like before I threw her over my shoulder and kidnapped her.
“Cason…” she says before moaning something I can’t make out.
The last thing on my mind now is talking. I don’t want to think about what will happen when we leave this room. I don’t want to think about what I’ll have to do when this week is up. I don’t want to think about anything but how fucking good it feels to get lost in her.
Her fingernails rake across my back, leaving stinging trails from my spine out to my sides. I rear back at the pain and plunge into her body with all the force in mine. She doesn’t cry out or even whimper. She simply takes every bit of me I give her.
The good. The bad. The cruel. The need to forget everything else but this and her.
The first hint of her release comes with a tightening around my cock and her heels pressing hard into my back. I don’t stop pumping into her, and go even faster, eager to feel and see her come for me. Her body arches and her head tilts back, and then it rushes through her. Her legs tighten around my waist, but I keep going, desperate to feel the ecstasy that makes her look like an angel beneath me.
A whimper breaks the silence, and then all I hear are the grunts and groans coming from me as I explode. Her legs quiver against my hips, and I still my body to revel in the feeling of coming inside her.
She’s perfect and nearly innocent, and whatever goodness she possesses now mixes with the bad that takes up so much space in me. Part of me feels like I should apologize for corrupting her like this, but one look at her expression filled with pure pleasure stops me.
I don’t care where she’s been before or where I’ve been. All that matters at this very second is where we are now and what we’ve given to one another.
Collapsing onto the bed, I pull Lily to me and close my eyes. Another round can happen later. For now, I want to lay here and enjoy the peace that’s settled into me.
The feel of Lily dragging her fingertips over my collarbone wakes me, and I open my eyes to see her lying with my arm around her just as she was when I drifted off. Pleased but not surprised, oddly enough, I give her a sleepy smile.
“What are you doing?” I ask as she continues to almost pet me.
My question makes her stop, and she moves her hand away from my neck. “I was looking at your tattoos and felt like touching them. I’ve never known anyone who has so many tattoos.”
As if I need to look down to know what she’s talking about, I lower my head and scan my chest. “I can’t remember not having them.”
“Did you get them all around the same time or did it take a long time to fill up all the empty space?” she asks, her question sounding so naïve.
“That’s not exactly the goal for getting tattoos. At least not for me. I didn’t need to fill up any empty space on me.”
She reaches over and touches just above my chest on my right side, lightly poking her fingertip against my skin. “What is this one? I think I figured out what all the other ones are, but I can’t make this one out.”
I don’t need to look to know which one she means. It’s the oldest tattoo I have, and after twelve years, it’s faded against my tanned skin to look like a random series of lines.
“The wheel of fortune, like the tarot card. I got it a long time ago, but it wasn’t done very well, so it’s all faded and broken looking,” I explain.
Lily leans over and puts her face just an inch away from my chest to study the image for a long moment. When she finishes, she looks up and shakes her head.
“I don’t see it, but I’ll take your word for it.”
“Have I ever lied to you yet?” I ask with a chuckle, knowing how ridiculous that question is since we’ve only known each other for a few days.
Her smile fades as a darkness comes over her expression. She tries to move away from me, but I stop her with my arm behind her back so she has to stay right where she is.
I know what she’s wondering. Am I lying about not killing her, or was that just something I said because I wanted to fuck her.
“You’re safe, Lily. I promised not to kill you, and I won’t.”
“Ever?” she asks in a way that sounds like a child would say the word.
“Ever. I won’t kill you no matter what.”
She searches my face for what the real truth is because she doesn’t believe my promise. Her gaze fixes on mine and won’t let go.
“What about if my father doesn’t pay the money?” she asks in a small voice.
“No. I won’t kill you then either.”
Still, her focus doesn’t waver. I don’t blame her for not believing me. I can barely believe it myself.
“What if your boss tells you to kill me? What will you do then?”
I shake my head. Victor was never going to order me to kill Lily. He just wants his damn money paid back. Even he isn’t in the business of killing people’s children for that.
“He won’t.”
“But what if my father doesn’t get the money by the end of the seven days?” she asks, her voice hitching on the word end.
“Nope. I can’t say what will happen to him if he doesn’t pay my boss, but you won’t be hurt.”
She frowns at the mention of her father’s possible future. That I can’t help. He knew what he was doing when he took the money. If he’s not stupid, he’ll cash in some of those fucking plates he’s got hanging on his walls and save himself and his daughter.
“I’m worried he won’t pay up in time, Cason. Please tell me you won’t be the one who’s ordered to do it.”
Again, I shake my head. “I don’t know who it will be.”
“I won’t let you kill him. I can’t. You’ll have to kill me to get to him.”
Her bravado amuses me, even as I know it would be nothing to get past her to him if I’m the one who’s ordered to do the job. I can’t help but admire her strength, though. It will do her no good, no matter who has to get to her father, but it makes me hope her father does the right thing.
“I just told you I won’t kill you, Lily. As for your father, I have no control over that. Maybe he’ll sell some of those plates he loves and end this whole thing.”
My mention of those ridiculous blue and white plates makes her hang her head, and in a tiny voice, she says, “He won’t. They mean too much to him.”
“Why? They’re just plates. What’s the big deal about them that he can’t sell even a couple to get himself and you out of this jam?” I ask, finally hoping she can explain the importance of those damn things.
Lifting her head, she forces a smile I know isn’t genuine, and with tears in her eyes, she answers, “They were my mother’s. He couldn’t part with a single one. It would be like giving away the only things left he has of her. He’d rather die.”
When I don’t say anything, she says, “I bet you think that’s stupid, don’t you? Like my father’s a sentimental fool. I bet your father isn’t like that, is he?”
I think about my father and how he got this house and shake my head. “No. He’s a fucking monster. Definitely not a sentimental bone in his body.”
“Well, my father is. Those plates are all he has left of my mother, except for memories and me. I know it sounds silly, but they mean the world to him.”
I don’t know what to say to Lily about her father and those plates. All I can hope for is he finds the money somehow and pays his loan before the seven days are up.
If he doesn’t, Lily won’t die but he might. That I can’t do a damn thing about.
She falls silent and lays her head on my tattoo of that faded wheel of fortune tarot design on my chest. Whatever his fate turns out to be, she can’t change it. No matter how much she may want to.
Nobody can. Our fates may not be carved in stone, but every choice we make, every action we take, makes them harder and harder to change.
I’ve protected Lily’s in all of this. Now it’s up to her father to do his part.
Even if that means trading a sliver of his past to secure his future with his only child.
