Reaching Lily

Reaching Lily

Vivacia K. Ahwen

Copyright

Mischief

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.mischiefbooks.com

Copyright © Vivacia K. Ahwen 2014

Vivacia K. Ahwen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novella is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780008124007

Version: 2014-11-24

‘Very whitely still

The lilies of our lives may reassure

Their blossoms from their roots, accessible

Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer;

Growing straight out of man’s reach, on the hill.

God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.’

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

Prologue: Fear of Flying

Chapter One: Strangers On A Train

Chapter Two: Holder Tight

Chapter Three: Intern Flat

Chapter Four: Blackberry Curve

Chapter Five: The Other Side

Chapter Six: Metamorphosis

Chapter Seven: Raising the Bar

Chapter Eight: Run, Baby Run

Chapter Nine: Do Not Disturb

Chapter Ten: Just Desserts

Chapter Eleven: The Legend of Jerry Fitz

Chapter Twelve: Time and Tide

Chapter Thirteen: Save A Prayer

Chapter Fourteen: Oh! Pretty Woman

Chapter Fifteen: Naughty and Nice

Chapter Sixteen: Sleeping Beauty

Chapter Seventeen: Ripples and Waves

Chapter Eighteen: A Close Shave

Chapter Nineteen: Revere

More from Mischief

About Mischief

About the Publisher

Prologue

Fear of Flying

I always carry too much baggage. Though I managed to cram a couple of weeks’ worth of sassy tropical vacation clothes into one gigantic carry-on, stuffing it into the small compartment over my seat proves well nigh impossible.

‘Dammit.’ I punch the pink canvas bulging out of the cubby.

‘Miss? Do you need help?’ asks a silky male voice.

Startled, I whip around to see who my concerned fellow passenger is, hoping his sonorous intonation is matched by an equally attractive face.

Alas, not a meet-cute. Just some retiree in golf duds, who looks like a plump version of Woody Allen and clearly has had some vocal training. His eyes drop to my chest.

‘Thanks.’ Though I try to keep my voice pleasant, three sleepless nightstend to affect one’s delivery. Sweet, complacent Lily Dewitt is still at a bitsy flat on Agassiz Street, curled up in an even bitsier ball on her futon, crying her eyes out about the man who never loved her back.

She can stay there.

‘I’m fine.’

Woody shoves horn-rimmed spectacles up the bridge of his nose, not even bothering to look up from my tits. ‘If you’re sure …’

Hands on hips, I ask, ‘Are you going to be sitting next to me this entire flight?’

‘No, though that would be delightful.’ He stops ogling long enough to meet my eyes. ‘Would you like me to join you?’

‘Wow, really?’

He looks away. ‘I could switch with someone.’

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

‘Seems you’re holding up the line.’ I give an encouraging, not so subtle shrug. ‘I got this.’

Several passengers waiting behind him nod and mumble their support to me. Thanks, team. He sighs, quite put out by my obvious lack of gratitude and snooty demeanour. I turn my back on him and go on shoving my bag into the reluctant overhead. But it’s like trying to squeeze my bum into skinny jeans halfway through winter. Ain’t gonna happen.

Well … perhaps my annual garment squish isn’t the greatest comparison, since my build has changed. My drawstring linen pants are hanging off my hips, and spring has only just sprung. This is the smallest I’ve been since high school, and it doesn’t suit me one bit. I’m supposed to be a curvy girl, no two ways about it. But a few weeks of stress, Olympic-athlete sex, a few ballet lessons, a lot of falling in love, topped with a dollop of utter devastation? Winning combo. Makes for a quick and simple crash diet.

Simple, but not easy.

I’ve got Dorian Holder to thank for my Doctor Oz non-approved weight-loss plan.

Thanks, Dorian.

He’s probably already got a patent on it already. The man owns fucking everything, and breaking hearts is his trademark, after all.

Just thinking of Dorian sends such a surge of angry adrenalin through my veins that one solid punch is enough to propel my bag into the small gap. Good luck pulling it out, Lily. I glance over my shoulder, and am pleased to find the nosy little man behind me has moved on.

Think I scared him.

Good.

Ow. That seriously hurt my knuckles. Punching isn’t my forte.

Are you there, God? It’s me, Lily. God, please let me have these three seats to myself so I can stretch out and sleep.

As though on cue, a glowing – they are so obviously newlywed – young couple, not much older than I, bustle from the line and wedge themselves into my row. She stumbles, because she can’t take her eyes off of her husband, but he steadies her. ‘Careful, Mrs Greene.’

‘Thank you, Mr Greene,’ she says, and giggles. ‘Sweet husband of mine.’

So much for that nap.

See, God and I haven’t been on speaking terms for awhile, and apparently he doesn’t do reservations.

The passengers are not only disgustingly twitterpated with each other, but they’re frequent-flyer smart; clearly seasoned travellers. They knew enough to check in luggage and don’t fight for space, but just claim it. ‘Mr and Mrs Greene’ are lost in each other, smiling, giggling, kissing and half-falling into the two seats beside me, as though I were invisible. They get into some inane discussion about why there was that wacky mix-up in which they were supposed to be flying first class but got stuck in coach. And how they would somehow make it through, because they are ‘together and that’s all that matters’.

I hate them.

But to be fair, at least they’ve the decency to not say hello to me, because faking a smile and stuttering pleasantries at happy strangers is not something I’ve got energy for at the moment. They do see me, sense my solitude, and don’t want to catch any of it.

Loneliness is like cooties.

They are stepping it up now, to the inevitable lip-lock and hands groping all over each other, as though there weren’t another soul in the cabin. Ain’t love grand. Feeling like I’m crashing a party in someone else’s living room, I sit down, turn my back to them and try to look interested in all the nothing going on outside the tiny window.

Wow. My hands are shaking.

Much as I’d like to blame Dorian Holder for the shivers, not to mention the butterflies in my stomach and pounding of my heart, I’m afraid what could turn into a full-fledged anxiety attack is all down to me and my lack of worldliness.

This is my first flight.

Yes, I’m 24 years old, and the only time I’ve ever been on a plane was a field trip in the third grade when they just drove us back and forth on a landing strip in a passenger plane. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to fly anywhere, just that the opportunity never presented itself until yesterday.

There is a static crackle, and a froggy voice says, ‘Welcome aboard Virgin America Airlines flight A300 to the Cyril E. King Airport. Flying time from Boston to St Thomas is four hours and forty minutes.’

Five hours? That’s going to feel like for ever. Why can’t we fast-forward time? I want to get off this plane.

‘Meals and refreshments will be served during the flight …’ The pilot-in-command’s voice fades away as I rest my head against the cool Plexiglas of the tiny window, out of which I will try not to look again for the next several hours. My mind is too cluttered to absorb all the stimuli around me. I busy myself buckling up, as Captain Peterson is now saying something about keeping our seatbelts fastened at all times when some light is on, following with a bunch of stuff about cellphones, safety procedures, upright positions and so forth, while flight attendants are doing some kind of interpretive dance. Holy shit, this is real.

I am leaving.

The bride beside me is unaware that she’s jabbing her elbow into my back while cooing in her new husband’s ear, but I don’t feel the urge to shove her away. Any human contact is to be cherished, right now, and perhaps even a touch of someone who loves someone who loves her back close by will rub off, and I will be safe and loved by proxy. Reverse social cooties!

Nobody knows I am taking off.

Not Gwen, though she hopes and suspects. Not my mom, who would be even more terrified for me than I am. Not even Dorian Holder knows I’m flying away.

There is a roar, a rumble, my insides are pulled backwards and my forehead vibrates against the window. Despite my best intentions, I open my eyes to see Boston shrink and disappear below me as we lift into the sky.

I hate to watch my little world shrink, and squinch my eyes shut once again.

But now all I can see is Dorian’s face, which is hardly reassuring. His chiselled features are so clear in my mind, his wolf-like eyes, his angelic face. It’s as though I could reach out and touch him. He was remarkable, and there’s no escaping him; there’s no changing history. Dorian Holder completely and irrevocably possessed me, and I will forever be a haunted woman.

We were so close. Or at least I was so close.

Dorian. His face, his voice, his touch, his sculpted body, his cruelty, his compassion, his strength, his vulnerability. His secrets. His lies.

I can still feel his touch. My body has memorised and internalised him.

What I wouldn’t give to forget that unreadable expression on his beautiful face when I said the words I will never be able to take back.

How his full lips moved, as though to respond, before he thought better of it.

How I hoped his lips would claim mine in the deepest, most delicious kiss, the way they used to, and how they never did.

How they never would again.

How he looked askance, turned around and walked away without a second glance.

Here’s what else I absolutely need to forget:

Those same full lips, sucking my nipples. Dorian’s tongue flicking across their tips, nibbling, sometimes a little too hard … just how I liked it. His mouth trailing between my breasts, between my ribs, licking my belly, kissing, sucking, inching his way towards my mons. Torturing me. Cupping my ass in his enormous hands, pulling my pelvis closer, burrowing his face into me, slipping his tongue at the very tip of my slit, finally delving deeper, sliding, finding me. Slicking against the left side of my clit, licking faster still, while I pictured hummingbirds and could have sworn I tasted sugar-water in my mouth. Because when Dorian Holder took me, my world transformed. Touch became taste, sound became vision. He fucked me into a straight-up synaesthete.

When Dorian Holder took me, my body sang.

How he tortured me, letting me come so close, then dropped me to the mattress, laughing while I tried to squirm back to him, aching for more. How he pushed my abdomen down, slid two fingers the length of my pussy’s lips. And how he brushed his middle finger ever so lightly against my pink jewel, and I literally begged him to let me come.

He loved it when I’d beg.

I didn’t imagine that part.

I used to imagine a lot of things about Dorian and me, but how he awakened my body is undeniable.

How he awakened my heart is unforgivable.

Oh! Then he would whisper sweet and breathy in my ear, something like ‘Hush’. Or ‘Are you OK, Lily?’ He’d laugh at my frantic nodding, and desperate struggling to free myself. If he was feeling mean, he’d ask, ‘Should I stop?’, knowing full well what the answer was. When he drove me to that mindspace, I became incapable of speech, and I could only shake my head: no.

Sometimes Dorian liked to pull back and watch me weep, particularly when my arms were spread wide in an embrace he would neither answer nor return. Embraces I could never complete while my wrists were tied to opposite bedposts. How badly I wanted to swipe at my tears of frustration as they ran down into my ears, all itchy, but of course I could not.

I was bound.

Then Dorian would start all over again, while I writhed, begging him to please, please, please let me finish.

Eventually, he would acquiesce.

As long as I did what I was told.

I remember.

Chapter One

Strangers On A Train

‘And lilies are still lilies,

Pulled by smutty hands,

Though spotted from their white.’

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

‘You’re late, Lily.’

‘I know, I’m sorry. It was just –’

‘Tell me later.’ Gwen slipped her Charlie card into the slot and held the gate open for me, like we always did. Rebels. We pushed our way through the crowd, dashed down the dirty grey steps and waited for the next Orange Line to 4024 Boylston, home to Apollyon LLC.

Yep, that Apollyon. The fitness emporium that put SFX Incorporated out of business, not to mention taking down smaller equipment chains along the way. We have a chain of gyms along the East Coast, and a couple years back bought out Planet Fitness. Apollyon’s ruthless approach to finance – search, destroy and takeover – led us to be tagged the ‘Wal-Mart of Workout’ in Forbes’ January issue, which, rumour had it, had a negative impact on sales. Go fig. Owned by Holder Enterprises, some monstrous Dark Force of finance in Denver. Among many other things, I was a copywriter for the evil empire of exercise equipment. I also dabbled a bit in the PR department.

‘No more Patron, ever.’ I couldn’t stand tequila, anyway. ‘So much of never. Hangover, day two. Totally missed the first train.’

‘Get over it, and I apologise for the bitchy message. Obviously I overdisclosed to you on your very own life. My badness. Hey, what would you have done with Troy even if he had gone home with you?’ She smacked my arm. ‘Prude-y Princess. Lily-White.’

‘I’m not a prude.’ I glared at her. ‘Chastity is a choice. Why did I ever tell you, anyway?’

‘Good question.’

I knew exactly why. A few months prior Gwendolyn and I had an unfortunate conversation about the longest we’d gone without doing the nasty.

I won.

This is not a brag. Far from it. Just a fact. I made her swear never to mention ‘Father Gerald’ again to me, and she didn’t, though she was annoyed I’d kept him a secret for so long.

‘Are we really talking about my lack of a sex life at eight in the morning?’

‘Yes, except it’s eight thirty, and double-yes, your whole “celibacy is power” thing is creepy.’ Gwen glanced over at an older gent who appeared far too interested in our conversation. ‘You got something to say about it, Midlife Crisis?’

He averted his eyes.

‘We’ll discuss another time, Gwen.’ I ducked my head. ‘Like, say, never.’

‘That’s cool.’ She fiddled with her moonstone necklace. Gwen worked in graphic design and wore whatever the fuck she wanted. Over the past two years I had never once seen her in anything serious. Nor have I seen her without some sort of boyfriend on her arm, also never anything serious. She wore whatever the fuck she wanted, she fucked whatever the fuck she wanted as well. And yes, for the record, I was totally jealous. ‘Sorry, Lil.’

‘Forget it,’ I said, then pointed to a Boston Ballet poster hanging on the opposite wall. ‘Gwen! Oh, my word. The Sleeping Beauty. My all-time favourite.’

‘Of course it is.’ She glanced at her watch, then back at the poster. ‘So let’s go. Buy yourself a belated birthday present. I can be your plus one.’

‘I wish. Like I can afford.’

She pointed at the date. ‘Just started last weekend, and runs all summer. You can save.’

‘Broke as a joke. End of story.’

‘Hey, don’t I owe you a birthday present better than a two-day migraine?’ She gave my bicep a squeeze.

‘Gwen, you don’t get to buy me a ticket.’

‘Oh, shit. Run.’ She grabbed my arm, yanked me as the T rolled in, and we practically dived as the doors squeaked open, along with all the other tardies. Squish. A bunch of alewives, swimming upstream into Monday.

Gwen and I each grabbed a loop, staggering as the train sped away from the leftover people I always felt so sorry for. We fell silent, out of respect for the unspoken rule that no one interacts on the ride to work, rather stares coldly and glumly at nothing in particular. Gwen pulled my braid again, smiled and raised her eyebrows.

So I followed her stare to find a perfectly built gentleman in an Armani suit, leafing through the Wall Street Journal, long legs crossed most elegantly. Since his head was buried in the newspaper, I couldn’t even see his full profile. But from what was visible, I kind of wanted to.

Very much wanted to.

What? I mouthed at her, knowing full well what.

‘Seeley Booth,’ she whispered, bugging her eyes. ‘Wait till he looks up.’

‘Shut up.’ I always had a thing for David Boreanaz, ever since his Vampire days, for which I blame my mom. On her night off, we watched Buffy religiously, though I was far too young to be up so late. Or watch anything as scary as latex-faced monsters, for that matter. She loved Spike, and I loved Angel.

So, in case you haven’t noticed, Gwen has this foolish thing where she’s convinced she sees celebrities everywhere. Case in point: ‘Jack White’ was playing at Zuzu’s, right?

But what if she was right this time? David Boreanaz. Right here in Boston.

‘Look. Look now!’ This time she didn’t keep her voice down, and I spun around again.

Dear God.

OK, he wasn’t Angel or Agent Booth, because he was even hotter.

No, really.

And about five years younger. Maybe ten? I can never tell how old people are after they hit 30, and I was pretty sure he’d hit that at some point.

To this day, I still can’t figure out how old Dorian Holder is.

Not that it matters.

Not that I care.

Evil shapeshifter is what he is.

Anyway, so there we were on the T, eyeballing this beautiful man who practically had a magical glowing aura around him. Apparently, we were staring too hard. Sensing Gwen’s and my unladylike leering, the object of our admiration glanced up, neatly folding his newspaper as though choreographed.

He smiled.

Wow.

Not a smile so much, if I’m to be honest, but one corner of his mouth definitely lifted into a flirty smirk. Not a cruel smirk, because he had an adorable dimple, which softened the seriousness of his square jaw, high cheekbones and flashing eyes. Deep down, Adonis was very sweet, I was certain. It was a flirty smirk, and was already embedded in my memory bank, an image I planned to revisit over the few precious minutes before falling asleep at day’s end.

Our eyes met.

No shit.

His – brown eyes? Hazel eyes? Green eyes? I couldn’t tell. Anyway, his eyes twinkled for a moment, as though to say, Yeah, I know, lady. Take a good look. Maybe that’s what his eyes said. They glittered, letting me know they tell this story often, the story of women who cannot help but ogle. That he would be tolerant of our girlish fancies.

I preferred my fantasy that there was a sweetness about him. Maybe it was the dimple action that fooled me?

‘He’s totally checking you out,’ Gwen insisted, her voice a shade too loud.

Now our handsome stranger full-on grinned, ran a hand through his casual yet professional tousled brown hair and stood to his full height, which was around six foot two. I felt nothing short of blessed to see this guy, and have him notice me.

This man, rather. We all know guys.

The vision before me was no guy. He was a Man, with a capital M.

Now, I’m not talking about age, which can be irrelevant when it comes to separating guys from men. There’s a Man Thing, that thing where you just know he’s been there, done that, seen this, possibly won that. A winner. Charisma.

He was beautiful; there’s no other word for it. Sorry if it sounds corny, but sometimes you see someone, and you’re never quite the same afterwards. Maybe you don’t know why, and maybe you’ll never find out. But that’s OK. You’ve seen him. Whatever. And now you’re changed. It may not be sexual, though it’s way cooler if that factor comes into play.

Adonis of the Trains exuded physicality, sensuality and a certain something I still could never explain in words. Most of us could spend a lifetime seeking it, a certain kind of magic that only a small percentage of the population possess. After all, why do girls love rock stars when we’re changing into young women? What do we seek when looking at any man? That elusive something. If we’re lucky, we get a glimpse.

So there was my glimpse, and facing the day at the office was less horrible.

He’s a sign from God, I thought. This is where my 24th year begins, and it will be the best one ever. This is the year I reach womanhood, the year I blossom, the year my luck changes.

The man stepped forward, a determined expression on his face, just as the train jerked to a gut-wrenching halt.

What? Was he heading towards me? I wondered. No way.

A throng of people shoved into us; we assimilated and blended into the masses. The collective propelled Gwen and me forward like a couple of bowling pins, and we were swept out through the folding doors into the deep blue sea of anxious young urban professionals, into another working week, some of us unchanged and still stuck in the Groundhog Day mindset. Either they did not see Adonis, or they were like Gwen and me, blowing sideways through life.

But I saw him.

He saw me.

That happened.

Maybe that would be enough.

Godammit. Where was he?

Adonis Trainman was lost in the crowd, despite his notable height and despicable beauty. Gwen and I half stumbled, half fell out of the train into the day’s next moment.