Worthy of Redemption Read online

  Later, after I verbally ripped Corsey a new one (but didn’t fire him), I had a couple of drinks to calm down before going upstairs to check on Lily. Her door was locked and the stereo was blasting at a high decibel, but I could have sworn I heard faint crying. The alcohol did nothing to calm me as I banged on the door again. When she still didn’t respond, I was tempted to get the key from downstairs and let myself in. I had images of her bleeding on the bathroom floor, but deep down I knew that wasn’t the case, that she would never go to those extremes again, regardless of how horrible her weekend had been. I figured she just needed to be left the hell alone, so that’s what I did, but it didn’t stop me from tossing and turning all night worrying about her.

  The ride into work was quiet. Any attempts I made for conversation was batted down with short, cold responses. The only lengthy conversation I got was work related and very a-matter-of-fact. I wanted to question her about Vic again, but for once I kept my big mouth shut.

  The rest of the day was much of the same. Lily was pretty quiet unless she had to speak. She managed small smiles for the staff where necessary, but otherwise, her face was a blank slate. She knocked on my office door instead of barging in like she usually did, she didn’t sit her cute, round ass on my desk, and she didn’t argue with me and put me in my place when needed. She was demure, a complete opposite of her usual open, casual self. The worst thing was looking into her eyes and seeing nothing.

  One of my favorite things about Lily was being able to gage what she was feeling or thinking by looking at her eyes, but now I was shut out completely – not that I deserved to really be in the loop in the first place. After calling out Emmy’s name, I was surprised she didn’t wrap her hands around my neck and squeeze.

  I had followed her into her room after I purposely called out the wrong name while we were having amazing sex, and finally got to see the tattoo that covered her back and wrapped around her hips. Lilies climbed and twisted up her back, reaching to heights just below her neck and shoulders. One word was scripted at an angle across the tallest and prettiest of the other flowers: Anna.

  After seeing the back piece that was tribute to her lost daughter, I was reminded of all the things she had been through. Being the ass that I am, I just had to put her through one more fucked up situation. I wanted to apologize to her and tell her that I had done it on purpose, but I remembered why I did it in the first place – to push her away. By the time she got out of the shower, I had resolved to continue being a dick to make sure she wouldn’t quickly or easily forgive me, and so far it was working.

  I hated it, especially since I knew there was something else wrong. When we got back to the penthouse later that night, Lily raced upstairs to her room without a word. It had only been a day and I already fucking missed her – missed her laughter, missed her hassling me, and missed her tell-all beautiful eyes.

  As difficult as it was, I kept my distance for the rest of the week. I let her go her own way when we got home. We ate separately and whenever we had to pass by one another, we gave each other a wide birth. At work, Lily was sociable with the staff, but that part of her turned off in my presence. Over the weekend we were both busy with work, but while I worked at the dining room table, Lily chose to work in her room.

  This was what I wanted, right? I didn’t want her pining over me and I didn’t want to destroy her like I had destroyed Emmy, but I felt like I had snuffed out a part of her, and I was having a hard time dealing with it. I didn’t want to care about her, but I did. If I was going to be honest with myself, I had started falling for her almost immediately after she walked through the doors at Sterling Corp. If I was going to be honest, I’d have to say that the more I found out about her personal life and the more I watched her, the more I really wanted her deep down. Something inside of this woman pulled me toward her no matter how hard I tried to fight it.

  After a week of silence, I couldn’t take it anymore. Even if I had hurt her, Lily was a very verbal person and had no qualms telling me what she really thought of me. At this point, I was ready to hear her verbally bash me than to go through another week of this oppressive silence. After another night of work, Lily ran upstairs and closed herself in her room. I stopped at the foot of the stairs, trying to talk myself out of going after her. I wasn’t worthy of her, but I needed to know she was okay.

  I jogged up the stairs and rapped twice on her door. Lily opened the door a moment later. She was in the middle of changing. She had on yoga pants now, but no shirt. She stepped aside, giving me access into the room.

  “You’ve been very quiet lately,” I said as I watched her pull on a shirt.

  “Yes,” she agreed without emotion. “You wanted a professional relationship, so that’s what I gave you.” She sat down on the bed with her hands in her lap.

  “It’s more than that.” I sat down beside her. “I need to know that you’re okay,” I sighed. I hated admitting how much I cared about her out loud.

  “You need to know that I’m okay,” she rolled the words around in her mouth before looking up at me.

  Well, at least her eyes weren’t blank anymore.

  “You need to know I’m okay so you can knock me down again? You need to know I’m okay so you can tell me how much you wish you didn’t care that I was okay? Do you need to know that I am okay so you can continue stalking me and then use what you discover to hurt me? Do you need know I’m okay so you can fuck me in your bed and then call out another name? Or do you need know I’m okay so you can then put up a stone cold wall to repel me? Why exactly do you need to know that I am okay! You’re one big fucked up contradiction! But if you must really know, Kyle, if you really have to know if I’m okay, the answer is no! I’m not okay!”

  “What do I have to do to make it okay?” I yelled back at her in frustration. She was right, of course, but I didn’t want her to pack up her shit and leave. The thought of her leaving, even after the messed up week and a half I made her have, made my chest ache. Emmy was always there with me, tucked away in a corner of my mind on some days and at the forefront on other days, but that didn’t change how I felt around Lily. She infuriated me. Sometimes I wanted to throttle her, and sometimes I wanted to tape her mouth shut, but she also made me smile. I craved her touch, even if she was just straightening one of my hideous ties, and I felt comfortable in her presence. I didn’t deserve her, but I wasn’t ready to let her go.

  “Stop being a pussy!” she yelled and got to her feet. She stormed across the room to the bathroom and swung the door behind her, but it only closed half way.

  I followed her across the room but stopped just outside the door when I heard the tell-tale sound of her peeing. “I’m not being a pussy by not wanting to hurt you,” I argued through the door.

  “Newsflash, Kyle, you’re already hurting me.”

  “But I don’t want to break you!” I yelled.

  The toilet flushed and then Lily came into view when she stood over the sink to wash her hands. She kept glancing up at me, her mouth set in a thin line. She dried her hands before stepping out. She stood on her tip toes grabbed my jaw in one, slightly damp hand.

  “You’re not going to break me, Kyle. You’re just going to really piss me off.”

  She wasn’t pissed off already?

  “My god, you’re making me crazy. I feel like I have some kind of personality disorder around you. I’m up and I’m down. I’m angry and I’m…Well, let’s just say you drive me nuts,” she sighed. She caressed my jaw. “We have to start over.”

  “From where?” I frowned and rested my hand on her hip.

  “I don’t know, from right here I guess. Let’s not spend the night lost in emotionally charged conversations. We have to find some sense of normalcy, Kyle. My life has been topsy turvy for months and I really need something near normal.”

  “What’s ‘normal’ to you?” I asked, still frowning. I was even more pissed at myself, because again she was right. Her life flipped upside down when Gavin died and inste
ad of giving her the support she very well needed, I only added to her stress.

  Lily released my jaw and rested her hand on my chest. “Tonight we can be two friends – not boss and employee, not…whatever the hell else we have been in the past. We’ll order some dinner and chill in my room and watch a movie on my new television with my awesome new surround sound system.”

  The corners of her mouth had quirked up a little to form a small, playful smile. As I looked down into her gray eyes, I was awed by how quickly she had went from ranting at me, ready to kick my ass, to forgiving and smiling. At least I think she was being forgiving.

  “A new TV with surround sound? How did you get so lucky?” I asked, focusing on her beautiful mouth.

  “I have a sugar daddy,” she said with a shrug and eased away from me.

  What the hell? How did she get me smiling, too? I could feel it on my face as I watched her walk back to the bed. I rubbed my jaw where her hand had been.

  “I can’t believe you touched me with your PP hand,” I called to her. I ducked just in time before a pillow sailed past my head.

  *~~~*

  We were supposed to be watching reruns of The Big Bang Theory but I had not looked at the screen in a long time. Lily lay stretched out beside me, looking at me with sleepy, but content eyes. I was on my side, my head propped up on one arm while my other hand explored the contours of her body.

  I had started with her hands, running my fingers over each of hers before rubbing my thumb over her now visible scars on her wrists. I brought each scarred wrist to my lips and kissed them. When she smiled, I smoothed my fingertips over her plump lips before, stroking the soft skin on her cheekbones, and then down to her delicate neck. I ran my fingertips over each shoulder, across her smooth chest, and down the sides of each breast. My hand had made slow, lazy circles on her stomach before slipping down to her waist, leisurely across the top of her pelvic bone to the other side of her waist. Lily had a few extra pounds, more than I was used to, but I loved it.

  “I’m pretty sure this isn’t what I meant by ‘normal’,” she murmured as my thumb stroked over her hip bone.

  “It could become our normal,” I said after a moment. I could imagine lying there with her like that day after day and never getting sick of it.

  “You say that now,” she sighed. “But later you will be at conflict with yourself again.”

  I couldn’t agree with her, but I couldn’t disagree either.

  “Okay, then we won’t think about later. We will just worry about here and now.” I leaned over and lightly pressed my lips against hers.

  Lily pulled away from my lips and pinned me with her worried gray eyes. “I can’t,” she whispered.

  “Why not?” I frowned down at her as my fingers moved over the elastic waistline of her yoga pants.

  She frowned back at me. She looked like she was going to tell me why we couldn’t kiss, but then she stopped. Then she said “We agreed not to have any emotionally charged conversations tonight.”

  “You agreed,” I pointed out. “I didn’t agree to anything.”

  Before she could answer, I slipped my hand into her pants and under her panties. I had her groaning a half second later as my middle finger dragged over her clit.

  “That’s so not fair,” she breathed.

  “Haven’t you realized by now, Lily?” I asked as I stroked her clit over and over, making her squirm and groan. “I don’t always play fair.”

  I took her mouth with mine, seeking out her tongue with my own. Her studded tongue stroked over mine and it was my turn to groan. As I kissed her delicious mouth, I pushed one finger inside of her. Her hips involuntarily rose up to take in more. Despite her words, she was moist and ready for me.

  I pulled my hand out of her pants and gripped the waistband to pull them off of her, but her hands covered mine in an effort to stop me.

  “You’re going to be mad,” she said and her mouth set in a grim line.

  I looked at her in confusion. Why the hell would I be mad after I got her pants off of her? Did she grow a dick overnight or something equally disturbing? To answer my silent question, Lily released my hands and with a sigh, she nodded for me to continue. I pulled her pants and panties down mid-thigh before I understood what she was talking about. ‘Mad’ could not adequately describe the blood boiling feeling I had when I saw the large hand shaped bruise on her thigh.

  Where his fingertips must have been, the marking was darker in shade, indicating that he squeezed her pretty damn hard. The bruise was extremely close to the junction between her thighs. He would have only had to extend his hand to touch her there.

  “You told me nothing happened,” I said, gingerly touching the contusion.

  “I was angry and humiliated,” she said, staring up at the ceiling. “I didn’t want to discuss it.”

  “You should have told me,” I said, climbing off of the bed. “You should have said something the moment your feet hit the ground when you got out of his truck.”

  I grabbed my phone off of the table next to the bed and had Corsey on the phone before I could even get out of the bedroom.

  “That bastard hurt her that night,” I growled at Corsey.

  “In the truck?”

  “That’s the only time she was left alone with him, Corsey! On your watch!”

  “Is she okay?” he asked, genuinely concerned.

  “She has a hand shaped bruise on her thigh! He was so close to…” I stopped myself before I said it out loud, because whatever little reserve I had left would have gone out the window.

  “It’s my fault,” Corsey said, disgusted with his self.

  “You’re damn right it’s your fault,” I growled, as I started to change out of my lounge pants into a pair of jeans. Lily was standing in the doorway, watching and listening with clear apprehension.

  “How do you want me to handle this?” Corsey asked.

  “I’m going over there and I’m breaking his fucking head.”

  “I don’t think that is a wise decision, Kyle,” he said.

  “It wasn’t a wise decision for you to allow her to get into that truck with a known psychopath either!”

  “Stop yelling at him,” Lily hissed, stepping into the room. “It’s my fault, not his and you’re not breaking anyone’s head.”

  “Let me call a few guys,” Corsey said. “We’ll go have a talk with him.”

  “I’ll handle it myself,” I snapped and ended the call.

  “You can’t go over there, Kyle,” Lily said, standing over me as I tied my shoes. “You’re going to get hurt or in trouble with the law, and that’s the last thing you need right now.”

  “Those are necessary risks I’m willing to take,” I grumbled. “Not that long ago, you were calling me a pussy. Now you’re trying to talk me out of this.”

  “Yeah, because this is stupid!”

  “I’m going to kick his fucking ass for touching you like that,” I growled, getting to my feet.

  “You’re not going over there,” she said, crossing her arms and sidestepping to block me from leaving.

  “You’re not going to stop me,” I said, scowling.

  “You’re really angry and you can’t see or think straight, but you can’t go. I won’t let you. Besides, you have vagina fingers. You can’t go fight someone with vagina fingers.”

  “Perfect,” I said, glaring at her. “He’ll smell what he will never have.”

  “That’s…you’re disturbing sometimes,” she said and sidestepped again to block me.

  “You’re not going to stop me,” I repeated and started to go around her.

  Suddenly my arm was wrenched and pulled and twisted behind my back. My elbow and my shoulder erupted in pain. Something cracked against the back of my knee and I went down onto both knees. Lily’s arm circled my neck and squeezed.

  “Oh, you were easy,” she purred in my ear. “Pussy.”

  With my one free hand, I reached up and around her as far as I could and threw h
er over me, freeing my neck and my arm. She lay on the floor, looking up at me with a stunned expression on her face, but it only lasted a couple of seconds before she used the palm of her hand to jab me in the chest. As I struggled to catch the breath she had knocked out of me, Lily sat up on her knees and taunted me.

  “You throw like a girl,” she grinned.

  I narrowed my eyes at her and launched myself at her. She landed on her back again, but this time I was on top of her, pinning her hands above her head and trapping her under my body. I stared down at her parted lips as I felt her breathing hard beneath me. She tried to squirm away, but she only succeeded in rubbing her cloth covered crotch against my denim covered cock. I took in her flushed face and wild eyes. Her hair had come loose from its bun and some of it swept across one side of her face. She looked so fucking beautiful, lying there out of breath and excited. I closed the few inches between our lips and savagely crushed her mouth with my own as I rocked against her.

  Lily moaned into my mouth as I kissed her and pulled her tongue between my teeth. I sucked on her bottom lip before pushing my tongue back inside of her mouth. I grinded against her, loving how rough the material felt between us. I released one of her hands and tangled my fingers in her hair. I pulled away from her lips and kissed a trail down her jaw and to the little stars on her neck and continued grinding against her. She gasped as I tasted her skin. She tasted like soap, sweat, and something sweet and floral.

  Suddenly Lily’s body tensed beneath me, and her moans deepened. She pushed her hips up off of the floor to grind her clit hard against me. As she started to cry out from her orgasm, I absorbed it with my mouth on hers. Before her climax could die down, I was up and quickly pulling off her pants and panties. I tossed them to the side and started to undo the button and zipper on my jeans. When my eyes fell where Vic marked her, my anger intensified again. Seeing my expression forced Lily to distract me. She sat up and yanked my jeans and boxers down just below my ass, setting my erection free. Her hand wrapped around my shaft and gave it a few good strokes. I groaned at her touch, but as good as it felt, I needed to be inside of her. I needed to release the rage I was feeling and I only wanted to do that while buried balls deep inside of Lily.