Three Wishes(96)
Author: Kristen Ashley

She bit her lip and knew he was right and she hated herself for it. She couldn’t stop her h*ps from pressing against his hand, her hands from roaming his back even as her eyes caught his in the darkness. She could see them burning into her, not with love or with passion but with ruthless determination to have exactly what he wanted.

“These are my secrets, Lily. This is who I am.”

She shook her head fiercely. She wouldn’t believe it, couldn’t.

“I know who you are. I wished for –”

“Beg,” Nate interrupted her words with his demand.

She shook her head again.

Then he smiled, a terrible smile that captivated her even as it repulsed her. Then he made her beg. With brute strength and merciless skill, he brought her to the edge of cl**ax and took her away, time and again, until she could bear it no more and she felt, if she didn’t have release, her body would shatter.

Holding him tight, wrapping her arms around his back, her legs around his h*ps and bringing her lips to his, she whispered, humiliation warring with desire and losing, “Please, Nate, please f**k me.”

And he did.

It was hard, it was fast, it was rough and there was no love in it and she cl**axed so magnificently, she felt for a moment she had shattered, gloriously. And after she didn’t hate herself for it, she detested herself, her weakness and part of that was because she felt, disloyally, like she detested him. Nate. Her wish. Her dream man. Her everything.

Immediately after he was done, he knifed away from her without regard for her sensitive body, put on his clothes and, looking down at her, he said, “I’m going to London. I’ll be back Friday.”

Then he was gone.

And Lily lay na**d and exposed, staring into the darkness, into the space where he’d been, trying to still her mind then trying to catch a thought and failing at both. Finally, she wrapped a blanket around her body, curled up into a little ball and she cried.

Then she slept. Then she waited. And she tried to hope.

* * * * *

On Wednesday, she called his mobile. She knew he was talking to Tash, still shielding their daughter from whatever-it-was that was falling apart between them. But he didn’t contact Lily. She phoned his mobile in the morning not wishing to go through another humiliating episode with Jennifer. He did not answer. Then she rang him mid-morning, then the afternoon.

Still no answer and she felt hope quickly dying as he missed call after call that he promised he’d never miss.

Then she left the shop early and made certain she was home when Tash got home from school so she could latch onto the phone when Tash was done speaking to her father.

“Mummy wants to talk to you,” Tash said on a giggle as she watched Lily pacing in the kitchen, Fazire’s assessing eyes on her, regarding her from his seat at the table.

Lily nearly snatched the phone out of her daughter’s hand when Tash offered it to her.

Lily had been thinking about it, trying to find a reason for his abrupt change to such hostile behaviour and she’d convinced herself that she’d pushed too hard, got too close, made a mess of things by trying to break through and she was ready for retreat. Even having Nate removed was better than this.

“Nate, I –”

“Lily, I don’t have time for this now,” he interrupted her before she got started, “call me later.”

Then, without another word or waiting for her to respond, he hung up.

She stared at the phone finding it difficult to breathe, her heart stuttering so much she felt like it would come to a halt. Then she looked at Tash who had been grinning at her but her grin faded as Lily put the phone on the receiver.

“Didn’t Daddy –” Tash started.

“Daddy’s really busy, doll baby. Getting ready for our honeymoon,” Lily explained quietly, not believing a word she said but hoping that Tash would.

Luckily, her daughter bought her lie, her grin came back with a vengeance and she skipped out of the room.

“Lily-child,” Fazire spoke and started to float and Lily knew what that meant and she was having none of it.

Lily shook her head and when she heard Tash cooing to Mrs. Gunderson somewhere in the house, she said one word to Fazire, knowing he’d know what she meant, “Tash.”

Then she ran, ran out the front door, ran down the street, ran passed the pier, along the seafront path, straight to the bandstand and stopped. She stopped her feet, her heart and her thoughts and she started walking, fast, breathing heavily, making her body work hard so her mind wouldn’t. She walked until she felt she would drop then she turned toward home.

Later that night, when Fazire and Tash were both asleep, she tried Nate again.

He answered his mobile and in the background she heard what sounded like a busy club or restaurant.

“What is it Lily?” he asked instead of greeting her, obviously seeing her name displayed before answering his phone.

“I just wanted to say –” she began tentatively, not sure what she wanted to say but needing to say it all the same.

Then she heard, in a purring, female voice that was very close to the phone, “Nate, our table’s ready.”

Nate didn’t even try to cover the mouthpiece when he responded, “In a minute, Georgia.”

Lily’s legs buckled from under her and powerless to stop herself, she dropped and sat on the bed. It felt like it took a year for her to turn her head and look at the clock on the bedside table.

It was passed ten at night and Nate was out with Georgia, his old girlfriend, a woman Jeffrey had thought he was ready to marry. He was away from Lily the week before their wedding, in London, out on the town with another woman.

“Lily.” She heard her name sound in her ear as if from far away but she had herself together enough to note that Nate’s voice sounded impatient.

“It –” she cleared her throat, her body numb, her mind blank and she had no idea her voice betrayed exactly how broken she felt, “it’s nothing, Nate. Enjoy yourself.”

Then she’d pressed the button to hang up even as she heard him start to say her name again.

Her mobile rang in her hand almost immediately but she opened and closed it, disconnecting Nate without a word. Then she turned it off. The house phone rang and she picked it up out of its bed, hit the button for on then hit the button for off and then on again, listening to the insistent ring tone until it grew urgent and even longer and then it was silenced. Then she rolled on her side in the bed, pulled the pillow over her head and again, keeping her thoughts at bay with an extreme effort of will, she cried herself to sleep which was, she was realising, the only way she could get to sleep.