Page 136 of Lily In The Valley
The room tightened to the size of the screen. Slowly, I peeled off the damp biker shorts and sports bra. He didn’t rush me. A faint moan came through my phone as my panties landed on the floor. I sat back on the edge of the tub, waiting for further instructions. He talked me through a slower body scan, but this one was all wanting. It started with my lips, my throat, the hollow base of my neck. It laced around the tightened buds of my breasts, trailing to the throbbing nub between the slit of my legs. All the places he’d learned like a song. Praise threaded through the air, all low and shameless in a way that made my core yearn and ache for him. He told me I was beautiful as my fingers he’d borrowed found a majestic rhythm in my center.
“Look at me,” he said, and I did. His gaze held me. Held me open, held us together. “That’s it. That’s my Lily-girl. Keep those fingers pumping, slow and steady.” Raspy restraint coated his voice. The words sank straight into the muscle memory of every time we’d been together. I felt them in the tender places he refused to let me hide. My breath turned to a tide. The distance between us thinned to a wire thrumming with both our heartbeats.
“Good,” he murmured. “You’re doing so good for me.”
The praise knocked something loose in me. I let go. A wave rolled through me in slow motion. My vision went staticky as I tried to keep his gaze. I rode it until it set me down.
“Fuck,” I breathed, laughing at nothing, because joy makes fools of us all.
“Fucking right,” he said, equally wrecked, equally pleased. We stayed there, smiling at each other in the hush afterglow. The rain against my bedroom window kept writing its poem against the glass.
“Tell me something dumb that happened today.”
“The vending machine wouldn’t drop my chips,” I mumbled.
“That’s why you thought that cornbread was good.”
I smiled as I started my bathwater. “I miss you.”
“I’m right here,” he reassured, and he was. “You’ll be back in Houston soon enough.”
“Soon,” I echoed.
“Let me head home before you make me get a ticket for public indecency.”
“Don’t hang up,” I pleaded softly. “If that’s okay.”
“It is.”
As I bathed the remnants of the day, luxuriating in the silky water, Khalil talked my ear off about his day—new construction sites, some business Mav wanted to start, the last time he babysat Zaria, and she had a poop explosion on his favorite t-shirt. I listened, hanging on to every word. I laughed as he tried to convince me to wear a silk lingerie set instead of the boy shorts and oversized shirt that would bring me much more comfort. By the time he made it home, I was tucked under my comforter, Karter snuggled at the foot of the bed by my feet.
“Close those eyes for me, Lily-girl.”
And I did. I didn’t fill the silence with anything but my breath. If he repeated my name, it was somewhere betweenwaking and dreaming. The last thing I registered before sleep caught me was the ripple of his muscles as he dried off after showering. With the knowledge that he was on the other end, my body unclenched into peace like it was the only prayer that mattered tonight.
Chapter 41
Khalil
I hit610 with the windows cracked. My first stop was the barbershop, then a flower shop, which had become a ritual like grocery shopping, and finally the airport to pick her up. On the way, I called my mother before I could talk myself out of it. She answered on the second ring, voice careful but warm.
“Khalil, it’s so good to see you calling.”
“Hey,” I said, switching lanes in the steady traffic. My chest tightened as I tried to sound casual. “Y’all good?”
“I’d say so. Kahlia’s doing better with this new inhaler.”
My sister’s voice cut in from the background, sharp and unfiltered. “Did you ask him? Did you ask him?”
I laughed. “Ask me what?”
I heard the deep sigh my mother gave before she answered. “Don’t mind her. Kahlia was wondering when she’d be seeing you again. She has it made up in her mind that you two will be in a good place by summer so that she can visit for a few days.”
“Look Khalil. I know you and Mommy are working through your stuff, but I’m innocent in this,” my sister clarified, loud enough to make sure I heard her.
“Let’s talk about it the next time I’m in Seattle. How does that sound?”
“Fine,” she huffed through the phone. “I’m going to work on my English homework.”
