Page 12 of Bad Desire

“Full,” she pants, her breathing ragged like they’ve run a marathon. “I feel so full.”

Fuck. This girl.She’s gonna kill him. It takes everything he’s got to keep from spilling right then and there. “Ride me,” he says, hoarsely. “Ride me and fill yourself up.”

And this way he gets to watch her. Her chocolate kiss nipples puckering, tits bouncing, as she braces herself with her palms on his thighs and fucks him. Her lush body sheened with sweat. Lily doesn’t close her eyes. She watches him, too. And he doesn’t give a single damn if she sees surrender in his gaze. Maybe he was a goner the minute he let her in the door. This is the inevitable that he tried to delay. And it’s one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen.

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Ugh. Hello, reality.Lily pushes her phone aside. Ignoring the three text messages and two frantic voicemails wondering why she hasn’t checked in. She regrets going down the hall to her room to retrieve it. Somewhere between 2 and 3AM. Between rounds three and four. She thought Mick Lange was the ghost in her life, but It’s Sheila who actively haunts her. A specter following her all the way to the Adirondacks. Well, she can’t follow her here to Michael’s bed.No way.That takes the family dysfunction to an even more fucked-up level.

Her mother thinks she’s on a work trip in Toronto. That still somehow requires Sheila’s approval. Her assessment of Lily’s hotel or choice of restaurant. What she’s wearing to meetings. Of course if she’s met any men. Lily learned a long time ago to put up the walls that Sheila never does. You don’t have to tell your mom everything. There are some things your daughters don’t need to hear. Some things your parents never will.

Michael’s great at context clues. The phone going back on the nightstand. The tension in her shoulders. Her putting her t-shirt from last night back on and huddling under the sheets. He doesn’t even ask for confirmation about who called. He just reaches over and grabs his own shirt off the floor. So much for an enthusiastic round of morning sex. “You okay?” he asks softly. “Having regrets? I was her rebellion. Am I yours, too?”

God.If only.A nose ring at fifteen was her rebellion. The DUI at twenty-two. Her first apartment in Hoboken and the Bernie Bro she brought home one Thanksgiving. “No, Michael. You’re my last hope for normalcy.” Her laugh is weary. “I thought maybe...” She breaks off, carding her fingers through her hair. “I don’t know what I thought.”

That fucking him would fix it. Or explain the things that have gone wrong in her life when everything else is going right. Mick Lange’s magic dick solving all her Mommy Issues. All it does is make her want him more.

It’s kind of embarrassing in retrospect. How she threw herself at him. She should’ve held back a little. Been more mature about it. Responsible. But she can’t bring herself to regret the sex. Kissing him and touching him and taking him inside her. Now that she’s had him, she understands why he’s so damn difficult to forget. Sure, she’ll never really know what Mick Lange, rock star, was like in his heyday. But she knows that Michael Lange fucks with everything he is. Single-minded, attentive, and so damn passionate. And when he’s too spent and soft to slide into her, he’s happy to use his tongue and his fingers to make her cum until she’s just as worn out. He cooks and laughs and creates and makes love like all of it is art.

This isn’t the man Sheila misses. This is the man Sheila never got to see. Nevercaredto see. Just like she’s never cared to see Lily. She only sees everything Lily isn’t.

Michael tugs her close, spooning her and dropping his arm across her hips. “You can talk to me, baby,” he murmurs into her hair. “Whatever it is you brought here with you...you can set it down and let it go.”

I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.But she tries. It’s easier because she can’t see his face. The shifts in his eyes and the turn of his mouth. “She used to tell me my boobs were ugly. And tell me that hers were prettier and I got mine from Dad’s side of the family.”

She feels the flinch of disgust even before he blurts out, “Jesus. Lily, I’m—“

Nope. Don’t want to hear it.She shakes her head to cut him off. Then she rolls off the bed and comes to standing. She has to finish it now that she’s started. Has to get the rest of it out. “Dad wasn’t off the body-shaming hook either,” Lily says as she wraps her arms around her midsection. She hates saying this part. Even telling her therapist made hersouncomfortable.

“She told me your penis was bigger than his. That it was the best she ever had. Whodoesthat? Who says that to their kid? I was fifteen the first time she brought it up.” Sabrina pierced her nose at a sleepover a few nights later. Too bad it didn’t lance the festering boil of Sheila’s spite. “Honestly, I’m surprised she didn’t have a dildo cast in the exact dimensions.”

Michael looks as sick as she feels. There’s a gray-green cast to his skin. And his mouth is a thin, tight, line. He climbs out of bed and finishes the sentence she silenced before. “I’m sorry, Lily.”

Sorry.He’ssorry. Like any of this is his fault. Now he has two generations of fucked-up DeSilva women obsessed with his dick. Lily stifles a high-pitched laugh. She sounds hysterical. Maybe sheishysterical. Or, at the least, out of her mind. For thinking this can work. For hoping for even one second that Michael Lange can be hers beyond today or tomorrow.

He reaches out again to comfort her and she puts up a hand. “I’m not done yet. I wish I was, but I’m not. Because this thing with her and me...? It’s going to poisonyouand me. There’s no way it can’t. After we leave this place? There’s no future. Sheila will ask. She’ll compare. She will not let it go.”

“Sheila can go fuck herself.” Mick catches her palm, steps forward into it. So she’s square on his heart. Faintly feeling the pulse of it. “You feel it, baby? That beat? It doesn’t matter who’s had my dick. You touchedthis.You know how rare something like that is? Nothing and no one can compare to that.”

It’s as close to an “I love you” as Lily has ever heard. From anyone. Except he’s not just anyone, is he? This man she’s always known of and only just met. This man murmuring against her hair, stroking the side of her hand with his thumb. He smells like outdoors and leather. His eyes are the blue-black of a night sky. There’s a little gray in his eyelashes and brows. Billions of people adore him, but they’ll never be this close. She’s got a piece of him they never will. That Sheila never will. And he’s giving it to her freely.

“Michael...” Guilt and hope smash together like bumper cars in her chest. She curls her fingers into the warm skin over his fiery heart.

“You’re not your mother,” he says, fiercely. “You might look like her a little, but that’s all it is. On the surface. Everything under the skin isyou.” He’s more sure of that than she’s ever been. “You won’t let Sheila break you. Or break us. Any more than I will. Lily, I’m just starting to know you. You think I’m gonna let anything get in the way?”

I don’t know. Are you?Lily can count on both hands and her bare toes how many people her mother has driven away from her. Friends, boyfriends, girlfriends.“They’re too polite to tell you the truth, Lily-bee. I’m the only one who knows what you really are. Wasted potential.”The constant sowing of distrust and discord. Like Iago in Balmain and diamonds.

“You can count on me, sweetheart,” Michael says like he can read her mind. “And you can count on yourself.” His voice is a comforting rumble, sending soothing ripples through her nerves. “I want to hear you say it. I want you to believe we’ve got this.”

“Didn’t you think this was a bad decision?” she accuses. One last-ditch effort to undermine his gentle arguments. His unwavering confidence. “You wrote a whole song about it in, like, aday.”

He pulls back and grins at her, eyes glinting with amusement. “Don’t tell anyone...but sometimes I’m wrong. And first drafts are all shit anyway.”

Lily laughs despite how fragile and uneasy she still feels. “I thought I’d fuck you out of my system and my psyche. Get you out once and for all. This is not going atalllike I thought it would.”

“Well, thank god for that,” Michael chuckles. “Because I kind of like where we’re headed. Don’t you?”

Yes.That’s what’s so scary about this. “You just want more porch blowjobs, don’t you?” She tries to deflect, rocking her hips suggestively against his. Feeling where he’s half erect and not needing much encouragement to go all the way.

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