The Shooting (15 page)

Brady shrugged and remained silent. It was the first time she’d mentioned the “talk” word since it happened. Dread stirred in his gut. This wasn’t going to be good.

“Please, Brady. I’m trying to understand. What happened? How did it come to this? Is this about me and your dad? The fact that we’ve split up?” She sighed quietly before continuing.

“Unfortunately, it takes time to sort things out when a marriage falls apart. It can’t have been easy on you, having to front up to the court time and time again to talk about our life. It hasn’t been easy on any of us. I wish—”

He rolled over to face her and lashed out angrily. “It’s got nothing to do with you and Dad Why do you always think it has something to do with you? The world doesn’t revolve around you.” He ignored the hurt on his mother’s face and his anger ratcheted up another gear. He clenched his fists and shot her an accusing stare.

“I
told
you about those bullies. I told you how they were giving me a hard time. I begged you to switch my classes, so I didn’t have to face Ian Little every day. Every second of my life was a living hell and you didn’t want to know. You told me to ignore them, not to give them the time of day. To walk away, to avoid them.

“Well, guess what, Mom? It didn’t work. It didn’t matter what I did, they found me anyway. They’d spill my soda and force me to drink it up from the floor. They’d call me gay boy and insinuated that Dad had left because he couldn’t stand the sight of me. As if that wasn’t bad enough, they’d corner me in the bathroom and piss all over me. I couldn’t take it anymore, Mom: the stares, the laughter, the name calling. ‘Brady Sutton has a weenie like a button, does he like girls, does he like boys, he cries like a baby when you take his toys.’ Ian Little was the ringleader, but the others were almost as bad.”

He drew in a ragged breath, gasping from the strength of his anger and pain. “I
tried
to talk to you about it, Mom, I did, but you didn’t want to know.”

“No!”
His mom shook her head. Tears streamed down her face.

“Yes!”
he shouted. “In the end, I had no choice. Not even my mother would help me. My own mother couldn’t make them stop and she was the deputy principal.” He dragged in another breath and all at once, felt calmer. “The only one who could make them stop was me.”

His mother gasped on a sob. “But you didn’t, Brady! You didn’t make them stop! Cory James wasn’t even there that day and Ian Little was thankfully left unharmed. Mrs Munro threw herself in front of him and now she’s lying in the ICU. An innocent woman, Brady. A teacher, a mother and a friend. How could you do it?”

Grief and despair rushed through him and he blinked back a flood of hopeless tears. He pleaded with his eyes for his mom to understand. When he found the strength to reply, his voice was cracked and broken.

“How could I not, Mom? How could I
not
?”

* * *

Lily struggled to breathe through the fire in her stomach. The pain was almost unbearable. Surely she was in a hospital? Where were the doctors and nurses? Anybody? Why wasn’t her pain being managed? Her belly felt like it had been attacked with a thousand heated knives. There wasn’t a part of her that didn’t hurt.

She blinked and tried to open her eyes. She could tell from the feel of the mattress beneath her that she was lying on a bed and the sharp smell of antiseptic filled the air. She must be in hospital. There was nowhere else she could be. She just wished they’d increase her pain medication. Right now, it felt like she was existing on nothing.

She tried once again to open her eyes and this time, managed to lift her lids enough so that she could make out the shape of a man beside her.

Tom.
It was Tom. He was stretched out in a chair and his eyes were closed. His head had tilted forward until his chin nearly rested on his chest. It looked like he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days and his clothes and hair were rumpled. She’d never seen him looking so unkempt.

Tom.
Her husband, the love of her life. He was here, watching over her, protecting her. Like he always did. Her heart swelled with love and her eyes flooded with tears. She was alive and the man that she loved was beside her. With a soft sigh, she drifted back to sleep.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Seventeen years earlier

Lily rolled over and draped her arms around Tom’s neck. She tilted her head and pressed a kiss against his hair. He continued to nuzzle her neck and her shoulders and she shivered from the heat of it. They’d been together for six weeks, spending every available minute together and yet, her body still craved his touch. It was probably like an ice hit was to a drug addict. She’d been on a high since their first night together. Every minute of every day would have been perfect, if her period wasn’t late.

She was only three weeks overdue, which wasn’t that long, but it felt like a lifetime. She’d been late before, but usually only a day or two. Never more than a week. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was beginning to worry.

She told herself she was being silly. They’d used protection every time. There was no way she could be pregnant. But in the dark hours before dawn when she woke and couldn’t get back to sleep, she wondered if she was wrong. Her breasts were more tender than usual and she was feeling way past tired.

She put the fatigue down to the last month or two, when she’d been up late studying for her exams and then partying down the end of the year. Her grades wouldn’t be as good as she hoped, but she didn’t regret a single moment she’d spent with the most beautiful man in the world. A man that was even now driving her crazy with his mouth.

Finding his lips, Lily kissed him with all the love and passion she held deep inside. She was the luckiest girl in the universe to have found him. Okay, he’d been falling-down drunk when they’d first met, but he’d more than made up for the aberration in his behavior. In all the time they’d spent together since, he hadn’t once taken an alcoholic drink. While they hadn’t spoken about it, the thought that he’d given it up for her made her feel special beyond any words.

Relishing the feel of his hands on her body, she pressed herself hard against him. She swiped her tongue across his lips and then licked her way inside his mouth. Her hand caressed his muscled chest and then teased his nipples into hard nubs. He caught his breath and she smiled in pure female pleasure. She was still such a novice in the game of lovemaking that the fact she could bring him to such a point of desire still surprised her.

“You’re a wicked woman,” he muttered against her lips. “You’re driving me crazy.”

His words filled her once again with pleasure and she vowed to increase her efforts. Pushing him down until he lay on his back, she straddled his hips. With single-minded purpose, she kissed her way across his chest and then all the way down to his stomach. It was washboard flat and tense with anticipation. Like he’d done with her in the past, she paused to dip her tongue into his bellybutton and was rewarded with a moan of appreciation.

“Like I said, you’re a wicked woman.”

“I’m only just getting started,” she teased. “You haven’t seen anything yet.” He groaned again and she chuckled in delight, more than pleased with his reaction.

His erection lay thick and hard against the nest of hair below his abdomen and she reached for it with eagerness mixed with nerves. It was the first time she’d found the courage to go down on him and she was a little worried her inexperience would show. Still, she wanted to experience all that there was with the man she was in love with and with that thought in mind, she reached for him and closed her hand around his hardness.

His gasp of pleasure gave her the confidence she needed to open her mouth around his cock. His skin was warm and silky and yet so very firm to the touch. It was an interesting combination and liquid heat stole down to her core. She raised and lowered her mouth over him and with her free hand, cupped his balls.

Tom groaned again and stared at her with desire-filled eyes. “You’re killing me, Lily. I’ve died and been catapulted off to heaven.”

Smiling, she renewed her efforts and added her other hand to the mix. She sucked and squeezed his thick cock and fondled his heavy balls.

All at once, he pulled away from her and reached down to drag her up his body. The feel of his erection against the softness of her belly elicited a gasp of her own.

“Two can play at this game,” he murmured and she shivered with anticipation at the roguish glint in his eyes.

He kissed her thoroughly on the mouth, taking what he wanted without pause. Her heart pounded from need. Releasing her mouth, his lips skimmed over her breasts and then moved lower over her stomach. One hand fondled a breast and the other delved lower into the warmth and liquid softness between her legs.

His finger slid over her silky folds and probed between the slick flesh. A moment later, he pressed inside her. One finger and then two stroked her in a rhythm that drove her wild. She squirmed then bucked under his attention. She voiced her need.

“Tom, please…”

“Please, what?” he murmured, his fingers continuing their sensual attack.

“I-I can’t take anymore.”

Tom’s smile was full of male pride and confidence. “Oh, but you will, babe. Much, much more.”

With that, he moved lower and his mouth and tongue replaced his fingers. Lily’s hips came off the bed in shock and delight. She clutched at the sheets and rolled her head from side to side, almost unable to stand the sheer pleasure he aroused inside her. When he raised his head at last, she was taut with need.

“Please,” she gasped.

“Please, what?”

“I-I want you. I want to feel you inside me.”

As if he needed no further encouragement, Tom rose from his position between her legs and moved up her body. His thick cock pressed against her entrance and her knees fell open in eagerness.

He reached across her to the nightstand where she now kept a supply of condoms and quickly sheathed himself. A moment later, he entered her and she gasped from the impact. His strokes were smooth and sure and powerful and she clung to him, riding the wave of excruciating pleasure until at last, she toppled over the other side and found her release. She gasped in relief.

Tom cried out and shuddered inside her and then collapsed upon her, spent. Lily slowed her breathing and enjoyed the feel of Tom, heavy and lethargic, on top of her. As if becoming aware of his weight on her, he rolled away and dragged her with him until she was snuggled up against his side. He pressed a tender kiss against her hair.

“I love you, Lily.”

Warmth and happiness flooded through her. She twisted a little and reached up to leave a soft kiss on his lips. “I love you, too.”

“Everything’s so perfect, I feel like it’s only a matter of time before something’s going to go wrong. It’s not right to feel so content.”

Lily thought once again of the possibility that she might be pregnant, but offered Tom a smile. “Don’t we deserve to be happy?”

“Of course. I just feel… I don’t know… Guilty or something. It’s like we have more than our fair share, you know? Our cup’s overflowing and all that kind of stuff.” A shadow passed through his eyes and then he blinked and it was gone. His arms tightened around her. “I don’t want to do anything to jinx it—jinx
us
.”

Lily laughed, but it felt forced. She waved his comment away. “Don’t be silly. Stuff like that only happens in the movies and that’s because they have to make the story last beyond the first thirty minutes. How boring would it be if the girl meets the guy, they fall in love and live happily ever after? That storyline doesn’t make for good entertainment or a ninety-minute plus movie.”

Tom chuckled. “Yeah, you’re right. Real life is often much more tedious.”

“Oh, so I’m tedious now, am I?” she said in mock annoyance.

Tom growled low in his throat and began to tickle her without mercy. She laughed and screamed and tried hard to get away from him, but he pinned her to the mattress and continued to wreak havoc on her body. Gasping, she begged him to stop.

“You need to be punished for your cheekiness, Miss Strickland,” he teased.

“Okay, okay! I need to be punished. It’s done. Please, stop. I-I can’t breathe.”

At last he relented and Lily gasped in relief. Tom bent his head and kissed her softly on the mouth.

“I’m happy to do tedious with you any day, Lily.”

She smiled and could have floated away on a cloud of happiness if it wasn’t for the nagging dread in her belly that things might be about to go way off course. No matter how happy or in love with each other they might be, she’d never let him stay with her for the sake of a baby. She’d seen firsthand with her parents how that had worked out.

Her father might have thrown alcohol and violence into the mix, but she’d never forget the number of times he’d screamed at her mother that he’d never have married her if she hadn’t been pregnant. Tom Munro was good and kind and well mannered. He was nothing like her father—yet. She couldn’t imagine her father had been the way she’d known him when he and her mother first met. They’d never have gotten together, if that were the case.

No, being trapped into marriage with an unplanned pregnancy changed people and men were affected most of all. If she were pregnant, Tom was just the kind of man to insist on them marrying and Lily simply refused to allow that to happen.