Worthy of Redemption (28 page)

“Fuck…” I moaned. “Stop, Lily. Please.” Now I was the one pleading.

She moaned as she sucked on her nipple, never breaking eye contact with me. When I thought I was still in control of myself, she stuck her studded tongue out and giving her nipple a full lick until the metal in her mouth hit the metal on her nipple. She groaned loudly and thrust her hips up as she did it repeatedly, making the hard bud grow impossibly harder. That’s when I lost it.

With a feral growl, I buried my cock in her pussy with one hard thrust. Lily cried out, but she didn’t stop licking her nipple. It was the hottest thing I had ever seen her do and I couldn’t help myself as I pulled out and rammed back into her again. I did it again, but harder. In seconds, I lost my fucking mind as I pounded into her while she screamed around the nipple in her mouth. When she switched to the other one, I wanted a piece of that action, too. I bent my head and my tongue joined hers, licking her hard nipple. I had never experienced anything like it in my life – the taste of her tongue and her nipple in my mouth at the same time.

“Shit!” I yelled as her legs wrapped around me and I fucked her with a maddening frenzy. “I’m going to come so fucking hard, baby!”

Suddenly Lily screamed like she did earlier and I could feel her cum squirting on my pelvis and coating my cock and balls. Her wet orgasm set mine off and I yelled incoherently and ferociously as I violently slammed my cock into her and started spurting semen inside of her. She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me as we soaked each other with our orgasms.

“Shit,” I cursed after my head started to clear. I started to scramble off of her, but she held me tightly.

“No,
it’s okay,” she said hurriedly. “I’m okay. We’re okay.”

“How do you know?” I questioned, looking into her gray eyes.

“I just know,” she gave a small shrug. “Trust me. I want to feel you inside of me a little longer,” she whispered as she cupped my face with one hand. “I want to feel the weight of your body on mine for a little while longer.”

I gave in. I buried my face in her neck and wrapped my arms around her. Her fingers stroked over the back of my head and down my back soothingly, but she never said anything about the tears that were soaking her neck and hair.

~Kyle~

I watched as Lily tried to hold back her tears when she met her nieces and nephew for the first time. Six and a half year old Gavin Jr. was talking a mile a minute about his Lego creations. Four year old Cora brushed Lily’s hair with a brush met for a small doll, but Lily didn’t seem to care. She balanced two year old Amanda on her lap while the girl stared at some kiddy show on the television. Gavin’s mother stood off to the side with Lydia, both women wiping away tears as they watched Lily interact with the children who were the children of the deceased love of her life and siblings to her deceased daughter. The children were all she had left of both Gavin and Anna.

Lily glanced up at me with shiny eyes and a big grin that made my heart lurch in my chest. She was so patient as the two older ones tried to talk to her at the same time, and she couldn’t stop touching them, putting her hands in their hair, holding their little faces, or planting kisses on their cheeks. I had never seen Lily’s face so lit up. She was glowing after the way we closed out our night last night, but this light blasting from within her was blindingly amazing. She dazzled and glimmered, shiny and bright. I had never seen her look as stunning as she did surrounded by those kids.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and started taking pictures. Some of them they posed for, most they didn’t. Even after she followed the kids into the family room to play, I continued taking pictures, wanting to savor these moments, as I was sure she’d want to, too. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the mother of my unborn child. She was going to be the mother I never had and I was so grateful for that.

“Can you build a starship with me?” Gavin Jr. asked after getting my attention with a tap to my arm.

Lily looked over nervously. She had never seen me with children. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I knew how to act around kids, but I didn’t think about it.

“Sure, buddy,” I said and went to sit on the floor with him next to the biggest bucket of Legos I had ever seen in my life.

“This is serious work,” Gavin said with the utmost seriousness I thought a child his age could have.

“Right,” I nodded, keeping a serious face for his sake.

He scratched his blond head absently as he talked. “Maybe we should build two starships. You have bigger hands. You might be able to build faster than me.”

“Possibly.”

“If you find some of Cora’s Legos in here
toss them out!
I don’t build
pink
starships!”

“Gotcha.”

I looked over at Lily and winked. She smiled and returned to being pampered by Cora and tickling Amanda.

Gavin talked a lot while building. I went into a zone, building my starship as Gavin and I had serious conversations about school,
ICarly
, Amanda’s pooping habits, and more. The kid could talk a hell of a lot, but I hung onto every word and proved I was paying attention by asking questions and sharing my opinions. When he grew quiet after an hour or so, I thought maybe he was getting tired. Our starships were enormous and we were still building.

“My dad use
to play Legos with me,” he said quietly just as I was considering asking him if he was tired.

I peeled my eyes away from my starship and looked in his litt
le face. I could feel the adults’ eyes on us, waiting for my reaction.

“I probably can’t build a starship as big as your dad’s,” I said.

“Yours is okay,” he shrugged as he stared at his ship in his hand. “Just miss building stuff with my dad.”

Fuck
.

“What
kind of stuff did you guys use to build?” I asked him.

“Everything,” he gestured wildly. “Cities, towns, boats, cars. I used to have a lot more Legos but when he died I got mad and threw them all away. Now I wish I still had them because they were
ours
.”

What could I possibly say to make him feel better? I couldn’t bring his dad back and replacing the Legos with new ones wouldn’t necessarily make him feel any better. Shit, I wasn’t good at this kind of thing, obviously. I’m Kyle Sterling, the Dick, not Kyle Sterling the child whisperer.

“You know what?” I started before I could even think about what I was going to say. “My dad didn’t build Lego cities, towns, and starships with me. My dad didn’t build anything with me. I don’t have nice memories like you do. I am so glad for you because you can remember doing fun things with your dad. When you grow up and have a son of your own, you can do the same things with him and you can say ‘my dad and I used to do this.’ And he’ll do the same for his son when he grows up. It’s good to have nice memories even if you don’t have the person anymore.”

He looked like he was thinking about that while he fumbled with his starship. I wasn’t sure if I really said the right thing. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything and left it to his mother or grandparents.

“I have pictures of the stuff we built,” he said thoughtfully. “My teacher says that pictures are memories frozen in time so that we never forget. That’s cool. Why didn’t your dad do anything with you?”

I looked down at my pile of Legos. “He was too busy I guess,” I said, sparing him the truth, that Walter hated me even when I tried very hard to get him to love me as a child.

“Okay so don’t be too busy for your kids,” Gavin said with a shrug. “You can give them good memories.
This
is a good memory, too. Our starships are super! Mom take a picture!”

Gavin sat beside me and we held our ships on display as his mother froze this memory.

~~~

Four days after we arrived in Ohio, I had to return back to Philly to handle a zoning problem at the bar site. Marco was in California handling his own business, so I had to go to the site myself. I needed to get back to work soon anyway. Then there was the obvious, the manila envelope sitting on my desk.

I hired a full time nanny to help out while Rose, Lily’s mother, recovered. Whether or not the family decided to keep the nanny after a few months was entirely up to them, but I let them know I will cover the service as long as they needed it. I also made sure that both women had a way to get around until Rose was able to drive again, and I did end up buying Gavin several more containers of Legos and left them with a note that said “Keep building new memories.”

“You’re the sweetest dick I know,” Lily said, standing on her toes to kiss me.

“That’s what all the girls say,” I said, wriggling my eyebrows.

She punched me and went back to folding my clothes and putting them in my carryon bag. I was leaving, but I felt Lily needed a little more time with her family. She had years to catch up on with Lydia, and I wanted her to feel comfortable leaving her mother so soon after her heart attack, and she was so in love with the kids. I knew it was going to be hard for her to leave them when she finally did.

“So,” she started slowly. “What are you going to do when you get home?”

“After I take care of the zoning shit I’m going to jump on network for a while, see what’s been going on. I’ve never taken such a lengthy vacation before – except when I was in rehab.”

“What else?” she asked as I watched her refold the same shirt twice.

“What are you asking me, Lily?”

She hesitated. She absently shook the shirt out and began to fold it a third time. “What am I going to come home to?” she asked softly.

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully.

“You’re selfish,” Lily said. Her voice was still soft, but her tone was dripping with anger and pain. “You are so damn selfish. You just couldn’t leave me alone.” She looked at me, her gray eyes hard and cold. “I would have been fine without you. Anything I felt for you back then was tolerable. I would have been okay! Even though you were still hung up on Emmy, you
had
to have me and you didn’t care about the consequences.”

I was stunned to hear such similar words from Lily as I heard from Emmy almost a year ago.

“You don’t give two shits about the aftermath when you get what you want.”

“Don’t look so surprised,” Lily snorted. She tossed the shirt she was holding into the bag and moved away from me. “You got what you wanted,” she shrugged. “Now you can be on your way.”

“Lily,” I moved towards her, desperate to ease the aching in my chest, but she backed away towards the door with her hands up in a defensive gesture.

“Don’t,” she said harshly. “I know you want me. I know you love me, but you don’t need me. You still need Emmy. That’s why you cried last night,” She touched her neck with remembrance. “Because as strongly as you feel for me, you don’t need me. I’m not enough. I just wish I didn’t need you, too.”

Before I could make my feet move across the room, Lily was out the door. I raced out after her, but she was already half way down the hallway, running full speed to put some distance between us. I started to run after her, but a whole damn family exited a room in front of me, and as if coordinated, the family across the hall came out, too. They stood in the middle of the hallway chattering, blocking me from Lily. By the time I got through the cluster fuck, Lily was gone and I wasn’t sure if she had taken the stairs or the elevator. I ran into the stairwell and could hear faint footsteps racing down the stairs.

“Lily!” I called after her as I raced down the stairs. “Stop!”

By the time I reached the first floor, she was nowhere in sight. I ran outside, almost crashing into a small crowd of people waiting to board a shuttle bus for some tour. I scanned the parking lot for the rental car I got for her the night before, but it was still there. I turned in a circle.

Where the hell did she go?

I thought maybe she was still inside, hiding out somewhere, but then as the shuttle started to pull away, I saw her. She was in the very back seat, watching me through the dingy window.

“Lily!” I screamed, but the shuttle pulled out into traffic and she was gone.

~~~

I missed my first flight out, trying to track Lily down. Lydia and Rose had not heard from her and I believed them. I stayed at the hotel past check-out, waiting for her to return for the car, but by mid-afternoon, she still hadn’t returned. I called her, texted her, emailed her and called some more, but my calls always went straight to voicemail and everything else went unanswered as well.

Her words ripped me apart inside. I would have been extra insecure if I thought that Lily didn’t need me. Was that how I made her feel? Insecure? Had she felt like she was in Emmy’s shadow the entire time? I couldn’t even imagine how that must have felt. The entire time we were together I was hurting her and too damn stupid to see it.

By the time I was on the next flight to Philly, I knew what I had to do. I had to burn the damn pictures of Emmy without looking at them. Lily was right, I hadn’t let Em go. I still loved her and my heart still ached when I thought of her, but it was Lily and our baby that I wanted – that I
needed
and I had to prove that. I was such a fucking idiot. Lily was the best thing that ever happened to me, accepting me as I was from the very beginning, from that first night I went into
SHOTZ
looking for Emmy. I couldn’t imagine my life without her, and the truth was that she kept me in line, kept me from burying myself in drugs, grief, and self-hate.

I had Corsey and Harry drop off my own car at the airport. I raced across the bridge to take care of the issues on the construction site. It took up more time than I would have liked. I wanted to find Lily and do what I needed to do to get her back, but the bar was for her. It was the only reason I remained patient, but as soon as it was over, I took off at speeds higher than lega
lly allowed to get back to the penthouse. As soon as I got inside, I took my phone out of my pocket to call Lily again, but it was dead.

“Fuck,” I muttered, dropping my bag by the door. I went down the hall to my office so I could plug my phone in and maybe jump online to see what was happening at work.

The manila envelope was on the center of my desk, seemingly the biggest thing in the room. I tried my best to ignore it, setting my laptop on top of it as I fired it up and plugged in my phone. I jumped on the Sterling network and started sifting through my emails, a job I would have assigned to Lily. It was tedious and time consuming, something I never had time for, but Lily was MIA and even if she wasn’t, I wouldn’t have taken any time away from her family to make her work.

I threw myself into the task, responding to emails that needed responding to, flagging others that needed more attention at a later time, and deleting junk. A couple of private instant messages popped up from people in the office. No one sent me messages to ask me how my vacation was or to chit chat – I wasn’t th
at kind of guy at work, but there were things that needed my immediate attention. I talked to Brian, my newest employee who works directly under me, for a long time about some important matters. I got a new email from Warrick and sighed loudly when I read it. Traveling is part of my job, but now they wanted me to go help build my same department in the U.K. headquarters. I knew from experience that it wasn’t a request, but a command.

I couldn’t go to the U.K. until Lily and I were where we needed to be. I needed her with me, at least figuratively if not physically across the pond with me. I picked up my phone to call her again and saw that I had a message from her. I scrambled to unlock the phone so I could listen to it.