Finding Lily. Vivacia Ahwen K.

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       CHAPTER 1

       Room for Discussion

      By the time we returned to Agassiz Street, Dorian’s eyes were glittering with excitement. The entire cab ride over, between talking about how great my mother was and stroking my thigh, he kept repeating something about another surprise waiting for me. At this point in our not-relationship, I’d already had enough surprises, but when I mentioned this to him he insisted that this one was extra special.

      ‘Is it the library?’ I asked, referring to his promise to turn the empty efficiency next door into a conservatory of sorts. ‘Because most of my books are still at Ma’s in Chiquita boxes.’

      ‘Oh, trust me, I noticed the banana boxes in your bedroom,’ he said, opening my car door. ‘I don’t miss much.’

      ‘So I’ve noticed.’

      He grasped my hand in his and we dashed up the granite steps together. Without a word we just kept running and clunking our way up stairs 300 years older than us, as though we were racing; always a competition with the pair of us. As his legs were so long, he took two steps for my every one, which meant he was half-dragging me, and I felt the desperate need to keep up.

      When we reached the top floor, I was panting, but managed to say, ‘I thought this was the apartment you were renovating for yourself.’

      Much to my chagrin, Dorian had bought my building, only a few days after we met. He planned to turn the four apartments upstairs into a large single suite, where he might stay, every now and again. Perfect for the weekends when I visit you, don’t you think, Lily?

      No, I certainly do not think. This has officially been established as another line of bullshit, given the latest string of events.

      I was still not sure what to make of his persistent rocking and wrecking my world, his desire for entire possession. The submissive part of me, the prey to his hunter? Loved it. The other, independent, private side of myself – the strong spirit within me whom Dorian had rarely encountered at that point – felt more violated than anything else. Despite his prior claims, Dorian Holder did not own me. Well, we’d made no 24/7 agreement, anyway. And things were happening too fast, with too few discussions. And we all sooooo love ‘big talks’, right? You know, the ones where everyone walks away kind of pissed off, nothing is quite resolved, but it all ends in overcompensating ‘I’m kind of sorry’ sex. Something told me it never occurred to Dorian that he would have to over-accommodate in the bedroom, or against the wall, as the case would likely be. He took far too much pride in his performance, and his arrogance made it impossible for him to doubt whether he would have to work for me to shatter at his merest touch.

      I was more than curious to see where this might lead us.

      So.

      Despite our minimal verbal explorations, here we were, embarking on something that could go wonderfully right or dreadfully wrong. There was no turning back. The day-to-day sensibility said Run like hell, if you can’t turn around. If only my base desires and day-to-day sensibility could have had a sit-down, compromise, shake hands, and leave me to my own devices.

      But there will always be the ongoing conflict, and – as with any two people trying to understand each other – the unspoken, the assumed, the emotions that never quite meet in the middle. Granted, I had quasi-committed to have this love – er, I mean, sex – arrangement continue after Dorian returned to Colorado in a few weeks. But I also had mixed emotions about knowing that the top floor of my home would be his whenever he felt like it.

      If he ‘chose to do so’.

      I remained unconvinced that he would make good upon his suggesting we continue this little game in the future. Maybe he’d change his mercurial mind before you could say ‘commitment issues’.

      April was not over yet. There would still be skiing in Aspen, where his sister Beatrice Collins owned a resort, where he would surely visit, and I have no experience on the slopes … which counts me out. There were likely many ripe-and-ready ski bunnies, and Dorian loved a wild snow-and-surf kind of girl. Nothing could be further from that but me, raised a few blocks from the gaudy, sketchy sprawl of Route 9 businesses in Revere, Mass.

      Tar. Cement. Run-down ranch houses. Box stores.

      For now, since we’d never been clear enough in either way, I was his property.

      He fucking owned where I lived.

      He owned where I worked.

      And the part of me that was thrilled by all of this was in conflict with the Lily DeWitt I was growing into. Simultaneously, I was growing, somehow, in the midst of all of the glorious disaster, possibly in part because of said debacle.

      I wanted to be his.

      I wanted him to be mine.

      Pretty sure it went both ways, but this bullshit is what happens when a man and a woman run the risk of falling in love, rather than saying, Sayonara, you fucking dink. Sometimes drama is exactly what a girl wants and needs.

      Seeing how Dorian Holder was given to whimsy, I took all his random questions, declarations and impulsive – erhm – stalking with a grain of salt. After all, we had discussed this to some degree, and he’d explained that reaching, hunting, discovering, possessing was not only something men might do, it’s an urge they had fought – or not – since time began. It was an animal thing, is what I think he said.

      It’s all a blur now.

      If he wanted to renovate a building he bought, so be it. If it happened СКАЧАТЬ