Letters to Lily (Letters to... #1) Read online

  “If you keep looking at me like that, all hungry, I'm not going to be able to go slow…” His voice was thicker, deeper, than I'd ever heard it before. The sound alone sent a thrill threw me that had things tightening in my lower belly and heat flaring throughout my body. In the same moment his hands were on me again, tugging behind my back at something. I realized a moment later what he'd been doing when my bra fell free from my chest, and his hands scooped in to take the weight of them in his palms. “So goddamn beautiful,” he whispered in husky reverence before placing open mouth kisses down my neck, and further, tracing my collarbone until his lips met my breasts. As his mouth latched onto me in a place where no one else had ever had their mouth, I was done for. My legs gave out and he swooped me up in his strong arms, walking me backwards to the bed that was directly behind us.

  He laid me down there on some stranger's bed, and proceeded to worship my body with his hands, his mouth, and his everything until my panties magically melted from my body, and he was sinking deep inside me. My harsh intake of breath and the tears that swelled and fell from the corner of my eye were dead giveaways for what he'd just taken from me. I'm sure he felt the give inside as well when my innocence broke away.

  Kade stopped for a moment and just looked at me. I couldn't understand what I was seeing in his face at that moment. If I had to put it to words, that emotion would be sweet torture. He looked lost and found all at once. “Sasha,” my name was a whisper from his lips, and I didn't want the night to end with regret so I pumped my hips up into him, causing him to seat himself deeper into me. The hiss of air that came from him then let me know that my body had the desired effect. It distracted him from whatever internal struggle had been taking place.

  He leaned into me then, his face buried in my neck where he placed the sweetest kisses as he moved in and out of me. “Sweet, sweet Sasha…” his words were burned onto my skin with those kisses as he made love to me. My heart was full to bursting in that moment. Maybe that was why the pain didn't seem to linger. The discomfort I'd felt gave way to something different. A fullness I'd never known possible before, as if he was a piece of me that had been missing, and finally found his way home. A tingling good kind of burn started low in my belly as he continued moving, and before I knew what was happening I was lost to the sensation, completely drifting off into another world where only bliss existed. “Oh God, Sasha,” his voice brought me back and then he I felt the warmth as he emptied himself into me, his weight crashing down for a moment on top of my body. I welcomed it, even though it meant I was breathing shallow to accommodate the fact that my lungs couldn't fully expand. “Sorry,” he murmured as he realized and slid off to the side of me, rolling me with him. He slipped out of me, and the ache of missing him there was almost brutal.

  “Sasha…” he started, and I wondered if this was the point where he would express his regrets. I didn't get the chance to find out because someone was pounding on the door.

  “I hope you guys are done in there, because I'd really love my room back.” Some guy called out amidst a load of laughter from other partygoers who were nearby. As it turns out, we couldn't even be the lucky ones who snuck off upstairs in a frat house where no one would ever know about it. No, we drunkenly crashed into one of two downstairs bedrooms where anyone could see. The walk of shame was not something I looked forward to after my first time having sex, even if I did have my best friend by my side for it.

  “I'm sorry,” he whispered to me. “Probably should have thought this through a bit before stumbling in a ground floor bedroom.” Kade kissed my shoulder and then got up, snatching our clothes up off the floor where we'd discarded them. At least he hadn't said sorry for the whole thing, just the choice of location. That was a start.

  Kade held me close to him as we left the room to more catcalls than should be appropriate. My face burned with heated embarrassment as we moved through the crowd and out into the night. I wasn't embarrassed to have been with Kade, just that I had always thought my first time would be a private moment, and instead all these people knew what just went down. Well, maybe not the significance of it, but still. Kade took us straight back to my apartment once we left the party. We were both lost in our own thoughts on the way back, making it a rather silent walk, but not an awkward one. “I'll call you tomorrow, Sash,” he said to me as he kissed my head and left me there at the door. Then he was gone, and we never talked about that night again.

  ~*~

  “Wow! I was there for most of that night, so I knew, but I didn't know. Why didn't you ever tell me that was your first time?”

  I shrugged at my friend as I wiped more tears from my soaked cheeks. “I don't know. I guess, everyone assumed I lost it in high school, and I never bothered to correct that because I felt so left behind.”

  “Were you waiting for him?” She asked the question I'd often asked myself when I told other boys no.

  I shrugged again. “I want to say no, that I wasn't waiting for him since he obviously didn't wait around for me. I guess that wouldn't be completely true though. I'd always hoped he would wake up one day and realize I was right there in front of him, begging him to love me every day.”

  Kristin turned for a moment and wiped a hand across her face before looking back in my direction. “I will never understand how you managed to keep all that emotion locked tight, having to watch him date other people all those years… God, and you never even burdened me with all of this. I mean, I knew, to an extent. I could see it, but I figured you were in denial or didn't want to talk about your feelings for him. I can't believe he never mentioned the fact that he took your virginity though.” She shook her head. “He had to know, right?”

  “I think that's why he never said anything. Kind of a sticking your head in the sand kind of thing. I don't know. It just plays right into all my insecurities where he's concerned though. Maybe he never said anything, because he knew he was bound to hurt me, and if he never heard the admission from my lips then it wouldn't mean as much later when he…”

  “I don't think for a minute that boy is going to ever hurt you purposely. I see the way he looks at you.”

  “Yeah? What way is that? Like the girl who has been his friend practically his whole life?”

  “No, like the girl he never plans to let go of.” Her words were a token offered up to my battered heart, but I just shrugged them off and looked down at the plastic stick that now sat on the bathroom floor between us. “Yet, here I am doing this alone… well, not alone, but with the wrong best friend.”

  “Thanks, I'll be chopped liver today,” she quipped trying to lighten the mood.

  “You know what I mean,” I told her as she pulled me into a tight embrace.

  “I do, and I will be here for you every day that you need me. I think he will be here too, as soon as he pulls his head out of his ass.” We both sniffle-laughed at that and worked on drying my tears better.

  “Now, we need to get you pulled together, because you can not miss class tomorrow!”

  By nine o'clock I was feeling better, even if my own anxiety was skyrocketing with each minute gone by that I didn't hear from Kade. Kristin was doing a damn good job of keeping my brain occupied for the night. We played stupid games, watched horrible movies that we could make fun of, and any other mindless entertainment she could think of. We also binged on fresh baked chocolate chip cookies and ice cream. Then my phone rang. I dove for it, expecting to see Kade's name and face appear on the screen. Instead I saw unknown caller. I answered, and was greeted by a weird recording about how I could help the starving kids in some third world country. I hung up. My phone rang again immediately, this time it was the police benevolence association, or some such, asking for donations. On it went until I finally got fed up at midnight and turned my phone off. By then, I had at least one odd call for every five minutes and my texts had blown up with crazy messages about erectile dysfunction, and a prince in some country I never heard of needing me to allow him to deposit money into my ba
nk account.

  “What in the world?” Kristin had asked me. I had no answers. “We'll leave early and hit up tech support in the morning, if it's still doing that.” I agreed, and then took my exhausted, emotionally drained butt to bed. I also thanked my lucky stars that I had been able to keep the cookies and ice cream down instead of bringing them back up the same way I had my breakfast that morning.

  ~*~

  “Yeah, her phone is going nuts,” Kristin was telling the tech guys when I finally tuned back into what was going on around me. “Hand them your phone, Sash.” I thought I had seen Jason, Kade's roommate, running across the quad, and I had nearly dashed out after him, but he was gone before I could even move.

  I obligingly placed my phone in one of the tech guy's hands, after turning it back on so they could see all the calls and texts coming in. “Damn!” One of the guys said as the other whistled. “Someone doesn't like you very much.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  “Well, I've only seen this happen to someone once before, and there's really no fixing it. The phone company will probably have to retire that number for a while too. This girl pissed off a sorority, and they added her phone number and e-mail to every spam sight they could, causing her to get a flurry of calls, texts, and spam e-mail like this.” He looked up from my phone then. “Might want to check your e-mail as soon as possible too. School and private.”

  “Damn it. Who the hell would do something like this? I don't even…”

  Kristin was laughing. “She never pisses anyone off. Hell, I think the last person she pissed off was a boy in fourth grade when she punched him in the nose.” It was almost ironic that Kristin brought up the same memory I had just been thinking of yesterday, but it was true. I tended to avoid drama and the people who caused it like the plague.

  “Well, honestly, it's the only explanation for something like this happening. Your number was tossed out to the universe and the universe was happy to abuse it.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Besides change your number and probably your e-mail addresses? Not really. Also, you might want to be careful who you give the new info to, and maybe even have your number set to private so that people can't get it from caller ID.”

  I was pouting now as the guys handed me my phone back. They had thankfully turned it off for me before doing so. “I guess I'll be heading to the phone store after class. Will you tag along with me?” I asked Kristin as we maneuvered beyond the throngs of kids waiting for the free tech support in the student store.

  “Of course, but for now, you better get to class before Professor Dan locks you out.” I looked down at my watch and saw she was right.

  “Meet you here in an hour?” Kristin nodded as we headed our separate ways. I couldn't believe I was going to have to change my phone number, on top of everything else.

  Chapter Two

  ~Kade~

  April 28 - I shoved my t-shirts haphazardly into my duffle bag. I couldn't believe my mother would ever think it was a good idea to sell her house, move to Nevada, and think she could start fresh with my philanderer of a father. He'd left us for his secretary, who was only three years older than I was, when I was a junior in high school. He'd picked up and high tailed it back to Nevada with his new girlfriend who, rumor had it; he'd managed to knock up. Apparently he'd been diddling her long enough that it was questionable whether there had been any laws broken by the act. The fact that I never actually heard about a baby brother or sister said a lot about my dad, or dispelled the rumors. Honestly, there was no telling.

  Here I was about to hop on the “crazy plane” to go save my mom from herself, possibly meet a half-sister or brother I wasn't aware I had, and maybe if I was lucky, I could drop kick my dad into another reality where he couldn't hurt our family anymore.

  “Hey man,” I called out to my roommate, Jason, when I heard him come through the front door of our apartment.

  “Yeah, what's up?” He called before he walked into my room and saw the shit storm I'd cycled through while trying to pack on the fly. “Aw man,” he huffed out dejectedly. “She's got you moving out without notice now, bro?”

  I rolled my eyes, well aware that Jason overheard some of my argument the night before with my girlfriend Sasha. I wanted her to move in with me starting next semester, and she refused to live with me so long as Jason still lived here too. I knew he was home, and could probably hear through the thin walls of our apartment, but I had hoped to be able to talk to him about new living arrangements after I hashed things out with Sasha. That hadn't happened yet. I had been giving us both time to cool down until I got the frantic call from my mother about everything going to hell in a hand basket across the country.

  The fact was, I felt like I owed Jason, a lot. He'd been there, and helped me smooth over the mess my dad left behind when we were in high school. “Nah, man, my mom went off the deep end. My asshole father convinced her to sell the house here and move out there so they could try again.”

  “Shit man, so he needs money and she's a sucker still, huh?”

  “Pretty much,” I heaved out a sigh. “I have to go get her and bring her back, hopefully before she hands over all of her money to the prick.” I was stuffing my pants into my bag now. “We do need to talk about the roommate situation when I get back though. I plan on asking her to marry me, man. I can't start a marriage with a roommate in the house too.” I watched as Jason's face fell. While I felt I owed him for helping me out all those years ago, I think I was all he had left in the world. His dad had run out on him when he was young, and his mom died shortly after. Jason had been living in a group home when we first became friends in high school. I knew I was the closest thing to family he had, but he had to understand that even biological families move out. That didn't mean they didn't keep in touch.

  I tried to soften the blow. “Don't worry, it won't be anything immediate. I was going to move her in this summer, but it would probably be better to wait for fall semester. Then, the lease here is up. That way if you need to find a smaller place or another roommate it won't be as crazy a transition, and it gives us both time to find a place, you know?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Jason replied before heading into my en-suite bathroom.

  “Hey,” I called out once I finished packing the rest of my clothes. “Is my phone in there? I need to jet or I'm gonna miss my flight and I still need to call Sasha, and let her know what's up. Hell, I probably need to charge my damn phone too by now.”

  I heard a crash in the bathroom then and water splashing followed by a string of curse words from Jason. “Dude,” he called out. The door cracked open and he had a guilt-riddled expression on his face. “I'm so sorry, man.” Apparently my phone had just gone for a swim in the bottom of the toilet. The same toilet Jason had just been using.

  “Fuck!” I yelled. “You've got to be kidding me!” I snatched my bag up off the bed, looking at my clock on the bedside table. “I can't miss this flight. Text Sash for me, explain what's going on and tell her I'll call as soon as I can grab a new phone after I get there.”

  “Will do, brother.” Jason gave me a half hug and pat on the back before sending me off with a quick, “safe flight, man!”

  ~*~

  Being back in Vegas, even at the airport, sucked. I thought I'd miss it when I left all those years ago, but the truth was I hadn't thought about it since the day I found my new best friend in Northbrook, North Carolina. I'll never forget the day I was standing there watching this little spitfire of a girl take up for me with the boys in our class. She called all the girls out for their bad behavior too, but the best part was when she punched Johnny in the face and made his nose bleed. If I was ever to be honest with myself, I'd say she stole my heart that day. I knew she didn't see me that way though. Hell, she was the only girl in our grade, and some other grades, who wasn't trying to make me her boyfriend back then. I had kissed her that day anyway. It was only on the cheek, and lord knew I wan
ted it to be her lips in a bad kind of way, but I didn't want to ruin something that I knew would be special with her.

  We were inseparable from that day on, and I never thought about Nevada, or why we'd left, again. Standing in an airport in Vegas now, I thought back to the fights I'd overheard between my parents back then. My dad had cheated - not for the first time; my mom had given him an ultimatum. Either we moved back to her hometown in North Carolina and try to start fresh, or she was going to take him to the cleaners for everything he had. Dad, being the insufferable prick that he is, chose to keep his assets close, and his family closer. In truth, the vast majority of money in our family was my mom's. Her parents had been very wealthy and left her with quite a large chunk of change in a trust fund that was covered under a pre-nuptial agreement they made her sign before she got married. My dad could only touch parts of that money so long as they were still married. My grandparents were both brilliant and stupid for the pre-nup business. Brilliant because they obviously all ready saw through my dad's bullshit. Stupid, because those stipulations managed to tie my dad to us for as long as humanly possible.

  I took in a deep breath, and let it out as I spun around looking for my mom who was supposed to be here to pick me up. I waited for another twenty minutes and decided to find a phone to call her. “Mom, where are you? I landed twenty minutes ago.”

  “I'z been tryin'a call, but shurr phone keeps saying your voicemail is full,” she huffed at me. “Myes hurt in the lit. I can't drive to come getzzz you.” She was slurring her words, so I had no doubt that her eyes hurt in the light because of whatever it was she had taken. Probably some of her Xanax mixed with whatever liquor the hotel room had stocked in her mini-fridge. I rolled my eyes, not that she could see the gesture, but it still made me feel a tad better about the situation.