I don’t know when I fell, I just knew I had fallen and there was nothing I could do about it. She was my addiction, my own brand of drug more potent than anything else I’d ever had. One taste of her lips made my body crave her. At sixteen, she had me twisted up over her. Every part of me wanted to own her, consume her, until she could see only me, until she couldn’t breathe without me. Until I filled her veins, the beat of her heart. Until she was as addicted as I was.
Hayden would have gutted me if he knew the thoughts I had about his sister; there was no one else in this world he loved more. He wouldn’t understand it, believe it.
Hayden had seen the way women chucked themselves at me, and how I took them up on their offers more times than I like to admit. How I used them, their bodies.
I didn’t understand her. She was 12 years younger than me, but with one brush of her soft lips against mine, she had erased everyone else before her. The way she looked at me, it was as if she saw me, not the name, me, the man. Every dark desire, every forbidden secret, everything! She saw it all.
That day in my apartment, as she begged me to let me love her, those words falling from her lips changed something inside of me. I had always been protective of her, but now I felt primal. My blood turned to lava, burning through me. Everything in me wanted to mark her, claim her as mine. The kiss two days earlier had sealed her fate. She was mine.
Hayden, my father, all of them be damned. One taste of her lips wasn't enough, would never be enough. She had caused a hunger that held my body prisoner, only satisfied by her. A need that left me feeling reckless. I craved to just see her, to be close.
I watched the love disappear and the hatred grow, almost felt relief from it, because I feared nothing but her. Gage is right, Lilliana is my weakness, my Achilles’ heel.
Everyone knew Jack was on borrowed time and my stupid, brave girl would defend him, die protecting him, because that's who she is. She loves fiercely with her whole heart. Once you’re in, she will never let you go.
I couldn’t claim her as mine; it would paint a big red target on her back. Too many enemies lurking in the shadows. So, I bought her. Yeah, a true fucking love story.
She saw the monster I had become and still searched for the man she once loved, the man she didn’t give up hope for. Even crushed, defeated, broken, she still held out hope for me. Even if she didn’t know it herself. Lilliana hated me, that wasn’t a lie. But love and hate are so close together, twins born from the same emotion. I hate her too; hate the way she makes me feel as much as I crave it. Like a junkie, I can’t kick her. I itch to feel that rush run through my veins when she fights back, holds her tiny chin up in defiance, to watch the anger in her eyes turn to a raging heat.
How her fingers hold on to me, the war in her eyes to push me away. But she can’t. The connection between us is too powerful.
I hate the sadness in her eyes, the questions on the tip of her tongue that she never speaks, the way her eyes search for the man she believes will save her, her prince. The way she pulls inside herself, but her eyes still show every raw emotion.
She thinks I disappeared for the last seven years, but I kept tabs on her, had Marcus follow her to keep me updated. When I wasn’t doing my father's dirty business, I would follow her like some sick stalker as she walked home from work. I watched the way her hair blew across her face with the breeze, wanting to get out and rub the frown between her brows, wrap her up in my arms, take away the sadness in her eyes. Yet she was always so strong. Life breaks people, it tears them down, takes chunks off them until they have no idea which way is up. Life hadn’t been good for Lilliana. She had fought more than most, and she didn’t bow to the storm. Instead, she watched it approach, stood steady, and held on as it battered her, threw her off course. The life she’d been handed, changed her, took away pieces of her and made her stronger. The woman I now see.
Of course, men showed interest. Lilliana wasn’t just beautiful, but something that was hidden beneath the surface brought out every primal instinct in you, caused every carnal desire to awaken. Made it hard to breathe when she wasn’t there. She is as rare as a black diamond.
Any of them that showed interest, I made sure they knew who she belonged to, put a quiet word in their ear. No one touches what is mine. What was always mine. Yeah, I was a bastard, and I never claimed any different.
It still shocked me that she kept her virginity, and after seeing her blood mixed with my cum, any doubt was erased. I would be the first and last to feel her heat wrapped around my shaft, hear those sweet moans and noises she made as I thrust inside her, filled her until there was no space between us. The one she writhed beneath, who tasted her.
All of it belongs to me.
Gage starts laughing, looking deranged with the blood-stained lips and teeth.
“You haven't worked it out.” He carries on laughing like a maniac. “You have been looking at the wrong person all along.” A cold feeling in the pit of my stomach starts to grow.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I shake him as if he’s a ragdoll. “Tell me!” His eyes roll as he fights the grim reaper coming to claim him.
“I was never the one with the dagger in your back. You should have looked closer. You’re not the only b—” The gurgles stop the rest of his words before he slumps to the ground, his eyes still open as death claims him.
I grab my phone, ringing Marcus, but there’s no answer. As I pull open the door, Iris is standing there. Her eyes widen at the sight of Gage on the floor, the blood that's pooled around him.
“Is he…?”
I nod, and she lets out a shaky breath, staring at his body before turning to me. “Is she the woman you’ve been messed up over?”
Her voice is soft, gentle, like a melody almost. I grind my jaw.
“Yes.”
I want to take the cruelness back. She doesn’t deserve my anger. Iris was thrown into this world after her mother died, with the letter claiming she was Gage’s daughter. She had been in the system for almost two years. After a DNA test, it was proved he was her father.
I had a seventeen-year-old sister overnight. She was a year older than Lilliana and came the following year after Hayden’s death, so she never got to meet them.
It was then I had an understanding about Hayden’s craziness over Lilliana. Why he begged me to protect her, keep her safe, without knowing my true feelings for his sister. I had said yes; he was my best friend, begging me, and I would have done anything for him. But it was also for my own selfish reason. Jack was a worthless piece of shit, never realised the incredible son and daughter he had. His life had been over long before he took his last breath. Hayden knew as well as I did the day would come when he breathed his last. What he didn’t know was that would be the day Lilliana would at last become mine.
Iris is sweet. She told me all about her childhood with her mother that loved her. She went from Heaven to Hell in matter of short days, thrown into a care system that had no time nor room for a grieving teenager. I expected her to be angry, scream and shout at the world for how unfair life was. Instead, Iris was sweet, shy, always softly spoken, a look in her eyes older than they should be.
Gage didn’t want her. A daughter was no use to him. He hadn't spoken more than a few words to her, but just like Lilliana, Iris didn’t give up. I would often walk in on her in his office, her running out in tears as soon as I opened the door. She craved Gage’s attention.