Chapter 4

Lilly

The vehicle screamed masculinity. From its elevation to the elegant but utilitarian interior, it surrounded me like a strong lover. “I’ve never ridden in one of these,” I said, running my hand over the dashboard. “It fits you, though.”

He looked at me sidelong. “Is that a good thing?”

I nodded. “I would take it that way.” In my mind I was thinking that it should be a flattering remark, but given how he behaved in the tattoo chair, I wasn’t sure what I was dealing with. Although I generally kept pretty much to myself, I’d had my share of dates, and they’d always seemed attracted. What was it about me that seemed to repulse this man?

“Then that’s how I’ll take it too,” he answered, a smile fighting his otherwise neutral face.

There was something different about this man. All I had to go by was the fact that he seemed quite closed and secretive. His reaction in the chair was unexpected, and maybe that’s why I overreacted. Natalie had been getting on my nerves, and that latest stunt embarrassed me. I think he felt sorry for me, and that was what prompted the dinner invitation. He seemed honest, and I didn’t sense anything dangerous about him, but then I’ve never gone to dinner with a serial killer before, so how would I know what to expect? I was letting my imagination run away with me.

“So, did you grow up around here?” I was trying to stay with safe topics. He had an unpredictable trigger.

“Yes, well between here and Lexington. We go back a few generations,” he said, and instantly I understood. I don’t know why I didn’t pick up on it earlier. He was old money. That meant his people had been permitted their eccentricities for generations.

Although Louisville had set the line between the North and the South during the war, it clung to its southern roots. Old money remained old money, and it stayed within its grasp. They seemed to operate under their own set of rules, ignored, if not nurtured by, the good-old-boy law. They were exempt from the trivial and yet clung to silly traditions like men’s clubs and women’s teas. They really were a mystery and would probably always remain so. I wasn’t one of them.

“You’ve grown quiet,” he commented. “Is there anything wrong?”

I shook my head. “No, I was just thinking.” I wanted to change the subject, even though most of it was silently being discussed in my own head. “It was a cold winter this year. Do you think that means a hot summer for us?”

He shrugged. “Never really thought about it one way or another. What about you?”

“I think it means we’ll have a horrible summer. Everything has a season and a cycle. But it always has to return to the norm, so excess cold has to be offset by excess heat.”

“That’s some deep thinking,” he commented, looking at me as we came to a stoplight.

I shrugged. “I don’t know about that, but it just seems to hold true.” I laughed and glanced at him. “You must think I’m superstitious and that I repeat old wives’ tales.”

“You said it, not me.”

“Two points.”

“Two points?”

“Yeah, you know. You get two points for digging me back.”

“Were we keeping score?”

“Now we are,” I answered with a wink. “By the way, I hope you don’t mind, but there is one question I really need answered.”

“Oh?” His face went neutral again, and his tone was guarded.

“What’s your name?”

He rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Where are my manners? I’m Bolton Symington, but friends call me Bolt. And yes, you may call me that.”

I nodded. “I’m Lilly Schultz.”

“How do you do, Lilly Schultz?”

“I’m well, thank you.”

Phil’s came into view, along with a long line of people waiting to get in. The overflow was seated at bar tables in the side garden, though I didn’t see anyone drinking. This place must really be good, I thought. Bolt pulled up to the curb and pulled out his phone to text. Less than a minute later, a man dressed in a sports shirt and dress slacks came out and stood next to the car. Bolt got out and came around to open my door. As I stepped onto the sidewalk, the Rover was driven away, and we were ushered inside through a side door. A waiter seated us at a table on the balcony overlooking the Ohio River, and that was when I realized how old money felt.

“I’m feeling really special right now,” I admitted, and that caused him to grin.

“You’ve never eaten at Phil’s?”

“Not only that, but I’ve certainly never bypassed the line and got premium seating.”

He shrugged. “Phil and my family go way back. In fact, it was my mother who backed him when he wanted to buy the place.”

“Your mother did?”

“Yes.”

“Sounds like a special lady.”

He nodded but said nothing more. I could tell it was an emotional topic, so I let it go. I wanted to just sit back, sip wine, and relax in the waning sunlight over the water.

Bolt ordered steaks for us, with all the trimmings. I was dying to cut my dinner into portions and doggy-bag it for the rest of the week, but I knew there were limits to what I could get away with. I couldn’t eat even half of the food, and it was with genuine regret that I watched the waiter clear away my plate with food remaining. My cell phone was buzzing in my pocket. Not just once, but repeatedly.

“Bolt, I’m sorry, and I know this is rude, but my phone is on vibrate, and someone is not going to give up calling. Do you mind?”

He shook his head and waved his hand to go ahead. Looking out over the water, I felt it vibrate again, and this time, I answered.

“Lilly? I’ve been trying to get you. It’s Natalie. It’s bad.”

“Butch, what’s wrong? I thought you were going to look after her.”

“I did, Lilly, I swear. I went with one of the guys to get more beer, and while I was gone, someone gave her something. I don’t know what, and they said a little later, she bolted out of the house screaming.”

I cringed as I listened and watched as Bolt got up and left the table, most likely for the men’s room. “Butch, where is she now?” I turned to face the river and hunched over the phone. I felt like everyone around me was listening in.

“I think she’s in the usual place, past the Outer Loop—that alley where we found her before. I’ve had too much to drink. I don’t dare go after her, Lilly.” He had that whiny tone, and I knew there was no point in arguing. That’s when I remembered my car wouldn’t start. I was stranded. “I’ll get there as soon as I can,” I told him. “Keep in touch and stop drinking, Butch. I might need your help.”

I hung up the call just as Bolt returned to our table. I pinched my lips together and sighed, looking for the words. “Bolt, it’s my sister. She’s, well, she has problems, and right now she’s in real trouble, and I need to get to her. I want to thank you for dinner, but I need to catch an Uber and get her.”

He frowned. “I won’t hear of it. I’ll go with you,” he said, flagging the waiter, who appeared instantly.

“No, it’s not pretty. I don’t know how to put it, but please, I would be embarrassed for you to see her like this.”

“I’ve seen far worse things. Let’s go.” He stood and pulled out my chair, taking my hand and leading me out of the crowded restaurant. I don’t know how he did it, but the Rover was waiting for us. “Do you have an address for the GPS?” he asked, his finger poised over the device.

“There is no address. It’s an alley. Just get on Outer Loop and I’ll give you directions.” I was upset and wholly embarrassed.

It must have shown on my face because he reached over and patted the back of my clutched hands. “It’ll be OK. I’m right here.”

I heard him say it but didn’t let it sink in. He was just being polite. He was practically a stranger. Strangers, especially old-money strangers, didn’t get involved in problems, and not with a family like mine. It would’ve been nice to let myself believe it, if only for a few minutes.

He followed my directions, and we turned down the alley. I saw her crashed between a garbage can and an overflow of two more bags. Her head was on one of the bags. Bolt pulled up as close as he could, and he held onto my arm. “Don’t get out. I’ll get her.”

I started to protest but realized he wanted out of there as soon as possible and didn’t want any angry sister scenes keeping us there. At least that’s how I interpreted it. Bolt felt for a pulse and nodded back at me. I exhaled with relief. He looped one of her arms around his neck and scooped her up with his other. I knew she couldn’t weigh more than a hundred and ten pounds. She was taller than me and looked skeletal.

He carried her to the car and opened the back door, laying her inside so that she was on her side over the breadth of both seats. He fastened a seatbelt over her waist and felt her forehead and temple again for a pulse. He shut the door firmly and got in beside me. “I think she’s going to be OK. Her pulse is strong and steady. From all appearances, she’s just asleep. I’ll leave it up to you. Should we get her checked out or take her home?”

“Take her home. I’ve seen her like this before. I swear she walks the line and one of these days, she’s going to just tip over,” I said, again, for maybe the hundredth time. I couldn’t even remember how many times I’d had to go and rescue her. Sometimes I couldn’t find her, and she’d wander in on her own.

We exited the alley and were soon back on the expressway, headed for Old Louisville, where we lived in an apartment on the second floor. The area had been the grand dame of the city at one time. It was still evident in the architecture and the multi-floors that were originally built to accommodate household staff. The houses sat close together and clustered around an ancient park ringed with roundabouts on the narrow streets.

Bolt pulled up to my building and then down the alley that led to the small, off-street parking I used for my car. I remembered my car was still missing. “Oh god, I forgot about my car.”

“Focus on your sister. We’ll deal with the car later.”

There was something about the way he took charge that made my tummy tingle. It was intoxicating to think that a strong man would ever be in my life to look after me. I banished the thought. It wasn’t one I could afford.

“Lead the way,” he told me, and I leapt out of the car and started up the wooden stairs that angled flatly against the building to our second-story apartment. He followed, Natalie in his arms. Inside, I pointed to her room, and he took her in and laid her on her bed. I followed, and he left the room as I began to undress her, wash her with a warm cloth, and slide a gown over her for the night. I covered her up and closed the door.

Bolt was waiting for me in what served as our living room. We were somewhat lucky in that our building had a screened-in porch that led off our apartment. I loved it out there, especially in the rain. I could think when I sat out there in the night air. “Would you like an iced tea?” It was all I had to offer him at the moment.

“Sounds good, thanks.”

That surprised me. I thought he’d be trying to get away as soon as he could. “If you like, we can sit out on the porch. It’s more of a deck, really, but I like the sound of calling it a porch better. Always wanted a big white house on a hill with a wrap-around porch. Go on out—there’s chairs. I’ll be out with the tea.”

Nodding, he tested the door to the porch and stepped out. I didn’t blame him for hesitating. It was a ramshackle building, and wood did eventually rot. He must have found my candles, because they were glowing as I stepped outside with two tall glasses in hand. “Sorry I don’t have anything stronger to offer you. Can’t keep stuff around with Natalie…” My voice trailed off. I didn’t like blaming her, but the truth was, she was to blame.

“No problem. I happen to like tea.” I handed him a glass and took a seat on a lounge chair next to where he was sitting. We were sitting close—it wasn’t that big of a porch.

We sat quite awhile in silence, looking up at the stars, as people do at night. The darkness pushes away the self-conscious movements we all have and lets our hearts and voices share the space. It can become quite the confessional, and that’s what happened to us that night.

Bolt talked about growing up. There were as many tones to his voice as there were instruments in an orchestra, and I began to recognize each one. When he spoke of his mother, he was a flute. He spoke musically and with a light-hearted pride at her beauty, intelligence, and popularity.

“Where does she live?” I asked, thinking he sounded like he missed her and that maybe she’d moved to Florida or Arizona as people do at that age. Both states had huge horse farms, so it made sense.

“She doesn’t live anywhere. She’s dead.”

The finality of his words took me by surprise. It didn’t even feel appropriate to express condolences—that would have been too trite, too little. I let the heaviness pass before I asked. “Leila?”

He nodded, and his voice was thick and heavy when he said, “Not so long ago. I thought it would help.”

I reached out and stroked his arm. “You’re not alone. I get… Well, it’s not rare for people to come and have something like you had done. I think how wonderful it must be to be so loved that when you go, people want to keep you with them.”

We sat and stared at the stars beginning to fade as a cloud cover came over them. We were content with the silence.

“Your parents?” he asked with quiet respect.

“Gone,” I sighed. “Both of them. They wanted to see the Holy Land and the pyramids. Got caught in a bombing, and that was it.”

“I’m sorry.”

It was simple, and it was enough. I found it hard to talk about, even though it had been four years. I understood his pain.

“And your father?” I asked, thinking I might as well get it over with then.

“He’s alive, and he’s the son of a bitch who made my mother’s life miserable.”

There it was. There was the equation that explained his moodiness, the reluctance to be happy or warm toward me. It hadn’t been my fault after all, it seemed. I don’t know why, but it made me feel better. Maybe that was wrong.

“Live near here?”

“Family estate where I grew up.”

I didn’t need to ask the details. His voice said it all. “Natalie is older, but she took it the hardest. I guess she wasn’t ready to be on her own yet, much less with a little sister. She struggled and finally gave in to the wrong crowd of people. The drinking, the drugs, every vice you can think of.”

“And you picked up where she should have been,” he assumed.

“Pretty much. Natalie is a good person, underneath all that rebelliousness. She hasn’t accepted that Mom and Dad are gone. We never saw their bodies—never had that closure. I think she honestly thinks that one day a plane will land and they’ll walk off, smiling and arms loaded with souvenirs.” I shook my head and sipped my tea. “Some people just don’t handle things well.”

“You’re pretty wise for someone so young,” Bolt commented.

“I’m not that young. I’m twenty-four.”

“That old, huh?” he teased, and the mood lightened. I don’t think it was his teasing as much as it was the fact that we’d both unloaded the darker aspects of our lives and felt relief. “Well, I’m thirty. Much too old for you, you see.”

A few beats passed before I whispered, “I don’t think that’s old at all. I think that’s just about perfect.”

A sound like a cannon rolled in from the west. “Sounds like a storm coming in,” he commented, and I barely dared to breathe but nodded in the darkness. He hadn’t been flippant or angry when I said that. We were wrapped in a little world of our own, there on that eight-by-ten splintery porch with warped screens and a rotting roof overhead. To me, it felt like a castle in the clouds.

“I like storms,” I said softly as a flash of lightning necklaced across the sky. I saw him jump as the thunder crashed almost simultaneously. “Don’t be scared,” I told him, feeling his energy as clearly as the lightning that energized the nitrogen around us. “I’ve been sitting out here for years, and I still haven’t been struck.”

He chuckled at my mathematical prediction and extended his hand toward mine. “Well, since you are obviously a good luck charm, can I hold on to you?”

I rubbed his long fingers in answer, using my index finger to smooth circles on his palm. His lounge chair was nearer the railing, and the potted plants I’d lined up along it bent hard in the wind that rose. One fell over, rolling on the uneven floorboards. We both watched it and neither moved to save or rescue it. What was happening between us was a magic that couldn’t be interrupted.

Lightning shot upward into the sky again, and when the thunder slammed against our beating hearts, Bolt tugged hard at my arm, pulling me out of my chair. “Come here,” he whispered hoarsely, and I didn’t argue. He pulled me down to lie atop him, his fingers combing my hair, but only until he ran one hand upward and pulled my face down onto his.

His first kiss was tentative—giving me permission to withdraw, but possessive in its request that I choose not to. If he only knew that I couldn’t have been pried off with a forklift, he wouldn’t have worried. His kisses weren’t just skin against moist skin. They were pulsing flesh that pulled at my own. His tongue ran along the outline of my lips and then pushed its way inside, against my teeth, my tongue, and then stroking the inside of my cheeks. My eyes closed automatically as I reveled in the sensations and the response of my own body. I could feel his response—it was probing hard into my upper thigh.

He took my face in both of his hands, his strong, elegant fingers stroking my temples with almost musical repetition. The effect was delicious, and I could feel my nipples harden. I nuzzled his neck, and his hand pushed my hair back from my face. I opened my eyes and was startled to see he was staring at me—maybe it was more like he was absorbing what he saw. His hips pressed upward into me, and my mouth opened from the sudden realization that I wanted him, and he was offering. Looking him in the eyes, I nodded, ever so subtly, but it was all he needed.

The rain had begun, and it splattered off the railing and dripped from the old tin roof in a downpour that matched the passion we felt beneath. Bolt’s tactile fingers furiously began working at the button of my jeans, sliding beneath my panties, and when he found my pussy, he released a triumphant sound. I knew I was wet. I couldn’t be anything else.

The rain began soaking me now, my body shielding his from the onslaught. In a silvery quick move, he rolled to his feet, bringing me up with him. He grabbed the cushions from both chairs and threw them into the space between the chairs, lowering me down upon them. He straddled me as he pulled off his shirt and I saw the gauze pinking in the center from the marks I’d inked into his skin. I’d been so jealous of Leila, and now I knew how foolish that had been. His pants joined the rest of his clothes on the chair skeleton next to me, and then his body came down to cover and shield mine.

The fingers I’d already felt pulled off my jeans and panties then gently worked my blouse off over my head. He seemed surprised I wasn’t wearing a bra, but it only lasted a moment. He knelt, one knee on either side of my hips, and kissed the petals of my pussy, pushing them gently open with his fingertips as his mouth went down so he could taste the juice he’d so recently discovered. My hips did their own rhythmical rotation, rising upward to draw his mouth deeper, but shifting so that his tongue and lips would brush the most tender, sensitive flesh. I heard a growl from my own throat as the girl submerged and the elemental woman took her place.

I reached upward, placing my hands on his shoulders and commanded him in a hoarse plea, “Come inside me. Please, I want you inside me.”

He needed no further urging, pausing only long enough to position his body over mine. “Open your eyes and look at me,” he ordered and, while I heard him, my head could only roll from side to side as I waited for what I wanted to feel. “Watch me!” he ordered louder, and that time, it got my attention. His eyes were fierce, and his body a coiled bow that released itself as he plunged into the moist warmth between my legs. My throat ejected a startled sound as I felt him enter me, deep and full with no space to spare. He held like that, searching my eyes before he began to withdraw and then enter again, teasing me with the fullness I yearned.

“Don’t tease me, please, I can’t bear it,” I cried out, and his eyes registered surprise. The man became the alpha animal then, driving into me with a hard rhythm that left no room for me to answer him. Over and over he took what now belonged to him, withdrawing with an almost imperceptible hesitation so that I would rise with him in an effort to keep him seated. He never pulled out completely, but only enough to enter again from another angle that stretched my tunnel to its delicious limits. He was in control, and I could only cry out for more.

I felt the growing spasms rising from my spine and shooting upward through my nipples and into my brain. The storm outside had filtered inside, and I lunged upward, claiming every centimeter of his length to set my nerves afire. He stiffened suddenly, and his head rolled backward, eyes open to the sky as I counted the muscled cords of his neck. He was a soundless howling wolf, jerking as his own coming coursed through his body. If anything was more delicious than the sensations I felt inside, it was to watch the effect I could have on a man like that.

He expelled a deep breath and smoothly lowered himself onto the cushion next to me, pulling me against him. We lay there, breathing hard from the exertion, and the rain spray felt good on our heated skin. When his breathing calmed, he hugged me tighter and kissed me. “You’ll catch cold,” he muttered, pulling his shirt over my naked chest.

“Colds are from viruses.”

“You would prove a point at a time like this?” he asked incredulously.

“Sorry, force of habit. But, you’re right. I’m freezing.”

He nodded and sat up. Sliding his hands beneath my bottom, he lifted me as he stood, pushed open the screen door with his foot and carried me into my own room. He used his foot to push back the blankets—not too difficult since I hadn’t made my bed. He slid me beneath the covers and then climbed in next to me, folding his arms around me and pulling me tightly against him for warmth.

I nuzzled into the warmth near his underarm, careful not to touch the tender skin of his tattoo. I wrapped my leg over his so that his penis, still firm, pressed into me. I’d never felt anything so delicious. I remember closing my eyes, so I could hear the rain tapping on the porch tin roof, and then I drifted away.