Knock Love Out (A Sensual New Adult Crossover Romance) (16 page)

“I think there’s a star for every wish. That’s why there are so many.”

“What would you wish?”

“To know what Mariah’s skin feels like.”

I chuckle as his hold tightens. “Of course. I should have known.”

“I bet she’s like crushed velvet.”

My chuckling turns to giggles.

“Why do you love her so much?”

“It’s pure lust, Honey-girl. Just a stupid fantasy. And no—that wasn’t on purpose.”

My smiles quickly fades.

“What did I say?” he asks, noting my posture going rigid. I shake my head. “Don’t make me get the spatula, Lilla.”

“It’s stupid. Something Adam said and I don’t wanna talk about it.” But now he’s silent and I’m replaying the words over and over and my mouth fails me once again. “He thinks this is just a fantasy. That it won’t work between us.”

“Who loves you, Lilla?”

“You.”

“So who gives a fuck about Adam,” he repeats.

“I don’t like it. I don’t like that the beginning of us was started because of something ugly between he and I.”

“It didn’t.” Cash snuggles closer to me, kissing my arm again. “It started when I saw you being a pain in the ass picking through that box of cucumbers. Which, by the way, is my new favorite vegetable.”

“Fruit.”

“I think I was right the first time?” he says.

“If it has seeds it’s a fruit. Cucumbers have seeds.”

“English cucumbers don’t have seeds. What are they considered?”

I turn my head. “How do you know English cucumbers don’t have seeds?”

“I work in the fucking
produce
department.”

“You didn’t know how to pick out a ripe cucumber.”

“I didn’t say I had a Master Produce Clerk degree, but shit, I know some stuff. I’m not a complete slacker.”

“Where were we going with this?” I laugh.

“You had this fucked up notion that cucumbers are fruit.”

“They are, Cash.”

“Then a tomato is a fruit?”

“Yup.”

“Get the fuck out of my bed with your dirty lies, Lilla.”

I get those giggles you can’t stop. I’m not sure if I’m going crazy, or I’m just exhausted. He kisses my forehead, smiling in the darkness as I flip, rolling to lie on his chest.

“You’re warm, Cash, like, the best kind of warm.”

“You’re beautiful,” he replies. “Like, the best kind of beautiful. The sky.”

“Even though I know more about produce than you do?”

“Even though.”

I smile against his chest, closing my eyes to allow this dreadful day to say goodnight.

My new heart speaks softly, calling his name.

“Cash?”

Sleepy warmth answers, “Yeah, Lil?”

It’s also tender and afraid. “I love you.”

“Love you,” he drifts off, scratching rough fingers against my head.

I find comfort in the steady rhythm of his heart under my ear.

“Lilla?” he calls out.

I raise my head to see him. “Yeah?”

Sleepy warmth grins with his eyes closed, “Cucumbers aren’t a fucking fruit.”

PART EIGHT

CASH

Chapter Nineteen

“Who is that?” I point towards the break room.

Heath stands at my side, chomping on a green apple.

“Mary.”

“Mary?
Our
Mary?
Mary
-Mary? Mary who can’t ring up vegetables? Mary who says
wazzup
and touched my thigh the other night?
That
Mary?”

“Yep.”

“What the hell happened to her?”

“Cherry.”

“She looks
completely
different.”

“Amazing what a good make-over does, huh? I can’t believe you dipped out on us the other night. Such a cock.”

“I had an emergency,” I lie.

“I bet. Was it called
Lilla
?”

“Actually, yeah. She had a fight with her asshole husband. Needed
consoling
.”

“Your dick isn’t therapy, dude,” he replies.

“Not what your mom said,
Heathy
.”

“Har-har—good joke when I was two.”

I grin, “She was just as good when you were two.”

“Say
mom
one more time and I’m gonna shove this apple core straight up your ass, Cash.”

“Trying to get in my pants just like your
mom
?”

I dodge his fist, both of us pausing as Mary pulls her hair into a ponytail, the hem of her shirt rising, revealing her stomach.

“Still don’t want to tap that, Cash?”

“Mary could get a complete body transfer and I still wouldn’t put my dick in her. No.”

He laughs and then his eyes shift toward the hallway where Lilla is walking in our direction.

I shine brighter.

“I will have you know—” I dig out the piece of paper from my pocket. “Wikipedia declares cucumbers are
vegetables
.”

Lilla makes a face, taking the printout from my hand.

“Wikipedia is as reliable as a wet paper bag, Love Lump.”

“Cucumbers are a fruit, man,” Heath butts in.

“What planet are you two from?”

“Dude, everyone knows if it has seeds, it is a fruit.”

I toss the paper over my shoulder. “I am alone in a sea of uncertainty.”

Lilla laughs and I press my lips to her happiness.

“Can I have some too,
Love Lump
?” Heath shoves between us.

“No, fuck off. Lilla doesn’t want to kiss you.”

“I wasn’t talking to
Lilla
.” he rubs against my leg and I shove his chest. “Fine, play hard to get. I’m gonna go harass Mary and her new cleavage.”

“That’s sexual harassment’s exact definition, Heath.”

His hand waves me off as he strolls toward the break room.

“Hey,” Lilla tugs on my shirt, pulling me towards her. There’s something different when our lips touch. She isn’t careful or shy.

Eagerly bold.

Small steps ushering us down the hall, away from the break room, to the wall. I smile around her kiss.

“I don’t know what I did, but I’m glad as fuck I did it.”

“You don’t want Mary.” She whispers quickly, pressing for another kiss.

“Why would I want her when I have you?”

“Exactly.” She steals another free kiss.

Her hands go to the button on my pants. I’m twenty-four, getting hard happens fast. I can’t help it. But …

“Lilla,” I warn. “My dad’s right behind that door and I’m sure he’s looking for me. It’s truck day.”

“What happened to the guy who didn’t think? I love him.”

Tugging at my own words. My own soft-spot that leads to the complete opposite. Tipped on her toes, rubbing rubs that are perfectly fine in this scenario. Sort of. No,
perfect
.
Perfect
. Like a fucking cat getting a good scratch by the tail.

“Mm,” is what a bloodless brain replies, drunk with the need for more.

“I need the man who doesn’t think.” Her fingers pop the button, pull at my fly.

Something about the way my hands feel on the curve of her hips. How her mouth tastes. The vanilla scented skin she’s torturing me with. It’s been too long since I’ve played with her so intimately.

“Ah fuck,” I pant. “I’ve gotten in trouble for shit that wasn’t worth half of this.”

So small and easily she lifts into my arms, resting on my hips, to move us to the alcove within the hallway, near the drinking fountain. In love with how she clings to me, winding her arms around my shoulders. Mouth to mouth. Moving her underwear to the side so I can gain access to what I’m craving. Lilla rests on her feet again, as I slip away, resting on my knees. I let my middle finger slide slowly across her skin, to see if she’s being honest. Does she really want sex in the
store
? Maybe it’s just to prove a point – she can be like the other women I’ve fucked here. Younger. 
Alright, fine, let’s play. 

“You’re warm,” I tell her, looking up, as she stares down at me. She rests her foot on my shoulder to prove she’s dead serious. My middle finger sinks inside of her, “Like, the best kind of warm, Lilla.” She puts her hand under my chin, silently asking me to stand. My finger slides free, but my hand stays between her legs giving a teasing smack, before lifting her back onto my hips. Effortlessly we join, pausing for a moment when I reach her limit. As Lilla tightens her legs around my waist, the movement effectively causes her to clutch around my dick. I can’t stop. I can’t wait. She says my name to torture me, and to tip the scales in her favor.

My hunger for her kisses greedily down her throat. Each thrust is a promise to stay and love her. I won’t run away from Lilla and leave her like the other asshole people in her life who preceded me. I pray she feels it as I bounce her higher on my hips and forget where we are, who might see us. Caution to the wind toward being quiet and careful – for just a moment – as I fuck her fully, steadily. Lilla’s an idiot for trying to prove herself to me with a dirty store fuck. She’s
not
like other women I’ve fucked or have known – that’s the whole damn
point
.

 I know it’s exactly what Poppy told me not to do. A fire I should run away from. It’s the old question: If something is wrong why does it feel so right? I think I’m perfectly fine with being dead wrong. I’m beyond the point of returning to logic. I fucking love her like crazy.

I fall against the wall with her, smothering her mouth with mine in an assault of lust, love, kisses. I want it all over her. To fill her with what I feel inside of me.

A star? A wish?

I
wish
we weren’t in the damn hallway of the store. I
wish
this were my bed and I could go slower. I
wish
time could cease and this moment could go on forever. I
wish
I could appreciate all of the sounds I’m regrettably swallowing down to keep us a secret. Her whispered pleas for more. More. I
wish
I had more.

“I love you. Christ, I love you, Lilla.”

Her legs squeeze around my waist.

Forehead to forehead, “I love you.”

“You don’t have to say it because I did.”

“Didn’t.”

And this brave little girl looks me right in the eyes when she says it, watching as I tell her through a steady silent rhythm how I feel when she talks to me like that. Her mouth falls open and wishes … I
wish
she’d say it again. I
wish
she …

I hear the brakes of the delivery truck hissing. My fathering hollering my name. Closer. Too close.

“Shit,” I pull from her, sliding Lilla to her feet so I can hug her against me, and hide what was happening.

The stockroom door swings open. Claude is
pissed
.

“You’re supposed to be waiting for the damn truck, Warren!”

“Yeah, I was just about to come. Thanks, Dad.”

Lilla shakes against me, her head down but I know she’s laughing at that.

As intended.

“Whoever your friend is—she needs to get out of this hallway. You’re violating safety codes.”

“Yeah,” my chest sighs, fingers curling into her soft hair. “I know.”

PART NINE

LILLA KING

Chapter Twenty

“Let’s drive.”

“You said you’d work, Cash.”

“If you want a fat paycheck, Honey-girl, I need to think and to do that, I need to drive. It’s where my ideas come from.”

“Driving?”

“I like the speed.”

***

We’re in Cash’s parent’s garage. I have no idea where they are. His classic car is parked alongside a Mercedes. I walk to the driver-side door, but he isn’t headed for this car.

“We aren’t taking your car?”

He opens the door to the Mercedes.

“I want to smoke.”

The keys are in the visor, he swipes them, shoving them into the ignition.

“Are you sure Claude won’t be mad?”

“My dad is always pissed off. It’s part of his DNA. You getting in or should I bring you back a souvenir?”

I climb into the car.

Cash pulls out of the driveway quickly, speeding off with the windows down, lighting a cigarette as we get on the main road.

He pops the CD player on, ejecting the disk his dad had on and hands it to me. Watching the road he scans through stations until something loud with heavy bass captures his attention.

“This song was the shit when I was in middle school,” he says.

“Like a year ago?”

He pinches my cheek and then turns the volume as high as it can go, leaning back onto his seat as we hit the open road. The wind feels amazing against my skin, swirling my hair harshly so I give it a twist, mimicking his position as I press my head into the headrest to relax and enjoy the ride.

We’re twenty songs deep before he pulls to a mom and pop gas station.

We have Snickers and coffee and occasional kisses. We have orange skies and crashing waves. We have intertwined fingers and ten cigarettes less.

We have the windows rolled up and the side of the road. We have no room and not enough hands. We have tender words and dirty mouths. We have sweaty skin and bare chests. We have no need to be quiet or shy.

“You taste like nougat and my Honey-girl.”

I dirty flick my tongue across his.

“You taste like cigarettes and the best, bad idea ever.”

Sharp teeth nip along my jaw as I rock in his lap, swiveling my hips, in love with how he feels buried deep inside.