Red Lily (In the Garden 3)

“This is what you want,” she whispered. “What you all want.”

The change was like a finger snap, the cold like a sheath of ice. He looked at her, and everything inside him stilled.

“No.”

“To penetrate. To bury yourself.”

“Stop.” Even as she rocked, arousal mixing with horror, he gripped her hips to hold her still.

“Tell her anything. Love. Promises. Lies. As long as you get between her legs.” Her thighs clamped him, long, lean vises. Hayley’s body, he knew, but not Hayley. Revulsion rose in his throat.

“Stop.” He reached up, and what was inside her laughed.

“Shall I make you come? Shall I ride you like a pony until you—”

He shoved her back, and she continued to laugh, sprawled naked in the flickering light.

“Leave her alone.” He hauled her back. “You’ve got no right to her.”

“As much as you. More. We’re the same, she and I. The same.”

“No. You’re not. She doesn’t look for the easy way. She’s warm and strong and honest.”

“I could have been.” Something else came into her eyes then. Regret, grief, need. “I can be. And I know better than she does what can be done with this body.” She pressed it to his, began to whisper erotic suggestions in his ear.

With sick panic burning in his belly, he shook her. “Hayley. Damn it, Hayley. You’re stronger than her. Don’t let her do this.” And though it was still something else that looked at him, though her lips were cold, so cold, he kissed her. Gently. “I love you. Hayley, I love you. Come back to me.”

He knew when she did, the instant. And gathered her hard and close while she shivered. “Harper.”

“Ssh. It’s okay.”

“She was—Oh God. It wasn’t me. I didn’t mean those things. Harper—”

Comfort, he thought, wasn’t the answer, not here, not now. “It’s you I want.” His lips skimmed over her face, and his hands began to stroke her warm once more. “Just you, just me. We won’t let her touch this. Look at me.”

He gripped her hands in his, and plunged into her. “Look at me,” he repeated. “Stay with me.”

The cold became heat, the horror became joy. She stayed with him. Linked.

SHE COULDN’T SPEAK, even when his head was pillowed on her belly and the whippoorwill had given way to the cicadas. So much churned inside her she couldn’t separate the shock from the fear, the fear from the shame.

He brushed a kiss over her flesh, then rose.

“I’m going to get us some water, and I’ll look in on Lily.”

She had to choke back words now. Pleas that he not leave her alone, even for a moment. But that was foolish, and impossible. She couldn’t be watched every minute. More, she couldn’t bear the idea that he might feel he had to watch her, waiting for Amelia to use her again.

She sat up, drawing her knees up to rest her brow on them.

She stayed that way when he came back, sat on the bed beside her.

“Harper. I don’t know what to say.”

“It wasn’t your fault, let’s just get that out of the way. And you pushed her out, or pushed through her, whatever the hell.”

“I don’t know how you could stand to touch me after.”

“You think I’d let her win? You think I’d let her beat us?”