Page 89 of Anarchy Missing

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - CASE

“You’re gonna regret this.” I say it because there’s this little piece of goodness inside me that feels I should talk her out of staying. She’s too good for me. She’s nice, and smart, and deserves a man who will give her a good life. Not this shitty fucked-up existence filled with hate, and revenge, and evil I’m promising.

“There’s no room for regrets in life, Case. I’m not that kind of woman. I know how to make a decision and I know how to live with it. So don’t try to change my mind. If I say I’m in, then I mean it because I am that kind of woman. The loyal kind. And you’re right about a lot of things. Cathedral City is corrupt. What Blue Corp did to you guys was evil. And if you’re fighting against that, then you’re the opposite of evil. You’re the good guy, Case.”

I wish it was true. I really do. But it’s not. And that little angel on my shoulder is being shouted down by the devil who just… wants what he wants.

“I have always known you as that kind of woman. Since the first time I saw you back in high school. Yeah, my father asked me to take you to the ball as a favor to yours. But that’s not why I said yes, Lulu.”

“I know that,” she says, her voice softer now. Pliant and easy. “No sane twenty-one-year-old man would say yes to mandatory dancing lessons unless he really wanted it. Do you think I just chose you to take my virginity on a whim, Mr. Reider?”

I hug her. Tight. “I was honored, you know.”

She leans up on her tiptoes and kisses me on the lips, her hands sliding under my t-shirt, dragging her soft fingertips across my ribs and around my back. Our kiss is soft and innocent at first. But then I take her face in my hands, pressing my palms against her cheeks, and do it right.

Our lips part at the same time. Tongues begin searching for more immediately. And then her hand is on my face. Her light, warm touch makes me want her in all the ways I’ve thought about these past seven years.

When she pulls away, staring into my eyes, I have to stop myself from crushing her to my chest and never letting her go.

I haven’t had a lot of good things in my life but Lulu Lightly is definitely up there on the good list. She smells good, she feels good, she draws me to her in a way I can’t even describe. “The first time we met… do you remember?” I ask.

She nods. Smiles. Her hand still on my cheek. “I was standing outside the rehearsal studio waiting for you to show up. I had seen you before, of course. But it had been years because you were away at college. And I’m not too shy to tell you that when my father said you were my escort, I clapped inside. Well”—she blushes a little and turns her head, definitely a little shyer than she thinks—“I clapped out loud too.”

I chuckle just picturing her teenage self being excited at the thought of me. “I knew who you were too. I’d seen you a few times at cathedral services over the years. You just got prettier and prettier as the years went by.”

“I don’t remember seeing you there,” she says, squinting her eyes. “Or Lincoln, for that matter.”

I laugh kinda loud picturing Linc at cathedral services. “You sat up front with your family. I sat in the back. Alone.”

“Why not with your family?”

I play with a piece of her long blonde hair for a few seconds, trying out my answer in my head. “They never knew I came. They figured I stayed home with Linc. But every now and then I’d just get an urge, you know? To sit and think about things. I never really listened to the sermon or anything. And I didn’t know any of the rituals. Not well, anyway. I missed all that growing up at school.”

She crinkles her nose when I say the word school. I know it wasn’t school. But what else would I call it?

“But I liked the smell of incense. And the singing, I guess. The way everyone else knew the rituals. They knew just when to kneel and when to stand. It was automatic, you know? A part of them. They’d repeat phrases and say their practiced words at the end of a prayer. I liked it. It made me feel…” I shake my head, wanting to stop talking and get back to kissing.

“Made you feel… a part of something? Maybe?”

I blow out a long breath of air. “I’ve never been a part of anything, Lulu. Except Linc and Thomas. And maybe, if I stretch my imagination a little, I can include Atticus Montgomery in that group. I love Molly. And Sheila too. But that night with you, in that place…” I picture it in my head again, the way I described it to Molly that night she reunited with Lincoln at the SkyEye party. With all the girls in white and all the men in black. “The music was calm but fun. And the dancing was perfect. All those rehearsals paid off, you know?”

Lulu nods at me. “It was a very special night.”

“Yeah, night. The cathedral at night, you know? I’d never been there at night. I didn’t know. Just didn’t realize how fucking beautiful it could be. And you were happy. I was happy.” I laugh. “I think that was the night I figured out what happy was.”

Lulu pouts her lips at me, looking far younger in this moment. Like the girl she was and not the woman she is. “That’s kinda sad.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I know what sad is.”

She leans up again, slowly, watching me as she gets closer and closer until our lips touch. Eyes open. And then she parts her mouth and her tongue is inside me. We are holding each other, palms against cheeks, when everything turns urgent.

I grab her t-shirt, take a step back, and pull it over her head. My hands are on her full breasts, squeezing gently, then with enough pressure to make her gasp.

Our eyes never break apart.

Her fingers fumble with the hem of my borrowed shirt and I can’t wait for her to get it off me, so I help. I drop it on the floor next to hers and take her hands in mine, lacing our fingers together, and then wrap my arms around her back, pulling her tightly to my chest.

“If I ever try to talk you into leaving me again,” I say, voice husky with desire, “slap me out of it.”