Chapter Sixteen
Lilith was snuggled into a bunch of pillows in the giant bed with her binky in her mouth and Flaps cuddled in her lap when her phone rang. She wasn’t in a big hurry to get back to the real world but she always answered Carey’s calls. Always. Mostly in the hopes that this would be the time Carey would say she was leaving that good for nothing fuckface of a husband.
Not that Lilith had a working car at the moment to go pick her and the kids up, but she was 98 percent certain that if she called Vance and asked if it was okay if her sister and kids came to crash in the cabin too he would either say yes, of course, or he would offer a better solution.
Okay, so maybe she was still in the afterglow a really good scene tended to give her, but what was so bad about that? And was she wrong? Maybe she deserved some fucking afterglow. Hers might be a spooky lime green or blood red instead of pink and sparkly, but it glowed nonetheless.
And it wasn’t smart to get attached to Vance. Even though she was pretty sure he was truly a decent human, she did know rich guys could turn on a dime and maybe he’d get tired of slumming it. Sure, she could enjoy the kink and the sex and the nice place to stay, but she definitely shouldn’t get comfortable. Even if getting out of this bed was the last thing she wanted to do.
Last night after he’d fucked her through hell and back, he’d removed the toys and her bonds and carried her back to bed. Got a few warm, wet washcloths to clean her up with, wrapped her up in a fluffy diaper that made her feel small and cared for and spoiled, tugged on her favorite black satin skeleton pajamas, and then tucked her in with Flaps and fetched her binky so she could suckle herself to sleep while he cuddled her. Made her French toast in the morning. Yeah, it had been pretty great.
Lilith reluctantly took her binky out and set it in the empty bowl beside her that had contained watermelon. Vance hadn’t been bullshitting her about taking her to the grocery store and now she had more food in the house than she could probably eat. She shook her head, but a stupid smile pulled at the corner of her mouth.
“Hey, Care-Bear, what’s up?”
“Why don’t you tell me? I was in the neighborhood so I stopped by Lake Pines to see if you were awake, but apparently you don’t live there anymore?”
Hmm, yeah, right.
“That is correct,” she admitted, sitting up a straighter in her throne of bedding.
“When the fuck were you going to tell me? And what the fuck happened? And where the fuck are you?”
“Oh my goodness, miss potty mouth. Such language! You’re a bad influence on me.”
Carey snorted and Lilith couldn’t help but laugh along with her. That was pretty far from the truth.
“You can’t distract me with ridiculousness. I have four kids, remember? I’m immune to absurdity. So spill it. All of it.”
Lilith settled back against the pillows, half wishing Vance was there. She loved her sister more than anything in the world and that was probably why she was dreading telling her the truth. Carey wasn’t going to like it but Lilith knew there was nothing her sister could do about the shitty situation she found herself in. Not that that would stop Carey from trying, and that’d make Lilith feel even worse. But she wouldn’t lie.
“Eh, Chester the Molester finally got too creepy. Made me an offer I could totally refuse but when I did, he fired me.”
“He can’t do that!”
She loved Carey’s outrage on her behalf but her anger wasn’t going to get them anywhere.
“It’s super illegal and disgusting if that’s what you mean, but what am I going to do, sue the guy? He owns the campground, there’s no one higher up to take it to and I can’t afford a lawyer.”
I’m just sleeping with one.Or, had slept with one? There’d been no indication Vance thought there would be a repeat performance. Then again, there’d been no indication he thought this was a one off, so who the fuck knew what that man was thinking? She couldn’t help but smile thinking of lifting the hay bale Vance called hair off his head to see what was going on in his brain. Silly.
“It’s a shitty, barely-over-minimum-wage job anyway, not worth fighting over.”
And definitely not worth getting on her knees for.
“Okay, but where are you?”
Lilith was glad Carey couldn’t see the way her face was squinching up and how she looked at the ceiling. Dead giveaway that she didn’t want to talk about it. Then again, so was this awkward pause. “Where are you” should be a very simple question. And yet…
“I’m safe,” she hedged.
Carey huffed. “Okay, that’s great. But where exactly is this being safe taking place? And how long have you been there? I talk to you every fucking day and you haven’t mentioned it, so I’m guessing it’s not great.”
The truth was that it was surprisingly great. Vance was great. Nothing like she’d expected and try as she might to guess what was coming next, her crystal ball was cloudy.
“I’m at Mountain View.”
Her sister issued a look-at-you whistle, and Lilith’s face burned.