31 - Intuition

Richie jammed his arm between elevator doors that were just before sealing shut.  When they retracted far enough for him to slide through, he smiled at the car’s lone occupant.  “Hey.  Sorry.”

“You’re fine,” the woman mumbled, crowded into the back corner with fingers curled around her suitcase handle in a death grip.  She snuck a hand up, wiping a subtle palm over her cheek as he punched the button for his floor and faced forward.

Wait a minute.  Does she look familiar?

He covertly glanced back, forehead creased with concentration as he tried to place her.  The face was one he’d seen recently, but it had been filled with spunk at the time, not desolation.

“Hey, aren’t you TBJ’s girl?”

She slowly lifted her head, and he could see the tears pooled there, ready to spill over.  “No.  I was just  backstage with him yesterday.”

“Yeah, I remember now,” he chuckled.  ”You told JB it wasn’t all about him.”  What was her name?  Some kind of flower?  Lily?  No, wait…  “Lilah?” 

“Yes, Lilah,” she confirmed, her finger sliding through the gold hoop earring and rubbing it.  One corner of her mouth slipped up her cheek in a vague semblance of a smile, but the rest of her features remained vacant and withdrawn. 

He frowned.  For the first time Richie saw the scars on one side of her neck and the fairly fresh cuts on the other.  He hadn’t noticed those yesterday.  Not wanting to be a nosy bastard, he asked something completely unrelated to them.

“What’s got ya lookin’ so down, Darlin’?”

The elevator dinged its arrival at the tenth floor and Lilah glanced from the open door to him, and back again.  She wanted to confide in him.  He had a sixth sense about these things.

“I’m a good listener.”

Both corners of her mouth tipped up this time, albeit wistfully, and she angled her suitcase onto its wheels.  “I’m sure you are, but there’s nothing to listen to.  It was nice of you to remember me.  Have a good afternoon.”

She was already a short distance down the corridor, but he couldn’t keep from trying one more time.  Holding the door open with a forearm, he offered again, “You sure?”

Heavy footsteps slowed, eventually stopping, and Lilah turned to look up into his eyes.  She blinked once, slowly, and said something completely out of left field.  “I was right about you.  That makes me happy.”

“Right in what way?” he asked, head cocked curiously to the side.  This girl radiated sad, but she also seemed determined not to spread that sadness, or elaborate on it.  Peculiar for a woman, in his experience.

“You’re one of the good guys.  I appreciate that, and your offer to listen, but I’m fine.”  This smile was the closest to a real one that he’d seen so far.  “Take care, Richie.”

Pausing, he offered her another silent second to say something.  When she didn’t, he shook his head sadly.  “You, too, Lilah.  If there’s anything I can do for ya, gimme a shout.”

He took a step back and the heavy metal doors crept together.  In that brief snapshot of time, Richie found out he was a nosy bastard and, before the car had climbed another floor, he had his phone out to shoot Tony a text.

[4:45 PM]RICHIE:  What’s the story with Lila? Somebody shoot her dog?

✧✧✧

Tony hit the send button on yet another email.  It was time consuming and awkward to try and conduct all the details of the new business from overseas.  In the end, the monumental pain in the ass would be worth it.  This gave him work he could do from a home base rather than traipsing all over the world.  He was eternally grateful he’d had the opportunity to do all that, but as he got older, it didn’t hold quite the shine and appeal it once had. 

It had been lingering in the back of his mind to move back to New Jersey, to be closer to his brothers and their families.  The proximity to his nieces and nephews would keep him involved in their lives and fill any void left by his own lack of offspring.

Anouk's reluctance to have a baby had bothered him at the time, but now he was glad they hadn't.  The divorce had torn him up enough as it was.  Tony didn't think he could've stood making a child suffer for his mistakes, too.

He picked up the bottle of whiskey and splashed another measure over the ice in the generously provided hotel glass.  About the time he set the bottle back on the desk, his phone chimed on the desk and he paused to glance at the screen. 

Richie?  That’s odd.

He didn’t have time to swipe his finger over the screen before the doorknob rattled and Lilah poked her head around. 

“Hi.”

“Hey,” he returned the greeting with a smile.  She looked tired as hell, but her eyes were shining brightly.  Call him crazy, but she looked happy to see him.  Call him even crazier, but he was kind of happy to see her, too.

“Okay if I come in?”

Tony laughed, twisting toward her and draping his arm over the back of the desk chair.  “That’s why you have a key, Bluegrass.”

In the instant before her hair obscured her eyes, what he’d perceived to be happiness revealed itself as something distinctly unhappy.  Tony was up out of his chair before she could get her belongings inside the room.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded, hands planted on hips and peering sharply into her face.  Had she been attacked again?  Was she sick?

Taken by surprise at his rough growl, she drew back, fluttering her eyelids.  As quickly as the sheen of tears had come, it was gone and a picture perfect smile bowed her mouth. 

“Not a thing,” was her drawled assurance as she parked her luggage by the wall and closed the door.  “Well, nothin’ a little sleep wouldn’t fix.”

She wasn’t offering anything more, yet the tense set of her shoulders that there was more.  Standing there with her hands tucked into the back pockets of her jeans, Lilah’s mouth was smiling and she was saying all the right things, but something still didn’t feel quite kosher.

What is it with you and this girl?  It’s not like you know her well enough to make that call.  What? You’ve suddenly developed intuition when it comes to other people?

Tony Bongiovi was not in touch with his feminine side.  He wasn’t good at reading subtle nuances of a person’s body language, and completely sucked at hearing what wasn’t being said.  More than one girlfriend had been pissed off when he didn’t automatically know their heart’s desire, or what they were thinking. 

None of that applied when it came to Lilah, and he didn’t understand why.  He’d only known her a hot second.  What made her different?  Nobody before had invaded his mind this way, but Tony felt like he knew things about Lilah that he didn’t have a reason to know. 

For example, he knew that she was lying, but it wasn’t to protect herself.  Protecting herself wasn’t something she cared about, as evidenced by the slash marks on her throat.  No, this was another one of those things that she was keeping hidden inside her head. 

That personality quirk annoyed the hell out of him and, if they spent much more time together, he was going to call her out on it.  The only thing that kept him from doing it now was the other thing he inexplicably knew.   

Lilah needed a hug.

“C’mere.”  He reached forward to slide an arm around her waist, encouraging her to step into his embrace. 

She did, albeit reluctantly, and planted her hands on his chest to keep some space.  Peering up at him with confusion, she stuttered, “What…  What are you doin’?”

“We’ve had sex,” he reminded her with a smirk.  “A hug shouldn’t be so damn shocking.”

And just like that, she melted into him.  Her hands met in the center of his back when her arms folded gingerly around his middle in a gentle squeeze, and she murmured softly into the crook of his neck, “Thank you, Jersey.”

Tony firmed his grasp, heart constricting at how the simple gesture affected her.  It wasn’t that she cried, or clung helplessly.  Either of those things would be more pathetic than touching.  What got him was the way the tension simply oozed out of her, and how she stood so very still, as though absorbing the contact.  Memorizing it.

Now whaddaya do? 

Breaking free from her waist, a wide-splayed hand slid into the hair at her nape.  There, he cradled the base of her skull and used the subtle pressure of his thumb to tip her head back.  As soon as he caught sight of her soft eyes, and the lips that were parted on a curious breath, Tony dipped his head.

“Mmhh.”

Her sigh was muffled, flooding his mouth with its soft whisper as his tongue swept the seam of her lips.  Fingertips dug into his back when she curled a fist into his shirt and his own fingers found a firmer hold on her scalp as he tenderly raided the sweet depths of her mouth.  It was a lazy exploration, not meant to entice, but to soothe as he tickled her upper palate, then dipped into the satiny hollow beneath her tongue. 

A dainty purr encouraged him to prolong his sensual sojourn, taking drink after drink of the uniqueness that was Lilah.  An easy scrape of teeth over the plumpness of her bottom lip, and she shivered against him.  He drew it into his mouth, rolling it between his teeth until she whimpered.

Slow, soft pecks and clinging lips brought a reluctant end to the kiss.  If he didn’t stop now, they would wind up in bed.  While that sounded well and good, it was a temporary fix, and he was tired of skirting the issues.  She was in his head.  That meant she was going to have to let him into hers.

“Talk to me, Bluegrass.”

Lilah wasn’t going to readily agree.  That was a no-brainer.  She would change the subject, or be deliberately vague or totally ignore him.  Hell, she might even try and blow him, but Tony knew she wasn’t going to just open her mouth and start emptying out the attic of her mind. 

That’s why he was stunned when, with only the briefest hesitation, she nodded and said, “Okay.  Where do you want me to start?”