32 - Priorities

“How about you start with what’s wrong right now?” Tony suggested quietly, his arms still wrapped reassuringly around her.  Her scalp tingled where he sifted his fingers through her hair.

Why was he being so sweet?  He had a good heart.  She’d known that all along, but he was a Jersey hard-ass.  Sweet wasn’t something she ever expected from him.  As tired as she was, his display of kindness heaped on top of the unpredicted hug was enough to make her want to cry.

Gently extracting herself from his arms, she gave him a weak smile and played off the Jon-hangover.  “Right now?  I’m just tired.  Nothin’ else is wrong.”

“You’re lying – “ he tried to dispute, only to be interrupted by the loud strains of ‘Taking Care of Business’ pealing from the desk behind him.  “Fuck!”  The soft curse was quickly chased by an apologetic look for Lilah as he spun to snatch up his phone.  “It’s Rew.  They’re starting setup this afternoon.  I have to grab this.”

She nodded absently, astounded that he’d so readily zeroed in on her slight untruth. 

“Yeah, Mike?”

There was a scared-little-girl part of her that kind of hoped he was needed at the venue.  Right across the street, it wasn’t far, but it was far enough to give Lilah time to get a handle on her frayed emotions and form a more coherent presentation of her redneck fairy tale.  All of the cylinders in her sleep-deprived mind were not clicking in any type of logical sequence.  If she told this thing now, it was going to go badly.  She could feel it in her bones.

“Are you fucking kidding me?  Now?”  His face crumpled with annoyance and he huffed into the phone.  “Gimme five minutes.”

Thank you, Jesus.  Reprieve.

Relief was her first instinct as she perched on the edge of the bed, but it was readily chased by a sense of dread.  Once he left the room, would Jon corner him and tell Lilah’s story from his perspective?  A totally fucked up perspective, at that?

Tony hung up the phone and clipped it to the pocket of his cargo shorts as he came to stand before her.  “I’ve gotta go, Bluegrass,” he apologized, bending to dust her lips with a kiss. 

“Okay.”

She loved his kisses.  Even the most casual one had the power to curl her toes, and she savored the sensation as the rare treasure it was.  She was a lucky little redneck, and she knew it.

“Why don’t you get some sleep?  I’ll be back as soon as I can, and we’ll talk.”

Owlish eyes blinked up at him, and she sat motionless, still appreciating the tingles walking her spinal cord like a tightrope.  There were so many things going through her mind, and most of them she wouldn’t dare utter right now.  Tony took her statue-like pose as argumentative, when she really was just trying to keep from blurting out something stupid.

Something stupid like ‘please stay’, or ‘sleep with me’.  Worse yet, something abysmally ridiculous like, ‘hug me again’.   

“Lilah…” he warned quietly.  “Get undressed and crawl in bed.”

“Okay.”

When she still didn’t move, his eyes narrowed, contemplatively assessing her features.  “Are you going to even be here when I get back?”

“Do you want me to be?”

“You can be totally fucking frustrating,” he growled.  Tony growled a lot, she noticed.  Was that a normal thing, or was it because of her?

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, contritely.  It had been a sincere question on her part.  If he didn’t want her there, then she wouldn’t be.  Simple as that.   “I don’t mean to be frustrating, so let me try again… Tony, I don’t have plans to go anywhere except to sleep.  My lazy butt will be right here whenever you’re done with work.”

He studied her again and, apparently content that she was going to do just as she said, nodded his head with satisfaction.  “Better.”  One more peck on the mouth, and he was gone, his phone ringing as the door closed.

It seems to be your day to piss people off, Lilah Jane.  Go to sleep before you get yourself into trouble.

Pushing to her feet, she thought that she would.  Just as soon as she practiced her convoluted tale by emailing her online friends.  In the worst-case scenario, she was going to need consoling.  It would help if they already knew what was going on.

There’s always Joanna.  Or Andrew.

True.  But Joanna would just be happy she was coming home.  In all fairness, she would be sympathetic for all of ten seconds and then ask which flight Lilah would be on.  And Andrew…  Well, Andrew knew she was stalking some Bon Jovi guy, but that was about it.  He would pretend to care because that’s what he thought he should do, but he shouldn’t have to deal with her quirky crap unless it was fun.  Lilah didn’t want to subject him to that.

Morgan and Angel were the ones who would get it, if anyone did.

Lilah smiled tiredly after stripping off her jeans, climbing onto the bed and flipping up the laptop lid.  If they didn’t, at least she didn’t have to look them in the face when they decided she was crazy. 

✧✧✧

“Jon, what the hell are you up to?”

He grimaced, hating it when Dorothea used that tone of voice with him.  He had no idea what she was pissed about, but she was pissed.

“Five foot ten,” he offered blandly, rearing back in the hotel desk chair.  His eyes continued to skim through unimportant emails in search of a much anticipated correspondence.  It still wasn’t there.

Damn.  I’m gonna have to get a new investigator.  This guy is losing his touch.

“Very funny.” 

The ominously uttered response conveyed the exact opposite of humor, and he sighed.  The laptop went closed with a sharp snap.  Crossing his legs, he eked out a bit of his own humorlessness.  It hadn’t been the best of days, and he was annoyed that the information he wanted hadn’t arrived.  Guessing games weren’t his thing under the best of circumstances. 

“Well then, how about you give me a little more idea as to what you’re talking about?  It might get you a better answer.”

“Alex Balducci called this morning.  You forgot to give him your email address for the investigation report on Lilah Bennett.  Now, I repeat, what the hell are you up to, Jon?”

There was no way Alex had been that loose lipped about a job.  No fucking way.

“He told you that?”

“No, he didn’t tell me that.  I gave him my email address, because I can never remember yours, and  I noticed the file name when I was going to forward it.”

Great.  Why did he hire private investigators?  His wife was just as efficient as most of them.

“Did you read it?  What does it say?”

Her long suffering huff came blasting over the line.  “For God’s sake, no I didn’t read it!  Why are you having her investigated?”

“Because she won’t tell me or Tony what her deal is.  I don’t like not knowing what’s going on in my camp, and after the last fan instance, I’m not much interested in seeing Lilah Bennett take advantage of my little brother.”

“I don’t want that either.  Tony deserves better than what he’s had so far, but do you really think there’s a reason to be suspicious of her?  It’s still casual, isn’t it?”

“Last night he told me that she’ll be sharing his hotel room for the rest of the tour,” Jon informed her sourly.  “Does that sound casual to you?”

“What?  Wait a minute.”  Incomprehension was clear in her voice.  “That doesn’t sound like Tony.  He wouldn’t basically move in with a woman so fast.  Why is he doing it?”

“Some bullshit about protecting her.”

“Protecting her from….?” His wife was an expert prodder, but he despised  being on this end of it.  When she was using it on one of the kids, it was pretty cool, but him?  Not so much.

“She’s traveling alone, I guess.  There was an incident in Istanbul and she got a little cut up.”

Dorothea harshly sucked in an appalled breath.  “A little cut up?  Well, Jesus, Jon, no wonder he’s feeling protective!  I would think that might bother you just a little.”

It did.  Honestly, it did.  If he’d met this woman another way, he would be just as appalled and concerned as both Tony and Dorothea.  Unfortunately, she’d fallen firmly into the suspicious character column before that happened.  It didn’t hurt that he’d found out about the thing after it was over and she was okay. 

You know, Jonny Boy… If you’d ever talk to Lilah instead of at her, she might become a real living, breathing person to you. One to show compassion to, and all that. 

He shrugged aside the nagging conscience and stuck to his guns.  Once he’d made a decision, Jon was nothing if not committed to his choices.

“Don’t judge me as a cold-hearted bastard, Dottie.  You haven’t met her.”

His better half went stoically silent – for a really long time.  He’d left her speechless.  That meant he’d been right and actually won an argument.  Jon was busy giving himself a congratulatory pat on the back – and doing an imagined fist pump in the air – when she spoke, spontaneously aborting his victory lap.

“No, I haven’t.  But I will.  I’m taking the kids to your parents’ and booking the next flight out.  If she’s wreaking this much havoc, it’s time Lilah Bennett and I got to know one another.”

✧✧✧

Tony shoved open the door and pushed his way through, barely catching it before it crashed shut and awakened Lilah.  His fingers curled around the knob just as the lock caught with a soft ‘click’, and he was relieved to see that she didn’t stir. 

The room was quiet, save for her deep, even breathing and he slowly approached the edge of the bed where she was curled on her left side, fast asleep.  Pulled as though by a magnet, it was the first chance he’d had to steal a completely unguarded and unsupervised look at the woman who was tilting his world at a crazy angle.

The more he got to know her, the more attractive Lilah became.  She had a sweet innocence about her, coupled with that fierce independence and apathy, and there was a sharp mind tucked away behind those closed lids.  When she was awake you could watch her thoughts dance in her eyes, even when she never said a word.

Praying hands were tucked under a creased pink cheek, and her elbows were tucked into the Bon Jovi logo on her t-shirt.  Rosy lips were parted with gentle exhalations, and chocolaty brown waves were tucked behind her ear, giving him a good look at her scars.

It was hard to imagine what had caused such an odd array.  The only thing he’d ever seen that came close to resembling the hodgepodge of wounds was on a friend of his dad.  The World War II veteran bore similar marks all over his forearms, but they were caused by the shrapnel from a clay mortar.  He highly doubted Lilah had run across a clay mortar in Kentucky.

That was a mystery to be soon solved, though.  He hoped.

She slept like a flamingo, with her knee bent and one foot resting on the opposite knee, and the creamy silk of her bare legs drew him like a magnet.  Tony skated his palm from the bent crook of her knee, slowly up her thigh to the hem of the black cotton shirt. 

“Mmmmm…  Tony…” she murmured after snuffling her surprise at the touch. 

The faint purr sent blood surging below his waist with the memory of how she felt wrapped around him the last time she’d said those same words.  The surge became a full-on deluge when she rolled to her back and looked up at him with heavy-lidded eyes.  

He’d thought about her all day – sometimes even in a non-sexual context.  Mostly though, he’d been jonesing for a repeat of last night.  Sex with Lilah was good.  Exceptionally good.  So, while talking might be more important in the big picture, it sure didn’t feel like it at that moment.  The big head was getting strong-armed by the little one.

Pressing his luck, Tony tucked deliberate fingertips into the narrow gap between her milky thighs.  He was blessed with a shot of high-test adrenaline when she immediately opened wider to welcome his seeking touch.

“I want you,” he rumbled with absolutely no finesse or couth.  Then, his thumb scraped the heated cotton that covered her core and drew another delicately noisy breath from the sleepy southern belle sprawled in his bed.

Aqua eyes stayed soft, but the drowsiness dissolved like the mist following a hot afternoon rain.  “Then take me.”

Stiff as a board, there was no need to tell him twice.  Tony stripped his shirt while kicking his shoes and socks off.  When he dropped the zipper on his shorts and let them fall to the floor, he tugged open the nightstand drawer and snatched out a condom.

Rolling it on, he warned her, “I’m talking pure fucking.  There won’t be anything slow or tender about it.”

“Any way you want, Jersey.”  One slim ankle flicked away panties with little purple hearts, and she let her knees fall wide to add emphasis to her quiet offer. 

His desire burned hotter, fueled by the glossy slickness of her sex as he crawled between her thighs.  Dredging his hardness through the slippery folds, he paused at her entrance and asked one more time, “Are you sure?”

When she nodded and reached up to curl her fingers into his hair, he pushed inside with a quiet groan and fell forward.  The heels of his hands planted into the mattress beside her shoulders and Lilah wrapped herself around him.  Legs and arms twined like ivy around his torso, holding him close even as she rocked into his strokes. 

“That feels good,” she whispered against the shell of his ear while she scratched random patterns across his shoulder blades.  It wasn’t enough to hurt, but it drove him to the edge of crazy and he pushed harder, forcing her softness to accept him on his terms. 

“Too rough?” he rasped, afraid of hurting her.

“Shhh…”  Gently stroking his hair, she danced her body in some type of porno-erotica slide and every square inch of her writhed under, around and against him.  The skin-on-skin contact was like jacking off in pure velvet. 

She was so damn soft.

“Jesus… Gonna be too quick…”

Lilah sucked on a spot just below his jaw as she continued her rubbing… touching… scratching.  “Don’t hold back,” she whispered against his heated skin.  “Take what you need.”

“You first.”

“No. Let me make you feel good. Come for me, Jersey,” she begged, scraping her teeth against his neck. 

“Fuck! Lilah…”

“Come for me,” the little seductress enticed him, her wicked rasp drawing him closer to the edge of release.  “It feels so good when you fuck me, but I want you to come.”

He was about to protest when she clenched those mysterious feminine muscles around him, hitting just the right spot to set him off.   All his good intentions were blown to hell with one enigmatic hip-wiggle, and she held him close as the spasms jerked every drop of satisfaction from him.

Slumping over her, he lifted a weary eyebrow and chastised, “I think I just found out why you get left behind.”

She chuckled softly and rolled her pelvis.  “I didn’t get left behind.  If you’re happy, I’m happy.”

“But did you come?”

“Mm.”  Lilah nuzzled her nose into his neck and dotted a trail of wet kisses over his collarbone.  “Pleasure comes in different forms.  I’m well-pleased.”

“But did you come?”

Why he persisted, Tony didn’t know.  What she’d said was the same as a no, but it was like he actually had to hear the words.  The way Lilah goaded him into forgetting about her pleasure aside put him in the same category as the loser ex-husbands.  He was annoyed with both her and himself over the whole thing.  

“Jersey…  If it matters that much to you, the next round can be mine.”

That’s exactly what would happen.  Only it might be a little different than what she was expecting.  If they were going to continue sleeping together, things would have to change.