Filed To Story: The Broken-Hearted She and The Icy He Book PDF Free
But Lily knew: he was terrified that she might have drunk that doctored bowl of fish maw, that she might suffer, miscarry, or even lose her life.
Her heart melted into a puddle. Even as his kisses nearly took her breath away, she couldn’t bring herself to push him away. Instead she held him gently and whispered in fits and starts, “Don’t… be afraid… I… I and our babies will never leave you…”
All she wanted in life was a warm little home. The Luke family was overwhelmingly kind, he was so good to her, and now they were having children. She would protect herself and their babies, walk through life with him, sleep in the same bed, and be buried together.
“Lily…”
Hearing that tender, clingy voice, James tightened his arms as if he could crush her and keep her inside him. His kisses trembled with heat and slid down from her red lips, as if her pale swan neck were a delicacy he’d tasted and wanted to swallow.
His kisses were wild, relentless.
Lily’s feet tensed; she couldn’t help it. The discomfort made her arch back, trying to put some distance between them. But the pleasure he gave her pulled her forward again-she wanted to press closer, closer.
“James, don’t… bite…”
Feeling his mouth moving lower, Lily wanted to flee, but she couldn’t help wrapping her hand around his neck. She wasn’t sweating, but being treated like this felt like falling into a boundless ocean, as if she herself might melt into water. Tossing and turning, barely able to think, she could only hold him and indulge him.
She was half-dazed by his kisses when someone began pounding on the car window.
She looked up and saw John’s face outside.
The car windows had been specially treated. From inside, the view out was clear. From outside, even if you pressed your face to the glass you couldn’t see in. Yet John’s face was almost plastered to the window, magnified and close enough to startle her.
What a jerk, she thought angrily.
Who in their right mind would ruin a kiss by leaning on the car window like that?
“Lily…”
Seeing the closed door and that James had no intention of moving to the driver’s seat, John’s color drained. He seemed to hear muffled sounds from inside, and the pain in his chest felt like countless sharp knives stabbing at an already bleeding wound. He pounded the window harder. “What are you doing?”
“James, Lily is my girlfriend-my fiancée. I never agreed to break up. I won’t let you touch her! Lily, I know you’re trying to get pregnant with James’s child just to spite me. I don’t care that you slept with him before. I know I was wrong-please, don’t let him touch you again…”
He couldn’t bear seeing James holding and kissing her, or imagining they’d done more. James heard John’s voice too.
James looked to the window, his brows tightening. He’d been holding his girlfriend in a sweet embrace and now this interruption made him furious. He knew Lily didn’t want to see John; carefully straightening her clothes, he planned to go to the driver’s seat and leave.
“Who gave you the right to touch her? James, do you want to die?!”
James had just opened the rear door to get out when John’s fist, fueled by rage, swung at him.
“James!”
Lily gasped; she was terrified. Luckily James was ready. The punch missed his face; James returned the blow without mercy, snapping John’s head to one side.
“Are you asking for death?”
Struck by James, John erupted like a maddened beast, ready to annihilate them both. Lily was already carrying James’s child; John knew everything they had done and what they hadn’t. Each time she remembered James holding her tightly, kissing her deeply, even taking her without restraint, his heart ached as if he were dying. The thought alone inflamed him with a hatred that wanted to destroy everything.
Seeing them close-her reddened, swollen lips, her rumpled clothes, the clear marks on her neck-his jealousy ignited into a fierce, burning rage.
“How dare you touch my girlfriend! How dare you touch her!”
After taking several of James’s punches, John seemed not to feel the pain.
He kept coming like a madman, fists hammering into James again and again.
Only one thought existed in his head.
He must die.
If James died, he could no longer touch Lily.
He could not let her body be branded by James’s marks.
“Shut up! Lily is not your girlfriend – she is my wife!” James snarled, then drove a hard kick into John’s abdomen.
John staggered, and in the next instant a fist of iron slammed into James again.
Both were skilled fighters, and John was reckless enough to seek mutual ruin. James took another blow.
“James!” Lily cried, her heart breaking when she saw blood at the corner of his mouth.
She leapt from the car and shielded him, glaring at John with pure loathing. “John, are you sick? Stop!”
“Lily!” James nearly jumped at the sound of her voice. He feared John might harm her and instinctively moved to put her behind him.
“Lily…” John hadn’t expected her to step between them. He withdrew his fist. Looking down, he saw the obvious red marks on her neck.
He knew-what James had kissed hadn’t been only the skin she left exposed.
A boundless pain made his eyes sting as if they would split. He hunched slightly and choked out, “We can pretend what happened in the car never happened… Lily, I truly regret it. I won’t care about Elsa anymore. I’ll stop making you miserable. Please, don’t use James to spite me. Please, don’t let him touch you anymore…
He couldn’t bear another man touching her.
“John, you’re seriously sick.” Lily recoiled with disgust.
She stood stubbornly before James. Coldly, she said, “Don’t talk about using James to spite you… Do you deserve it? When I loved you, you were wrapped up with Elsa, intoxicated in each other. When I stopped loving you and began my life anew, you clung to me and pretended to be deep and sentimental. John, you’re pathetic. You shouldn’t be called John you should be called scum!”
John’s face went white as paper.
He couldn’t accept being called pathetic.
Despite the pain and regret in his eyes, Lily continued, voice chillier than ever, “Let me make it clear: I stopped loving you long ago. We’re already broken up, so stop bothering me. Don’t say weird things in front of my boyfriend. If you have any shame, get out of here and stop making people sick.”
“Lily…”
How could John not know her heart had already gone to James?
He refused to admit it. He couldn’t admit it.
For days he had been fooling himself that she would return to him. They had four years of memories together; he replayed them like a spell, thinking immersion in the past might keep her from leaving.
“Don’t call my name it’s unlucky!” Lily snapped, turning away from John and, anxious and tender, looking at James. “James, you’re bleeding. Does it hurt?”
“Lily…”
John writhed in agony. Blood dripped from his lip. Though James had taken fewer hits, John had received more – multiple punches and a kick – and was clearly worse off.
Yet Lily paid him no mind; her concern was entirely for James. He had not always been like this before Elsa left, even a scrape on his hand had made her eyes rim red with worry. If
he’d been in a fight, she would cry and ask if he was hurt.
“I said, don’t call my name! John, you’re disgusting!” Lily’s disgust deepened when she remembered James had already been hurt and John had still struck him.
She reached up, carefully wiping the blood from James’s lip. Her voice trembled with choking emotion. “Let’s go back to the ward. Let the doctor treat your wounds.”
“I’m fine,” James said.
At first, when she fussed over him, James thought to play up the pain so she’d scold John and feel more for him. But seeing her eyes rimmed with tears the smallest, bright sparks ready to spill he couldn’t bear her worry. He softened and soothed her, “Back at the ward you can put some medicine on it. It’s nothing, really.”
“James, you fool!”
When he said it didn’t hurt, Lily’s held-back tears finally spilled down her face.
“Then let’s go home. I’ll dress the wound for you.”
“Lily, don’t cry…”
Seeing her tear-streaked face, James felt like his heart was being crushed. He fumbled awkwardly for a moment, his fingers trembling as he wiped her tears away.
“Who let you get hurt!” Lily scolded, giving him a little shove in irritation.
When she noticed the wound on his chest, her anger turned to worry and she hugged him. “If you ever get hurt again, I’ll cry forever!”
“James, don’t get hurt anymore, okay?”
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.