SEVEN'S POV
"Just floor it!" I encourage her with a laugh. I'm answered with a small high pitched squeal and the force of gravity pushing me back further into the seat.
I watch the excited grin on her face as the car moves with an amount of speed down the dead road. She's enjoying this, just like I knew she would.
"Faster!" I tell her and her foot presses a little harder on the pedal causing the car to jump forward even faster. A fit of giggles erupts from Lily in the drivers seat and I take a moment to study the image of her beside me, wanting to remember this with as much detail as possible.
Her blonde hair whipping around her face from the violent wind coming through our open windows. The bright smile pulling right across her face. Hearing her unique and smooth laugh, the type that makes anyone smile just from hearing it. The way her nose scrunches as she smiles, eyes - hazel with a golden green I've never seen anywhere else - bright and beautiful.
My heart thumps heavy in my chest, a hefty rhythm I've only known from taking substances. But of course my heart would hit this way because of her, she's been nothing but addicting since the moment I first met her. She is an illicit substance to be, completely forbidden.
Lily slows as we get near the yellow road sign which has been our marker spot for our little joy rides. She turns the black BMW 4 Series Coupe around and lines herself up to drag down the empty straight strip of road we've been speeding up and down the past half hour.
She was pretty against the car for the first few days. Asking me to take it back to the dealership or to at least down grade it to something cheaper. But I refused. I knew she was just trying to do the right thing and be polite but there was no changing my mind. And eventually she stopped trying to give the car back.
"How do I do a donut?" She asks me with a cheeky smile and my brow quirks at her question.
"You want to do a burn out?" I can't help the laugh behind my words. Half an hour of drags on an empty road and she's already wanting to take things up a notch. She has more valour than I had expected for such activities.
"Yeah!" She grins at me, excited.
"You can't do a burn out." I shake my head.
"Well duh, I need you to teach me." She playfully tisks.
"No I mean you can't do one in this car. You'd need a manual for any kind of controlled skids." I explain and she pouts in disappointment. My eyes watch her perfect lips jut out and stop myself from leaning over to kiss them.
We've shared a few kisses now but I've been trying to control myself since she let me touch her on her small sofa that night. I know she wants to take things slow, but I've never done slow before. I've never done anything but meet a girl, fuck them and then never see them again.
This thing happening with Lilianna is very, very different. I find myself out of depth with what to do a lot of the time. Like right now, staring at her lips and her eyes staring back at me expectantly. I think she wants me to kiss her but I'm not entirely sure and I don't want to do anything wrong. I don't know what is moving too fast for, "taking things slow." Usually if I wanted to kiss someone I just would, not caring if it was the right or wrong thing to do. The same with sex - if I wanted someone then I'd have them.
I want Lily so bad but I can't just have her like the rest of the women I've slept with. I care about what she wants too, and I want her to stick around after we have sex with each other. I want to fall asleep on her soft body as many nights as I can. As many nights as she'll let me.
That was something completely different, actually sharing a bed with someone. I can't even remember a time having sex on a bed...it was always somewhere convenient. A club toilet, alleyways, a car. But no bed I don't think. Certainly never their bedrooms - I never went home with anyone. And I've never let any female into my own house let alone my bedroom. But being in Lily's apartment was so compelling. Seeing the way she lives, her memories framed on the wall. The mountain of history books piling her shelves taught me so much about her without her needing to say a word.
Staying the night in bed with her was something I'd thought to be inconceivable for someone like me. I was incredibly nervous, my stomach was tight, my chest was tight. I had no idea how to act, how to lay in a bed next to someone else. I thought I'd be awake the whole night, but feeling her body completely relax into the mattress next to me as she fell asleep I plucked up the courage to lay against her and my entire body softened as a response. Her steady breathing calmed my nervous tension and I'd never felt more relaxed. I fell asleep almost right away and didn't wake up once during the night.
I've never had such a full night of sleep before. I wake up at least a few times in the night but staying with Lily I'm always out as if I've downed a bottle of JD. That was the only other way I could get my brain to shut the fuck up and let me sleep - drowning it in drink and numbing it with coke. Worked wonders but it's a dangerous path.
"We should start heading back into town, you think?" Lily asks me and I glance at my watch. She starts her shift at the liquor store in a few hours and I have some...business to attend to.
"Probably should." I agree and she presses a heavy foot down onto the exhilarator.
"Bloody hell." I laugh as we're both flung back into our seats.
"I didn't even mean to, it's just so fast." She apologises and lightens her foot bringing the car to a more reasonable speed, still slightly too fast for the speed limit though.
"Fast enough to out race any shitty sedan." I comment in an attempt of a joke but Lily doesn't laugh.
"You haven't seen it again, have you?" I ask for what could possibly be the hundredth time since she cried in my arms in the club parking lot almost a week ago.
"No, not since last Wednesday." She confirms.
"Good. And have you found any new places you like the look of?" I ask her and she frowns.
"I can't just move as easily as you seem to think I can. I have a lease signed on the place I have now that says I can't just move out and stop paying rent. And there's no way I can afford to pay rent for two places if I do move out. Not to mention the upfront costs of bonds and hiring people to help me move my things. I'm meant to be saving for uni not spending on a new place because of some random following me." Lily disagrees like I knew she would.
"If it's money you're concerned about then I can pay—"
"Harry!" She uses my real name to shut me up. Hearing it from her mouth always stuns me silent.
"Just stop it would you! I don't want your money I can figure this shit out by myself." Lily snaps at me. I feel the frustration burning in me at how stubborn she is sometimes.
Money has become a bit of a controversial subject between us. It started with the car when she looked up how much it cost me. It sent her into a bit of a fit and she said I was to never spend money on her again. Then things kicked off again when I tried to suggest she quit the club on Saturday night. I'll admit I was heavily fuled by the group of young guys she spent most of the night serving and talking to in her bra and underwear. I was jealous, extremely jealous that they got to openly flirt and check her out while I had to sit in the corner and pretend like I didn't care. Having her quit the club would solve a lot of our smaller issues. She wouldn't be an employee and so she wouldn't be under any contract to Victor. She also wouldn't be there if he were to ever just show up again. I also wouldn't have to watch men lap at their mouths over her four nights a week.
But she refused stating that the pay from the club was the only thing getting her back to her classes in eight weeks. When I suggested I just pay for her school fees she politely declined. And when I insisted she became not so polite about it.
"I'm not a fucking charity case. I don't want your money." She had told me. Well yelled at me.
I swallow my annoyance at her constant need to reject my help. Money doesn't matter to me, I have plenty of it and in fact getting rid of it is a help to me.
"Look, I'm sorry for snapping but I just need to do this on my own." She says quietly from the drivers seat. I like her strive to be independent, and if I'm honest I find it surprisingly attractive but still... I just want to help her.
"Are you hungry?" I ask instead, changing the subject but also trying to understand her slight moodiness. I've noticed how she gets when she hasn't eaten, even though it seems like it's not a pattern she's realised herself.
"Yes actually." She frowns out to the road as if she's just acknowledged the empty feeling in her stomach.
"I know a place to go." I insist, the mention of money now completely forgotten.
I instruct Lilianna to drive to a quiet alleyway on the outskirts of the city centre. We pull up to what looks like an abandoned semi industrial road and Lily looks over at me warily.
"Where are we?" She asks nervously and I smile.
"They have good food, trust me." I assure her and get out the car.
"Who? And where?" Lily asks me over the roof of the car as she gets out herself.
"What and when." I smirk and Lily rolls her eyes at me but I notice her smile.
She comes to walk next to me and I point to the beat up abandoned looking building. Rusted corrugated iron clads the outer walls, no windows but a single black door.
"Where are you taking me?" Lily asks again.
"Just trust me." I smile and feel her hand brush against mine accidentally as we walk together. We both glance down at the contact and she brings her hands in front of her awkwardly so as not to touch mine again. I find myself wishing she hadn't pulled her hand away, wanting to feel her fingers between mine. She's held my hand once, in comfort in the parking lot of her work as she begged me to tell her the horrible things I've done to people. I want to replace that feeling, I want to try hold her hand again.
Then do it.
My mind speaks to itself. She glances at me still staring at her hands and with a quick prayer that she doesn't pull away I reach out and take hers from in front of her. To my relief she doesn't pull her hand away and instead shifts her hand to thread her fingers through mine, just the same as how we had in the car that day.
It sound so stupid considering I've had my hands on other places of her now, but I've never held a woman's hand before her.
We get to the black door, with a confident smile at Lily I knock a distinctive pattern of knocks against it and wait. Lily looks at me inquisitively before the black door is opened for us from the inside.
"Mr Seven. Welcome." We're greeted by the small Asian man in the doorway. He steps aside and let's us in. I lead while Lily walks cautiously right behind me through the dark narrow hallway, her hand still gripping mine.
"Table for two." I tell the small man I've come to know only as Hayato. Much like myself he only goes by the one name and keeps the rest to himself.
"Yes. Your usual space is available. I will send up your usual." Hayato nods and leaves me to take Lily to my private spot.
I lead her down the dark hall till we reach the end where a black curtain is glowing from light around its edges of the doorframe. I look down to Lily as I draw back the dark curtain, wanting to see her reaction. Just as I had hoped her mouth parts and eyes widen, instantly trying to take in the beauty of the large room in front of her.
The interior of the warehouse is completely contrasting to the outside. Polished concrete floors reflect the twinkling lights hung all around the place. They're mostly wrapped around the trunk of a tall blossom tree planted in the middle of the space, sweet pink flowers bloom on every branch. The double height ceilings accomodate the stature of the tree, as well as a mezzanine second floor that wraps around the edge of the buildings interior. There are a few people in tables on the bottom floor, but not many due to the exclusivity and secrecy of the place.
"Cool huh?" I look down at Lily staring at the blossom tree in awe.
"What is this place?" She asks enchanted by it just as I had hoped she would be.
"Where we're going to eat." I answer simply.
"Come." My fingers squeeze her hand gently and I guide her over to the spiral staircase that leads us upstairs to my usual spot when I come here.
Upstairs is completely empty as I had assumed it would be and walk us to the corner table. The seating could fit more than just the two of us but it has the best view of the blossom tree and the rest of the restaurant from here.
I pull Lilianna's chair out for her and she sits down, looking out at the view below us.
"Wow this place is beautiful." She half whispers due to the quietness of the place. Only quiet music plays from what I assume is some kind of wooden pipe sounding instrument.
"The foods incredible. Are you familiar with any Japanese food?" I ask her, taking my seat across from her.
"Only sushi." She looks embarrassed but I just smile.
"Well do you like it?" I ask. If she doesn't this will be a complete fuck up.
"Yes, yes I love sushi!" Lily assures me with a wide smile, her nose scrunches and my stomach tightens at the sight. My mouth wants to tell her she looks beautiful when she smiles but she looks back down at the restaurant.
"Oh my god, isn't that the mayor?" She whispers and I glance down at the large bald man sitting at a table downstairs. A much younger blonde sits with him and I recognise her as one of our escorts.
"Yeah." I confirm and Lily looks at me with vibrant eyes, a coy smile playing on her lips.
"What?" I ask her.
"That definitely doesn't look like his wife." She jokes and I smirk. I'm not sure if I should tell her she actually works for me or to just leave it at that. Well she's clearly picked up on the mayors infidelity issues, I don't think I need to divulge my input with that.
"How did you ever find this place? I've never known something like this was in these old buildings." She looks around at the relatively new work around the place.
Here we go, I may as well tell her.
"I own it." I say simply and watch her face shift into shock.
"You own this place?" She asks and looks around again.
"Yes." I nod.
"Why do you own a private Japanese restaurant?" Lily enquires confused.
"Uh it's a bit of a long story." I dismiss but Lily's elbow comes to lean on the table so she can rest her chin on her palm.
"I'm listening." She counters my vagueness and I sigh.
"Okay, well back when I was about fifteen my uncle did a lot of work importing and exporting resources from Japan, illegally. Things like gold, silk some drugs but not on the scale of things now. I don't know how long he'd been doing it when those resources started becoming people."
"People?" Lily asks.
"As in like...trafficking?" She whispers and I nod.
"I guess that's the name for it yeah." I agree.
"These people were desperate to leave, usually in some kind of trouble back in their country and needed to escape without being detected at the boarders. But some people were just genuinely after a better life but could not afford visas for a whole family let alone the minimum fund requirement to immigrate to a new country." I explain and pour us both a glass of water from the decanter on the table.
"I could always tell the people who were seeking genuine asylum, they usually only ever had the clothes on their back with them and mostly always had small children. Victor would take advantage of their desperation, a lot of them taking his offers of free travel from Japan and once they'd got here and worked they'd be able to pay him back. Only he'd lie about how easy finding a job without documentation would be and a lot of them would get into debt with him. So he'd offer them to work for him doing...well things I know they didn't want to be doing." I leave out the gruesome details of the trades.
"That's awful." Lily frowns, her eyes sympathetic and sad for people she doesn't even know. Her empathetic personality never seizes to surprise me. I nod in agreement.
"Victor failed to notice an opportunity to do things a little differently." I comment and look down at the small elderly Japanese women serving a table.
"I brought the warehouse and turned it into a hub of sorts. A place where genuine asylum seekers could work ethically and safely even without papers. Everyone who works here are illegal immigrants." I look to Lily for her reaction. There isn't an ounce of disdain on her face, instead she's looking at me in a way I've never seen before.
"They cook just like they do back in their country, we hold English speaking and writing night classes for them here. And they in turn hold private classes teaching their own culture. From cooking, to gardening, bonsai lessons you name it. They're able to work here with the dignity they were promised by Victor." I explain and she stays staring at me with that same undetectable look.
"And people like the mayor don't know?" She questions and looks down at the fat, bald man eating his food.
"Oh yeah, they know. But it's a place they can come to be discreet. Their silence for our silence." I explain and she looks back at me folding her arms on the table.
"How do you mean?"
"That woman down there with him, she's one of our escorts." I give in to the information and her eyes widen.
"Oh, I see." She nods, her bottom lip folding into her mouth in contemplation.
"So you provide the whole service huh? The women and a safe place to be with them." She hums and I nod.
"Usually, anyway. Some like to go to other places but usually the more notable customers will choose our discrete locations." I explain.
"I see." She leans back as Hayato and another worker I don't know the name of rest various plates of food on the table for us and Lily's eyes scan over the colourful meal.
"Thank you." I nod at them both and they bow politely and leave us without a word.
We don't discuss the business any longer as we eat. Instead I explain to Lilianna the different dishes and their origins as she tries them. Pointing out my favourites which she agrees are the most delectable. I take amusement in the way her face lights up with each first bite of something new.
And I can feel my mind shifting into a space I don't allow it to go very often. Imagining a simple life like in this moment with her. Where we're two normal people, out for lunch and enjoying each other's company. I could hold her hand and go walk around the Main Street as we look for more activities to fill our time together. Kissing her every time those hazel eyes gaze temptingly at me. I could whisk her back to my house, kiss her against my front door, undress her in my room and take her in my bed. We'd cuddle after and talk of our plans to do it all again the next day.
"What is it?" Lilianna's voice pulls me out of my mind.
"Nothing." I shake my head at her and her head falls to the side, wanting to know what's going on in my head.
"I was just thinking this is nice. To do things like this with someone - with you." I clarify and she smiles.
"It is nice." She nods and looks down at the table, red spreading over her face. And I can't stop the words blurting from my mouth.
"I want to do this more with you." I say and she looks up at me.
"I don't know what I can offer you, but I want you to know I have no interest in anyone else." I sound fucking stupid but haven't looked at another woman the same since I first saw Lilianna. She doesn't say anything as she stares at me and my heart thuds in my chest. Maybe I shouldn't have said that...
Her silence makes me nervous. I knew it sounded fucking stupid.
"Of course you're able to do whatever you want, but for me I won't be...fucking anyone." I try explain and she still stares at me. The thought of her with someone else makes me physically sick but I can't possibly stop her from seeing anyone else if that's what she wants. No matter how much I'd hate that.
"Can you say something please." I beg. Can she hear the desperation in my voice like I can? I sound fucking pathetic but she needs to know this and I can't bare her silence for much longer.
"I..." She stammers.
"Are you saying you want to be exclusive?" She asks me. Is that what I'm saying? I guess that is what I'm asking...
"Yes." I nod. Exclusive. That's probably a better way of saying this.
"What does that mean for us then?" She questions, sitting back in her chair, her thumb coming to her mouth as she chews on her nail, taking in what I'm asking for her to deliberate. I begin to feel very hot under my clothes and worry I'm maybe doing the wrong thing here. I should have stayed quiet.
"What do you mean?" I take a gulp of my water.
"You can't date. But you want us to be exclusive. What does that make us then? Like fuck buddies?" She questions and I almost spit my water back out.
"Erm, no." I clear my throat. All I've had is meaningless sex. I definitely don't want that with her.
"We'd have to actually have sex to be that." I point out and she flushes immediately. Lord knows how badly I want to experience sex with her though.
"I don't know how any of this works but I want to try. We'll have to be extremely careful, but I want to try. With you." I tell her.
"Try what?" She asks and I want to run out the room with how out of my comfort zone this is. Just say it.
"To date." I explain and her eyes widen, her thumb dropping from her mouth. I can feel the perspire forming on my hands and wipe them nervously against my knees under the table. Before taking another drink of water. My throat feels incredibly dry. I push down the sickly turn of my stomach and speak to fill her silence.
"But like I said before, you can do whatever you decide and I'll respect your decision if you don't feel the same—"
"Sev-Harry." She corrects herself and I like how often she's been using my real name recently.
"I feel the same." She says and grabs my hand over the table.
"I want to try too."
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