Author Disclaimer: I don't own these characters nor any details applying to The Young and the Restless.
Shut Up and Kiss Me
by LostNSpace
Rated M for some adult material.
It was the proverbial "first date" times twenty.
Gone was the sweet anticipation she used to feel when visualizing the day she and Cane Ashby would actually go out together, in public, as a couple. Too much had passed between them, too many strikes against them lurking around every corner. Their start had been more of a stutter, Lily thought ruefully as she uncapped a fresh bottle of perfume and gave an absent-minded spritz behind her left ear.
Her nerves bulldozed any warm excitement she might have felt while waiting for his arrival. She nearly jumped out of her skin when the doorbell finally rang. The perfume bottle slipped from her jittery hands and shattered on the bathroom's Travertine tile, splashing eau de sickening floral essence on the toes of the black, knee-high boots she'd bought specifically for this nightmare-of-a-date.
"If you're so nervous about this, why are you even messing with him?" Devon demanded from the hallway, watching her frantically soak up the mess with a wad of towels. When the doorbell sounded again, she cast him a desperate look and he sighed. "Jeez, just go already. I'll clean it up."
When Lily opened the door, Cane stood huddled on the threshold, hands shoved inside the pockets of his sleek leather jacket. He'd gotten a haircut, she thought inanely. He looked clean-shaven, bright-eyed, beautiful. He looked…terrified.
They managed tight smiles and began to talk at the same time, then went silent just as quickly. Cane tried again. "Something smells…flowery."
"I spilled perfume," she said, her cheeks heating. "Does it smell too strong? Maybe I should go change."
He shook his head. "No, I wasn't complaining. It's nice, actually. " He paused, glanced beyond her shoulder as though waiting for her to invite him in. But Lily could feel an unseen Devon's contempt radiating from across the apartment, and she wasn't about to draw Cane into the lion's den.
"Shall we go?" She slammed the door a little too hard behind her and half-stumbled to get around him and down the corridor.
The ride to the theater was excruciating. They couldn't seem to find a topic of conversation to settle on, just unfinished starts and painful stops, as though they had nothing to truly talk about. Words didn't come easily between two strangers, she thought miserably. When had this happened? When had she ceased to know the man she'd fallen in love with? Maybe they'd never really known each other after all. Maybe the whole thing was merely a foolish crush. A mistake. A promise of humiliation and disappointment. Once he truly got to know her, once the mystery was cleared up, why would a man like Cane even bother with her?
"Crap," she mouthed, staring out the car window. "Crap, crap, crap."
In the awkward silence, Cane turned up the stereo and let Timbaland do the talking for them.
When they reached the theater, Lily fairly leaped from the passenger seat before he had even put the Mercedes into park.
"Hold up and I'll walk with you," Cane said dryly from a couple of paces behind her. "Maybe if I play my cards right, we can even sit together during the movie."
Lily's steps slowed and she cast him a sheepish glance. "Sorry. I thought…maybe we were going to miss the beginning. The, uh, previews. I like them."
Bad lie. He knew it, too. "We're fifteen minutes early." He didn't look at her as he moved past her and stepped up on the curb.
She shoved her hands into the pockets of her wool coat and let a soft sigh slip through her lips. This date was a bad idea all the way around. She didn't know what had possessed her to ask him out, and why, oh why had he accepted? Looking at his bemused profile as they approached the ticket window, she half-wished they'd never spoken again after that one painful conversation before Christmas, when he'd told her she was too young for him, plain and simple. But then came the accidental meetings all over Genoa City, the long, yearning looks, the palpable sexual tension that always ignited between them whenever they were in the same room. And Christmas. Such a romantic, treacherous time for lonely hearts like Cane and Lily. She'd tried her damnedest to stay away from him, and she knew he'd done the same. What the hell were they doing here? She wanted to whirl and grab the lapels of his leather jacket in tight, angry fists, stare up into those hazel eyes, and demand, Just exactly how is this supposed to work? You're older! You tell me!
"Two adults," Cane said to the girl in the ticket booth. Tickets in hand, he opened the glass door and glanced at Lily, waiting for her to enter ahead of him, his expression shuttered enough to tell the world that he wasn't exactly having the time of his life.
Screw the movie. Screw the starry winter night, the idea of sharing some mindless romantic chick-flick. Screw their apparently mutual lack of common sense. Take me home, she thought, tears stinging her eyes. Why she didn't say it aloud, she didn't know. Why she chose to follow him into the theater, she couldn't say. She never knew why she did anything where he was concerned.
But when she paused by an aisle of empty seats and felt the warm, sweet pressure of Cane's hand on her lower back, she had just an inkling.
The movie was beyond dull.
Sitting beside Cane Ashby was beyond electrifying.
Lily gripped her purse and stared at the screen, blind to the noisy action sequence flashing before them, her every sense honed on the man beside her. His arm brushed hers; she automatically tucked her elbows inside the armrest, then thought What the heck and returned to her original position, upper arm pressed blatantly to his.
When he shifted in his seat a moment later, she thought it was to draw away, but then he stayed where he was, his hands clenching and unclenching where they rested on his thighs, and she wondered if he was as painfully aware of her as she was of him. Was he trembling inside with the same excitement and doubt and thrumming desire? Was he thinking of all that had passed between them, and the potential of what lay ahead this night if they could only find their way through the roadmap of confusion that had sprung between them?
The familiar, woodsy scent of his aftershave and soap drifted to her, ephemeral and delicious. She remembered the single kiss they'd shared the night of her divorce party, the way his unique fragrance filled her senses, how soft his lips were, how her muscles had turned to gelatin as his mouth brushed, and brushed, and then settled, hot and open, over hers…how aroused and surprised and disconcerted she'd felt when it was over, because it was over, and because she'd never expected to experience such arousal with any man again…especially not Amber Moore's man…
The same searing exhilaration and uncertainty washed through her now as she turned her head and found him watching her instead of the movie. Their eyes met in the dim flash from the screen, a million sentiments passing between them, everything they should have said before. And suddenly she knew, even if they couldn't find words to connect them this night, desire alone would do the job. The way he was looking at her told her so.
His lips moved, uttered just one silent word—her name—but it crashed through the wall between them, blew aside all her defenses and left only a sweet, curling warmth in her chest.
"Oh, Cane," she whispered. "Why has this been so hard? All night I've felt like I don't know you."
His gaze, liquid and languid in the glow from the movie screen, moved like a caress over her features. "You don't."
"But I want to."
A vague smile curled the edges of his mouth as he lifted a hand to brush his thumb along her jaw. "I'm all yours."
Lily swallowed the wave of excitement that surged through her. "So why—"
Someone behind them cleared his throat, a pointblank order for them to shut up. Chagrined, she leaned closer to Cane. "Why is it so hard for us to talk lately?"
He glanced at the screen, and for a moment she thought he wouldn't answer. Then he turned back to her and dropped his head, his lips finding the shell of her ear. "Maybe," he said, "we've done enough talking."
The provocative reply whispered against her gold hoop and sent a shiver of delight through her entire body. Before she could do more than stare at him with wide eyes, he caught her chin in his fingers and brushed a soft, lingering kiss on the corner of her bemused mouth.
"Lily." Another kiss, small, searing, on the other side. "Lily." One on the bow of her lips that left her mouth aflame. "Lily."
"What?" she whispered, her throat gone dry.
"Let's get out of here."
He didn't touch her again until they reached his Mercedes, and to Lily, shivering from a wild mixture of cold Wisconsin night and sheer, earth-quaking excitement, it felt like a million-mile journey across the parking lot. When he paused to open the passenger side door for her, they turned toward each other and hesitated, their breathing sending hard, quickened clouds into the air. In the instant before she closed her eyes, Lily thought she'd never seen anything as beautiful as the dark intent stamped on his face. Then there was no time to think; Cane dipped his head to find the arched line of her throat with a sinuous brush of lips, a sweet sting of teeth, and all she could do was cling to the lapels of his open coat and feel.
He took his time on the journey to her lips, his mouth touching erogenous zones she hadn't known she owned: chin, jaw, one cheek then the other, kissing softly, methodically, then the corners of her parted lips, touching each spot with the tip of his tongue, until she couldn't breath, until her heart threatened to burst from her chest and other secret places seemed to melt and simmer.
"You're cold," he murmured, drawing back just enough to meet her eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm not thinking. Let me get you home."
But Lily wouldn't hear it. Desire granting her otherworldly courage, she backed up against the side of the car, pulling him with her by his lapels. "Not yet. Please."
"But you're shivering—"
"Just shut up and kiss me, Cane." An order she filled herself when her gloved hands slid up to cup his face, her thumbs framing each side of his beautiful, solemn lips before she swept in and opened her mouth over his.
Cane groaned; Lily swallowed the sound and tangled her tongue with his, kissing him with all the pent desire and frustration she'd harbored for weeks, until she was no longer the only one shivering, until their bodies strained together and everything disappeared but the hungry quest of their mouths. The hard, warm weight of him pinned her against the car, one hand slipping inside her coat and behind her to brace the low curve of her spine, then lower, lower, to the top of her buttocks, where his caress slid the material of her skirt in sinuous circles against her hyper-sensitive flesh.
Panting, Lily broke the kiss to yank the leather gloves from her hands. She had to touch him, to feel him, despite the frigid cold and spitting snow, despite the oh-so-public place in which this long-banked fire had at last ignited. She spread her fingers over the harsh hammer of his heart, then dragged them down the rigid muscles of his abdomen to his belt, while Cane braced a palm on the car behind her and dropped his head to watch the trembling, determined path of her caress.
Not quite brave enough, suddenly, to meet his eyes, she leaned her forehead against his throat, tugged the thermal shirt from his jeans and slipped her hand under its hem to find his lean abdomen and the silky hair dusting it, bare skin on bare skin at last, reading, with a woman's triumph, the quiver of his stomach muscles and the near-silent sound of desperation that rumbled through him.
Cane sucked in a breath as her touch moved around his waist to his spine where she flattened her palm against the tough, sinewy terrain of his back and let her fingertips slip over every muscled hill and valley. He bore the torture for the count of five heartbeats, then jerked her hand from beneath his shirt and drew it to his lips, kissing each finger before he released a shaky laugh. "Don't get me wrong, I like what you're doing. Christ, I love what you're doing. But if we don't stop…"
"If we don't stop…?" she echoed foggily, watching his lips move against her hand and wanting it on her mouth instead.
"I'm going to take you right here."
Which didn't sound half-bad, but suddenly voices floated across the parking lot behind them, laughter and footsteps, and Lily knew another movie had let out. The spell was broken.
Humiliation flooded her cheeks. "Oh, my God. What am I doing? I don't know what I'm doing."
"Oh, but you do," he said low, and when she merely stared at him, he dragged her hand down his body and pressed it, just for a breathtaking instant, against the hard evidence of his desire. Then he released her and stepped back. "Get in the car. I'll take you home."
The drive to Lily's apartment was as silent and terse as the one to the theater, but for different, hotter reasons now. Lily only met his gaze once, when he braked at a stoplight and glanced at her across the console. Instantly the fire blazed between them again, and he was reaching for her when a driver behind them punched his horn.
Chagrined, Cane straightened and accelerated through the intersection, and after a moment, Lily reached over and touched his cheek.
"Soon," she said. "When the time is right. Okay?"
"Yeah." He blew out a breath, thrust his fingers through his hair and cast her a rueful smile. "Yeah."
At the entrance to her building, she stopped and turned to face him. "You don't have to walk me up. My dad's probably home by now."
Cane gave a terse nod, his hazel gaze searching her face.
"I had fun," she added, then, "Well, not fun, exactly. More like…a million other physical sensations."
He laughed and stepped closer to her, slid a hand beneath her hair and pressed his lips to her forehead. When he spoke, his voice was a husky rumble that seared her to her marrow. "This has been a long time coming, Lily."
"I know." She fiddled with the collar of his coat, stared at the graceful hollow of his throat, thought about dipping her tongue in it, and licking him in other, equally delicious places. "Things are going to move quick."
"That's up to you."
A faint smile tugged at her mouth and she glanced up at him through her lashes. "Like I said, things are going to move quick."
"Then go inside," he whispered fiercely, "before it happens here and now."
Filled with a feminine power she'd never experienced, Lily tugged him against her and caught his mouth in a brief, searing kiss. "Goodnight, Cane."
She didn't look back at him until she reached the elevators, and when she did, he was still standing at the doors, one hand pressed to the glass and the other to his heart, and a million promises written in his eyes.