Chapter 31 Lotion Seduction
lotion seduction
Lorien
The way he said anything was suggestive and low, and it sent warmth immediately to the place between my legs that aches every time I’m around him.
I never thought, when I agreed to this arrangement—has that only been a handful of days now?
—that I’d want so badly for him to break the rules.
Well, the rule. The one, singular rule that I wish we could smash.
The one that would be the most fun is also the one that would be the most lethal to my heart.
I’m wearing his ring. I’m being chauffeured around and having doors opened for me. I’m being shown how I deserve to be treated, being reminded to understand my worth.
Liam might be able to separate sex from his emotions, but I don’t think I can. At least with him. That, combined with all the rest, and I’ll be a goner.
This will end, and I’ll be devastated.
How does one recover from perfection, from a gorgeous specimen of a man who’s the whole package, and just move on? Is it possible?
I must stop ogling his beauty, at the rough-around-the-edges, ooey-gooey-center of a man who stares right back, blocking my exit to the door.
I step aside, using my hand as if I’m ushering him. He drops everything on the counter and begins pulling the contents from the bags. Cold stuff gets placed in the fridge or freezer. I move the dry goods into the small pantry.
We’re done in no time flat and sit down with our burgers.
I pick at my fries and fight the thoughts in my head. The ones that swirl around work and cures. The ones that twist and turn about my husband like the tattoos that color his body. The ones that spin where I can see him choose not to say certain things.
“Eat.” He mumbles, using the hand he has holding his burger to indicate my own.
“Because Daddy likes my ass?” I mumble under my breath with all the sarcasm I can muster while staring at my hamburger wrapper.
“Uh huh. And because you’re not taking care of yourself.”
How does he know that? And why does he care?
I take a big bite of my burger and get lots of pickle and onion. I hope my breath is stinky later, and I exhale on him in my sleep. Okay, not really. I’d be mortified, but I’m pretending.
We eat in awkward silence. I don’t understand how some things with him are so tense and uncomfortable while others are so easy and natural.
He’s two different people. Or I am.
Or he’s the same all the time… Gruff, sexy, protective, focused. And I like it sometimes but not others. Is it me?
No time like the present, I guess, so I ask the question I know he’ll answer with his surgically precise candor. “Am I wishy-washy?”
He looks at me. Really looks at me, those pale brown eyes searching me. He shakes his head only once and rocks my world. “No. But—”
My eyes laser in on the hedge. “But?”
“I think you know your mind, but I don’t think you always know your will. And sometimes who you are and who you want to be argue before you settle on a decision.”
“Okay, Confucius.”
“Right there.” He sets his burger down, drops both hands to the table, and leans forward.
“You want to call me out, call bullshit on my answer. But something in you was raised or curated not to be rude, to keep the pretty polish. That’s the war.
Between what you think you want and what you really do. ”
“Want to know what I really want?” I stand, wadding up what’s left of the burger in the paper and walking it all to the trash can.
I turn my gaze as I walk past, stopping to look down into his ochre eyes. Studying the crinkles around his eyes, the ever so slight graying of his sideburns, the pillowy fullness of his bottom lip. I lean closer, a hair’s breadth away from his mouth. “A hot bath.”
Liam
What the hell?
That little convo very nearly ended with me pulling her to my mouth or onto my lap. It took every bit of discipline not to pin her down on the dining room table and finish dinner and dessert, both between her legs.
She’s infuriating.
She’s gorgeous.
And she’s playing with fire.
And I don’t mind fire. Arson one-oh-one—commit to the plan.
I pitch my trash, wipe down the kitchen, and flip on the microwave light.
The question now is if we play by her rules or mine. Do I let her play, let her explore, and set her own rules? Do I sleep next to her at night, wake up hard with her sprawled across me, and not touch her?
Do I move my guest room furniture in here, have some place that doesn’t smell like her, someplace that doesn’t tempt me and make me yearn?
She’s a novice, and I’m a master. Playing the wrong game means we both lose, no matter the score.
I head to my house, grabbing the laundry detergent from my garage and putting it with my washer and dryer. It was one of the dozen items I needed that were in the cart during our forever shopping spree, those items we grabbed to make dinner and still ate burgers.
Nothing is amiss. Not that it would be after a day or two. I grab basketball shorts and my pillow. This is starting to look like acceptance and moving in.
Guest room furniture. I need to move that to her place. Definitely at least a bed. The lawsuit could take months, and I’m no saint.
Besides, I gave myself one rule to break. Only once before this ends. And it won’t be the walking away one.
I realize my mistake when I’m back and working at the kitchen island. I forgot blankets to bail on the sofa. Later. I can grab them later.
I need to get with Briggs. Seeing as he’s my best paying client right now and referrals are my bread and butter, I can’t put him off.
Wandering down the hall, I call, “How do you feel about a trip to Jackson Ho—” The word dies on my lips.
Lorien has her back to the door, foot up on the bed, slathering lotion down her legs while only wearing a towel. Mentally, I bite my knuckles. I swear she’s up to something, if she were adept enough to orchestrate this kind of game.
Her head whips around, her wet hair dripping water down her bare shoulders. “What?”
Religious cults. Bloody bodies. Creepy movers. My father.
Even that doesn’t work.
Keeping my focus above her head, I repeat myself. “Are you interested in going to Jackson Hole this weekend?”
She bites her lip and fights to avoid eye contact, eventually propping the other leg up on the mattress and beginning the lotion seduction on the other side. “I’m going home this weekend.”
Excuse me.
“You didn’t think to tell me?”
“I wasn’t avoiding it. I just kinda… forgot.”
“You forgot?” I prop my hands on my hips and look to the ceiling.
She whirls, the towel opening just enough that my eyes are sucked in, waiting for even a glimpse, but seeing nothing. “Yes. I forgot. The last few days have been eventful.”
“Eventful,” I deadpan. “And before that?”
“Before that, William.” She damn near makes my name four syllables for as long as she strings it out, marching my way. “We were neighbors being polite-ish. I neither owed you my whereabouts, nor any explanation for them.” She faces off to me, head held high.
I reach forward and with all the caution I have left, I curl one finger around the towel at her breasts and tug her until she’s flush to me. “And now?”
She swallows. I can see the fight in her to stand her ground and hold my gaze. “Now, I’m telling you I can’t go to Jackson Hole. It’s my brother’s birthday.”
My chest is heaving. “And you all travel for each other’s birthdays?”
Piss-and-vinegar Lorien is my kryptonite. I’m fighting with every weapon in my arsenal to distract myself and still my dick wants to reach out and greet her personally.
“No.” She shakes her head, looking down, but only managing to put her forehead to my chest. “It’s his fortieth and he wasn’t expected to make it to forty.”
The dilemma is there—step back or pull her closer. My will is shot, so I wrap my arms around her, half praying the towel stays pinned.
“Tell me.” My tone is firm but quiet.
“My brother’s immune system attacks itself.
” She speaks into my chest. “You’ve heard of Celiac, Lupus, or arthritis?
The body attacks a system it assumes is foreign, the same way it would if it were a virus.
The system is adaptive and mounts a response, but the response isn’t needed.
In Strider’s case, his body cycles through believing his blood is foreign, attacking his red blood cells, so oxygenation is at play.
In his case, he also loses platelets, and his white blood cell count skyrockets. It’s a terrible cycle.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck.” The word on her lips is wrong and, in this case, even more so.
“When he’s symptomatic, he’s prone to infections.
He tires easily. And the platelet issue means he doesn’t clot.
So any trip or fall could have him bleeding out like a hemophiliac.
The alternative is steroids, but long-term side effects are detrimental, not to mention the fact they’re immunosuppressants, so if he were to catch something, it would be harder to fight.
Forty is big. He wasn’t expected to make it to forty, with his condition and… ”
Using my thumb, I tip her face to mine. “And?”
“And Acute Myeloid Leukemia typically presents in the late thirties to early forties if it doesn’t in childhood, so his body repeatedly attacking his red blood cells and platelets means we’re always watching, even if his risk isn’t statistically higher.
” Her words are thick. “We need to celebrate forty.”
“And your work?”
“Focuses on genetic sequencing in these kinds of conditions, specifically whether modification to DNA could work as treatment so pharmaceutical intervention isn’t required.”
She’s trying to save her brother. And other people’s brothers and sisters and parents and kids. Lorien Anderson is a puzzle whose pieces are coming together.
I kiss the top of her head.
Fuck me. I did not mean to do that.
She looks up at me, those crystalline eyes searching. She’s close. She’s warm, and if I don’t take a step back, she’s definitely going to feel what’s coming up between us.