Chapter 32
Mind reeling, my emotions run the gamut from sad to anger to disgust. How could someone be so cruel? I stand by what I said, that it was his grief talking, but still.
No wonder Liam has hurt so badly all this time. Each time that haunted expression, thousand-yard stare crossed his face, he was hearing those words.
“Liam…have you ever told anyone that?”
With my forehead still pressed to his, I feel his head move side to side. “Not about her dad. No.”
I lean back just enough to meet his eyes, which are red-rimmed and glassy. I wonder what it cost him to tear those boards off the windows of his soul. To finally face the storm raging inside.
“What made you decide to tell me?”
Liam’s shoulders rise and fall on an exhale and he leans back, head tipped toward the night sky. He’s quiet so long I think he won’t answer. But then he lifts his head, eyes tracing my face.
“Since Julie died, I’ve fucked around a lot.
I’m ashamed of how much. I despise the man I became.
” His mouth twists in a grimace. “But I never allowed feelings to get involved. Never kept anyone around long enough.” His eyes burn into mine.
“Then, out of nowhere, you dropped into my life. From the moment I saw you, I couldn’t look away.
I did everything to convince myself it was nothing.
Just me being a good friend, helping you through a rough time.
But the more I got of you the more I wanted.
Every second spent with you was never enough.
” His eyes lower to linger on my lips before jumping back up.
“I want more with you, angel, a hell of a lot more.”
My chest coils tight. He’s never told anyone, and it’s me he’s chosen to break the silence with. Me he wants more with.
The therapist in me knows what this means. This level of vulnerability. The admission that he wants more. It’s not something Liam would say lightly. Not after everything he’s just revealed.
But the words Sam spoke to me that day at the diner come slithering in, twisting their way into my mind. Liam will break your heart. You can’t fix him.
Sam was certainly right about one thing. I can’t fix Liam. That’s not my job nor place, and the urge to try has me feeling like I’ve been cleaved clear through. But no. He has to choose his own healing.
But the rest of it? Sam’s certainty that Liam would break my heart?
I look at him now, cheeks tear dampened, anguish etched into his face. This doesn’t feel like a man who’s careless with hearts. This feels like someone who is terrified of hurting people, so much so he’s built a fortress around his own heart to avoid feeling or causing pain again.
“You have feelings for me?”
“I do,” he states simply. Two little words that feel monumental. And oh, the feelings I’ve had for him.
“I’m not alone in this, right? There’s something here? Between you and me.” He waves a hand between us.
Swallowing hard, I nod. I absolutely feel it. This boundless impossible thing. “Something pretty big,” I risk on a whisper.
“But I still need you to be patient with me,” Liam adds. “Can you do that? I know I’ve asked that of you so much now, but you honestly can’t imagine how confusing this all is for me.”
Pressing my palm to his cheek, I let my thumb graze the rough shadow of stubble growing there and admire this beautiful man in front of me. Once more, tears prick the backs of my eyes at just how much he’s come to mean to me. “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”
Liam takes my hand into his to press a tender kiss into my open palm, then weaves our fingers together.
“One more thing,” he says after a beat. “I’m ready to make that appointment.”
My heart swells with pride, and I’d give anything to throw my hands around his neck and press kisses on every inch of his face. Instead, the biggest grin breaks through the heaviness of the moment.
“Can we at least go inside for that? It’s fucking cold out here.”
Liam lowers the flame on the fire pit, and the two of us make our way into his house, settling on his couch with Mutt curled up at my feet.
“I did a Google search the other day, and found that guy, the therapist Austin told me about. Thought I’d have to call but you can book straight from his website.”
Liam pulls up the therapists website, thumb hovering over a blue Make An Appointment button. He squeezes his eyes shut and in a quick movement clicks the button. A calendar pops up and within two minutes Liam has his first therapy appointment for next Monday.
On a slow exhale, he sets his phone back on the coffee table. Mission accomplished. I’m watching his profile, the way his body relaxes, when I catch it. A scent that doesn’t quite belong.
“Do you smell that?” I ask.
Liam goes from peaceful to panicked in half a second, color draining from his face. “Shit. The cake.”
He’s on his feet, sprinting to the kitchen with Mutt and me not far behind. Grabbing potholders from the counter, Liam yanks open the oven door and a plume of slightly too toasty air billows out. He pulls out a round cake pan, looking devastated.
“What is that?” I ask, peering around him to the too done surface.
Liam turns, scratches at the back of his neck and shoots me a sideways glance. “A birthday cake.”
My heart clenches inside my chest, so tightly I press a palm to it.
“You baked me a cake?” I take a step closer to look at it. Yes, it’s more brown than golden, but there are spots where I can see the pink spongy texture of a strawberry cake.
“Correction. I burned you a cake. Penny asked Austin your favorite cake. He then asked your aunt, who said strawberry. Straight from a box. Nothing fancy.”
Liam grabs a plate and tilts the pan so the cake slides right onto it.
The bottom is also pretty brown, and I can tell how disappointed Liam is by the “fucking hell” he mutters to himself.
But there’s no way I’m letting a little mishap ruin this sweet gesture.
I swipe a knife from the block on his counter and begin to shave the burnt layer, revealing a perfectly cooked strawberry cake beneath.
“See? Underneath, it’s perfect.”
Brightening, Liam pops open the container of store-bought icing, and I watch as he sets his jaw in concentration and drags a spatula through the pink frosting to swipe it across the top.
It’s still too hot, pieces crumbling under the weight of the spatula, but I’ve never seen a more lovely birthday cake.
I lean a hip against the counter, content to watch him work. There’s a profound intimacy in this, watching Liam’s careful motion after he’s just done possibly the hardest thing, gifting me with his poems, and cracking open his heart for me to peer inside.
“Oh!” I gasp suddenly. “I have something for you, too!”
I’m out the door before he can reply, jogging to the G-wagon to grab the small gift bag from the passenger seat. When I return, he’s just swiping the last of the frosting, and he looks up, eyeing the bag curiously.
“Merry Christmas,” I say, thrusting the bag his way. “It’s not much, but I think you’ll like it.”
Liam takes the bag in one hand, and lifts the cake with the other, moving across the kitchen to set them both at his table. He grabs two forks from a drawer and we sit side by side to eat straight from the plate.
While I eat, he picks up the bag, pulling out tissue paper until he reaches what’s inside.
“For your fridge,” I explain around a bite. “Magnetic poetry. That one is Shakespeare and the other is the original set.”
Abandoning the cake for me to devour alone, Liam dumps both sets onto his table and begins sifting through the tiles, brow furrowed, that brilliant mind of his mind working to wordsmith a line or two.
“How’s this?” he asks, straightening.
Given the heaviness of the past hour, I expect something poignant or eloquent. Something utterly heartbreaking. But what I see causes a quick laugh to burst from me.
Thy bosom is a temptress.
I slap Liam playfully on the arm and he grins, such a devastating sight after seeing total destruction just a while ago.
“Is that a no? Not a good poem?”
“A masterpiece,” I quip back. Shakespeare would be trembling with jealousy.
Liam stands, hovering over the tiles and begins arranging them again. This time he spends more time, picking up tiles, setting them down, arranging and rearranging.
Wordlessly, he relaxes back in his chair while I take a look at what he’s written.
Golden eyes are my home.
All I can do is stare at his profile. I’m frozen in place, a wax figure, my gaze locked onto the sharp angles of his face, muscles jumping in his cheek as he works his jaw.
Once again, my chest swells with pride and I think about that feeling I had earlier, out on the deck.
The urge to press kisses to his face is so strong, a tangible thing.
“I’m so proud of you I could kiss you.”
Oh my god. Fuckety-fuck of all times to lose my verbal filter. It’s like the words fast-tracked themselves from my brain and out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Liam’s posture goes rigid, and heat floods my cheeks, practically stinging them.
“Ignore me. I don’t know why I said that. It’s just everything…” My words trail off as Liam slowly turns, eyes meeting mine with bruising force. But he remains completely silent. God, this night was heartbreakingly perfect and I had to go and ruin it with one tiny slip up.
After what seems like an eternity, Liam speaks. “There’s something you need to know. I told you I fucked around, right?” I nod and he continues, eyes dropping to my mouth. “What I didn’t tell you is that I had one rule. No kissing. Not once. Not since her.”
My breath catches in my throat. “Liam, please. I said igno—”
He cuts me off by hooking an ankle around my chair, dragging me inches from him.
We’re so close, I can feel his breath on my cheek.
And my heart, oh my heart, is a frantic bird, wings flapping behind my rib cage.
I want to kiss Liam; to know what his lips feel like against mine.
I need to know what he tastes like. There’s an art to kissing someone for the first time—finding the rhythm, learning how they move.
I want to memorize these things about Liam.
In Liam's eyes, there's fear, of course there's fear. But also resolve.
Kiss me, I think.
Both of his hands cradle my cheeks with such tenderness my eyes sting while his have darkened to the shade of rain-soaked leaves.
The pad of one thumb brushes against my bottom lip and something beyond the usual five senses ignites, swallowing all the oxygen from the room.
Liam’s eyes flash, and I see the exact moment he decides.
“Fuck it,” he whispers.
His lips crash against mine. The kiss isn’t tentative or gentle.
It’s raw and desperate, like he’s crossed an invisible line and there’s no going back.
He kisses like it’s his job, his mouth urging mine to keep up.
One large hand slides into my hair while the other stays steady on my jaw.
His tongue slides against mine and I forget how to breathe.
I want all of this, all of him, his mouth on every inch of my skin.
God, if he’s this good with my mouth, what would he be like in other places?
The thought has me gripping his shoulders, grounding myself in the solidness of him.
His mouth leaves mine, and I gasp at the loss of him, while he trails that skillful tongue across my jawline until it reaches my earlobe.
Shivers scatter across my whole body when his teeth latch gently to that tender skin coaxing a whimper from my throat.
Liam swallows the sound with his lips back on mine.
He tugs my hair, tipping my head for a better angle, while his other hand wanders, ghosting over my breasts, lingering there, the tops of his knuckles moving back and forth until want drips through me, like a tap that’s been slowly filling over time and is now flooded, pushing waves of heat and desire through every inch of my body until I’m clenching my legs together.
There is a very real chance I might combust at any moment.
Liam groans when I bite gently on his bottom lip and he breaks away to breathe, rolling his forehead against mine, both of us panting, the air between us thick and heavy.
“What was that?” I whisper, once I’ve caught my breath.
He answers by moving his mouth along mine, painstakingly slow, like he’s mapping out the curve of my lips with his. Tiny shivers run down both my arms and up my neck.
“That,” he starts, voice low and rough, “was me doing something I’ve wanted to do since the night I met you.”