Chapter 29 #2
His fingers don’t stop moving, but silence falls back over us.
Heavier than the last one, but that could just be the nerves I’m suddenly feeling.
My heart has picked up the pace and started to race as I wait for him to say something, but he remains silent.
Seconds turn into moments which definitely turn into minutes.
At least in my estimation. It feels like eternity, and I can’t handle it.
“Did I freak you out?” I venture.
Liam’s hands still, his head lifting from his pillow.
It has my own head raising to peer up at him.
The most tender smile I’ve ever seen Liam wear meets me.
His brown eyes are soft, earnest, and full of love.
It makes my stomach swoop with a swarm of butterflies that take my heart on a ride like no other I’ve experienced.
It cracks my chest wide open, but instead of the heartbreak I’ve been experiencing, I open myself up and allow him inside, deeper than I’ve ever let any other person in my life.
With his hands beneath my arms, he pulls me further up his body, sliding me along him, and then shifting both of us.
A gasp of breath later, and we’re face to face, with me sandwiched between the back of the couch and him.
But despite the interruption, it’s as though nothing has happened.
The same expression meets me, except it’s more potent now that we’re eye to eye, and only inches away from each other.
“The opposite, my love,” he says in a quiet, gentle voice, and my heart nearly leaps out of my chest. His love.
“I’ve spent nearly my whole life thinking that home, and the feeling of it, was an existence of loneliness.
It was comprised of me and my dad, and while I know he did his best, it wasn’t home. ”
His hand comes to my face, his knuckles skimming across my cheek. “It was one broken man, living with a broken boy, who turned into another broken man. And I thought that’s all there was to life because I didn’t know any better.”
My heart aches. Not only for him, both the little boy and the man before me, but for his dad, too.
“I didn’t allow myself to know any better because I’ve been running scared all these fucking years, Jor,” he whispers, pushing my hair back until it’s tucked behind my ear. “Until you.”
“Liam,” I breathe.
“The last time we were together I lied to you. More than once. I told you this was a mistake, and it shouldn’t have happened.
That my dick was doing all the talking,” he says, his fingers sliding through my hair to cup the back of my head as his body presses closer to mine.
“I was lying to both of us, Jor. For months it’s been my heart talking.
In Vegas it was screaming. In joy, in happiness, in pleasure.
It was fucking rejoicing that I’d finally come to my senses and crossed the line with you. ”
I suck my bottom lip between my teeth to keep my mouth shut. To keep from bursting into tears at his acknowledgement that all along, he’s felt the same way I do. But Liam brings his free hand between us and thumbs my chin, pulling my lip free so he can run the pad over it.
“Nate was wrong for everything he said to you,” I murmur against his touch.
Liam’s head shakes immediately. “No, he wasn’t. Not for everything. His delivery could have been better, but he was upset, and let’s face it… I’ve been around the block a time or two. I won’t hide from that fact.”
“But I don’t care,” I interject with a frown, my eyebrows knitting together.
“I know,” Liam soothes. “But he wasn’t wrong about it. And he wasn’t wrong that I don’t deserve you—”
My heart leaps into my throat, and I push up onto my elbow, interrupting. “You do! Don’t say that. You do deserve me. I’m not some special thing that should be placed on a pedestal. Please don’t put me there.”
“Hey, hey,” he says gently, trying to soothe my sudden anxiety.
Pushing himself up to a seated position, he eases back against the other section of the couch and then reaches for my hands, tugging me towards him.
I go easily, finding myself straddling his lap as he wraps my arms around his neck.
His hands find the outside of my thighs, and he lightly runs them up and down my legs, again trying to coax me back into a state of relaxation.
“What do I always tell you?” he asks, pausing for a couple of seconds. When I don’t answer, he continues, “You’re perfect. I always tell you that you’re perfect. Does that mean that you have zero flaws? No, definitely not. I know you do. Everyone does.”
I wrinkle my nose at him, but it’s mostly in jest.
“What it means,” he continues with a smile, “is that I think you’re perfect despite those flaws.
And what I’ve come to realize is that you’re perfect for me.
Which means you are special. You’re the most special thing I’ve ever laid eyes on, Jor.
You make my world light up. You make everything dark seem manageable.
You are everything I didn’t know I wanted and needed. ”
“Liam.” His name comes out as a mumble because I push forward, burying my face into his neck. The butterflies are back, exploding through me again to take my heart on another ride.
He chuckles softly, a hand coming to my face to guide me back. “Don’t hide from me while I’m pouring my heart out to you. This may be a once in a lifetime kind of thing.”
The comment elicits a giggle from me, and I bite down on my bottom lip, but bring my eyes up to meet his.
The humor I see dancing in the brown depths of his has me falling in love with him all over again.
That he can say all these things, and then make a joke at his own expense in the next breath, makes me happy. It’s so easy with him.
“Look, Nate was right, okay? You won’t change my mind. I don’t deserve you. But I’m going to spend every day of my life trying to earn you, if you’ll have me.”
My fingers slide into the hair at the nape of his neck as I move closer again. This time I don’t shy away from him. I kiss him. Slow and sweet until a content sigh slips between us.
“Of course I’ll have you,” I murmur.
“Good,” he mumbles back, his hand falling back to my waist, both of them sliding around to my back where they link behind me. “Because I also plan on proving you wrong every single day.”
I ease back, my frown returning because I have no idea what he’s talking about. “About what?”
“Well, you were right about me being a coward.”
My mouth opens to protest, but he quickly darts forward and silences me with his mouth. I’m helpless to respond to him, his tongue sweeping through to tangle with mine until I’m feeling dizzy and off kilter. Drunk on Liam. It may be my favorite kind.
When he seems satisfied that I won’t challenge him, he slowly breaks the kiss, but he follows it with three soft, tender kisses. The man may never have been in a relationship prior to me, but he certainly knows how to use his lips effectively.
“I was a coward, Jor. That day, there’s no other word for what I did.
I ran scared when I should have wrapped you in my arms and told you we would figure it out.
” He unlocks his arms from around me and brings both hands to my face, giving me a moment to catch my breath and meet his eyes.
It’s only then that he offers me something that I should be giving him.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I let you go. I’m sorry I pushed you away.
I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you needed. ”
Tears sting the back of my eyes. An apology is on the tip of my tongue, but that’s not what comes out of my mouth. “Were you what you needed?”
Liam is taken aback by my question. He leans into the couch, perplexed by what I’ve asked. “What do you mean?”
“Was not fighting for us, for me, what you needed? In that moment, is that what you needed?”
His eyes bounce back and forth between mine as he mulls the question over. It’s obviously taken him by surprise, and I like that he’s taking his time to think it through.
“For months now, you’ve been teaching me that I need to be what I need,” I explain to him, hoping to make the question a little clearer.
“You championed me long before Paul and I broke up, but especially after we did. Every time I came to you in tears, you built me up. You showed me how to build myself up. Until I could stand up to him on my own once and for all.”
“The day at the airport,” he states, his eyebrows pulled together in concentration.