Chapter 23 #2
A shiver wracks my body as though trying to physically dispel the memory. “Me either. Do you think it’s like a kink or—?” I pause, shaking my head. “Actually no, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”
He laughs and it’s not until our eyes meet that I realize he’s still holding my hand. I clear my throat and pull back, remembering my earlier resolve. We’re not friends. Last night didn’t change anything.
“Come on,” I say, not looking at Liam. “Let’s swap the envelopes and get out of here. We’re supposed to go zip-lining in a few hours.”
I’m turning toward the door, ready to make a swift exit, when his hand folds around my wrist, pulling me around to face him. “Are we really not going to talk about it?”
“Liam, I really don’t want to discuss my sister’s sexual fantasies—”
“No, not that.” His mouth twists. “I mean last night. And…this morning,” he adds, a soft blush creeping into his cheeks.
My head rushes as my vision momentarily blurs, fraying around the edges.
Liam has always been the one who shies away from tough subjects, the one who wants to brush everything under the rug. But apparently New Therapy Liam likes to talk. Which was great last night—and would have been great six months ago—but isn’t so great right now.
“Come on. Let’s not do this,” I say. “We need to get the fuck out of here in case they come back.”
I turn toward the door, but Liam’s feet stay rooted in place.
“I know you’re pissed about what happened,” he says. “And I know that’s why you ran out of the room this morning.” His gaze pins me down and I have the feeling of being backed into a corner with nowhere to go. “So why don’t you just say it so we can talk about it. Like adults.”
Maybe it’s the smug implication that he’s the adult here. Or the way he’s looking at me, his jaw flexing with barely contained irritation, but something inside me snaps.
“Well, it shouldn’t have happened,” I say. “It was reckless!”
His eyes flare triumphantly. “See? I knew you were pissed!”
“Of course I’m pissed!”
And it’s true. I am pissed. But mostly at myself. For getting drunk with him, for falling asleep in his arms. For getting swept up in his spell. Again.
“Is this about the boner?” he asks.
“No, Liam, it’s not about the fucking boner,” I say, exasperated. “It’s about the fact that we’re getting divorced and we can’t…we can’t…we can’t get drunk together and fall asleep holding hands!” I finally bark out.
For a long moment Liam doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me, a range of emotions weaving across his expression, each so finely intertwined, I can’t distinguish one from the other.
I wonder if he’ll yell. And a fucked-up part of me hopes he will. At least yelling would shatter this intolerable angst, or better yet, distract me from the tightly wound knot of sexual tension stewing in the pit of my stomach.
Finally, Liam says, “So, you’re saying you regret it?”
“Of course I regret it,” I snap. “We were drunk. I was upset after the nightmare. We had rules and we broke them.”
“I wasn’t that drunk,” he says, eyeing me carefully. “Were you?”
My skin burns with awareness. I know what he’s implying—what he’s rightfully implying. That alcohol isn’t to blame. But rather something much scarier than finding sex toys in my sister’s room.
“No,” I admit. “I wasn’t that drunk, but it shouldn’t have happened, and it can’t happen again.
It’s…it’s…” But the end of my sentence catches in my throat as I realize how close we’ve shifted.
Close enough that the familiar spicy scent of his cologne wafts in my nostrils, trapping me in that magnetic vortex of his that I’ve never been good at resisting.
Not nine years ago, not last night, and certainly not now.
“It’s what?” Liam prompts, and fuck, I can’t think when he’s looking at me like that. Like he knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“It’s…”
His eyes stay locked on mine like he’s trying to coax the words out of me with the sheer potency of his gaze. I swallow hard, willing myself to focus.
“It’s dangerous,” I say at last.
“Why is it dangerous?”
A laugh spills from my lips. “Are you serious?”
“It’s an honest question.”
I pinch my mouth, dragging my gaze away before I say, “It just is.”
He steps toward me, his brows drawing together, the air thick with the scent of his skin—citrus and sweet. I feel the hair on the back of my neck stiffen. “That’s not a reason, Ros.”
“What do you want me to say, Liam? That it should happen again?”
“I don’t know. Should it?”
I cough out a laugh. “You’re joking, right?”
He turns from me, running his fingers through his hair. When he looks back, I feel the heat of the gaze everywhere. My neck. My thighs. My mouth. There isn’t an inch of my body his eyes don’t reach.
I wish I could say it’s one-sided, that I’m the only one who feels this pulse of need and fear and confusion hanging between us, but I can tell he feels it too.
I can tell in the way his focus keeps dropping to my mouth.
In the way we’re finding every excuse to shift closer.
In the way he’s looking at me like I’m something he wants to drink down to the last drop.
“So last night meant nothing to you?” he finally asks. “It didn’t change anything between us?”
Something heavy presses against my ribs at the word us. We’ve always been an us, but now the word means something different. Something I can’t define.
I think about last night. How he held me. How he stroked my hair and talked with me. How good it all felt. How badly I wanted—needed—it. Needed him.
“I just…” I try to swallow down the tightness in my throat. “I thought maybe we could be friends,” I try.
His eyes widen, then narrow. “Friends?” he repeats. “You want to be friends?”
I wish I didn’t hear the rejection of the premise embedded in the question. But he’s right. He knows just as well as I that we can’t be friends. That there’s too much history, too many feelings—some good, some not so good—for us to ever be just friends.
When I don’t answer, he steps closer, closing the final gaps between us. “Tell me last night meant nothing, Ros. Tell me and I’ll drop it.”
A shiver jumps down my spine.
This is my chance, I think. My moment to set the record straight. To tell him last night doesn’t change anything. It’s over. It’s been over. But the words stay trapped in my throat, lodged between the covetous way his eyes trace my lips and the proximity of his body to mine.
When I finally speak, my voice comes out choked and raw. “It wasn’t nothing. It was nice.”
“Nice?” he repeats.
“Yes,” I force out, but I can tell he doesn’t buy it, and neither do I.
“Ros.” He says my name low and serious. “Nothing about this is nice. You and I both know that.”
Want and something else, something a lot more dangerous, simmer between my thighs.
“You’re right,” I finally say.
Seconds pass. Neither of us moves. I forget to breathe. Then Liam steps closer, close enough that I can feel the tension crackling in the narrowing space between us. Inches, I think. That’s all that separates us.
“Then tell me what you want, Ros,” he says, his voice heavy and ruinous. “Say it.”
My heartbeat pounds in my ears.
You, I think. I’ve always wanted you. And despite every warning sign and cautionary thought, I still do.
I want his hands on my body and my name on his lips.
I want the parts of him he puts on the highest shelf, out of sight and out of reach.
I want him in every way I can have him, so I take a moment, allowing myself to see his whole face, before I finally say, “You know what I want.”
His eyes flash with understanding like sparks bursting from a flame. “Ros—” he starts to say, but whatever it was, he doesn’t. Instead, his gaze lowers, sharp and determined, right before he closes the gap between us, takes my head in his hands, and kisses me.