Chapter Twenty LIAM
Chapter Twenty
L IAM
I took another swig of whiskey while she wrapped a tie around her hair, bunching it up onto the top of her head. I could watch her play with that hair all fucking day.
Slowly, I walked behind Zoe, swallowing hard at the delicate bumps of her spine.
Did she like to be kissed there?
Her shoulders were tense, and I could understand why. I was too, my whole body strung tight like a bowstring.
The shirt she was wearing was pale blue, with thin, delicate straps stretching over the golden skin of her shoulders. Tiny wisps of hair curled against the nape of her neck, and the impact of them damn near had me swaying on my feet. I wanted to bury my nose there and pull in the sweet scent of her.
This was a sick test of my control and a testament to how badly I couldn’t leash my own thoughts. And I’d likely regret it.
But I didn’t now.
Her breath was choppy as she sat in front of me, her head bowed in supplication, like she was about to pray. What she didn’t realize was that I was too.
For control.
For restraint.
For a moment like this that I didn’t deserve, not even the littlest bit.
My hands looked big and clumsy when I lifted them, settling my palms over the curve of her shoulders. Her skin was warm and smooth, and she exhaled in a hard puff at the touch of my hands.
There was no choice but to close my eyes at the feel of it. Of just touching her.
But instead of a racing heart and jangled nerves, something very close to peace settled along my skin.
It wasn’t hard to find the cord of tension with my thumbs, and when I pushed against it, trying to draw the tightness along the line of her back, she made a low moaning sound that plucked at all the little hairs on the back of my neck.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Oh my Lord,” she groaned. “Yes, there.”
Her head dropped lower, and I smiled faintly.
“When your muscles are locked up like this, you can’t just leave them to keep getting worse. A knot under your skin like that—you have to find a place to push all the tension away.” My voice stayed quiet and low. “You have to move it along; otherwise, it’ll build and build, causing a whole host of other problems.”
The layered meaning of my words wasn’t lost on me, and what a dumbass I was for thinking it’d be lost on her . She tilted her head as she listened, humming in understanding.
I used the heel of my hand to push against her muscles, and she hissed softly.
“Relax your shoulders,” I murmured. “Don’t keep tensing.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one feeling what I’m feeling.”
I smiled again, thankful she couldn’t see. But I moved back to my thumbs all the same, gentling the pressure just a touch.
Zoe’s entire body melted, and I dug my thumbs harder into the knot. “What kinds of books is she sending you that cause this? I don’t even have knots this big, and I’m getting knocked around for a living.”
She made a small laughing sound. “Dirty ones. This one is, at least.”
My eyebrows popped up, hands stilling in an instant. “How dirty?”
“Don’t judge.”
“I’m not,” I said easily.
I continued working on the knot, drawing my thumbs along the muscles, then pushed the heel of my hand along the full length of her shoulder blade. She shivered, and I closed my eyes.
“Too much?” I asked, and fucking hell, my voice sounded like I’d been chewing glass.
Yes. It was too fucking much, and I was the idiot who’d put us here.
“No,” she whispered. I brought my thumbs along the base of her neck and pushed up to the base of her skull. Those little curls tickled my fingers, and I fought the urge to keep pushing, to bury them in her hair, to tug her face back and taste her skin with my tongue. “It’s nothing,” she added.
“No bullshit, remember?”
What a stupid thing to say.
We should absolutely bullshit our way through this if we wanted to come out unscathed.
But I was a weak man who sorely needed to get laid, because the sight of her neck was causing a life-threatening loss of blood flow to my head. It was all going straight between my legs, where I was so bloody hard it was a miracle I could still stand up straight.
But instead of taking back the prompt for honesty, I let it dangle in the air.
One more second and I might have succeeded in my last grasp for sanity. But then she answered, and when she did ... I was so bloody fucked.
“I haven’t been touched like this in a really long time,” she whispered. “Years, really. It feels ...”
My jaw clenched tight because I desperately wanted to know what she was going to say next.
“Incredible,” she whispered.
It was entirely possible that I’d lost the ability to breathe. I definitely couldn’t swallow. My heart might’ve stopped cold in my chest.
“Which is silly, if you think about it,” she continued. “Because I get hugs from Mira. And Rosa. But something like this ...” Her voice trailed off, and I fought the urge to tighten my hands on her skin until she finished. Thankfully, I didn’t have to. “I’m not sure Charles ever rubbed my neck the entire time we were married.”
“Yeah, well, Charles was a prick.”
I hated thinking about him. So I told her that too.
Zoe laughed. “Indeed. You pegged him right off the bat.”
I grunted.
She laughed again. “You’d have every right to gloat, you know. I was fully expecting you to.”
I slowly sucked in a breath through my nose. “It’s not a fun thing to gloat about, really. I fucking hated seeing you marry a twat like that.” My voice deepened, rough with emotion. “The longer you stayed with him, the worse it got.”
The words hit the room like a bomb, silence descending in an immediate vacuum. My hands slowed as I frantically tried to think of something, anything, to say.
But there was nothing there.
Stupid fucking whiskey. Fucking Chris stowing his fucking alcohol in a spot where anyone could find it in a moment of weakness.
My chest was tight, my pulse racing wildly. Fuck, I’d probably stroke out if I didn’t find a way to salvage this. The peace was gone, obliterated at the turn that our conversation had taken.
“No bullshit?” she asked in a whisper.
I pinched my eyes shut, my hands slowing even more, the tips of my fingers tracing those delicate little knots of bone under her impossibly soft skin.
Now the words came easily. Because of fucking course they did.
“I wanted to tear him apart that first night,” I said, voice dark and full of violent promises. “He didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as you, let alone take you home, take you to bed, have you for his own.”
Careful, that screaming voice in my head cautioned. Careful now.
I was treading on glass-thin ice, hairline cracks spreading out as far as the eye could see.
Zoe took a massive breath, her entire frame expanding. “Do you know what I hated?” she said.
I didn’t answer.
I was too fucking busy. My thumbs absently trailed up the length of her neck until those hairs hit my skin again. I wound one around my finger, testing the softness of it.
Fuck the alcohol—I was getting drunk on touching her. My head swam dangerously, my pulse feral and far too fast for anyone to sustain.
“I hated that I always wondered why it bothered you so much,” she admitted. “Because I thought about it. All the time.”
My hands trembled. It was a good thing I couldn’t see her face. If she pinned those golden-green eyes on me, gave even the slightest hint that she was feeling anything on the magnitude that I was, I’d lose myself completely.
But my traitorous fingers were already lost. I traced the shell of her ear, and she shivered again. She tilted her head, granting more access, nothing I deserved.
I was looming over her now, her back only a scant inch away from my chest.
My head bowed, and the scent of her hair was too tempting to ignore. I buried my nose in the crown of her head and filled my lungs with the sweetness I found there.
The moment after I did, as I slowly pulled away and wondered how I’d blame the whiskey for sniffing her hair , Zoe turned, tilting her head up, and the full impact of her eyes sent an electrifying jolt through my chest that I wasn’t prepared for.
Her pupils were blown wide. Her cheeks flushed a rosy pink, and her lips opened in a gentle O.
For a few heartbeats, I could hardly register what I was seeing in her face because I’d wanted it for so long.
It was desire—reciprocal and clear—and the realization dealt a staggering blow. The desperate way I’d craved her for so long clawed at my reserve.
I wasn’t strong enough to deny myself.
Not anymore.
I didn’t know who moved next. She surged up onto her feet, I swooped down, and our mouths clashed in a fierce kiss.
At the touch of her lips, bone-melting relief had me groaning into her mouth.
But we weren’t close enough. I couldn’t get my body close enough. Never close enough.
With one hand, I knocked the stool out of her way and wrapped my arm around her waist as it fell onto the ground in a loud clatter.
Her lips were so sweet and delicious. Her skin was soft and firm, and I wanted to absorb her into my entire being.
There was no hesitation, not a single heartbeat in which we didn’t take exactly what we wanted from the other.
And we took.
We took and took and took.
With tongues and teeth, sucked-in breaths, and hands furiously grappling against skin.
Zoe clutched my head in her hands, opening that sweet, sweet mouth when I licked at the seam of her lips.
The dirty sweep of my tongue over hers had her body melting into mine. The power of this kiss almost knocked my knees out from under me, because it was nothing I’d prepared for.
The universe split open, bursting at the seams with something new and vivid, revealed just by the way she kissed me.
In my wildest dreams, I’d never imagined it would be this good. And I’d imagined a lot.
My fingers dug into her hair, all that glorious golden hair, and I tilted her head to the side, deepening the way I could take her kiss.
Take her mouth. Take her sounds and her breath.
I’d take all of it, just in this one moment that I had it.
Her arms wound around my neck, her back arching as I slid my hands up and down, touching as much of her as I could. Up the supple line of her back, down until I could fill my hands with the curves of her backside. I bent at the knees to get a better angle, my hips pressing my hardness against her belly, and she let out the sweetest mewling sound.
I wrenched my mouth away, keeping my forehead tight to hers. “Fuck, I could live off that sound, Valentine. Give me more.”
Then I sucked up the line of her jaw, tugging at the velvety-soft lobe of her ear with my teeth while she gasped for breath. Her cool, clever hands tracked down my chest, pushing at the hem of my shirt until she could find purchase on my overheated skin underneath the flimsy cotton that separated us.
Desire mangled all rational thought. There was nothing there to gentle the way we touched each other.
Because those touches felt like my salvation.
I’d wanted them for so long and had found no peace in her presence for all those years. Having this one moment with her now felt like being granted a brief reprieve from a decade of purgatory. One of my own making, something I’d never really tried to escape.
And it was worth it now to have the taste of her on my tongue and the glory of her body in my hands.
I pushed a hand up her waist, past her ribs, until I brushed a thumb against the side of her breast. The warm weight of it had my mouth watering.
She tugged my mouth back to hers, whimpering when our tongues twined, when our lips pushed and pulled with heat and fervor and something messy and wild.
Zoe nipped at my bottom lip with her teeth, and my whole body shook. My hands tightened, my grip on her turning greedy and fierce, straddling a line that felt whisper thin.
We were pressed against the island, our bodies wound tight against each other, hands seeking and touching and memorizing, expressing something frantic that I didn’t want to name because if I thought about it too hard, I’d stop.
And I didn’t want to stop.
Zoe moaned into my mouth when I filled my hand with her breast over the cotton of her shirt.
No bra.
Only a thin layer of fabric between us, and it wasn’t enough to hide the hard point of her nipple. My thumb traced it. Over and over and over until it was her turn to shake.
Zoe tugged her hands away from where they traced the muscles of my stomach, then slowly curled her fingers over the front of my shorts, where I was in the most pain.
A tortured growl emerged from the deepest pits of my chest as I rocked my hips into her touch. There was no hesitation from this woman, and she’d be the death of me someday. Of that, I was sure.
And if I wasn’t careful, her hand around me would end everything in an embarrassingly premature fashion, simply by nature of how fucking badly I wanted her. How long I’d fantasized about this, in the dark of my room, under the heat of my shower.
It was always her, even when I tried to think about something, someone, anyone else.
Always Zoe.
It would always be Zoe too. There was no escaping it, even if I wanted to. I wasn’t sure I did anymore.
I’d suffer the want of her for the rest of my life without complaint.
She whimpered when I tore her hand off me, nipping at my bottom lip in retaliation, and I grinned. Against the impossibly soft skin at her wrist, I placed a sucking kiss, my eyes locked on hers.
Her chest heaved as she watched me, and the bottomless pools of her gaze had my head spinning.
Did she know how helpless I was? How quickly I’d fall to my knees to worship her?
She couldn’t possibly.
Zoe pulled her arm out of my grasp and cupped the side of my face, cradling the line of my jaw as she tugged me down.
With a groan, I took her mouth again.
Through endless sucking kisses, through tangled tongues and nipping teeth and abused lips, I gripped her hips in my hands and boosted her up onto the island. Zoe split her thighs around my hips, bracing her legs around my ass to tug me closer.
The added height allowed me to cup her face in my hands, weave my hands through her hair, and study the sweetness of her face. She grinned.
“You look a right mess,” I whispered against that smile.
Zoe exhaled shakily, tracing her thumb along my bottom lip. And her eyes ... they were on fire. “Why don’t you mess me up some more, then?” She kissed my lower lip, and my eyelids fluttered shut at the gentle touch. What a sweet undoing of my sanity this was. “Please, Liam.”
My bones rattled from the force of that whispered request.
I gripped her chin and took her mouth with another savage kiss.
Zoe softened, her pliant body melting into mine.
The animal impulse to tear at her shirt, to bare her body before me, was almost impossible to ignore. I wanted to suck and taste and bite. Leave marks where she’d see them for days.
I wanted to spread her out on the island and hold her hips down with my hands while her thighs shook on either side of my head. Gorge my fill on her sweetness, kiss her with her taste on my lips. Get drunk on nothing but Zoe.
I wanted to unleash years of bottled longing in between her legs, where we’d both shake and sweat and scream when it was over.
When it was over . . .
What would it be like when it was over?
The thought was like a bucket of ice dumped right over my head.
When torn clothes and sticky, messy skin morphed into a face of regret. Her face.
I tried to imagine that, even as my mouth was fused with hers.
I’d rather wrench my heart out of my chest and deal with the gaping hole left behind.
Slowly, I gentled the kiss, unable to stop as quickly as I likely should have. “Zoe,” I whispered against her lips.
She paused, her eyes locked on mine when she registered my tone. “No,” she begged. “Please don’t stop.” She rubbed her nose against mine, sucking my bottom lip in between hers. This was a pleading kiss, an unnameable request that I’d never be able to fulfill.
Because eventually, I’d let her down.
Eventually, we’d be left standing in the smoldering ashes of what remained, and there was no possibility of that happening in a way that didn’t leave Mira in the middle.
“We can’t, love,” I whispered. The endearment came out thoughtlessly.
Her eyes fluttered shut.
“We can’t,” I repeated. “There’s too much at stake.”
Slowly, her hands slid over my chest, and I fought the urge to lean into her.
Slowly, she lowered her feet to the floor, and I studied her unashamedly, her hair mussed from my hands, her lips pink and puffy from the kisses, and her eyes ...
I couldn’t look away, even though I should have.
Her eyes were disappointed.
I’d done that.
It was why the things I felt for her were better kept leashed and caged and locked away. Why my self-induced purgatory was where I deserved to live.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Don’t,” she whispered fiercely. “Don’t you dare.”
Finally, I nodded. No apologies, then. I hadn’t meant it anyway. I wasn’t sorry.
I might be tomorrow. But with her taste still lingering on my lips, I couldn’t find any regret.
“Go to bed, Zoe,” I told her. “We’ve got that appointment in the morning, and we both need sleep.”
Her eyes narrowed, thoughtful and sharp. “We’re not done with ... whatever just happened here. We will talk about it eventually.”
I slicked my tongue over my teeth. “Not tonight, though.”
When she glanced at the whiskey bottle, I saw the moment she conceded. “Not tonight,” she agreed quietly.
I swiped a hand over my mouth, slowly bending to pick up the stool that I’d swept aside. Once it was upright, I pushed it back into place.
Zoe stared, her gaze unflinching and unguarded. She wanted more. And I couldn’t possibly think about what that meant.
“Good night,” I told her.
She swallowed, silently watching me leave the room, and I wondered how many more times she’d watch me walk away before it got to be too much.