Chapter Twenty-Four LIAM
Chapter Twenty-Four
L IAM
“Zoe coming swimming?”
“Soon, duck.” My voice was harsher than I intended, but honestly, how bloody long did it take to go next door and listen to some tall string bean say he was sorry for dumping you and then come back? Seventeen fucking minutes she’d been gone, and I was about to lose my mind watching the clock on the back of the house. “She’ll be back soon.”
Closure.
What an idiot I was. She’d been standing there staring up at me with those fucking eyes and telling me she liked it when I kissed her, and I’d sent her straight back toward an ex.
The fact that I’d stayed single so long was completely unsurprising. I didn’t know how to act when the thing I wanted was right there in front of me.
Mira pushed the duck under the water, making a quiet quacking sound when it resurfaced.
I nudged her shoulder. “Come down a couple steps. Let’s practice your floating.”
Mira ignored me, because she was perfectly happy up on that top step, thank you very much.
Leaning in, I whispered in her ear: “Don’t you think the pool duck wants to come into the water more?”
“No.” She splashed it under the surface again. “He likes the step.”
“Does he?” I asked dryly.
Mira nodded, her eyes glued right on that Union Jack duck. “He’s scared of the water.”
I sank down until just my chin hovered over the water, my gaze steady on hers. “Ducks are good swimmers, though.”
She nodded.
“But he’s still scared?”
She nodded again, a bit more fervently this time.
Fucking hell, I was so twisted up by this little bit of a girl. And when I took another quick glance at the clock—eighteen minutes—I knew she wasn’t the only one tying my insides into knots.
I held out my hand. “Can I see him?”
Mira gave me a shy look, then carefully set the duck in my hand.
“It’s okay that he is,” I said. “Everyone’s afraid of something, little duck.”
Pretending to give an emotional pep talk to a tiny plastic toy was a new experience, and I was endlessly thankful that no one was there to witness it. If a single member of our team got wind of this, I’d never live it down.
“You afraid too?” she asked.
“All the time.” I held the duck up closer to my face, pretended to study its expression. “When I was little, I was afraid of the dark. Afraid to be home alone.”
My fears as an adult were a bit much to lay on her, so I decided to keep those quiet.
“But I still had to figure out a way to sleep in the dark,” I told her. “Still had to stay home alone when my mum was at work. And it wasn’t so scary after the first few times, once I knew I could do it. Maybe Mr. Duck needs to see he can do it, and then he won’t be so afraid anymore.”
Why were those words so easy to say when the advice was meant for someone else?
I couldn’t take my own bloody advice, that much was clear.
As I stared at Mira, I couldn’t deny that my fear was only part of what held me back. I’d just never been able to put words to the rest of it until I was faced with these two, faced with the absolute certainty of how they’d wrecked my world.
And if I ever broke this little girl’s heart like mine had been broken, I’d never be able to live with myself. As for Zoe ... I had a feeling that her heart was already just as fucked as mine.
With another glance at the clock, I nudged Mira’s leg under the water. “Maybe we can try again tomorrow? It’s bedtime for little ducks.”
Despite the new toy, I didn’t have to tell her twice.
With the clock’s hands ticking ominously and me doing my very best to ignore them, I got Mira ready for bed in record time. It was one of those rare nights—no begging for more books, no wrestling match during pajama time.
I kissed the top of her head as she settled into her favorite corner, the beat-up duck snug and secure under her arm.
“G’night,” I whispered. “Feel free to sleep in very late tomorrow.”
She smiled against the duck. Little shit would likely be awake with the sunrise because I’d asked.
With my chest aching and my head racing with possibilities, I knew I couldn’t sit still until she got back home.
Thirty-three minutes.
It took everything in me not to walk around the front of the houses to see if his stupid car was still there. What good would that do me?
None.
Even if he was still there, it meant nothing.
He was probably begging. Who wouldn’t beg if they’d had her and let her go?
Fuck. I’d done nothing but kiss her, and I was ready to tear bare-handed into all my reservations because the thought of not having her was impossible.
Of course he was begging.
Maybe he was a crier. Or maybe he was emotionally grounded and wanted to talk through every fucking thought he’d had since the moment they broke up.
I bet Carol would love him.
“Pull yourself together,” I ground out.
The spiral of my thoughts was quick and, quite frankly, a little embarrassing.
Before I could overthink anything else, I hopped into the pool, sinking under the water. Everything was muffled and quiet, a stillness that I needed.
I broke the surface, tipping my head back to stare at the sky.
Thirty-five minutes.
I’d never known time to move this slowly. Not even during a game, with time-outs and bullshit commercial breaks and God knew what else.
Movement from the corner of my eye had my thoughts trailing off.
When the sight of her registered, it was a good thing I wasn’t midsentence, because she completely decimated my ability to speak.
Zoe had her hair pulled up, piled high on her head, a few rogue waves around her face.
She was wearing a Denver sweatshirt.
Only a Denver sweatshirt. Her legs were completely bare. And her eyes glowed.
“What are you ...?” I swallowed. “Where’d you get that?”
My question came out sounding angry and rough. But we both knew I wasn’t.
She merely smiled.
I was just trying to breathe . I hadn’t seen that particular shirt in years, though there was one shoved in the back of my closet. They’d printed them up only once.
She glanced down at the shirt and smiled. “Amie bought it for me as a joke one Christmas. She thought it was hilarious.”
Slowly, Zoe turned, and the sight of my name on her back, the flex of the muscles in her legs, had my skin tightening, my chest blazing with heat.
When she was facing me again, there was an impish grin on her face. “But then I just kept wearing it. It was soft. Warm. Fit me perfectly.” She held her hands up, thumbs poking through holes in the sides of the sleeves, that same thing she did to all the shirts she loved. “I’ve never found another one that I liked as much. When I lost it, I was inexplicably sad,” she said.
Why did it feel like she wasn’t really talking about that sweatshirt?
Why did my chest feel like it was caving in?
Zoe made her way to the edge of the pool, toward the middle, where I stood. She sat, easing her legs into the water with a satisfied hiss.
There was a flash of red underneath the hem of the sweatshirt, and my heart settled into a more natural rhythm, knowing she wasn’t stark-ass naked under there.
I watched her carefully and slid closer to where she sat but stayed just out of reach. “How’d your visit with what’s-his-name go?”
“Fine. We didn’t talk long.” She smiled. “He apologized for how things ended. Asked if I wanted to meet him for coffee sometime.”
“What’d you say?” Fuck, I sounded like such an asshole. Like I had any right to ask.
“I said that there was no need. I’d already forgiven him”—she paused, eyeing me meaningfully—“and I was too hung up on someone else to have coffee with anyone.”
My ribs squeezed tight, and my heart thundered painfully. “Did he cry?”
Zoe’s lips twitched. “No. I wouldn’t tell you if he did, though.”
My eyebrows arched. “What were you doing for the rest of the time?”
“Watching the clock, were you?”
I gave her a droll look, and she laughed under her breath. Zoe shook her head slightly, studying my face like she was still desperately trying to figure me out.
Join the fucking club. I’d been attempting that one for more than thirty years and was still coming up empty handed.
With absolutely no regard for my sanity, Zoe gracefully pulled the sweatshirt up and over her head.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered.
Her bikini was red. Small. Tiny straps holding it over her body.
There was so much skin. So many curves.
Freckles dotted her shoulders and chest. And the tiniest little diamond winked in her belly button. She grinned a Cheshire-cat grin as she gently kicked her legs back and forth in the water.
“We weren’t done talking when he showed up,” she said.
Why did she keep looking at me like that? Like we were already naked. Like I was already inside her. My hands curled into helpless fists at my side. “We weren’t. But I don’t know if it’s wise we continue it here.”
“Why not?”
“Look at you,” I growled. “It’s not fair.”
Maybe there was something magnetic woven into that bloody suit, because quite helplessly, I drifted closer to the edge where she sat. When I got close enough to touch her, I braced my hands on either side of her hips, her legs shifting to accommodate my upper body. Her calf brushed the side of my hip, and my jaw locked tight.
“It’s very fair. You’ve always had me off-balance,” she said. “From the day we met.”
My head reared back. “I have not.”
She laughed. “You have. I never knew what to make of you. That’s why Amie got me that shirt.” Zoe tucked her chin down toward her chest and exhaled a soft laughing sound. “I think she knew,” she added quietly. “I think they both did.”
“Knew what?” I asked, voice raw and heart in agony.
When Zoe raised her head, the sheer naked longing I saw in her eyes had my pulse racing. She didn’t answer, though.
My hands drifted helplessly toward her legs, but all I allowed myself was a brush of my thumbs along the outside of her thighs.
Zoe exhaled slowly, a slight shiver racking her body. “I was looking through some old stuff,” she whispered. “Tyler wasn’t even there for ten minutes. I just ... I needed to know if I’d been missing signs this entire time.” There was no need for me to ask the question. “I think maybe I didn’t want to see them,” she admitted.
“Why?”
Zoe took a deep breath, the sweet curves of her breasts rising and falling behind that measly scrap of fabric. That breath, as it turned out, was for fortification, because she gently lifted her hips off the concrete and slid into the water.
The air was thick, and hardly an inch separated her body from mine because I kept my hands braced on the edge, effectively caging her in to the side of the pool.
She wasn’t the only one caged. My want of her kept me locked in place. This hidden way I’d loved her for so long kept me frozen, staunchly refusing to miss another opportunity to touch her.
“It’s hard to admit when you’ve wasted years of your life on someone who didn’t deserve them,” she said quietly. Slowly, she raised a hand and traced the bottom edge of my lip with the pad of her finger. “It’s even worse when you realize the person you want to be with has been in front of you the entire time.”
My entire fucking soul sighed in relief to hear her say it, no matter how complicated it might be. How many of those complications still waited for us. Gently, I rolled my forehead against hers. She settled her hands over my chest.
“I found pictures from that night,” she continued. “The night we met. And then some from a year or two later. More after that.” Zoe licked her lips. “In almost all of them, you were looking at me. For years .”
I couldn’t help but close my eyes as the massive fucking wave of feelings swamped me. It was amazing how weak my body felt the longer I listened to her talk. She made me weak. Always had. I’d just lost my ability to hide it anymore.
“I think you didn’t tell me the full truth, Liam.”
Opening my eyes again, I found hers locked straight onto mine.
There was no need for me to ask, because I damn well knew what she was talking about.
“I couldn’t ,” I managed in a gruff voice. “Imagine knowing that, with all the shit we were dealing with.”
“I know.”
“It was too much that you actually thought I hated you.” My hands, unable to stay off her for a second longer, inching slowly up the sides of her arms. “I still don’t know how to do any of this, love. I’ve spent my entire life making sure it never happened.”
There it was.
The thing we hadn’t discussed yet, and I fought the urgent swirl of nerves in my stomach, the desire to claw back behind my walls.
Drops of water clung to Zoe’s chest and shoulders, and her hands gently coasted over my chest and shoulders. “That’s the other thing I was thinking about,” she admitted quietly.
In the silence that followed, I fought the urge to crush her body to mine, because this tiny sliver of space between us felt like the Grand bloody Canyon, given what we were talking about.
“We both have things that we’re afraid of, Liam.” Her eyes were clear and wide and candid, and I felt the directness of her gaze straight into my fucking chest. “The worst thing that my divorce did is that I trusted myself just a little bit less, and no matter how you feel about me, that doesn’t disappear. You can’t remove my fears any more than I can erase yours.”
How I wanted her to, though. I wanted her to obliterate them from existence. Destroy the deep, dark pull of those thoughts, the ones that had held so much power over me for so long.
“That’s what so many of us get wrong about relationships,” she continued. “At the end of the day, battling those fears will always be our own responsibility, our own choice. You cannot fix mine, and I can’t fix yours. All we can do is hold on to each other, Liam. Fight those battles side by side.”
Fuck, how simple she made it sound.
“And if it all goes wrong?” I asked. “What about her?”
Zoe sighed. “We’ll always make decisions based on what’s best for Mira. But I can’t pretend anymore. Can you?” She’d said it before she left the house, and I hadn’t been able to say the words. I glanced beyond her to the house, but she took my face in her hands so that I couldn’t look away. “Can you?” she asked again.
My eyes closed for a moment, and no matter how much it fucking terrified me, I ripped the words from my throat so I couldn’t take them back. “You know I can’t.”
She exhaled in obvious relief.
“Here I thought you’d want to dissect what I said this morning. Pin me to a board under some giant fucking spotlight so you can figure out all the bullshit in my head.” Wariness was heavy in my tone, dripping off every word.
She didn’t smile. She didn’t laugh.
Because she saw straight fucking through me when I said it.
Panic was icy cold, prickling ominously up my spine, because if that was the direction in which she took this ... if she asked me to slice that part of myself open, I’d probably fucking do it.
“We don’t ever have to talk about it again if you don’t want to,” she promised me. “I will never ask that of you.”
“Simple as that?” I asked in a rough, disbelieving voice.
Zoe shook her head slowly. “There’s nothing simple about it, Liam. I hate that you’ve carried this for so long, but I understand why you did. And the only thing I can tell you,” she whispered, coming closer until her nose brushed lightly against mine, “is that I trust you, and I know I’m safe with you. I believe that enough for the two of us, until you believe it too.”
Her thumbs traced gentle lines over my cheekbones as she pulled back to look into my face, and that gentleness was my undoing.
I didn’t stand a chance against it.
Maybe that’s why I’d always poked at her, stoked the flames of contention and irritation, knowing that I was the only one who brought it out of her.
If she’d treated me like this for all those years, it would’ve been a million times harder to watch her live a life without me.
Slowly, I plucked her hand off my cheek, turning the palm toward my mouth. Her fingers curled helplessly as I pressed a fervent kiss on her soft skin.
“I don’t know what to do with all the things you make me feel, Zoe,” I whispered. “Every time I look at you, it’s like someone is ripping out my fucking heart. When you smile, I can’t bloody breathe.”
I’d never be a poet. Even the clunky way I tried to tell her I was in love with her came from my chest like someone had pried it out with a crowbar.
And she simply smiled.
Maybe after all the uncertainty, all the hesitation, this was the part I needed to make peace with. Whatever I was, whatever I had inside me, it was exactly enough for her.
Rough edges and all.
“I do have one question for you,” I said quietly, slipping my hands up the line of her back, tracing my fingers over the impossibly thin strings holding up her suit. “I think it’s my turn after all.”
“If the question has anything to do with permission to untie my top, then the answer is yes.”
“That’s not it,” I said, my lips brushing against her temple.
“That’s . . . sad.”
My mouth curved into a smile. “Is this how it would happen in your books?” I ghosted kisses over her forehead. Brushed my fingers along the curve of her waist. “Something like this to get the fairy-tale ending?”
“Sometimes,” she said shakily. Her hands tracked over my stomach, sliding around my back. “But in a lot of them, we’d have fought. Yelled about the things we couldn’t say earlier. Someone would’ve stormed out. Probably you,” she teased.
“I don’t want to fight with you, Valentine. I’m done fighting.” I nipped at the shell of her ear. Her breasts were pressed tight against my chest, and my palms skated over the curves of her ass. “I think this suits us better, yeah?”
She moaned in assent. “In some of them, when you’d come back, and we had our big realizations, you would’ve torn my suit off, and we’d be having highly improbable pool sex by now.”
A chuckle escaped from low in my chest. “Why improbable ?”
She hissed when I mouthed the line of her jaw. “I-I don’t know. It always seemed ... highly illogical that all the chemicals make for a pleasurable”—her voice hitched higher when I wrenched her thigh up against my side and pressed her tight to the side of the pool—“p-pleasurable experience.”
I pulled my face back to study her. Zoe’s cheeks were flushed pink, and so was her chest. Her nipples were hard points behind the fiery red of her suit.
My hands itched to do exactly that. Give her all the pleasure I was capable of. Tug off those tiny scraps covering her body, and sink inside her.
She wrapped her other leg around my waist, hooking her ankles behind my back, and I pressed my forehead against hers with a hiss of pain.
“Not like this,” I whispered against the edge of her lips. “Whenever I thought about you—and fucking hell, I had a lot of thoughts—we were in a bed. A big fucking bed, and we had all night to use it.”
“We have beds,” she said, rolling her hips in a sinuous motion that had me seeing stars. “My bed is huge and empty.”
I clamped a hand over her hip, hard.
“You better stop, love.” I dragged my teeth down the line of her shoulder, and she whimpered. “It’s been too long for me, and we are doing this the right way.”
Her eyes were dazed, her pupils blown wide. “What’s that? Because this feels very, very right.”
“I’m taking you on a proper date,” I said simply. “I’m picking you up from your house tomorrow night. We’re going out someplace quiet and romantic, and I’ll ask you all the questions I still want answers to.” I kissed the tip of her nose. “I’ll even let you ask more than two.”
Zoe’s face softened, and she slid her hand over my cheek again. “That sounds nice.”
I hummed. “Good.”
When I started to pull back, she tightened her legs, her brow furrowing. “You’re still gonna kiss me, though, right?”
My lips curved into a devilish grin. “Not tonight.”
“What?” Oh, her eyes were on fire. “You just told me that when I smile, you can’t bloody breathe ,” she said, mimicking my accent. “And I don’t even get a kiss?”
“Won’t kill you to wait, Valentine. Imagine how I’ve felt all these years.”
With firm hands, I unhooked her legs and slid backward into the water, hard as a fucking rock and my chest lighter than it had ever been.
Zoe immediately started following, and I held up a hand. “You can’t change my mind.”
She stopped, setting her hands on her hips, mouth hanging open. “You’re serious.”
“Trust me, it pains me more than you can imagine.”
Her eyebrow quirked as I started up the steps, still facing her. “Yeah, I can tell. I’d be more than happy to help you relieve that pain.”
I wagged a finger in the air. “I’m courting you the proper way, and that’s that.”
Zoe stayed in the pool, staring at me incredulously, hands still propped on her hips.
Snatching a towel from the chair, I rubbed it over my chest and swim trunks, wincing only once when I brushed a bit too hard against my very angry hard-on.
She snorted. “Serves you right.”
“I’m sure it does, love.”
Her eyes took on an evil gleam.
“What’s that face?” I asked.
Her fingers trailed up over the edge of her bathing suit until she was fiddling with the strap around the back of her neck.
“Zoe,” I said in warning, “don’t you dare.”
She plucked at the knot behind her neck, and the suit loosened. My breath caught in my throat when she sank slightly below the water, then tugged her top off and tossed it up onto the concrete, where it landed with a wet slap by my feet.
Through the distorted filter of the pool, I saw just enough—the ripe curves and the pink of her nipples—that my mouth watered.
“You are a menace,” I whispered.
Zoe laughed. “You could come back in and show me just how much.”
Without a word, I leaned down and snagged her bikini top, tossing it back into the pool.
“Sweet dreams, darling,” I told her. “I’ll be locking my door tonight so you don’t think about sneaking in.”
She crossed her arms and stood up, water streaming down her glorious chest, and holy fucking hell, she was a vision. “As if I’d give you that satisfaction now.”
I grinned, notching my fingers against my temple. “See you in the morning.”
With a whistle, I walked back into the house.
Behind me, she let out an ear-blistering curse. She might have wanted to kill me now, but her reaction was exactly what I’d been aiming for.
Zoe was right that I couldn’t erase her fears. But maybe I could help a little.
I was still smiling when I closed myself into the guest room and turned the lock.