Chapter Twenty-Six ZOE
Chapter Twenty-Six
Z OE
“You’re sure it’s not too much?”
Rosa leaned back, her discerning eye studying my finished look, from the top of my perfectly tousled sex-hair curls to the tips of my toes.
“Not at all.” Her lips curled in satisfaction. “The plaid skirt is a very particular sort of torture, but I approve.”
I tugged on the hem. “It’s short.”
Martha tapped her walking cane on the floor. “That’s the point, sweet pea. Make him wonder what you’ve got underneath it.”
“I don’t even know where he’s taking me,” I said. Leaning in toward the mirror, I adjusted the deep V neckline of the fitted green tank. My splurge on a new bra was worth every penny because it pushed everything up, giving my usually modest cleavage a spectacular boost. “I could be terribly overdressed.”
“Did you shave ... everywhere?” Phyllis asked.
When they laughed, my cheeks flushed hot. “Yes, Phyllis. All unwanted hairs are gone.”
She winked.
With a shake of my head, I did one last swipe of mascara.
“How was it with him today at the house?” Rosa asked.
“Torture,” I said. “He was so ... flirty. But, like, Liam flirty.”
“What does that mean?”
Slowly, I closed the tube of mascara and set it back in my makeup bag.
Once Liam had returned home from his workout and errands, his flirtations were like nothing I’d ever experienced before. Hours of achingly slow anticipation. With very little touching, the man had me ready to crawl out of my skin if he didn’t do something soon.
“He’d look at me from across the room, and ...” My voice trailed off, and I waved a hand in front of my face when it overheated. “Have you ever made eye contact with someone and you just know they’re thinking about sex?”
Martha nodded. “The widower across the street looks at me that way.”
Rosa rolled her eyes. “He looks at everyone like that.”
Phyllis blinked. “He does? I thought it was just me.”
“It’s not,” Rosa said.
I laughed. “So you get it.”
“Yes,” they all answered.
I turned and sat on the bathroom counter. “Or he’d walk behind me and brush his fingers along my back when he passed. He never said or did anything outright sexual, but I have never been this worked up before. I’m afraid I’ll get in the car and climb straight into his lap.”
“Do it,” Martha whispered. “He’s got a big car. The frame on that baby could handle a lot.”
With a laugh, I covered my face. “Okay, I appreciate you helping me get ready, but he’ll need you over there for Mira.”
“No, he’s bringing Mira to my house tonight,” Rosa said.
My eyebrows shot up my forehead. “Really?”
She grinned. “My suggestion. That way, if you’re done early, the house is still empty. I’ll bring her home right before her bedtime.”
With a fluttering stomach, I processed the ramifications of that one. Liam was taking me out for a late-afternoon date, given they didn’t have practice. Even if we had a three-hour meal, we’d have a couple of hours at the house without Mira.
“I owe you,” I told her.
She eyed the length of my legs underneath the skirt. “I think he owes me too.”
“Good underwear, right?” Martha whispered.
When I blushed bright red, they laughed in delight.
The house was quiet after they left, and I took a few moments to enjoy the way all of this felt. Butterflies wasn’t even the right word to describe the feeling of waiting for him. I’d always thought of butterflies as fragile little things, wisps of feeling when they brushed their wings against your skin.
This was a great big whoosh of air, a swirling sort of effervescence that floated through my veins as I closed my eyes at the thought of him.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever had it this bad, even before I was married.
Maybe because this date held an omen of the kind of future I’d always wanted. There was weight to it. Not because he was perfect. If anything, he wore his imperfections with pride, and I liked him even better for it.
The sound of a car pulling into the driveway had me checking my reflection one last time.
The woman who looked back at me was hardly recognizable.
I’d gone heavier on my eye makeup and spent a bit more time crafting my normally wild hair into something a bit more intentional.
But I’d kept my lips bare because that man was kissing me tonight. Preferably in the first ten minutes.
Liam’s broad frame filled the glass of my front door, and I blew out a low breath.
Smoothing my hands over my hips one last time, I slowly opened the door.
If I lasted ten minutes without attacking him, it would be a fucking miracle.
He looked good .
He wore a blue dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up his forearms and molded around his biceps. In one of his big hands, he clasped a small bouquet of lilacs, a bold splash of purples and deep pinks and bright-green stems.
“Bloody fucking hell,” he murmured under his breath, his eyes locked on my skirt. “Look at you.”
I sank against the doorframe, my legs suddenly a little weak. “Where did you find lilacs in July?”
He blinked away from my legs, snagging briefly on my cleavage and then landing on my face. “Uhh ...”
I laughed. “I’ll put them in water before we go.” I held out my hand, and he handed them over. The fragrance was sweet and strong, something I’d always equated with spring. “How did you know I liked these?”
He’d recovered himself. Sort of. “Didn’t, actually.”
Liam followed me into the kitchen while I went up on tiptoe to pull a vase down from above the fridge. The moment I set it down, he crowded behind me, bracing his hands on the counter and burying his nose in my hair.
“Holy shit,” I whispered, sinking back against him. He was hard. Already. One of his hands swept the hair away from my neck, and he mouthed the skin he found there. His other hand spread over my waist, his thumb brushing the bottom of my breasts, his pinkie toying with the waistband of my skirt. “Please tell me we can just have our date here,” I said breathlessly.
I tried to turn in his arms, but he held me fast. “Can’t.” He spoke into my skin. “Fucking want to, but we can’t.”
“Why not?” I arched my back, shamelessly pressing my hips into him, and he hissed at the movement. He rocked into me once, twice.
“I have plans, love.” He kissed the back of my neck and took one last deep inhale of my skin. “But my plans didn’t account for this skirt. You’re going to be the death of me, I just know it.”
He moved away, and I practically pitched forward. With shaking hands, I tried to catch my breath as I filled the vase with water. The flowers were so simple and sweet, nothing adorning them except their bright-green leaves and a black velvet ribbon.
“Why lilacs?” I asked once we were in the car.
Liam glanced at me, a slight curve to his mouth that was so endearing I had to press my thighs together. He noticed, the slight curve turning into an unrepentant smirk. He moved one big hand from the console to my thigh, sliding his calloused palm along the skin he found there. His pinkie danced along the inside of my thigh, and I sank my head back against the seat, fighting the urge to grip his wrist and just shove his hand between my legs.
“I asked for something fairly specific at the florist’s shop,” he said.
It took every shred of focus to pay attention to what he was saying. “What did you ask for?”
Liam eased the car to a stop at a red light. Then he pinned me in place with those searing green eyes. “Told her I had a date with the first woman I fell in love with. Only woman I’d ever felt that way about. And I wanted her to feel special while we have this fresh start.”
In the next heartbeat, I unhooked my seat belt and surged forward, sealing my mouth over his. And oh, the sound he made! It was like it had been yanked from deep inside his chest, and it had my toes curling into my heels. Liam anchored his hand in my hair and held me firmly in place as he slid his tongue into my waiting mouth.
Then he tilted his head to deepen the kiss, and I tried to scramble up onto my knees to bring myself even closer. My hands clutched his face as I kissed him with desperation.
The sound of a horn honking behind us had me breaking away with a laugh.
Liam blew out a hard breath, adjusting the front of his dark jeans while I pulled my seat belt back into place.
He lifted a hand in a wave when the driver honked again, longer this time.
“Cool your fucking jets,” he muttered. “If you had any idea ...”
The kiss had unlocked some of the unbearable pressure building in my chest. It was decadent, allowing that feeling to sweep over me. There was no more fighting this, and there was something so unbelievably freeing about that.
“Where are we going?” I asked, shifting the hem of my skirt after it had ridden up a bit too high for comfort.
Liam held his hand out, and with a smile, I let my fingers settle in between his. He pulled my hand up to his mouth for a kiss, then let our joined hands rest on the rock-hard muscle of his thigh.
“Be there soon,” he promised. “Which is for the best because I won’t survive another red light with you in that fucking skirt.”
With a grin, I toyed with the hem. “Like it?”
“I know what you’re trying to do,” he said evenly, his eyes fixed straight ahead as he drove.
I hummed.
“Won’t work.”
My answering laugh was light and happy. Everything inside me bubbled up with a dangerous level of hope. “We’ll see.”
Some part of me needed to touch him more, so I started with slow sweeps of my thumb against the work-roughened skin on the side of his hand.
“Your text last night got me thinking,” he said. “Are you a cuddler at night?”
I glanced in his direction. “With you, I will be. Preferably soon.” The man’s body was built for it, and I’d cuddle the absolute hell out of him the moment he actually let me get him into a bed.
He exhaled a soft laugh. “Not normally, though?”
My shoulders lifted slightly in a small shrug. “It’s been a while since I’ve had the opportunity.” And because I knew he’d never ask, I added, “Tyler and I never got to the cuddling-at-night phase.”
Liam made that thoughtful little humming noise that made my thighs clench. It was halfway between a grunt and a growl, and quite desperately, I wanted to hear him make it in my ear while I had my thighs wrapped tight around his sides.
The car turned into a large parking lot, and immediately, my mouth split into a smile.
“Pretty sure they just closed,” I said.
“Did they?” His tone was so smug, so certain.
My mouth fell open. “You didn’t.”
Liam put the SUV in park, his wrist hanging over the steering wheel as he turned in the seat to face me. “I did,” he said softly. His eyes traced my face, and I felt so beautiful, so seen and understood.
I let out a slow breath, unhooking my seat belt with a bit more finesse than the last time. It took some slight maneuvering to angle in my seat without flashing my black lace underthings, but I managed it, easing my hand to cup his stubbled jaw.
“You’re taking me on a date to a bookstore that you kept open just for us?”
He didn’t answer, simply kept those eyes straight on mine.
My lungs strained to push out enough oxygen because everything was coiled so tightly underneath my skin. Each vital organ struggled to keep up with the things he was pulling out of me. I’d never felt so much at once, and it was all good .
The kiss I gave him was light as a feather, just a whisper of my lips over his.
He brushed his nose against mine, returning that peck with the same sort of soft promise.
“Ready to go in?” he asked.
I nodded, keeping my face close to his as my eyelids fluttered shut.
“You smell good, Valentine,” he whispered.
I ghosted another kiss over his waiting mouth. “I smell even better when I’m naked.”
His booming laugh echoed inside the car.
Happiness, when it had no place to escape to, could swell against the boundaries of your skin, as if a single ounce more would make you burst. That’s how I felt as we exited the car and he held out his hand for me while we walked through the parking lot.
Even a single second more of this kind of sustained lighthearted hopefulness didn’t seem feasible.
But holy shit, I was willing to risk it.
A smiling staff member opened the door for us when we approached the big brick building.
“Thank you,” I told her.
She blushed after a quick glance at Liam. “You’re welcome. We’re thrilled to have you both here. Take your time, and let us know if there’s anything we can do to help.” She locked the door behind us. “The store is yours.”
I gave him a wry look because he must have paid them a fortune.
We wandered through the stacks, each of us with a basket in hand, while he asked me perfect first-date questions. I steered us toward the romance section.
“Cats or dogs?” he asked.
“Dogs.” I glanced over my shoulder. “You?”
“I like both actually.”
My face must’ve shown my surprise.
He shrugged. “I want one of those asshole-looking cats that hates everyone except us.”
“So ... you want the feline version of you?”
He gave me a dry look, and I laughed.
“Movie that always makes you cry?”
“Ooh.” I picked up a book and studied the cover before setting it into the basket I was holding. “ Old Yeller .”
“Fuck that movie,” he said. “You’ve watched it more than once? What is wrong with you?”
I sighed. “Sometimes you just feel like crying, Liam. It’s good to get it out.”
“Whatever you say, Valentine.” He nudged me with his shoulder. “Don’t ask me to watch it with you, though. I’d rather gouge my eyes out.”
“Noted.”
“ Old Yeller ,” he muttered. “Fucking awful.”
I hid my grin while I checked out a couple more books.
In the next aisle over, I found a few that Rosa loved and tossed them into my basket for her. He laughed when my pile of books started nearing Mira’s height. I quirked an eyebrow. “What are you laughing about? You’re the one who’s gonna carry these.”
After carefully setting down his basket, Liam walked toward me, a predatory gleam in his eye, and I backed up against the bookshelf. My basket fell with a thump.
He braced one hand on the shelf next to my head and caged me in, taking a quick glance down the aisle to make sure no one was within view.
His other hand brushed along the outside of my thigh, flirting with the edge of my skirt. My breath came in shallow pants when his nose traced along my cheekbone.
“Buy every fucking book you want, love.” He kissed the edge of my lips, and when I turned my mouth toward his, he pulled back, his eyes nearly black with how much he wanted me. “Buy the whole bloody store and you won’t hear a word of complaint from me.”
My hands curled helplessly into the fabric of his shirt while I tried to tug him closer. “Don’t tempt me.”
“You mean like you’re tempting me with this?” His fingers dipped underneath the skirt and traced the edge of my black lace underwear. Then he snapped the elastic against my skin, and my head fell back with a helpless moan. “What color is it? I want to imagine it while I watch you walk in front of me.”
“B-black,” I whispered.
He buried his head into the curve of my neck and inhaled audibly. “Black lace,” he murmured. The pad of his finger slid between the elastic and my skin, and my mouth fell open. “I bet you’ve got a naughty library fantasy, don’t you, my little bookworm?”
If I didn’t before, I did now .
Hard bookshelf edges, his hands digging into my hips, and the impossible task of staying quiet while he worked me into a frenzy.
Yes.
Yes, I had that fantasy and wanted to act on it immediately.
My hand gripped his wrist, and I tried to slide his hand from the outside of my thigh to the ache throbbing between my legs.
But he held firm, clucking his tongue as he slid his nose along the line of my jaw. “Not yet, love.”
“You are a sadist,” I whimpered. “Pretty sure courting behavior doesn’t track when you have your hand up my skirt on our first date.”
His chuckle was dark and low, and a shiver racked my spine.
Liam lifted his head. He pulled his hand out from underneath my skirt and coasted his palm up the side of my waist, not stopping until the weight of my breast was fully in his palm. “This black lace too?”
My gaze held his. “Yes.”
“You get dressed today and think about me?” he asked.
I nodded. “Thought about you taking them off too.”
I didn’t know who this sex goddess was, but I liked her a whole frickin’ lot.
Not once in my life had I wanted dirty-talking first-date behavior where we might get caught, and experiencing it now—with him—was the best kind of excellent.
His jaw clenched, and his palm coasted up my chest until his fingers lightly gripped the back of my neck, his thumb pressing under my jaw so that my mouth tilted up toward his.
“My turn for a question,” I said in a hushed tone. My fingers curled around his belt buckle, and my knuckles brushed the heated skin of his stomach. The muscles there twitched. “If I’d been single when you met me, would you have asked me out?”
In reality, it was a pointless question. But I still wanted to know.
“Not at first,” he admitted. His gaze was intense, filled with hunger and heat. “Likely would have pined for you like a bloody idiot all the same. Would’ve fought it tooth and nail even if you’d never had a ring on your finger.” I nodded, dropping my eyes to stare at his mouth. “You know that’s not about you, yeah?”
Again, I nodded. “I know. Maybe I wasn’t wasting my time all those years. We both needed it. Needed to know for sure.”
He hummed, his eyes tracing my face.
“Eventually,” he said, “we would’ve ended up right here. No matter how we got there.”
Have you ever had a smile that starts from your heart? I felt it deep in my chest, warm and soft and sweet, before my lips even thought about moving. “You’re not scared anymore?”
His slightly crooked smile was self-deprecating, his eyes adoring. “Fucking terrified. But I know what it’s like to kiss you now.” He leaned in, whispering against my lips, and my eyelids fluttered shut. “So as long as you keep doing that, I won’t let it stop me anymore.”
I pushed up onto the balls of my feet, slanting my mouth over his while he wrapped me tightly in his arms.
The kiss was fierce and passionate, a bright flash of heat, over almost as quickly as it began, and we panted against each other’s lips when he pulled away.
“I can do that,” I promised.
Liam set his chin on the top of my head, holding me tight as his chest expanded on a deep, relieved exhale.
With my face tucked against the steady hammering of his heart, I suddenly wanted to cry as the poignancy of the moment stretched into something beautiful and heavy and wonderful. And I wanted other things too.
I wanted to read on the couch with him while it rained outside.
I wanted to wake him up in the morning and hear how his voice sounded when it was rough with sleep.
I wanted to go for a walk through our neighborhood, holding his hand while Mira rode her bike in front of us.
I wanted to be at every game, watching him do the thing he loved.
I wanted a life with him, and not just because we’d found ourselves in one that we didn’t choose.
Because he was protective and thoughtful. Because of the big heart that he’d so effectively kept hidden all these years. Because he was willing to sacrifice any shred of happiness if there was even the slightest possibility that he might hurt someone he cared about.
I wanted it because I was in love with him.
“I can feel you thinking,” he murmured.
My arms tightened around his back before I lifted my head to look him in the face. “Will you take me home?” I whispered.
His face softened. “Already?”
I nodded.
“I had big plans at the ice cream shop next door for dinner,” he said, leaning in for a sweet kiss. This one lingered, a soft, luxurious slide of his tongue over mine, and a contented groan blossomed from deep inside his throat. When I pulled back, I felt dazed.
“Did you say ice cream for dinner?”
He nodded.
That had me pausing.
At the conflicted look on my face, Liam laughed, sliding a hand up and down my back, like he couldn’t stop touching me. I knew the feeling.
“We have ice cream in the freezer,” I told him. “I might even share my mint chocolate chip, since you’re buying me all these books.”
He hummed, leaning down for one more kiss.
“Why else do you think I bought them for you?” he said against my lips. “I’m going to eat that ice cream off your body, love, and then I’ll wash you off when I’m done.”
I grabbed his hand, snatched my basket off the ground, and marched toward the register with the sound of his laughter echoing through the empty store.