Chapter 13 Liam
Liam
When I get back from my run, Sophie’s gone.
And so is the heap of art supplies by the door.
The past three days have been a masterclass in sexual tension.
We’ve been circling each other, both waiting for the other to make a move.
Yesterday, we both froze after her hip brushed my thigh in the kitchen.
The day before, I walked out of the shower in just a towel and caught her staring at my chest like she wanted to taste the water running down.
But neither of us goes further. We made this deal, but neither of us seems to know how to start it—and now I’m afraid she’s gotten sick of the awkwardness and left.
I panic and dart into Cal’s room, but her duffel bag remains on the chair in the corner, her shoes are sitting at the foot of the bed, and her toiletries are a jumble on the dresser. I exhale. Thank fuck, she didn’t leave.
This morning, when she caught me staring at her legs while she did yoga in the living room, her sly little smile made my dick hard, but did she want to have sex right then?
Part of me wanted to throw her over my shoulder and carry her into Cal’s room to finish what we’d started three nights ago.
But I opted to burn off some steam the old-fashioned way, by pounding out five miles through Golden Gate Park.
But I thought of Sophie the entire run.
I thought about her sharp tongue and those dangerous curves I want to get lost in, and the best breathy moans when I make her come.
Something I’ve apparently now agreed to do “on demand,” and I’m not even a little bit mad about it.
As much as I hate keeping secrets from Cal—he’s the only one I told before Sophie about getting cut from the Iron Cats—Sophie’s right.
This is just for a few weeks, a casual convenience, and Cal doesn’t need to know all my business, especially if it will be over before he even gets home.
Sophie was clear she didn’t want anything more, and eventually, I’ll have to find a real job and a place to live.
This is like the summer after your senior year of college—a last chance to enjoy yourself before entering the real world.
Apparently, only my version involves sleeping with my incredibly hot roommate.
Who is now gone.
While I’m relatively certain she didn’t change her mind and move out, I still wonder where she is. Not that she has to tell me where she’s going. That wasn’t part of the agreement, right? Dude, get it together. She does not owe you anything.
I take a shower, and when I get out, there’s a message on my phone.
Sophie: not sure if you’re back, but I’m on the roof
I didn’t even know this building had roof access, but suddenly I’m heading for the door. I pull it open with more force than necessary.
“Oh!” the woman across the hall gasps. “What the fuck?”
“Sorry,” I apologize sheepishly to Harper, Cal’s workaholic neighbor. The one who caught Sophie and me almost kissing that night. “I was rushing to meet someone.”
“Do you plan on bringing another random woman back to your friend’s apartment?” Harper asks, clutching a glass food container as she heads toward the stairs.
“She wasn’t random,” I say, following her up. I stop short of adding that it was Cal’s sister—who knows what he’s told her, or what she’d report back. “If you’ll excuse me.” I nod and slip past her up the stairs.
I step onto the rooftop deck, expecting to find Sophie curled up on the lounger with the smutty paperback I always see her reading, eating straight from a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, sipping a Diet Coke. What I don’t expect is what I find her doing instead.
She’s painting.
She has her easel set up near the wall facing the city skyline, wild curls catching in the afternoon breeze.
Her paints spill out of her antique-looking tackle box, tubes and little jars scattered everywhere.
I can see her in profile, paint flecked across her full cheeks and the bridge of her pert nose.
Her brush races across the canvas. She doesn’t see me.
Doesn’t hear me. She’s completely lost to the world. For a second, I don’t breathe.
She’s stunning like this. Not just her—though, hell, yes, her—but the confidence in her movements.
The way the colors burst across her canvas with such wild, unrestrained passion.
Her hands move so quickly, I can’t believe there’s any method to her madness, but I can also clearly see how the San Francisco skyline transforms from reality in front of her onto her canvas.
Not a realistic recreation, but an almost otherworldly interpretation of…
the feeling of the skyline. All done in shades of blue and teal, along with other colors I don’t have the vocabulary to describe.
This isn’t just talent. It’s fucking magic.
She’s wearing an oversized men’s dress shirt as a well-used paint smock, and the metallic taste of jealousy coats my tongue at the thought of whoever wore it before her. Of whomever she stole it from, maybe after it was discarded on a bedroom floor.
Something shifts deep in my chest.
When she finally glances over, surprised, I lift a hand, a little sheepish.
“Don’t stop,” I say softly. “I like watching you work.”
She watches me for a few long beats, and I think I’ve ruined the moment—that I’ve broken whatever spell she was under. But soon, she turns back to the canvas, her brush beginning to move again. Slower, but no less deliberate.
I settle into the lounge chairs and just…watch.
I lose track of time, caught in the rhythm of her process. She finally steps back from the canvas and cocks her head, taking in her creation.
“I haven’t painted in eighteen months,” she says, and I’m not sure if it’s a statement or an apology.
“Why now?”
Her lips curve, thoughtful. “I’m not sure.
” She drifts closer, closing the space between us.
Her oversized shirt swallows whatever she’s wearing beneath it, leaving only the sleek lines of her thighs on display.
Before I can process it, she’s climbing onto the lounger, straddling me.
My hands find her hips like they are magnets.
“I think I remembered what it feels like to want something just because I want it, not because I’m supposed to.”
She reaches a paint-stained hand out to cup my cheek.
Our eyes lock. A beat passes. Then she’s kissing me—slow, deliberate, just like her brushstrokes.
My fingers dig into her waist, pulling her down onto my lap.
She lets out a little sigh when she makes contact with my erection, which I think has been there since I stepped onto this roof forty-five minutes ago or maybe since I woke with her in my arms that first night.
She smells a little like paint but mostly like lemon cookies, and I want to suck on her neck to see if she tastes that way too. However, I can’t stop kissing her. We didn’t kiss that night in Cal’s bed, and now I regret not knowing for the past three days how perfect her mouth is.
She finally breaks the kiss. Seeing how swollen and flushed her lips are makes a spot behind my ribs ache. But I reach out and thumb the open collar of her shirt instead.
“Is this Mr. Artsy McDouchebag’s shirt?” I smirk, but I want to punch her ex in the face.
“No,” she chuckles, “it’s my dad’s. I’ve used it for years.”
I nudge her back with a grin. “Way to kill the mood—kind of hard to make out with you in the shirt of the guy who taught me how to shave.”
“We can take care of that,” she says, undoing the button and revealing she’s not wearing much under that shirt. A lacy bra that barely contains her breasts and the tiniest pair of denim cut-offs that can still count as shorts.
“Fuck,” I mutter as she lets the shirt drop off her shoulders, and I pull her back to me.
I plunge my tongue into her mouth and palm her breasts, unable to keep my hands off them.
Her hands roam the contours of my chest and down my abs until she finds the button of my jeans.
“Should we go downstairs?” I murmur against her mouth.
She shakes her head. “No. Here is fine.” And my insides drop.
She drags her mouth away from mine and pops the button on my jeans.
My erection strains against the fabric of my briefs, and her smile turns devilish as she hooks the elastic with her paint-flecked fingers.
My cock springs free like a fucking jack-in-the-box, and an ego-boosting “oh” escapes her lips.
She wraps her delicate fingers around my length, giving me a few firm tugs before shimmying down my body, and my entire life flashes before my eyes.
She looks up at me through her thick lashes and locks eyes with mine before her tongue darts out to lick the drop of pre-cum leaking out of the tip.
“Fuck,” I moan, but I can’t tear my eyes away from Sophie’s mouth.
I watch in complete awe as she swirls her tongue over the head like a fucking ice cream cone.
Then she licks down the side and drags her tongue flat from the base to the tip.
Swirling at the top again before adding her hand, wrapping tightly around my base, and squeezing with the exact perfect amount of pressure.
I swear again as I thread my hand into her hair and fist my grip at the base of her skull. This time, the moan escapes her lips, and she sinks onto me, taking me into her wet, hot mouth.
“Soph,” I grit, arching into her mouth, my grip tightening in her hair, but she is in control.
Of the pace, of the pressure, of every sensation as she glides up and down over my shaft.
I’m not going to last. “Honey,” I warn, as my stomach muscles clench.
But she just moans, her lips vibrating against the sensitive underside.
I try to guide her gently back by the hair, but she picks up her pace, bobbing her head with the most delightful slurping sound. “I’m going to…”
“Yes, do it,” she commands before taking me impossibly deep, and I explode against the back of her throat. My body convulses, my hips buck involuntarily, and she takes it all, swallowing me down. Not breaking her pace, her hands massage and squeeze while her perfect mouth takes every last drop.
She looks up at me, her eyes glistening with tears and a wicked smile.
I glance over her shoulder at her painting, the fading sun, the golden light catching in her hair.
She wipes the corner of her mouth in a way that is somehow both crude and incredibly sexy before climbing up my body to kiss me, deep and intentional.
Something in my chest shifts, and I realize I’m in deep shit.
This was supposed to be simple.