Chapter 14 oh, wow
fourteen
oh, wow
Maya
“Oh, wow.”
The Polly’s Pets bag I’d been carrying dropped to my feet as I clamped my hands over my mouth at the sight of him.
There, emerging from the bathroom wearing nothing but water droplets and his birthday suit, was the man I came to see. And boy, did I see him. I saw all of him.
And let me tell you, Liam Bishop was most certainly not ill-equipped.
Not. At. All.
In fact, he was the opposite of ill-equipped. He was well-equipped. Hell, he was damn near over-equipped. His dick was so huge that it should have had its own penis.
It didn’t, though. So, in that way, I guess his dick was like the Metatron.
I’m freaking out, I thought as I stared. Liam’s everything swung between his legs with each step, and I was dangerously close to needing a Rickman reverie to calm down. He was naked, and I couldn’t look away. And … and… he was … gorgeous. Every inch of his body was perfect.
I wondered what a fantasy of Liam narrated by Alan Rickman would sound like? I bet it would be doubly delicious. There was nothing, and I mean nothing, that man’s voice couldn’t make better.
Snap out of it, Maya.
My face burned, sweat formed along my upper lip as my body overheated, and I was positive my cheeks were beet red.
How could it be anything else when he displayed his chiseled body like he’d intended for me to see it?
A perfect sprinkling of chest hair, still damp from the shower, stopped before his eleventy-billion-pack abs—seriously, who has that many abs?
—and below that, a light dusting of hair formed the perfect happy trail.
You should follow that trail with your tongue.
Bad Maya. Focus. I tried to shove the thought away, but I couldn’t think of anything else after what I’d heard through the bathroom door.
Fuck, yes.
That groan was seared into my brain.
Fuckyesfuckyesfuckyes.
I should have left when his voice caused a throb of longing so intense my knees buckled, but before I could snap out of my stupor, he’d walked out of the bathroom completely butt-ass naked, and my eyes dropped straight to his dick. And then, like an idiot, I spoke and scared the hell out of him.
So stupid. Why couldn’t I have kept my mouth shut and looked my fill?
“Maya?”
My eyes shot up to see that he’d taken a step closer to me. Catching myself fanning my face with my hand, I jammed it into my pocket, hoping he hadn’t noticed the effect he was having on me.
“Maya,” Liam drawled, a smirk tugging his lips as he glanced at the bed next to me. “Are you alright?”
I nodded dumbly, struggling to speak through the sound of my own frantic thoughts. Why had he glanced at the bed? Did he want me to get on it? Did I want to get on it?
“Maya?”
“Yeah. Yup. Yes. To-totally okay.” I shot him with finger guns, cringing internally but unable to stop my babbling. “Peachy keen, jelly bean.”
“How did you get into my room?” He crossed his arms over his chest as though unaffected by my presence.
With a flirtatious smile, he flexed his biceps, and my thighs clenched of their own accord.
“If I’d known you were coming to surprise me like this, I’d have left you a key.
” His grin was mischievous when he added, “Mrs. Patterson is going to get the wrong idea.”
My gaze drifted lower, but with tremendous effort, I managed to tear my eyes away from the water droplets racing down his chest and forced myself to look him in the eye. Focus, Maya.
“So, what brings you by?” he asked with a chuckle.
“I found this and thought I should deliver it.” I gestured to the bag at my feet. “And … I wanted to apologize.”
“Apologize?” He raised an eyebrow. “Should I get dressed for this?”
No. Please stay naked forever. I pushed that thought away. “Crap. Right. Sorry. I’ll go out in the hall.” I jerked my thumb toward the door.
“It’s fine. Stay and enjoy the view.” He waved away my protest before grabbing a towel from the bed. So that’s what he was looking at. “Stay and enjoy. I know how long you’ve been trying to get me naked,” he added with a wink, sending a flush of heat through my core.
“What?! No, I—”
“I’m kidding. Just don’t peek.” He turned to rummage through the dresser. “I trust you.”
Is that why he hadn’t been in a rush to cover up? He’d stood there nude, casually crossing his arms over his chest instead of covering his penis because he trusted me not to peek?
Hell, I didn’t even trust myself not to peek.
“Yes. Of course.” I spun to face the wall, but not before drinking in the sight of the sculpted globes of his butt cheeks. So good, so biteable. “I’m sorry for barging in on you. Mrs. Patterson didn’t think you would mind if I came in to wait for you to be done with your, ah, your shower.”
He chuckled from somewhere behind me. “It’s fine.” His voice dropped, becoming deep and rough. “I was just thinking of you anyway.”
He’d been thinking of me?
Fuck, yes.
Fuckyesfuckyesfuckyesfuckyes. His voice played in my head on repeat. Had he been thinking of me while doing that? No, no. That couldn’t be right. I must have misunderstood.
“You can turn around now.”
I took a steadying breath before turning back. Liam’s jeans strained over his thighs, and his white t-shirt exposed more muscle than it hid. How was he as sexy clothed as he was nude? Talk about unfair.
He gestured to the French doors on the other side of the bed. “Join me on the patio?”
I nodded, tongue thick in my mouth. I’d never been this attracted to someone in my life, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I’d hated Liam for what felt like forever. Could I just…let that go? Should I?
He was still the man who hadn’t visited the most important woman in my life. Should he get a pass for that just because I’d seen him naked? No, of course not. That would be silly. But I had to admit, I was tempted.
We settled into the chairs on the tiny patio, with a bistro table between us.
I gazed out over Carlisle Memorial Park.
In a few weeks, when spring was properly underway, colourful flowers would bloom, and the residents of Carlisle Creek would head out in droves to welcome the arrival of warmer weather.
Today, though, the grass was still crunchy and pale, the snow not yet melted in some spots, the promise of a new season merely hinted at.
“We should talk about Nana.” I released a tight breath. “And … I’m sorry for brushing you off earlier.”
I briefly explained about the visits to Doctor Madison when Nana first recognized her memory problems. I left out her plans to move to the nursing home before her memory deteriorated further, since I would be taking care of her at home.
Liam listened. No interruptions. No comments. He didn’t ask for clarification, didn’t agree or disagree. He listened. He really seemed like this was new information, something he hadn't known before.
“That explains a few things,” he said after several nerve-wracking moments before he huffed a strangled laugh. “Like why she keeps asking if you and I have met yet.”
“I noticed that, too.”
“Aside from that, she seems okay. Other than last night, that is.”
I nodded, deliberately not telling him about the smattering of late nights we’d had the last few weeks.
It made no sense to scare him with Nana’s rough patches when they were only anomalies.
“Everything I’ve read online says that maintaining a routine can help.
That’s part of the reason I’ve been rushing to leave the store at the same time every day, and why I have Kai come and help every so often.
I prefer to run all my errands during the day so I don’t risk being late to see Nana.
It’s not much, but I’ve been doing whatever I can to help. ”
A shadow crept into his eyes. “I haven’t been calling her as much.”
I pulled my lips between my teeth, my heart aching for him. He was clearly upset with himself. “It’s not your fault, Liam. You didn’t know. I thought she’d told you.”
He rose from his seat, raking his hands through his hair. “I should have known. I should have been talking to her often enough to be able to tell that something was wrong. I should have been around more to help.”
I felt for him, I really did, but he wasn’t entirely wrong. I don’t know whether he would have been able to tell if something was wrong over the phone, but he damn sure would have been able to tell if he’d been around more. But he was here now, and that counted for something.
“Your face! Does it hurt?” I blurted, desperate to change the subject before I was forced to face my increasingly complicated feelings. Such as, how could I possibly be so attracted to him when I’d spent the better part of the last two years hating him?
Why hadn’t Nana confronted him about what he had done? Was it because she loved him too much for it to matter? With a gasp, I forced that thought away; I couldn’t face what it meant for my relationship with Nana if the answer was yes.
I turned my attention back to Liam. “Did you get to a doctor yet?”
He sighed. “I’m going to cancel. It’s better already, thanks to the ice pack you made me. That helped to keep the swelling down.”
“Well, if you don’t need to see a doctor, how about we do something exciting instead?”
Liam’s smile set that damn gang of butterflies loose in my belly again, and suddenly I wasn’t so sure I could avoid facing my feelings about him after all.