Chapter 26
Now
My eyes blink open with a jolt.
The cream ceiling and the subtle vibrations of the floor are as unfamiliar as the stiff sheets wrapped around me. The only thing that’s not immediately unfamiliar is the hard chest pressed against my back—a chest I could draw from memory.
His naked chest. Because we’re both naked. Because we had sex.
Oh.
Memories of our fevered hookup return in hazy snapshots of lips and sweat and skin and thrusting. God, so much thrusting.
I look at Liam, still sound asleep beside me, checking for signs that whatever came over us has passed—if I’ve found closure.
But the sheet’s slipped off, exposing a sliver of tattoo along his shoulder blade, and my mouth waters.
God, he looks good, painfully good. The kind of good that makes me ache with want all over again.
Okay, so definitely no closure.
But what did I expect?
Before the accident, sex was always easy for us. Even when Liam was closed off, even when things were hard, the bedroom was a place where our walls could come down. Where no matter what, we belonged to each other.
Maybe that’s all this was. Two bodies being lulled into a familiar pattern.
But then I think about the way he looked at me, touched me. That heavy beat that passed between us when it became clear neither of us had slept with anyone else. Sure, maybe it was just lust and familiarity. But maybe it wasn’t.
And now I feel increasingly foolish for thinking sex with Liam would give me any kind of closure.
For thinking we could do that and it wouldn’t ensnare me in a web of dangerous, complicated feelings.
But that’s precisely the problem. I hadn’t been thinking.
No, I’d been lusting, wanting, needing, fucking. Anything but thinking.
For months I’ve tried to get over him, to be okay, to move on, to protect my heart. And now? I walked straight into the line of fire, naively expecting not to get burned.
It was foolish and reckless.
And yet the one thing that’s even more foolish and reckless is the part of me desperately hoping it will happen again.
The thought burns against my chest and suddenly it’s too hot in here, and I can’t stand to be in this bed—naked—with Liam a second longer.
I wrap myself in a sheet, slide out of bed, and proceed to hobble around the cabin collecting discarded apparel.
I’m thinking ahead to the zip-lining excursion this afternoon and how I’ll probably have to use concealer to hide the slight beard burn between my thighs, when Liam says, “Please, for the love of God, don’t put that back on.”
I freeze, looking down at the crumpled shirt in my hand, then up at Liam, whose mouth is stretched into a lazy smirk, his eyes roaming across me with unfettered heat. “Why are you wearing a bedsheet?” he asks.
“Because I’m naked.”
He cocks one eyebrow. “Don’t you think it’s a bit late for modesty, considering I was just inside you?”
Unwanted heat settles in my cheeks, and I look away, anywhere but at his bare chest. Or his bee-stung lips. Or the hickey on his neck I have no memory of leaving.
When I don’t move, he says, “Why don’t you drop the sheet and come back to bed.”
My eyes skip from his rumpled hair to the very tempting spot beside him, and it takes everything in me to not immediately do as he says. Reckless and rash, I remind myself. It can’t happen again.
“We have to go zip-lining, remember?” I say, grateful for Jonah’s activities schedule.
Liam checks the time. “We still have a few minutes. And there’s a lot we can do in a few minutes,” he says, giving me an unscrupulous look that feels like a third-degree sunburn.
I tighten my grip on the sheet, pulling my only form of armor closer. “That was a one-time thing. For closure,” I add.
The muscles in his jaw leap, the flirty twinkle dissolving from his eyes. “I thought we…” He pauses, scrubbing a hand over his beard. “I thought you had fun.”
Of course it was fun. It was the best sex we’ve had in a long time. Possibly ever. But I don’t want him to get the wrong idea. I don’t want him to think that this changes anything between us. Or that it’s going to happen again.
“Fun has nothing to do with it,” I say stiffly. “It’s a bad idea. It’s…” I twirl my wrist, searching for the right words. I’m about to say dangerous, but I think we both remember what happened the last time I called this thing between us dangerous.
“It’s messy,” I finish. But he doesn’t look convinced.
“Ros, I don’t know if you know this, but things are already messy between us.”
He’s going to make this hard, isn’t he?
“It’s a bad idea,” I repeat, halfway hoping that maybe if I say it enough times, it will curb the swell of want expanding inside me.
His eyes drop to my mouth. “Why is it a bad idea?” he asks.
“Because we’re getting divorced,” I tell him. “And divorced people don’t fuck.”
“Maybe they should,” he says, his gaze taking a hungry lap over my exposed skin.
I pull the sheet closer to my body. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“I’m not looking at you any particular way.”
“Yes, you are. You’ve got your horny eyes on.”
“I am horny, Ros.”
“Well, stop. Think about something else!”
“Like?”
I look around the room, searching for inspiration. “Like climate change. Or the rising cost of housing. Or—”
“Or…” His eyes cut to mine. “You could stop pretending you don’t want this, too, and come back to bed.”
I swallow down a groan, unsure whether I’m more irritated by his presumptuousness or the fact that he’s right.
I do want this. I want nothing more than to fall back into a pattern my body knows so well.
To turn off the part of my brain that’s worried about what’s next or what this means and let Liam take control, the way he used to, the way I still want him to.
But I also want to eat cake for breakfast and never wear real pants, so no, want isn’t enough.
“You don’t know what I want,” I tell him.
Liam gives me an impertinent look. “I’ve been married to you for five years, Ros. I know—”
“No, you—”
“—the way your cheeks flush when you’re turned on and all the little moans you make when you’re coming on my tongue, and”—he goes on, his eyes trapping mine—“I know when you need me to fuck you and how you want me to do it. I know when you want me to go slow with lots of eye contact, and when you need me to bend you over and tell you how good you are for me.”
Arousal joins the tornado of emotions spiraling inside me, obscuring the line between frustration and want, and I’m not sure what’s worse—that he’s right, or that he knows he’s right.
“I know how to make you come whenever and however you need, Ros.” His voice drops, low and hoarse.
“And that’s what I want to do. I want to give you everything you need, just how you need it.
” He shakes his head, tearing his gaze away.
“But I’m not going to touch you again until you tell me you want me to. Until you ask for it.”
The words hang in the air between us, a warning or maybe an invitation. Then he climbs out of bed, naked, and walks toward the bathroom, providing me with an unobstructed view of exactly what I want.