Chapter Twenty-Seven
“There’s nowhere else I want to be.” Liam searched for doubt, and when Chelsea didn’t give him any, he brushed a wayward hair off her cheek again.
The careful touch made her eyelids lower, and she trembled as his fingers touched her chin and traced from her jawline down the slope of her neck.
Her erratic breaths matched the wild race in her heart. Arousal coursed through her curves, and she shivered when Liam leaned close enough to kiss her—but didn’t.
He didn’t rush, and she didn’t know why. But Chelsea savored the slow-burning seconds that made her ready to explode.
Finally, he brushed his lips to hers. The softness made her moan. The tease left her humming for more. If she’d had any last-minute hesitations, they’d disappeared as his tongue pushed into her mouth.
Lightning swept through her as the sky raged. She needed more, and shrouded in the dark, painted in candlelight, she clung to him.
The storm howled. Cold glass pressed against her back as Liam pinned her against the window. She wrapped her arms around his neck. His erection pressed against her body as his strength surrounded her. Glittering desire rushed, and she couldn’t get enough of his touch.
He nipped and kissed and groaned. The world spun around them, and she snaked her legs up his powerful thighs, moaning his name.
He lifted her up, and his groin flexed against her mound. “Shit, Chelsea.” Thunder and lightning crashed. Liam whipped his tongue down her neck. “Killing me.”
She writhed, urging him for more—but Liam jerked away.
“What?” she cried as her legs fell down.
Their breaths raced. His deep blazing emerald eyes wouldn’t let her go.
“Liam, what?” Though that time she whispered.
In their panting silence, the rain storm wailed. She shivered against the cold window and studied his rugged features, etched with concern.
He swept her into his arms and carried her to the couch then lowered her to the cushions, half holding, half pinning her in a delicious, possessive clinch.
Liam let the weight of his body blanket her until she couldn’t move and didn’t want to.
This was that moment where they could walk away, no harm, no foul. Or at least without paradigm-shifting damage. But she didn’t want to hold back. “Even before this, storms were my favorite weather.”
He grinned. “I’d hate to ruin one of your favorite things.”
He was one of her favorite things. She didn’t know when or how that’d happened.
They still teetered on the line where all could be turned around, where they could walk away and maybe survive.
But she didn’t care if they saw the line again.
Something raw and rabid, without clothes and regrets, needed to happen.
“Tell me what you want.”
Everything! Didn’t he know? Her cheeks blazed. “You can’t ask me that!”
“I can do whatever I want,” he teased.
Yes, he could. Except leave. If Liam walked out the door, she was positive she wouldn’t survive the night.
He pushed onto the couch and lay on his side. They were face to face, and vivid, visceral ideas of his corded legs nudging her softer ones apart caused her to whimper.
“Tell me,” he said.
“I can’t,” she admitted. “I’m not sure about anything when it comes to you.”
He squeezed her to his chest, wrapping her safely in his strength. She imagined how Liam would press himself inside her body, how her fingernails would dig into his back, and the soul-claiming way he’d make her stretch to his length and girth. A needling arousal pulsed.
He gently swayed his palm from her side, over her hip. “Do you like this?” His fingers danced along her waistband, dipping to tease her bare stomach. “Or like that?”
Her breath caught in her lungs. Both! Need sparked along her stomach. Her breasts hurt, painfully aware they’d been ignored. Her tight nipples beaded against her bra, and she couldn’t think.
“What else makes you moan?” Liam dipped his hand under the waistband of her yoga pants. He didn’t slide under her panties but curled his fingers over her mound. Her wet arousal had dampened the fabric, and he licked his lips the second he realized how very turned on she must be.
“I want this.” His voice rumbled as he pressed against her apex—then drew away.
The movement was slow, but the touch was gone, and she mewed in protest, making him smile.
“And…” He feathered the tips of his fingers across the softness of her belly. Back and forth, until Liam brushed the underside of her breast.
She purred, unable to keep quiet as he caressed her. “Liam…”
“And…” he said again, cupping her breast just as he did to her sex. “This.”
“Yes,” she murmured as the massaging pressure increased. “That feels so good.”
His touch grew bolder. He thumbed her nipple, plucking to gauge her reaction, then he nuzzled her neck once he seemed sure to have found the pressure they liked.
He flicked open the front enclosure of her bra, cursing when her breasts released. “Sweet Jesus, your tits.”
Shocked, she jerked back to read his face.
“What?” he asked.
No one in their right mind thought she had a great chest. They were a little too small compared to her bottom, which was a little too large. She was ill-proportioned. But nothing she could see indicated he offered an unfounded compliment. He liked her chest.
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
Liam dipped his mouth and sucked. The hot wetness of his tongue, how he nibbled and released, made her delirious.
Chelsea clawed at his sweatshirt. She needed his skin on hers. “Take this off.”
Liam tore it away then swiftly shed her shirt and tossed it aside. She had a brief worry that it had landed on the candle, and he laughed when she grabbed a quick look.
“Do you ever let go?” he asked.
“Of?”
“Everything but what’s in front of you?”
She didn’t answer.
“I won’t burn your condo down,” he promised then eased onto his knees for a neck-kissing angle that made her want to scream.
This was primal, unlike any pleasure she’d ever experienced, and they hadn’t even started down that actual road.
Chelsea squirmed. Her hips rocked to find an immaculate pressure as his hand cupped over her pants.
“Please.”
“Don’t rush me,” he chided but slid his hand into her panties.
“Liam,” she moaned.
Her sensitive skin tingled. Wet and swollen, she throbbed. His gentle caresses and strong strokes made her cry. He strummed and teased, playing with her clitoris one moment and toying at her entrance seconds later.
“You’re evil, and so very, very good.” She squeezed her eyes shut, and she might kill him soon if he didn’t—
A finger pressed carefully inside, and a low rumble of approval growled from deep in his chest. A dangerous desire ricocheted deep from within her as his finger eased in and out.
“More.”
He added a second finger on the next thrust.
She arched, and her thighs trembled. “Yes.”
Her lips parted, and she let out a shaky gasp.
“Watching you…” He gave her more pressure, a deeper intrusion. “Is better than I could’ve dreamed.”
Self-consciousness heated her face. But the pleasure he gave her swept away the shock.
Each stroke drew faster. Every time, he curled his fingertips just enough, faster and faster.
Chelsea gripped his forearm, begging for harder, harsher, more.
A possessive guttural kiss burned onto her lips, and that was everything she needed. She exploded against his hand, succumbing to a kiss so satisfying that he sent her flying high into the stormy sky.