Chapter 43
LIAM
Ileaned against the kitchen counter, sipping coffee from London’s favorite mug because I was a menace and I knew it would annoy her.
Which was also why I was only wearing my boxers.
If she saw me in a common area without being properly dressed, that would get to her too and I really needed to get to her tonight.
Just like she’d gotten to me when she’d walked away, directly into Brandon’s waiting arms. Okay, so she didn’t actually walk into his arms, but fuck.
I had to watch her turn her back on me and just walk away. It didn’t sit right.
Jerry and Lorelei had come in a few minutes ago. They’d popped into the kitchen to tell me she’d caught a ride home with them, but I hadn’t seen her just yet and they’d already disappeared upstairs.
Rolling my head back, I looked up at the white ceiling, my vision getting spotty as I stared right at one of the lights and tried to reach for her mentally.
As if it’d somehow worked, I heard the front door open and the familiar sound of her dramatic sigh as her heels hit the floor like it had personally betrayed her.
I smiled. Only London Walker would wear heels like that to a barbecue at a beach house, but that was part of her charm as far as I was concerned.
London was London, fiercely and fearlessly.
She’d taken the heels off before she’d gone onto the sand, but obviously, she’d put them back on when they’d been on their way out.
A few moments later, she appeared in the doorway, saw me, and did that blink-squint thing she always did when she was trying not to admit that I looked good.
Frankly, she looked good enough to eat. Wearing denim shorts and a bright red crop top with all that golden hair loose and tumbling past her shoulders, she didn’t look at all tired or spent after the day we’d had.
“Wow,” she finally muttered, blowing past me to the fridge. “I didn’t realize the dress code for the kitchen was annoyingly hot and emotionally confusing.”
Because masking panic with sarcasm was my love language, I smirked and watched as she pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge. “I didn’t realize the cover charge was listening to Brandon Brag-a-lot talk about tax strategy.”
She threw me an eye roll that could kill, but instead of firing back, she just stood there, hip cocked against the counter as she sipped her water looking way too soft and much too close.
Her eyes were locked on the darkness outside the kitchen window, the silence that fell between us filled with something thick, electric, and borderline reckless.
When it was just the two of us together like this, it was too easy to feel like the outside world had stopped existing. Jerry and Lorelei were right upstairs but London was here with me instead of back at the barbecue with shitty Brandon.
I’d left, and she still hadn’t gone home with him. That said something. It said a lot, actually. I hadn’t even been there to intervene and she’d still chosen to come home to me instead. She might’ve chosen him back on that beach, but when push had come to shove, she’d left him behind.
So many things stirred deep inside me. They weren’t things I wanted to feel for this girl, but they were undeniable these days. I’d keep fighting them tomorrow. Tonight, she was here. She was with me and those tiny denim shorts were just begging to have me run my fingers underneath them.
“You left without me,” she suddenly said, her gaze cutting back to mine. Those blue eyes were blazing and intense, piercing as she stared me down. “That’s never happened before. Upset about something?”
Ha. Looks like my strategy of leaving without her worked.
It had nearly killed me to do it. I’d had to go against the grain and push myself to follow through, but it had fucking worked.
I smirked at her again. “Unbothered to my core.”
She smirked right back at me, scoffing down a sound of amusement as her brows lifted slightly. “Interesting.”
London turned to face me fully, her arms crossing over her chest as her lips parted just slightly. She was dangerous to my health when she was like this, refusing to back down and looking like a wet dream.
I set the mug down, my pulse ticking behind my ears and my gaze never leaving hers. “If you keep looking at me like that, we’re going to end up doing something really dumb.”
“Depends on your definition of dumb.” Her voice was a little huskier now, her chin tilting up defiantly.
She took a step closer and I was pretty sure my brain had just short-circuited. I leaned back against the counter. “Anything that ends up with us naked and regretting it. That’s dumb.”
“Who said anything about regretting it?”
“I will if Lorelei or Jerry walk in on us.” My eyes dropped to her mouth for a second.
A second too long—and suddenly, that warning felt more like a dare.
Tension zapped through the air like electricity, an invisible, unbeatable force that drew me closer to her. I went with it, looking into those oceanic eyes and feeling that same relief I had earlier.
Skye had been a nice girl. Friendly. Bubbly. She’d complimented me incessantly and she would have stroked my… ego all day, every day. Being with her could’ve been easy. It could’ve been fun. Hell, she was going to make some guy a very happy man one day, but I just didn’t want to be that man.
Not today and probably not tomorrow either. I should’ve wanted to be that man, and that was exactly why every single one of my friends had been warning me about London for so long. Skye would’ve probably settled down with me in a heartbeat.
We’d gotten along just fine, and if there had been even the merest spark, we could’ve been married by this time next month. There was a possibility I could’ve gotten everything I’d ever wanted with her, but I’d left without even saying goodbye to her either.
What London and I had was too addictive. Too edgy. Too electric to risk messing it up for someone who, while adorable, just wasn’t for me.
London swiped her tongue across her lips, the pink tip of it sliding from one side to the other slowly enough that I groaned. The sound was soft, a low, rough rumble that had escaped before I’d even known it was coming.
Her eyes widened just a fraction when she heard it, a quiet but audible rush of air coming out of her. I rolled my lips into my mouth.
Caught in her trap, I knew we probably had to talk about what had happened earlier, but no words came to mind. She obviously wanted to know why I’d left her there. While I would never tell her truth, I supposed I did owe her some answers.
I had ditched her, after all. Something I never would’ve done under ordinary circumstances, no matter how painful it might’ve been to see her with another man, but when she’d walked away…
When she’d fucking turned her back and marched right to him without even saying another word to me, a fuse had blown in my head.
I’d tried to go back to Skye. I’d said all the right things and I’d done my best to forget the altercation with London had even happened, but every time I’d looked up, there she had been—with him.
He’d even introduced her to his damn friends. I could handle a lot, but I hadn’t been able to handle that.
The soft click of a heel against the tile felt like a gunshot going off and I surged toward her, already reaching for her hips to band my arm around her and pull her into me. I could almost feel her soft body against mine already, her warm lips parting under mine as she moaned into my mouth.
My dick strained against the fabric of my boxers, tension rolling through my muscles as I closed the distance between us. London’s cheeks flushed, her nipples hard under the flimsy material of her top.
Eyelids already getting heavy, she tugged her lower lip between her teeth and gave me a sexy, cheeky smile.
She opened her mouth to say something. It probably would’ve been some kind of witty retort to my comment about her being the one who would regret it if our friends walked in on us, but the next moment, Lorelei’s voice cut through the tension like a buzzkill grenade.
“London, have you seen my makeup remover? I could’ve sworn it was in our bathroom, but I can’t find it anywhere. I didn’t leave it in your room?”
I took a step back just as she appeared around the corner, confident that I’d been fast enough that she hadn’t seen us standing so close together. London blinked a few times in succession before she cleared her throat and turned to smile at her friend.
It was a forced smile, but it was there. “No, I’m sorry. I haven’t seen it. You’re welcome to grab mine, though. It’s on the vanity.”
Lori’s face split in half with a relieved smile. “Thanks. I really have no clue where I went with mine, but if I go to sleep with all this gunk on my skin, I’ll break out terribly tomorrow.”
“Yeah. Sure. No problem.” London kept the smile on her face until Lori turned to leave. Then she tossed a flirty insult at me over her shoulder before she went to follow her. “You’re exhausting, you know that?”
Without thinking, I replied on a whisper, “In more ways than one.”
London sniffed but didn’t respond, heading upstairs behind Lori without looking back. I heard them chatting on their way up and exhaled a long, slow breath. I wasn’t sure if we’d just been saved by a Lori-shaped bell, or if her timing couldn’t have been any worse.
Shaking my head, I poured the last of the cold coffee down the drain and rinsed out the mug. Then I went upstairs too. As I reached my room, I heard the door behind me open and I twisted just in time to see London’s door open and her walking back to her bed.
I paused in front of my own door. Two choices, Liam. Her bed or yours. What’s it going to be?