Chapter Six. I shove away from Liam and push to my feet
I shove away from Liam and push to my feet. “I told you, my things
are being delivered.”
He’s already standing in front of me, towering over me, distractingly
bare-chested except for the perfect sprinkle of dark hair over his pecs. “I’m
not asking for answers,” he assures me.
“Explain it to me when you’re ready.”
It? Explain it? “When I’m ready?” Does he not understand I will never
be ready?
“When you’re ready,” he repeats, removing his cell phone from his
pocket. “I’m going to have the hotel deliver sheets and pillows.”
“No. I didn’t invite you to stay. You were only helping me in the
door.”
“Are you saying you don’t want me to stay?”
“You were supposed to help me in the door,” I repeat.
“As I remember it, I did.”
“Liam—”
“You want me to stay.”
“That’s arrogant.”
“It’s honest.”
Honest. I wish he would stop using that word. “You can’t stay.”
“Do you want me to stay?”
Now it’s a question. And yes. Yes. I want him to stay. I should say
“no”. The word won’t leave my mouth. “It’s not that simple.”
He reaches for my hand and pulls me close, and I tell myself to push
away but I don’t even try. “Let me make it simple, Amy. You want me to
stay. I want to stay. I’m staying.” He strokes my hair. “And you need help.
I’m going to help you, baby. You aren’t alone.”
A tornado of emotions rolls through me, and the debris of my past is
like glass cutting me inside out. Becoming his charity case is so far from
being Cinderella it’s like a horror show, not a fairy tale. I’ll take alone any
day. “No.” I hiss out the word, and this time it comes from my mouth. “I
don’t want your help.”
“You need my help.”
I’m emboldened in my mix of anger and mortification. “How did we
go from you fucking me properly to me being the needy girl you met on the
plane you want to help?”
“Correction. The gorgeous woman I met on a plane and still plan to
fuck properly many times over if I have my way. And there’s someone who
needs help in my path every day, and yes, I help where I can, but Amy, I’m
here, with you, because you are you.”
“Stop saying that,” I blurt. “You don’t even know who I am.”
“But I want to.”
And that’s the problem. I want him to and he can’t. “One night. We
were making this one night.”
“Were we, now?” He arches a brow and looks amused. “I don’t
remember that agreement, so I’d better start making my case for two.
Starting with making tonight good for you.”
Good for me? Does he not think a world-shattering orgasm was good
for me? Surprising me, he pulls out his cell phone and starts to dial. “Who
are you calling at this hour?” I ask, suddenly worried. Has a Wiki page given
me a façade of safety with Liam I shouldn’t trust? I don’t know this man and
he knows too much about me.
“This is Liam Stone,” he informs the person on the other end of the
line, amusement lingering in his eyes. “I checked into the presidential suite
about thirty minutes ago. Yes. Right.
Everything is fine, but I’m at a friend’s apartment across the street
and one of her moving boxes is missing. She needs queen-sized sheets,
pillows, a blanket, towels, and toiletries. I’ll pay double whatever your
listed price is to have them brought across the street to me, and whoever
delivers the items will be well rewarded.”
I press my hand to my face and turn away from him, walking to the
end of the hallway to stare at the apartment that is not mine, but is all I
have. What have I done by bringing Liam here?
He’s determined to help me now and I can’t tell him who I am, but he
has money to uncover whatever he wants to uncover. Lots of money. If my
handler doesn’t have my bases well covered, Liam will find out who I am. It
could get him and me both killed.
“Perfect,” I hear Liam say, and I can tell he’s moved closer. “And just
to be clear,” he continues, “I have the suite indefinitely, if you could make
sure that’s on record.”
Indefinitely. The idea that I might be across the street from this man,
and I can simply ignore him, is pure insanity. You don’t have to be a rocket
scientist to know that you don’t just ignore Liam Stone if he doesn’t want to
be ignored.
I turn back around to find him closer than I thought, with only a few
steps separating us at the most, and I look away, knowing I’m not quite as
collected as I need to be. In the process, my gaze lands on his flat, naked
stomach. My mouth goes instantly dry and not just because of his lack of
clothing, which would be enough in itself, but it seems I’ve found Liam’s
hinted-at tattoo. The number 3.14 is etched in his skin over the Pi
mathematical symbol, which frames his belly button. Beneath the symbol
are rows of numbers I know represent infinite value, all aligned as an
inverted triangle, and trailing downward to alluringly disappear into his
pants.
“What options do we have for food at this hour?” Liam asks the hotel
operator, or whomever he is talking to, and the sound of his voice snaps my
gaze upward. His eyes meet mine, and now his amusement is laced with
male satisfaction. He leans on the edge of the wooden dining room table
and holds the phone away from his mouth. “Is pizza okay and if so, what
kind?”
Pizza, not Pi, Amy. Keep your gaze up and stop thinking about where
those infinite numbers stop. “Cheese. I like cheese.” I dart past him and
head to the kitchen, needing space, needing to think.
Once I’m behind the wall of the tiny, rectangular cracker box of a
room, I wish I could take a jog. Running has been my salvation over the
years, a way I found to block out the things that mess with my head.
Instead, I just try to do anything I can to stay busy. I open cabinets to see if I
have any supplies. The answer is no. No supplies, nothing to organize or
clean. No place but Liam to put my mind and he’s no longer an escape. He’s
just trouble.
Pressing my hands to the counter, I let my head fall between my
shoulders. I have nothing but the clothes I have on my back—or actually,
that now lay on the hallway floor—and there is a billionaire standing a few
feet away. The irony is hard to miss.
Liam’s voice lifts, growing closer again, and it is deep and confident,
from a man who owns his world when I do not own mine. I think maybe he
owns it more than I do right now, and that is a sign I need that run and
some time alone. I am weak tonight, but I will claw my way back to strength
again. I will. I have no choice.
I listen as he orders two large pizzas, one cheese and one pepperoni,
and remembers my diet Sprite from the plane, which I am far too pleased
about. The man is impossibly, frighteningly, involved in my world in all of
one day. My crappy college boyfriend I’d gambled on, thinking he was my
age, and far removed from my past and therefore safe, sure hadn’t known
much about me. I’d thought that was good, another thing that made him
safe, until I found my roommate’s legs around his neck.
“Food and supplies should be here in about fifteen minutes.”
I turn to find Liam standing under the archway of the kitchen entry,
his dark hair rumpled, his broad and gloriously bare chest reminding me
that I’m wearing his shirt. And while he is strikingly male, that is not what
steals my breath in this moment. It’s the mix of tenderness and heat I find
in his eyes.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I whisper.
“We both need to eat.”
“That’s not what I mean, though I appreciate the food. You didn’t
have to order the hotel to bring me things. That costs money, and—”
He advances on me and I swallow the rest of my sentence. I start to
back away but he is already in front of me, his hands on my waist. I suck in
a breath, and just that fast, I’m on the counter, skirt up, knees apart, and
the fingers of one of his hands tunnel into my hair. His mouth slants over
mine, his tongue licking into my mouth, and he doesn’t taste tender. Not
one little bit.
He tastes like the raw, honest passion he’s promised this night will
hold. And he tastes like me. It is a sultry, arousing thought. I sink deeper
into the kiss, and this time, I am the one tangling my fingers into his dark
hair.
He reaches for my hand, covering it with his, tearing his mouth from
mine. “I told you I do not do anything because I have to. And I don’t. But to
be inside you right now, baby, I have to. I need to. And, yes—right here in
the kitchen.” He pulls his shirt over my head and I don’t know where he
tosses it. I am already wrapping my arms around him, pressing my naked
breasts to his chest. He strokes a hand down my hair, brushing his lips over
mine. “This isn’t going to be proper, but I’ll make it up to you, I promise. If I
don’t find my way inside you now I won’t let you eat when the food
arrives.”
“The only thing you’ll have to make up to me is if someone comes to
the door before this happens.”
“They’ll wait if they have to,” he promises. “Put your hands on the
counter behind your back.”
“What?”
“Do it, Amy. Let me look at you.”
The inherent shyness life has taught me freezes me, and Liam seems
to know immediately, but he is not discouraged. He presses my hands and
molds them to the counter behind me with his own. “Leave them there.”
I don’t speak. I am so nervous and aroused. He brushes his lips over
mine. “Say ‘yes’, Amy.”
“Yes,” I whisper, and he smiles.
“You really are so damn sexy.”
“I don’t feel sexy right now.”
“Then what do you feel?”
“Out of my league.” And it is a relief to actually say what I really feel.
“If anyone is out of their league, baby, it’s me. You’re an angel and
I’m…not.” He glances up at the ceiling, as if he’s struggling with something,
before his stormy gaze returns to mine. “Maybe that’s the appeal for both
of us. We’re different, dark and light. Right and wrong.
Now, don’t move or I’ll show you just how not an angel I am.”
The threat is darkly erotic, arousing, but it does not stop me from
seeing pain and self-loathing deep beneath his surface that I relate to far
too well. I want to know what made him, what drives him, what haunts him
in the night, and I don’t care what he says. Something haunts him. And I
want to be the angel he sees me as, when I know that I left that “me” in the
past.
I will never be an angel to anyone but him, and that will be a
one-night façade. “I won’t move my hands, Liam. Not if you don’t want me
to.”
I watch his eyes dilate, darken, his jaw tightening into a hard line, and
this is not the reaction I had hoped for. His hands move from mine to rest
on my shoulders. “Now I’m going to fuck you, Amy.” There is a new
gruffness to his tone, and I almost feel as if he’s trying to shock me, to
prove that I’m the angel, and he is not. But then he drags his fingers
downward, trailing over my breasts to caress my nipples. His touch is light,
teasingly gentle, and when it is gone, I gasp with the deep ache in my sex,
where I want him to be. “I don’t like the way you won’t let me touch you.”
“You can touch me.” He unzips his pants and shoves them down, his
hard cock jutting forward, thickly veined, and reaches in his pocket and
pulls out his wallet. “Later.”
I only have tonight. I only have tonight. “Promise me,” I insist, and for
reasons I do not try to understand, I need his agreement. “I need you to
promise me, Liam.” And my voice is raspy, filled with emotion that reaches
beyond touching him. I want more and I don’t even know what “more” is.
He sets his wallet on the counter, a wrapped condom now in his
hand, and presses his palms to my knees. “I promise, Amy.” He leans in and
kisses me, his mouth lingering on mine a moment, as if he is savoring me,
and I feel the connection to this man in some deep part of my soul. I can’t
explain it. Maybe I just need to create this in my mind to survive the day or
justify what I am doing. But it is right for me now. He is right for me now.
Slowly, he leans back, and it is as if a simmering fire sparks back into
life. His gaze holds mine as he tears open the condom and discards the
wrapper. My heart thunders in my ears and my sex aches with the
emptiness in me that only he can fill. He looks down to roll the condom on,
and I cannot help but think about how prepared he is, how normal this is
for him. I do not have time for my mind to go crazy. He is quick and in
seconds his mouth is back on mine, and each delicious swipe of his tongue
seduces me more. He is a drug that delivers passion and escape.
He tears his mouth away, watching me as he curves a hand under my
backside and lifts me. His gaze lowers, raking over my breasts, heating my
skin, and then his free hand wraps his cock and he slides it along the
sensitive lips of my sex, back and forth, until I question how urgent he truly
is, and I am panting with anticipation.
“Please, Liam,” I whisper, far less shy now that I am desperate to feel
him inside me.
The instant I issue the plea, he reacts as if that was what he was
waiting for. He presses inside me and drives deep, filling me, stretching me,
and now both of his hands cup my backside, arching my hips just how he
wants them. He sinks in, burying himself to the deepest part of my body,
and pleasure slides over his features. “Oh yeah, baby. You feel like heaven.”
He lowers his head and licks one of my nipples, then suckles, and the
sensation spirals through me, straight to my lower belly. My sex clenches
around him, and my hips arch.
“Liam,” I pant, needing what he still hasn’t given me, needing him to
move.
His lips taste mine. “Say my name again.”
“Liam,” I whisper, and I wonder why this appeals to him. What it
means or if it means anything at all.
“What do you want?” he asks, and his voice is gravelly, laden with
desire. Desire for me.
“You know what I want.”
“Tell me.” He reaches between us and strokes my clit.
“You know what I want.” My voice is louder now, laced with the
urgency building inside me, and I wrap my legs around his hips, touching
him the only way I can touch him.
“Say it, Amy. It’s just you and me. Raw and honest. Give it to me.”
Honest. That freedom is everything to me. “Fuck me. I want you to
fuck me.”
A look of pure male satisfaction rolls over his face, and he slides his
hands around my back. “Hold on to my neck,” he commands. The instant I
comply, he lifts me, melding my body to his, and he starts to pump, pulling
me down on top of him at the same time. Pleasure nearly overwhelms me
as each thrust of his cock sends shock waves of pleasure through my body. I
do not know if I am actually on the counter or he’s just using it to brace our
bodies, or his knees, I think, but I don’t care. I bury my head in his chest,
and cling to him, the sound of his heavy breathing like silk stroking my
nerve endings. I can feel his urgency, his need, and I am there with him,
pushing into him, trying to meet him, take him, find that sweet spot that
we both want.
And it’s there, it’s there, and the sexy near growl that escapes his lips
tells me it’s there for him, too. He grinds me against him, and my sex
clenches around his cock, and I am shaking, or he is shaking. Maybe we
both are. It’s a haze of pleasure rushing through my body, and I am
clutching him and he me, and I feel the counter beneath me, his arms
around my back.
“That’s what you call fast,” he murmurs against my neck, kissing it
and my ear before leaning back to search my face. “What are you doing to
me, woman? I’m never…” He scrubs his jaw, seeming almost rattled, before
his hands go to the counter at my hips. “Next time won’t be like that. Slow,
baby. Nice and slow.”
Next time. I am pleased with these words and stunned at the idea
that I have affected this man on a level beyond his normal encounters. I
surprise myself by smiling. “I didn’t even get to examine the many
attributes of Pi.”
His lips curve. “Baby, you can examine it, lick it, do whatever you
want to do to it and me, after I feed you. I promised. I meant it.”
Lick it. Yes. Please. Promise. I am not used to promises. I will take this
one and put it to good use. He pulls out of me and I gasp. “Warning,
please.”
He laughs, a gentle lion’s laugh, deep and sensual. I love that laugh.
“We have to get you dressed before someone shows up at the door.” He
sets me on the ground and eyes the condom and motions to the other
room. “I’ll be right back.” He heads out of the kitchen, probably to the
bathroom, and I suddenly realize I don’t even have basics like toilet paper.
Now this is truly embarrassing. I’ll have to find a twenty-four-hour store
and get some basic stuff. That’s all there is to it.
I wiggle my skirt down my hips, and snatch up his shirt, but I don’t
put it on. Liam will need it to answer the door. His words play in my mind.
Be inside you now. I have to. I smile to myself at the idea of making a man
like Liam “have” to do anything, and I hunt down my panties, bra, and
blouse—which appears to be missing a middle button. Nothing like a gaping
front to show off your bra. Heading to the living room, I can hear Liam
talking to someone on the phone from the bedroom, telling them how to
find the entrance to the building. Knowing we will have company soon, I
quickly shove my clothes into my carry-on bag and pull out the airport
t-shirt I bought before leaving New York.
“The bellman is coming up the elevator now,” Liam says, rounding
the doorway just as I pull the t-shirt into place. Stopping dead in his tracks,
his expression turns suddenly stormy and intense.
Feeling more than a little awkward at his reaction, I hold up his shirt.
“I thought you might need this and I tore the button off of my blouse.”
He stalks forward and stops directly in front of me. “I have never
hated an ‘I love New York’ t-shirt more than the one you have on.”
His voice is a tightly pulled cord. He’s angry and I’m baffled. “You
hate ‘I love New York’ shirts?”
“I hate what it says about your situation.” A knock sounds on the
door, but he doesn’t move. Silence ticks between us and I think he has to
be able to hear the thunder of my heart.
Another knock and he turns away, pulling his shirt over his head as
he stomps toward the door.
I wet my dry lips and stare down at the shirt, and I feel like an ice pick
is chipping away at my nerve endings. I hate what this shirt says about my
life, too. And I hate that Liam knows what it says about my life. I hate it
because it means I have to make tonight our only night. I knew that
already, but I also know a part of me was slipping into a fantasyland where I
could allow Liam to be my Prince Charming for just a little bit longer. I’m
back now, though. I’m back in reality and no matter what happens tonight,
I won’t forget that it translates to one thing and one thing only. Alone.