by Cindy Dees
Who was doing this to her? Surely it was Ivan trying to terrorize her. A thread of fury wove its way into the fabric of fear draped over her. Jerk.
She’d be damned if she ever let him anywhere near her daughter again. If only Liam and the cops were able to catch the Peeping Tom, maybe he would name Ivan as his employer. That would make getting a restraining order against her ex a piece of cake, and it would finally put the kibosh on his plans to steal Chloe away from her like some spoil of war.
She went back to work on the sketch, adding shadows and making small changes until she was satisfied she’d captured the face exactly. She laid down the sketch, and it stared back up at her with a flat, cruel expression.
And...she panicked anew. She’d done too good a job on the sketch and freaked herself out. It was as if the guy was staring at her again, this time from Liam’s coffee table. She darted out her hand from under the blanket and flipped the picture over, facedown.
Better.
But tears still leaked out of her eyes as her entire body trembled with fear.
And of course, that was exactly when Liam walked in on her. When she was boo-hooing like some sissy who couldn’t take care of herself. Ivan had always sneered at these kinds of outward displays of emotional vulnerability.
Liam took one step inside, spied her crying and strode over to her. She braced herself for his contempt.
Without saying a word, he picked her up, turned around and sat down on the sofa with her cradled in his lap.
Startled, she sat very still. Why was he doing this?
Liam merely tucked the blanket around her, lightly urged her head down to his shoulder and held her gently, saying nothing. Apparently, he planned to let her cry out her fear and stress.
Which opened the floodgates. Except it wasn’t fear and stress making her cry now. It was gratitude that he hadn’t made fun of her. That he hadn’t ridiculed her when he’d seen her crying. That he’d silently given her permission to feel scared and stressed and didn’t seem interested in judging her. Which was just as well. She was judging herself enough for both of them. She’d barged into his house and dragged him into her mess without even asking him if he cared to be involved.
When her sobs finally wound down, he reached over to the small end table and came back with a tissue in hand. He held it out to her, and she took it, mopping at her face.
“I’m—” she hiccuped “—I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
She peeked up at him. He sounded genuinely surprised. “For banging on your door in the middle of the night and forcing you to run around chasing some guy.”
“Sloane. Stop.”
“Stop what?” she blurted, truly alarmed that she’d overstepped some boundary she hadn’t been aware of.
“Stop apologizing for including me in your life. I’m honored that you trust me and are willing to turn to me for help.”
She frowned, struggling to process the meaning behind his words. C’mon, Sloane. You’re an intelligent, highly educated attorney. Surely the obvious interpretation is the correct one. He likes you.
Her stomach fluttered nervously. It had been so long since she’d dated or since she’d flirted with anyone. Since she’d even considered the idea of a relationship with someone besides Ivan. Did she dare go there with Liam? Or would she ruin the friendship growing between them?
At a loss over how to proceed next, she mumbled, “I must look like a wreck. My skin blotches when I cry and my nose turns red.”
“You look cute. And lucky for you, I’m a huge fan of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
She scrubbed her red nose with the tissue.
“You’ve had a hell of a week, sweetheart,” he murmured. “First the scare with Chloe, and now this.”
“I guess so.”
“I’m glad you came to me tonight when you were scared.”
She smiled up at him, feeling more waterworks threatening. “I really am sorry I barged in on you like that. I was totally panicked, and I didn’t think about where I was going. All of a sudden, I just found myself pulling into your driveway.”
Liam smiled back, and his light green eyes sparkled like gemstones. She’d forgotten how beautiful his eyes really were. His lashes were dark and thick, too, and the combination was devastating.
Up close like this, his jawline was more rugged than she’d ever noticed before. His cheekbones were more chiseled than she remembered, too. The softness of youth in his face had given way to a devastatingly handsome man who would only get better with age.
While the tan might have faded from his arms, his face was still bronzed, and strands of honey gold wound through his brown hair. His job probably put him outdoors a lot. And apparently, he still skied.
Speaking of which, it dawned on her that his thighs were powerful and hard beneath her legs. Liam Kastor had grown up and become a man’s man.
Huh. He’d always been attractive in a boyish, charming sort of way. But now that he’d matured, he was stronger. More confident. Sexier. He wore the hard edge of being a police detective very well, indeed. The flutter in her belly intensified, and it had nothing to do with panic. But it did startle her into even sharper awareness of the man holding her.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice a low, comforting rumble.
“Why do you ask?”
“Your breathing accelerated.”
Busted. No way was she admitting to him that she was breathing hard because she was sitting on this hot guy’s freaking lap. Oh, no. She was definitely not confessing that. She still remembered his capacity to tease her mercilessly from junior high school—
Although maybe that had changed about him as well.
“I—” she started. “You—” She stopped again. “Thank you.”
A little wrinkle formed between his eyebrows. “For what?”
“For letting me charge into your place and practically knock you off your feet. And for letting me fall apart on your sofa. And for going over to my place to check it out while I cowered here. Speaking of which, did you find anything?”
“More footprints. Similar to the ones I found before. Men’s boots. About the same size as the first set. Whoever’s hanging around your place is coming up from the park behind your house and leaving that way, too. I’m going to stake out the woods and that bike path for a while and see if I can catch the bastard who’s scaring you.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she replied quickly. “I don’t want to be that much trouble to you.”
His expression turned a tiny bit withering. “Since when do you say stupid things, Sloane Colton? You always were the smartest girl in the whole school.”
She laughed without humor. “I was until I met Ivan. He was a colossal mistake. The man totally wrecked my faith in my own good judgment and ability to make intelligent decisions.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, what did you see in him?”
She replied reflectively, “I paid a therapist a ton of money to answer that very question.”
“Did you get an answer?”
She looked down at her hands, her fingers twining together fretfully. “Yes. I did.”
Gentleman that he was, Liam didn’t pry. Didn’t ask what the answer was, even though he had to be curious. She volunteered the information anyway. After all, he’d let her into his house and was showing extreme kindness to her. Not to mention, she did actually trust him. “Apparently, I have deep-seated abandonment issues from losing my parents when I was so young. There was nothing particularly special about Ivan except that he was the first person who offered to marry me, which represents safety in my mind. I apparently craved permanence.”
“Marriage is supposed to be permanent,” Liam murmured.
“You would think, wouldn’t you?” she responded ruefully. “My therapist thought I was so desperate for someone
in my life who wouldn’t abandon me that I leaped at the first guy to come along who promised to stick around. Truth be told, I’m not sure I ever loved Ivan. I just loved the idea of a home and a family of my own.”
“And now you’ve got those for yourself without him. Are you happy?”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to be Laser Man all the time, you know.”
“Sorry,” he murmured. “But I’m still curious. Are you happy here in Roaring Springs? It seems...small for you.”
“After the mess with Ivan, I realized it represents home to me. Family. I might have been running away from the loss of my parents, but I guess it finally dawned on me that I already have a family.”
He smiled without much humor. “You have an enormous family.”
“For better or worse,” she muttered.
For all their flaws, the Coltons did stick together like glue.
Liam spoke up. “You still haven’t answered my question. Are you happy now that you have a home and a family of your own?”
“My home has been invaded, and I almost lost my child a week ago. I can’t say that I’m feeling particularly secure in my life at the moment, no.”
“Are you happy to be here or not?” he pressed.
After one last hesitation, she finally gave him a straight answer. “I’m happier to be here than I thought I would be.” His eyes lit up with fierce pleasure. He rightly surmised that he had something to do with her answer.
But then a shadow entered his eyes, and his arms tightened around her in obvious preparation to rise and dump her off his lap.
She threw her arms around his neck. “Don’t move,” she pleaded.
“Sloane, I refuse to take advantage of your recent troubles and emotional vulnerability.”
“I got the noble, decent guy memo from you already. You’re not taking advantage of me if I want to be with you.”
He subsided beneath her. “You’re sure?” he asked quietly.
“Yes. I feel safe sitting here like this with you.”
“Safe. Right.” His voice was dry, and she thought she sensed disappointment in his voice. Was he really attracted to her in that way? The fluttering in her belly grew decidedly more pronounced. She laid her head on his shoulder, considering what she wanted from him. The possibilities were staggering.
Finally, she murmured against his neck, “Liam?”
“Hmm?”
“Would you mind kissing me?”
He reared back hard to stare down at her. “Are you sure that wouldn’t be a mistake? Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to kiss you again. But I don’t want you to regret it later.”
“What if I promised not to have any regrets?” she responded.
“Come again?”
“Kiss me. Please.”
His head bent down to hers, and he paused, his mouth no more than an inch from hers. “Sloane?”
“Yes?” she whispered breathlessly.
“You don’t ever have to say please to get me to kiss you. For that matter, you don’t ever have to ask. You can kiss me anytime you’d like.”
Well, in that case...
She tilted her chin up and captured his mouth with hers. It was as warm and wonderful as she remembered from the hospital. Except this time, he surrounded her completely, and she relished being engulfed by his size and strength and muscular physique.
She deepened the kiss, and he opened his mouth for her. She touched the tip of her tongue to his and then jerked back, startled. Was that a chuckle making his chest shake like that?
“Chickening out, are you?” he murmured humorously against her lips.
“Me? Hah! Challenge accepted, buster.”
She pushed off of his formidable chest and shifted position, throwing one of her thighs across his lap and straddling his hips. The position put her more on his level, and she was really able to kiss him now.
He grinned back at her, the dare glinting in his eyes, which had darkened to the color of wet grass.
Their gazes met, and the humor drained from his eyes, leaving behind a fire that would be intimidating as heck if this weren’t Liam, whom she’d known for most of her life. Whom she’d grown up beside. Who was practically family already.
“Seriously, Sloane,” he growled. “If you’re going to think this was a mistake tomorrow, we need to stop now.”
Chapter 8
For once in her life she didn’t care if this was a mistake or not. She’d had a rotten week, and the only bright spot in it—besides Chloe pulling through and recovering—was this man. She’d been so damned responsible for so damned long that she was more than ready, eager even, to make a big, fat, feel-good mistake.
“We’re not stopping,” she murmured.
She plunged her fingers into his thick, short hair, loving how silky it was against her palms. Then, tilting her head to fit their mouths together better, she kissed him the way she’d been imagining doing for the past week, like when she soaked in her bathtub or late at night when she lay in her bed before sleep came. She’d been imagining kissing him at other times, too. Like when she cooked dinner or vacuumed or dusted or shopped or...well, pretty much all the time.
His mouth was just the right combination of firm and smooth, yielding and warm, and she relished the feel and taste of him as if he were a perfect bite of her favorite food.
For his part, he sat frozen beneath her as if he knew not to move too abruptly and scare her. But desire abruptly rolled off of him, and the muscles in his thighs and arms suddenly felt tightly coiled around her. She tensed, and immediately his mouth stilled.
“Second thoughts?” he muttered against her lips.
“No. Not at all.”
“Glad to hear it.” His hand slid around under the weight of her hair to cup the back of her head, and he drew her back into the kiss this time. But he took it easy and didn’t try to dominate her. For which she was imminently grateful. She needed to take this slow for now.
As he continued to let her set the pace, she relaxed and remembered why she’d been fantasizing about kissing him. The man was hawt.
Not to mention, this was Liam. Unfailingly kind, considerate, honorable Liam. Fox’s best friend in the whole world, and her brother was a great judge of character. Her hands slid down his corded neck and across his broad shoulders. Bulging muscles proclaimed his physical power. And yet, for once, she wasn’t freaked out by a man being much bigger and much stronger than she was.
Her fingertips encountered the buttons of his oxford shirt, and a desire to feel the skin underneath had her undoing them and pushing the starched cotton aside. His chest was as warm and hard as before. All those acres of yummy muscles hadn’t been her imagination.
A desire to taste his skin came over her. She hesitated, then remembered he’d said she never needed to ask to kiss him. She ducked her chin down and touched her lips to the hollow at the base of his throat. Tendons grew taut, muscles jerked and his pulse leaped beneath her lips.
She kissed her way across his collarbone and his entire body went tense, waiting, beneath her. She pushed back on his lap and kissed lower, tracing down his breastbone in the hollow between bulging pectoral muscles. She moved to her right and heard his sharp intake of breath.
A surge of power roared through her. How weird was this? She was making him respond in all these visceral ways just by kissing him. Yet another first for her, compliments of Liam.
She continued exploring his chest, pushing his shirt open. She paused long enough to sit up and stare down at him, sprawled on the sofa beneath her, his eyes glittering with intensity, but his body casual. Lionlike.
His jeans were tight across his crotch, but she could still see he was reacting to her. Strongly. Well, hello, sailor.
“Like what you see?” One side of his mouth quirked up.
The question rocked her to
her core. Since when had the self-effacing, insecure teen become this daring, dangerous man, challenging her to do more and go further with him? He’d become a force of nature somewhere along the way.
“Yes. I do like what I see,” she purred, something hungry within her reacting to the gauntlet he’d thrown down before her. “A lot. You’ve grown up very nicely, Detective Kastor.”
“So have you, Counselor.”
She shook her head. “Where did the years go? It seems like yesterday we were awkward teenagers, and here we are, all grown up.”
“Thank God. I hated being a teenager.”
“Why?” she asked curiously.
“Besides the fact that I wanted to screw pretty much anything that moved, all the time, I had no social skills and no idea how to go about talking to girls.”
“Are you kidding? You were super outgoing, and you had all kinds of female friends.”
“Yeah. But not the one I wanted.” He stared at her significantly.
Her brows twitched into a frown. “Seriously? You didn’t know how to talk to me? We talked all the time.”
“Yeah. About stupid stuff. I had no idea how to tell you how I really felt about you.”
Her eyes widened. “You had feelings for me?”
He huffed. “See? This is exactly what I’m talking about. I was crazy about you, and I had no words to tell you so. It was awful.”
“You have the words now,” she said softly.
He reached up to push a lock of her hair off her cheek. His fingertip traced the shell of her ear lightly as he tucked the hair behind it. A shiver passed through her.
“Thing is, I don’t know what you do or don’t want to hear, now.”
She considered him soberly. “I honestly don’t know. I...wasn’t expecting you.”
He smiled a little at that. “I wasn’t expecting you, either.”
She planted her palms on his chest and leaned in a little. “But I’m glad I ran into you...and that you weren’t scared off by the craziness in my life.” She closed the remaining gap between them, feeling the heat radiating off his torso, her mouth a breath away from his. “I want to hear whatever you’ve got to say to me, Liam. If I don’t need permission to kiss you, then you don’t need permission to say whatever you want. Deal?”
