by Jody Wallace
On the surface, Sal wasn’t cooperating, but the rich scent of her desire was unmistakable. Liam’s hand stilled on her thigh, and he chose to misunderstand her. “Telling you about my new line of shoes?”
“Not that.” She plucked up his hand and dropped it. It fell to her leg with a flop. “The Mr. Octopus routine.”
“This is what happens on a date, Sal.” She could have slipped into sex without a word, like the women Liam normally chose, but Sal wasn’t that kind of woman.
She had to know where she stood. What his intentions were. What he wanted from her.
Damn.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is not a date.”
“Hmm.” He could do several things at this juncture. He could play along with Sal’s crazy idea about Kristiana, but that would be admitting he lied and Sal might avoid him. Time was too precious to waste with her angry, whether or not they had sex. Another option would be to engage her in an earnest, extended conversation. It would only take a day or so to convince her that he really, really wanted to date her, whereupon she’d fall in love with him, which was cruel.
Or he could use his masculine wiles to gloss over the intimate stuff while keeping her close at hand. Very close. Conversation and intimacy deepened a relationship, not wordless, hot sex.
It was a much better way to pass the next two weeks than jumping at every Robair-shaped shadow that crossed his path. The men in the restaurant had to have been his. They could be trailing him now, if they’d figured out who he was. He knew his subterfuges were more clever than most, but the scumball obviously had some way of identifying other leprechauns, just like Liam did. He was a gaidache, after all.
A truth Liam intended to blast open as soon as he returned home. If the leprechaun in question hadn’t turned gaidache in humanspace, anyone who made it back to the Realm under his or her own power qualified to be a searsanach. The first few back qualified for open seats on the council.
Robair as a searsanach would be bad enough, but Robair on the council would be disastrous. Balance might never be restored. How Robair thought he could get away with all the magic theft when he’d turned on so many leprechauns, Liam wasn’t sure, but he knew for a fact a number of competitors for the open seat had gone missing.
He wasn’t going to be one of them.
“It’s definitely a date, Sal,” he said at last. The next few minutes were crucial. He continued to stroke her silken skin beneath her shirt. “At least, I want it to be a date. Don’t you?”
“I want the truth.”
He didn’t like to lie. “The truth is, I like you a lot and I think you’re attractive.”
“You said you wanted something from me. I’d feel more comfortable if you tell me what that is.”
The taxi coasted to a stop at a traffic light. To Liam’s right, a vehicle slid up beside the taxi. A limo, black windows, silver trim. Not many of those in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.
Liam’s jaw tightened. Robair, or his representative. Had to be. If the limo had followed their cab, the gaidache had to be suspicious of Liam’s identity, which could be disastrous. Too much rode on an Anich taking the seat.
This called for drastic measures. A leprechaun with the peels might use a Finder as a cover, but no leprechaun with the peels would ever have sex with one.
“What I want from you is a kiss.” Without further ado, he swooped down and captured Sal’s lips with his own.
Fireworks.
How many women had Liam kissed and experienced fireworks? Answer—zero.
He lost himself in Sal’s warm, flowery scent. The pitch of her desire rose, surrounded him, tickled his nerve endings. He slanted his head to the side so he could taste her more fully. His questing tongue stroked her lips and parted them.
She sighed, a hint of surrender. Winding her arms around his neck, she matched his actions with slick demands of her own. She tugged his bottom lip with her teeth, licked it, and when he returned the favor, she moaned, low and quiet.
He pulled her into his lap. She wriggled against the evidence of his attraction and expelled a little gasp, which he caught in his mouth like a candy.
More kissing. Rubbing. He cupped her full, perfect breast through the silk shirt and lacy bra. Nuzzling his earlobe, his neck, she ran her hands through his hair. When he manipulated her nipple between his fingers, her hand slid inside his coat.
He wanted, he needed, to be closer to her. To bury himself in her scent. Somehow they sprawled in the back seat, his hips pressing into her softness. One of her feet twined around the back of his calf as if she expected him to bolt, and she divested him of his jacket so she could massage his back and shoulders.
His erection rubbed between her legs, and heat flared through him. Her heat. He longed to bring her pleasure. His hand fell to her thigh to lift her skirt. She’d be wet, slick, soft, and…
The cabbie’s radio flickered to loud static and a hard rock station blared in their ears.
The noise jarred some sense into Liam’s pounding brain. They were in a cab. There had been a car, a limo. Robair? He came up for breath, checked, nothing. Sal drew his head back down. “Look over your shoulder or kiss me, but not both. Take your pick.”
He stared into blue eyes dark with passion. “I pick kissing.” He straightened and cuddled her against him. “But not now. We’ll reconvene at my house.”
The cabbie cleared her throat. “Good choice. No sex in my cab, unless it’s me having it.” She winked at him in the rear view mirror.
“Sorry,” he said, though he wasn’t. Sal chuckled.
“I take it you want me to head home now?” the cabbie asked.
“Yes,” he and Sal answered as one. “Fast,” he added.
They weren’t far from the house. “I told you this was a date,” he whispered to Sal, conscious of the cabbie’s stare.
Sal tilted her face towards his, a little crease between her eyebrows. “I’m willing to go with the flow for now. Like Gram said, I know where to find you. I know you’ll call me, too, because your computer’s bound to explode at some point.”
Liam kissed her and ignored the fact she sounded like she was trying to convince herself. It would suffice. He mentally gave himself a pat on the back for diverting her from that talk about honesty.
Sal’s fingers danced up his thigh, dangerously close to his erection. She pulled the fabric of his pants taut and inspected his lap like it was a new computer keyboard.
A little embarrassed, he pinched her chin lightly. “Cut that out.”
She grinned. “You run around half-naked all the time. Don’t tell me you’re shy.”
In response, he peered down the neck of her shirt and scrutinized her bra. Lacy, pale blue. Her nipples strained against the fabric. “Are you shy?”
The tip of a pink tongue touched her lips as she considered. Her gaze dropped to her chest, and she shook her head. “If I take time out to be shy, I might change my mind.”
He slid his finger inside her bra and rubbed her nipple. “Please don’t.”
A challenging expression on her face, she smoothed her palm over his straining erection. “If you keep that up, you’re going to find out how shy I’m not, and our driver already said any sex in this vehicle had to include her.” She withdrew her hand. “I’ve shared you for three years. That’s long enough, don’t you think?”
The cabbie barked with laughter. Liam whistled and raised an eyebrow. He’d always figured Sal would be reserved in bed. She dated boring guys, and she certainly didn’t have flings. She stayed home most weekends, not that Gram, the party animal, stayed home with her.
Sometimes Liam did.
The taxi idled at the curb, and he tossed way too much money into the front seat for the understanding driver. Whether that limo had belonged to Robair or a roving Green Bay Packer, it was gone now. It hadn’t followed them.
Robair might be suspicious, but he hadn’t honed in on Liam yet or he’d have already made his move. He’d have cornered L
iam as swiftly and securely as possible. He wouldn’t have gotten a massage, played golf, relaxed at the hotel. He wouldn’t have taken any chance Liam might beat him to the Realm. Because Leprechauns who weren’t searsanachs amassed power at approximately the same rate, anyone from their group who hadn’t been found would be nearly full. From the inquiries he and his PIs had conducted over the years, Liam had good reason to believe only he and Robair were still viable. Competitors for a searsanach berth were linked enough to know when one of their number completed deauchainn, but nothing else.
If Robair wasn’t here for the ring, Liam suspected the gaidache had gotten desperate and come to flush him out, which meant he didn’t know exactly where Liam was located. Liam had certainly done everything he could to keep his location secure. If he didn’t run, he was temporarily safe.
Tomorrow he’d give Robair the slip by doing what he always did when he had a stalker—stay at Sal and Gram’s. But tonight, Liam had other things to attend to—like removing Sal’s underwear with his teeth and kissing his way from her toes to her head, with several detours en route.
Chapter Six
He’d taken off her cardigan and blouse before he unlocked his front door, and goose bumps blushed across her skin. Late September in Wisconsin wasn’t exactly toasty. Sal wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her face on his chest, also bare to the night air. Her heart pounded with fear and excitement. What remained of her common sense screamed at her to put her shirt back on and get her ass home before she slept with Lothario Liam, her tomcat of a neighbor.The problem was, she could tell how good it was going to be. He kissed like an angelic devil, or a devilish angel, some otherworldly sex god, and he knew how to make her whimper. Didn’t she deserve the kind of sex she’d always imagined?
Liam tossed her blouse and sweater on the rocking chair near the door and kissed her again. Her purse hit the porch with a thump. His fingers threaded through her hair, fisted, and she couldn’t turn away. She could only kiss him back and, well, shove one of her hands down his pants and squeeze his butt. His hips twitched against her belly.
Definitely no way to fake an erection like that. How could this be about Kristiana? No, she didn’t want to think about the woman he’d been with last. She just wanted to think about her dreams coming true in a very carnal way.
How many millions of times had she fantasized about this? She caressed his bare, nearly hairless chest, muscular but not brawny. Next she stroked his ribs and ended at the perfect hollow above his hipbone. The hollow she’d yearned to lick whenever he’d been shirtless.
By golly, she’d do it.
She unlocked his fist from her hair and dropped to her knees. His eyes widened and his lips parted, but no sound came out. Sal wrapped her arms around his waist and rubbed her cheek against his flat, hot stomach. His shirt flapped open in the same unseen breeze that cooled her overheated skin.
With her lips closed, she placed tiny kisses around his navel and allowed her tongue to flicker out and sample that delicious spot above his hip. Slightly musky. Clean. Liam. She’d have known that taste anywhere, though it had never crossed her lips. She closed her eyes and breathed him in, rubbed her face across him with a sigh that tickled his skin.
“Sal.” His hoarse voice penetrated the fog of lust that had driven her to her knees on a first date, so to speak, not twenty yards from her grandmother’s house.
She didn’t want to be sane. In response, she licked him at his beltline and trailed a hand from his knee to his thigh, halting at his groin.
He grabbed her hand before she could undo his belt. Sal grinned into his belly and nipped him.
“Let’s go inside.” He fumbled for his keys and scrambled to unlock the door. The deadbolt always stuck. He couldn’t free it unless he pulled back on the doorknob while turning the key. This forced him to release her hand, which she promptly used to fondle his crotch.
Liam wheezed. The door opened and he fell into the living room, dragging her across the threshold. Sal ended up on top, her lace-clad bosom brushing his chest.
Warm air from the house bathed their chilled skin, and Sal shivered. She flattened herself against him. Liam rubbed down her shoulder blades, her spine, and around her buttocks. There, he lingered and massaged, increasing the ache between her legs. Mmm, he was good. She nibbled his shoulder and tried not to grind her hips like a dog in heat.
“By all that’s holy, woman,” he muttered into her hair. “Why didn’t you drop a hint years ago that you were so…” He swallowed.
“What am I so?” She raised herself and stared at him. Along his cheekbones, his skin had tightened, and his eyes were black. Warm, yellow light from the kitchen, open to the living room at one end, etched the planes of his chest.
Liam blinked. A tiny smile lightened his tense expression. “You’re so half-naked on top of me.” He drew her down for another luscious bout of kisses and squeezes.
A gust of wind whooshed through the open door and up her skirt. Sal uttered a startled whoop. Several dry leaves blew across the hardwood floor and came to rest on the red and brown Oriental rug in the center of the large room.
“Why don’t we take this somewhere more comfortable?” Liam traced the waistband of her skirt before tickling his way up her back. His fingers twitched the clasp of her bra.
“Maybe.” Somewhere comfortable. That sounded so…final. Sal licked her lips, nervous again. Was she really going to do this?
She felt her bra loosen, her breasts spill free. Liam rolled until she was on her back and dipped his head to nuzzle her collarbone. With a hot tongue, he moistened the flesh and slowly circled his way down her chest. Her nipples peaked, anxious for his attentions, but he ignored them, kissing his way around the underside of her breast.
“It’s your call.” He raised his head and captured her gaze, his own mischievous. His lips parted and he lowered his head, so slowly, towards her nipple, never breaking eye contact.
Sal bit her bottom lip and said nothing. All she wanted right now was…
Liam’s breath feathered across her tingling skin. His tongue barely touched her nipple. She flinched. Her hands flew to the back of his head, buried in his silky hair.
“Bed?” he breathed across her skin. The rosy tips swelled and she felt an answering echo deeper inside. “Come to bed with me, Sal.” He plucked one nipple with his lips, then the other.
“I don’t know.” She didn’t recognize her own voice, sultry with passion.
Liam sucked her nipple deep into his mouth, a sensation that spiraled all the way to her core. When he finished, he murmured, “What can I do to convince you?”
“We’ve been friends so long. I don’t want to ruin it. You’re sure about this?” Because she wasn’t.
“Sal, if you don’t want to have sex—” He punctuated his words with little kisses. “—my computer is still broken. You could fix it for me. Or you could fix this.” He thrust his pelvis against hers, his hard-on prodding her puss.
Not the sexiest proposal she’d ever had, but it was from Liam. What if she never had another chance? “Fine. Let’s do it.”
Before she could reconsider, Liam sprang to his feet and swung her effortlessly into his arms like a newlywed. He kicked the front door closed with a decisive slam.
“My purse and clothes,” she whispered into his neck. “They’re on the porch.” One of her high-heeled sandals dangled from her toes.
“Safe neighborhood.” As he carried her down the hallway to the master bedroom, he kissed her. She wrapped her arms around him, impressed he showed no strain from her weight and didn’t bonk her head on the doorjamb. He must have had practice hoisting women through the house without watching where he was going.
Liam tossed her onto his big, indulgent bed with the rumpled green velvet spread. Tall, cherry posts at each corner cast long shadows across the room, dimly lit by a headboard reading lamp. The room was cluttered, as usual, clothes on the floor, the bed half unmade. His bachelor’s chest stood massiv
e against the wall nearest the closet, and a bottle of lotion lay on the floor next to the garbage can.
Sal’s heart raced as she looked up at him.
“Stay exactly where you are.” Liam stroked her calf. “I have to check the alarm system.”
Sal had had a key to Liam’s house for over a year now. “You don’t have an alarm.”
“Sure, I do. It’s just not electronic.” Liam strode to the bay window and ran his hands along the sills.
“Admit it. You’re checking for stalkers.” Sal didn’t really believe that, but it had certainly been known to happen. Mostly she didn’t want him to leave the room and take the chance he’d change his mind.
“Nope.” Seemingly satisfied, he whisked out of the room, his footsteps echoing on the hardwood floor.
“I mean it,” he called back to her. “Don’t move.”
Sal wriggled in defiance. When he returned shortly thereafter, she offered him an uncertain smile and he grabbed her ankles.
“You moved, didn’t you?”
“Didn’t.”
“I’m going to have to confiscate your clothing as punishment.” In about two seconds, he divested her of her skirt and panties, but, instead of removing the shoes, he lovingly fastened the thin strap of the sandal that had nearly fallen off.
Sal couldn’t help it. A flush of embarrassment overwhelmed her and she tried to conceal herself. What female bodies had lounged on this bed? Naturally perfect ones? Surgically perfect ones? Waxed and toned ones that definitely didn’t wear size “hide my belly please”?
Liam trapped her wrists at her sides. “Don’t you know men are visual creatures?”
“That’s what I’m worried about.” She tugged her wrists. He threw a leg over her bare thighs to keep her from struggling, and the friction of his slacks abraded her sensitized skin.
“Oh, Sal. You have no idea.” He kissed her forehead, her nose, her lips, lingeringly. He shifted to her chest and paid the attention to her breasts and nipples she’d been longing for. Lips and tongue and teeth, palms and fingers, even his hair, his beard stubble. By the time he reached her hips, Sal didn’t care anymore. She just wanted. She made no protest when he kissed her intimately, curled his tongue through her cleft so she bucked upwards and moaned.
