Liam glanced over at her—his eyes skimming her outfit—and returned to her face with a definite glint of male appreciation in his expression. Oh, Lord. Had the temperature boosted in the car or something? Rhiann wanted to fan herself from the surge of heat that blasted her.
Seemingly, out of nowhere, his attitude changed. “How well do you know this . . . Jax?” he snarled.
Whoa. Rhi’s eyebrows took a leap and froze. That growl. What was that all about? One second he’d been looking at her like a five-pound lobster he was set to devour and the next he was all badass and possessive sounding about a strange man.
Ohhhh . . . right. Now she got it. Made sense, really. The ridiculous hovering at work, the fireworks that either exploded or popped incessantly in the background whenever they came near each other. The insistence on providing her transportation today and then showing up looking like ten tons of sexy and driving this swank car. Mr. Leo was in king-of-the-jungle mode, and she was in his line of vision. Rhi’s hand gripped the seat leather, and her heart rate picked up.
Seriously. Was the heat on high? What she was feeling took hot and bothered to an eleven. Flipping her hair behind her shoulders in hopes to catch relief from a bit of airflow, she consciously dialed back the whirl of inner excitement that Cirque de Soleil’d in her stomach every time she let him near her.
She must have been silent for too long after the demanding question so Liam grumbled testily, “Rhiann?”
Yeah, yeah. She was gonna answer. Just needed a few seconds to locate her damn dignity. When she heard the hint of jealousy in his voice, she had an unexpected Anastasia Steele moment that involved a front aerial with a triple tuck and a high difficulty dismount. Luckily, she stuck the landing.
“I suppose it depends on what you mean by that. How well? I know what my sister feels and since I’ve just recently met him . . .”
“Excuse me?” he barked. “You’ve only recently met him?”
Rhi shrugged. “Yeah. I mean he’s only been on the scene, like . . . I don’t know. Maybe four, five months.”
All of a sudden, Liam laughed and lightened up. “Are you telling me that the girl voted most likely to check off all the boxes got pregnant by a man she’d . . . what? Just met?”
He sounded incredulous. Yeah—get in line, dude!
“I know! Right?” Rhi giggled with delight and slapped her leg for emphasis. “Brynn! Of all people. She fell hard and she fell fast. They have a . . . um, unusual relationship.”
“Define . . . unusual.”
She grinned mischievously. How could she explain? Swiveling slightly in her seat so she had a view of his face when she told him just how unusual, Rhi lowered her voice for dramatic effect and told him, “I believe there’s spanking involved.”
The choke of laughter and seeing his shocked and amused profile was sooooo worth the telling.
She sat there as the highway sped by and watched Liam’s reaction, no longer dreading being alone in a car with him for two hours. This was actually kind of fun. And watching him process her words was quite interesting, too.
The possessive growl was gone—replaced by a lightheartedness that was rare where he was concerned. She rather liked this side of him. Not quite playful but definitely loosened up. Now if only he hadn’t worn a tie . . .
“You believe there to be spanking involved or you know this to be true? Makes a difference,” he teased.
“Actually,” she snorted in amusement, “I sort of had some in-your-face proof.”
“Can’t wait to hear this.” Liam chuckled.
Rhiann thought back to the weekend she and Brynn had spent in the city and their sisters-on-the-town outing. The night had been an authentic shit ton of fun—even with the morning-after hangover.
“A couple of weeks after Jax met my sister—which is a long story and involves some rather legendary parental unit meddling—she came to New York and we had a chance to have a night out. Let’s just say that, um . . . while we were dressing, er . . . uh . . . well, I saw what looked like a handprint on her bum!”
She watched Liam nod and bite back a grin. Or maybe it was a leer. Hard to tell from the side.
Putting on the blinker, he changed lanes to get away from an eighteen-wheel truck, smoothly handling the beast of a car with ease. Everything he did was like that. Skillful. Deft. Masterful. She should know. It was how he’d handled her body. Shame he hadn’t bothered to use the same skills of her mind and emotions. Fucker.
To say she was rattled and bemused with his next comment was the understatement of the decade.
“You know,” he murmured silkily. His voice sounded like velvet. “A good spanking can come in handy. Or so I hear.”
Rhi knew she was in his web. And he knew it too because she hadn’t shut down the conversation. Or the subject.
“Come in handy how exactly?” Shoot. She heard the little tremor in her voice and winced. Liam was into spanking? Well, there was a damn wild card she had in no way seen coming. He was always buttoned up so tight. Proper to the nth degree. Except in bed.
He glanced over at her, and she froze. His steely blue eyes radiated more heat that Rhiann didn’t need. She was practically in meltdown territory as it was.
“In your case, milaya moya,” he purred in a low, soft voice, “perhaps a smack or ten on the ass would tame that undisciplined mouth of yours.”
Oh. My. GOD!
Was the damn car on autopilot or something because they stared at each other for what felt like an eternity—Rhi’s eyes wide and curious with his turning smoky and grey.
Her brain lit up with what a scene involving her jungle cat, stripped to the waist, arms crossed and that damn scowl on his face. “Come here young lady,” he growled, “and bend over.”
This time the blast of heat that attacked Rhiann went straight into her core where she was uncomfortably aware that with little to no effort, he’d soaked her panties at a most inopportune time.
“Have you, uh . . . ever done that? Spanked someone?” she asked in a small voice. The notion that he might have unexpectedly gutted her.
He snorted and looked back at the road. “No.”
Relief poured over her—more proof of what an unbelievable fool she was where this guy was concerned.
Unable to stop herself, Rhiann kept going.
“Would you want to? I mean—smack my bottom?”
He didn’t leave her any doubt when he answered.
“Hadn’t given it any thought until you brought it up—but now that it’s out there, yeah. I think you could use a good spanking. Curb that fucking smart mouth of yours.”
Whenever he did that—used vulgar language or acted without that veneer of formality he was so good at—she took notice. Clues to the man behind the cool, controlled mask.
EH, SHIT. THERE WAS No way to pretend that a formidable hard-on wasn’t going on in his pants. It was tough enough to keep his wits about him just by being held captive in a car with her for a couple of hours but fanning the flames with sexy innuendo and spanking scenarios? Liam was balls-out insane and his cock was reminding him of that fact with each pulse of need. In short, he was fucked. In that case, he figured, might as well go for broke and see what happens.
“I saw one once. A full-on spanking scene.” Let’s see what she does with that nugget of information.
He knew he had her full attention when this time it was Rhiann asking for clarification. And he had to admit, he liked the combination of curiosity mixed with petulance he heard in her voice. She wasn’t all that keen on the idea of him fucking around like that with others.
“Uh. .define saw, please. Are we talking like . . . on the screen? Maybe in a movie or was this a first person sighting?”
“First person is a stretch. I was in an underground club in Tokyo—with a client.”
“A sex club?” she shrieked.
Really. Discussing this with Rhiann was almost funny. He smirked at her outburst. “Now don’t go getting your panties in a twist. I
t wasn’t what you’re thinking,” he assured her. “Certain environments consider that a part of the business culture. My client invests in showing me a good time. For him, that meant dragging me to a very exclusive and off-the-hook kink-fest. Not my thing at all, but interesting nonetheless.”
The curiosity won out over the petulance when she asked, “What was it like?”
What was it like? Hmm. A damn good question.
Liam thought back to that night, weighing the myriad of details, and decided some he best just leave to memory. The shit he saw that night wasn’t for the faint of heart. His little spitfire would have a crap fit followed by a meltdown if she knew some of the more questionable and depraved things on the program in that club.
“It was incredibly intimate even though there were easily thirty people watching.”
He heard her sharp intake of breath and felt a corresponding throb in his dick.
“Now, keep in mind, the woman was a professional and quite beautiful. She knew her way around a public scene and wasn’t at all shy about giving her audience a provocative experience.”
“Were you uncomfortable? Was it weird?”
“It was . . .” he hesitated while searching for the right words, “Awkward at first.”
Liam let that sink in while he navigated around a dense pack of cars that were slowing the traffic flow.
“The whole thing was highly choreographed and went through several stages. A slow build-up to whet the anticipation. Some minor ass slapping and then the Dom leading the scene went to town. When he was finished, the woman’s ass was beet red; she was silent but clearly crying from the intensity of the blows at the end.”
Pausing for good measure, Liam ended the account by saying, “I think she got off a bunch of times. Those things generally wrap up with fucking, but I’d had enough by then and wandered away. That part was uncomfortable—watching people sit around while some random dude busted a nut for an audience.”
She was silent for quite some time, and he could hear her mind picking apart what he’d described. When she was ready, she quietly asked, “Have you ever wanted to do something like that?”
“What? Fuck in public or spank a woman?”
“Either,” she drawled sardonically.
He was quick to answer. “No to the public thing. Never going to happen.”
“And the other?” she asked.
“I don’t have those kind of . . . relationships.”
She was damn quick to pick up on that particular thread. “I seem to recall that you don’t DO relationships.”
“And that would be my point, milaya. Sex play needs trust to breathe. Trust comes with time. I’ve never had a . . . liaison who fit the mold.”
“Never?” she whispered.
“Well, there was once . . .”
“Oh,” she sniffed.
“With you.”
“What the hell does that mean?” she squeaked.
God, she was adorable.
“Except for you, Rhiann Wilde—I’ve never seen a woman more than a few times and certainly not for months.”
He could see her in his peripheral vision; sitting there slack-jawed at the reveal he’d just thrown in her lap. And it was one hundred percent true. Liam sought sex when he needed to. Plain and simple. Sex. Not emotion. Unless it was Rhiann—he most certainly did not do emotion. Relationships did not take seed or grow in an inhospitable environment. He was a guy, after all, and fucking was one thing . . . but anything else? Forget it.
“I think I’d have an anxiety attack being in a situation like that,” she told him. “Sometimes, when we do a shoot or I’m at a fashion show—the models are naked, or close to it, behind the scenes. Girls and guys. It kind of freaks me out—the exhibitionistic aspect.” She shrugged and lowered her head. Was she self-conscious admitting her inhibitions?
When she brought up her job, his mind started clicking and he began barraging her with questions about the industry. She had interesting opinions and answered with a keen understanding of the business as a whole.
“Oh, wait a minute!” she howled suddenly. “What’s going on here, Liam?”
“What do you mean?” he asked. They’d been having a perfectly reasonable, straightforward conversation. What crawled up her skirt?
“What did I think of fashion week? Have I ever met Valentino? Who’s my favorite designer?”
She said all of it with an accusing bite. “I’m not an acquisition, Mr. Ashforth,” she snapped. “All of that sounded an awful lot like background research. On me.”
She was right but not at all in the way she thought. Had he come up with a slew of topics he could discuss with her based on her interests? Absolutely. But that was just what he did. What he’d always done—but she wouldn’t know that. Because he’d never let her into his real life. And how could he explain it now? How could he tell her about his childhood?
Carolyn had always been a fragile mess. That’s how he truly remembered her. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t worked. And worked hard—to provide him with a proper home. But working was pretty much all she was capable of and from his earliest memories, Liam recalled having to stay on top of even the smallest of details if he hoped to keep his mother from feeling overwhelmed.
He took care of the grocery lists, made sure she did the laundry, and fed the cat. He scheduled her parent-teacher conferences and kept a desk calendar with appointments and billing due dates. He’d learned early to be ever vigilant—to stay aware of what the heck was going on around him. It was how he survived and probably where his drive came from.
Liam remembered the time his mom had moved them from the dinky apartment that had been fine for a single parent with a preschooler into a much nicer one on the other side of town, better suited for their family as he grew into a teenager.
As the move approached, he did a ton of fieldwork so he’d know what to expect. Since he’d be taking a different school bus, he asked around, found out what time it picked up and dropped off. He tracked the route it took coming and going. One day he lingered near the bus line so he could note where it pulled in and would know which door to use to get to his homeroom. All that prep work was what he did to manage his own anxiety and give him a head start.
What she was referring to wasn’t research about her. It was more about him. His lack of confidence and how he’d learned to cover for it. Being prepared to discuss subjects that were of interest to her was simply what he did. Having those concrete reference points gave him something to navigate.
Well, shit. He couldn’t just sit there silently—he had to answer the accusation. Had to say something. Could he do it? Liam felt a cold stirring in the pit of his stomach. No man liked to confront his weaknesses. Especially him. Being vulnerable made him defenseless—something he couldn’t afford.
But he also couldn’t fathom a future that did not include Rhiann. And that right there was the heart of the matter. He didn’t want a future without her, and that basic fact made him especially vulnerable. All that other shit? About his mom and her struggles, his childhood, the seething anger he held for his father . . . all of it. None of that affected anywhere near as deeply as the fear that the extraordinary creature sitting next to him wouldn’t be in his life forevermore.
Bottom line? Stop being a whiny pussy. He didn’t have any choice. The time had come. She’d understand because she was . . . well, she was Rhiann.
Automatically, Liam reached for her because he hoped feeling her delicate hand in his would be enough to give him the strength to open up and let her in. Somehow, just being able to touch her was enough to bring him ease.
She didn’t pull away or refuse the contact so he raised her hand to his mouth for a soft kiss on her knuckles.
Gentling his voice and conscious of the scowl that was just a part of who he was, he told her, “You aren’t an acquisition, sweetness. And I’m sorry if asking about work made you feel that way. It’s just that . . . you see, I always do that when I’m nervous or fee
l . . . uncertain. Anxious.”
He felt her hand squeeze his ever so slightly.
“I know you think that’s just what I do and probably have some sarcastic name-calling that involves the words tycoon and dick at the ready, but honestly, Rhiann. That’s not it at all.”
He took a half breath and started talking. Telling her about his fucked-up childhood as a way of explaining.
“Carolyn . . . um, I mean, my mom. She was something of a mess when I was growing up. We weren’t deprived or anything like that. From the outside, we looked like a regular family. School, church, sports leagues. Normal stuff. But on the inside, things were quite different. Shit show doesn’t even come close. My whole life, Mom had been emotionally fragile.” He sighed deeply, remembering just how fragile. “And more often than not, that tenuous part of her personality meant she would descend into long periods of depression and severe anxiety.”
Rhiann tugged on his hand and angled toward him, leaning against the middle console. “That’s how you remember her from your childhood?”
“It’s a long story but, yeah. She was always that way. I guess it’s why I’m so serious. Uptight.”
She snorted quietly.
“When I was ten, I noticed that one of the neighborhood boys had a paper route. This intrigued me. I was full of questions. What was the process? Where did the papers come from? How long did it take to deliver? How did he know who got a paper and who didn’t? It’s just my way, you see. Curiosity mixed with self-preservation.”
“That’s an interesting way of putting it,” she told him with a soft chuckle.
He smirked a bit and squeezed her fingers.
“So. I started watching. Paying attention. Sometimes I followed him on my bike. I’d memorize the names of the cross streets and count how many customers he had. I suppose in a way you could say my tendency to do the research started early.”
“What were you going to do with this information?”
“That’s just it. I didn’t know. Having the information was enough. One day, a couple of months later, I was riding around the neighborhood and came upon a guy hauling stacks of paper out of the back of a truck. He was struggling, so I jumped off my crappy second-hand bike and went to lend a hand. Next thing I knew, he was offering me a chance to deliver flyers and advertisements in my area once a week.”
Wilde Heart (Wilde Women Book 2) Page 11
