Mustang_A Mountain Man Romance

by S. Cook

  “I would’ve never guessed.”

  “Her name was Sarah.” He looked serious then, and I straightened.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  He didn’t look at me. “I asked her to marry me.”

  “And?”

  He shifted more securely in his chair. “We were engaged for a long time. But...then, I don’t know what happened.” His shoulders grew taut. “Sarah was...depressed. She’d had a bad childhood and she suffered from mental issues.”

  He was quiet for a moment.

  “Did she see a therapist for it?” I asked.

  He nodded. “She was pretty good for most of our relationship, and she told me that her problems wouldn’t come between us. For the most part, I thought she was a normal girl. She took medication sometimes until she went off it again. And sure, she would get upset and frustrated about certain things, but so do most people. She wasn’t half as bad as some of the other crazy chicks I dated. But once we got engaged.”

  He shrugged.

  “She was just different. Depressed. Crying for no reason. Angry at the smallest things. Everything I did seemed to bug her and she would always be bitching at me for every little thing.”

  He laughed, but it was humorless.

  “It wouldn’t have been so difficult if she had been consistent with what bothered her. The way I coughed would make her blow her top one day but it wouldn’t the next. She hated how I drove, said that I turned too sharply. But the next, she said that I went too slow. After a while, I couldn’t help thinking that maybe the problem wasn’t her. It was me.”

  “Liam,” I said. “Of course it wasn’t you.”

  “I know that now.” He coughed into a fist. “But it wasn’t easy to live with when everything I did bothered her. It felt like I had to apologize for existing, you know? And I would’ve put up with it.” He sighed. “I thought it would be worth it. I wanted to spend all my life with her. I wanted the house, the yard, and the dogs. Even the kids.”

  My chest expanded with a peculiar sensation. “So what happened? Did you leave her?”

  He shook his head. “One day, she woke up and decided she didn’t love me anymore. That she had never loved me. Too bad she told me after I’d already closed escrow on our house.”

  I made a sympathetic sound and touched his shoulder.

  “Anyway, we called it all off.” He shrugged. My hand dropped. “And that was the end of it.”

  He straightened on his stool and averted his face from my gaze. I wanted to say something comforting. I wanted to erase the tension from his shoulders, to ease the tautness in his jaw. But I had no idea what to say and I also knew that Liam was not the type to invite pity.

  “Bryan broke up with me because he thought I was a prude,” I blurted.

  I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. But it was worth it when Liam turned back towards me. His expression was conflicted between a frown and a smile.

  “What? Seriously?”

  I shrugged. “He didn’t say so in those words. But he implied it.”

  “What the fuck.” He turned back to me. “I have no idea what he was doing, but I can personally attest to the fact that you are not a prude.”

  I released a huge sigh. “Well, thank God for that.”

  The corners of Liam’s lips twitched. “Come on, joking aside. Why would he say that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “That cannot be the reason you two broke up. No sane person would say that about you, Misty.”

  The way he looked at me sent a jolt of awareness into the pit of my stomach. Awareness that made the hair on my arms rise and a suspicious moisture dampen my panties.

  “It wasn’t the real reason. The real reason we broke up was that I caught him cheating on me.”

  He settled back in his chair. “Ah, I see.”

  “What do you see?”

  He smiled knowingly. “He was only being defensive. That prick cheated on you and his explanation for it was to place the blame on your shoulders. You were the reason he was a dick in other words.”

  “No.”

  A part of me wanted to believe him, but another part couldn’t help but wonder if Bryan was right. If I hadn’t been such a prude, I might’ve been able to keep him happy. “I worked too much. I let my career get in the way of our relationship. I didn’t give him enough attention and—”

  “Bullshit.”

  I looked at him with surprise.

  “Stop defending him,” Liam said. “So what? You worked a couple late night shifts. Yeah, if he had a problem, he had every right to speak up about it. But nothing gives anyone license to sleep with someone else. I don’t care what the issue is. If you’re in a committed relationship and you both agreed to be exclusive, then you have to stick with the agreement.”

  “Agreement.” I smiled ironically. “You talk about being in a relationship like it’s a contract.”

  “Well, yeah. Both parties agree to a certain set of terms and if one person disrespects those terms, then the other has every right to act up.”

  “Jeez. What are you? My legal advisor in relationships?”

  He cocked his head sheepishly. “Sorry. That’s the ex-law student in me speaking.”

  “You went to law school?”

  He nodded. “Got my degree but never took the bar.”

  “Why?”

  “Wanted to open my coffee shop instead.” He said it as if it was no big deal. “Being a lawyer never appealed to me. I only went to school because I was good at it, and then I applied to law school because Sarah encouraged me to. And I wanted to make enough money to give her the house that she wanted.”

  “Wow.”

  My fingers twitched around my yogurt cup.

  “But then we broke up.” He looked straight at me. “And I realized I didn’t want to live my life for someone else. And you shouldn’t either.” He switched gears. “If Bryan cheated on you, thereby breaking the bonds of the relationship, I don’t see why you can’t pop him a good one in the face and call it even.”

  I tried not to laugh. “That was very tempting, I must admit.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you did it.”

  “The one thing about a bad relationship,” I said, “is that you can walk away and hopefully not repeat your mistakes in the next one.”

  Which, I realized, I had been very close to doing when I slept with Liam.

  “What did you learn about being with Bryan?”

  “At first, I thought it was because I had to...you know...up the level on my sexiness.”

  His jaw tightened. His gaze moved over my body, lingering at my breasts, the flare of my hips, and the length of my legs.

  “That’s not possible.”

  I tried not to read too much into that statement. Despite my stomach doing a happy little somersault and my heart rate kicking up a notch.

  “Well, I certainly thought it was,” I said.

  He raised his eyebrows. “What did you do?”

  “I bought a ton of lingerie, for one thing.”

  He didn’t say anything to that, but his eyes darkened in response.

  “And I came up with a bucket list.”

  “Yeah?”

  “A sex bucket list.”

  His mouth dropped open. He leaned closer to me. “What was on it?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t tell you.”

  “What? Why?”

  “That’s an inappropriate conversation and we shouldn’t discuss it when we are friends without benefits.”

  He grinned. “Come on. Don’t tell me you didn’t tell your friend about it...what’s her name?”

  “Tammy.”

  “Yeah. You and Tammy probably came up with this together.”

  I blushed. “What if we did?”

  “You have no problem talking to Tammy about your sex bucket list, but you don’t want to tell me? What’s the difference? I’m your friend. Tammy’s your friend. And I’ll bet a million bucks you guys
don’t share those kinds of benefits.” He paused, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Unless you do. In which case, I’d rather talk about that.”

  I groaned and punched him on the chest. He rubbed it, but his smile didn’t lose its brightness.

  “I don’t want to tell you about my sex bucket list.”

  He leaned closer. “But I want to know.” His hand felt too warm on my knee. “Come on. I’m your friend, remember?” His grin was infectious.

  I rolled my eyes. “Fine.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “What was the first thing on your list?”

  “Sixty-nine.”

  He choked and almost spit out his drink. His face went red and he struggled for breath through each cough.

  I waited calmly while he tried to fight down the coughs. I poured him a cup of water from the provided pitcher next to the napkins. After he downed the glass, his eyes were teary and red.

  “Why are you so shocked?” I asked. “It’s not like it’s a highly taboo act. Not like...other stuff.” I felt my face grow warm.

  “That’s exactly the point. You’ve never done sixty-nine?”

  “Hush,” I hissed.

  I buried my face in my hands as his voice echoed in the large store. No one turned to look at us, but it was still embarrassing.

  “Seriously, though,” Liam said in a quieter voice. “Never?”

  I shook my head.

  “None of your boyfriends have tried?”

  I didn’t have to answer him.

  “Wow.” He couldn’t stop looking at me. “Wow.”

  “Yes, you said that already.”

  “That makes me want to rethink our friends without benefits agreement.”

  I flushed. “Why?”

  “Because no one should have to go—how old are you?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “Yeah. No one should go that long without doing sixty-nine at least once in their lifetime.”

  “That’s why it’s on my bucket list,” I pointed out.

  “True.” He leaned towards me. “What else is on it?”

  “Sex in a pool.”

  He smiled. “I know where there is a pool. What else?”

  “On a boat.”

  He nodded. “That’s a good one.”

  “What about you?”

  He pretended to contemplate my question. “I definitely want to do it in public. The higher the risk of getting caught, the better.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t done that already.”

  “Have you?”

  I didn’t answer him, instead pressing my lips together.

  His smile was slow to spread on his face. “Bryan was wrong about you.”

  “What else?” I asked, ignoring the flush of heat through my body.

  I shook my head. “I regret discussing this subject.”

  “We’re still not done talking about your list.”

  “Oh, we’re done.”

  “No, we’re not. Come on, sixty-nine, in a pool, on a boat. You’re quite the adventurous one, aren’t you?” He nudged my chair with his foot. “I promise I won’t laugh. Or judge. What’s on the rest of your list?”

  “There’s no way I’m telling you now.”

  “Is handcuffs on there?”

  I gasped. This time, I gave him a real punch, on the shoulder. Hard.

  He rubbed the sore spot with a grimace. “Okay, handcuffs are not on there. Forget I mentioned it.”

  “I’m not telling you anymore.”

  He clasped his hands together and made a pouting face. “Please?”

  I pressed my lips together. “Nope.”

  “Not even if I beg?”

  “Not even if you offer to help me cross off an item on the list,” I said.

  Yeah, right.

  If he offered, we would be back in his bed before he finished his sentence.

  He grinned. “What if I offered to cross off two?”

  My heart skipped a beat. I pressed my lips together. “What are you suggesting?”

  He gave me a knowing look. “Have I mentioned that I own a boat?”

  Chapter Twelve

  I couldn’t help but feel the rush of lust that heated my blood. A tingle began between my legs and spread all over my body, down to the tips of my toes. I straightened in my seat.

  “No, you never did,” I said. “But it doesn’t matter. I don’t care if you own two boats. We both learned our lesson the first time around that our sleeping together is not a good idea.”

  His voice lowered. “I didn’t learn that lesson.”

  “Well, you better start studying.”

  Even as I declined his offer, images of us together again flashed in front of me. I knew it would be good. I’d experienced it first hand and hadn’t walked away disappointed. No, not disappointed. But definitely close to brokenhearted.

  Liam shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He glanced at me from the corner of his eyes, as if he was measuring me, looking for a reaction, just a small sign that I was open to suggestions.

  Was I?

  I knew I shouldn’t be. Knew that getting closer to Liam was a mistake.

  “We already agreed that we’re friends without benefits,” I said, more to remind myself than him.

  “I know, I know.” He sighed. “But friends with benefits sounds like a much better deal.”

  “Stop tempting me,” I whispered.

  I hadn’t realized that I said it loud enough for him to hear until he chuckled, the sound low and deep. His eyes were hooded and the light in them made me catch my breath. Even though he was smiling casually, taking my answer for what it was, I had the vague sense that he was still holding out hope.

  Around Bryan, I had always felt inadequate. I was not thin enough, my breasts not big enough, my hips too big. My cooking was bland, my house disorganized, and my smile too absent. I had spent months trying to be someone else’s version of perfect, but no matter how hard I tried, I could never truly meet his standards.

  I had never felt this way before, the way I felt around Liam. The way he looked at me made me feel wanted, desired, and perfect in every way. It was ironic considering that the first time we met, I thought he was rejecting me.

  Now, here I was, doing all I could to reject him. Or at least, banish any idea that we could be together.

  I just wished it was easier to remember this goal.

  Liam cleared his throat. He turned away. “We should get going,” he said in a voice that sounded like he’d been yelling all night.

  I jumped to my feet and picked up our empty yogurt cups to give my hands something to do.

  The walk to Liam’s car was shorter than I remembered. He had to stop at the parking booth to pay because he forgot to validate the ticket. Once we were free to go, he slammed on the accelerator, and we raced into the street.

  I rolled down the window. As we drove by the harbor, the cool ocean breeze lifted my hair and whipped my bangs around my face. I pulled the window back up.

  Silence.

  I considered turning on the radio but I doubted that even music would have helped distract me from my discomfort. My skin was oversensitive, my breath hitched. My pulse had picked up to an uncomfortably fast pace.

  No matter what reason I gave myself not to, the only thing I wanted to do was to grab Liam around his shoulders and pull him over for one hot make-out session.

  My mouth felt dry. I breathed in deeply, trying to catch Liam’s scent in the enclosed space. But he was sitting too far away—farther than I preferred. I tugged the hem of my skirt over my knee.

  When he glanced over, I saw him blink rapidly as his turned his gaze back on the road. He clutched the steering wheel, his forearm flexing, his shoulders tense.

  “You know,” I said slowly.

  He looked at me when I didn’t continue right away. “What?” he asked softly.

  I took a deep breath. My stomach did nervous flips.

  Oh, what the hell.

  What did I have to los
e?

  “I’ve never been on a boat before.”

  His fingers gripped the steering wheel tighter. He flipped a U-turn so fast that I was slammed against the car door. Suddenly, there seemed to be too much traffic, when the streets had appeared empty before.

  The car grew hotter, stuffier. Liam cranked up the air-conditioning, his long fingers stabbing at the buttons until he found a setting that eased a bit of our discomfort.

  I knew only one thing would satisfy me.

  We hit all the red lights on the way to the harbor. But that was okay. Because we used the break to do what we’d wanted to do all night.

  Liam kept one hand on the steering wheel, the other touching me everywhere he could reach. His arm wrapped around my waist, hauling me as close as my seatbelt would allow. He stroked my back and moved his fingers down to knead my ass cheeks.

  The air-conditioning was no match against the heat. The sexual tension was so thick, if I’d tried hard enough, I might’ve cum just sitting there.

  Thank God we hadn’t driven far from the harbor. Soon, we pulled into the almost-empty parking lot. The car was parked for barely a second before I unbuckled my seatbelt and climbed onto his lap. My legs straddled his, our lips devouring each other.

  He swept his tongue into my mouth with sensual strokes. His hands helped me settle in his lap, maneuvering me over him so that we aligned perfectly.

  I could have stayed there forever, kissing him, rubbing against his hard arousal. But he obviously didn’t have the same patience.

  The driver’s door burst open. Without waiting for me to climb out, Liam hooked an arm under my ass and stepped out from the car. The cool air was a blissful relief on our heated skin.

  I broke the kiss long enough to gasp, “Wait, wait, the door.”

  “Oh right.” Liam turned around and kicked his leg, somehow managing to catch his car door and slam it shut.

  Then we were off.

  I didn’t know where we were heading, just that it was in the general direction of the boats. My lips moved to Liam’s neck, and I placed kisses strategically from the spot behind his ear down to his collarbone. It was so glorious to be held in his strong arms, pressed against his body in a way that made me never want to let go.

  His soft growls filled my ears in response to each nip of my teeth and lips. He anchored me to his waist with one arm while his other hand explored me with abandon.