by Maisey Yates
She needed to focus on the conversation she’d had with him last week. About his childhood. Think of him as broken and wounded. So that she could practice letting go. Practice forgiveness. Practice not just picturing him as a bad-boy hypersexual fantasy that made her knees weak and her pulse flutter.
Yeah, all that would be good.
She turned away from the door and started trying to figure out how she was going to move everything. She needed to get cloths to stick under the table legs, because she wasn’t going to pick up the larger ones and move them to their position. The chairs she could move.
“Looking good.”
She startled and turned around to see Liam in the doorway, his arms folded over his chest, his expression far too cocky to have simply been looking at chairs. He had been looking at her ass, she was sure of that.
Her face heated.
“You know what they say about people who sneak up on other people,” she said.
“I am unfamiliar with any colloquialism related to that. Please enlighten me.”
She sputtered. “Well, I don’t know one. But there must be one.”
“So,” he said slowly, “you don’t know what they say about people who sneak up on other people.”
She huffed, planting her hands on her hips. “Well, since I don’t sneak up on people I’m not the one who needs to know.”
“But you led me to believe you knew.”
“I’m sure they say...” She waved a hand. “That people who are sneaky are shady assholes.”
He laughed. “I’ve been called a great many things. I’ve never been called a shady asshole before. But I’ll take it.”
“Not a compliment,” she said. “Not a compliment.”
“Oh well. My ego is just way too healthy to take anything as an insult. It all glances off. Gets turned into something positive in my head. I’m just that shameless.”
She laughed reluctantly and rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes. Anyway. Obviously the table and chairs have been delivered. And we are still waiting for the big countertop freezer case. I have a feeling that’s going to be a bit more of an ordeal to get in.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Well, yes. The bigger it is the harder it is to get in.”
Sabrina wanted to be mad at him for that juvenile reference, but instead she felt her lips twitching in response, felt a slight giggle rise up in her throat. Oh, that ridiculous man. “I would say that depends,” she said, fighting back a laugh, her face getting hot.
“Would you now?” he asked, amusement testing the corners of his mouth.
“Yes, I would.”
“From all your experience with...setting up shops?”
Sabrina cleared her throat. “Yes. I feel that as long as things are properly prepared it’s perhaps not that difficult.”
“Well, good thing I’m an expert in preparation.”
She squeaked, then picked up a chair, keeping her focus on the furniture and moving it firmly away from him. “Stop bantering with me and move that table over by the window.”
“Bossy today,” he commented.
“Bossy every day. Also, we’re not supposed to banter about any of that. No more bantering.”
“It’s going to be very boring setting up this dining room if we can’t banter.”
“I’m not here to entertain you,” she said, trying not to laugh.
She didn’t know what was happening. She had been all annoyed and everything before he had come in, and then he had frightened her and irritated her after that. She should be mad at him. Or at least, thinking of him as that broken, wounded sparrow she had attempted to recast him as. Somehow she was neither. She felt like they had a rapport. She felt as though they were...closer.
It stands to reason. You did have sex with him. And then he told you all about his childhood.
Yes, that was true. But, in the middle of all of that they’d also had a fight, and then they had spent a week not seeing each other. That should be the prevailing sentiment of all of it.
Yet, somehow she did feel a strange sort of companionship with him. A strange kind of closeness.
Liam Donnelly was annoying in infinite ways. And new ones kept popping up all the time.
“Well, if you’re attempting to keep me unentertained, you’re failing. Because, frankly, this is the most fun I’ve had in days.”
“Oh, come on now, one of your sisters-in-law makes delicious pie and the other one is a fantastic cook. Don’t tell me your Thanksgiving wasn’t highly entertaining.”
He patted his stomach, which was still rock hard. “Sure. It had its attractions. But I have to say, I’m not really used to the family gathering thing yet.”
She laughed ruefully. “Sadly, I’m a little too used to them.”
“Yeah, and to getting ice passed down the table along with your mashed potatoes, I hear.”
Sabrina sucked in a breath. “Well. You do know my father.”
“I’ve never been particularly bound by the idea of doing what’s right. I mean, not that I don’t care, it’s just that it’s never been something I’ve thought of either way. I try to do the best thing for myself while hurting the least amount of people. I think your dad is just so bound up in the idea of right that he can’t see what’s good anymore. You can go down a list of right and wrong and it can seem pretty simple until there are people involved.”
“It’s a nice sentiment,” she said. “And I even agree with a lot of it. Except the part about you not caring what’s right. I think we both know that isn’t true. You’re the man who shielded his brother from all the abuse going on in the house, to the best of his ability. How is that not right?”
He shrugged. “To my mind it was just what brothers did. At least, it’s what an older brother did. It was my job. The problem is our parents were never going to stand on the front lines for us, Sabrina. That was something I accepted from a pretty young age. So I knew that if anyone was going to stand in the line of fire for Alex it was going to be me.”
She regarded that face, that handsome, serious face that had spent way too much time frowning. “Yeah, and you don’t care about what’s right.”
“Alex is the one that went off to serve his country, to be a soldier. I just went off and made a whole lot of money. I think we know who has honor when push comes to shove.”
Sabrina let out a long, slow breath. “Alex is the man that you admire, the man that he is because of you.”
“No, I’m pretty sure Alex is the man he is in spite of everything. In spite of my parents. And probably to a certain degree in spite of me. I was never perfect.”
“You’ve never claimed to be, either.”
“Why are you defending me now? Other conversations we’ve had, I’m the villain. Pretty much uniformly.”
“I was wrong,” she said.
“Why, because now you feel sorry for me?”
Sabrina let that settle in, let that hit her right in the center of her chest. Because it was true to a degree. Except that was oversimplifying it. She shook her head slowly. “It’s not just because I feel sorry for you. It’s because you told me all of that and forced me to think of you as a person.”
“What did you think of me as? A goat?”
“No. I thought of you as a fantasy. A simple token. The representation of my failings, and also this kind of perfect, bad-boy fantasy. Like you’re straight out of a teen movie, riding up on your motorcycle, shaking out my life. Wandering off in the distance with some really bass-heavy backing track in the background. Lyrics begging me not to forget about you.”
“Are we The Breakfast Club?”
“We are not The Breakfast Club. However, I might have reduced us to that in my head. And that’s not fair. I never thought about the other side of it. About what your life must have been like. I
t’s so funny, I was this girl who had some unhappy things in her life, I did. But I didn’t suffer. Not like you. I grew up at that beautiful vineyard, in that gorgeous house. There was always food.”
“Even if your food was served with a side of stoic judgment,” he commented.
“I was so obsessed with me that in my head your whole life began when you rode your motorcycle onto the winery property. When my teenage heart started to flutter at the sight of you I assumed yours began beating at that exact moment. In my head you existed for me, and I’m not sure that I ever really appreciated how much that continued to be the case all through my adult life. All throughout my memories of you. But you are... You’ve lived this whole other life since then. I lived a whole other life before. It was eye-opening to hear you talk about your past. I’m embarrassed to admit that. Embarrassed to admit how much I simplified you.”
“Sabrina Leighton,” he said, his tone tinged with a faint scolding. “Did you objectify me?”
She snorted. “Yes. I objectified you. I turned you into an object of my sexual desire and forgot that you were a person.”
“That’s appalling,” he said, totally deadpan.
“You sound horrified.”
“I don’t know how I’ll ever recover,” he said.
“The point is—” she looked down and chipped at her manicure “—it’s a hell of a lot harder to be mad at you now that there are more...pieces to the puzzle. When you’re the only one suffering in a scenario in your head it’s pretty easy to be self-righteous. But you suffered. And I realize that now. When you first came back to town I spent a lot of time accusing you of not knowing me. But what I know for sure is that I didn’t know you. I just imagine you the way that I wanted you. The way that was convenient.”
He let out a slow, heavy breath. “Same,” he said. “You know, as a beautiful object for a tattoo, and not as a woman that I left behind wounded. I tricked myself into believing that sex was the only thing that could make a bond between men and women. That was all I understood. So, deciding that allowed me to wash my hands of any pain that I might have caused you.”
She looked around the room, then back at him. “Tell me honestly,” she said. “Tell me honestly what you felt when you sent me away. I want to hear it from your side. Because I’ve thought about it from mine so many different times, and every time it ends with me wanting to die of shame.”
“Well, that’s not right,” Liam said heavily. “Because shame is the last thing you should feel. You shouldn’t be embarrassed about that. It was... Turning you away was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LIAM LOOKED DOWN at Sabrina and tried to catch his breath. This was ridiculous. Losing his shit like this over a woman. Over a virgin. But she was making him relive that night at the cabin near the winery. Making him remember what it had been like to come in from a long, hard day of work, and a long evening of drinking, and stumble into the cabin to find her sitting at the kitchen table, a long coat shrouding her body.
He had kissed her just the day before, and he had felt like a damn fool for it. Not just for doing it, but for the way it had affected him. Yeah, a damned fool indeed.
Twenty years old, and he’d already been with more women than he cared to count, and he knew for a fact that Sabrina was innocent. He had tasted it on her lips. Had known the moment her mouth touched his that she had never kissed anyone before in her damn life.
But she had kissed him. He had turned her away, and then she had gone to his cabin.
She’d stood up, untied the belt on her coat and let it fall to the floor.
And revealed the most beautiful body he had ever seen. Slim waist, slight curves, beautiful breasts that were begging for his mouth, for his touch.
And that pale thatch of curls at the apex of her thighs... Yeah, that had haunted his fantasies for years after. It had never gone away. Hadn’t ever felt satisfied, until he had finally had her last week. Even then, he wasn’t sure he would call what he felt satisfied.
He didn’t know if he would ever be able to get enough of her, and that was terrifying for a man who knew he didn’t want forever. To know that he would have to limit a thing that he wanted. Because he didn’t do self-denial either. And that was a hell of a thing.
But then, Sabrina Leighton had always been a hell of a thing.
Right now, she was staring at him, with those beautiful blue eyes, and he didn’t know how he was going to deal with everything that was rioting through him now.
“I wanted you,” he said. “I walked in and there you were, so pretty, so perfect, and all I could think of was the way that your lips tasted against mine. But I also knew that you were innocent. That you were a virgin.”
“I know. Because you told me that you didn’t do virgins when you sent me away.”
“And it was true,” he confirmed.
“Yes, well, it was true last week too, but you took me up on my offer anyway.”
“It may surprise you to learn, Sabrina, that I didn’t imagine the most beautiful woman I had ever known was still a virgin at thirty.”
She blinked owlishly at him. He would have laughed if he didn’t feel so damned close to the edge. “I’m the most beautiful woman you’ve ever known?”
“Yes,” he said, seeing no point in lying now, because the damage had been done with all the finesse of a wrecking ball.
“That can’t be true. You basically went to the capital of beautiful people and lived there for years. And probably...you know...bed-hopped your way through it. And you want me to believe that I’m more beautiful than them?”
He shrugged. “It’s chemistry, right? It’s more than that simple surface thing. A lot of women are beautiful. A lot of men are good-looking. Chemistry is the thing that matters. And honey, if we had any more chemistry we would blow up the fucking building.”
“I want to have chemistry with a nice guy,” she said, her tone wistful.
He took a step toward her, his heart pounding heavily. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been this strung out being so close to a woman. Couldn’t remember if he had ever anticipated a kiss quite so keenly.
“No you don’t,” he said, brushing his fingertips beneath her chin and tilted her face upward. “You want a bad boy.”
“No,” she said breathlessly, “I did want one when I was seventeen and an idiot.”
“You want me. And frankly, I think you even want to want me. I don’t think you’re distressed that you don’t want another man. Otherwise, you would have had one. Thirteen years, Sabrina, and you are a beautiful woman. You could have anyone. But you want me.”
“I could find a nice accountant,” she said, her lips pursed.
“No.”
“Some guy that’s really good with spreadsheets.”
“Honey, I’m good with spreadsheets. You’re stereotyping. The sad thing for you is that I’m good with numbers, and I’m good with your body. I could probably explain how chemistry works too.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I know how chemistry works.”
“I don’t mean the kind you learned about in school.”
He leaned in just a little bit closer, his lips a breath away from hers, and then the door to the shop burst open. “Can you open both of these doors?” a man asked without any preamble whatsoever.
“Yeah,” Liam said, not bothering to make a quick move away from Sabrina, not bothering to disguise what he had been about to do. Hell, he wasn’t ashamed of this. He didn’t have to hide from anybody anymore.
“Great. We’ll bring it in. You know exactly where you want everything?”
“Yes,” Sabrina said, recovering herself and clearly not appreciating Liam taking charge. “I can direct you when you unload it from the truck.”
“It will take a few trips
. It’s in quite a few pieces.”
“Fine.”
For the next hour he and Sabrina stood by while the refrigerator case got set up. The actual countertop they were going to put over it was going to take another week to be finished. Something about needing the exact dimensions to customize that particular type of counter to the space. They would also be building some cabinets around part of the case.
But once the men had left, the space was starting to look much more like it was intended to.
“I need dishtowels or something,” Sabrina muttered, looking around.
“For?”
“To move the tables without scuffing the floor.”
“Or why don’t you let me pick up and move the tables, and you can follow me with the chairs. I promise, I will do your bidding.”
“Yeah, I don’t believe that.” She picked up a chair, and then they began to work together to set up the dining space.
“I think we can actually do this,” she commented.
And she looked so...happy. He wasn’t used to seeing her happy, not around him. Maybe she was a very happy person, but he had never made her particularly happy, a thought that made his chest twinge.
So he did the only thing he could think to do. He bent down and kissed her. Quick, gentle.
When he pulled away she was standing there looking stunned. “And that was for?”
“The chemistry.”
“I didn’t think we were going to do any of that... Anymore.”
“Here’s my question for you, Sabrina. Do you think that’s reasonable?”
“I’m not entirely sure I know what reasonable is anymore. I don’t think I have any brain cells left.”
“To my thinking this can only go a couple of ways. Either we resist each other the entire time we work together over the next month, or we resist each other badly. And every time we screw up there’s a whole lot of shouting and self-flagellation. I would like to introduce a third option.”
“Why do I feel like the third option is going to be the one that means we can do whatever we feel like while pretending there aren’t going to be consequences?”
