by Sylvia Fox
A very sexy date.
“You look as though you’re enjoying yourself.” He eased into the hot tub, holding the glasses high in the air while he settled into the water.
What did that mean? How exactly did I look? Flushed and excited?
A little bud of doubt sprung up in my mind. Maybe this was a terrible idea after all. He could see right through me, and there was surely no way in hell he’d ever take me the way I wanted. If my dad ever found out, he’d probably kill him. And I was certain Liam was as aware of that fact as I was.
“Here you go.” Liam poured the red liquid into one glass and held it out across the steaming water, just out of my grasp. He was on the opposite side of the hot tub, and it forced me to slide away from the edge and closer to him.
The second I took the glass from him, our gazes locked. He licked his lips, and once again his eyes raked across my curves. My breasts heaved at the surface of the bubbles, my cleavage very much on display. And Liam was drinking it in far more than the wine he held in his hands. My breath caught in my throat, and I stayed there, hovering just in front of him as I took a sip of the wine.
And with a boldness I’d never felt before, I licked my own lips, dragging my tongue across the droplets of wine on my skin.
Liam took in a long and shuddering breath, and my heart skipped hard.
He was finally noticing me in a way he never had before. And all because we’d had the chance to spend an evening by ourselves.
God, I loved snowstorms.
“How is it?” he asked in a voice that was two octaves lower than it normally was. His dark eyes scorched into my skin as I tipped back my head and took another sip. The wine was fruity and smooth, and it went straight to my already reeling head.
“Delicious.” I set the glass onto the side of the hot tub and rose slightly out of the bubbles so that the water dripped down my chest. Liam’s eyes went south to follow the trails across my skin.
“It certainly is delicious,” he said lowly. And I couldn’t help but notice, he hadn’t even had a taste of the wine yet. “So, Callie. You never did answer my question about all those boys that must be knocking down your door on a daily basis.”
“No, I didn’t.” I sucked in a breath when he shifted slightly closer. There were only inches between us now, and it took all my self-control not to launch myself into his arms. “Because there aren’t any boys.”
His eyebrows quirked upward. “No boys? Surely not. You’re a gorgeous girl, Callie.”
He’d just called me gorgeous. In the hot tub. While barely wearing any clothes.
“Thank you.” I felt myself blush. “It’s just that I haven’t met anyone at college I’m interested in. They’re all pretty shallow and self-absorbed.”
He reached past me to take my glass of wine, and his skin glanced against mine. I shivered, a move that didn’t escape Liam’s attention. His lips quirked just slightly enough to show that he’d noticed the effect he had on me…and that he liked it.
“So, you’re looking for someone with a little more depth, is that it?” He drank from my glass, and it felt so intimate somehow.
“Well, someone more mature, I guess. They all play beer pong and video games.” I held my breath as I watched the words sink into his brain.
“More mature, eh?” He smiled and handed me a glass. “Someone who will drink expensive wine with you rather than spend their evenings chugging beer with the boys?”
I nodded, my breath still held tight in my throat.
“Well, there are men like that out there. I’m sure a beautiful girl like you could find one.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have to look very far.” The words flew out of my mouth before I knew it was happening. My eyes went wide, and I froze. What the hell had I just done? It was one thing to dance around how I felt, but it was another thing entirely to pretty much admit it out loud.
But instead of jumping away from me, Liam Cox edged even closer. His knees knocked against mine, and his hand found my waist. My whole body began to shiver almost uncontrollably, just at the slightest of touches. If things were to go even further, how in the world would my body even handle it? It might explode into a million tiny pieces.
And I couldn’t believe I was even thinking about the fact that things might go further.
But I could recognize the look in his eyes, even if I’d never before seen it from him.
His gaze was lust-filled, excited, hot. He wanted me, and I wanted him, and his chest was now pressing up against my breasts. My body continued to shake, and it only made the heat in his eyes grow hotter. I felt like he would burn me alive if he came any closer. Hell, I was already a puddle, melting into the hot tub’s water and swirling down the drain.
“You better be careful what you say, little girl,” he growled.
My breasts pressed into his chiseled chest, nipples growing harder and harder with each passing beat. “I’m not a little girl anymore.”
“No, you most certainly fucking aren’t.” His grip tightened on my waist, and something hard and big poked me in my thigh.
Oh my god, it was his cock. My pussy clenched with intense need, and I pressed myself up against him, rubbing my ache against his hard length. He groaned as I continued to grind against him, lust overtaking every logical thought in my mind. I no longer cared what he would think or how he would react. All I cared about was feeling his erection between my thighs.
I wanted him inside me. I’d never wanted anything more in my life.
Hell, I needed it.
A phone rang and rang in the distance, but it was no concern of mine. All that mattered was Liam’s chorded abs, his dripping wet hair, the way his teeth nicked my neck as I opened my legs wider and wider and wider…
But just as suddenly as it had begun, it ended. His eyes widened and he glanced behind him at where the ringing phone continued to break through our moment like an annoying alarm clock interrupting the best possible dream.
“I should get that,” he said slowly as he stood from the hot tub, water pouring across his perfect, ripped abs. The bulge in his pants had grown so large that it looked as if would break through the material at any moment.
Disappointed, I sat back and waited for his return. I heard him say my father’s name, and all the warmth I’d felt earlier disappeared into the cool air. A moment later, I heard Liam hang up the phone just before he poked his head around the door, refusing to meet my eyes.
“I’m going to bed. Goodnight, Callie.”
“Seriously?” I asked, my heart growing still. “Why? What about—”
“That was a mistake.” He shook his head and backed away. “I’m sorry, Callie, but we can’t do this. Not now, not ever.”
I fought against the tears that threatened to spill down my cheeks. “What the hell did my dad say to you?”
Liam went very still. “He told me to look after you since they won’t be here until tomorrow. And this…well, I don’t think he’d consider this looking after you at all. It can never happen again.”
And with that, he was gone.
Chapter Four
The next morning, I did my best to avoid running into Liam Cox. It was pretty easy. The cabin was large enough for me to skirt around unseen. Hear his voice? Turn and run in the opposite direction. Notice a footfall on the stairs? Hide into the nearest bedroom. Smell the scent of coffee and pancakes? Go out the back door and head toward the slopes.
As soon as my parents got here, there would be a solid buffer between me, Liam, and the most humiliating moment of my life.
I’d pretty much thrown myself at him, and he’d turned me down. Hard and fast, like the spark between us meant nothing to him at all.
But until my parents’ arrival later that day, I needed to steer clear of any alone time with Liam. The awkwardness might just kill me. And I wasn’t ready to die quite yet.
I slid into my boots and skis and took the lift to the top of the mountain, a tad nervous at the prospect of spending an entire
day on the slopes by myself. Even though I’d been coming here most of my life, I hadn’t quite taken to skiing the way my parents had hoped. I preferred to sit in the cabin or the lodge at the top, sipping hot cocoa and watching everyone else glide around like gazelles.
Because I did not glide or swoosh around. I fell. A lot. And I’d never felt confident enough to level up from the easy green runs to anything more complicated than that. Which meant that no one else really liked to go skiing with me for more than an hour or two.
I didn’t blame them.
But today was different. I needed time alone, and the first place Liam would look for me—if he even cared enough to look—would be in the lodge where I usually settled in with a book and a steaming cup of cocoa. So, off to the slopes it was. I’d take a bruise on my body over one to my ego any day.
When I reached the top of the mountain, I pointed my skis straight toward the nearest green run right at the same moment that a familiar pair of skis stopped right in front of me. Dark red and swirled with black. Liam had owned these skis for as long as I could remember.
I swallowed hard and gave him a weak smile, all the blood draining from my face. “Oh, hi.”
So, he hadn’t bothered to look for me to make sure I was okay.
That made his rejection feel a million times worse.
“Saw you heading out with your skis this morning.” He nodded toward the green run. “Thought you might want some company on your first go down. I know you always have a little trouble starting out.”
My face flamed, and suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to prove his stupid, sexy-as-hell ass wrong. “I’m not going that way.”
He cocked his head. “You ready to try out a blue run? It still might be a good idea to warm up on a green. Don’t forget it’s been a full year since you’ve been here.”
It infuriated me that not only was he telling me what to do, he was acting as if nothing at all had happened between us the night before. He seemed totally at ease, behaving like the older “dad friend” he used to be to me. Not to mention the fact that it felt like he was only trying to help because my dad had called him up and asked him to look after me.
How insanely, brutally mortifying.
Well, I would just have to show him that I could take care of my damn self.
And that I could do far more than he gave me credit for.
“I’m going on a black diamond, and I don’t need to warm up, thank you very much.” Narrowing my eyes, I pushed my poles to the ground and slid past him.
In two seconds, he was by my side. “Callie, I don’t think that’s a good idea. You should stay on the greens.”
“I’ll do whatever I damn well want.” I narrowed my eyes and pushed harder, picking up speed. “I’m a grown woman. Not some child you need to babysit.”
“Callie,” he pushed faster, calling out from behind me. “If this is about what happened last night, please stop. I won’t have you breaking an arm because of me.”
“Maybe not everything is about you.”
My skis tipped over the edge of the slope, and for one crazy second, I hung there in mid-air. This was stupid, I thought to myself. Because as angry I was, Liam was right. I could break my arm. Or worse. I’d never even gone on a blue run, much less a black, and I never even made it down a green run without falling at least once.
But I couldn’t turn back. Not now.
So, my skis slid forward, and I was gone, flying down the slope at a speed that made my heart lurch into my throat. Trees flew past, whisking by in a whir of brilliant green. I could barely tell what was in front of me and what was behind. Faster and faster I went, my skis stuttering on the icy snow.
Gritting my teeth, I tried to slow down, seeing a patch of rocks up ahead. In the back of my mind, my thoughts formed together, telling me that I needed to simply turn my skis this way and that to avoid the obstacle. But I’d never been particularly good at controlling my skis. And as soon as I shifted to the left, my feet flew out from underneath me.
With a cry lodged in my throat, I slammed into the ground. My body skidded across the hard surface, skis twisted underneath me in a painful position that only got worse as I slid further and further across the ice. Finally, I jolted to a stop when a tree came out of nowhere to block my path.
Dazed, I stared up at the sky, ears ringing and lungs frozen.
A pair of skis swooshed a stop by my head. Groaning, I twisted my neck to the side. Red skis. Black swirls.
Liam, of course. He’d seen the whole thing.
Well, I’d certainly made a point alright. Just probably not the one I wanted to make.
“Callie, sweetheart, are you okay?” He dropped to my side and pressed his hands to my knee. The one that was twisted at an insanely awkward angle and throbbing like it had been stabbed by a very sharp knife.
“Ouch.” I winced and closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to look at him, more out of humiliation than pain.
“Okay, we need to get you back to the cabin.” Before I knew what was happening, I was in Liam’s strong arms. He picked me up as if I weighed nothing more than a teddy bear and kicked off his skis. With the whole ski resort watching—or at least that was what it felt like—he carried me down the mountain toward the cabin, his heavy ski boots sinking into the tightly-packed snow.
I stayed quiet the entire way down, not entirely sure what to say. And to his credit, Liam didn’t point out that he’d been right, that I should have listened to him. He just held me in his arms protectively, a serious glint in his eye. With every step, my knee throbbed, but I didn’t dare tell him, not when he was doing his best to get me somewhere safe.
“Callie.” He finally broke the silence between us. “Don’t you dare ever do something like that again. You scared the shit out of me.”
This time, I didn’t argue.
Chapter Five
When we finally reached the cabin, Liam kicked open the door and deposited me on the couch before heading to his car for his medical kit. Apparently, he always carried it with him just in case some klutzy girl fell knee-first into a tree on a ski slope. He was always prepared, and it didn’t surprise me at all. It was so Liam Cox to be ready for pretty much anything, something that made me almost forget the pain in my knee. Not when he was looking all sexy in his doctor mode.
He knelt beside me and examined the torn material around my knee. “You’re going to need to take your pants off.”
My face flamed. “Excuse me?”
“The only way I’m going to be able to make sure your knee isn’t broken is if I can see it properly.” He sighed and shook his head. “Just take off your pants.”
Words I longed to hear, just not in these particular circumstances. It put a damper on the otherwise suggestive situation.
With my eyes still on Liam’s face, I unbuttoned my pants and slid them down my thighs, wincing when the material hit my knee. “I’m going to need some help.”
Liam frowned but nodded. “Right. Of course.”
Carefully, his fingers wrapped around the material. He gently pulled my pants past my knee and off my legs, dropping the heavy material onto the floor beside him. I was all too aware of the goosebumps parading across my skin, of my ridiculous polka-dotted panties and how young they must have made me seem.
But instead of pulling away, I swore I heard him let out a noise that sounded like a beast about to eat its prey. Something animalistic, guttural, and filled with pure need. He licked his lips and leaned closer to my knee, poking the tender skin with delicate fingers. Even though Liam Cox was pure man, rugged and strong and more confident than anyone I’d ever met, I was quickly finding out just how gentle he could be. He handled my wound with such care that I barely felt a thing.
Or maybe I was just incredibly distracted by how close he was to my half-naked body.
“Good news is, you have no broken bones.” He pulled a wad of bandages out of his bag, along with some sterile wipes. “Bad news is, you probably shouldn’t ski for th
e rest of the trip. You gashed your knee pretty badly, and it’ll only get worse if you fall on it again.”
I wasn’t sure that was terrible news when it came down to it.
“Thanks for patching me up,” I said in a soft voice, watching as he cleaned the wound. It stung a little, but I didn’t really mind. “I know you probably want to be doing anything other than this right now. Not really much of a Christmas holiday, huh?”
“Don’t be silly,” he said quickly. He dropped the wipe into a plastic bag and got to work on applying the bandage, his fingers quick and steady. “I just hate that you went down the black run like you had something to prove to me.”
Wincing, I turned my head. Liam’s fingers paused. “Did that hurt?”
“No, no.” I laughed a little bitterly. “Well, the bandage didn’t, at least.”
“Callie.” He took my hand in his. His fingers were strong and firm and sure. “Look at me.”
Sighing, I twisted my head to meet his eyes. My heart thumped hard just looking at him. I didn’t want to have this conversation, the one I knew was coming. Not here, not now, not ever. I knew what he was going to say, and I didn’t want to hear it. Getting rejected had hurt enough. There was no need to relive the mortification all over again. But his gaze was steady and serious, and I knew he was going to get on with it, regardless of the fact I knew I was pleading with my eyes for him to stop.
I mean, hell. I was sprawled out on the sofa in my panties.
“Last night.” Liam paused and cleared his throat, redness creeping up his neck. “Look, it wasn’t like I didn’t want it to happen, okay? And that’s the problem. I very much did. But I know it can’t, and you know why it can’t. Surely you can understand that, right?”
“Because of my dad.”
“Because of Rick, yes.” Liam shook his head. “He would kill me. Absolutely throttle me.”
“But he’s not here.”
Liam sucked in a breath, widening his eyes. “No, no, he isn’t.”
“Then, what’s the harm?” I pushed up from the couch so that my face was only inches from his. I slid my ski jacket from my shoulders and let it fall to the couch behind me. Underneath I wore nothing more than a tight white thermal shirt, nipples hard and erect and poking through the material. And my polka-dotted panties were starting to get wet from the heated look in Liam’s dark eyes.
