She's Got It Bad

by Sarah Mayberry

  “What have you got to lose?” he asked.

  She glared at him. “God, I don’t know. Pride? Confidence? Nothing important.”

  “So if she doesn’t like your work you’ll never pick up a paintbrush again, is that it?”

  Her lip curled in instant rejection of the idea. He smiled.

  “So, tell me again, what have you got to lose?” he asked.

  She opened her mouth to say something but instead huffed out an exasperated breath.

  “You are a pushy pain in the ass, you know that?” she said.

  Crossing to her, he hooked an arm around her neck and kissed her once, very firmly, on the mouth.

  “Smart decision. You want a beer while we wait?”

  She used her elbow to push him away, but she followed him into the kitchen.

  Neither of them said a word as he got two beers from the fridge and slid one of them across the counter toward her. She twisted the top off and took a pull. Then she put the beer down, wiped her hands down the front of her jeans, lifted the beer again and began picking at the label. She frowned intently, as though the small task required all her concentration.

  He leaned against the counter and watched her, touched and annoyed by her stubborn self-containment. Zoe would rather chew glass than admit she was nervous, now that she’d agreed to let a stranger assess her art. She hated letting anyone know she cared about anything.

  “What’s she like, this Jacinta woman?” Zoe asked after a few minutes.

  “Smart. Savvy. She’s been dealing art for nearly fifteen years. The gallery is a family business.”

  “How do you know her?” Her glance was penetrating, searching.

  “We’re friends. I met her at a client’s Christmas party a few years ago.”

  She returned to picking at the beer label. He decided to take pity on her.

  “Want to watch some TV while we wait? Or there’s a pool table out back?”

  “Pool sounds good.”

  They played two games in near silence. He breathed a sigh of relief when the doorbell rang. She was so tense, she was making him nervous. He headed for the door, but Zoe hung back. He called to her as he crossed the living room.

  “Don’t be shy. You’ll like Jacinta,” he said.

  “I’m not shy,” Zoe said.

  It was enough to draw her after him and she was standing behind him when he opened the door.

  “I’m early. Hope you don’t mind,” Jacinta said.

  She stepped forward in a cloud of perfume and kissed his cheek. As usual she was dressed sleekly and stylishly in black, her skirt pencil slim, her shoes high and elegant.

  “Now, where’s this art you’re going to dazzle me with?” she asked.

  Then she registered Zoe hovering in the background.

  “This is Zoe Ford, the dazzler,” Liam said. “Zoe, this is Jacinta Hartman.”

  Zoe gave him an angry look before shaking Jacinta’s hand.

  “Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Zoe said.

  She was about to start talking herself down, making excuses so that the rejection she anticipated wouldn’t sting quite so much. It infuriated him that she had so little faith in herself. It also made him want to kick something. Once upon a time, Zoe had never been afraid of anything.

  He leveled a finger at her.

  “Shut up,” he said. “Not another word, okay?”

  Jacinta threw him a startled look. Zoe flushed red and opened her mouth to blast him.

  He placed a hand in the small of Jacinta’s back and urged her toward the dining room. He heard Zoe’s breath hiss out, then the determined sound of her footsteps dogging him.

  “That was a little uncalled-for, don’t you think?” Jacinta asked him quietly as they stepped into the dining room.

  “When you know Zoe a little better, you’ll understand,” he said.

  Jacinta raised an eyebrow and turned her attention to the paintings.

  “Could I have a word with you, Liam?” Zoe asked from the doorway.

  She was furious—again. He ignored her. He was busy watching Jacinta’s face, noting the way her eyes narrowed briefly before her expression became smooth and unreadable.

  Her business face. Which mean she liked Zoe’s art. She liked it a lot, if he was any judge of her mannerisms. His shoulders relaxed. His gamble hadn’t been for nothing, then.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  Jacinta leaned forward to study Zoe’s largest painting more closely. Zoe remained in the doorway, radiating resentment and anger.

  “You mostly work with an airbrush?” Jacinta asked, glancing at Zoe.

  Zoe blinked, surprised at the direct question. Liam hid a smile as he watched her try to work out how to respond. Rudely, and jeopardize the opportunity? Politely, and risk losing all her righteous indignation? Or something in between the two extremes?

  “Yes. I use brushes, too, sometimes. Mostly I work with acrylics,” Zoe said.

  “You got any more like these?” Jacinta asked.

  Zoe stood a little straighter.

  “Yes,” she said. Then she hesitated. “Why?”

  “I like your work,” Jacinta said boldly. “I can think of half a dozen of my clients who would kill to have something like this in their homes or offices. Especially with the kind of pedigree they come with.”

  Zoe frowned. “Pedigree? I don’t know what Liam’s told you, but I don’t have any formal training or anything like that.”

  Jacinta crossed to stand in front of Zoe, her gaze scanning the other woman from top to toe.

  “You’re young, sexy, beautiful and edgy. That tattoo on your neck alone is enough to give you cred. Trust me, people are going to want to buy a little piece of you, Zoe.”

  Zoe blinked. Again he could see uncertainty warring with hope inside her. She wanted so much to believe in this good news, but life had taught her to be undemanding in her expectations.

  “I have some more canvases under my bed at my apartment,” she said slowly.

  Jacinta laughed. “Perfect. We’ll put that in the advertising copy. Please tell me you’re living in a grungy garret somewhere?”

  “It’s a studio apartment,” Zoe said. She sounded a little dazed.

  Jacinta clapped her hands together, delighted.

  “This tattoo on your neck—are there more?”

  Zoe turned and lifted her T-shirt to display her back.

  “Fantastic! Definitely a backless dress for the opening. Something a bit feral and sexy from one of the young designers in Fitzroy or Northcote.” Jacinta started fumbling in her handbag. “Damn.

  I left my organizer at the gallery.”

  She closed her eyes and tapped her forefinger on her pursed lips.

  “I think I have a week open in August. That would give you time to work on some more pieces, yes?” Jacinta asked.

  “I guess.” Zoe was pale, and he noted that her hands were shaking again. Not from anger this time, he guessed.

  Jacinta nodded decisively. “I need to confirm dates, but I’ll get back to you. In fact, why don’t we all do dinner tomorrow night? I’ll introduce you to Frederick, my PR guy. We can come up with a bit of a strategy.”

  “Um, okay. Sure. That sounds good,” Zoe said.

  Jacinta turned to Liam.

  “Well, I was sure you were wasting my time, but I’m glad I came. Who would have thought?

  Liam Masters has an eye for art.”

  “I know what I like,” he said.

  Jacinta bounced a look between him and Zoe. “So I see. Well, there go the rest of my plans for the evening. C’est la vie.”

  She crossed to Zoe’s side and leaned in to kiss her.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow night,” she said.

  Liam escorted her to the front door, very aware of Zoe’s gaze on his back as he left the room.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Jacinta said when they reached the front door. He’d never seen her so an
imated. “Do you have any idea how much money your friend is going to make me?”

  “I’m more interested in what you can do for her, actually,” he said dryly.

  “Of course you are. I saw that the moment I walked in the door.”

  Jacinta cocked her head and studied him.

  “I always wondered what it would take to really rev your engine. Now I know.”

  He frowned. “Zoe and I are friends. Period.”

  Jacinta patted his cheek. “Whatever.”

  Liam tensed. Was it that obvious that he wanted Zoe? Had Tom and Jane picked up on the same vibes at their house this afternoon? Was that why Zoe had said that him liking her was dangerous?

  “It’s not what you think,” he said.

  “Maybe it’s not what you think. Ever thought of that?” Jacinta said.

  She gave him a killer smile and exited. Liam shut the door and walked slowly to the dining room. It was empty. He frowned, then checked the kitchen, the living room and finally the games room.

  Zoe was leaning against the edge of the pool table, rolling a billiard ball back and forth between her hands. She glanced at him when he came in. They stared at each other in silence for a long beat.

  “I’m sorry for being such a pain in the butt,” she said finally. She was frowning. He bet she hadn’t had a lot of practice apologizing.

  “Consider it forgotten.”

  “Thank you for getting your friend to look at my stuff.”

  He wondered how long it would be before Zoe referred to her work as art. A while, he suspected.

  “I rang a friend. It’s no big deal.”

  She shook her head. “It is, and we both know it.”

  Tension crackled in the air as they stared at each other again.

  “I think I’d better go,” she said.

  He didn’t try to stop her as she left the room. He’d done what he wanted to do—given her a head start. The small break she needed to get where she deserved to be. The rest was up to her and Jacinta and fate. It was time for him to step back and let Zoe go.

  He followed her as she strode through his house to the front door. Her hair swung against her back, dark and silky. Her hips swayed from side to side. He breathed in her scent every step of the way.

  She stopped on the threshold.

  “I meant what I said. I’m sorry for being such a pain in the ass. Not that I like being treated like an idiot kid, but I understand how you might have felt I’d given you some justification to sneak around behind my back.”

  He slid his hands into his jeans pockets.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

  She nodded once and stepped out into the night. He forced himself to shut the door, all his reasons for keeping his distance circling in his head.

  He had nothing to offer her. She’d wind up hurt. She deserved more.

  Need beat a fierce counter-tattoo in his belly. He’d wanted her from the moment he set eyes on her in the Fords’ kitchen all those years ago, and he’d never stopped wanting her. Might as well ask the tide to stop turning or the sun from rising. Zoe Ford was his own personal siren, the one woman who had always been able to burrow beneath his skin.

  But he’d let her go tonight. And he’d keep letting her go. If it killed him.

  He walked toward the living room. His steps slowed as he registered something: he hadn’t heard Zoe’s car start up.

  He turned toward the front door. Two strides and he had it open. Sure enough, her car still sat in his driveway. He could see her behind the wheel, could see her hands on the steering wheel.

  She hadn’t gone home.

  She didn’t want to go.

  He started toward the car.

  9

  WHAT ARE YOU DOING? she asked herself for the hundredth time as Liam circled the car to the driver’s door. She’d left his house because she’d been dangerously close to giving in to the need to touch him again. She’d been sensible, so bloody sensible.

  And now she’d ruined it by sitting out here in his driveway, waiting for him to do precisely what he was doing. Waiting for him to come for her.

  “You idiot,” she told herself as he reached for the handle.

  Cool night air rushed in as the door opened. She stared at Liam. His face was hidden in shadow, his eyes unreadable.

  What did she want to see there, anyway? Need? Desire? Some sign that he felt as compelled to be with her as she was to be with him?

  I don’t know what I want.

  What a lie. She knew what she wanted. She was simply too smart, too cynical to imagine it was hers for the taking.

  Liam sank into a crouch so that his eyes were on a level with hers. The weak glow of the interior light washed across his face.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  Yes. I don’t want to go home. I want to touch you and taste you. I want to imagine for just a little while longer that this might happen between us.

  “No.”

  Liam reached out and slid her keys from the ignition. He stood, the keys dangling from one finger.

  “Hey,” she said, much too late.

  “You want ’em? Come and get ’em,” he said. Then he walked toward the house.

  She took a deep breath. She got out of the car. She followed him into the house. He was just disappearing around the turn in the staircase when she entered the living room.

  She followed, her heart thumping loudly in her ears. Her thoughts kept time with her heartbeat: What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?

  He was pulling his T-shirt over his head when she pushed open his bedroom door. The smooth muscles of his chest and arms flexed as he tossed the T-shirt into a corner. She felt a little dizzy as his hands slid to the waistband of his jeans. His erection jutted large and proud as he pulled his jeans down.

  She reached for the hem of her tank top and pulled it over her head. Seconds later she kicked her own jeans to one side. Her panties were next, then her bra. Liam watched her, his gaze smoky.

  She walked across the space that separated them and didn’t stop until she was pressed against his body, her breasts flattened against his hard chest, his cock pressing into her belly.

  She opened her mouth to tell him what a big mistake this was, but he kissed her. His hands smoothed down the sides of her body and onto her backside. She murmured restlessly as his fingers slid low over her cheeks, dipping between her thighs to where she was wet for him.

  “I can’t get you out of my head,” Liam said as he began to kiss his way across the arch of her eyebrow. “I want you all the time, Zoe.”

  She shivered as a single finger slid inside her. Her muscles clenched around his invasion, wanting so much more.

  “I’m sorry about yesterday. I shouldn’t have pushed. And I shouldn’t have gotten angry,” he said.

  She didn’t want to talk about yesterday. She didn’t want to think or talk at all. She pushed him backward until he was on his back on the bed. Then she straddled him and reached for his cock.

  Only the fullness of him inside her would satisfy the ache she felt. She slid onto him with one smooth tilt of her hips. He let his breath out in a rush. She began to ride, lifting her hips to the point where he almost slipped free before driving herself down on him, taking him as deep as he could go.

  One of his hands began to tease her breasts, plucking her nipples, rolling them, squeezing them.

  His other hand slid between their bodies to the hot, wet place where they were joined. She let out a moan of encouragement as his thumb found her clit, gliding over and over it as his cock stroked her from the inside.

  “Come for me, baby,” he said, his voice very low and deep. “Come for me, Zoe.”

  Her back arched. Desire tightened inside her. She closed her eyes as the tension inside her became almost unbearable.

  Then she was awash with pleasure, her body rippling with it, milking him, her muscles tightening around him. She felt him thrust up into her once, twice, three more times, then
she felt the hot rush as he came.

  He wrapped his arms around her and drew her down to lie across his chest. He was still inside her, still a part of her. A warmth that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the way he caressed the nape of her neck and cradled her so gently crept through her.

  Her cynical self curled its lip.

  You’re riding for a fall, it shouted in the back of her mind.

  She knew she should listen. She’d been hurt so many times before. But this was Liam. He’d always been her weak spot.

  They made love twice more before she gathered her clothes and dressed in the dark. She’d waited until Liam’s breathing was deep and steady before rolling from the bed, but she could feel him watching her as she tugged on her jeans.

  Neither of them said a word as she collected her car keys from the bedside table. What was there to say, after all? They both knew that it had been a mistake.

  They made the same mistake the next night, after dinner with Jacinta at the exclusive Vue du Monde restaurant in the heart of the city. Zoe felt acutely self-conscious in her one decent dress—black, discreet, conservative—and good-girl high heels. Jacinta and Frederick were studies in slick minimalism—perfect hair, perfect business suits, perfect everything. Only Liam looked like himself in a pair of dark denim jeans and a black silk knit T-shirt. His only concession to the venue was a jacket in fine charcoal suede. Somehow, without asking, Zoe knew that Jacinta had bought it for him. Which meant that they were lovers—or had been, at some time in the past.

  She told herself she didn’t care, that what he did when he wasn’t with her wasn’t her business, just as what she did when he wasn’t around wasn’t his. But the moment they were alone in his car on the way back to her apartment, she’d been unable to stop herself from asking what Jacinta meant to him and if the other woman knew Liam was screwing Zoe at the same time that he was doing her.

  Liam had pulled over on the side of the road without saying a word and hauled her into his lap.

  He didn’t let her go again until she was sweaty and trembling from the hottest, fastest climax she’d ever had. He’d zipped himself up and driven her the rest of the way home, and once again neither of them had mentioned what had happened between them. She wasn’t sure what he was thinking—ignore it and it will go away? Make hay while the sun shines?—but she’d long ago faced the fact that she had no control where he was concerned.