Revenge in Room 426

by Michelle Conder

  Shockingly, Chloe felt the same way and her sense of self-preservation seemed to get further out of reach the closer she got to him. All she wanted to do was touch him and kiss him and have him do the same to her. Have him… suddenly his words – the name he had called her – permeated her fogged brain. ‘You called me Specs.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He smoothed his hands down her thighs as if he adored her shape. ‘Whatever happened to those cute glasses you used to wear? If I remember rightly you were legally blind without them.’

  Not really hearing him above the roaring of blood in her ears Chloe stared at him completely dumbfounded. ‘You know who I am.’

  His eyes narrowed as if he was trying to work out the answer to a complex puzzle. ‘Ah, yeah. Was I not supposed to?’

  ‘When? When did you figure it out?’ she demanded.

  He cocked his head and his brow furrowed in that cute way that made him look like he wouldn’t hurt a fly. ‘The minute I saw you outside the hotel. What’s going on?’ His frown deepened. ‘Were you actually trying to pretend to be someone else?’

  ‘No,’ she snapped, smacking the palm of her hand against her forehead. How was it that she kept making such a colossal fool of herself in front of this man? ‘Your PA got it wrong not me.’

  ‘So why didn’t you correct her?’

  ‘I didn’t see the point. I wasn’t expecting to see you for more than five minutes.’

  ‘Ah,’ he looked at her with a combination of guilt and wariness. ‘And you weren’t going to tell me.’

  ‘Why bother?’

  Liam’s mouth flattened into a straight line. ‘I have to say I’m struggling to get my head around this.’

  His firm gaze swept over her, reminding her that she was still standing between the legs of a guy she was supposed to be rejecting. She was truly pathetic. ‘I have to go. Excuse me.’

  Before she could move Liam snagged her wrist. ‘Chloe?’

  She shook him off. ‘How could you know it was me? I look completely different now.’

  ‘No you don’t.’

  Chloe stared at him. Was he suggesting she still looked as bad as she used to?

  ‘Fiery red hair, incredible blue eyes with tiny gold flecks, long legs. Breasts.’

  Chloe tried not to feel warmed by his words and scoffed. ‘All girls have breasts.’

  ‘True, but since moving to Hollywood I’ve learned that not all girls have real breasts.’ Chloe felt her cheeks heat as his eyes dropped to her cleavage. ‘I always thought you had magnificent breasts.'

  Appalled by how affected she was by his words, how aroused, she just wanted to run away and hide. Forever this time. She stepped back from him again. ‘Please Liam. I know what you want but I don’t want it.’

  ‘Not now that I know who you are, you mean.’ His eyes grew as stony as chipped emeralds. ‘Tell me, what were you going to do, Chloe? Have sex with me as Candy and then bolt.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What then?’

  Chloe squared her shoulders. ‘I wasn’t going to have sex with you at all.’

  ‘Ah.’ Somehow he’d moved so that he was standing in front of her again, his chest inches from her own. ‘Payback then.’

  ‘It’s no less than you deserve,’ she felt stung into retorting.

  ‘I know.’ The anger she had felt in him moments ago ebbed away. ‘I was an utter jerk to you back in high school, but I didn’t invite you up here to have sex with you. I invited you here so that I could apologise.’

  Chloe scrunched her brow in confusion. ‘So what was all this?’ She waved her hands in the direction of the champagne. The chocolates. The condoms. ‘If you don’t want me then it really was for someone else.’ She knew she sounded accusing but she was so confused by her own rioting emotions that she was struggling to think clearly. ‘This was never for me, it was–’

  ‘Chloe, I do want you. Hell.’ He grabbed hold of her elbows. ‘Dammit, would you stop trying to get away from me and listen.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head violently, determined not to embarrass herself any more with him. ‘I want to go. I don’t want this.’ She forced herself to hold his stare. ‘You. I don’t want you.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but it was you who stroked my chest before.’

  ‘It was an accident.’

  His look told her he knew that had been no accident. ‘You did it twice.’

  ‘I have to go.’

  Liam tightened his hold on her. ‘Stay.’

  Chloe looked at him and knew that years of hurt and humiliation were reflected in her blurry eyes. ‘You had a bet with your friends that you could make me fall in love with you,’ she cried.

  ‘Yes. And I’m sorry I did that to you.’

  His honesty and the sincerity of his apology floored her and it must have shown because he laughed. ‘You weren’t expecting me to confess my part in it?’

  No she wasn’t.

  ‘I admit that I initially invited you out as part of a dare,’ he began slowly, ‘I was… I was messed up at the time but I promise you that I had nothing to do with the proposal or the video. In fact I had my father take it down from the internet as soon as he could.’

  Chloe wrapped her arms around her waist. ‘So your friends improvised. Big deal. I’m over it. I’m over you. I’m over your pity.’

  ‘What pity?’

  Chloe really didn’t want to have this conversation but she only had herself to blame because she’d started it. She’d come here on some stupid mission for revenge that she should have known she didn’t have the wherewithal to pull off. ‘The pity I saw in your eyes the moment I threw my arms around your neck and said yes, I’ll marry you.’ She gave a self-deprecating laugh that rang hollowly in the quiet room.

  ‘That wasn’t pity you saw in my eyes’ Liam said quietly. ‘That was regret over my actions.’

  She made a noise in the back of her throat. ‘God, I must be the village idiot. How could I have ever thought…’ She checked herself and shook her head, her hair falling around her face in soft waves. ‘Please forget you even know me and we’ll call this the end of it.’

  ‘Dammit, Chloe, I do not pity you.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’m serious about seeing you again. In fact I want you to come with me to the premiere of Time Could Wait tomorrow night.’

  ‘Your movie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The one that will be lined with about a gazillion women all screaming your name and throwing knickers at you.’

  ‘They don’t tend to do that anymore. And some will be screaming Bethany Lord’s name, but yes. That one.’

  Chloe wanted to she realised. Really badly. Which was a very good reason why she shouldn’t. ‘No.’

  ‘Give me one good reason why not?’

  Liam had widened his stance as if he was going into battle and Chloe wished for one brief moment that all that hard male perfection could really be hers. ‘Give me one good reason why I should?’ she countered.

  ‘I want to see you again and tomorrow I’m busy all day in radio interviews and then I have to fly to Paris for the next leg of the junket.’

  She shook her head. ‘And what if someone recognises me from that awful prank?’

  ‘Then I’ll tell them what a stupid jock I was.’

  ‘And damage your pristine reputation?’

  ‘I don’t care about my reputation.’

  Chloe knew her scepticism must have shown because Liam ran his hand through his hair in frustration. ‘I don’t. I learned a long time ago that if you valued the opinion of others above your own then you would be unhappy and make everyone else around you miserable as well. Sometimes you have to seize the moment.’

  Chloe felt her throat tighten up at the thought. ‘See now I sort of did that once and it didn’t work out so well for me.’

  Embarrassed and upset she turned to go and felt Liam’s fingers fix onto her waist from behind, preventing her from leaving.

  ‘Don’t leave l
ike this, Chloe.’

  She stilled. ‘You have a party to attend to.’

  ‘No, I don’t. I only have you to attend to.’

  ***

  Liam felt Chloe go utterly still and his gaze dropped to where his hands circled her waist. His thumbs were pressed against the pearl like bumps of her lower spine, his fingers spread out over her warm, soft belly. Chloe’s body trembled beneath his hold and it was all Liam could do not to haul her back against him and show her just how much he desired her. But this had to be her decision, not his.

  ‘Stay.’

  His breath stirred the tendrils of hair at the nape of her neck and he couldn’t stop his need to press his mouth to her bare shoulder and bite down gently. She gasped and jerked against him and his hands tightened on her waist to hold her steady.

  ‘Liam.’

  His name was a decadent whisper on her lips and her hips vibrated beneath his touch. God, he wanted her right now. He’d give up almost anything and everything to have her. ‘You know I got a ninety five in English senior year because I remember almost every syllable that came out of your pretty mouth,’ he murmured, laving the space he had bitten with his tongue and breathing in her heady, musky scent.

  She turned within the circle of his arms and he let his hands slide around her as she did. Her hands rose to his shoulders and when he saw the naked flame of desire darkening her irises he felt a thrill of victory flood through him. ‘You did?’

  Liam gave a husky laugh at her guileless expression. ‘Yes, I did.’ His hands smoothed over her back and he stepped closer to her. ‘I want you Chloe. I want to kiss you and lick you all over and then I want to make you come until you can’t even remember your own name.’

  ‘I…’ her throat bobbed as she swallowed and he pressed his lips to the pulse point throbbing just beneath her delicate skin. She moaned and gripped his shoulders more firmly and he stroked his lips up her throat and sealed his mouth to hers in a kiss that didn’t even pretend to be tentative.

  Immediately her tongue wrapped around his at the same time as her hands forked into his hair, the movement flattening her firm breasts to his chest.

  Liam growled low in his throat like a wild animal that had been kept locked in a cage for too long. His mind had already forged past the idea of foreplay and had him opening her legs so he could plunge inside her.

  ‘Liam.’ She writhed against him as if the same desperate need that was driving him was driving her as well.

  Muscles bunched he lifted her, carried her to the bed and laid her down. Her long hair spread out on the cream bedspread like a red flame and Liam came down over the top of her. He balanced his weight on his elbows and their eyes locked together. For a minute he felt slightly unsteady. ‘Are you sure about this, Chloe?’

  Her smile was steady and clear and beautiful. ‘Yes. I don’t care about the past or the future just… touch me, Liam. Please. And don’t stop.’

  Chapter Six

  But of course he eventually did have to stop touching her and the future eventually did have to intrude. For Chloe that happened as soon as she woke up from a sex-induced sleep securely wrapped in a man’s arms. In Liam Hunter’s arms.

  Oh, God. She had slept with Liam Hunter. She at once wanted to giggle and scream and cry all at the same time. What was she doing? And why?

  Not finding any of those answers in her empty head, Chloe gave up and decided that the best thing to do next was to leave. As quickly and as quietly as possible. But how to do it and not disturb the man who was spooning her so deliciously in his sleep?

  ‘I’m not asleep.’ His rough voice made her quiver. ‘And I can tell you’re having all sorts of regrets.’

  Chloe moistened her lips. ‘Not regrets per se. Just…’ Just what? ‘I just need to get home.’ She just needed some space to think about this day and what she had just done.

  The sheets rustled as Liam moved behind her. ‘It’s three am.’

  ‘I know.’ Chloe forced her shaky limbs to move to the edge of the bed. And then a thought struck her as she could no longer hear the sounds of the party going on outside. God, she had completely forgotten about the party. ‘Where is everyone?’

  ‘I got rid of them just after you fell asleep.’

  Chloe swallowed. Nice. Had he watched her as well? Feeling awkward she glanced around for her dress.

  She heard Liam move again and instinctively dodged his touch. If she didn’t she knew exactly where she’d end up. And it wasn’t back at her little flat.

  ‘Chloe?’

  ‘I really need to get home.’ She grabbed the first garment she found off the floor – his shirt – and held it in front of her body.

  Liam sat up. ‘You can’t just give me your virginity and leave.’

  ‘Why not?’ Chloe marshalled her courage. ‘I’m sure it’s happened to you before. Well, maybe not the leaving part. And I was sick of always being the only virgin in a crowd anyway.’

  ‘So you were still using me, is that it?’

  ‘No.’ She looked pained. ‘I just don’t see any point to this.’

  ‘The point is in what we just shared. It was special.’ He leaned up on one muscled arm. ‘Did I hurt you? I would have been more careful if you had told me.’

  ‘Are you looking for a score out of ten?’

  Liam’s jaw hardened. ‘No.’

  ‘Well it was great. Sensational, in fact.’ Chloe tossed her mussed hair back over her shoulder. ‘But don’t try and flatter me that it was special when it wasn’t.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to flatter you. It was special and you damned well know it.’ He blew out a breath and climbed off the bed.

  Chloe’s eyes drank him in before he pulled on his jeans, leaving them undone as he faced her. ‘There’s something between us, Chloe. There always has been and while I might not have been ready for you back in high school, I’m ready now.’

  The determined set of his jaw had her shaking her head. None of this made any sense. One minute she was hating Liam Hunter and the next… dammit, the next she was falling for him all over again. But Chloe knew better than to let herself get carried away by a nice moment and pretty words. ‘How can you explore anything with me from LA?’

  His face softened. ‘I already thought of that while you slept. My agent is always wanting me to do theatre. So I will. In the West End.’

  ‘You’d move here?’

  He shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why not?’ Chloe swallowed, her mind spinning at the suggestion. Already she could feel herself wanting that way too much. And she couldn’t start dreaming about him again. It would crush her if he wasn’t serious.

  She heard him sigh and it brought her eyes back to his. ‘I can see I’m going too fast for you. Fair enough. To be honest this whole thing has thrown me as well but I trust my instincts, Chloe, and they’re telling me not to let you go this time.’

  It was the words this time that sealed if for Chloe. This time brought all the painful memories that had been laying beneath a fog of lust to the forefront of her mind and she shook her head, fear at once again being the girl left out riding her hard. ‘I don’t trust mine, Liam. I can’t go with you tomorrow night.’ I can’t explore anything more between us.

  Before he could stop her she dropped his shirt, scooped up her dress and sprinted for the bathroom.

  When she was dressed and her heart wasn’t beating quite so fast she came out and found that he had also dressed and was palming a set of keys. ‘I’m sorry, I know I pushed you too hard. Let me drive you home.’

  ‘That’s okay, I’ll make my own way home.’

  ‘No you won’t.’

  Chloe pressed her lips together. ‘If you’re truly set on seeing me again you’ll have to start by taking my wishes into account.’

  He glowered at her. ‘That’s what you call playing dirty. I only want to make sure you get home safely.’

  ‘I can take a taxi.’

  His jaw got that determined look again. ‘I
’ll organise a chauffeur from the hotel.’

  They stared at each other and then she shook her head. Smiled. Because what else could she do? She’d just made love with a man she thought she might be in love with and who was brooding because she wouldn’t agree to go out with him. Maybe she did need to look for that rabbit hole. ‘Okay.’

  He released a breath. ‘Okay. And I intend to kiss you good night.’

  Chloe swallowed. ‘That’s not a good idea.’

  Liam moved in closer and crowded her and Chloe felt herself dissolving into a puddle of need.

  ‘I have it on good authority that when you start seeing someone you have to take their wishes into account,’ he said huskily.

  Chloe shook her head to hide her grin but it didn’t work. When she looked back he was smiling as well and she wondered if she was a fool because she wanted to trust him so badly.

  ***

  An hour later Chloe pushed her laptop off her knee and leaned her head back on the pillows against her headboard. As soon as she’d arrived home she’d pulled on the t-shirt and boxers she slept in and opened up the video Liam’s friends had taken five years ago. She had only ever watched it once but had never deleted it.

  Now she saw that what Liam had said was true. As much a she had viewed the horrible “marry me” banner with excitement he had looked at it with utter shock and instead of it being pity in his eyes as he’d looked at her it had been more sorrowful. Then he’d looked about the room with fury firing out of his eyes. Previously she’d only noticed the horror and embarrassment on her own face.

  Chloe sighed and thought about Liam’s invitation to his premiere the following night. Back at the Chatsfield she’d thought there was no way she could do it. No way she could stomach someone recognising her from five years ago and facing that again, but that was cowardly.

  And somehow it no longer mattered. Talking to Liam tonight, confronting him about what he had done, having him apologise, having him kiss her, making love with him… it had changed her.