"I’ve had enough food for now," I said, drawing his face up to mine.
"You’ve barely eaten anything." But his eyes closed as he spoke, and I knew I’d won.
Our lips crushed together. His breath was spicy and mine was hot as our bodies entwined. Liam’s hands slid under my shirt, cradling my back. My hands looped around his neck and I clenched my fingers into his hair. I wanted more of him. I wanted all of him. I was hungry for this moment as though it was the first time for us. For me. There was a desperate rawness to our kiss that spoke of discovery.
Even when I was with him before, I was only half in, but all that had changed. There were no secrets left between us now and that liberated us as we clung to one another, exploring each other. Liam tugged my shirt over my head, and I felt vulnerable and safe in the same moment. His eyes stayed on my face as he ran his fingers from my shoulders to my stomach in languorous strokes.
"You’re perfect, chicken," he said bringing his mouth to trace whispers over my breasts.
Even though I knew the exact opposite, the truth of it broke over me, and for a split second, I could see myself how Liam saw me.
"Not to argue with you, but you’re the perfect one." Liam had told me plenty of times that I was beautiful, but I’d never actually reciprocated. I’d never really admitted to him how much he meant to me.
"Competitive much?" he said with a sigh.
My attempts to give compliments were as clumsy as my ability to accept them.
"Liam." I paused, lowering my eyes as I tried to find the right words. But ultimately they were there all along. My eyes fluttered back up to his. "I love you."
He pulled me to him so that our noses were nearly touching. "I love you, Jillian Nichols."
And then I was on my back as he brought his body over mine. There was a fumble of clothes and kisses and whispered promises until we came together slowly. We lingered in each other, and I was aware of every slight movement. How his breath hitched after a low moan. The soft stubble curving along his jawline. And his hands on my body—safe and steady.
Liam shifted onto his knees and drew my legs around his waist as he pushed deeper into me. The pleasure bordered on pain, but I didn’t want him to stop. In this moment, I was certain that we were closer than anyone in history. Splayed across the bed, I stared at him, marveling at the cut of his body, the taut coil of his muscles as he held me firmly against him.
This was the man I loved, a fact that trembled up my limbs and set fire to my skin. The love—the realization of it—shattered across my body in quivers that built into a torrent. His skin on my skin, his hands on my hips, his name on my tongue.
We collapsed together in a heap of slick skin and tangled limbs, but neither of us pulled away. We laid there, entwined with each other. In this moment, I lived a lifetime.
After a few minutes, he pulled away long enough to draw my sheet over us. It was ordinary gesture, but it felt like more. It felt like comfort and home and promises. I turned into him, and we laid, watching each other, not quite touching, without speaking.
A million questions flitted through my head, but I ignored them. I’d spent the last two years of my life trying to escape the future by pretending to live in the moment. I’d been running for so long that I didn’t even see it until now. This precise second was the only one that mattered.
"Are you sleepy yet?" Liam murmured against my hair.
I glanced at the small alarm clock on the nightstand behind him. "It’s only two o’clock in the afternoon."
"I find myself feeling stuffed and sated." His lips smacked a little on the words as sleep moved over his face.
"That’s what she said," we both said at the same time. Liam smiled sleepily, and I wiggled up onto my pillow, pulling his head onto my chest. His arm circled around my back as he nestled against me. I didn’t expect to like the feeling of taking care of someone else. I thought it would be a burden, but instead a completeness settled over me.
Questions could wait for the morning, I thought as I stroked his hair. His breathing slowed, matching pace with the beat of my heart. I had a lot to think about, but for the first time, I could see clearly what was right in front of me. I didn’t need to be certain of anything more than I was of this. Of him and I. Of us. Love, as it turned out, was liberating. The one thing I ran from turned out to be what finally set me free.
Chapter Twenty-Six
We spent the day in bed, finally abandoning it to throw away our take-out boxes and stretch our legs. Jess hadn’t shown her face in the apartment yet, and I knew she was giving Liam and I space to talk about things. She was probably going to be disappointed to hear we spent most of our time doing it instead. Liam hummed as he deposited forks into the dishwasher, and I watched him with barely contained amazement. My first real memories of him were in this kitchen with MeMa’s crocheted dish towels. He turned and caught me staring at him.
"What wicked things are you devising?" he asked me.
"I was just appreciating the show," I said. In fact, I was. Watching Liam bend over in his boxer briefs was turning me to a puddle on the bar stool.
"I promise I will take you back to bed if—" he paused and leaned down on the counter to face me—"you call your mom."
"You know how to kill the mood," I muttered. "I don’t know why you’d want me to talk to her. She was horrible to you."
Tara hadn’t bothered to return after her dramatic exit from the hospital. There was no apology to me or Liam. One second, she wanted me to settle down with Liam, and the next, she was accusing him of causing my episode. It was enough to give me whiplash. I had nothing to say to her.
"She was, but she was also upset and worried about you. That’s something I can understand. She’s your mom, chicken."
"When you call me chicken in these situations, it sounds like you’re saying I’m being a coward," I pointed out.
"You are the bravest person I know," Liam said in a soft voice. "But you are being a chicken shit about this."
"Chicken shit?" I repeated.
"It’s one American phrase I quite like," he said. Liam pushed my iPhone into my hand.
I threw him a dirty look as I pulled up Tara’s contact and pressed call. I wandered into the bedroom and shut my door in case things got heated. The phone rang four times, and I was prepping to leave a message when she picked up.
"Hello." Even her greeting sounded like I was putting her out.
"Hi, Mom. How are you?" It was possibly the stupidest way to start a conversation with my own mother, especially given how we left things at the hospital, but I didn’t know what else to say.
"I’m fine. Busy." Her tone was clipped and cold, so not much different than usual.
"I thought we should talk," I said. Part of me hoped she would just hang up on me.
"I suppose."
So much for that.
There was a long pause where neither of us spoke. Tara finally broke the silence. "What did you want to say?"
"I know things got out of control at the hospital, but I wanted you to know that Dr. Fales has referred me to a therapist that is covered under our insurance, and I picked up all my new prescriptions." It was all factual information. Safe information. I got the impression that Liam wanted me to apologize to her, but there was no way that was going to happen.
"And school?" she asked.
"I’m talking with my professors tomorrow. I’m sure I can get extensions so I can keep my grades up," I promised her.
Thankfully she refrained from commenting on my past GPAs. "What about next semester?"
"I want to stay in Olympic Falls."
"I don’t think that’s a good idea. Are you staying for that boy?" she asked.
"He has a name. He’s not that boy!" I exploded, kicking my closet door, which actually hurt. I winced and hopped over to the bed.
"It’s a simple question, Jillian," Tara said in a steady voice, not matching her volume to mine. "I don’t want you throwing your life away on some boy."<
br />
"You were the one who told me I was—how did you put it—’Going through boys like tissues?’" I paused and willed myself to calm down. "It would be throwing away my life to move back home and live in my parents’ house."
"Do you think we actually want you to move back home? Your father and I enjoy our empty nest."
Of course, they were enjoying it. They’d practically thrown a party when I announced I was moving out of state for college. Tara has already turned my bedroom into a guest suite complete with travel-size toiletries that I was not allowed to use when I visited. "You’re sending me mixed signals. One second you want me to move home, but you don’t really. You like Liam, but you hate him. Why would I ever want to come home?"
"I don’t appreciate being spoken to like this."
"I don’t appreciate you trying to control my life."
"Then pay your own bills," Tara suggested.
"I will go to the financial aid office first thing in the morning," I said. I hadn’t been forced to take student loans out before this, so it wouldn’t kill me to have three semesters of debt when I left school.
"I want you to be serious about something." It was implicit from her tone that she meant serious about anything other than a boy.
This phone call was going about as I expected it to, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet. "I know you are worried about Liam, but you shouldn’t be. We aren’t eloping. I’m not running away to Scotland. He takes care of me without expecting me to be totally dependent on him. He makes me laugh and still forces me to be serious. So you should want him to stick around as long as possible, because he’s not just good for me, he’s saving me."
Tara sighed into the phone. "I’m glad to hear you say that. I just…he’s going back to Scotland, Jillian. It nearly broke you when you two fought. I don’t want to keep finding you in the hospital."
"I’m not rearranging my life for him. I’m adding him into it for as long as possible. We could be together for a week or for a year or for the rest of our lives. But no matter what happens, I’m going to be a better person when I come out the other side because I love him."
"And he loves you?" Tara asks softly.
"Yeah, he does." There was a moment of hesitation in my response. Liam loved me, even when he shouldn’t. "I tried to keep him away. You know what MeMa always says? Liam has sticking power."
"Good." It sounded like that was really hard for her to say. "If you want to stay at Olympic State, I can support that if…"
"If?" I prompted, more than a little surprised that she’d given in this easily.
"If you pass all of your classes this semester." She stopped and waited for me to respond.
That was going to be a problem. I’d missed enough classes that Markson didn’t have to do shit to help me out. I was completely at his mercy, but I wasn’t about to tell Tara that. "My grades are fine."
"I hope so, because I can’t support you staying there if you aren’t going to be serious. Take a page from Jess’s book—"
"I have to go, Mom," I cut her off before she could launch into a description of Jess’s many redeeming qualities. Ones I didn’t share with my best friend.
"Okay. Your father wants me to ask you if you’re coming home for Christmas?"
I paused, considering this request. I always went home for Christmas, but this year I had a reason to stay in Olympic Falls. Nothing sounded better than staying in my apartment with Liam over break, but maybe Tara and I needed some healing time. "I will on one condition."
"Which is?" she asked.
"Liam is coming with me. He has no family here."
"That’s a pretty big commitment," she said.
Was it? "I know."
"As long as you sleep in separate bedrooms and stay out of the bathroom."
By my count that left at least six other rooms in the house that I could nail him in. "Deal. I’ll call you later."
"Good night." There was some hesitation before she added, "I love you."
I was so shocked that I barely managed to respond. Tara was not the type to show her emotions. It was the first time she’d ended a call this way. I shoved my iPhone in my pocket and left my room, feeling triumphant and despondent as the same time.
"How did it go?" Liam asked. He held out a fisted hand.
I opened my palm and he dropped a round of meds into it. "Are you my new medication alarm?"
"I want to be helpful," he said slowly. "If you’d rather—"
"Thank you," I said. It was a sweet gesture, and one I shouldn’t take for granted.
"No, thank you," he said, hooking his fingers into my waistband and drawing me close to him. "Thank you for letting me take care of you. I know that’s hard for you."
"It’s getting easier," I admitted. I couldn’t help but like that he cared enough to worry about getting me my medication.
"And as a reward." He held up his other fist. This time he dropped three multi-colored Chiclets into my palm.
"Excellent." I pushed onto my tiptoes and gave him a soft kiss.
"Do you actually like that stuff?" he asked me as I ventured into the kitchen for a glass of water. One of the pills was roughly the size of a horse tranquilizer. It would be a while before I was able to get it down dry.
"Not in the beginning," I admitted. "I didn’t want people to know I was taking pills. If someone asked, I offered them a Chiclet. But I’m now genuinely addicted."
"I was thinking I could help you with a new addiction." Liam leaned against the kitchen wall and beckoned me with his finger. Standing there in his form-fitting boxers and thin t-shirt, he looked more like a Calvin Klein ad than anyone had a right to in real life.
"I like my addiction. Maybe you should get your own."
"I will gladly steal those Chiclets from your mouth," he offered. A thrill shivered through my body at the memory. I sauntered toward him, trying my best to pout but failing miserably.
"You look constipated," Liam told me with a laugh.
"I’m being sexy," I said.
"You don’t need to try. You are sexy no matter what you’re doing."
"Unless I’m trying to be sexy."
"The world might collapse into the whole of space and time if you actually managed to act sexy at your current hotness level," he said. He reached forward and grabbed my shirt, forcing me to come closer to him.
"Global warming?"
"I think that’s safe to say," he said. His hands slid across my waist and under my shirt as I sighed in anticipation.
"You promised to take me to a very big bed," I reminded him.
"Didn’t I do that already?" he asked, even as crooked grin stole across his face.
"I can’t remember, but I’m game for another try."
Liam reached behind me and caught me up in his arms like a baby. "So you want to go back for seconds?"
I nodded, wetting my lips with my tongue. Tomorrow I would deal with classes and Markson, but tonight I was all Liam’s, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Liam carried me into my room and laid me gently on the bed, but he didn’t climb in beside me.
"Promise you’ll tell me if it’s too much," he asked.
I could tell from his wide thoughtful eyes that he was serious, but instead of answering, I grabbed the pillow from under me and swung it into the side of his head. "I… am… not… going… to… break!"
Liam caught the pillow and held it for a split second before he lobbed it at my head. I screamed and grabbed for another pillow, getting one just in time to ward off a second strike by him. Liam bounced onto the bed and knocked me over with a hefty swing of the pillow. I collapsed onto the bed, feeling lighter and happier than I had in a long time.
"What did your mom say?" he asked me, dropping down to my side.
"The usual. I’m a disappointment, but she did agree to let me stay here if I pass my classes next semester," I said. I didn’t want to talk about this. I was already working hard enough to keep the nagging concerns over my grad
es at bay.
"What about Markson’s class?" he asked, his eyebrows knit together. "You’re way past the drop date."
"I’ll have to talk to him. Maybe he’ll understand." Jess had stressed to me the extent of Markson’s coolness when she took the class last year. I hoped she was right.
"What about an incomplete?" Liam suggested.
"Maybe." I hesitated and wiggled down flat on the bed. "I don’t want to talk about it right now."
"Is there something else you’d rather do?" he asked.
"I have three or four things in mind," I said, tracing the outline of his abs through his t-shirt.
"That sounds challenging, but I can be persuaded to try." He rolled carefully over and hovered over me.
"I am excellent at persuasion." My hand snaked around his neck and brought his mouth to mine. He met my lips greedily, pressing his weight into me as I wrapped my legs around his waist. I sighed, content and complete, as he kissed along my collarbone. Sliding his hands under my shirt, he pulled it off and laid his head over my chest. We lay like that for a long time, his breath tickling across my breasts as he listened to my heartbeat, my fingers raking lazily through his hair.
There was nothing that needed to be said. This moment said everything.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
There was a note on my counter the next morning from Liam, asking me to meet him at the aquarium before eleven. Next to it, he’d laid out my medications. I glanced at the clock, pleased to see that I had an hour and half, which meant I could actually take a shower and get dressed before he was done with his shift.
I dutifully took my meds as I started the shower. I almost didn’t want to wash last night off my skin. My only saving grace was that I was sure there was more—much more—where that came from. As the warm water flowed over my body, I remembered Liam’s lips and his hands and the promises we whispered in the dark until my whole body throbbed with energy. I shut off the shower and threw a towel around my hair. I couldn’t wait to see him.
Heat Up the Fall: New Adult Boxed Set (6 Book Bundle) Page 19
