Not The One (London Lovers #4)

by Amy Daws

  I run to the door and yank it open just as Liam rounds the corner. His cheeks look hollow and depleted, his brown eyes dark and grave.

  “Come in,” I say, stepping back.

  He pauses and spreads his arms out to grip the doorway on either side. A faint security light in the hallway illuminates his face just enough for me to see the trepidation buried in his eyes.

  “I’m fucking terrified, Rey.” He releases a shaky breath. “I’ve been up all night trying to get my head around never seeing you again. Trying to accept the idea of losing you forever. As scary as that feels, this right here,” he points down to where his feet are, “feels even scarier.”

  I move to grasp him around the waist. My eyes look up at his as he shudders in reaction to my sudden touch. “Please, give me a chance to show you that I’m different.”

  He shakes his head sadly. “I’m so sick of not understanding you, Rey. I’m sick of not knowing why you wouldn’t let me in. And then you call my parents and you show me the girl that I fucking fell in love with at Uni. It fucking petrifies me.”

  “Your parents were important to me, Liam. As weird as it sounds, they meant something to me back at Oxford. That day I spent with them was so gloriously normal. Seeing a glimpse of where you came from. All of it was special to me. They actually liked me. The buttoned up Brits that they are. They somehow saw me for who I was and they liked me.”

  His eyes swim with emotion and a gentle fondness that he only gets when he speaks of his parents. “They did, Rey. They saw you like I saw you. They spoke of you for a whole year after graduation.” He laughs sadly, then swallows, “And…as much as I know I’ve never been what you want, I can’t stop thinking about everything I know we could be.”

  “You are, Liam! You so are what I want! I want to let you in more than anything. I know I’ve walked away from you way too many times, but I am different now. Or at least…I want to be. And I’ve never wanted anything like that before.” My watery eyes swim back and forth between his. “Don’t give up on me. You are what I want.”

  His gaze shifts from tortured to hopeful. “You want me?” he asks, like he still can’t believe anything I’m saying.

  “Liam, there is no one else I want to come out of this mess of my life with. You are my salvation!”

  He tilts his head and his expression becomes fierce and determined. In a flash, he drops his hands from the doorframe and grips my waist, rushing me back into my flat. The door slams behind him and he pins me against the wall. “I’m trying to believe you, Rey. I’m trying to believe the words coming out of your mouth.” Cupping my cheeks in his large hands, he continues with urgency, “I don’t want to miss another second with you. I want to make up for lost time. I want to make up for missed chances. I want what I’ve always known we could be.”

  “I want that, too,” I reply breathlessly. “More than you can imagine.”

  Staring at my lips, he adds, “We’ve always been more. You’ve always been special.” His eyes drift up to mine. “You saw that right? I wasn’t alone there, was I?”

  I nod woodenly, my chin quivering at his hopeful words. “I was asleep then, but I am awake now and I see everything so much more clearly now. I saw it all…I promise you.”

  He exhales a shaky breath. “Are you sure, Rey. Because I don’t think I’ll survive you pushing me away again.”

  I grab his face in my hands and school my features to look determined. He needs to hear the words. He needs to see my soul. “Liam, I am in love with you. I always have been. You saw me better than I ever saw myself and you pushed me back. Just when everyone else would give up, you would push through. I want to be everything you see in me. I want my insides to match my outsides…perfectly imperfect…just as long as it’s with you. I am so in love with you,” I say again, teary-eyed.

  “I—” he starts, but then slams his lips to mine before he can finish. He tilts his head and fiercely swirls his tongue with mine. His thumbs rub away the tears on my cheekbones as he holds my face just where he wants it. “Fuck,” he groans, pulling away and pressing his forehead to mine, breathing his delicious cinnamon scent on me. “I’ve waited so long to hear you say that, Rey. I’ve dreamt of it…and it just fucking blew those dreams out of the water.”

  “I love you,” I reply again because I can say nothing else.

  Desperation fleets over his face as he connects our lips again and wraps his arms around my waist. I let my legs hang lifelessly as he lifts me and walks us deeper into my flat. “Where is your bedroom, Rey?”

  “You’re in it,” I giggle against his lips. He sets me down on my bare feet and looks over to find my rumpled mattress in the middle of my living room.

  “God, I missed that sound.” Leaning down, he nips at my lip and then quickly softens his bite with a warm and wet kiss that swirls all of my senses. He pulls away and grabs the bottom of my long T-shirt and lifts it painfully slow up over my body.

  My hair cascades down my naked back as his hungry eyes drink in every exposed inch of me. Bare. Unprotected. Vulnerable and wanting.

  I close my eyes as he strokes the back of his hand from my cheek, to my rose covered shoulder, to my nipple, my ribs, my hip and then his caress moves more central to a place that’s screaming and so ready for some type of connection.

  “I’m going to enjoy this, Rey.” His voice is husky and confident.

  “Oh!” I cry out as he plunges two thick fingers inside of me and crooks them to a place that makes me feel like my legs will buckle any second. Suddenly, he pulls them out and my eyes snap open, ready to beg, but my voice gets caught in my throat as I watch him bring his fingers to his mouth and suck off the signs of my pleasure.

  “I’m going to enjoy this so much more, knowing everything I know now.” He reaches for his shirt and yanks it off, mussing his messy, golden blond hair.

  “Knowing that I love you?” I ask, my eyes feasting on the sex god before me. The words send a pang of anxiousness through me, but it’s a pain that I am prepared for. A pain I’m not going to run from.

  His eyes grow darker and his tongue darts out and sucks the remaining taste of me off his lower lip. “I don’t think I’ll ever tire of hearing you say that.”

  “It’s new for me,” I say as he slides his jeans down his legs.

  “I know,” he nods, while stepping out of his underwear. “And I’m going to bloody savor it.”

  “I love you,” I whisper again as he steps close enough for me to feel his naked erection nudge my belly.

  He exhales and leans down, kissing me ferociously while walking us back to my bed and coming down on top of me. I wrap my legs around him, pulling him in as close as I possibly can.

  Feeling him on top of me, kissing and licking and sucking every bare part of me, exposed and raw, bring me back to our time together at Oxford.

  “I’m not the one, Liam…I’m no one’s anything.”

  “Bollocks,” he replies, grabbing my face in his hands.

  “This is so wrong, Liam. You can’t do this. I’m not worth it.”

  “The fact that you can’t see that you are just shows what a fucking liar you are.”

  The moments after he told me I was the one. The moments after he told me he loved me. The moments where I allowed myself to believe in my worth, for just those precious moments…they can last forever now. There’s nothing holding me back anymore.

  I am loved. I am loveable. I am the one. “I want you to tell me you love me, Liam.” He pauses his assault on my nipple and looks at me in confusion. I grab his cheeks and continue, “While we make love, just say it to me, please. I know you feel it. I don’t want you to be afraid. I’m not going anywhere. You said it when we slept together at Oxford, but I blocked it out. I want to feel it this time. I want to hear your words as you make love to me.”

  He licks his lips and nods seriously. After grabbing a condom, he places himself between my legs and looks straight into my wide and teary eyes. Fear courses through me at the serio
us expression on his face.

  “Reyna Miracle,” he whispers and drops a soft kiss on my quivering lips. “I love you. You are loved. You are so fucking loved. I’m going to spend every day reminding you,” he groans as he sinks into me and the overwhelming fullness of our bodies connecting and my heart filling with his words brings a shaky sob up my chest. “Your heart is mine to cherish.”

  “Good morning,” Liam says as he catches me watching him sleeping in my bed.

  “Hi,” I smile knowingly. I’m lying naked on my side, facing him, my head propped on my hand. “Although it’s not morning anymore.”

  His eyebrows rise. “Well, we had a busy night.”

  “More like morning,” I giggle and he smirks proudly.

  “You feeling alright?” he asks, rolling onto his side to face me. He props his head, mirroring my position. “You’re not getting squirrelly on me are you?”

  I shake my head confidently. “Not in the slightest. I’m quite comfy actually.” I reach out and push a wayward strand of blond hair off his forehead. It feels intimate and real. I fucking love it.

  “Good.” He snakes his hand beneath the covers and wraps it around my bare waist, pulling me flush against his body. Lying on his back, he drops a soft kiss in my hair and exhales deeply.

  “Nervous?” I ask, feeling a small wave of melancholy cast over us.

  “A bit,” he murmurs into my hair.

  I pull back and look up at him. “I understand. But I plan to make every day easier for you.”

  He nods. “I can take it. I’m big and strong.” He shoots me a cocky smirk and winks playfully.

  “You’re definitely big,” I reply, reaching beneath the covers and gripping his morning wood.

  He groans, dropping his head back against the pillow. “I’ll have you know, this is probably going to be a constant problem for us. We have a lot of lost time to make up for. That will probably mean some serious overtime.”

  I giggle at his cheekiness. “I’m all for putting in the time.” I drop a soft kiss to his chest and then shuffle off of him to sit criss-cross. I pull the sheet up to cover my naked chest and chew my lip worriedly before continuing, “But I really want to talk first. I just…I don’t want this to turn into just sex.”

  “Neither do I.” He frowns, his eyes wide and accusing. “That’s not what I meant at all, Rey.”

  “I know, I get it.” I clutch his cheeks in my hand and drop a reassuring kiss to his lips. I look nervously into his eyes and add, “I want to share some things I’ve been doing the last couple weeks. I started seeing a therapist.”

  He rolls over onto his side and gives me his full attention. “How’s that been?”

  I nod encouragingly. “Good. He’s young and cool and has really opened my eyes up to a lot of things that I knew nothing about.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, back in your houseboat I told you about how I’ve always felt a connection to my sisters, even though they died when we were just babies. He sort of gave me some scientific information that helped me not feel so crazy about all of that.”

  “It’s not crazy to feel connected to them, Rey. They were, and still are, a part of you.”

  I smile at his knowing words. “I know that. I just never understood that type of connection. I didn’t feel deserving of it because of all the self-hate I had going on. As lame as it sounds, a lot of that had to do with my experience as a child and how my mother treated me for being the only survivor. Constantly calling me Miracle and treating me like I could do no wrong. It messed me up. And it’s something I know I’ll have to work through with her at some point, when I’m ready.”

  “You’ll work through it, I’m sure.” He half smiles at me. “I’m glad you’re telling me all of this. At Uni, there was always an agony I could see in you. It was painful to watch. I wanted to be there for you, but you never let me in. Now, everything feels different. What you said to me a few nights ago at the club and the past few days…seeing you fight for me…for us.” He exhales and smiles. “This all feels special, Rey. For the first time, I am seeing that anguish in you vanish. It’s been replaced by hope. You’ve always been beautiful to me. I’ve always been drawn to you. But seeing you completely let go with me…it’s incredible.”

  He drops a soft kiss to my mouth and I immediately pull my lip in as he retreats. The words about my agony at Oxford are true. I was standoffish because of all of the issues with my mother. But she wasn’t the only cause of it all.

  “Liam, part of that agony you saw in me started when you came into the picture and started seeing Marisa.” I look at him cautiously, knowing I’m broaching a painful subject for us. But it’s important to me to be able to talk through it. I need to feel that nothing is off limits for Liam and me.

  With Hayden, we had so many skeletons in the closet and we never spoke of them. I never told him about being a quad or about sleeping with Liam back at Oxford. We never spoke about Marisa, aside from the middle of the night when he’d comfort me after a nightmare. We were best friends and knew so little about each other. I can’t go down that road again with Liam. I need to be truly vulnerable and honest.

  Liam looks down briefly, clearly pained by the memory. “Marisa and I…we loved each other. We did. I loved her, she was impossible not to love. And for a while, I did want to marry her. But when I went to get the ring and the only person I had on my mind was you, I knew there was something so wrong with that.”

  “She deserved better love than that,” I whisper, picking at the hem of the sheet wrapped around me.

  “She did. I may not have gone about things with you the right way, but I just panicked, Rey. The three of us were graduating soon and planning to start a business together. We were going to purchase property in London! I had to know if you were anywhere near where my heart was before I dove into all of that with you.”

  I nod woodenly. “My heart was with you, but I didn’t know it yet. I didn’t know how to process or accept it. I’ve struggled accepting love my whole life because I haven’t had a good example of believable love. But I believe it with you, Liam. More than anyone, I believe it with you.”

  “I see that.” He sits up and cups my face, joining our lips together in our most honest kiss yet. Pulling back, he looks at me intensely with his wide, brown eyes that have always seen what I have failed to see. “Everything about what we’re doing here feels different this time, Rey. And that excites the fuck out of me. I love you. More now than I even did back then.”

  I close my eyes and let the beauty of his words wash away all of my painful sins. Smirking, I open them and shift myself up to straddle him. “Let’s get busy with that overtime. Your words are wreaking havoc on my libido.”

  His lazy gaze drifts down my naked body and I feel more exposed and vulnerable than I ever have in my life.

  And it excites the fuck out of me, too.

  “I’m just not sure this is a good idea, Liam,” I say nervously, while rubbing lotion on my arms in my bathroom.

  “I told you, babe, Theo is happy for us.” Liam comes striding in and slinks his hands around my waist from behind. He gazes at my reflection in the mirror with a smirk. “I mean, bloody hell…how you managed to dazzle him still baffles me. He’s intense. So if he’s supportive, what’s there to be nervous about?”

  “I know, Liam, but I told you…Hayden just got out of rehab. I feel kind of funny parading our relationship so soon.”

  I’ve still heard no word from Hayden. I meant what I said when I told Theo I’d leave Hayden alone if that was what was best for him. Daphney informs me that he’s doing a lot better and the difference in him is positive. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss him and long to see it with my own eyes.

  “Well, not that it matters, but Theo won’t even be there. He ran off to China to chase down Leslie. Who bloody knows when they’ll be back?”

  My brows lift curiously. Theo chasing Leslie to China sounds a bit dramatic. I almost feel bad about the
secret joy of hearing others having similar dramatic bullshit going on in their lives. Not that I want them to break up or anything. It just makes me feel less hopeless when I see that other couples have their own ups and downs, too.

  “I’m just still getting used to all of this. Your connection to them is hard.” I rest my head back on his shoulder and smile sadly. Liam and I have been through so much. I’m nervous about putting more pressure on us.

  Liam sighs heavily, “I know, babe. We’ll work it out. But, tonight should be easy. It’s just family flick night at Frank’s. A movie, some popcorn, that’s it.”

  “Remind me again who all is going to be there.”

  “Finley and her husband, Brody—”

  “Finley, who you’ve fucked,” I blurt out.

  “I never fucked her, Rey!” he growls and nips at my ear. I flinch away, smirking. “You have positively nothing to worry about there. Their roommates, Mitch and Julie, and then Frank, of course.”

  “Frank all by himself?” I inquire, sticking my lip out sadly.

  “Frank’s love life isn’t something I’m really in the know about. He’s not very forthcoming there.”

  “I know, I wonder why that is.”

  Liam shrugs. “Frank’s not my concern. You are. And I need you to know that if Theo and Leslie were going to be there, you know that would be okay. Theo all but gave you his bloody stamp of approval. And I know you and Leslie would get on.”

  I smile at his hopeful expression and turn in his arms to face him. Linking my hands behind his neck, I kiss him passionately, plunging my tongue deep into his eager mouth until both of us start seeing stars.

  Liam growls into my mouth, “If you’re trying to distract me from taking you to Frank’s, it’s not going to work. I know we’ve been working overtime to make up for lost time, but I’m ready to go out in public with you. Show you off. I want to make this shit official.”