Off-Limits Box Set

by Ella James

  I can’t help smiling. “What do you think?”

  She reaches out and thumps my bicep. “Tell me. I don’t know, you goose.”

  “A war,” I tell her, smiling at the audacity of being called ‘goose’. “In 1494, hardly anyone lived here. A few dozen what you might call Irish lived here, descendants of those who came in the twelfth century. There were also several Scottish clans—people who had been here when the Irish arrived, run out of Scotland, most of them. But the Irish and the Scottish Gaels had made their peace, and even intermarried some. And then, in late 1494, the English came, under Henry VII. My family’s clan, the Gaels, was a mixture of wild Scots and the immigrating Irish. They were settled near Clary.

  “The legend goes, my many-times-great grandfather, the leader of the clan, rode across a bridge on horseback, leading an army, and defeated the small group of English. Mind you, they weren’t necessarily here to fight.” I arch my brows, and Lucy shakes her head, smiling.

  “There’s a volcano on the mountain range, don’t know if you noticed, but no one knew at the time it was inactive. My grandfather and his crew wailed on the English, then retreated—screaming about the volcano erupting. So the legend goes, it was a dark day, with very dark clouds. The English bought it, and they made a hasty exit. From that point forward, the other clans revered him. And so he became the King of Gael. His son perpetuated the myth by sucking up to the regional religious powers, which by the time of the fifteenth century did include some Catholics.”

  “So that’s all you are then,” she says, smiling a little. “You’re the descendant of a clever warrior.”

  “You’re telling me you’re not impressed?” I tease.

  “Oh, I’m impressed. But not with your family tree.” She treads closer, swimming right in front of me. Her pink mouth is so close; it looks so soft. Her eyes are fixed on mine, unwavering and…interested. As if she finds everything about me worthy of her contemplation. As if she wants me to kiss her.

  I can’t help leaning in and closing the distance between us.

  My mouth on hers is soft at first, until I feel her hand glide up my shoulder. Then I can’t hold back. She feels so good. She tastes so good.

  We kiss until we’re almost drowning, until our legs are tangled. Until I’m hard as fuck and want to bury myself in her. Christ, I need her. But it’s me who pulls away. I’m aching, my cock pushed against the prison of my boxer-briefs. I can barely keep myself afloat.

  Lucy’s cheeks are flushed, her dark hair tangled all around her face. She’s breathing hard. That’s all I hear as we float two feet apart, just the gentle lapping of the water at our shoulders and our heavy breaths.

  I push a lock of my own hair out of my face and shake my head, trying to think of something that will get my dick deflated. A bead of water rolls down Lucy’s throat, and my cock twitches. “Fucking aye.”

  She reaches for me, her hands closing on my biceps. “You floated away.” She laughs.

  I laugh along with her, even though it’s strained.

  She runs her hand down my chest and looks into my eyes. “I shouldn’t be this way with you. I said I wouldn’t be,” she tells me in a husky voice. “So why am I?”

  I bring her hand up to my mouth and kiss her fingers. “I don’t know, Lucy. Why are you?”

  “I like you…I think.” She looks thoughtful. So thoughtful and cautious, her face makes me want to make her smile. I reach out, thumping her little nose. “You only think?”

  Her cheeks redden, and it’s the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. I stroke her cheek. “Then let me see if I can make you know.”

  I take her mouth again, wrapping my arms around her back while I kick, propelling us both toward the dock.

  Twenty-Three

  Lucy

  This is not good.

  So not good.

  Not good at all.

  That’s all I can think as Liam and I walk hand in hand back toward the tree-houses. His bicep brushes my shoulder as we move.

  I’m wearing his shirt, and Liam is wearing his pants. My clothes are slung over his right shoulder, dripping down his chest and back. I had my underwear on, but they were wet and cold, and Liam convinced me to shed them. His shirt is so long, it covers everything, and anyway, he promises there’s no one on this island right now but the two of us.

  When we first set off from the dock, he noticed me acting shy—I guess that’s how I was acting—and instead of teasing me about my modesty, he looked into my eyes and kissed me lightly on the lips, and since then, I swear he’s been a little softer: the way his big hand curves around my own, the way his gaze searches my face every so often, checking on me—or so it feels.

  When we got back on the dock, he spread me on my back and put his face between my legs. And I let him. I let him pleasure me…because I’m weak. Because his eyes, when they moved up my body to my face, were hot and earnest and they seemed to care. He really seems to care, and it just gets me.

  All I want in life right now is to keep on walking through these woods with him, to catch his eyes on me, to know someone is watching me and cares how I am doing. Not a friend. A man. Because I’ve never felt this way before. I’ve never been with any man who made me feel so cared for.

  That it’s Liam… I’m still stunned.

  I feel nauseated as we near the tree-houses, and I can tell he notices, because he stops, presses his lips atop my hair, then scoops me up and carries me.

  The whole way back, we hardly even speak, and yet it feels…familiar. Comfortable.

  I can’t hold back my nausea anymore, and don’t have time to crack open a ginger ale, so I get sick before I take a quick shower. Thank God he doesn’t know. He’s showering too, on the other end of the tree-house.

  I look at myself in the mirror—still-flat stomach, haunted eyes—then step into the shower and I lean against the wall.

  What do you think you’re doing, Lucy? Do you think he’d feel the same way as he does right now if he knew? If he knew you knew, and that you hadn’t told him?

  I move into the corner, wrapping my arms around myself as steam wafts up around me.

  You’re just like all the other idiots. You want the fairy tale. But you’ve done it backwards.

  This is how you know that you’re hormonal, and a basket case. You make yourself cry with your own harsh words—mostly because they happen to be true.

  I pull on a dress and a sweater, and I tell myself I have to tell him. Dinner. Tell him at dinner, and quit being such a liar, Lucy.

  I rub lotion on my arms and legs and tell myself, He doesn’t really like you. This is just normal for him. He probably does this kind of thing with women all the time.

  The worst thing is, I don’t believe myself. I know he rarely comes here; he said so. The way I feel when he looks at me… I squeeze my eyes shut, finding it impossible to actually believe that he’s like this with everyone.

  He told you about the apps. He said that no one knows.

  So what, I ask myself. He trusts you? You’re trustworthy. Not a gold-digger. That doesn’t mean he’s going nuts over you, the way you are over him.

  Tears well in my eyes, postponing any makeup I might want to put on. I dab at them and eat a ginger snap and allow the evil little voice inside my head to tell me that he wouldn’t want me if he knew. You’re not a prize. You’re the baby mama.

  For some reason, I see Bryce in my mind’s eye. I remember something from the emails that flowed between our family’s lawyers for months before the settlement.

  My client maintains he didn’t rape Miss Rhodes. He had already moved on and was actively engaged with other women.

  And how weird I am—and how pathetic—that that made me feel so awful. Almost worse than I felt knowing I was raped.

  I was with Bryce for years, and he cared for me so little. I got used and hurt and thrown away. What makes me think I’m ever going to not be thrown away and cast aside?

  In my whole life, no one’s ever real
ly loved me, not romantically. The way some people idolized me and the magazines with my face on them: those things almost make it sting more. Lucy Rhodes from TRoC isn’t me. She’s just a figment. A projection. Nothing but a file under the Instagram hashtag LifeGoals.

  My eyes dry, and I brush on some light eye shadow. My hair dries around my shoulders, loose and wavy. I text Am to let her know I’m still alive and doing fine.

  I eat a few more ginger snaps and then I hear a soft knock on my bedroom door.

  “Hey, you,” he says as I stand there in the doorway. His gaze travels down me, then back up. “You look amazing, Luce.”

  His kind words, spoken softly in that low voice, make me want to wrap my arms around myself and run and hide. Since that’s not an option, I fake a smile. Fake it till you make it: isn’t that what everybody says?

  Liam’s arm comes around my shoulders, and he pulls me close to him. “You doing okay?”

  I nod, letting my eyes drift over his bulky shoulders, clad in a long-sleeved plaid button-up, then down to his beat-up khaki shorts. He smells good. The scent of him fills my head as his big, hard body brushes mine, as we walk into the living area and kitchen.

  I smell… “Mmmm. Is that steak?”

  “Kabobs,” he says, looking down at me as we stop at the mouth of the living area. “I didn’t cook them. I just warmed them up.” He winks.

  I can see the curiosity flit across his face as he looks down at me. I never answered his question—and he notices. Damn him. I can see the moment that he tells himself to drop it.

  He unravels his arm from around me, takes my hand, and leads me out a slider door I’ve never even noticed, leading me onto a cozy deck among the tree limbs, thirty or forty feet above the ground.

  And there I find a table set, complete with a candle and cloth napkins.

  “Damn.” I give Prince Liam a big smile as I assess the spread. “Sweet potatoes, bread and steak stuff. Steak kabobs,” I correct my tired brain. “This is pretty damn impressive, I don’t care who cooked it.”

  He gives me this adorable little smile that makes his dimples show, then shrugs, then pulls my chair out.

  As we eat, I have a hot flash and feel sick for just a minute, but my stomach settles down. I wonder, as we talk about Pirate Island and the animals here, and hunting, if it’s a sign from my body that I should just go ahead and freaking tell him.

  …But I don’t.

  I eat, and I watch Liam eat, and I watch him, he watches me; our legs brush underneath the little table. We watch birds and squirrels and shadows crawl across the table from the setting sun. Liam drinks his wine, and I make sure to let him see me take at least one sip of mine, and he remarks that I must really not like wine, and I lie and say that I don’t.

  I tell myself he doesn’t really like me, mostly because he doesn’t really know me. I love wine.

  There’s a gentle breeze. The whisper of leaves moving. After eating, I feel tired. We move inside and start a movie—E.T., because we both loved it as kids—and Liam covers me with a blanket, and I’m going crazy, torn between wanting to rest my head against his warm, strong shoulder and to run from my own quiet cowardice.

  Tell him, I urge myself as his arm goes around me. He’s got his legs up on the couch, and I’m lying between them, curled up on my side, my cheek against his chest.

  “Is this comfortable for you?” His voice is quiet and husky.

  I nod. “Very.”

  His chest rises. Falls. He murmurs, “Good.”

  And that’s our night.

  Liam falls asleep beneath me, twitching a few times and at one point making a strange sound in his throat as I finish the tail end of the movie curled against his big, warm chest.

  When it’s over and I shift carefully off him, headed to pee, his body flinches and his eyes peel open.

  He blinks two times, three, before his heavy-lidded gaze finds my face. “Lucy.”

  “Yep.” I smile. “It’s me.”

  His eyes shift to the TV, taking in the rolling credits before moving back to my face. “Sorry,” he says.

  “For falling asleep?” He shrugs his shoulders, then he wraps his arms around himself. I smile at how adorable he is. I can almost see him watching E.T. as a little kid. “I had fun snuggling. You don’t need to be awake for it to still be awesome.”

  I just let my thoughts pour from my mouth; when I hear them, they sound dumb and over-...something. Overly familiar, I guess. Who am I to snuggle with this guy I hardly know?

  Even still, my words sound hollow to my own ears.

  When I get back from the restroom, I find Liam washing our dishes. I’m drying as he passes them to me when his phone rings. His face tightens as he looks down at the screen.

  He holds up one finger. “I’ll be right back.” I notice that he doesn’t answer as he walks onto the porch. He slides the door partially shut and leans against the wooden porch railing.

  I’ve always been a nosy ass, and I guess I still am, I think as I turn the sink off and position myself in front of the TV, pretending to go through the box of DVDs. Out of the corner of the eye, I can see him clutching the phone. I strain to hear his words as he says, “…tomorrow. So fucking tomorrow. Not tonight.” Followed by, “Yes. I realize that.”

  And then he’s hanging up. I watch covertly as he turns partway around, toward the table, where the wine bottle remains, and takes a long swing, followed by another. He leans his head back, and I see him squeeze his eyes shut in the moonlight. Rub his temples.

  He looks stressed. Unhappy.

  I don’t know him at all, I realize, not for the first time. But I want to. So much that it makes my stomach hurt.

  When he doesn’t come straight inside, I go into my room and stretch out on my cozy bed with a 2013 edition of The New Yorker.

  Sometime much later, I think I hear glass shatter, but I’m so sleepy, I only manage to roll over before I’m back in dreamland.

  Sometime after that, I feel him move me up toward the pillows, feel the blankets meld around my body.

  I don’t know what time it is when the mattress sinks and I feel strong arms wrap around me. I wake fully enough to realize that it’s Liam, and he’s holding me tightly. In the quiet dark, I hear his breathing, feel his breaths come fast and hard.

  I turn toward him, snuggle his chest.

  I stroke his hair. “You okay?”

  From far away, I hear his, “Yeah.”

  We fall asleep together. Every time I move around that night, my body buzzes like the island wind is moving through my veins.

  Twenty-Four

  Liam

  We get back to the castle around noon.

  I have to go to Clary, and I can’t take her with me. I feel a pang at the thought of leaving her here and realize I should probably have her leave the castle. I’m too attached to her already. And I definitely can’t keep her.

  Desire tells me that I can. That it would be okay. That I could keep her safe, and that she wouldn’t mind once she found out. I keep thinking of the way she wrapped her arms and legs around me in her bed last night. How goddamned fabulous it felt. How when the sun rose, I didn’t want to leave—and so I tried with my mouth and hands to keep her there forever.

  At one point, things got so heavy, I was worried we would fuck. But Lucy held back, too.

  I tell myself, as I unload the car, that my feelings for her are one-sided. She’s not as desperate as I am. She’s not as fucked up. She might be sad, she might have been hurt by that fucker Parsons, but she’s strong. So unlike me.

  I don’t deserve her. That’s what I have to keep on telling myself, until it’s time for her to leave.

  For now, I show her to the kitchen, hook her up with Mora, leave her there eating my favorite lamb chops and those fucking whipped potatoes Mora does so well, and go upstairs and call my cousin.

  Heath answers on the second ring. When I ask where he is, he says, “I’m here. Outside. I just saw you—and was that Lucy Rhode
s?”

  “We’ll talk later.”

  “Was that her?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re fucking stupid.”

  “Fuck you. I’m going to Clary. I’ll be back later. If you see her, Heath, you better—”

  “By yourself?”

  “What?”

  “You’re going to Clary by yourself?” he asks.

  “All by myself,” I tell him in a mocking tone, “just like a big boy.”

  “Like hell you are. I’ll drive.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “A lot of ladies want to,” Heath says.

  “I’m surprised there’s no one here.”

  “Tonight. Big party. Show your girl a good time—right before you send her ass packing.”

  I hang up on Heath and return to the kitchen, where Lucy looks about as blissed out as I’ve seen her so far. The sight of her indulging in my favorite meal makes me unable to refrain from grinning.

  “Mora, have Pete show Lucy around when she’s finished.” I grab a lamp chop from the counter, smiling as I wrap it in a paper towel. “One for the road,” I tell the kitchen crew and Lucy. I lean down and plant a quick kiss on her head. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  Outside, I find Heath leaning against the side of his gray Lambo. He scowls in my direction as I walk up to him. When I sit inside, he gives me a damning stare.

  “You really have Lucy Rhodes here?”

  “I didn’t invite her, Heath. She’s visiting the area.”

  “You shouldn’t have let her in the doors.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “This is not smart, Liam.”

  “Did anybody ask you?” I snarl.

  Heath takes off, spinning out before he rights himself and zooms toward the south edge of our property. I unscrew the cap of my flask.

  I drain half of it. Heath chugs too, then we zoom toward Clary.

  Lucy