“Oh, shut up. All I’m saying is, for a long time . . .” Though, now that I think about it, his lawyer hasn’t emailed me in . . . weeks. Months, maybe? “Oh my God. Liam, are you broke?” I lean forward. “Is it the stock market? Have you gambled away all your money? Have you bet the entirety of your savings on the U.S. male soccer team winning the World Cup and only belatedly realized that they didn’t even qualify? Have you become involved in a LuLaRoe pyramid scheme and can’t stop buying new leggings—”
“Are you drunk?”
“No. Well, I had some of your wine. A lot. Why?”
“You get annoying when you’re drunk.” There’s a hint of a smile in his eyes. “But cute.”
I stick my tongue out. “You’re annoying all the time.” And cute, too.
Liam’s smile widens a little, and he looks down at his feet. Then: “Good night, Mara.” He turns around and heads for his room. The yellow light of the lamp casts a warm, golden glow over the breadth of his shoulders.
“By the way,” I call after him, “I bought a new creamer. It’s cinnamon. You’ll hate it!”
Liam doesn’t answer and doesn’t pause on his way out. I don’t see him until the following night, and that . . .
That’s when it happens.
Thirteen
Present
The weirdest part is how quickly everything changes.
One minute, I’m in the middle of cleaning up the kitchen, wondering whether the smoothie blender is dishwasher safe, thinking about my ongoing pining and my upcoming move, about how much I’ll miss this—coming home after work, finding twelve forks and a colander in the sink, wondering how many of them are Liam’s.
The next, he is standing behind me. Liam Harding is standing right behind me, on purpose, and pressing me into the counter. As though he wants to be here, close, touching me, as much as I want him to be. I am too stupefied to do anything about the water running in the kitchen, but he leans forward to turn it off, and all of a sudden the room is silent.
His hand closes around my hip, and I cannot think. I cannot comprehend what is happening. I’m breathing. He’s breathing. We’re breathing together—same rhythm, same air—and for a moment I just feel it. This. It’s nice. It’s good. It’s what I’ve been wanting.
Then he shifts my hair behind my shoulder; uncovers the base of my throat. I feel something—teeth, maybe?—grazing at my skin.
“Liam?” I half moan.
“It’s me.” He is kissing me. There. “Is this okay?”
I’m nodding—Yes—to what, I don’t know. Yes, you’re Liam. Yes, this is okay. Yes, I’m about to melt to the floor.
“You smell so good, Mara.”
Thank God for the kitchen sink to hold on to, because my knees are about to give out. Thank God for Liam’s hands, too. Except that one is sliding under my shirt. I’ve never thought of myself as dainty, but it somehow manages to cover my entire torso, and his thumb . . .
It’s brushing against the underside of my breast, and—
Oh.
He licks the pulse in the dip of my throat, and I’m mortified to hear myself whimper.
“You are so soft.” His breath is hot in my ear, and I shiver. Exactly once. “I think I imagined you wouldn’t be. You’re always running, working out. You always look so strong, but . . .”
He lets go of me for a fraction of a second, and every single cell in my body revolts at once.
No.
Wait.
Stay.
But he’s only adjusting me. His hand presses on my lower back, angling me just so: slightly bent forward, like . . . God, like he’s about to—
He’s back on me immediately. Begins to undo the zipper of my jeans, the catch of it like a drum in the silence. Air rushes out of my lungs in a sharp exhale.
“Okay?” he asks again, soft, deafening, and it is okay. Even if my jeans are sliding down my thighs, and I have never, ever felt less in control. I think we’re about to have sex, but sex is not like this. Sex is awkwardly pulling off clothes, and negotiating positions, and hours of foreplay peppered with Are you sure you shouldn’t be on top? and Wait, that’s my elbow. Sex is not going from zero to a million this way. Not for me. It’s not gripping the edge of the sink to stop myself from moaning, or needing to grind against something—anything—or feeling my knees weaken to jelly.
“Is this what you wanted, Mara?” He slides a finger under my panties and parts my folds. One single finger. “What you— Oh.”
For a moment, I panic. I cannot possibly be wet, not yet. But then I realize that I am, and I can feel it and hear it, the slick slide of skin against skin, my own body already beginning to flutter.
And Liam makes it clear that he likes it. “You,” he grunts into my ear. “You wouldn’t believe it, the things I’ve thought about doing.”
“The . . . ?”
“Is this how you wanted it?”
“Wanted . . . what?”
“You said you wanted to be fucked. Hard and fast.” Did I say that? I can’t recall. I can’t remember my own name, and then things get even worse: behind me, he goes on his knees. What is he—？ “Off.” Liam tugs at my jeans and panties until they’re pooling around my ankles, then tosses them on the other side of the room once I’ve stepped out of them. “Good girl.”
I gasp. Did he just say that? To me? But I can’t ask him to repeat himself, since he clearly got a little distracted on his way up. His hand travels along my inner thigh, long fingers grip the soft skin of my backside. It occurs to me in that moment that I am now bare. Completely naked except for a flimsy T-shirt and an even flimsier bra. And that this person softly biting into the flesh of my ass as though I am a piece of ripe fruit, this person is Liam Harding.
Liam. Harding. Who touches me as though he already knows my body. Who spreads me apart like I’m a law school book and buries his face into me. Who groans into my flesh and mutters, “Sorry.” He manages to sound genuinely apologetic as he pulls back to lick and suck the skin of my right buttock. “I know you want it hard and fast. Just, I think about this a lot. About you.” A heartbeat, and he’s on his feet again, chest pressed against my back. One hand tightens sweetly around my hip, and he pushes a knee between my legs, until most of my weight is resting on his thigh. I hear vaguely obscene sounds: something clinking, something fumbling, something being shoved aside. Then it’s hot flesh pushing against mine and a murmured, “Okay?” that I must have nodded to, because—
Friction.
My vision blurs around the edges. Liam is inside me. Barely. Just the tip. He’s also enormous—no room, no room—relentless, lovely, magnificent. Deep.
“Fuck, Mara. This is unreal.”
There’s a lot of harsh breathing, and “Just a bit more,” and tight muscles clenching and releasing, but he bottoms out, and it’s just this side of too much. It would be too much, but it helps that Liam holds on to me like letting go would kill him, and that his fingers are unsteady as he pushes my hair away from my shoulder. But my body seems to be into this, unused, hidden spaces stuffed full, fluttering around . . . God.