Is Liam turning into a werewolf before my eyes?

He suddenly looks so predatory!

My core is buzzing dangerously in response to the fire of his gaze, the palpable sexual heat emanating from him.

I’m so grateful when the server arrives with our main course.

“Have you changed your mind about a stiffer drink?” Liam asks.

“Nope!” I say quickly, lamenting I can’t relax around this guy enough to have even one drop of alcohol.

“I’m not gonna take advantage of you while intoxicated, you know,” he says with a knowing look in his darkened eyes.

“I’d rather just keep my wits about me.”

“Because you still don’t trust me or my intentions.”

Yup!

But most of all, Liam Cox, I don’t trust me.

“I’d rather keep my wits about me,” I repeat, turning my attention to the food.

My mind keeps going over his words, the sincerity with which he said them.

I believe he truly regrets his actions, that he’s sorry for hurting me as well as sorry for missing out on what we could have had if he’d had the courage to stand up for himself. Or discern better whether he wanted social approval or me more. In any case, he discovered too late he wanted me more than kudos from friends he probably no longer has.

“So will you sing for me, Kiara?” he asks as he slices off a piece of juicy-looking steak.

His eyes are on his plate, and his voice is neutral.

I detect no sexual undertones, so I think he’s calmed down.

“Sure, but I’m not busting a tune right here.”

He half-chuckles. “We’ll find a more opportune moment during the week for sure. How’s your mom?”

The abrupt change of direction throws me for a moment, but I recover quickly, pleased with the change.

“She thinks it’s a terrible idea for me to do this—go out with you.”

“I bet,” he says regretfully. Then he looks at me, smiling.“Does she still look twenty?”

I chuckle a little. “Not twenty, but still pretty young for her age, yeah. Wait, you weren’t into my mom back then too, were you?”

“Kiara, what kind of guy do you think I am? Seriously?”

I shrug carelessly, punishing him a little.

“Pretty much everyone mistook her for your sister rather than your mom,” he says defensively.

“Well, she had me pretty young; she was only twenty. With me being twenty-four and still not quite feeling like I have it all together, I’m not sure how she did it—raised me by herself.”

“Glad to hear you guys are still pretty close,” he says in a way that makes me suddenly realize how little I know about his own family life.

Sure, we ended up talking about a lot of things back then, but besides his brother, he didn’t talk about his family much.

All I knew was that his parents were together and both worked long hours. And he had two siblings.

“How’ve you been holding up out here?” he asks. “You’re living pretty far from everyone now. Have you made a lot of friends?”

“A few, and just one real one—Angel. She’s sort of a celeb in her own right.”

“Oh yeah? How?”

“She’s a YouTube personality, and she makes way more than a living wage doing it.”

I give him the gist of what she does.

He makes no more questionable comments, no innuendos, and the fire I’d seen burning in his eyes earlier has long disappeared.

To be honest, his expression is more like someone I just met in person for the first time, like we got introduced on Tinder last night or something.

He looks totally neutral and I miss the playful familiarity from earlier.

I get the sense he’s trying really hard not to frighten me away—which he almost ended up doing when he looked like he wanted to eat me up all of a sudden.

I want to encourage him to relax, but maybe it’s too easy for him to go from casual friendliness to predatory horn-dog and he’s pulling back for the sake of both of us, to honor his promise to me.

I actually appreciate the effort.

So far, Liam’s been a complete gentleman on the car ride back to my apartment.

“Tell me about your charity,” he says as he reaches into the liquor compartment.

He begins pouring himself a drink.

“I focus on disenfranchised groups—recent wards of the state, in particular. A lot of foster kids don’t exactly get the best start as adults, and once they age out of the system, there’s not a lot of guidance for adult life, so my charity provides education and job training opportunities.”

His eyebrows actually raise.

“Wow. What inspired you to do that? You didn’t have to deal with the foster care system at any point.”

“No, but I met a few people who did. And then a lot of things ended up lining up—I came across this movie on Netflix which sparked the idea, and at some point, I just couldn’t get it out of my head. So I did something about it.”

“I’m impressed, Kiara.”

My lips tug into a smile, my cheeks heating up.

“It is a worthy cause indeed; I’m glad I get to throw money at it.”

My grin widens.

I start to feel self-conscious so I ask, “How’s your family?”

He looks surprised by the question then gives a half-shrug.

“My brother’s good. He’s also annoyingly rich but he’s in a different field altogether. My sister’s still in school, getting her Ph.D. My parents are…good, I guess. Separately. They divorced a few years ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

He shrugs. “They were there for us as best as they could be, and I think they’re both much, much happier now that they’re out of each other’s hair. My siblings and I turned out fine, so don’t feel bad for us; after all, some people never even get to meet their dads,” he says in a softer voice. “Or have you?”

His eyes look so sincere and concerned, I can’t get mad at him for bringing up that sore subject.

“I have not. Still don’t know who he is.” I shrug. “I do suspect my mom does know who he is though. Before—through my childhood and teenage years—I believed whatever story she decided to tell me about him, even though it kept changing. I think she knows I can track him down, that he’s alive, and she’s just trying to make sure I don’t get my feelings hurt; for some reason, she’s pretty sure he’ll reject me.”

“So you’ve never confronted her with your suspicions?”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to hurt her feelings, make her think she was lacking in some way when it came to parenting me. I don’t want her thinking that, as hard as she tried, she wasn’t enough for me. Some of us don’t need full development of the prefrontal cortex to understand how our actions might hurt someone.”

“Ouch. I deserve that, I guess.”

His face is back to neutral, but I get the sense I did actually hurt his feelings.

I feel kind of bad.

“Looks like we’re here,” he says with a distant look, his eyes focused outside the car on my apartment building.

I follow his gaze, my stomach dropping a little now that we’ve reached the end of the date.

I feel like time has flown by—didn’t I just come downstairs and enter this limo for the first time five minutes ago?

But it’s nine o’clock now—we’ve actually been together for over two hours.

As emotionally taxing as this outing’s been—fighting off feelings of anger, resentment, and desire the whole time—it’s too early to be done!

“I can walk you up or we can say goodbyes here—your choice,” Liam says all gentlemanly and with a slight bow of his head.

“You can walk me up,” I say brightly. “Just keep your hands to yourself.”

The corners of his mouth twitch, but he nods and follows me out of the vehicle.

I am keenly aware of his tall, hard body near mine, and I question my decision to let him accompany me the moment our feet hit the first step.

You’re still in total control, I tell myself. He won’t do anything you haven’t allowed him to; in fact, why are you even thinking this? He’s just walking you to the door…

“You smell divine,” he says in a muted sort of way, giving me the brief impression he is exercising great restraint.

But maybe his voice just got lost a little in the slight gust of wind.

Which reminds me that he’s walking behind me while I’m wearing a dress that hits me mid-thigh.

How much can he see?

Don’t be silly—he’s not looking up your dress right now.

My mind keeps yapping a mile a minute while Liam remains quiet behind me.

When we finally reach my door, I turn to him with a friendly smile, but I barely have time to register his stormy handsome face as it descends toward me.

His lips meet mine with a light peck at first, then his tongue sneaks into my mouth while his lips tug at mine, the warm, slender organ probing my insides and causing the slight tingle of interest at my core to grow into an incessant buzz, throbbing with yearning.

I wish Liam could calm that area at the apex of my things a little, slide his large hand down there underneath my dress, maybe even introduce his…

Liam pulls away abruptly, leaving me practically drooling for more.

I hadn’t realized till now that I’d lifted my hands and grabbed the side of his head to hold him to me as we kissed.

“I kept my hands to myself,” Liam says smugly, infuriating me.

I let out a frustrated sound, turning to my door and digging in my purse for my keys.

My panties are wet, my traitorous mound still begging for relief.

“Aw, don’t be upset, Kiki…”

I open the door and quickly slam it in his face, leaning against it.

I stay there panting heavily for a while, and shame hits me within a minute—I wasn’t raised like this!

Even though Liam sort of broke his promise, no matter how toyed with I felt, I should have at least thanked him for dinner and everything before slamming the door on him.

I go to the nearest window and peek outside.

To my dismay, both Liam and the limo are gone.

I pull out my phone.

I apologize for the outburst. Thank you for a lovely dinner, I text him.

It takes a while, and it’s torture waiting for the eventual dots that show up to turn into words, but they come.

The pleasure was all mine, he responds.

I take a deep breath, relieved he doesn’t seem to have taken my reaction too hard.

Part of me wants to stay dressed a little longer, to fool myself into feeling the date’s still going on, I guess, but the slickness between my legs—and the heat of my anger and desire—need the washing away of a cool shower.

Not to mention the lingering feel and scent of Liam Cox on my lips.

If tonight made anything clear, it’s that I still can’t quite trust him.

He is dangerous, and not just because forgiveness brimmed in my heart at dinner after he apologized and sincerely expressed regret to me.

I thought I could keep my emotional distance from him since it’s only a week of ‘dating,’ and not even a full one, but I was wrong.

Liam and I never quite closed the book on our relationship; there are still loose emotional ends to tie up before we can put everything behind us.

At least, that’s what I thought at first.

But instead of finishing the last chapter, it seems we’ve started a new one!

I’m not surprised at all about Liam wanting to get me in bed, but I am taken aback that it seems we are nowhere near done with each other after all this time, and I sense what’s happening here isn’t actually about closure.

But I refuse to become just another notch on his belt—I’m not handing him bragging rights.

I better figure out how to resist him over the next few days or so.

It shouldn’t be that hard if I play my cards right—for example, I know I should never let him inside my apartment, and I should never enter his.

An idea occurs to me.

One way to control where things go between us is to control the atmosphere, the locations.

I gather myself and sit down to make an actual list of rules for the remainder of the week—one that doesn’t allow for the sort of loophole he thought he’d found tonight.