Chapter Seven
As the storm raged on around the little garage, and the power continued to not come back on, Kayla could only sneak little glimpses at Liam as he double-checked to make sure all of his machinery was unplugged.
There’d been a little moment at the window there, almost like . . . She had to be fooling herself thinking for even a second Liam had been looking at her in a considering kind of way. They’d had plenty of interaction in their lives and he’d never looked consideringly at her.
Of course, the Liam Patrick she’d thought she’d known was not this Liam Patrick. Very near artistic, no matter how masculine his materials were. Romantic, even if it was because lovespoons sold.
It wasn’t as if she’d ever thought him hideous. The Patricks were a handsome lot. She’d just always been dazzled by Aiden because he paid attention to her.
Now Liam was paying attention to her and she was dazzled by him, and maybe the problem was not the Patrick men, but Kayla herself. What did it say about her if she was easily swayed into liking one or the other simply because they gave her a few minutes of their time?
She frowned. This whole figuring herself out thing was neither fun nor comfortable, but it was necessary. So maybe she should stop thinking about either Patrick brother as a possible romantic entanglement.
“We got them all,” Liam announced, standing from the crouch he’d been in to check the last outlet.
She turned her phone to him, her light illuminating his face. He held up a hand to shield his eyes.
“Hey, careful where you point that thing. I feel like I’m in an interrogation room.” He grinned. “No, officer, I swear I had nothing to do with the blackout.”
Her stomach swooped, something a little giddy working through her, much against her will. She could order her brain to be sensible and careful, after all, but her body seemed to react of its own volition to Liam. Especially grinning, joking Liam.
She’d had no idea something like that existed, but it was easy to see he relaxed here in his workshop. Maybe he’d even relaxed around her because they’d spent some time together. Or because he’s seen you puke. Well, that too. Maybe, when it all was said and done, Liam was just shy and all those years she’d thought he’d looked at her with disdain he’d just been uncomfortable.
“Well, I think painting may have to wait until another day. Last time the power went out it took them something like ten hours to get it back.”
“Oh, okay.”
“It does look like the rain stopped,” he offered, peering out the window. “I, um, if you want to come inside, I have a book you might like to borrow.”
“A book?”
“It’s about lovespoons,” he said, his gaze still on the window. “The origin and the symbols and all that. If you’re interested, that is.”
“Oh, that sounds great,” she said, trying to stop herself from grinning stupidly. She found the concept of lovespoons fascinating, almost as fascinating as she found the man Liam was turning out to be.
He flicked a glance to her, and in the faint glow of their phones she couldn’t read the expression on his face, but something in her stomach swooped again.
“Okay, let’s go before it starts up again.” He walked over to the garage door and pushed it up and over. The wind howled and the sky had an eerie tint to it, dark clouds making it seem almost midnight instead of seven or eight o’clock.
Liam pulled the garage door down and locked his padlock. “Don’t think the storm is done yet, do—”
Before he could finish his sentence, the sound of rain pounded toward them and then it was upon them. A hard, relentless downpour soaking through her clothes and hair in a matter of seconds.
“Inside,” Liam yelled above the din, taking her hand and leading her at a jog toward his house.
She followed, a laughter bubbling up from somewhere. Liam’s hand was big and warm and rough, and her flimsy shoes splashed through the mud and puddles of his yard.
He hurried up the porch steps, but for a second Kayla stood in the rain, soaking in the cold downpour, listening to the roaring sounds of droplets on concrete. It smelled like spring, and spring was all about renewal. Rebirth.
Wasn’t that what she was after? A new birth, a new Kayla? Or maybe not so much new as a bright colorful blossom from a brown, dull stalk that had been hiding in the underbrush, but no more.
No more.
“Are you coming?” Liam asked. He’d flipped on his porch light and he was bathed in a faint yellow glow in the middle of this dark world.
Thunder boomed and lightning flashed in the sky. The wind started blowing the rain harder into her face, and she thought she might remember this moment and this feeling for a very long time.
Still, she walked over to the porch and stepped up under the overhang of his house. Water dripped from every part of her body—hair, nose, fingertips. “You better not let me into your house. I’ll drip everywhere.”
“You’re old hat at wearing my clothes at this point. We’ll get you a towel and some dry clothes to change into.” He stepped inside, tugging his shoes off and tossing them onto a rumpled rug in the entryway corner. There was a pair of scuffed work boots already haphazardly on top.
Kayla followed suit, pulling her shoes and socks off and placing them a little more neatly next to his.
“I’ll grab you a towel,” he offered. He crossed his darkened living room quickly, heading to the hallway she knew led to his room. She nearly squeaked when he lifted his shirt up as he rounded the corner, as though making a move to taking it off. She didn’t realize she was leaning to keep a glance of his now bared retreating back until she bumped into the wall.
She righted herself, pressed a wet, chilled hand to her hot cheek. Okay, so if she was operating under New Blossom Law, then maybe she said something about the shirtlessness. And wanting to see it. Maybe she went ahead and kissed him or said something outrageous.
Yes, she would do any or all of those things.
Except when he returned, towel and a bundle of clothes in hand, a camping lantern in the other, she could only manage an odd squeaking noise.
If he noticed, he didn’t say anything about it. He simply put the clothes and lantern down on a little end table and handed her a towel. “Here. Dry yourself off, then help yourself to the bathroom to change. Let me know if you need anything else. Do you want something hot to drink? I think I have hot chocolate mix around here somewhere.”
“You are full of surprises,” she murmured, rubbing the towel over her face and hair.
“Are you insinuating a single man in his early thirties shouldn’t have a chocolate beverage mix in his pantry?”
She couldn’t stop herself from grinning stupidly at him. “Everyone should have a chocolate beverage mix in their pantry, Liam. But few men realize it, I think,” she said as faux seriously as she could manage.
“I’ll have you know, hot chocolate can be very manly,” he returned, crossing his arms over his chest. She remembered suddenly and out of the blue watching him fix a sink in the Gallagher’s kitchen once. She’d been transfixed by his muscled, working arms.
But then Aiden had swept in and told her an outrageous joke and she’d forgotten all about Liam’s arms.
How, she wasn’t quite sure. Maybe teenage girls didn’t understand the appeal of a broad chest and strong forearms and . . .
Okay, so she had to get her head in the game. Ogling only led to embarrassing squeaking.
“Manly hot chocolate. Is that the difference between using jumbo marshmallows and miniature marshmallows?”
He made an odd noise, and it was only that which offered any hint to the way that could be misconstrued. Her face flamed hot and surely bright red, but no matter the embarrassment a giggle escaped her mouth.
Ask him if he’s a jumbo or a mini man himself, some unknown voice in her head whispered, but the thought only made her giggle more and turn what was surely an even brighter shade of red.
“I’m going to go change,” she squeaked, holding the towel somewhat over her face as she grabbed the clothes and scurried down the hall. She got to the door that she hoped she was remembering correctly as the bathroom door. She darted a look over her shoulder and Liam was standing there with the lantern in his hands, illuminating everything around him.
Watching her. Some expression on his face she still couldn’t read. Something that reminded her a little bit of years spent watching him work in her family’s restaurant. Stiff, blank, maybe a little aloof.
But when his gaze met hers, she didn’t think those blue eyes were any of those words. No, there was something warm, something . . . magnetic in his gaze.
Hot. He didn’t break it either. They stood on opposite ends of the hall, staring at each other. Kayla’s heart hammered hard against her rib cage, her pulse a noticeable thud in her throat. What would happen if she forgot about the change of clothes and just walked back down the hall. To him. What if she did all the things this more honest version of herself wanted to do?
“I’ll make that hot chocolate,” he said gruffly, and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving her in an eerie dark.
She let out a long breath and stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. As she peeled off her sopping wet clothes in the dark, she tried to find the courage within herself to do something for once.
* * *
Liam didn’t know what the fuck his problem was. One minute things felt very close to easy. Friendly and joking. He relaxed around her in ways it usually took him months to relax around a person.
At least when he wasn’t looking at her. Relaxed wasn’t quite what he’d felt watching her stand in the rain, her clothes plastered to the subtle curves of her body. Easy was not the reaction his body had felt as she’d held eye contact with him down the hallway, her cheeks faintly flushed as though . . .
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in and a deep breath out. Yes, he was attracted to her, and maybe she was even attracted to him, but he’d played this game enough in high school to know he didn’t want any part of it.
It seemed as though he and Aiden were always interested in the same women when they were in the same social circles. Liam wasn’t stupid. He knew where any contest ended when it came between him and his brother.
Plenty of women liked the dependable guy well enough, but when the charming, exciting guy came along, it was hard not to want to be part of all that dazzle. Liam couldn’t blame them. Aiden was like the sun, all bright and warm and engaging. People flocked to him.
Liam didn’t want to be that guy. He didn’t want to compete with Aiden, and he’d promised himself a long time ago to stop trying to be something he wasn’t. He would always be dependable, responsible Liam Patrick, not just because he had to be, but because that’s who he wanted to be.
How Kayla Gallagher wanted to make him forget that promise to himself was beyond his ability to reason through.
He pushed it all away. Maybe there’d been a moment. Maybe there hadn’t. It didn’t matter because he wasn’t playing a game. He was a person. She was a person. They liked each other’s company and she had the oddest interest in his wood . . .
Woodworking. Woodworking.
He shook his head to try and get his brain to clatter into functioning in its usual, reasonable by-the-book way. He lit candles and pulled out the little backpacking stove he’d never actually used because he was always too busy to actually go backpacking.
He went to the sink and filled the little camping pot with water. It would be something of a process without electricity, but it was better than letting his thoughts dwell too much on wet Kayla.
“You don’t make it with milk?”
He turned to face her in the entrance of his kitchen. She wore one of his T-shirts, just a plain navy blue that seemed to make her skin glow. Or maybe that was the candlelight. She had some of his sweatpants on, clearly tied as tight as possible and still a little baggy on her and definitely too long.
He could spend eternity watching her in his clothes.
“Uh, no, princess. When you’re watching your pennies, you make hot chocolate with water.” He walked over to the little backpacking stove he’d set on his counter and tried to look like he knew what he was doing.
“I paid you ten dollars for that bear,” she said, moving next to him in the kitchen. “You could buy a gallon of milk or two. But watery cocoa is fine, as long as there are plenty of marshmallows. And if you tell me I can drink it without marshmallows, I’m going to have to call you out.”
“Call me out?” he replied, his lips curving in spite of himself. She said the strangest things sometimes.
“Like a duel,” she replied, matter-of-factly. The corners of her generous mouth quirked, though she clearly fought valiantly for a serious expression.
“And how does one duel in the twenty-first century?” Liam asked, stirring chocolate mix into one mug and then the next.
“Hm.” She tapped a finger to her chin as though considering. “Cage fighting?”
He barked out a laugh. “I am fresh out of cages.”
“You better have marshmallows then.”
It was his turn to fight for a serious expression when all his mouth wanted to do was grin at her.
Oh, that’s not all your mouth wants to do where she’s concerned. He turned to the pantry, as much to keep his mind off his dick as to get the bag of marshmallows he hoped he had somewhere.
He rummaged around until he found a half-eaten bag in the back. He gave them a test squeeze, happy to find them not stale, then turned back to her.
He was never quite ready for that punch, no matter how many times in the past few days he’d turned to find her in his house, in his space. It was a jolt every time. A little zap of electric current, like touching an exposed wire.
“Marshmallows,” he managed, lamely holding out the bag.
She pulled her bottom lip through her teeth, slowly and very, very distractingly, and then on a deep breath she moved toward him.
She took the bag and then set it down on the counter. She took a deep breath, odd and out of place, as though she had to build up the courage to drink some hot chocolate, which didn’t make any sense—
Then she stepped closer. Close enough that their toes were practically touching, close enough that she had to tilt back her head to meet his gaze. Close enough that if he didn’t meet her gaze he could see the faint points of her nipples through the thin fabric of his T-shirt that she wore.
She stood there, close, her breathing a little shallow and her hands moving out as though to touch him, then falling abruptly to her sides, then inching closer again.
He was rendered speechless and possibly motionless for a few seconds. She was standing practically pressed against him, apparently nervous and uncertain and what else could she be possibly thinking but . . .
It baffled him that she’d have any reason to be nervous about making a move on him. Didn’t she know he’d fall at her feet a million times over?
If she didn’t, then he supposed it was his job to assure her of it. He was a fixer after all.
He cupped her cheek, letting his fingertips explore the cool, soft texture of her skin. He stepped closer, widening his stance so that she fit against him, her legs between his, her chest against his.
His body thrummed with that current, that zip of life and power and spark. He lowered his mouth, slowly, giving her all the chances in the world to—not retreat exactly. His hold on her face wasn’t going anywhere, but she had the chance to say something, to ward him off.
She didn’t use that chance. His mouth touched hers, something unknown shuddering through him. Something unfamiliar flickering into life. A warmth, a centering as though he’d been waiting for just this. Always.
Which didn’t make any sense, but what did make sense was the way her body fit against his, the way her arms tentatively and then tightly wound around his neck. The way her mouth opened under his, a wet hot invitation to invade.
Which was not an invitation he’d decline in any universe. He swept his tongue over her lips and into her mouth, drowning in a flavor he’d never even let himself guess at.
Kayla Gallagher tasted like summer-sun-soaked berries. Sweet and warm and a bright, a delectable contrast to every damn dreary thing in his life.
She made some sound, a moan or sigh, and it made the hand on her cheek not nearly enough. He stroked one palm down the soft, elegant curve of her neck, let his other hand tangle in the wet red waves of hair—a shining beacon on a woman who’d always seemed so bent on hiding.
Until recently, anyway. She’d been the one to invite herself here, to step forward, and he may have been the one to kiss her, but it never would have happened if not for her first move.
It should feel dreamlike, but instead her body was a warm, delicious reality against him. He smoothed his palm down her spine and she arched into him, and there was no way she could miss the hard ridge of his erection against her midsection.
Would he feel the same response from her? If he tugged off his own sweatpants from her body and slid his hands between her legs, would she be as wet for him as he was hard for her from just a kiss?
His hands itched to do just that, to slide over her ass to the front of her pants and undo the flimsy knot that kept him from knowing.
She licked into his mouth, pressing more firmly against him, her fingers rifling through his hair, and it took every ounce of reason and restraint to keep his hands above her clothes.
Not everyone leaped ahead like he did. He’d been made aware of that a few more times than he cared to remember. Women always seemed to find him a little too something—his high school girlfriend had found the fact he had hair on his chest “problematic.” His last girlfriend had decided after a few months that he was just too “traditionally masculine.”
And everything he wanted to do with Kayla was very, very traditionally masculine. He wanted his cock inside of her and his mouth all over her skin. He wanted to know what every inch of her tasted like, and he wanted to hear her scream his name.
“Liam.” It was a whisper, but it was damn good enough.
Her head had fallen back and her eyes fluttered open, that dark blue meeting his gaze with a dazed kind of satisfaction, but it was the way her mouth curved into something very close to a self-satisfied smirk that just about did him in.
He splayed his hands on her lower back, sliding them over the curve of her ass, pulling her closer, settling the length of his erection between her legs and giving a little thrust.
Her head fell back even farther and she sighed, fingers digging into the back of his neck. She was stunning, the length of her pale neck exposed and glowing in the light of the candles and the camping lantern, her hair waving out of the braid she’d haphazardly put it in as it dried from the rain. Her eyes were half closed, though she watched him carefully.
He wanted to scrape his teeth across her neck. He wanted to grip his hands into her red shimmering hair. He wanted to do a million things that would probably be deemed too much.
So he settled himself on the least too much course of action he could think of. He held her gaze as he moved his hands to the front of her pants and found the tie. He tugged the string loose. She didn’t move, didn’t break eye contact, just looked at him, her arms still around his neck as the fabric fell to the ground.
She made another one of those noises, something that almost reminded him of a cat purring, as she trailed her fingertips down his chest and abdomen. She tugged at the hem of his shirt, lifting it as far as she could manage before he had to help her get it over his head.
It fell to the floor with her sweatpants. She inhaled sharply and for a second of intense disappointment, he was certain this was the moment where she decided it—he—was that little bit too much.
Instead, she reached out and put a palm to his chest, her fingers splaying across the hair there, then following the trail down to the waistband of his shorts. She paused, her eyebrows knitting together as if contemplating something of grave importance.
He wanted to touch her, feel the rough of his hands against the soft, creamy skin of her thighs, the hot wet center of her, but he willed himself to give her a second to figure out whatever problem she was trying to solve.
On another one of those courage-rallying deep breaths, she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the center of his chest, and then higher, then where his beard met neck, and then his mouth, just a gentle brush of her berry-flavored lips, even as her fingertips moved softly across where his shorts hung on his hips.
She looked up at him through thick, burnished-gold lashes. “I don’t suppose you have any condoms?” she asked, her fingers dipping under the waistband of his shorts, teasingly far away from where he wanted them.
“Um, no.” Though he’d run out and get some first thing in the morning without hesitation. “But we do have hands and mouths,” he offered, a little too drunk on her proximity, on her taste, on how fucking gorgeous she was to care about anything being too much.
Her entire hand slid under his shorts and boxers, her cool, slim fingers wrapping around his throbbing cock. “I suppose that’ll do,” she returned with mock seriousness, before flashing him a grin.