Liam

Two weeks later

 

 

 

Claudia was shimmying her tight little ass to the ear-piercing drawls of country music when I walked into the kitchen.

In the last two weeks, we’d talked. A lot. I’d taken my time, my palms callused, not from playing my guitar and writing new music, but because of the number of times I jacked off every day to thoughts of when she’d give herself to me. We laughed, we swam in the ocean, and ate lunch on the beach. We played basketball in the pool, went out to eat in the small local town. I’d taken her out on a fishing tour where she smoked my ass in bringing in a small shark. I was loving every damn thing I was learning about Claudia.

But her taste in music was shit.

“For the love of God,” I groaned, pressing my finger and thumb into my eye sockets. “Can’t we keep the squawking off until I’ve had coffee? Or better yet,” I snapped my fingers, “all the time?”

She turned to me from her place at the counter where she was dicing cantaloupe and muskmelon and smirked. “Sam Hunt does not squawk. He’s swoony.”

I shook my head and stole a chunk of cantaloupe on my way to the coffeepot. “Swoony my ass. I know men who are worth swooning over.”

She laughed. Probably because I was saying things like ‘swoon.’

“Yeah? Who?”

I’d done exactly as I promised her I would two weeks ago. I touched Claudia when I was close to her. When I walked by her, I’d often drag a finger against the small of her back. Tiny touches, gentle ones that always let her know that not only was I thinking of her, but I wanted to sink my dick deep inside her. In two weeks, my fascination with her hadn’t changed a damn bit.

I did the same thing now. With my full cup of coffee, I set it down next to her on the counter and moved in until my chest was pressed against her shoulder. With one fingertip, I trailed a path down the alabaster cream of her throat. We’d spent hours every day in the sun and she barely had a tan. I had a newfound appreciation for sunscreen and the wide-brimmed hats she wore to keep her face and shoulders sunspot free.

“Come on, sweetheart. You have to know other men who are more swoon-worthy than Sam Hank.”

“Hunt,” she corrected with a scowl. I knew Sam. I was just fucking with her because I liked her irritated little looks. “And no. I’m not sure I know a man who’s sexier than him.”

She turned back to her task of cutting up fruit, but I wasn’t deterred. She trembled when I touched her flesh and her lips parted. Eyes went hazy.

“Liar,” I whispered. I was close enough to brush my lips against her ear. Her cheek. It wouldn’t be the first time I did it, but I liked teasing her. I went closer, lips brushing along her ear and her jaw. “You know another man sexier than Sam. Admit it. A rock star, perhaps? Someone who plays the electric guitar, who has tattoos you can never stop staring at?”

She shuddered. My dick hardened. I couldn’t wait until she made those sounds and movements beneath me. On top of me. Below me on her hands and her knees with her eyes blindfolded and her wrists tied to my headboard.

She was turning me into a kinky fucker, but I had nothing but fantasies, and I’d fucking fantasized everything and then some.

“You’re right. Ed Sheeran is pretty hot, too.”

I slammed a hand to my chest and barked out a laugh. “You’re killing me, Claudia. Ed? That ginger? Over me?”

Her own shoulders shook with laughter and she popped another chunk of cantaloupe into her mouth. The juice ran down her fingers and I couldn’t look away. All that sweetness. The juice, her fingers, her lips.

I stepped back and adjusted myself, groaning. “Fuck, sweetheart. What are you doing to me?”

For once, she truly looked innocent. “What?”

I shook my head and scooped a healthy amount of fruit into a bowl for me and grabbed a fork.

In two weeks, we’d somehow settled into some sort of domestic routine I never knew I’d enjoy until I had it.

I woke up early and worked out. Went to my small studio room and worked on music. At some point while I was scribbling lyrics and playing the guitar and keyboard, Claudia woke up. She usually went for a swim in the pool and by the time I took a break from work, she was preparing breakfast for us.

The first time she’d done it, I told her she didn’t have to.

She ignored me and kept doing it so I stopped scolding her. She needed something to do to feel like she was “earning her keep.”

I had to stop myself a dozen times for telling her that contract or not, I was keeping her.

She captivated me. From her classiness to her silliness, every time we explored a part of the island or sat on the beach— talking, because I couldn’t fuck her—she continued pulling me toward her with words and laughter.

Two weeks and unlike any other person in my life, parents and Sophie included, she hadn’t yet annoyed the shit out of me.

“So, are we doing anything today?” she asked, forcing my gaze from my breakfast to her lips. God, I loved her mouth. Her top lip had two perfect points on it, a fuller bottom lip. She hadn’t worn a lot of makeup since we’d been here and she was flawless with pink lips that made me wonder what her nipples looked like when I’d finally get to suck on them.

I groaned and shook my head. “Haven’t thought of anything.”

“Do you have to work?”

“Finished a song earlier. It’ll sound like shit until I get with the band to figure out the accompaniment, though. It’s pretty rough.”

“Can I hear it?”

My brows popped up and my fork full of melon froze halfway to my mouth. In two weeks, she’d never asked to hear my music. I didn’t flaunt it. Perhaps she tried to leave me alone while I did my thing. But I was still beginning to wonder if she even liked my music considering all she blasted was country crap.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Of course. Now?”

Indecision twisted her lips and she looked out the windows behind me. “Or whenever. When will you see the band again?”

“Do you mean when are we headed back to New York?” Anne was on my ass to get back to town and make a damn song that will go platinum, but the longer I was on Anguilla, the more I was appreciating the break from stress and people and noise and deadlines. “To be honest, I haven’t thought about it.”

“But we will go back? Or will we go to L.A.?”

“What’s with the sudden need to have an itinerary?”

She flinched and shook her head. Dumping a few uneaten pieces of fruit into the garbage bin, she then loaded everything into the dishwasher.

“Claudia? What is it?”

“It just feels like I’m hiding. I’ve liked it here, don’t get me wrong,” she said quickly, jerking her head to me. I could see the stress around her eyes, the tightness of her shoulders. “I like being here. I’m just waiting for the other shoe to fall, so to speak. I guess until I know how bad the fallout is going to be, I can’t really relax.”

“So, what? You want to head back? Rip it off like a Band-Aid?” We’d talked about it. Did we leak our relationship slowly? Did we come out as friends first, despite the fact we’d almost always be together? Or did we just act like the couple we were supposed to be—the one I was paying her to be. Fuck, I hated that damn contract.

Despite the way she leaned into me, despite how I knew she was attracted to me physically, and maybe even liked me, I wanted more from her. I wanted something real and with the damn contract hanging around my throat like a noose, I’d never know if she was being genuine or playing me.

“I don’t know, Liam.” Her shoulders fell. Hands mindlessly twisting a rag, I watched her as she stared out the windows over the kitchen sink. She was six feet away from me, but a million miles at the same time.

I couldn’t stand seeing her like that. Since the night we talked about her dad, I’d done everything I could to keep sadness and grief from creeping into her eyes. Pushing off my chair, I walked around the island until I was behind her. My hands settled on the counter just outside her hips. Even though I knew she could see my reflection in the window behind her, she didn’t move. Didn’t react at all to my presence.

And that just wouldn’t do.

I brushed her hair off her shoulder, holding it with one hand so the shorter strands didn’t fall back to her neck.

“What do you want, Claudia?” I leaned forward, my nose at the skin of her neck. I inhaled her sweet scent. She’d started using coconut flavored body wash when we arrived and it was delicious. I’d never be able to look at a coconut again without getting hard. She enraptured me, and I was a man on the edge.

Two weeks of fighting the pull against her and I was exhausted from the constant strain of withholding.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked again, my lips were at her shoulder, bared with only thin straps of a tank top I knew covered her strapless swimsuit. God, she was tempting.

Delicious and mine, even if it was only on paper.

“I don’t know.” She gasped a bit, her voice catching as I did what I’d been fighting against. Tasting her, truly tasting her in any meaningful way. My lips pressed against her shoulder and my tongue flicked her flesh. Salty and sweet, there would never be another taste that compared to this woman. Small and petite, I had to bend down to taste her. Her body was lithe and lean, gentle muscles popped on the backs of her arms as she braced herself. She spent an hour swimming every morning and she’d been in great shape before she arrived. Now, only after being here a short time, there was more definition all over her athletic frame.

My dick urged me forward, to press myself against her backside, to pull her hips back and push her cut off shorts to her feet, followed by the bottoms of her bikini.

“I know what I want to do to you,” I murmured. I was pushing harder than I had yet. But the thought of us leaving here before she gave herself to me? Wasn’t going to happen. “I know what I want to do with you.”

My hand at her hair fell. Strands of her brown hair fell into my face and I closed my eyes and shook off the tickling sensation. My other hand skimmed down her arm until it was over her hands. Curling our fingers together, I held her hand tightly beneath mine. My other was still white-knuckling the counter, fighting the urge to dig into her hips. To spin her around. To lift her and step between her spread thighs before bending to taste her in that same area.

She hadn’t responded, but her body trembled, back straightened as if she was having difficulty fighting against the onslaught of what was happening between us. What would happen between us.

What she’d ask to happen between us.

“What’s holding you back, sweetheart? And what can I do to prove to you how good this could be between us?”

“Liam.”

Her voice rolled my name on a tortured groan, pulled from her like she hadn’t wanted to say it. In the window reflection, I could see her lids had fallen. Pink colored her cheeks and her pulse rapidly beat against the sensitive skin behind her ear. I touched her everywhere I could reach with my lips. Inhaled her scent, the feel of her, the tiny little set of two matching moles she had just beneath her hair at her nape, the only marking I’d seen on her body anywhere. I catalogued every inch of her shoulders and neck, fighting the control, losing it.

“I’ll do anything you want. Just say the word.”

I licked the lobe of her ear, nipped it with my teeth before pressing against her. I was so damn hard I could pound through cement. My abs tightened with the force of not thrusting forward. My stomach ached with the need to move, my ass sore from trying to stay still. She was so damn succulent. Sweet and beautiful and relaxed and way better than anyone I had ever been with before. I was totally outshooting my range with Claudia, despite the millions I had. It wasn’t about money, it was about character and she beat every person I knew.

“Stop, please,” she whispered. Her hand beneath mine flexed. “I can’t. I can’t do this with you.”

“Sure you can,” I said. “I’ll even teach you, and I promise you. I’ll be very patient with you.”