Claudia

 

 

 

Every time Liam brushed his hands along any part of my body, he pulled a string, unraveling me from the inside out. He was always so perfect in his intent and desire along with his control. We hadn’t done anything overtly sexual up until now but he still proved the kind of lover he would be.

Focused. Determined. Patient yet unyielding.

I desired nothing more than to turn around and place my palms on his cheeks, to tug him down toward me and feel our lips brush against each other.

But was it real? Or was it because I was the only woman around?

We shared a lot over the last couple weeks. He acted like he cared. He held my hand when we walked along the beach. He opened doors and waited until I was seated when we ate dinner on the patio until he took his own seat. This was a man who was raised with manners and morals that eclipsed even possibly mine. Yet he was also a performer. He knew how to work a crowd until every woman, man, and sometimes child in attendance was hypnotized by not only his body and his moves but his voice, the way he pulled his lyrics from deep in his gut as if he believed, wholeheartedly, through his soul every single one of them.

He worked a crowd like a king, and he had drawn me into his web.

Standing in front of him now, my breath rioting inside my chest, I played all the scenarios in my head, the visuals I’d thought of late at night when my hands drifted beneath the waistband of my underwear.

I was having a difficult time coming up with reasons inside myself to deny him.

“Liam,” I said, more like a moan being tugged from my throat than a word. I shook my head and it fell forward, baring my neck to him where he did mind-numbingly beautiful things with his lips and his tongue.

“You have these two, tiny little moles, right here,” he murmured, his lips pressing around the marks I knew were there. “They’re enticing. The only part of your beautiful body that isn’t so perfectly pure.”

“I have more,” I gasped as his teeth joined his tongue and he teased the tendons on the side of my neck.

“God, don’t tell me that. I want to find them. Taste them. Suck them.”

Oh Lord. My nipples were painful, hardened peaks beneath my bikini and tank top. They ached to be massaged. Pressure was building everywhere inside me, fanning outward. I arched against him, craving him without realizing I’d done so until I felt his arousal at the small of my back.

“Fuck, sweetheart. You’re killing me.”

I was wearing down. Aroused. More turned on than I could remember being. I’d dated boys. Kissed them and fooled around. My virginity was what I clung to, to push them away, because none of them, not a single boy or college man I’d been with had driven me achingly mad like the man currently behind me.

The man who wasn’t really mine.

The thought chilled me and I shivered.

I wanted Liam Allistor. I wanted his laughs and his touches and his kisses.

I wanted his heart. I wanted whatever we were building to be real.

Unexpectedly, I’d begun seeing past the facade and the rock star persona I assumed he carried with him at all times. In the last two weeks, we’d laughed about his sister. His demon-spawned nephew as Liam called him, though his real name was Kevin Junior after his father. He talked about his niece, Ella Belle, who wanted nothing more than at the age of six to be in a library with the Beast from her favorite movie.

He told me about life growing up outside Kansas City where homes were sprawled on acres and they caused hell in cornfields with bonfires and kegs in the summers.

His life wasn’t so different than mine, just without the loaded expectation to be perfect.

Now, he was simply a man. A beautiful, breath-stopping magnificent man who made it clear he wanted me. At least my body.

But every time I came close to giving in, to allowing him to do all the wonderful things he promised, I remembered that this wasn’t real.

I was a warm, attractive body at his disposal and regardless of how many times I tried, I couldn’t move past the idea that if I gave my body to him, I was no better than a street-walking prostitute, selling my body to pay the bills, even if I had told him that was one of my intentions in begging Karen to take me on as an Infidelity in the first place.

My morals were too strong to be tossed away for a caseload of Benjamin Franklins. Imagine that, my father who did anything for a sick and depraved man in order to earn those Franklins, raised a daughter who still had the ability not to be led around by them.

“Liam, please. Stop.”

He must have sensed the desperation in my voice because the weight of him at my back vanished. Cool air replaced the heat from his chest currently covered in a gray T-shirt with Fender in bright yellow scrawled across the front.

I turned, holding myself up at the counter with my hands curled around the edges of cool, gray marble. When the sun hit it just right, it sparkled like it contained a hint of glitter and something about knowing his sister somehow added glitter to the design of an otherwise masculine and comfortable home always made me grin.

It didn’t now. Now, my heart sank to my knees as Liam backed away from me. His hands tugged at his hair and his head was tipped back, revealing a hint of his black hair above his waistband. And his arousal was clearly evident. Large and bulky at the top of his thigh.

I could barely look away. I stared at the refrigerator behind him and blinked harshly, mentally cooling myself.

“I’m sorry,” I choked.

His expression pained, his lips twisted as he turned and tugged at what I knew was him adjusting himself. “Just give me a minute.” He all but growled the words and my heart sank further. I had been leading him on, knowing every single time he touched me I didn’t know if I could go further.

Yet I hadn’t been honest with him about why. If I were him, I’d be all scowling and growly too, just like he was.

But perhaps there was something I could do to ease his pain, at least the one I’d physically brought on.

I walked toward him, knees trembling and thighs shaking. My nipples were still hard and my fingertips tingled at what I was about to do.

I stopped behind him and slid my hand up the length of his back, to his shoulder and back down to his hip. He shivered and jolted at my unexpected touch and his head turned to look at me over his shoulder. “I told you to give me a minute, Claudia.”

Not sweetheart or princess, the two nicknames he’d donned me with the last couple of weeks.

“I was wondering if I could help you.” My voice shook and my fingertips buzzed like live wires were growing from my nail beds. A thick lump grew in my throat as his brows arched high on his head and then narrowed.

He shook his head. “No.”

“I want to,” I said, already running my hand at his hip toward his stomach.

His hand clasped over mine when I reached the string of his board shorts, tightening my fist beneath his until my knuckles ached. “What the fuck are you doing?”

For two weeks, he’d been nothing but honest. For two weeks, I’d lied to him. It felt shitty. The least I could have done was spurned his advances but I didn’t because I just liked them—and him—so darn much.

My forehead fell to his back, his shoulder too high to take the fall and I shrugged. Tears were already pooling in my eyes because everything was crashing down on me. Life. Him. Desire. Morals. Ethics. Lust for a man who knew how to touch me, multiple times every day, to bring me to this boiling point where I might not have been offering myself to him, but offering to help him instead.

“I’m helping you,” I whispered, straggled words torn from my throat. “I want to.”

I wiggled my hand beneath his. The scratch of his callused palms and fingertips scraped against the back of my hand. And never in my life would I think that would send shivers up my arm to my chest.

“Fucking hell. Why?”

I spilled the truth before I could stop myself. “Because I’m scared of you touching me, but I want to touch you.”

He tightened like I’d slammed him into a wall. Yanking my hand off his, he twisted and grasped me by the shoulders. “Scared?” Ice blue eyes were narrowed, shooting fire and disgust in that way and I realized what I said.

“Not of you. God, no, I’m not scared like that.”

He threw his hands to his sides, dragging my gaze to his erection, still jammed inside loose fitting shorts and God, it looked beautiful.

Is this what he felt like? The unstoppable desire to have his hands on all my hidden places. Every time I fell asleep I still envisioned seeing him in the shower, and dreams would pull me under until sometimes he was standing inches front of me, like he was now, wearing nothing but a thick leather cuff on his wrist and a hand over his dick as he stroked himself in front of me.

And other times the dreams morphed to the day he saw me staring at him and instead of finishing, watching me watch him, he yanked me into the shower with him uncaring and clueless about getting the cover-up I was wearing wet, and he dropped to his knees, threw my legs over his shoulders while pushing me against the glass walls and placed his mouth exactly where I was currently soaking wet.

“Crap on a cracker.” I pressed my palms to my cheeks. Was I that hot? Maybe I had a fever. Maybe I was becoming delirious. It would explain so much.

“I would give you a million dollars to know what just flashed through your mind while you were staring at my dick like you could already taste it.”

I huffed, shook my head and tried to move but he reached out and grabbed me.

“God, we’ve made a mess of today.”

“No mess made, yet.” His voice carried that teasing tilt, the one he used when he read something sexual in my innocent words. “But there’s still time.”

I laughed. He did that to me. Pulled me out of my head and into the present where it was just us and lust and attraction. But was it enough? In the solace of a private beach and a fancy home on a secluded island, maybe. But back home? In the real world?

“What are you scared of?” he asked. Liam tugged me to him slowly, giving me time to pull away but I went with him, stepping until my chest brushed against his and I was tilting my head back and looking at him.

So beautiful. Chiseled and strong and a few lines that showed not his age, but the stress he carried with him. I reached up and brushed my thumb across a visible line on his forehead.

“You,” I whispered. I wet my dry lips with my tongue and started over. “Every time you touch me, it scares me. It makes me want to…” Good grief. Prim and proper princess couldn’t even say it to him. Not with his lips lifting at the corners of his mouth. Eyes twinkling.

“Want to, what…fuck?”

He stepped forward. I was still pressed against his chest and then I was sandwiched between him and the island.

“No. Not fuck.” I squeezed my eyes closed, visions returning I didn’t want. Not then. But they couldn’t be stopped. “You know what I meant, Liam.”

“I know. But you’re sexy as hell when you blush.”

“You’re horrible.”

“I’m not.” And he sounded like he meant it. Like he was so certain of the man he was and it only left me more befuddled, because who in the hell was I without the Townsend name and privilege?

“I know you’re not. You’re a good guy.”

“Geez. Call me nice, next. That might make my dick finally go soft.”

“You’re…” I glanced down. Couldn’t be helped. And yep. He was still hard. I looked over his shoulder. “Wow.”

“That’s more like it. So tell me why you’re scared. I’ve got nothing to do today besides hold you right here until you start talking.”

He would do it, too. Last week, I refused to choose which movie to watch. He wanted action. I wanted romance. Typical. Instead, he sat on the couch, remote pointed at the massive television in his theater room, but his gaze didn’t leave me. It took ten minutes until I cracked and named something. Felt like a millennium. If anything, he was stubborn to his very sexy and built core.

Blowing out a breath, I tried to erase all my thoughts, all my fears. But I wanted him to see them. To see what a mess I was. Who knew, maybe he’d run so far me cashing in my V-Card wouldn’t be an option.

“Every time you touch me, I want you. But when I think of giving in, I think of you paying. And then I just feel….icky.”

His chest froze when I mentioned paying and didn’t relax when I was done.

Slowly, his head fell to mine. His lips at the top of my head, his nose brushed against my hair and his hand still holding my arm swept to my back.

He was hugging me. Cuddling me even though we were on our feet, and he stood there, saying nothing, just our heartbeats, mine pounding in my ear echoed his I felt against his chest. And at my stomach…his cock hardened.

I pushed my hand between us and his breath went ragged as I cupped him. Felt him for the first time, and even behind clothing, I could feel him twitch in my grasp. He turned his head, his cheek against the top of my head and he groaned. “Claudia.”

“I want to do this.” I ran my hand against him. He was thick. Long. It pulsed in my hand again and as Liam groaned again, power surged inside of me.

This man had a stable of women he could use to get off whenever he wanted. I was certain of it. Last year, he was listed on Forbes’s Top 10 Highest Paid Entertainers. He made more millions in a year than I’d see in a lifetime. He had groupies and fan sites and millions of followers on social media accounts. I knew that because I was one of them.

I was just me, messed up and broken, and hiding so many important things. Yet I was doing this to him.

“Please,” I whispered, my voice shaking out the plea.

His hand tangled in my hair, gripping it fiercely, but he said nothing except trembled as I held him firmly in my hand, stroking.

I took his silence as acquiescence and slid my hand to the ties at his waist, tugging the string slowly and giving him time to pull away but he didn’t. Instead, his breath skated across my skin, his head tilting until his lips were at my ear.

“Fucking hell.”

I grinned against his chest, kissing his covered skin.

His shorts untied, he let go of me just enough to shove his shorts to the floor and I saw him. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away from the vision of his hard, thick— and holy hell—really long cock as it stood between us.

My hand wrapped around him, feeling the hot, pulsing weight in my hand and I shivered.

“You’re going to have to move that hand, sweetheart, or I’m going to come just from you staring at me.”

I wanted to see into his eyes, watch the tightness in his features of his face as I slowly began pleasuring him, but my gaze stayed fix on my hand as I moved it slowly toward the tip, sliding my fingers around the ridge of his head, the tip as pre-cum leaked from him and onto my fingers.

He was so beautiful. I wanted to yank off his T-shirt so I could watch his stomach tighten, explore the hair on his chest, and kiss his ink, embed the taste of him into my brain.

“You’re perfect,” I said, “And you feel so good.”

I stroked and pulled, teasing light touches and harder, intentional ones, keeping him off-balance with my rhythm while he groaned. He rocked into my hold and his hand in my hair gripped me fiercely.

“Claudia,” he groaned, sending vibrations from my ear to spine, and further south. I was wet. Hot. Flushed and a bit sweaty but I couldn’t stop myself from doing this. It felt too good. It felt too right. “Let me touch you.”

My movement on him faltered and I closed my eyes at the thought. The vision. In his kitchen. Exotic island. Touching each other before we’d cleaned up from breakfast.

I nodded my head faintly, too speechless to answer. His hand pressed between us, to my inner thigh, beneath the hem of my cut-off sweats that barely covered my ass and then he was there. Two thick, callused fingers pushed into my bikini from beneath, rubbing against me through my fabric.

“I can feel how wet you are.”

“You can take them off,” I gasped as he hit the right place.

“I get you naked and my dick won’t be in your hand anymore. It’ll be inside you.”

I was an idiot for my outburst earlier. I should have taken him. Should have let him do all the things he wanted to teach me. Patiently.

I didn’t want patient and kind and gentle. With him throbbing in my hand, pre-cum leaking and his balls pulling tight, he was already close.

I was closer. My hips jerked against him, and his hand on my hair moved to my ass, holding me tightly against him while I fought the overwhelming sensation.

“Shit, sweetheart,” he grunted as I slid my hand down his length to his tip. He swelled beneath my touch. Our breaths went erratic. Both of our chests were heaving and every time he brushed against my clit, tiny, needy sounds escaped my throat. I stared at the vision. Two arms, tangled together, hands moving. Hips rocking.

Giving myself to him fully would be the things fantasies were made of. I pictured it, him sliding his thickness into me for the first time. Taking me. I lost the hold. My climax hit me hard and fast and right as I began to come, he followed me. Spurts of creamy liquid fell into my hands, hit my stomach, my shirt, and my shorts. I forced my eyes to stay open, watching everything as he continued his flicking, pressing, pushing against me and I collapsed against him, shivering from the onslaught and the suddenness of it all.

I was wrong before.

Liam touching me didn’t scare me.

Liam Allistor terrified the hell out of me and everything he made me feel. But it didn’t matter what we said here or for the next year. He would never be fully mine.

I was already promised to another, and I still knew that at some point, he was coming to collect.