Chapter Eighteen
Joanna used to think Halikarnassus was a small town. The drive from the Wine Bar to Liam’s house was proving her wrong. It was taking freakin’ forever.
“I’m going to apologize in advance for the state of my house,” he told her. She watched his hands as he drove—how smoothly he held the wheel, the quick flick of the blinker. God, he even drove sexy.
“Cabinet doors ever ywhere?” she teased, mostly to distract herself.
“Didn’t you know that open cabinets are the latest concept in kitchen design?”
“Are they now?”
“Yes. And the doors look very good stacked in my garage.”
And then there they were, pulling into his driveway with the garage full of cabinet doors.
She did not give one iota of a crap about the cabinet doors.
As she followed him up the short path to his front door—watching his butt the whole time, natch—she tried not to think about how much she wanted this. It wasn’t like she’d never had sex before—ha—but she’d never felt such a specific attraction before. Like, if she couldn’t have Liam, she wasn’t going to bother.
That was undoubtedly going to be a problem. Then he fumbled his keys, and as he bent to pick them up, she decided she did not care.
“Just . . . I didn’t know I’d be having company,” he said before he opened the door.
“You’re making it sound like there’s a crime scene in there or something.”
“No, I cleaned up all the body parts. It’s just that bloodstains are hell on furniture, you know?”
“I do. Liam.” She leaned around him and pushed the door open. “I do not give a shit what your house looks like.”
He gave a weak laugh and held the door open for her.
Well, it wasn’t the neatest place she’d ever seen.
But it definitely wasn’t the worst.
And as she looked at the mess, she realized it was mostly records.
“What happened?” she asked, thinking he must have been robbed or hit by a flash tornado or something.
“I decided to rearrange,” he said, walking over to the shelves. He picked up a few albums and put them in a neat pile on the floor.
“I thought they were alphabetical?”
“Yeah. I thought it would be interesting to put them in chronological order, by release date.”
“Oh.” This man had a lot of time on his hands.
“The problem is, only the year is listed, so I had to look up each one to see the exact date to get an accurate picture of a year in records, you know? Then I found that some are reprints, and so the date on the sleeve is not the date it was—”
Because she did not care about how he organized his albums—or at least she did not care right now—Joanna stepped between Liam and his record collection, grabbed his tie, and kissed him.
It was just like she remembered, hot and sure. He took over almost as soon as their lips met, fisting one hand in her hair and tilting her back to get even deeper. She moaned into his mouth and held on.
“Hold on,” he said, his breath coming fast. “Let me make sure my bed is made.”
“Why?” she asked. “Aren’t we gonna mess it up?”
“I don’t want you to have a bad opinion of my housekeeping skills.”
“Liam, until a year ago, I essentially lived in a cargo van. I do not have high expectations for housekeeping. I’m just impressed that you have furniture.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, baby. I just love that big, hard sectional.”
He tilted his head up and laughed. She leaned in and breathed. He smelled like oranges.
“Did you just sniff me?” he asked.
“Shut up,” she replied, and pulled his shirt out of his dress pants, and ran her hands over all that smooth muscle.
“Okay, forget it,” he muttered, and she squealed as she was lifted off her feet. He hiked up her skirt so she could wrap her legs around his waist, and then they were walking, her holding onto his shoulders, and maybe leaning in and smelling his neck a little more. Then she licked it, and she felt him lose his footing. Because she was a jerk, she licked him again, then grazed him with her teeth.
“Why are you wearing a tie?” she asked, and started pulling the knot free. She tossed it aside just in time for him to put her down on the floor of his bedroom.
The bed was not made. But it was big and Liam was reaching under her shirt and kissing her neck, so she did not care. She pushed him off, just for a second, so she could tear her shirt over her head. He grinned and grabbed her, but she held him off.
“Too much shirt,” she said, and started undoing his buttons. He worked on his cuffs, and once they were open he took over, and soon he was just Liam.
It was kind of like in her dream, except in her dream he was slick and shiny, and in real life his pecs were covered with a dusting of hair. It didn’t matter. He looked strong and defined, all those lean runner’s muscles, and she was so busy admiring them that she almost missed him pulling off his belt, then dropping his pants.
Oh, those runner’s legs.
He tilted his head toward her, and she realized that she was unfairly clothed, so she grabbed everything at her waist and pulled it down—skirt, leggings, panties. All of it. Then, just for good measure, she reached around and unhooked her bra.
“Holy shit,” he murmured and stepped closer. “I want to take it slow and savor all of this,” he said, running his hands over her shoulders, her hips, her breasts. “But I don’t think I can.”
She reached for the waistband of his boxers—which were plaid and very dorky—and shoved them over his hips. He hissed a little, but then his cock sprang free and she was too wound up to apologize.
He kissed her again, and she felt it in every inch of her skin, and he lifted her again, but this time he tossed her, right into the middle of his unmade bed.
She wanted to tease him, to scold him, but the look on his face as he loomed over her made her lose all interest in joking around.
“You look so serious,” she panted as his hands moved up her legs, between her thighs.
“I am seriously going to make you come,” he growled, and that made her breath hitch, and then his fingers moved and then he kissed her neck and she tossed her head back and shouted out his name.
She blinked, hard. “Whoa,” she said, because, whoa. “That was . . . Jesus, you really know what you’re doing.”
“Why does that surprise you? Never mind, I don’t care.” He kissed her again, and she felt herself melting into the bed.
But this was no good—he couldn’t do all the work. So she pushed and rolled until she was on top of him, pressing his erection against her belly. His hips jerked and he said “condom” and pointed desperately toward the nightstand, so she leaned over and opened the drawer and there they were, right on top. “Good Boy Scout,” she said, and tore the foil open with her teeth. He opened his mouth and said “Wha—” but before the word was finished she had him sheathed and positioned and she was sliding down, as slowly as her jelly legs would let her.
“Oh, God, Joanna,” he said, and it sounded like a prayer. That wasn’t right; she was no angel. But he put his hands on her hips and she started to move, and his hands moved over her breasts and she felt worshipped. She put her hands on that beautiful chest and ground against him. He grunted in response. She twisted her hips. He cursed. She put her hands next to his head and kissed him and they both gasped. His hands fumbled for hers and he twined their fingers together and she held on as they rode it out together.
* * *
She was out of breath. Totally winded. She needed to start working out if she was going to keep up with Liam. Not that she needed to keep up with him. She wouldn’t be sticking around long enough to keep up with him.
Don’t think about how you just had the best sex of your life with a librarian. That would lead to thoughts of doing it again, and tomorrow, and for many days after that. Many days from now, she would be gone.
But for now, she was here, and Liam was strong and warm and his arms were loose around her waist and his breathing was deep and even. He was probably asleep. He probably wouldn’t even notice that he was cuddling.