Chapter Thirteen
Kayla knew it was silly to fuss. After all, Liam wasn’t a fussy kind of guy. Still, she wanted to fuss and she had given herself permission to do something for herself even if Liam wouldn’t particularly appreciate it.
So she hummed as she set the table. She’d bought some fresh vegetables at the orchard she’d interviewed at this morning and made a salad and some pasta, and had tried very, very hard not to think about how much she wanted the job.
So she focused all her energy on getting ready for Liam coming over and making it the perfect date-night-in kind of evening.
When the knock sounded at the door, her heart beat in extra time. Odd to be nervous, and yet this was still so new. No matter how he made her feel so comfortable, so brave or right, this was still like walking some kind of tightrope and holding her breath hoping she didn’t fall off.
Because she so wanted to get to the other side.
She opened the door, nervous smile plastered on her face, but it immediately died. Liam looked . . . gray almost. His mouth drawn, shoulders drooped. He looked, quite frankly, like he’d been to hell and back.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, immediately touching his arm and ushering him inside.
He moved, but he looked at her quizzically. “How do you know something is wrong?”
“You look . . .” Telling him he looked terrible was maybe not the kindest route to take, but then again Liam didn’t exactly need kind. Or maybe he did. Maybe kind and care was exactly what he needed if no one saw him looking like this and asked him what was wrong. “What is it?”
He shook his head. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s something,” she said, firmly leading him to the couch. She pushed him until he sat down.
“It’s . . . something that will be fine.” He pulled her to sit next to him and then dropped a kiss to her mouth, but she found that no matter if she should or not, she didn’t want to let it drop.
“If it will be fine, then you can tell me what it is.”
He studied her, and she didn’t know what he saw, but she thought it might be good because he reached out and drew a strand of her hair through his fingers. He took a deep breath and released her hair and then offered the most pathetic smile she’d ever seen.
“My dad has to get a few stents.”
“Stents. That’s like for heart—oh, he had a heart attack a few years ago, didn’t he?”
Liam nodded. “They did the whole bypass surgery, but I guess it’s not doing quite what it’s supposed to. They’ll try stents first and if that doesn’t work, they’ll suggest surgery again. But . . .”
“But what?”
Liam shook his head. “It’s all conjecture crap at this point. We do the stents first and see how it goes.” He pushed off the couch, clearly agitated and not at all as Zen as he wanted to be about the whole thing. “I just . . . He says if he needs another bypass, he won’t get it, but how do you do that? There’s a fix and you’re just going to say no?”
“But he’s already had one, and it didn’t fi—” She clamped her mouth shut at the horrified look on his face. She pushed off the couch too, willing herself to find a way to comfort him. “The first step is the stents. That’s the most important thing.”
He raked his hands through his hair. “It is. That’s exactly what I told Mom, and I got her calmed down, at least for a while. And I’m sure the stents will work. He’s done everything right. He . . .” He tensed his jaw, trailing off, clearly working through some heavy emotion before he pushed it away, blanking his expression. “Something smells very good.”
He was so good at that, erasing that moment of pain that had been on his face. Changing the subject. She could almost believe that that’s what he wanted. To move on and away, but he fancied himself such a fixer of things, and this was quite certainly something he couldn’t fix.
It would be a blow, and she wondered if anyone in his life would see it? Or would they all be so worried about his father, and rightfully so, that they missed each other’s stress and pain over it? Liam had calmed his mother, and probably done the work of two men today, and now he was here, and didn’t he deserve somewhere he didn’t have to be the fixer?
She crossed over to him where he stood looking very blankly at the kitchen. His gaze didn’t move to hers, but she didn’t let that deter her. She wrapped her arms around him, no matter that his were crossed over his chest.
“Everyone expects you to be the rock, don’t they?”
He was so still, utterly stone-like for the longest minute, and then ever so slowly his head moved against hers. A very minor nod, but a nod nonetheless.
She squeezed her arms tighter around him. “I can be your rock for a little bit,” she whispered, because while she had often stood in the wake of Dinah’s storms and shouts, offered encouragement here and there, being a rock was never needed. Dinah was her own force. Dad had never been anything other than cold and distant even before Mom had left.
Kayla had tried to comfort and always failed at it, but she wouldn’t step back from Liam when she knew she could give him something.
Eventually, he uncrossed his arms and maneuvered so that he held her as she held him. His breathing wasn’t quite even, and though she couldn’t see his face because his cheek rested against her temple, she could feel a sort of crack in that stone-like veneer.
He cleared his throat. “I’m . . .”
She waited for the end of that sentence, but it never came. And she supposed if she were the rock, the caregiver, then she had to take a stab at the possible ending herself. Even if she was wrong. She’d always been so afraid of being wrong, maybe now it was time to be afraid of not doing anything. “Scared?”
He was silent for a long, drawn-out minute, and she held her breath, hoping he wouldn’t walk away, offended or hurt she’d put that on him.
“Yes, that,” he said gruffly.
“I think that’s more than natural.”
“But so is everyone else. Someone has to be brave. Someone has to say it’ll be okay.” Still, his arms tightened around her, strong and hurting.
“Why does it have to be you?”
“I don’t know. It just always has been.”
“How about this?” She pulled slightly back so she could look him in the eye. So she could give him something. Something. “For them, you can be what you always have been, but here, with me, you can be scared or unsure or whatever it is you need. And I’ll be the strong and sure one.”
He stared at her as though she’d spoken a foreign language. Some string of words he couldn’t make sense of.
Maybe it didn’t make any sense, but she was going to cling to the idea anyway. She reached up and rubbed her palm across his jaw, not just reveling in the rough texture of his beard, but also in the way he leaned into the touch.
He exhaled, then pressed his mouth to hers. Gentle and sweet, as though seeking something soft and comforting, not the rough, desperate kisses of last night. Nothing fun or purely sex. Gentle.
“I don’t want to have to think about it,” he said against her mouth.
“Then we won’t.” She cupped his face and kissed him, just as soft and gentle as the previous one, not letting herself hold anything back out of fear or nerves. She gave him all of the empathy and comfort and warmth and care and didn’t let herself worry if it was too much or too soon.
* * *
Kayla was like a salve to a wound after his shit day. Nothing had unwound him after Mom crying all over him this morning, or Dad making it steadfastly known if the stents didn’t work, he was done. No amount of fixing door hinges or unclogging drains or patching up roofs had given him a second of satisfaction or solace.
Kayla wrapping her arms around him, Kayla understanding, and her sweet mouth under his, it gave him acres of solace.
It still hurt like a bitch, all in all, but it was different. Not that wild, howling beast inside of him swirling and desperate to do something.
She’d tamed it. With her words, with her kiss. He felt utterly, happily reined in. Her hands cupping his cheeks, her soft body pressed against his. It was like some magic thing he’d been missing all these years.
Or she was.
“Kay.” He didn’t know what to say. There was this aching beat inside of him that only ever existed with her. She was this glorious wonderful light, and yet it hurt to look directly at that.
“Not very many people shorten my name,” she murmured, touching the collar of his shirt, half her fingertip on the fabric and half tracing along his skin.
“Who constitutes ‘not very many’?” he returned, because there was this stupid, immature need inside of him to be something special to her the way she was something special to him.
Her dark blue gaze met his and at the very least she looked just as serious as he felt. “Well, just Dinah really.”
“Does that make it weird?”
She chuckled, her fingertips still moving back and forth across his shirt and skin. “You don’t exactly sound like Dinah, Liam. I think I can work out the difference.”
“I can think of a few ways to make sure of that,” he returned, and though he’d been convinced he wouldn’t feel much like company or even sex when he’d been on his way over here, now it was all he wanted. All he needed.
Except, shit. “I didn’t bring over the condoms. I wasn’t really thinking and—”
“I bought some for my place.” She smiled up at him. “They’re in my bedroom. Which is the first door on the left, if you were wanting to lead.”
“You are . . .” Perfect, maybe.
“Always prepared? Like a Boy Scout.”
“Yeah, something like that,” he said, finding her grin infectious, finding everything about her irresistible. So he picked her up, gratified when she immediately wrapped her legs around him, which made it very easy to walk down her hallway.
“First door on the left, you said?”
She nibbled at his earlobe, fidgeting against him until he lowered her enough that she could rub herself against his dick. “That’s it.”
He toed the door open and stepped into a room. There was some light creeping through a few slats in the shades, but mostly it was dim.
“All right, Boy Scout, time to show me what else you’re prepared for.” He dumped her on the bed, everything about her breathless laugh brightening the dark room. She was sunshine itself.
He tugged his shirt over his head and kicked off his shoes. Kayla licked her lips and watched.
“I love the way you look,” she said on a sigh as if she hadn’t thought about the words before they tumbled out.
He raised an eyebrow at her and a faint pink crept across her cheeks.
“You’re just h-hot.”
He supposed it was that screwy thing inside of him that liked her stutter, and in any other situation it might have caused him to pause, but so far Kayla had liked or matched every screwy thing he’d wanted. So what was the point in stopping? “Am I?”
“Well, o-of course you are. You’re so . . . tall.”
“Tall?”
“A-and broad shouldered and . . . your eyes are . . .” She rolled her eyes. “Are you fishing for compliments, Liam Patrick? Because that doesn’t seem like you at all.”
“Maybe I am,” he returned, sliding one knee onto the bed, and then the other, moving closer and closer to her, never once looking at anything but those pretty eyes widening at his advance, before dropping to the bulge in his jeans.
“What else do you like about me, Kayla?” he said, his voice something more like a growly scrape against the air.
The pink blush on her cheeks was turning much closer to red, and he liked that too because she was breathing heavily. He could see the hardened peaks of her nipples through her bra and shirt. He had no doubt that if he touched her she’d be wet and needy.
Fuck.
He took her hand and closed it over the erection in his pants. “Do you like my cock, Kayla?”
“Yes.”
“And what do you want me to do with my cock?”
She inhaled sharply, but she didn’t say anything for a few taut seconds. She simply met his gaze and searched his face, something like compassion etched into the softness of her cheeks and eyes. Like if she looked hard enough she could give him what he needed to take all of today’s troubles away.
“Why don’t you tell me . . . Why don’t you tell me exactly what you want? What you need?” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “I’m here for whatever it is, Liam. I’m here for you.”
It was his turn to inhale in a sharp burst, to hold it there, too many emotions and feelings crashing inside of him. His skin too hot, too tight, his heartbeat too loud in his ears, nearly painful in his chest.
For him. She was here for him.
“Get the condom. Then get undressed.” He hardly recognized his voice, a low, unearthly growl. He should pause and rein it in, tamp all the swirling desperation down, but she was moving so quickly. She grabbed a condom out of her nightstand and put it on the top surface, and then her clothes were practically flying off of her until she laid out on her bed, naked and beautiful—pale skin, gold-dusted freckles, the rosy pink of her nipples.
He tore at his own pants, tugging them off with no finesse. This was about him. She was here for him. Him. No matter that some dim martyr’s voice in the back of his head tried to tell him to stop, he bulldozed forward, grabbing the condom and opening it. Rolling it on while she watched.
“I want you on your hands and knees.”
Her breathing hitched, but it was the only outward reaction before she was rolling over, rising up on her knees and hands, that beautiful ass of hers tilted toward him. A beautiful display. For him, for him.
The curve of her ass, the little birthmark at that sweet dip in her spine. He slid his hands over both of her ass cheeks, reveling in the smooth, plump part of her before smoothing his hands down the backs of her thighs, then up the inner section, finding her pussy.
“You’re so wet,” he said on a rumbling groan, stroking his finger across the hot seam of her. All of this for him.
She was breathing so hard, a little tremor running through her body. “Please,” she whispered before looking over her shoulder at him. “I need you, Liam.”
And whether she knew it or not, that was the thing. The thing he craved and wanted. The thing that unlocked all his pain and uncertainty. He just needed her to need him, however that need came. It rooted him to earth. It made him feel whole.
He positioned himself at her entrance, rubbing the head of his cock up and down her. Slowly, wanting to savor the delicious first slide into her, he entered, fraction by fraction, kneading his hands in her ass.
She tried to wriggle against him, but this was about him, so he clamped his hands on her hips, nudged her legs farther apart with his knees, finding a way to keep her just off balance enough that he was in control.
He held firm, seating himself completely, and she pushed back against him, the arch of her back so deliciously sexy he wanted to reach forward and bite her. Instead he pulled back, teasing with little, minuscule thrusts, only the head of his cock inside the sweet folds of her pussy.
She kept trying to move, to push back on him, but he held her where she was, having to take what little he gave her.
“Liam.”
Something like a plea, and he laughed. Somehow, he laughed and delighted in not giving her what she wanted. “If you keep squirming, I’m going to have to punish you.” And he wanted to shove those words back in his mouth the second they fell out. At least until she spoke.
“What are you going to do, spank me?”
He nearly jerked with the hot force of those words. Spank her. His rough hand slapping against that soft, supple ass cheek.
He sucked in a ragged breath, exhaled. “Is that what you need?”
She didn’t respond to his question, but she kept squirming against him and he supposed that was answer enough. He smoothed his palm over the curve of her ass, his dick practically pulsing with unspent need.
He shook, but somehow that didn’t stop him. He withdrew his hand and then brought it back down with a slight smack across her ass.
“Fuck,” she groaned.
And he couldn’t help himself, he shoved hard, as far as he could move inside of her, leaning completely over her back until he could whisper in her ear. “I love it when that sweet little mouth says that dirty little word.”
She tilted her head to the side as much as she could, and even though he couldn’t make eye contact, he watched as her mouth moved quite resolutely.
“Fuck,” she enunciated.
And that was it. He was done playing around. He gripped her hips again and began to fuck her. Hard thrusts and labored breathing and the promise of release roaring through his veins. His body was electric, all tightened ecstasy and frantic pounding.
She moaned, her head bent down and pressing into the mattress, her red hair sprawled around her. He pumped harder, wanting to elicit more of those unabashed groans of pleasure.
She threw her head back and pushed hard against him, coarse words and his name on her lips as she came around him, spasming and soaking up every last moment.
He wanted to come, needed to, but first he needed to see her face. To watch her, to be watched in return.
He withdrew completely and she whimpered as though it was some kind of loss, and that ricocheted through him like everything seemed to. “On your back.” Surely too rough a command and yet she scrambled to obey.
She spread her legs wide, an invitation, and he pushed home without a second’s hesitation. Her eyes fluttered closed, but it wasn’t what he wanted. “Look at me, Kayla. Watch me come.”
Her blue eyes latched on to his, still a little dazed from her own orgasm. She reached up and cupped his face, a surprisingly gentle gesture in the midst of all this dirty fucking.
Somehow he knew it wasn’t quite as simple as fucking. Not at this point, not anymore. His thrusts slowed and she held his face, watching him, moving with him, going from a frantic race to a slow dance. Moving together, sighing pleasure, their two bodies sliding against each other, more than just that release.
When the orgasm tightened his body, thrusting deep into her, she reached her arms around his neck and kissed him with a softness and a passion he didn’t know could exist side by side.
But with Kayla, it somehow made all the sense in the world.