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His mouth twitches. His eyes glimmer. He stares at me like nobody else exists, like the rest of the world could crumble and fall away and he wouldn’t care, as long as he got to keep gazing at me.
“Maybe,” he snarls. “If I found the right girl.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ve got plenty of options,” I say, my cheeks becoming hot and red.
I listen for Kayley, but we’re alone.
Just me and her Dad.
“Options,” Liam repeats, leaning toward me slightly.
It’s a subtle shift in his posture, with a respectful distance between us still.
But his arms seem to pulse in the silver of his suit jacket. His jaw trembles. It’s like he’s holding himself back.
“Options aren’t the same as primal needs, are they, Miss Fitzgerald? Options aren’t the same as hunger. Options aren’t the same as knowing that, for as long as I live, I won’t be able to think about another person. I’m not interested in options. I’m interested in …”
I’m interested in you, I mentally finish.
Time slows and I mentally plead with him not to say it. Please don’t let him say it.
But there’s another urge inside of me, driven by the neediness of my womb, begging him to say it, to tell me what I mean to him.
The impulses war inside of me.
“In what?” I whisper when he trails off.
He leans back, shaking his head.
“How do you do this to me?” he murmurs, as if to himself.
“Do what?”
“This,” he growls, eyes flitting to me with sun-like heat. “I can’t stop thinking about the way you trembled for me last night. It was perfect. I can’t stop thinking about doing more. I can’t stop thinking about the way your lips taste.”
I gasp and squeeze the edges of the table, grinding my teeth. Kayley could reappear at any moment. This is so wrong.
But it feels like heaven.
“I can’t either,” I admit breathily. “But—”
“We can’t do it again,” he says, a dormant earthquake threatening to come alive in his voice. “I know. I fucking know. But it’s torturing me.”
“We have to think of Kayley,” I say, my voice weak, my heart pounding, every impulse within me aimed at this man.
“I know,” he sighs. “Maybe it’ll be for the best if we avoid each other as much as possible. Because right now I’m white-knuckling it to stop myself from bending you over that balcony and treating you like the horny curvy fucking girl you are. And you’d take it, wouldn’t you? You’d take my dick? You’d take everything I have to give?”
My pussy tingles even as nerves dance within me. He doesn’t know the truth about me. Kayley does, but she’s the only one.
“Yes,” I moan, unsure if it’s a lie.
I don’t know if I’d be able to take him if I’d be able to give him what he wants. But when he aims those glinting green eyes at me – eyes that seem as though they’re always swimming with intense meaning – I want to try.
I want to be the woman he seems to think I am.
I want to be attractive, desirable, more than I’ve ever been before.
He opens his mouth to say something else, but then his cellphone buzzes.
He sighs, glancing at it where it vibrates next to his breakfast.
“It’s the decorator,” he says. “I have to take this.”
I nod, turning to Hunter who sits between us. I run my hand through the dog’s hair, tickling him behind the ear, trying to focus on him and him alone so that I don’t have to think about the craziness that just passed between me and Liam.
“What?” Liam snaps. He pauses, and then his voice softens ever so slightly. It’s like a lion who’s decided to let out a rumble instead of a fully-fledged roar. “No, of course. Take care of your family. Yes, that should be fine.”
He hangs up just as Kayley returns to the table, looking quizzically at her father.
“Something wrong?” she asks, settling back in her seat.
I almost scream, Well, if you think that my panties being damp from your dad’s come-ons is wrong, then yeah, we might have a problem.
Instead, I fill my mouth with a big forkful of syrupy pancake, forcing myself to focus on the taste and the texture.
“The decorator can’t make it to the club. Her daughter has come down with the flu and she needs to take care of her.”
“Oh, that’s awful,” Kayley murmurs.
“Yeah,” Liam says, nodding sincerely.
Despite his gruff exterior, I can tell that the sickness of a child really is more than an inconvenience for him. Humanity comes to life in the serious wells of his eyes and then flares away a moment later, replaced by annoyance.
“The decorations are at the club,” he goes on. “It’s just a matter of putting them up.”
“Will you call up your staff?” Kayley asks.
“No, I said I’d give them today and tomorrow off. They’re going to be rushed off their feet on Sunday.”
