Page 93 of Liberating Lily

“That’s okay. You must also have work to do. I must be keeping you from it.”

“Well, if I did have work to do, you wouldn’t be the one keeping me from it. I would be, since I’m the one that decided to lock us up in this cabin.”

Which turned out to be a good idea in more ways than one. He’d wanted her safely tucked away where no one else could get to them while he worked on winning her over. But it also meant that no one could find her, including the doctor or her mother.

How disastrous could it have been if he’d taken her to his home which could be easily found? Who knows how long it would have taken them to turn up on his doorstep?

Shit. He hoped that Bea had remembered to feed the worms.

It was her responsibility to feed them while he was away, since she was the one that had given them to him as a birthday present a few months back. She’d told him that she was worried he was lonely and needed some company.

He had no idea what kind of company a bunch of worms could provide. But it wasn’t like he could turn down a birthday present either. Especially not with Ronan looking on. Ronan guarded his sisters with a protectiveness that was second to none, and no one, including his own brothers, were allowed to upset them. Not without feeling his wrath.

“What are you watching?” he asked, sitting beside her.

“Some romantic comedy. Do you want to watch it with me?”

God, that was going to be a serious test of his control, to sit here watching a romantic film while he couldn’t touch her.

But he also couldn’t tell her no.

“Got a couple of pizzas in the freezer. Why don’t I put them on, and then I’ll come back and sit with you?”

The smile on her face was worth the test to his control.

He could do this.

Harvey was sitting down the other end of the sofa.

The knot in her stomach grew tighter and tighter.

She hated the distance between them.

Somehow, she had to train her body to not be scared of touch, to not be scared of what he needed, the control he required.

So he wanted to boss her around in the bedroom. So what? Harvey would never harm her, and it wasn’t like she knew what she was doing, did she?

Maybe it was a good thing. Maybe she’d be less stressed about getting it all wrong.

Yeah, maybe she’d been thinking about this all wrong. Instead of seeing his bossiness and need for control as a negative, perhaps it was a positive. Because then she could be free of all this worry over what she was doing, over doing the wrong thing. She wouldn’t have to think about any of that, would she, if he had full control?

Especially when it came to sex.

All she had to figure out was how she was going to fix what she’d broken.

21

Harvey’s phone rang the next morning, and he picked it up, frowning slightly as he saw it was his sister.

“Bea? Everything all right?” he asked.

A soft sob greeted him, and he sat up immediately.

Last night he’d slept on the floor again. And gotten barely any sleep

He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or not, but he’d thought that Lily had looked rather disappointed when he’d chosen to sleep on the floor instead of in the bed with her last night. He’d wanted to explain that it was better this way, that he wasn’t sure that his control extended to lying in bed with her.

Yeah, he’d managed one night, but that had resulted in them kissing. And he wasn’t sure he had the control to stop that happening again. He was trying to claw back some of his control, and to do that he needed at least a few feet of distance between them.