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“I should…”
“Please,” she says softly. “Keep me company for a little bit.”
She’s looking up at him with those sugared violet eyes and he can see the loneliness in her gaze. He should go but he knows he’s going to stay.
Chapter Five
Willow
She settles Frank in his little bed and heads back into the living room. Liam is on her sofa, muscled legs stretched out across her colorful rug. The room seems so much smaller with him in it, like he’s taking up space she didn’t know even know was there. He’s barely said a handful of words all evening, had kept his head bent over his plate all during dinner and seemed in a hurry to get out of her apartment. She’s actually surprised he’s still here.
She clears her throat and he looks around at her. “Would you like a beer?”
The seconds before he answers her seem to stretch long between them. “Sure,” he finally mumbles.
She hurries into the kitchen and grabs a couple of bottles, stopping before she gets back into the other room. She can feel her heart thudding against her ribs and she knows why. Liam reminds her of Carlo. Frank’s father. And the reason she’s been hiding for the past three years.
Sure, Liam isn’t wearing a five-thousand-dollar suit or a glittering, expensive watch, and he’s not surrounded by well-paid lackeys who jump at his command but there’s an arrogance in the tilt of his head and cocky swagger when he walks that’s familiar. The way his eyes shift around a room when he enters it, like he’s checking for danger or the nearest exit; those movements are Carlo’s.
Willow is scared to death of Carlo. She knows what will happen if she ever finds out about Frank. He’ll come after her and he won’t stop until he finds her and takes Frank from her. She won’t let that happen, her son will never be a part of Carlo’s world. She’ll go down fighting to keep that from happening. She thinks she should be afraid of Liam too, but there’s something about him that tugs at her insides, and it’s not just the cut of his just-tight-enough jeans or his square-cut jaw with its shadow of a beard. She feels that he’s like her. Alone. Lonely. With no one he can trust. His eyes are hooded with whatever secrets he has and his shoulders are tense with whatever worries he’s carrying. He looks like he could use a friend.
Shaking off her sobering thoughts, Willow puts on a smile and marches over, handing Liam a cold bottle of beer and dropping onto the opposite end of the sofa. She takes a quick sip of her beer and deposits her bottle onto the side table.
“So…” she smiles over at him “how long have you been here? In the building, I mean.”
He takes a long pull from his bottle and looks at her, his eyes traveling over her legs, lingering on her thighs where her dress has inched up, before settling on her lips. She licks them nervously and feels heat creep up her chest and over her face when she sees the edge of his lips quirk slightly.
“Just a few months.”
“Us, too. I’m from Minnesota. I mean, originally. I’ve lived all over though, the past few years.”
“Hunh,” he half grunts at her and takes another swig of his beer. He opens and shuts his mouth as if he wants to ask something else, and then when he finally does he asks, “Does your mom have the same color hair as you?”
She laughs, “That’s a strange question.”
He shakes his head, “Not really. I’ve never seen a color as light as yours and I can tell it’s natural. I was just curious that’s all.”
Willow’s taken aback by his observation, “That’s weird; people always think that it’s dyed because it’s so light. You’re right. It is an unusual color.”
She shakes her head, trying to think of the original question, “They say it skips a generation, because my grandma has the same color. Not sure what mom’s color is naturally, but I remember seeing photos of her as a kid. It was brunette.”
He sighs and then he finishes his beer. Yet his eyes are on her. She can feel the blood rushing in her ears and her stomach is starting to quiver. He hasn’t taken his eyes off her and she can tell every thought that’s racing behind those deep, chocolate orbs. Most of them involve them both being naked. She shifts, turning to face him, and stills when her leg presses against his denim-clad thigh. When she starts to move away he reaches over and wraps one large, warm hand around her ankle, tugging at her slightly, pulling her across the scant distance that separates them. She pulls back but he doesn’t let go. Fire burns across her skin, skittering up her thighs and landing in the pit of her belly.
“Why’d you ask me to stay, Willow?” His thumb is tracing circles over the skin of her ankle.
“I…just. I wanted a friend.
Some company.”
Liam’s hand drifts up and cups her calf, his fingers pressing lightly into her skin. “And you thought I looked like I’d make a good friend?”
“I...” her voice trails off to a stutter when his hand drifts up to her knee and nudges it open. She drops her hands into her lap, gathering the material of her dress into a bunch and pushing it between her legs.
Liam’s hands skate higher, skimming over her thighs, pushing her hands away, stopping millimeters from the junction of her thighs. Willow feels her belly quiver and her nipples tighten against her sundress. Heat flushes up the back of her neck and spreads down across her chest, turning the tops of her tits a bright cherry red where they peek out over the top button of her dress.
“Do you want this, Willow?” Liam grabs at her hip and tugs her closer; the distance between them closes as he pulls her against him.
Willow chews on her lip and glances over at the closed bedroom door. It’s been so long since a man has touched her. There’s been no one since Carlo. She thought she’d put that part of her behind her. Concentrating on raising Frank, keeping them both housed and fed, had taken up the better part of her time and made her tired. But now, with Liam’s hands searching across her skin and her body heating up, the loneliness she’d tried to suppress was crashing over her. She was a woman who had been abused.
