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The seconds ticked by, and still, Tess made no attempt to end the hug. Their bodies remained pressed together, and Liam’s blood flow expedited its journey toward his groin with each passing second. Silence loitered around them until Tess broke it with the most curious statement.
“Don’t you have something you want to say?”
Did he? Still sharing their embrace, he sprinted through the past few minutes spent with Tess. When that failed to surface any idea of what Tess was referring back to, he rewound to last night. She’d mentioned him coming over for lunch, but he’d already agreed that he would. Was it about the plans she’d suggested he make with Avril?
Tess sighed softly, then partially pulled out of their hug so she could look him in the eyes. “Liam, I’m disappointed. I thought you’d pay more attention than that.”
“Sorry,” he said instinctively, uncertainty still holding him hostage. “What am I supposed to remember?”
Tapping him on his side with her hand, she chuckled. “I would have thought you’d have a compliment or two for my choice of attire. You mentioned liking my leggings last night, remember?” She looked down, and his eyes dropped with her, landing on her long, fit legs. “Well, here they are.”
Hearing from the woman of his dreams that she’d chosen her clothes for the day because of what he’d said to her nearly left him breathless. The uneasy tremor of his heart shifted into a jet turbine’s roar.
Not long ago, he would have wholly floundered at this moment, failed to manage a coherent response. He knew who he had to thank for the fact that a reply did connect within his mind. It was the same woman he had to thank for making the compliment that had resulted in this wonderful moment.
“And I’ve got to be the luckiest guy anywhere in the world because of it.”
“Anywhere?” Tess repeated, raising an eyebrow. “Isn’t that selling things a little far? Women with better bodies than me wear leggings all the time. I’m sure you’ve seen them on your campus.”
“I don’t think it’s selling thingsfar enough,” he responded, finding a handhold of confidence within him that he was determined to hold onto for as long as he could. “You put anyone I’ve ever seen on my campus to shame.”
Color. It appeared in a soft but visible swathe upon Tess’s face. Instantly, it became a memory of Liam’s that he would forever cherish.
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do.”
Tess smiled, hopefully at both the immediacy of his reply and its certainty. There was a change occurring before his very eyes, and his heart would have beaten faster because of it if it physically could have.
“You’re very sweet, Liam. Your compliments mean a lot to me.”
“I’m going to try and be better at giving them. So… promise you’ll wear those leggings more often?”
A spark of something fantastically surreal flashed within Tess’s eyes. Her smile grew slightly, and he felt her hands move from his sides back to his back. “I don’t know abouttheseleggings, but I do have a few other pairs I could wear while these are in the wash. Would those be all right enough for me to collect a few more compliments?”
“Maybe,” he said, doing the same with his hands. “I’ll let you know when I see you in them.”
“You’ll have a few days where there’s nothing for me to do but wait for your visit,” Tess whispered.
“I’ll be sure to take advantage of that.”
The beautiful brunette swallowed, and the flash repeated itself a second time. It might have occurred a third or even fourth time, but her eyes disappeared from his sight as she pulled him back into an embrace that felt less and less like the kind shared between neighbors. Liam’s very being pulsated with excitement, and hope spilled through him like wildfire. As their bodies reconnected, his boldness continued to intensify.
His hands didn’t want to linger on the small of her back, on her coat, which was slightly slick with melted snow at its lowest edge. They wanted to drop even lower. It was a risk his body demanded of him, even if it might spell disaster.
So, they dropped lower. Cautiously, an inch at a time, he let his hands fall. Tess didn’t respond to the way his fingers climbed down her narrow back like a group of rock climbers deciding their current path upward was the wrong one, now carefully backtracking until they could reconsider the right approach to the summit.
Hissummit was below, however. A taste of forbidden paradise awaited him there.
Tess deepened their hug just as his pinkies arrived at the deliriously sexy upper slopes of her immaculate butt. She had to feel how frantically his heart pounded in his chest. She had to feel the sensation of his fingers on her body, the way they were dropping.
The silence within his garage remained unbroken.
Liam dropped his hands another inch. Two more of his fingers now rested on her butt, lightly indulging in a dream that countless men must have had about her. The fervor in his body threatened his self-control. The need, the yearning, theyearshe’d spent hoping to touch her like this.
And… a little lower.
As Liam set six of his ten fingers on Tess’s ass, she finally reacted. She cleared her throat, and Liam froze like a thief caught with his hands clutching the museum’s most prized piece of art.
