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“Why not? You’d have me paying more attention when you do than I have to any lesson I’ve ever received.”
There was a chance. He knew it existed. Tess Williams had to know how gorgeous she was. She had to know how many of her students and fellow faculty members desired her. It was a question unworthy of ever even asking.
If she’d blown them off, ignored them all, there had to be reason. Just as there had to be a reason why she was letting him hold her so intimately right now. She must possess some semblance of interest toward him somewhere within her, or else he would never have managed to get as close to her as he now stood.
And that meant he had a chance.
“I think you’d be paying attention to the wrong parts of me during those times,” Tess said.
If Avril had been a fly on his garage wall, she would have rubbed her feelers together in applause. He wondered if she’d even believe him when he told her about how he’d spoken and acted.
“I don’t believe there are any wrong parts of you. They’re all amazing.”
Tess bit her lower lip. She really shouldn’t have done that because it revealed far too much.
“Everyone has desires,” he continued, not taking another breath until he’d said it all. “I’d rather get help relieving some of them with you than someone else. And… ifyouhave any desires I might help with, that’s good too, right? Everyone deserves some relief for stuff like this, especially if they haven’t gotten to have any in a long time.”
A vibrantly scarlet sheen rapt upon the roots of Tess’s brunette hair, but her heartbeat served as a second betrayal of how she truly felt. It boomed against him, and Liam took one final chance.
He lifted his hands from her butt, returned them to her lower back, and tried to reunite their hug.
Tess hesitated only for a moment. After that, she laid her cheek on his shoulder. The two of them stood together for another minute, bound in silence as they held one another.
“I suppose there could be more harm than good if amanyour age goes too long without any relief,” she whispered.
“You’re the expert,” he whispered back, causing her to snort lightly. “I’ll follow your guidance on how much is enough.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
To Build an Igloo
Eventually, before Anna started to wonder why they’d been gone for almost twenty minutes, Liam and Tess had to end their long embrace. Lustful fever rampaged within them both, enough so that neither of them had even noticed the chill seeped into the garage the entire time they stood in it. But not even that was enough for them to stave off the cold—nor was his new winter beanie, although it did help a little—that awaited them back outside.
“I’ll come help once I’ve put in overtime with Anna,” Tess said, gazing at the young woman they’d both cruelly left in the cold while they warmed each other’s bodies in his garage. “I’m a horrible hostess, letting her work on clearing my porch and walkway while I….” She glanced at him, colored slightly, and didn’t finish her statement. Hurrying through the snow back toward Anna, she left him basking in the afterglow of their changed relationship while she apologized profusely to Anna for her absence.
For the rest of the time he spent shoveling snow, which he did so with a vigorous renewal of energy that allowed him to finish clearing his walkway before the women could Tess’s, nothing could dampen his mood.
It certainly wasn’t when he strutted over, grinning in a way that caused both women to share a look, and offered his help in finishing clearing Tess’s walkway.
“You could do my driveway if you like,” Tess replied, nodding toward the untouched snow burying her car. “Or unbury Anna’s car.” Another nod caused him to glance behind him at the SUV parked by the sidewalk in front of his house.
“Uh, I’d miss lunch if I do that, though,” he hastily explained.
Thankfully, the two women let him join them half an hour later when they dropped their shovels at the door, cast off their snow-covered coats and shoes or boots, and warmed themselves with hot chocolate and a quick but delicious lunch that Tess whipped up for them. Throughout it, Tess wore the same warm demeanor that she always did. In fact, she didn’t show even the slightest change toward him, to the degree that she might have successfully gaslit him into believing that he’d hallucinated the whole thing if she’d wanted to.
He supposed it was better that she didn’t show any outward changes, as Liam recalled how Avril had warned him of Anna’s astuteness. At leasthehad always been besotted with Tess, so there shouldn’t be anything that piqued Anna’s interest in how he acted around her. He hoped.
Near the tail end of their lunch, when discussions of how they might spend the afternoon flitted around the table, Anna piquedhisinterest with an unexpected suggestion.
“Would you all like to build an igloo with me?”
“An igloo?” Tess said, surprise coloring her voice. She briefly glanced at him. “I don’t think I’ve ever built one before. Do you know how Anna?”
The dark-haired woman nodded. “Whenever we got enough snow for it, I would always build one with my mother when I was growing up.” A sudden blitz of self-consciousness slowed her next words, though she eventually forced them out. “I was thinking it might be something fun for us to share doing together.”
“I think it could be fun to do, though depending on how long it takes, breaks to warm up might be a good idea. What do you think, Liam?”
While a return to the frigid outdoors didn’t get his blood flowing, he’d never built an igloo either. Like most kids, he and his friends had made plans on many winters to make one for themselves, only to give up after an hour of primarily inefficient toiling. If Anna was claiming she knew how to build one, he pretty much expected architectural soundness, not a haphazard effort. So, he liked their chances of completing this one.
