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“I see you aren’t too shy for public displays of affection,” Avril whispered, pulling back enough to look up into his eyes. “I wouldn’t have guessed it.”
Only then did he remember where they were.
At least two dozen people could see his and Avril’s intimate embrace, and about a third of that number were actively gawking in their direction as they walked by. This realization scorched his face like someone had tossed a burning lump of coal into his mouth. He knew what would be waiting for him once he brought his attention back to the beautiful woman in his arms.
Avril’s buoyant grin was a speck less teasing than he’d expected it might be. Still pinned against him, she surprised him with a sudden upward thrust. Her lips connected with his, albeit briefly—but enough.
Butterflies danced frenetically inside his gut.
“It’s all good, lover boy,” she said. “You’re welcome to pretend I’m Tess and fawn over me all afternoon. It can be practice for you. In fact, this is now officially a date! So, prepare to hold all my bags.”
“Oh, great,” he said, trying to rein in the roiling emotions her lips had activated within him. “I knew there was a catch to all this.”
“With me, therealwaysis,” she warned, eyes flashing gleefully. A second later, they finally separated. “Now, let’s get to it. Forward… march!”
As Liam obeyed the slashing gesture of her hand as it decreed the direction they would head, he continued to find it difficult to restrain the turbulent emotions that his embrace with Avril had created. Emotions that he wasn’t sure he should allow himself to feel.
When it came to his physical attraction to her, he in no way, shape, or form blamed himself for reacting as he did. He wasn’t about to self-flagellate himself for the way his body responded to her overtly flirtatious nature and nearly unparalleled beauty. He dared anyone alive to keep their cool when she had her arms wrapped around them.
Eventually, his arousal would calm down, and then she would inevitably do something to spike it again. Rinse, repeat. There might be something else, namely, release, in between those two words, but that could still sort of be written off as more of her “lessons” on romance. Sort of.
The idea that they would continue engaging in lewd activities so he could be equipped to wow and surprise Tess in the bedroom was a flimsy excuse, at best—and they both knew it. Still, he couldn’t quite be rid of a few specks of trepidation that he might falter or fail somehow without her guidance. That was part of why he was reticent to suggest that they ought to consider maybe cooling off how…livelythings often got between them.
What Liam didn’t know, at least not precisely, was why Avril was willing to continue their prurient lessons. He found himself desperate to know but uncertain how to broach the topic so soon after their conversation in her car.
Right now, as they walked toward their first destination in the sprawling three-story mall, was she also feeling the aftereffects of their embrace as potently as he did? Or was this all par for the course for her, a woman who had to have gained her self-purported excellence in all things debauched from somewhere?
“Here we are,” Avril announced, drawing him away from the maelstrom of questions whipping about his mind. “Tess wants those cactus candles, right?”
The shop,Scents for Senses,she’d stopped them at was dedicated entirely to the sale of candles. On both walls of the narrow but deep store, candles by the dozens waited for a chance to pique the interest of a shopper. A display case filled with more of them as long as a limousine cleaved through the middle of the store, providing two narrow lanes for shoppers to be bombarded on all sides by every variety of vanilla, citrus, rose, and sandalwood. Thankfully, the only other shopper in this specific store was currently checking out. Given how many hundreds of people they’d passed on their way to it, he expected at least one or two of their stops to be flush with bodies.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Liam said. “I want to get her a few.”
“A few?” Avril raised an eyebrow. “Spending big, are we?”
He’d never shopped for candles before, so Avril’s response didn’t quite sink in until a minute later when she pointed out the candles that Tess was interested in. Inside each glass cylinder, he found a miniaturized but expertly crafted family of cacti, one with multiple arms that were as classic as they came, one short, bulbous, and round, and one of middling size that was a far lighter shade of green than the others. Moments later, he found the price tags.
Forty-eight bucks a pop? Really?
It wasn’t an issue, not really. Thanks to a family connection, he’d spent each summer since he’d turned sixteen working as a teller for a local bank. He’d put in plenty of hours there this past summer, and while he wasn’t about to wow Annabelle Royce with how much spending money he had in his account, splurging two to three hundred dollars today wouldn’t leave him wincing… too much.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” he said, though it didn’t stop him from silently marveling at how expensive a candle could be. “I can get three.”
Avril whistled appreciatively. “Wow. You really do have it bad for her.”
As warmth scalded his face, Avril grinned and picked up two candles from the shelf they sat on. She left him to pick up the third, heading toward the cashier at the deepest end of the store. When he caught up with her, placing the third candle with its siblings and beginning to reach for his wallet, Avril chuckled.
“Baby, please, come on. Put it away. I’m buying.”
His brow furrowed. “What, no. I’ve got the money.”
Avril smiled and completely ignored him. “Just these three things,” she said to the cashier, a frizzy-haired woman who smiled, nodded, and began scanning the candles.
“What are you doing, Avril?” he asked quietly, frowning.
Her verdant eyes swiveled back to him. “Who do you think you’re shopping with here? If you’re with me, I’ve got it covered. Tess didn’t let you know about that?”
“No, she didn’t, but—”
