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At that point, Liam felt forced to step in and defend himself against her accusations.
“No, I didn’t, and no, no one has to kiss me,” he said, throwing a glare at the gorgeous woman still at his side.
“If not us, then who?” Avril asked, adopting an innocent expression, complete with fluttering eyelashes. Before he could answer, she exaggeratedly gasped. “Victoria?! Wow.” Her gaze swiveled to Anna. “Guess you waited too long to pounce, Anna. He’s gone and grabbed himself a sexy professor instead.”
As his face immolated crimson, Avril grinned remorselessly. It had nothing to do with Victoria. It had everything to do with her final words, and the truth in them. She’d at least spared him by making it seem like what she’d said was entirely about Victoria.
“I’m not looking topounceanywhere,” Anna said, face pinched toward her best friend. “That’s your thing.”
“And I already have pounced on him,” Avril said, intent on ensuring that Liam discovered what it was like to have grey hairs by the time he was twenty. “See?” She nodded with her eyes toward her arms, which remained wrapped around his. “He’s not getting away from me.”
Anna’s frown remained solely affixed to Avril, so at least he was spared from being considered a co-conspirator in her plot. However, that didn’t mean he was safe from collateral damage. Because just a moment later, Anna dropped some unexpected artillery fire on Avril, and he didn’t escape unscathed.
“If he’s already received a kiss from Victoria, I don’t see why yours would have any effect.”
Liam withheld his shock as best he could. Avril didn’t. Yet, after a rapid recovery in the face of Anna’s repartee, she grinned as if both impressed and pleased.
“That’s true, and that’s why I need your help, bestie. You get the right cheek; I’ll get the left. Otherwise, we’ll get bad luck from dodging the mistletoe.”
She waited only a few seconds before audibly sighing.
“Oh, come onnn, Anna. It’s a kiss on the cheek under a mistletoe, not your first time letting a guy fu—”
“Okay!” Anna snapped, face swathed in crimson. “Just… please, stop talking.”
Avril maneuvered one hand in front of her lips, and then she zipped them shut.
Finally, once the severity of scarlet on her face had slightly diminished, Anna’s gaze flicked toward him. As the cool green hues of her eyes washed over him, they shared little of her thoughts or intentions. That was how it was with Anna. Polite, poised, well-guarded. There’d been only a couple of instances where he’d seen the genuine individual underneath all the prim formality. Nevertheless, they’d made their mark on him.
The deal they’d struck in that parking lot a week ago today was one secret he didn’t regret having made. Not even a little. He hoped it wouldn’t eventually blow up in their faces, and he hoped Tess and Avril wouldn’t be too furious about their deception if or when they found out about it, but he still wouldn’t regret making that promise with her even if that was how things played out. This was one choice that he’d made that he wholeheartedly believed had been the right one to make.
With her still caught in the door’s threshold, the chilly winter remained free to act as belligerently as it liked. A sudden burst of gelid wind engaged in a surprise assault through the open door, resulting in Avril, again not dressed for the current weather, shivering fiercely and opening her mouth to complain at Anna to hurry up and come inside.
But she already had. The beautiful, dark-haired heiress let the gelid wind imbue her with motion. Stepping inside, face slightly flushing with color, she stepped into place next to his unclaimed arm. Still clutching her presents, one of which was likely to be his, she didn’t have the option to wrap her arms around him as her troublemaking roommate had, but her change in position had made her intentions clear.
His peripherals expanded just far enough for him to see Avril’s shock renew itself upon her face, though a brilliant grin pursued it. After that, he was too busy staring into Anna’s eyes, attempting to parse her thoughts.
“You sure?”he mouthed, having turned his head so that Avril couldn’t see his lips move.
By the barest dip of her chin, Anna nodded. Her face remained rosy, as it would even after the deed was done. Hesitance scribed its mark all over her lovely face, but a kernel of courage glimmered within her eyes. It might also be that she was simply fed up with how easily Avril thought she could tease her, and she wanted to silence any further prodding that might come her way tonight with this one act.
But that wasn’t right. That couldn’t be right. This was more akin to handing a pyromaniac a new lighter. It wouldn’t shut the valve but open it further. Giving into one of Avril’s demands paved the road for more of her ploys, not less. Of all people, Anna had to know that.
The clearing of a throat on his left demanded that he shift his head back so that Avril could time their planned tag team attack properly. As his eyes broke from Anna’s gaze, he earned a rare opportunity. A smile, soft but beyond lovely, framed Anna’s face.
Moments later, in almost perfect synchronization, the two gorgeous women began to lean in. For a few more, it almost felt like a game of chicken, with each woman slowly eradicating the centimeters between their luscious lips and his warm face. As keeping his face still was somewhat of a requirement, he could only make out the lovely faces drifting toward him from the corners of his eyes.
Anna’s refined, delicate features on his left, Avril’s sultry, sensual features on his right. For those few seconds, stretched out like a yard’s worth of bubble gum, Liam forgot how to breathe.
Warm, soft, tender, fleeting, unforgettable.
That was his experience. He was pretty certain he could have sold it for a billion dollars.
Not for ten,Liam decided, remaining as still as he could, even as the unadulterated glee of the experience rippled through him from his cheeks to the soles of his feet.
“Lucky boy,” Avril whispered against his ear, lips brushing against them as she removed her lips from his singed skin.
Anna, on the other hand, didn’t say anything. She kept looking at him, the soft, rolling green of her eyes too far a journey for him to discover what sat at their end. Not yet, anyway.
