“Do I make myself clear?” Liam tugged his arm up even higher.
“Crystal,” Brody cried out and swore again.
“Good.” Liam gave his arm a sharp jerk before releasing him. “Glad we understand each other.”
“Viv.” Brody’s eyes cut back to me, hurt and betrayal evident in his stare. “Why are you doing this to me. You know how much I love you. You know I’d do anything for you. Anything.”
“Here’s something you can do for her—” Liam spoke firmly. “Leave!”
“Fine!” Brody directed his razor sharp gaze at Liam. “You want me to leave? I’ll leave. But just remember, this ain’t over yet between me and Viv.” And with that, he stormed out the front door without so much as a backward glance.
Chapter Five
Liam
Brody had left the front door wide open. A storm was brewing outside and the door banged against the wall, propelled by the savage winds. I started toward the door just as Vivian did.
We reached for the doorknob at the same time, our fingers lightly touching. Mine on top of hers. At every moment, I expected her to pull away. But she didn’t.
Closing my hand around her fingers, I watched her expression closely, wondering for a moment if she was going to stand her ground and stay away from Brody. For good.
A heartbeat later, Vivian lifted her gaze. And her eyes told me her answer long before her lips could form the words. “I think,” she began, her voice barely a whisper. “I think I need to go to him.”
I inhaled slowly, tempering my frustration. “Viv … I’m not so sure you know what you need.”
“But I need to make sure he’s okay. I at least owe him an explanation.”
My fingers tightened around hers. “You owe him nothing.”
There was a prolonged silence during which she extracted her hand from mine. “He needs my help.”
A protective impulse uncoiled within my heart. With a clipped sigh, I closed the front door and flipped the lock into place. Then I turned to face her. “Listen to me Viv, Brody is an abuser. He abuses. All your love and attempts to help him will never change that. Never.”
She shook her head. “But you don’t understand. He needs me right now. He’s hurting.”
“You know what he’s trying to do?” I stated tersely. “He’s trying to manipulate you. He wants you to go after him.”
“I just …” She paused and her voice shook when she continued. “I just feel bad about this whole thing. I don’t plan on getting back together with Brody. I just need to make sure he’s all right.”
“Brody’s a grown man. I’m sure he’s fine. And do not get into discussions with him, trying to explain yourself. Trust me, it will get you nowhere. He’s just going to twist everything and make you doubt yourself. You are not working with logic and common sense here.”
When she started to speak, I immediately cut her off. “Whatever you do, do not go after him.”
“Why are you doing this?” Frustration exuded from her every pore as she narrowed her eyes at me. “I’m not afraid of Brody. He won’t physically hurt me.”
“Why am I doing this?” I huffed an impatient breath. “Why? You should have seen my mom. My dad didn’t lay a finger on her, but all that verbal abuse, it was almost like bloodless murder. Mom was there, but she wasn’t there, you know what I’m saying? My dad did that to her. And I don’t want to see Brody do that to you.”
“I-I,” she stammered. “I just want to know how Brody’s holding up.”
Seriously, I could give a fuck about Brody right now.
“I want to know about you, Viv.” I waited until her eyes met mine. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m fine.” She spoke with that same quiet dignity of hers.
“You always say you’re fine.”
“That’s because I am.” She shifted her gaze away from mine, making her words the self-protective lie I’d already suspected.
I stood there watching her, expecting her to tell me to leave, to mind my own business.
Instead she surprised me by reaching out, tentatively touching my cheek. “You think I’m stupid, don’t you?” She looked me in the eye, as if daring me to feed her a lie. “For wanting to go after Brody.”
“No.” I held her hand against my face. “I just think you deserve better.”
“What do I deserve?” She bit down on those generous lips and my body reacted instantly.
I swallowed. “Someone who can give you everything.”
She smiled, just a faint tug at the corner of her mouth. “My parents gave me everything. They raised me to be an independent woman. A woman who would never let someone treat her poorly. Do you think I’ve let them down?” she said softly, almost to herself. “Some days I think I have. Some days I think I even let myself down.”
“Viv.” I met her gaze steadily. “Don’t blame yourself again. I know you wouldn’t have dated Brody if he did not have some positive qualities, if he did not treat you well. That is the hook. If Brody was just plain nasty a hundred percent of the time, you probably wouldn’t have stayed with him. Am I right?”
A look of pain crossed her face as she stared mutely at me. At last, she nodded.
“Do you still love him?” I tried to keep my voice cool even as the tingling warmth of her fingers stole over my skin.
“I love what we have.” She dropped her arm, letting it fall loosely to her side. “I love what we had,” she said quietly, looking off for a minute as if to capture a moment. “It’s so hard to explain, but being with Brody … it was complicated, but it was intense. Deeply intense. Perhaps to you and everyone else, our love wasn’t real, but he made me feel more cared about than anyone else ever had. Do you know what I mean?”
She probably didn’t expect me to answer, but I did. “It was the same with my mom. At first it was just so incomprehensible to me … how she could still love my dad, despite all he had put her through. But she made me understand.”
Her gaze searched my face, waiting for me to go on.
I raked a hand through my hair and drew a deep breath before answering. “Mom told me that Dad—the man who verbally abused her for sixteen years—was also the same man who gave her the happiest times of her life.”
Viv grew quiet, somber even. Just when I had decided she was not going to say anything, she spoke. “Thank you.” Her voice was so soft I was not sure I even heard it. “Thank you for understanding. Still it’s just … it’s just hard to let go of what we had.”
“Viv, letting go doesn’t mean giving up. Trust me, letting go of Brody will make you stronger and happier in the long run.”
She tilted her head and studied me. “And you’re sure about his?”
I met her intense gaze without flinching. “Positive.”
We stared into each other’s eyes, not really sure what else to say. Some kind of emotion flickered in her eyes but the moment quickly passed.
Finally she offered me an unsteady smile, showing her inner strength, something I’d always admired about her. “Don’t worry about me,” she said lightly. “I’ll be all right.”
A heartbeat later another smile quirked her lips. “You know what? I could sure use a hug right now.”
I held out my arms and she came willingly into them.
“Liam?” Her breath felt warm across my neck as I folded her into my chest.
“Yeah?” I asked, smoothing my hand down her spine.
“Why did you kiss me … earlier tonight?”
The question filled me with these turbulent emotions I couldn’t afford to decipher or feel.
“I don’t know.” I sighed heavily into her hair, inhaling her sweet and fragrant scent. “I honestly don’t know.”
Chapter Six
Liam
The memory of Vivian’s lush and velvety lips against mine played through my mind over and over again.
Why had I kissed her? I ran a hand through my hair. Why?
In all honesty I didn’t know what had
come over me.
Viv’s beauty was subtle. It was a slow-burn-sort-of-beauty, a second-glance-kind-of-pretty. The kind of beauty that unraveled with time and a little patience.
But that sensuous mouth of hers … it was a mouth made for sex and I couldn’t help but taste her.
One look at her, with those milky white breasts and dusky areolas, those coral-pink nipples set against her soft and supple feminine curves, and I felt like a hormonal teenager once again.
Damn. I exhaled slowly. Excuse the cliché, but she had a body made for sin.
All my concentration had gone into keeping my eyes trained on her face, yet in that moment, my eyes had betrayed me.
Sensuality was her birthright and my body couldn’t help but react.
After all I am a man, not a saint.
A tight muscle pulled at my jaw as I tried without success to focus on something else. That image of her standing gloriously naked in my room, it was seared into my mind like a tattoo, and I saw every soft slope, every gentle curve.
Annoyed with myself, I polished off my drink, hoping the cool liquid would extinguish the heat in my groin.
It did not. But it was a brief reprieve from the guilt I felt gnawing away at me.
With a deep sigh, I signaled the bartender for a refill.
“Why if it isn’t Lieutenant Liam Sykes! I never thought I’d see you back in town!”
Shifting on the barstool, I turned to see my old friend Max approaching me from the other end of the bar.
He clapped me on the back. “Why didn’t you tell anyone you were back home?”
I shrugged noncommittally. “You here alone?” I asked, neatly deflecting the question.
“Shane and AJ are here, too.” He adjusted his San Diego Padres baseball cap then gestured in the general direction of their table. “Come join us!”
The bartender returned with another drink and I took a deep swig before sliding off the barstool. Then I reached for my packet of cigarettes with one hand, and grabbed my drink with the other.
“Hey, Sykes! Wait a sec,” Max rasped around a cigarette he was lighting. “See that chick over there?” He jerked his head at a leggy brunette and I nodded. “I’m gonna use some of ’em pickup lines I made up back in the day.”
“Unbelievable.” I shook my head, laughing and groaning at the same time. “You still using ’em?”
“All the time,” Max said, almost like he was proud of the fact.
I winced into my drink. “Do they even work?”
Max took a deep drag on his cigarette and angled his head to the left, blowing a smooth stream of smoke across his shoulder. “Watch and learn, son. Watch and learn.”
With a little pep in his step, he swaggered over to the leggy brunette and stood quietly behind her until she turned around.
Max offered her a small smile, nothing more than the quirk of one side of his lips. “Are you a parking ticket?” he asked.
Looking surprised, although not exactly pleased, the brunette stared at Max, her dark eyebrows raised in a question. “Excuse me?”
Max leaned in closer to the brunette, bracing his arms on the bar. “Because you’ve got fine written all over you.”
I took a long swallow of my drink, struggling like the devil not to laugh.
The brunette dropped her gaze, laughed and blushed a little.
I knew what was coming next.
Don’t do it, Max. Don’t do it.
Encouraged, Max attempted his infamous smolder, his lips pulling into a lopsided grin. “Honey, you must me Jamaican because ja-mai-can me crazy.”
Now I lost the struggle. I laughed, choking on a mouthful of bourbon.
“Sykes!” I heard AJ’s all too familiar gravelly voice. “Over here!”
I raised my glass at AJ and Shane in acknowledgment before starting for their table.
“How’s it going?” AJ asked as I pulled out a chair and sat down.
“It’s going.” I placed a cigarette between my lips, reached for my lighter, flicked the wheel and lit it.
“You back for good?” he asked.
“Nope.” I took a deep drag. “I go back in a week.”
“Can’t keep away, huh?” AJ smirked.
I took another drag on my cigarette and shook my head.
Shane downed half his beer in one gulp and fixed his bleary-eyed glare on me. “I say get out while you still can. This war is a fuckin’ mistake. I mean, what the hell are you even doing there? We’ve already killed Bin Laden. Are you trying to impose our style of democracy on the Iraqis? Or are you fighting terrorism?”
“Or.” AJ cleared his throat. “Are you there to put a McDonald’s in Baghdad?”
“There’s already a Mickey D’s in Baghdad,” I informed him.
“How about a Wendy’s?” AJ countered.
I shook my head. “No Wendy’s.”
“So tell me.” Shane studied me with a smirk. “Do you support this illegal war?”
Another loaded question.
“Look,” I began. “If I say I support the war, I’m a monster. A puppet who blindly follows the orders of an oil-thirsty government.” I dragged heavily on my cigarette. “If I say I don’t support the war, I’m unpatriotic. A traitor to my own country. I’m damned if I do, and hell, I’m damned if I don’t.”
“So which one are you?” Shane persisted, and I heard the venom in his voice. “The puppet? Or the traitor?”
I didn’t answer. Schooling my face into an expressionless mask, I sipped my bourbon, staring into the amber liquid, noting the slight olive hues.
This was exactly why I hadn’t told anyone I was back.
I didn’t want to have to deal with the cold conversations.
The uncomfortable averted eyes.
Sooner or later, I knew it was coming. Silently, I counted to three.
One … two … three.
AJ averted his eyes and spun the ice cubes in his glass with a nervous twitch of his wrist. “I wonder what’s taking Max so long?” he said, mostly to himself.
“A woman,” Shane stated, staring at the bar. “Isn’t it always?” He shook his head and added, “I can’t believe that chick is buying his BS. That guy can sell ice to an Eskimo.”
Twisting in my chair, I looked over my shoulder, following his gaze.
The leggy brunette was laughing at something Max had said.
“She has a husky voice,” AJ observed. “And a sexy laugh.”
Shane took a deep swig of his beer and proffered, “Nothing is sexier than a woman sucking on her own tits. This girl I’m currently seeing, only an A cup, but she has these half dollar sized nipples. Always hard, I’m tellin’ you, and she walks around braless in T-shirts all the time with her nipples poking out. God. I always want ’em. And last night she managed to get her tits in her mouth while I went down on her. I’m tellin’ you, man, I almost blew my nuts!”
I frowned and took another deep swallow of my drink. Typical. This was classic Shane. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than talking about himself, that and he was the kind of guy who had probably tried to give himself a blowjob.
“Wait.” AJ began rubbing his chin absently. “If she’s an A cup, I don’t see how she could have possibly gotten her tits in her mouth. An A cup is very small.”
I couldn’t resist taking a dig at Shane. “She must have a neck like a giraffe.”
Shane choked on his beer and AJ roared with laughter. “A giraffe!” AJ slammed his fist on the table and barked out another laugh. “A neck like a giraffe!”
As I sat there nursing my drink, I heard Shane speaking, saw AJ laughing, and yet I felt like I was not entirely present.
From my strange state of remove, I stubbed out my cigarette in the ashtray and reached for my packet of Marlboros. Instead of lighting another, I pushed my chair back and slipped the pack of cigarettes into my back pocket. “Later, guys.”
“What!” AJ grunted. “The silent oracle has finally spoken and now he’s saying good-bye?”
“Yep,” I said, popping the p sound. “I’ll catch you guys on the flip side.”
“Hold up!” AJ shouted just as I was leaving. “Where are you staying at?”
“Julian’s place,” I hollered over my shoulder.
“You lucky son of a bitch!” AJ shouted, his voice rife with innuendo. “I can’t believe Julian left you in charge of his baby sister.”
Just as I was halfway out the door, I heard Shane call after my disappearing back. “Say hi to Vivian for me.”
Without a backward glance, I raised my hand weakly in acknowledgment.
Outside, I lit another cigarette and my thoughts drifted to Vivian.
I still couldn’t get over that kiss … so sweet, so intoxicating, and she’d tasted so damn good.
Granted, it wasn’t the most perfect kiss. As far as kissing went, I could tell she was a little inexperienced.
But it was raw, uninhibited, and infinitely more arousing than any kiss I’d ever shared with a woman.
God. I shoved a hand through my hair. I was so screwed.
At the end of the street, a bus squealed and hissed to a stop.
My Jeep was parked at Viv’s place, but I knew I’d be drinking. A lot.
So driving was out of the question.
Before I missed my bus, I started jogging, quickening my pace as I desperately tried to outrun my thoughts.
Chapter Seven
Vivian
Frigid. Even now, I cringed at the sound of the word. It still clanged through my head like a loud bell.
Last night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, Brody had called again and against my better judgment, I’d answered.
I still cared for him and I’d needed to be sure he was okay.
At first he’d sounded calm, composed even. And I was relieved that he was doing all right. Then he started begging me to take him back.
When I’d tried explaining why I couldn’t go back to him, he hurled insults and accusations at me.
He accused me of sleeping around. Sleeping with Liam.
Vivian's List (Vol. 1) Page 5