She's Got It Bad

by Sarah Mayberry

  It didn’t matter what she told herself. It was no longer enough to remember his words—I’m not good relationship material—or the lessons life had taught her regarding men and her unsuitability for a long-term relationship. She craved Liam. At work, she listened for the sound of his voice. When she wasn’t with him, her fingers itched to pick up the phone. Every moment her mind wasn’t busy with the mechanics of whatever she happened to be doing she defaulted to thinking about him.

  The breadth of his shoulders.

  The depth of his voice.

  His long, strong fingers.

  Might as well admit to herself that she was lost, an absolute goner. As besotted and obsessed with him as she’d ever been when she was a kid.

  She’d fallen in love with Liam Masters. Again. Despite all her determination not to. Despite her fear and her certainty that it would only lead to heartbreak.

  She faced the ugly, terrifying truth as she watched Liam’s rear car lights fade into the darkness after he’d dropped her at her apartment post dinner and roadside sex.

  She’d wanted him to stay. Wanted to invite him upstairs to her apartment and into her bed and her arms and her body. Wanted more of what he’d just given her in the car.

  Who was she kidding? She wanted everything.

  Nausea churned in her belly as she stripped her dress and stockings and underwear and stepped into the shower.

  She wanted to cook for him in his too-big bachelor kitchen. She wanted to be the one to help him choose furniture for his dining room and his living room and all the other empty or underfurnished rooms in his house. She wanted to paint canvases for him to fill his house with color and life and energy. She wanted the right to walk into his office at Masters Mechanics and slide her arms around him and lift her face for his kiss, out in the open, for everyone to see.

  She wanted to be his. And she wanted him to be hers.

  She laughed into the shower spray, but it wasn’t funny. It was sad. And it was scary.

  As she toweled herself dry and got into bed, she acknowledged that she wasn’t going to walk away from him. She’d tried to resist him and it hadn’t worked. She’d tried to contain their relationship to the merely physical, but that hadn’t flown, either.

  Staring at the ceiling, her fingers once again tracing her scar over and over, Zoe understood that she was weak enough and needy enough and hopeful, God help her, enough to take whatever she could get of Liam’s life, mind and body. He liked her. He’d said it to her face, hadn’t he? He obviously cared for her—he’d given her a job, hooked her up with Jacinta. And he still seemed to desire her, if tonight’s display in the car was anything to go by.

  It was enough. It would have to be. She would hang on to it and ride this thing out until the messy end. Then she’d get up and dust herself off again, as she had so many times before.

  A single tear squeezed out from beneath her tightly closed eyelids. She felt it slide across her cheek and onto her pillow.

  She’d tried to be smart, she really had. Somehow she’d wound up being really stupid.

  ZOE WAS GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT. If he’d had any doubts about it, dinner with Jacinta and Frederick had well and truly put them to bed. Jacinta had confirmed that Zoe would have a show at her gallery in the first week of August. The pricing she was suggesting for Zoe’s works had made Zoe gasp. If even half her paintings sold, she wouldn’t have to work for a year. And if her work sold that well, the odds were good Jacinta would keep her busy with commissions and other shows. Zoe was set. A new career, a new direction. New faith in herself. A dream to pursue.

  There was no earthly reason for him to keep playing guardian angel in her life. His mission to help her to happiness was over. It was time for him to take a step back. Stop sleeping with her.

  Stop thinking about her. Every day he woke with new resolve to stand his ground and let her slip away. And every night he found some excuse to get his hands on her.

  Monday night it was in the car on the way home from dinner with Jacinta and Frederick.

  Tuesday night they both worked late at the workshop and he ordered pizza for dinner. By the time it arrived, he’d had Zoe on his desk, her cries echoing around the empty workshop.

  Wednesday night her car wouldn’t start and he drove her home. She’d hesitated as she exited the car, then looked back over her shoulder and asked if he was coming inside.

  Thursday night he got all the way home before he realized he was kidding himself. He called her up and asked her to meet him at his favorite Italian restaurant in Lygon Street, Carlton. They ate spaghetti Bolognese and crunchy garlic bread with the house wine. Afterward, he took her on a tour of the city on the back of his chopper, concluding with a circuit of the long, snaking roads that wound through Studley Park in the city’s inner east end. Parked at one of the lookouts that provided spectacular views of the city skyline, he’d kissed and touched her till they were both more than a little bit crazy. Then he’d taken her back to his house and made love to her for hours.

  Tonight, Friday, he stood in his office doorway watching her pack up her airbrush and paint supplies. He told himself that tonight would be the first night that he’d let her go home alone.

  You weak bastard, a voice said in the back of his mind. At least be honest with yourself if not Zoe.

  Because there was no way he was letting her go.

  Maybe if she hadn’t been wearing jeans that hugged every smooth curve of her hips and butt he’d have half a chance. Maybe if she didn’t have her hair piled high on the back of her head, exposing the provocative tattoo around her neck, and maybe if he hadn’t been haunted by her scent all day.

  Zoe Ford had been the girl of his dreams, and now she was the woman who stood center stage in his life. He couldn’t imagine a time when he wouldn’t want her. He couldn’t imagine a time when he wouldn’t place her happiness above his own.

  As he stood watching her, when he really wanted to be holding her, he forced himself to acknowledge the truth—she’d stayed with him through the years, buried deep inside him. And now he’d found her again and he wasn’t sure he had the strength to let her go a second time.

  And sometimes, like right now as he watched her push a strand of hair out of her eyes, he wondered why he had to give her up at all.

  She could move in with him. She could continue to explore her art both at the workshop and via Jacinta and the gallery. They could argue and make love and make each other laugh and grow old together.

  He pushed the thought away. He couldn’t allow himself to start contemplating the life he could have with Zoe if he invited her home tonight and didn’t let her go again.

  Liam pushed himself away from the door frame and forced himself to return to his desk.

  He wasn’t the man for Zoe. He had scars all over his body and an almost constant ringing in his ear from his long-ago perforated eardrum to remind him of exactly why.

  “Okay, that’s me. I’m off.”

  He looked up to find her standing in the doorway.

  “I guess I’ll see you Monday, then,” he made himself say.

  She nodded. He could see she was disappointed he hadn’t mentioned the weekend, or even asked what she was doing tonight.

  You need to end it, he told himself.

  “Your neighbor still looking in on Lucky and the kittens for you?” he asked instead.

  “Yes.”

  “Want to have dinner?” he asked.

  Both of them ignored the fact that five seconds ago he’d just indicated he wouldn’t see her till Monday. They’d been playing this game all week, back and forth, neither of them acknowledging what they were circling around.

  “What were you thinking?”

  “Fish and chips on the beach?”

  She nodded. “Sounds good.”

  He closed his eyes as she exited his office. He really was a weak prick. He knew what he had to do and it wasn’t going to get any easier.

  So much for putting Zoe’s happiness fir
st. But why should he be surprised? His father had been a selfish, possessive asshole, too.

  The thought sent a chill down his spine. He almost called Zoe back. But he didn’t. Because he was weak.

  She was waiting in front of his house when he pulled into the driveway. He heard her footsteps on the pavement as he exited the Mustang. Then she was standing in front of him, a smile on her face. Somehow she managed to look cocky and vulnerable at the same time. Sexy and uncertain.

  Brave and scared.

  He pulled her close, combing his fingers into her hair as he kissed her. She opened to him easily.

  He was hard in seconds as she pressed herself against him. She trailed kisses down his neck to his chest, pulling the neck of his T-shirt out of the way so she could tongue his collarbone. Then she slid her hand beneath the waistband of his jeans to find his cock.

  “Shut the garage door,” she murmured against his chest.

  He saw the wicked glint in her eyes. He hit the automatic door button as Zoe sank to her knees.

  Man, she was unbelievable. He felt his cock spring free as she unzipped his jeans, then her hot, wet mouth was closing over him. He hissed in a breath as her tongue traced the head of his cock.

  She curled one hand around the back of his thigh to hold him close and took all of him at once.

  He stood it for as long as he could then he pulled her up and away from him.

  “Enough,” he said when she started to protest.

  He hustled her into the house. They made it to the living room before he had her on the couch, tugging her jeans off. She wrapped her legs around his hips as he slid inside her.

  “Hard and fast,” she begged. “Please.”

  He gave her what she wanted, loving the way her eyes went distant and smoky and the way she bit her lip and arched her back as her climax approached.

  His own climax hit him and he stroked into her one last time, feeling her beginning to come apart around him. She cried out, her thighs clenching around his hips. He pressed his face into the soft skin beneath her ear and inhaled the smell of her. Spice and sex and Zoe. He could never get enough of it.

  He rolled to one side afterward. Zoe levered herself up so that she was resting on an elbow. She stared at herself—naked from the waist down, still wearing her bra and long-sleeved T-shirt, her jeans discarded in a tangle a few steps away. She laughed, the sound low and earthy.

  “You’d think we’d be able to at least get our clothes off by now,” she said.

  “Practice makes perfect,” he said.

  He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. He could feel her breath against his neck, warm and moist. He didn’t want to let her go.

  “So, those fish and chips you lured me over here with,” Zoe said after a few minutes. “Were they real or just bait to get me to put out?”

  “You want dinner and sex?” he asked, reluctantly letting her roll away from him.

  She stood. “I’m high maintenance, baby. Haven’t you worked that out yet?” She laughed.

  He lifted his hips so he could drag his jeans and boxer-briefs back up. Zoe hopped on one leg as she pulled her underwear on. He eyed the shadows between her thighs and wanted to tear her underwear off all over again.

  “Stop looking at me like that or we’ll starve to death,” she said.

  The rumble of his stomach decided the issue. They tidied themselves and walked around the corner to the local shops. They ordered up big, and Zoe insisted on buying Coke to cut through the grease of their heart-stopping meal. Ten minutes later, a warm paper-wrapped bundle under his arm, he led her to the beach.

  It was only dusk but the streetlights were already on along the shore. The sand was still warm from the sun and they found a spot near the seawall. He unwrapped their meal and watched Zoe attack the food with zeal.

  Fifteen minutes later she collapsed back on the sand holding her belly.

  “My God, I haven’t had so much salt and grease in one hit in a long time. How can I feel so satisfied yet so guilty all at the same time?”

  “I remember your folks used to order fish and chips every Friday night,” he said, staring out at the ink-dark ocean. “I thought I was in paradise when I first came to live with you guys.”

  “Really? Don’t tell me your mom was a health freak?”

  He shrugged.

  “To be honest, I can’t really remember what she used to feed me. I know we didn’t do takeout a lot. Couldn’t afford it.”

  Zoe was silent for a moment.

  “It must have been hard, watching her die. I can’t even imagine how hard,” she said finally.

  He shrugged. “It was harder watching my dad lay into her. At least with the cancer I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it.”

  Zoe screwed the leftovers of their meal into a big paper ball and pushed it to one side. He felt the warmth of her body as she shifted closer to him, copying his knees-drawn-to-chest posture.

  “There’s no way you could have stopped your father, Liam. You were just a kid.”

  “Yeah.”

  She nudged him with an elbow.

  “Is that a ‘yeah, I know,’ or a ‘yeah, I still should have done something’?” she asked.

  He shifted restlessly.

  “He was a big guy. I tried to stop him a few times but it only made him angrier.”

  Why had he even mentioned his father? He hated talking about this shit.

  “Have you ever heard from him?”

  He stiffened. “No.”

  He could feel her looking at him.

  “You ever wonder where he is, whether he’s still alive…?”

  Liam turned to meet her eyes. “No.”

  She nodded. “Fair enough.”

  Silence stretched between them for a few minutes as they both stared out at sea.

  “I think about Marty Johannsen sometimes,” she said after a while. “Whether he’s married with kids, that kind of thing.” She paused, then huffed out a breath. “Stupid, huh? It wasn’t as though he tried to get me pregnant. But still…It didn’t change his life, what happened that night. He can still have kids, a family.”

  A cool breeze blew off the water and she shivered. Liam dropped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer against his side.

  “He never spoke to me afterward, you know. He and his mates used to laugh when I walked past them at school, but not once did he look me in the eye. And after my operation…Well, a lot of kids didn’t look me in the eye after that. Like I was the school freak or something.”

  He knew how hard it was for Zoe to talk about the past and her feelings. He’d seen how much it had hurt her when he pushed her for the truth. He also knew that she was offering up her stories to make it easier for him to tell his. She wanted to know about his dad. She wanted to share his pain the way he’d shared hers.

  He couldn’t do it. Everything in him balked at the thought of unpacking all the ugliness he’d stowed away.

  The warm weight of Zoe’s head fell onto his shoulder. He felt the tickle of her hair against his jaw and forced himself to unclench his teeth.

  “He was a drunk,” he said quietly. “I can’t remember seeing him sober. He must have been, because he had a job some of the time. But I can’t remember seeing him without a glass or a bottle in his hand.”

  She remained silent, the only sound the breaking of the waves and the hum of traffic on the road behind them.

  “Me and Mom used to gauge his mood by the way he came home. If he slammed the front door, we knew we were in for it.”

  He shook his head, remembering.

  “He was a scary bastard. The first time we ran away and he came after us, I thought he’d killed her, she was so quiet afterward.”

  Zoe stirred beside him, turning so that she could wrap her arms and legs around him. Only then did he realize he was shaking.

  “You don’t have to tell me any more if you don’t want to,” she said.

  She was soft and warm against hi
m. He took a deep breath, then another. She leaned closer and pressed a kiss to his cheekbone.

  “Let’s go home,” she said.

  They dusted off the sand from their clothes and disposed of their leftovers. They were both cold after sitting for so long in the cool ocean breeze, and Zoe went straight to his en suite when they got home and started running a bath.

  “I’ve always wanted to try this monster tub of yours out,” she said as she started stripping her clothes.

  They soaked for nearly an hour, washing each other’s backs, talking about the comp bike, the business, her art, small incidents from the day. Afterward he toweled her dry and carried her to his bed where he made love to her for a second time.

  Her sighs and caresses and the thump of her heart against his own made him want to draw it out for as long as he could. But finally he lost control and things got a little wild and crazy.

  He woke to the increasingly familiar sound of Zoe dressing in the dark. He reached out to grab her when she stood up after zipping her boots.

  “Don’t go,” he said.

  “It’s late,” she said, gently trying to tug her arm free.

  “Don’t go,” he repeated.

  His words hung between them, heavy in the dark. He drew her toward him, pulled her onto the bed. He kissed her, ran his hands down her back.

  “I want you to stay,” he said against her lips.

  Her breath eased out and her body relaxed.

  “Okay.”

  She was staying. Something in his chest expanded at the thought. He would wake in the morning and find her beside him.

  God, he loved her.

  He stilled as the thought registered.

  Jesus, when had that happened?

  But he knew: it had happened the moment he looked into her eyes again after twelve long years.

  Zoe wriggled in his arms, and he realized his hands were fisted in her clothing.

  “You going to let me get undressed again?” she asked, amused.

  He forced himself to release his grip. She moved away from him and he listened to the sounds of her clothes hitting the floor. Then the mattress dipped with her weight and she was sliding into bed next to him.