After The Break

by Andrea Joan

  “I’m clean, you know,” I assure him. “And I’m on the pill. I have been for a while.”

  “I’m clean too. Plus, I haven’t gone bareback in years. But I shouldn’t have been that reckless. I shouldn’t have let that happen before we talked about it.” He starts to stroke my hair, running his fingers through the strands.

  “It’s okay. I meant what I said. I trust you to take care of me. So, what does this mean? For us?” I wrap my arm around his middle and relax my head into his hard chest, inhaling his scent: all sweat and sex and pheromones that almost make me want to jump him again.

  “I told you, this changes everything. We take it day by day, see where this goes. But you need to know I don’t share. No one else can have you while you’re with me.”

  “I don’t screw around, Liam. I’m not like that.” My tone comes out sharp as I immediately go on the defensive.

  “Shhh. I didn’t think you were. I just want to make sure we are both on the same page. This is probably the most backwards and unconventional way I can think of to start any type of relationship, but I want to try. I can’t promise it will be easy; in fact I have a feeling we have a hard fucking road ahead of us, but…” He takes a deep breath and moves his hand from my hair down to my bare arm where he begins to lightly stroke his fingers against my skin.

  “But what?” I ask, looking up at him.

  “But the sex was so fucking mind blowing that I’m willing to take the chance, at least for a little while.”

  “Oh my god, you are such an ass!” I elbow him lightly in the stomach and move to get up. Liam’s laughter is loud enough that it echoes off the wall in the gym. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything so beautiful before. He wraps his arms around my waist before I have a chance to go very far, pulling me back down.

  “You sure this isn’t moving too fast for you, Sky? Because I don’t go halfway into anything. I will consume you.”

  “My whole life has been fast. Like warp speed, breaking the sound barrier fast. I’ve never gone about anything slowly, and definitely not by choice, because I never really had any.” The way he looks at me now, with a curious and doubtful stare, has me scrambling for a way to explain it to him.

  “Like, you know how girls always imagine what their first kiss will be like?”

  “No. Do they do that?” I feel him smiling against my cheek.

  “Of course they do. They wonder when it will happen, where, and who with. Will it be a little sloppy with some tongue, or just a sweet kiss stolen when no one is looking?” My fingers start lazily tracing over his skin and his scars.

  “Aww. That is so sweet, Sky.” His tone is playful with a hint mockery, but his arms tightening around my waist almost make me forget that he’s making fun of me.

  “Whatever.” I roll my eyes, even though I know he can’t see it. It’s the principle of the thing, really. “My point is, a girl spends a better part of her pre-teen years just imagining all the scenarios of this perfectly innocent first kiss. Even if it’s a complete disaster, it would be a special one because it’s yours. When I was fifteen, I had my very first kiss with an actor that was twice my age. On camera. In front of a director who was busy giving me directions on how to do it properly and a crew of twenty people. For a movie I didn’t even want to do, one Carl pretty much forced me into because he said it would help further my career. To let the audience see past my Mandy Mayhem persona because I would be playing some Lolita-type character that was seducing an older man. The depressing part was that Carl was right. The movie catapulted my career into more adult roles, ones where I was taken more seriously. But you know what, I hated every second of it. I knew after that day that I would never have a normal life, or grow up like most kids my age. I would never have that innocent first kiss or first date, or even get to go to something as stupid as prom. But do you want to know something?”

  “What?” He starts to stroke my hair, tucking it behind my ears.

  “Our first kiss, and this moment right here, is the only choice I’ve ever made on my own that I don’t regret. I think I would have given all the rest of this up if it meant my first kiss could have been with you, in the car, or even in that alley behind your bar. So yes, I’m sure this is not moving too fast for me.”

  “Sky.”

  “Yes?”

  “At the risk of sounding like a total pussy, I’m going to tell you this anyway. That may have been the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.”

  “Liam?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Where’s your wallet?”

  “In my pants. Why?”

  I turn toward him and start to sneak my hand into the pocket. “I just thought that maybe it was time your man card was confiscated.”

  “You think you’re so funny, don’t you?” he says, pulling my hand away from his pants and flipping me onto my back, pinning me to the floor. “Baby, I’ve got good news,” he growls into my ear before he bites my earlobe.

  “Oh yeah? What is it?”

  “I think my vision is back. You ready for round two?”

  He doesn’t even wait for me to answer before he’s buried deep inside me and I’m a goner.

  “I’M DYING. THIS IS how I go out. My obituary that TMZ will so kindly pen will read: Actress Skylar Joy Barrett collapses to her untimely death on a morning jog with her bodyguard who coerced her into the run against her will.”

  I’ve stopped halfway up the hill, not far from my house, and I refuse to move another muscle, aside from the ones I’m using to collapse onto the sidewalk. I don’t even care that I’m lying on the gross cement right now because it’s cooling my heated, disgustingly sweaty skin. A tall shadow moves over me, blocking the early morning sun, and I close my eyes, hoping he’ll go away and leave me to my misery. He is the cause of it, after all.

  “Being a little overdramatic, don’t you think, Sky? And I did not coerce you into running,” Liam says as I feel him squat down next to me.

  “You so did! You slapped my ass while I was still comfortably asleep in bed and told me that I had to come running with you. Then when I refused, you said, and I quote, ‘I don’t know this area, baby. I could get lost and some lonely Hollywood Hills cougar housewife could snatch me up and use me as her sex slave.’”

  The slapping of the ass part I was so not opposed to, but that’s because I thought it was going to lead to an entirely different type of physical excursion, especially seeing as that is all we have been doing for the last week. That and coming up for food.

  Food. That sounds amazing right now.

  “That was a valid fucking concern, not coercion. And we’ve barely gone two miles. You can’t be this exhausted already. With a body like yours I assumed you worked out daily.”

  “Well, sorry to disappoint, but I don’t. Maybe the occasional Pilates session if Carl is telling me my ass and thighs are getting bigger, but that’s it.”

  “Jesus, I really fucking hate your father. I can’t wait until you fire his ass,” he growls. When I dare to open my eyes again, he’s lying on the dirty sidewalk next to me.

  “So you’ve mentioned.” Over and over. Ever since I dropped the bomb that I was planning to fire Carl, Liam has been not so casually dropping hints to remind me that I said it, almost as if he’s afraid I’m going to back out, and honestly I’m not really sure how I feel about any of it. I did mean it when I said I wanted to fire Carl, but I didn’t expect Liam to be so adamant or involved about the whole thing.

  When I pause to take in all of Liam, I suddenly become breathless again. This man does for track shorts and wife-beaters what James Bond does for a suit. Daniel Craig/Sean Connery James Bond not Pierce Brosnan James Bond…or Roger Moore or that other guy no one cares about.

  “Damn, this is so unfair,” I groan. “How do you still look so good after that marathon we just ran and I look like some wet hairball pulled from a shower drain?” I ask, throwing my arm over my eyes. I no longer want to look at his muscled non-sweaty perfect
ion.

  “Baby, a marathon is twenty-six miles. We’ve barely gone two,” he so helpfully informs before he rolls over so that his top half is resting on me. “And you do not look like a fucking hairball,” he kisses me deep and without warning. “In fact,” he moves his lips lower, slightly grazing my cheek until I can feel his warm breath against my ear, causing me to shiver, “I think you look all kinds of fucking sexy like this in just a sports bra and tight yoga pants that I have to say make your ass look fucking phenomenal.” He shockingly licks a path from my collarbone up to my ear.

  “Liam, stop. I’m all sweaty and nasty and—oh god,” I moan as his tongue traces the shell of my ear, his nylon shorts doing nothing to block the erection that is clearly pressing into my thigh. I should be worried that we will be seen, that at any moment someone will pop up from behind a bush or something and start snapping pictures. I should be worried about all these things because it’s second nature to me. But I’m not. I find myself not even caring because I’m happy and if someone wants to plaster my happy all over the tabloids, so be it.

  “Sweaty and nasty is the way I prefer you, sweetheart,” he groans into my neck right before he grabs my wrists and lifts himself up off the ground, taking me with him. “Now let’s at least try and go one more mile, then we can head back and you can work at trying to make me all sweaty and nasty too.”

  “Nope. No way,” I say, stepping away, dodging his attempt to grab me. “The only way I am running ever again is if—”

  “Is this where you get all fucking cliché and tell me you’re only running if someone is chasing you?”

  “What? Hell no. I’m not even running if someone is chasing me.”

  “Then how do you expect to get away?” he asks, chuckling at me as if I’m being the ridiculous one.

  “Um…duh. That’s what I have you for. I expect that if someone is chasing me you can just hit them in the face or something, and I’ll find my way to the nearest vehicle so I can drive away. Like a sane person. No, the only way I’m ever running again is if I’m running by proxy.”

  “What in the fuck does that mean?”

  “It means that the only way I’m doing it is if it’s you running and I attach myself to your back.” I know I’m totally rambling at this point because I look down at my hands and realize I have posed them like claws to emphasize my point. I look back up at Liam and he has the biggest grin on his face, his dimples out in full force.

  Stalking closer, practically towering over me, he wraps my ponytail around his hand, tugging at it so I’m looking up into his eyes and not at his chest. “You are so fucking cute, you know that?” He states it in a way where he is asking a question that leaves no room for an actual answer. “Let me take you on a date today, Skylar.”

  Say what now? “Um, what?”

  “Go out with me today. On a date.”

  “Why?”

  He releases my hair and takes a step, putting distance between us. “Why? Seriously? Jesus, Sky, why do you think?” For a split-second I swear I see something akin to hurt and maybe anger flicker through his gray eyes.

  “I just mean…you don’t have to, you know. I’m not one of those girls that demands you feed and water them after sex.”

  His hands skate through his hair roughly, sweat flying off, and not that I thought it was possible, but it actually makes him look sexier. “What the fuck, Skylar? You can be so infuriating sometimes. We’ve been in your house for days, haven’t left once. Now I don’t know if it’s because you’re afraid to take me out in public or you’re afraid to be out in public, but either way it doesn’t fucking sit well with me. Not to mention that now I’m really annoyed you think whatever this is between us is just fucking.”

  Crap, I didn’t mean to offend him. “Hey,” I say, grabbing his hands to pull him back to me. “I didn’t mean that how it sounded. I just, I’ve never really done this before. The whole dating thing. Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever really been on a real date before.”

  He tilts his head to the side and eyes me curiously. “You’ve never been on a real date before?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so? You do know what a date is, right?”

  “Stop looking at me like that, and yes I know what a date is. I’ve gone to movie premieres and events with someone on my arm but it’s never been a date type thing. More a publicity thing.”

  “Well, what about your old boyfriends? What about that douche Logue? None of them ever took you out to dinner or a movie? Hell, even bowling would be something. I mean it’s fucking lame but it’s something.”

  “Don’t you listen, slugger? I just told you I’ve never done this whole thing before. None of it. I also told you it wasn’t like that between Cass and me. It was just a sex th—” Before I can finish the sentence, he slaps his large palm over my mouth.

  “First lesson in having a boyfriend, sweetheart. You don’t mention the fact that you fucked other guys, especially with someone like me. I warned you I’m territorial.” His already low voice seems to drop an entire octave on that last statement.

  I’m turned on, but I’m pissed off because he put his hand over my mouth—again—and now I’m a little giddy because it just hit me that he referred to himself as my boyfriend. So I do the most natural thing I can think of.

  “Ow! What the hell? You just bit me!”

  “You put your hand over my mouth. Again. And by the way, you brought up Cassiel, not me, so I was just reminding you that Cass and I were just about the se—” His eyes narrow at me in warning as he continues shaking his hand. “I was just reminding you that Cass and I are just…friends.”

  “I still can’t believe you actually bit me. Fucking hellcat,” he mutters under his breath.

  “You’re my boyfriend,” I mutter under my own.

  “What?”

  “You said, ‘the first lesson in having a boyfriend’ which implies that you are calling yourself my boyfriend.” I bite my lip, trying to hide my smile, but I lose the battle and smile anyway. Big. Then he smiles back too. Kind of. Okay, his lips twitch a little, but for Liam it may as well be a smile.

  “What’s your point? I thought we already covered this days ago, right before my cock claimed your pussy.”

  “How romantic,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Blackmailing me with an orgasm is hardly putting a title on us. I would have agreed to give you anything at that point. Hell, I would have agreed to give you Noah. Don’t you think you could have at least asked first?” I ask, placing my hands on my hips. Not that I would have said no, and while I realize I’m in my twenties and this whole label is childish, I still want to be at least asked. Just once. Just to see how it feels.

  “No. This isn’t fucking high school, baby.”

  I pout and give him the saddest eyes I can manage before laying on the guilt trip. “Oh, I wouldn’t know. I never got to go to one.”

  I look up through my eyelashes to see him shaking his head at me, a full smile now adorning his gorgeous face. “You’re really laying it on fucking thick, aren’t you?” He steps closer to me on the sidewalk, and my immediate reaction is to back away from the predator, but I don’t. Liam won’t hurt me. His hand comes up to my face and I almost back away again, my breath picking up as his palm lightly grasps the side of my neck.

  “Skylar.” My name is released in a tone somewhere between a whisper and a growl. “Will you pretty fucking please do me the honor of being my girlfriend?”

  “I don’t know. The term boyfriend just seems so juvenile, don’t you think? Can’t we just say we’re exclusive or something?” I ask without missing a beat.

  He leans his neck back just enough so that he can look into my eyes. His face remains completely masked, and I can’t read his reaction at my flippant remark. Then something unexpected happens. Liam laughs. Not like the small laughs he has let free on occasion, the kind where he pulls back almost as if he doesn’t think he deserves to. No, this one takes him over, sta
rting from his chest and growing momentum until it racks his whole body. The sound of it, the intensity, is something to be cherished. To some something as simple as laughter is taken for granted because it flows through them so freely, but I know how rare true laughter can be—unforced and authentic and even vulnerable. And here in front of me, the strongest man I’ve ever met is breaking down and cracking up.

  Liam cups my face in his large hands and pulls my lips to his, kissing me deeply and with purpose, as if I just gifted him with something rare and now he is returning the favor.

  “You are a trip, Skylar Barrett,” he says after releasing his lips from mine. He descends one more time, placing a much softer kiss to my punished lips. “I don’t care what the fuck you want to call us as long as we’re together. You and me only, baby. Now hop on,” he commands while kneeling down on the sidewalk in front of me. I already know what he means, what he wants. I’ve been here before. I jump onto his back and wrap my legs around his waist.

  “I’m going to let you ride me home, then I’m going to let you ride me dirty, then we’ll clean each other up and go on a fucking date, yeah?”

  “Sure, but I’m warning you that a date with me may be difficult. Paparazzi, fans. Zero privacy,” I warn, wrapping my arms even tighter around his neck.

  “Most things with you have proven to be difficult. I would expect nothing less.”

  “Aww, you say the sweetest things.” He turns his head slightly and manages to kiss me on the cheek before he starts running to the house with ease.

  “Boom! And Liam O’ Connor for the fucking win. Again.” He turns from the pinball machine to face me with that oh-so-cocky smirk. I should be pissed because I really hate to lose, I mean really hate it, to the point where I actually used to release all the pieces to the Connect Four game if I thought Noah was about to beat me when we were younger. But watching Liam bang away at this pinball machine, his sleeves pushed up, the veins on his muscular forearms popping out with each movement, the view of his perfect ass always present, I could hardly call that a loss.