What a Woman Gets

by Judi Fennell

  He shifted, moving on top of her, pressing his erection—thankyougod—against her aching center, and she just wanted to pull him into her and keep him inside her long enough to fill this void that had been there for so long she hadn’t ever really known what it was like to not have it. But Liam could make the void go away. Make it disappear for good.

  She’d never thrown herself at someone. Had never felt the overwhelming urge to do so. She’d never had to because men had always come on to her and she’d been the one to say no. Thank God Liam was saying yes because it was as if the very act of living was dependent upon him touching her.

  It scared her, this depth of what she was feeling for him. To give someone so much power . . . It was the exact opposite of what she’d said she wanted in her life now.

  But it didn’t stop her from wanting him. From wanting his hands all over her. His lips, his teeth, his tongue all over her skin. So she was going to go with that and deal with the rest later.

  She slid her hands up his back, enjoying the sweat beneath her palms, the way it smelled on him, the way it slicked their bodies so they could slide against each other with just the right amount of friction—

  “God, Cassidy. I want you.”

  Thank the lord and pass the popcorn. Cassidy tugged his face to hers and kissed him with everything in her.

  His tongue danced over hers, his teeth nipped at her lips and his tongue . . . Dear God he had a talented tongue. What would it be like if he moved lower . . .

  She gripped his shorts, wanting to find out. Wanting to know what it was like to be joined with someone so intimately—and she didn’t mean physically. She’d had sex before, but this, what Liam could do to her . . . she’d never had this.

  “Take your shorts off,” she muttered, trying to shove them down his hips and giving up, sliding her hands beneath the waistband and curving them over his butt instead.

  He had a great butt. So firm and tight and muscular . . . Perfect for hanging on to or grasping to her as he thrust inside of her . . .

  “I want you, Liam. Inside me. Now.”

  “Bossy thing, aren’t you?” He didn’t sound annoyed. “Give me a second, sweetheart.”

  He crawled over her some more, his lower half now in the vicinity of her chest.

  Cassidy nibbled on his hip.

  “Holy—!” Liam fell onto the bed. “Cassidy, honey. Give me a chance here. You do that and I’m not going to get one of these on in time.”

  She looked at “these.” Ah. Condoms. Good. “Grab a bunch.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Define a bunch.”

  She smiled back at him. “As many as you think you can handle, big boy. Then add three.”

  He laughed and shook his head, the almost desperate edge taken off. Oh, she still wanted him, but at least now she could think.

  And then he stood on the side of the bed and dropped his shorts.

  Thinking went out the window.

  “My God, Liam. You’re beautiful.”

  “That’s my line.” He didn’t move, just stared at her.

  Cassidy looked at herself. Her nipples were two hardened pebbles, there was some brush-burn on her chest, her shorts were half shoved off her hips, and her socks and sneakers were still on. Oh, and her shirt was still tangled up in her hair. She had no makeup, had been sweating like a pig, and her lips were probably swollen from his kiss. “I guess beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.” She kicked off her sneakers and shimmied out of her shorts.

  “Baby, you’re gorgeous. From the first moment I saw you, you’ve only gotten prettier.”

  If she’d needed anything else to melt her bones, that might have been it, but she didn’t. She wanted Liam not because of what he said to her but because of who he was. How he was. These past two weeks, she’d come to learn who he was. How he thought. His generosity, his compassion, his talent, his smarts, and his heart. His love for his family and his unselfishness in helping her. Then there was this chemistry thing and it was as if Liam was too good to be true.

  “Please, Liam.” She held out her hand, inviting him to join her. To join with her. To be with her in this moment.

  “I’m right here, Cass.”

  He slid beside her, cupped her hip, and rolled her to face him, and she didn’t mind the nickname. Not from him. Hearing him say it . . . It was different from when Mom had called her that then left. Liam wasn’t going anywhere. Not now and maybe, not later.

  “You’re sure?” Liam brushed his fingertips over her cheek.

  She caught his hand and brought it to her lips. She kissed his fingers. Once. Then she sucked his index finger into her mouth and rolled her tongue around it. “Does that answer your question?”

  His eyes darkened and that sexy smile slid over his lips. “Hell yeah, it does.”

  And then he rolled her onto her back and was on top of her, with only the condom between them.

  Liam cupped her face and brushed some hair off her forehead with his fingertips. “You are so incredibly beautiful, Cassidy. And I don’t just mean the physical. God gave you the beautiful structure, but there’s a light inside you that shines through. It eclipses everyone else around you. And you aren’t even aware of it. You don’t even know how you affect others.”

  God, the words were nice, and she really hated to disabuse him of his fantasy, but the reality was . . . He didn’t recognize what he was looking at when he saw that supposed light.

  “That light is the lure of being a Davenport, Liam. Nothing to do with me and everything to do with my last name.”

  Liam shook his head. “That’s what you think, but it’s not true. The same light doesn’t shine from your father and he’s had the name longer. It’s you, Cassidy. It’s what’s inside you, the goodness of the person you are, that shines through and draws people to you like a moth to a flame. Don’t let yourself become so jaded that you don’t see the worth of who you are. I know your father has pulled one over on you, but you’re still you. In that condo, in my house, in your studio . . . It’s all you and that’s who I’m here with now. Not a Davenport, not a socialite, not someone who’s met people I’ve only ever heard about on the news, but Cassidy Marie Davenport. Furniture refinisher, artist, and a pretty good housekeeper after two weeks on the job.” He nudged her nose with his. “I want you, Cassidy. You. No one else.”

  It almost sounded as if he was trying to convince himself or make some sort of declarative statement about something, but Cassidy was going to take him at his word. Liam was one of the few people she’d met who she could take at his word.

  She pressed her palm to his cheek. “Then have me, Liam. Make the rest of the world disappear.”

  Liam didn’t need any more urging. He’d barely kept himself contained with the feel of her beneath him, her soft skin cradling his hard taut body that was ready to explode with desire.

  One night. That’s all he needed. One night with her.

  But what about all those pretty things you just said to her? Were they merely to get into her pants?

  He shoved that door closed in his mind. He hadn’t said them to get in her pants. Hell, he was already in her pants. He’d said them because they were true.

  And he wasn’t analyzing it any more than that. Not here. Not now.

  He shifted his hips and she opened to let him in. “Jesus, Cass, you feel amazing.” He gritted his teeth to stop himself from plunging straight into her. He wanted to savor this moment, feel every inch as she took him into her wet, hot heat, her muscles clenching around him, releasing him only to tighten again, urging him onward.

  “Oh, God, yes,” she gasped and arched her neck as he slipped inside.

  Liam couldn’t help himself; he sucked on that exposed flesh. God, she tasted so good. Felt so good.

  He pulled out, smiling at her gasp, then surged in again, going deeper.

  “Yes, Liam, like that.”

  Her nails raked his back and she locked her ankles over his ass and did some amazing wiggle thing t
hat almost had him going off like a rocket.

  He tugged on the skin of her neck with his teeth. “Holy hell, Cass. You’re going to get me off before we’ve had any fun.”

  She ran her hands down his back, fingertips giving him shivers the entire way, and grabbed her ankles. “There’s lots more fun where this comes from.”

  She arched and Liam hadn’t believed it was possible to go deeper. To feel more, but the way she was taking him in . . .

  He pumped into her. His body wouldn’t let him not. He couldn’t fight the urge and he did it again. And again. Once more. Twice, and he could feel it start. Feel the tightness in his balls and he couldn’t stop it. She kept moving under him, kept rocking him forward, clenching him, and Liam, who’d always been so proud of his famed self-control, lost it. All of it. He became a feeling, moving, pounding, thrusting, love-starved being, wanting to take everything she had and then more.

  “Jesus, Cass . . . I can’t . . . I . . .”

  “Come for me, Liam,” she whispered against his jaw. “Let me feel you come.”

  “But you . . .” He tried to draw a breath, but it wouldn’t happen. Sweat trickled down his forehead, between his shoulder blades, and in the small of his back where her heels were urging him into her.

  “Just come. We have all night. You can take care of me after.”

  It was utterly selfish of him, but Liam didn’t honestly think—when he got a few seconds to think—that he could stop. There was just something about Cassidy—

  His orgasm took that thought and every other one out of his brain in a blinding flash of light. He arched back, might have cried out, and let the pleasure roll through him, almost too intense to take.

  But he took it. And took some more. Wrung every last drop from it, even shifting a bit to prolong it.

  And then she ran her fingertips up his chest, curled them into a whirl of hair over his breastbone, and tugged.

  He collapsed on top of her as he slipped from her, barely remembering at the last second to catch his weight on his elbows.

  “Liked that, did you?” she whispered with a smile against his ear.

  He chuckled. Well, if a puffed-out breath and a flash of smile could be called a chuckle. Given the fact that he was able to even think that movement, the action itself was momentous. “Yeah. You could say that.”

  And four words. He wouldn’t have thought he’d had them in him. Not after that. Not after Cassidy.

  “I’m too heavy for you.” He tried to will his limbs to move, but lethargy was creeping along them.

  “No you’re not. You feel amazing right where you are.” She stroked his sides and more shivers ran through him—and put another part of him right back in the game.

  “Mmmmm.” He was back to being incoherent. Ah well. Incoherency had a lot to recommend it.

  Especially when she circled her fingertips over his shoulder blades then buried them in his hair.

  “Kiss me, Liam.”

  For that, his muscles moved. For that, the lethargy took a hike and energy came roaring back, and he propped himself up on his elbows and kissed her.

  It was more than a kiss. It was a meeting of two souls. A moment where the physicality of their touch was outshone by the meaning and the feelings behind it. When everything in his life seemed to coalesce to that one point of contact, and he couldn’t ever have enough of it. Of her.

  He angled his head, thrusting his tongue into her mouth as he’d thrust into her moments ago. Had it been only moments? It seemed like a lifetime.

  Uh, dude? Are you listening to yourself?

  Liam thrust that nagging voice out of his head. Yeah, he was listening to himself. As he should have been listening all along.

  Cassidy wasn’t Rachel. She wasn’t even like Rachel. None of this was anything like it’d been with Rachel and he’d been a fool for trying to force Cassidy into the same mold when they could have had this all along if he’d been able to get beyond his past.

  He slipped his lips from hers and nipped her jaw, then down to that sweet spot behind her ear again to see if he could send shivers all over her body as she’d done to him.

  “Liam—”

  “Ssh.” He tugged her earlobe into his mouth. “Trust me, Cass. I’m going to make this good for you.”

  “Mmm, yes,” she moaned when he flicked his tongue over the shell of her ear.

  There were those shivers.

  He kissed his way down her throat and over her breasts, taking sweet, incredible time with them, making her moan and writhe beneath him.

  “Liam . . . I want . . .” Her head thrashed on the pillow, her hands clenching his hair, holding him in place.

  That wouldn’t do.

  “Grab the headboard, sweetheart.”

  “Mmmmm . . . wh . . . what?” Her eyes drifted open and her bottom lip, wet and plump, got sucked between her teeth.

  He smiled. “Put your hands over your head and grab the headboard.” He licked her nipple. “I promise you’ll like it.”

  Her smile just about did him in, all sexy and knowing and very turned on.

  “Like this?” She drug her hands up along her body, arching her back as she lifted them above her head and gripped the cross-board.

  Oh yeah, he liked.

  “God, Cassidy, you’re beautiful.” He had to catch his breath. “Inside and out.”

  The thought ought to scare him; she had the power to strip away the strides he’d made since Rachel, but it was worth the risk. She was worth the risk.

  “Make love to me, Liam.”

  Make love . . . The words, the implications, threatened to take him out at the knees—so it was a good thing he wasn’t using them to support himself.

  Yet.

  “I intend to.”

  He kissed her lips hard. Slipped his tongue between them to tease hers, sucked on it for barely a second, then pulled away from her.

  “Hey—!” She reached for him, but Liam caught her hand.

  “Ah ah ah. This”—he tapped her hand—“is supposed to stay where it was. And this . . .” He trailed one wet fingertip along her collarbone, then angled it down over one of those perfect breasts he’d been kissing. “Is supposed to be here.”

  He circled her nipple, getting harder when he felt it tighten and heard her gasp.

  She put her hand back on the headboard.

  “Like that, did you?” He tossed her words back at her.

  “Yeah.” She blew out a long breath when he repeated the action on her other breast.

  He raked his nails over her skin, knowing firsthand how it felt, how the shivers felt.

  He stroked lower, dragging them lightly over her rib cage, liking that he could do this to her. Wanting to be the only one who could.

  He shuffled backward on his knees, swirling his fingertips over her belly, smiling when it fluttered and she sucked in a harsh breath.

  Then her hips moved under him.

  He bit his lip but couldn’t help the smile. Her hips would be moving all right.

  He moved backward again, this time resting on her thighs.

  She was ready for him. She wanted him.

  He dragged one finger down from her navel, right to the very part of her he wanted to get to know intimately.

  “Yes, Liam,” she gasped. “Please.”

  “Please what?” He circled his finger.

  “That!” she gasped, her hips jerking.

  “You’re sure?” He flicked his finger.

  “Yes.” Her voice was hoarse, her breathing picking up speed.

  “Or would you prefer this?” He slid one finger inside her, then a second, and felt her clench them. Oh no, she wasn’t going to have it that easy.

  He pulled his fingers out, smiled at her whimper, then slipped down to her feet.

  Then onto the floor.

  She lifted her head, her green eyes half-hooded, her lips puffy and wet.

  He tugged on her ankles, bringing her down toward the bottom of the bed. “You ready?�
�

  She groaned and her head dropped back. Her hands were too far from the headboard, but she didn’t bring them to her sides, twisting them instead into the comforter above her head.

  He couldn’t wait to give her the same pleasure she’d given him.

  He took his time, savoring every movement of her body, learning what she liked, what made her breath hitch, what made her gasp.

  What made her moan.

  He stroked and he sucked, and he slipped inside, his tongue and his fingers bringing her to that same writhing pleasure he’d been out of his mind with. He wanted her there. Wanted her to forget everything, everyone, anything but him.

  “Yes, Liam, yes!” Her head was thrashing, her hands clutching whatever they could find, and her body was awash in the flush of desire that was so erotic as she jerked and flexed, quivering on the edge until she was begging him, so that finally he had to take her over.

  She screamed out his name. Literally screamed it, making him glad he lived far enough from his neighbors that no one would be sending in the cops because he wasn’t about to end this for anyone.

  She came again, her thighs trying to close against the pleasure, but he wouldn’t let them. He kept her legs parted and gave her every ounce of pleasure he could, tasting her until the last tremor subsided.

  He kissed her thigh, then just below her navel, crawling up her body as she quivered in the aftermath, each kiss bringing another shiver.

  He kissed his way up to her breasts, loving them once more.

  She opened her eyes when he sucked the second one into his mouth, his tongue making lazy swirls around her nipple.

  “Like that, do you?” she mimicked, a soft smile curving her lips.

  “Don’t get too relaxed on me, baby. The night is young.” He reached for the condoms he’d dropped on the bed at her challenge and rolled onto his side to put a new one on. “Round two is just about to start.”

  Chapter Thirty

  SHE lost count of how many rounds there’d been, but the number didn’t really matter. What he’d made her feel, what he’d given her . . . How was it that one of the worst moments of her life had been the start of this? Of meeting Liam and getting to know him enough that she’d not only considered going to bed with him, but had? And wanted to stay there?