“Can you zip me up?” she asked Liam when she returned to the living room. She just about managed to find a gait that was not agony with each step. If she leaned forward and put all her weight on her toes, she could barely feel that the tight leather of her shoes was trying to stop all blood flow to her feet.
She stopped in her tracks, instantly forgetting the ache in her feet. He had shaved and put on a tuxedo. He looked good in a suit, but he looked irresistible in a tux. The way the dark material hung on his broad shoulders made him look even more imposing. He must have signed a deal with the devil; no one person should be that good-looking. She should have asked him to have sex once more before he told her the truth. She could never in good conscience sleep with him again, so she really should have made sure she had got enough of him before she discovered how truly vile he was.
“Turn around,” Liam commanded. “You look beautiful.” He lowered his head and pressed the faintest kiss against the back of her neck. A bolt of electric pleasure ran down her spine. Her hands dropped to her side, her eyes closed. He was wearing Obsession For Men, and the scent instantly transported her back. She had bought him his first bottle. She had used the money she had earned from working Saturday mornings at the local chemist. She took a deep breath. That was what he’d smelled like the first time they had made love.
When he betrayed her.
Her back straightened. Her body might forget what he had done, but her mind never would. “I am only staying until eleven and under no circumstances will I dance with you or make small talk of any kind. If you wanted a willing companion, you really should have hired a hooker.” She was trying to get a rise out of him and she knew the buttons to push.
“But I might want to kiss you, and they won’t do that. And with you, there is every chance you might get horny again. I’ve met you,” he said smoothly, pushing her buttons right back.
“You are totally wrong on every count. If I get horny, I will sort myself out. And of course prostitutes will kiss if you pay them. That stupid movie has convinced the world there is something more intimate in kissing than having another person penetrate your body. I mean, you have got to be kidding me—why would a woman take it in every orifice, but say her lips are off limits? I think the man who wrote that is stupid, and that men who believe that rubbish are complete morons. Honestly!” She realised too late she was giving Liam the exact response he was going for. He was baiting her and she fell for it, just as she always did with him.
“You are far too easy to wind up. And your speech has made me horny, so if you change your mind, and need a helping hand, I always have one or two that can be of service.”
He slid his executive key into place in the lift.
He was still trying to get a rise out of her. “I can masturbate on my own, thanks.”
“Can I at least watch?” he asked. His dimple appeared when he grinned—amazing how a small indentation transformed his face. She resisted the urge to stroke his cheek. He might look sweet when he smiled, but he was still the same Liam, and he was about as sweet as a feral cat.
She tapped her foot on the floor of the lift. “Stop flirting with me. I don’t like you.”
“You didn’t like me last time we were in the lift either and that ended fairly well.”
“But I learned from my mistakes. I strive to never make the same one twice,” she said demurely. She was not going to let him wind her up further. What was it about him? He knew all her buttons, good and bad.
“If that was true, you wouldn’t be here.”
She exhaled loudly. He had a valid point. Man, she hated when he did that. “Well, I endeavour to learn from my mistakes.”
“Sarah, if you want to make that mistake again, I am up for it. Just putting my cards on the table.” He was staring straight ahead but she could tell from the crinkle around his eyes and his dimple, he was smiling.
“You’re flirting with me again. It is like a pathological condition with you. You really should get that looked at.”
Liam’s phone rang. He reached into his pocket and answered it.
“Evening. Liam McPherson here.”
Sarah could not hear the other end of the conversation but it was obvious from Liam’s reaction, it was not a pleasure call. His jaw tightened and a vein appeared at his temple. Everything about his body changed; he was suddenly on the offensive, like a leopard ready to pounce.
“I see. I am going to need to phone you back. Yes, sure. That is fine. Thanks.” Liam slid the phone back into his pocket. The muscles in his jaw strained and flexed under his tanned skin.
The elevator door opened. “Who was that?” she asked.
“Just work,” he said too smoothly. He took her arm and guided her through the foyer to the waiting car.
“Why couldn’t you take the call?” she pressed. She could smell bullshit a mile away. Her senses were honed from years of working with substance abusers. She was good at her job, and part of her job was reading people. She knew he was lying, and more importantly she knew it had to do with Sam.
He shrugged.
“Are you afraid I am going to sell trade secrets to your competition? Because I couldn’t even name a competitor.”
“Give it a rest, Sarah. It was just a business call.” Liam did not wait for Ahmed to open the door for them.
“Really? Then by all means phone them back. I don’t mind waiting.”
“Just leave it.”
“What is happening with Sam’s case?” She tried another tack because the direct approach was getting her nowhere fast.
“We’re not talking about Sam right now.”
“I think you’ll find we are. I will talk about Sam, whenever and wherever I want. So what’s happening with his case?” she asked again. She tried to keep her tone even but it was difficult. The more controlled Liam was, the angrier she became.
“I am taking care of it.” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
“Is that what the phone call was about?”
“I said to leave it,” Liam said again.
“And I am not a small child or your secretary so I don’t have to take orders.”
Liam sighed. “I am handling the situation.” He got in the car beside her and slammed the door shut.
“What does that mean exactly? How are you handling it?” she pressed. She hated being out of the loop. There was a reason she was the manager of her programme; she liked to be involved with every step in every project. Some would say she was a micromanager, and they would probably be right, but it worked—things always got done.
“It means it is under control, Sarah.” His voice was tight, a bit of the control slipping.
She would not be fobbed off that easily. Things would not be under control until Sam was safely on British soil. “Who was on the phone?”
“My girlfriend.”
“What?” Her mouth dropped open. “You have a girlfriend?” Her heart stopped with a sudden thud.
He smiled. “No. I just wanted to change the subject. But good to know you still care.”
Sarah hit him in the stomach with the back of her hand. “Don’t be an ass. Or should I say, don’t be a bigger ass than you already are.”
Shit. Why had she allowed him to bait her? And shit, shit, shit, why would she care if he did have a girlfriend? At some point she had to stop seeing him as her Liam. He wasn’t even the Liam she thought he was. She didn’t like the man he was, but the bloody reflex always kicked in. She needed therapy, a long detox that involved replacing her obsession with something less toxic. Hell, that could be anything: methylated spirits maybe.
Liam pulled at his bow tie. He opened a bottle of water and downed it in a continuous stream. “That was my lawyer. It was about Sam. It’s fine though, or it will be fine.”
“Well, which is it? Is it fine? Saying it will be fine does not fill me with confidence.”
“Sarah, Sam fucked up big. You can’t just expect me to thro
w money at it and make it go away. There are limits to what you can buy.”
She studied Liam’s profile, searching his features for any emotion. But there was none. Clearly he was dealing with the change in their relationship just fine. He did not seem to care that she disliked him. Of course he was fine about it. He was the one who left in the first place. He was great at detaching himself and cutting people out. She needed to take a leaf from his book. She needed not to care.
A horrible realisation struck her. She didn’t trust Liam to help Sam. She’d always considered Liam to be honest, brutally so, but she no longer could rely on that. He had been anything but honest, and that was what hurt the most.
“But you are trying to help him, right?” She had to ask. “Before, I would have bet my life on your honesty. You were a lot of shitty things. But you were honest. When you said something, you always meant it. You always followed through. You told me you would never forgive me if I didn’t take my place at uni, and, damn it, you followed through. But now I don’t know… Are you trying to help Sam?” She put her index finger in her mouth and bit down on what remained of her nail.
Liam turned to her, but he didn’t say anything. He gently pulled her finger from her mouth, covering her hand with his palm and resting it on the seat between them. His skin was hot and rough. She knew she should move her hand away, but it felt nice to be comforted by his touch. Her body betrayed her by relaxing. She reminded herself it was an illusion. She wouldn’t let herself believe it was real. But it didn’t matter because she would soon be gone, and for right now it felt good; she felt safe.
“Please, Liam. I know we are nothing to each other. You owe me nothing, but, if you ever cared about me at all, please say you will help Sam. I can’t lose him too.”
“What is it between you two? You said you’re not in love with him. But you came here for him. I doubt I was high on your list of people you wanted to visit. And he had your name tattooed across his bloody chest. You might not be in love with him, but he is sure as hell in love with you.”
“You saw his tattoo? Did he tell you why he got it? It’s not because he is in love with me. He got it because we are friends.”
He pulled his hand away from her. “I don’t tattoo my friend’s name across my damn chest.”
“That’s because you don’t have any friends,” she couldn’t help saying. “You really should work on that.”
“Friend, my ass. He loves you.”
She shook her head. Liam would never understand. “Of course he loves me. I stood by him. I saved him from himself. A few months after he got out of jail, he tried to commit suicide. He had just been diagnosed with Hep C, he was depressed, he had no prospects and he thought his life was over. He took a load of sleeping pills and then sent me a text saying goodbye. I found him, called the paramedics and he lived. He was clean for a few years after that. And to say thanks he tattooed my name on his chest. Nothing to do with sex, just love.” She turned and looked into the pink horizon of the setting sun. She wished Liam’s hand would cover hers again, give her at least the illusion of comfort. “So, yes, I love Sam and he loves me. I want him to make it. I know you look at him and see druggy scum. But I still see the little boy who beat up Calum Reed when he called your mum a whore. I see the boy who helped teach you how to read when you first moved to our block. You had never been to school but Sam was determined you wouldn’t be held back—you were going to be in our year if it killed him. He stole a copy of the first Famous Five book, and by the end of the summer you were reading. Do you remember the Sam I know?”
Liam nodded. “That was a long time ago.”
“It was. It was a lifetime but I will continue to fight for Sam for ever because he will always be that kid to me. I’m not going to give up on him. He may not make it. He might die from his addiction. But I am not going to give up on him. You don’t give up on people because they are not perfect. We are all flawed and messed up in our own ways. Sam just wears his messed up for the world to see. I for one bury my crazy deep down under a layer of ice cream.” She tried to smile but her mouth had forgotten how.
“You wear your crazy too, Sarah. Your need to save the world is your crazy.” Liam’s body relaxed; he settled deeper into the soft white leather of the seats, his head pushed back onto the headrest.
“And here I was, just thinking I was being nice.”
“You are, you’re easily the nicest person I have ever met, but that does not preclude your crazy.”
She thought about it for a moment. “Fair enough. But you wear your crazy too. Yours is a posh accent and a private jet.”
“They call that success,” Liam said dryly, his eyes closed.
“No, they call that overcompensating. And we both know it is not for your penis. I am still sore, by the way.” Not that that was a bad thing—it was nice to have a reminder of some sort of intimacy, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.
“Sorry about that. Maybe if you had opted for the kissing and fumbling options, you wouldn’t be sore. Again, not my best work.” He held his hands up.
She ignored him. “You have to be the best, the smartest, the richest, to prove you’re not Niddrie Nae Socks.”
“You say that like it is a bad thing.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s not bad, it is just your crazy. That and you flirt with me to deflect your feelings. You aren’t good at dealing with emotion so you fall back on what you are good at.”
“No, Dr Campbell, I flirt with you for the reason men flirt with women—I fancy you.”
She shook her head. “Nope, it has nothing to do with fancying. You do it when I bring up something you don’t want to talk about, anything related to the past.”
He turned and looked her directly in the eyes. “I do it because I want to screw you in every position ever tried, and some they haven’t thought up yet. Simple as that, Sarah. I want to fuck you.”
A hot flush crept across her cheeks and down her neck. Her heart pounded hard, pushing blood down, settling between her thighs. She swallowed hard to dislodge the lump that had formed in the back of her throat. Her mouth felt suddenly dry. “You think that because that is part of your crazy. It’s easier to say you are horny than say you’re upset. You hide behind your penis.”
“Love, my cock is big, but not big enough to hide behind.”
She shook her head again. Her skin was burning. “Yes, it is…metaphorically speaking.”
“And what about you? Shall I hand you a mirror?”
“Nope. I don’t hide behind my penis, or your penis, or anyone else’s for that matter. That particular crazy is all you, Liam.” she managed to say.
He grinned at her knowingly. “You use quickies as a way to avoid intimacy.”
She scoffed. “No, I like quickies because having an orgasm is the part of sex I like the best. I am just efficient.”
“Sure you are, Sarah. Tell yourself whatever you want. But I knew you before. The real reason you prefer quickies now is because if you let a man keep his dick inside you too long, you just might start to care about him. And you couldn’t have that. You have got to be the one who loves the least and controls the most. That is your crazy.”
She scoffed. “That is bullshit. I like sex quick and hard because it is fun. I don’t need an excuse, and I am not going to apologise. It is just the way I like it.”
“No one wants you to apologise. I bet Rich and Jonny didn’t even notice that it is like a race to the finish with you. Probably just counting their lucky stars you were letting them have a go. But I knew you before. I remember when foreplay was your favourite pastime.”
“I liked foreplay because it was my only option then. Now I know you can skip to the good part.” Sarah shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She was not going to let Liam make her question the person she had become. Besides, he had no room to talk. “At least I have had proper relationships. How long did your last fling last? Did you even shag her more than once? Or are women completely dispo
sable to you?”
“Careful, you are showing your crazy,” Liam said, the faintest of smiles playing on his full lips.
Her eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“That is how you think men view women. All men. That is how it works in your world—fuck and flee.”
“That is certainly the way you work. We had sex once—”
“We actually had sex five times that night. It pains me that the last four were so unmemorable,” he said with affected angst.
“That is hardly an important part—” Of course she remembered that; she had not forgotten a single touch or kiss.
“Just making sure your memory is working properly, because you have got the facts wrong on everything else about that night.”
Not this argument again. How could two people view the same situation so wildly differently? “I know, I know. You left Scotland because it is a horrible, grotty place. But would it have been so horrible for you to stay in Edinburgh? It is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.”
A look of repulsion darkened his features. “Beautiful? I actually find it quite ugly that wherever you go people ask you what school you went to so they can pigeonhole you and sum up your worth. People are defined by the geography of where they were born. They don’t ask where you went to university because that doesn’t matter. It is where you started from that matters. If you were born scum, you stay scum. And God forbid you try to make something of yourself. Then you are just uppity scum. Nothing worse than that—scum should know their place.” His voice was deep with bitterness.
“You’re right. People do always ask that. I wish I could say that had changed, but that’s just Edinburgh.”
“And that is why I am never going back. My start was shit, I can put my hands up to that, but that has fuck all to do with the man I am today.”
It had everything to do with the man he had become but she knew better than to say it. There was so much of Edinburgh still in him that he didn’t want to see—even the way he swore too much. His accent had changed but that hadn’t. “You won’t even go to visit?” She tried to keep the optimism from her voice. She had no illusions of him visiting her but his absolute resolve was unsettling.
Twice in a Lifetime (Carina) Page 11