by Stacey Lynn
But her taste in music was shit.
“For the love of God,” I groaned, pressing my finger and thumb into my eye sockets. “Can’t we keep the squawking off until I’ve had coffee? Or better yet,” I snapped my fingers, “all the time?”
She turned to me from her place at the counter where she was dicing cantaloupe and muskmelon and smirked. “Sam Hunt does not squawk. He’s swoony.”
I shook my head and stole a chunk of cantaloupe on my way to the coffeepot. “Swoony my ass. I know men who are worth swooning over.”
She laughed. Probably because I was saying things like ‘swoon.’
“Yeah? Who?”
I’d done exactly as I promised her I would two weeks ago. I touched Claudia when I was close to her. When I walked by her, I’d often drag a finger against the small of her back. Tiny touches, gentle ones that always let her know that not only was I thinking of her, but I wanted to sink my dick deep inside her. In two weeks, my fascination with her hadn’t changed a damn bit.
I did the same thing now. With my full cup of coffee, I set it down next to her on the counter and moved in until my chest was pressed against her shoulder. With one fingertip, I trailed a path down the alabaster cream of her throat. We’d spent hours every day in the sun and she barely had a tan. I had a newfound appreciation for sunscreen and the wide-brimmed hats she wore to keep her face and shoulders sunspot free.
“Come on, sweetheart. You have to know other men who are more swoon-worthy than Sam Hank.”
“Hunt,” she corrected with a scowl. I knew Sam. I was just fucking with her because I liked her irritated little looks. “And no. I’m not sure I know a man who’s sexier than him.”
She turned back to her task of cutting up fruit, but I wasn’t deterred. She trembled when I touched her flesh and her lips parted. Eyes went hazy.
“Liar,” I whispered. I was close enough to brush my lips against her ear. Her cheek. It wouldn’t be the first time I did it, but I liked teasing her. I went closer, lips brushing along her ear and her jaw. “You know another man sexier than Sam. Admit it. A rock star, perhaps? Someone who plays the electric guitar, who has tattoos you can never stop staring at?”
She shuddered. My dick hardened. I couldn’t wait until she made those sounds and movements beneath me. On top of me. Below me on her hands and her knees with her eyes blindfolded and her wrists tied to my headboard.
She was turning me into a kinky fucker, but I had nothing but fantasies, and I’d fucking fantasized everything and then some.
“You’re right. Ed Sheeran is pretty hot, too.”
I slammed a hand to my chest and barked out a laugh. “You’re killing me, Claudia. Ed? That ginger? Over me?”
Her own shoulders shook with laughter and she popped another chunk of cantaloupe into her mouth. The juice ran down her fingers and I couldn’t look away. All that sweetness. The juice, her fingers, her lips.
I stepped back and adjusted myself, groaning. “Fuck, sweetheart. What are you doing to me?”
For once, she truly looked innocent. “What?”
I shook my head and scooped a healthy amount of fruit into a bowl for me and grabbed a fork.
In two weeks, we’d somehow settled into some sort of domestic routine I never knew I’d enjoy until I had it.
I woke up early and worked out. Went to my small studio room and worked on music. At some point while I was scribbling lyrics and playing the guitar and keyboard, Claudia woke up. She usually went for a swim in the pool and by the time I took a break from work, she was preparing breakfast for us.
The first time she’d done it, I told her she didn’t have to.
She ignored me and kept doing it so I stopped scolding her. She needed something to do to feel like she was “earning her keep.”
I had to stop myself a dozen times for telling her that contract or not, I was keeping her.
She captivated me. From her classiness to her silliness, every time we explored a part of the island or sat on the beach— talking, because I couldn’t fuck her—she continued pulling me toward her with words and laughter.
Two weeks and unlike any other person in my life, parents and Sophie included, she hadn’t yet annoyed the shit out of me.
“So, are we doing anything today?” she asked, forcing my gaze from my breakfast to her lips. God, I loved her mouth. Her top lip had two perfect points on it, a fuller bottom lip. She hadn’t worn a lot of makeup since we’d been here and she was flawless with pink lips that made me wonder what her nipples looked like when I’d finally get to suck on them.
I groaned and shook my head. “Haven’t thought of anything.”
“Do you have to work?”
“Finished a song earlier. It’ll sound like shit until I get with the band to figure out the accompaniment, though. It’s pretty rough.”
“Can I hear it?”
My brows popped up and my fork full of melon froze halfway to my mouth. In two weeks, she’d never asked to hear my music. I didn’t flaunt it. Perhaps she tried to leave me alone while I did my thing. But I was still beginning to wonder if she even liked my music considering all she blasted was country crap.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Of course. Now?”
Indecision twisted her lips and she looked out the windows behind me. “Or whenever. When will you see the band again?”
“Do you mean when are we headed back to New York?” Anne was on my ass to get back to town and make a damn song that will go platinum, but the longer I was on Anguilla, the more I was appreciating the break from stress and people and noise and deadlines. “To be honest, I haven’t thought about it.”
“But we will go back? Or will we go to L.A.?”
“What’s with the sudden need to have an itinerary?”
She flinched and shook her head. Dumping a few uneaten pieces of fruit into the garbage bin, she then loaded everything into the dishwasher.
“Claudia? What is it?”
“It just feels like I’m hiding. I’ve liked it here, don’t get me wrong,” she said quickly, jerking her head to me. I could see the stress around her eyes, the tightness of her shoulders. “I like being here. I’m just waiting for the other shoe to fall, so to speak. I guess until I know how bad the fallout is going to be, I can’t really relax.”
“So, what? You want to head back? Rip it off like a Band-Aid?” We’d talked about it. Did we leak our relationship slowly? Did we come out as friends first, despite the fact we’d almost always be together? Or did we just act like the couple we were supposed to be—the one I was paying her to be. Fuck, I hated that damn contract.
Despite the way she leaned into me, despite how I knew she was attracted to me physically, and maybe even liked me, I wanted more from her. I wanted something real and with the damn contract hanging around my throat like a noose, I’d never know if she was being genuine or playing me.
“I don’t know, Liam.” Her shoulders fell. Hands mindlessly twisting a rag, I watched her as she stared out the windows over the kitchen sink. She was six feet away from me, but a million miles at the same time.
I couldn’t stand seeing her like that. Since the night we talked about her dad, I’d done everything I could to keep sadness and grief from creeping into her eyes. Pushing off my chair, I walked around the island until I was behind her. My hands settled on the counter just outside her hips. Even though I knew she could see my reflection in the window behind her, she didn’t move. Didn’t react at all to my presence.
And that just wouldn’t do.
I brushed her hair off her shoulder, holding it with one hand so the shorter strands didn’t fall back to her neck.
“What do you want, Claudia?” I leaned forward, my nose at the skin of her neck. I inhaled her sweet scent. She’d started using coconut flavored body wash when we arrived and it was delicious. I’d never be able to look at a coconut again without getting hard. She enraptured me, and I was a man on the edge.
Two weeks of fighting the pull against her
and I was exhausted from the constant strain of withholding.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked again, my lips were at her shoulder, bared with only thin straps of a tank top I knew covered her strapless swimsuit. God, she was tempting.
Delicious and mine, even if it was only on paper.
“I don’t know.” She gasped a bit, her voice catching as I did what I’d been fighting against. Tasting her, truly tasting her in any meaningful way. My lips pressed against her shoulder and my tongue flicked her flesh. Salty and sweet, there would never be another taste that compared to this woman. Small and petite, I had to bend down to taste her. Her body was lithe and lean, gentle muscles popped on the backs of her arms as she braced herself. She spent an hour swimming every morning and she’d been in great shape before she arrived. Now, only after being here a short time, there was more definition all over her athletic frame.
My dick urged me forward, to press myself against her backside, to pull her hips back and push her cut off shorts to her feet, followed by the bottoms of her bikini.
“I know what I want to do to you,” I murmured. I was pushing harder than I had yet. But the thought of us leaving here before she gave herself to me? Wasn’t going to happen. “I know what I want to do with you.”
My hand at her hair fell. Strands of her brown hair fell into my face and I closed my eyes and shook off the tickling sensation. My other hand skimmed down her arm until it was over her hands. Curling our fingers together, I held her hand tightly beneath mine. My other was still white-knuckling the counter, fighting the urge to dig into her hips. To spin her around. To lift her and step between her spread thighs before bending to taste her in that same area.
She hadn’t responded, but her body trembled, back straightened as if she was having difficulty fighting against the onslaught of what was happening between us. What would happen between us.
What she’d ask to happen between us.
“What’s holding you back, sweetheart? And what can I do to prove to you how good this could be between us?”
“Liam.”
Her voice rolled my name on a tortured groan, pulled from her like she hadn’t wanted to say it. In the window reflection, I could see her lids had fallen. Pink colored her cheeks and her pulse rapidly beat against the sensitive skin behind her ear. I touched her everywhere I could reach with my lips. Inhaled her scent, the feel of her, the tiny little set of two matching moles she had just beneath her hair at her nape, the only marking I’d seen on her body anywhere. I catalogued every inch of her shoulders and neck, fighting the control, losing it.
“I’ll do anything you want. Just say the word.”
I licked the lobe of her ear, nipped it with my teeth before pressing against her. I was so damn hard I could pound through cement. My abs tightened with the force of not thrusting forward. My stomach ached with the need to move, my ass sore from trying to stay still. She was so damn succulent. Sweet and beautiful and relaxed and way better than anyone I had ever been with before. I was totally outshooting my range with Claudia, despite the millions I had. It wasn’t about money, it was about character and she beat every person I knew.
“Stop, please,” she whispered. Her hand beneath mine flexed. “I can’t. I can’t do this with you.”
“Sure you can,” I said. “I’ll even teach you, and I promise you. I’ll be very patient with you.”
Chapter Fourteen
Claudia
Every time Liam brushed his hands along any part of my body, he pulled a string, unraveling me from the inside out. He was always so perfect in his intent and desire along with his control. We hadn’t done anything overtly sexual up until now but he still proved the kind of lover he would be.
Focused. Determined. Patient yet unyielding.
I desired nothing more than to turn around and place my palms on his cheeks, to tug him down toward me and feel our lips brush against each other.
But was it real? Or was it because I was the only woman around?
We shared a lot over the last couple weeks. He acted like he cared. He held my hand when we walked along the beach. He opened doors and waited until I was seated when we ate dinner on the patio until he took his own seat. This was a man who was raised with manners and morals that eclipsed even possibly mine. Yet he was also a performer. He knew how to work a crowd until every woman, man, and sometimes child in attendance was hypnotized by not only his body and his moves but his voice, the way he pulled his lyrics from deep in his gut as if he believed, wholeheartedly, through his soul every single one of them.
He worked a crowd like a king, and he had drawn me into his web.
Standing in front of him now, my breath rioting inside my chest, I played all the scenarios in my head, the visuals I’d thought of late at night when my hands drifted beneath the waistband of my underwear.
I was having a difficult time coming up with reasons inside myself to deny him.
“Liam,” I said, more like a moan being tugged from my throat than a word. I shook my head and it fell forward, baring my neck to him where he did mind-numbingly beautiful things with his lips and his tongue.
“You have these two, tiny little moles, right here,” he murmured, his lips pressing around the marks I knew were there. “They’re enticing. The only part of your beautiful body that isn’t so perfectly pure.”
“I have more,” I gasped as his teeth joined his tongue and he teased the tendons on the side of my neck.
“God, don’t tell me that. I want to find them. Taste them. Suck them.”
Oh Lord. My nipples were painful, hardened peaks beneath my bikini and tank top. They ached to be massaged. Pressure was building everywhere inside me, fanning outward. I arched against him, craving him without realizing I’d done so until I felt his arousal at the small of my back.
“Fuck, sweetheart. You’re killing me.”
I was wearing down. Aroused. More turned on than I could remember being. I’d dated boys. Kissed them and fooled around. My virginity was what I clung to, to push them away, because none of them, not a single boy or college man I’d been with had driven me achingly mad like the man currently behind me.
The man who wasn’t really mine.
The thought chilled me and I shivered.
I wanted Liam Allistor. I wanted his laughs and his touches and his kisses.
I wanted his heart. I wanted whatever we were building to be real.
Unexpectedly, I’d begun seeing past the facade and the rock star persona I assumed he carried with him at all times. In the last two weeks, we’d laughed about his sister. His demon-spawned nephew as Liam called him, though his real name was Kevin Junior after his father. He talked about his niece, Ella Belle, who wanted nothing more than at the age of six to be in a library with the Beast from her favorite movie.
He told me about life growing up outside Kansas City where homes were sprawled on acres and they caused hell in cornfields with bonfires and kegs in the summers.
His life wasn’t so different than mine, just without the loaded expectation to be perfect.
Now, he was simply a man. A beautiful, breath-stopping magnificent man who made it clear he wanted me. At least my body.
But every time I came close to giving in, to allowing him to do all the wonderful things he promised, I remembered that this wasn’t real.
I was a warm, attractive body at his disposal and regardless of how many times I tried, I couldn’t move past the idea that if I gave my body to him, I was no better than a street-walking prostitute, selling my body to pay the bills, even if I had told him that was one of my intentions in begging Karen to take me on as an Infidelity in the first place.
My morals were too strong to be tossed away for a caseload of Benjamin Franklins. Imagine that, my father who did anything for a sick and depraved man in order to earn those Franklins, raised a daughter who still had the ability not to be led around by them.
“Liam, please. Stop.”
He must have sensed the desper
ation in my voice because the weight of him at my back vanished. Cool air replaced the heat from his chest currently covered in a gray T-shirt with Fender in bright yellow scrawled across the front.
I turned, holding myself up at the counter with my hands curled around the edges of cool, gray marble. When the sun hit it just right, it sparkled like it contained a hint of glitter and something about knowing his sister somehow added glitter to the design of an otherwise masculine and comfortable home always made me grin.
It didn’t now. Now, my heart sank to my knees as Liam backed away from me. His hands tugged at his hair and his head was tipped back, revealing a hint of his black hair above his waistband. And his arousal was clearly evident. Large and bulky at the top of his thigh.
I could barely look away. I stared at the refrigerator behind him and blinked harshly, mentally cooling myself.
“I’m sorry,” I choked.
His expression pained, his lips twisted as he turned and tugged at what I knew was him adjusting himself. “Just give me a minute.” He all but growled the words and my heart sank further. I had been leading him on, knowing every single time he touched me I didn’t know if I could go further.
Yet I hadn’t been honest with him about why. If I were him, I’d be all scowling and growly too, just like he was.
But perhaps there was something I could do to ease his pain, at least the one I’d physically brought on.
I walked toward him, knees trembling and thighs shaking. My nipples were still hard and my fingertips tingled at what I was about to do.
I stopped behind him and slid my hand up the length of his back, to his shoulder and back down to his hip. He shivered and jolted at my unexpected touch and his head turned to look at me over his shoulder. “I told you to give me a minute, Claudia.”
Not sweetheart or princess, the two nicknames he’d donned me with the last couple of weeks.
“I was wondering if I could help you.” My voice shook and my fingertips buzzed like live wires were growing from my nail beds. A thick lump grew in my throat as his brows arched high on his head and then narrowed.