The Virgin Next Door (Stud Ranch 3)

“Oh.” Her eyes widened as she looked up at him. “Like, both at the same time or, you know,” her cheeks went pink.

Jaysus she was cute. So innocent. He smiled, enjoying her reactions. “Both. Together and individually. Does that shock you?”

“I don’t know,” she blinked. “So are you, what do they call it? Bisexual?”

Liam shrugged. “I don’t put a label on it. I usually say I’m a trysexual.”

Her brow furrowed.

“As in, I’ll try anything once.”

She chortled out a short laugh at that but then sobered again. “Do you like one better than the other?”

Liam traced his fingers along the back of her neck underneath her hair, liking the way she shivered at his touch.

“I’ve slept with more women than men. But I didn’t really expand me horizons until college.”

She propped her hands underneath her chin as she looked up at him. “So how do you know?”

“Know what?”

“How do you know if you’re attracted to someone? Like, what makes the difference between a guy or girl you’re just friends with and someone you want to, you know, sleep with?”

Liam laughed. “There’s no science to it. I’m either attracted to someone or not.”

She tilted her head. “So how long have you been attracted to Mack?”

Liam choked. “I’m not,” he hurried to say as soon as he could speak again. “Not to him.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “But I thought you just said—” She squinted her eyes at him. “And with how the two of you were—”

“I was just going with the situation as it presented itself.” He shook his head so violently Calla had to pull back. “But Jaysus, I’m not attracted to that wanker.”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed.

Shite. Why? Did she want a repeat of what happened in the hotel room?

Liam had been doing his best to block it from his memory. When he replayed that night, he only focused on the time after he got Calla into the shower.

“I just…” she trailed off again before continuing, her eyebrows scrunched, “I think he’s really lonely. And I know what that’s like. Feeling like you’re all alone in the world.” She shook her head, her eyes going distant again.

Liam didn’t know what to say to that. Whenever he thought about Mack, it was usually just to cuss him out. In his head or out loud if the occasion warranted.

But then he focused on the rest of what she’d said. About feeling lonely. “Yeah,” he swallowed. “I know the feeling too.”

Calla’s eyebrows went up as she looked back at him. “You? But you’re always so,” she waved a hand. “You’re so good with people. Everybody loves you.”

His chest went tight. That was how she saw him? “I don’t know if I want you taking off those rose-colored glasses, beautiful.”

She scoffed at that. “Hardly. I just call it like I see it.” Then she paused, her brows lowering. “Tell me about it. How does a guy like you feel lonely?”

Liam shrugged. He wasn’t going to play the poor little rich boy card. If there was anything he’d learned the last year and a half, it was how fucking entitled he used to be. He wasn’t about to start whining about how hard he’d had it.

Calla lifted her hand to his face. “Tell me. I want to know everything about you.”

“Me da and I weren’t that close. He worked constantly. And Ma was checked out most the time. Drinking and pills. They got divorced when I was nine. The nanny raised me. She’s still the one who calls me on me birthday and Christmas.”

Calla tilted her head, her eyes going soft.