“Let me watch you come,” Liam rasped, squeezing a handful of hair as he held me back against him, staring at my reflection in his mirror and bringing me closer and closer. “Look at how fucking beautiful you are,” he whispered, rubbing his hand over my stomach, my breasts, my throat. I watched his gorgeous face crumple with uncontrolled arousal as I came in his arms, letting his name cry from my lips as white-hot bliss surged through my body. I was in delirium and in no time, Liam was following me there.
“Come, Liam.” The breathy moan seeped weakly from me. “I want every drop.”
Those words were all it took.
His hand thrust in my hair, Liam let out a wild groan into my neck, his muscles seizing, his body convulsing with pleasure as it let go inside me. I closed my eyes. I’d never anticipated this kind of ecstasy. This kind of immense satisfaction. Gripping the edge of Liam’s desk, I felt his sweaty, muscled weight relax onto me. I reveled in his every aftershock – his every twitch against my back and grunt in my ear. “Christ, Sasha…” His fingers loosened in my hair. As if savoring my taste, he kissed my neck slowly, his tongue like a hot, wet massage on my skin. It sent little blasts of sensation bursting like fireworks through my already exhausted body.
“God, Liam,” I moaned softly, finally opening my eyes.
And when I did, I saw Jenna.
I gasped, the breath snatched straight from my throat. My stomach went cold as I watched her stand there in the doorway, her shock flaming quickly into fury. Wet and glassy, her stare went from Liam to me. Her lip curled as she shook her head accusingly.
But before I could say a word, she was gone.
Chapter Eight
“Sash. Stop it. Sash – that’s gross.” Aria snatched the straw out of my mouth. I’d finished my coffee an hour ago but I was still chewing on the straw like a nervous wreck. “Girl, take my advice and just tell Liam about it. Jenna is obsessed with him. I think the fact that he’s sleeping with you makes her even more obsessed with him. She probably wants him more than ever now, so why would she ruin her own chances by telling a secret he asks her not to tell?” Hands on her waist, Aria cocked a sharp eyebrow – her signature “tell me I’m not right” look.
She was probably right. But I could hardly keep my thoughts in one place for long enough to respond. I was sleeping with my stepbrother. I had sex with him in his office, at his gym, and of all people, Jenna Pettit had caught me. Any minute now, she could be unleashing hell on my personal life. I couldn’t help but anticipate a flurry of texts from friends, family, coworkers – all of them alerting me to whatever dirty, nasty thing Jenna had written on my Facebook. She wasn’t the most rational girl in the world, and she was a big proponent of “difts” – or “doing it for the story.” So yeah, I could easily picture her airing out my dirty laundry for the entire world to see.
“Sasha, step out of panic mode. Please. I really don’t think Jenna will tell. It doesn’t benefit her and even if she did tell, who would believe her? She can’t prove a single thing. She’d just look like some scorned hook-up trying to start shit, which, let’s be real, has happened before with other girls Liam’s had sex with. And it’s never a good look for any of them.”
Solid point. Heaving a sigh, I leaned back on Aria’s tufted headboard. I’d slept over last night, half so she’d keep me sane and half so I could track Jenna. She had run out of the gym after walking in on me and Liam and she wasn’t answering any of Aria’s calls. I hoped that by sleeping over, I’d catch her coming back home from wherever she’d gone and beg on my knees for her to keep mum about what she’d seen. Aria and I had kept thousands of her secrets at this point – why couldn’t she keep the only one I’d ever had?
“Shouldn’t she be home by now?” I asked anxiously.
“Yes, but shouldn’t you be at work by now? Or at least answering Riley’s texts? It’s brunch. The bar’s probably slammed.”
“Shit.” I jumped out of bed when the realization hit me. We did bottomless mimosas and all you can eat moules-frites on Sundays. The wait for a table generally spilled out the door, and Riley once said she’d skin me alive if I ever left her alone during brunch again.
God, it was definitely shaping up to one hell of a stressful morning. I could hardly count the many ways in which I was screwed.
“Here.” Aria tossed my pants over and gave me a last pep talk. “Sash, just breathe. You’re going to be fine. I’m going to have a talk with Jenna, too, so we’re extra sure about things, but just remember that if the worst-case scenario did happen, no one would even believe her. Now be a good girl and go get your daytime drinking on!”
I exhaled a whooshing breath that blew the hair out of my face. “Yes. Fine. But what about you? You’re not coming today?” I wound my waves into a messy topknot. My eyebrows lifted as I watched my best friend’s cheeks flush to a rosy pink. I had to laugh and shake my head. “Let me guess – it’s A.J-related.”
“Maybe.”
“Nice. Just don’t let him toy with you. You know how those boys are.”
“Yeah, and yours is the king of them. Yet he’s still completely in love with you.”
The suggestion alone made my heart twist. Suddenly, it was my turn to blush. “I… yeah, that’s… doubtful.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know girl, I’m leaving,” I laughed hastily, rushing out the door to avoid Aria’s protests. It had been a stressful enough morning – I really didn’t need to overanalyze Liam’s feelings for me. Diving into a topic like that would force me to sit down and really think about what the hell I was doing. I mean was I expecting an actual relationship out of my affair with my stepbrother? How could I when I refused to let anyone know what was going on? There was no route that conversation could take without leading me to stress or anxiety, which I certainly didn’t need any more of this morning.
My heart was already beating fast by the time I got out of the cab in front of the bar. I pushed through the doors anticipating Riley’s wrath.
What I got instead was Liam.
“Hey!” It was the girliest, breathiest greeting to ever leave my lips. Probably because of how damned good his green eyes looked peering out from under that grey knit cap. Goddamn. His sexy mouth curled into a smirk the second his stare locked on mine.
“Let me call you back, A.J.” Liam hung up his phone. Sliding it into his pocket, he backed me out the door, into the little red vestibule we rented in the fall and winter to keep out the wind. My heart pounded as we stood together in the small space, Liam’s dirty little smile burning through me. I could practically see flashes of our filthy gym romp replaying in his eyes.
“Liam, stop looking at me like that,” I finally exhaled.