Three
KATH
I watched as Lachlan led Scarlett outside to the stables housing a couple of horses I’d seen during our time with the photographer. One was a silky black mare, tall and lean, and the other struck me as a Fabio of horses with his thick, flowing pale mane and broad, muscled physique.
I wondered if the horses thought us ridiculous, dolling ourselves up for the endless procession of parties held here. The equestrian culture had not been a part of our lives before . . . before my sister fell in love with a billionaire. I still couldn’t believe how glamorous and perfect the setting of everything was.
But that didn’t change my sister. She was good people. “Full stop,” as Lachlan often said. He got her, and shit, did she deserve that after Greg left her with infant Zooey all on her own.
Still, sometimes I felt like I’d stepped into a different world. One where I wasn’t so sure what everything meant. We’d spent so much of our lives making decisions based on survival finance—selling our parents’ place after they died, putting any money they’d left us into trust accounts for our own future kids, so they wouldn’t have to make all their decisions on the baseline of getting by, the way we had.
But I could barely recognize that Kath now. Kids? I did not see them in my future. My time with Zooey was a treasure, but it was on tap anytime I wanted it. And the kind of vulnerability a child required—never mind a man I loved to make one with, well, that wasn’t something I was capable of. I just wasn’t built that way.
So why was I getting emotional now? Why was I antsy at how long Liam was taking to get those drinks? Why were my lips curling in a grin when I caught sight of him returning, one of his muscular arms raised as he held up the glass for me? So I could smash it; given the context, surely that had to be symbolic of something.
There were a few of Scarlett’s work friends at the perimeter of the room, but other than that, when he came to me, the icy air clinging to him, we were in our own world.
Sure, that could be the vodka talking, but that didn’t stop me from smiling like a fool, probably naughtily, if my feelings shone through at accepting that glass from him and the extended touch of his fingers on mine.
I felt his eyes on my lower lip, and my tooth bit down on the pillow of it as he did so. There was a mighty attraction there. These reactions were undeniable.
We clinked glasses, knocked back the burning liquor. I threw my whole arm into the smashing, enjoying it wholeheartedly. From the corner of my eye, I could see the guests at the periphery startle. I heard one of them say Nostrovia! It was infectiously liberating.
In the beautiful ruins made simply for our pleasure, I felt Liam reach for my arm. His touch burned. Shit, this was intense. I hadn’t been prepared for that. My eyes shut in the rush of sensation. Oh, he must have liked that because he pulled me close into his chest. He smelled so good.
His spicy, clean cologne a drug I couldn’t get enough of. I ran my cheek and nose along the contours of his neck. He groaned, intensifying the crackle of lust between us. I trembled as his face slowly turned, every inch of his skin sliding, velvety under my lips and nose. I squeezed my eyes shut, running on pure euphoria.
Suddenly, his lips were on mine, and my eyes flashed open as if my brain had caught up to what was happening. He gazed right into them. His eyes were the bluest blue, shining in the glow of the strung lights. I’d always thought blue eyes were blue eyes, but these, they held the depth of him in them.
And they made me think—no, they made me know—that I’d been wrong about him. He wasn’t just an angry jerk. Now I felt like a dimwit having seen him in such a one-sided way. There were hundreds of layers of feeling, emotion, insight, and yes, even joy, in there. And it felt like he’d harnessed every one of them and directed their full intensity on me.
He pressed the fullness of those lips onto mine. I moaned into him. This spurred him on. I had to close my eyes again; the feel of him and the rabbit hole of those infinite eyes was too much all at once.
His tongue plunged into my mouth, and I grabbed the back of his head, pushing him in farther. As if he knew what I needed, he merged with me, his tongue searching, his hands encircling my waist, our bodies touching head to toe.
I couldn’t stop. The kiss was endless, like we were searching out the boundary, but it was boundless. He. Smelled. So. Good. He felt like heaven. A strong, manly, sexy-as-hell man who I wanted. Badly. Liam.
I must have been genetically programmed to respond that way because I couldn’t find any other explanation. I’d drunk too much before, but even that couldn’t be responsible for this reaction. This was on another level. At best, we’d tolerated each other in the past. Could this have been simmering beneath the surface all that time?
Trembling, I felt myself accept and react to his kisses, his caresses, in continuous explosions. I never wanted it to stop. He pressed his strong palm on my cheek; it was erotic, and tender, and reassuring, and terrifyingly intimate all at once.
My eyes shot open at the shock of it all. He was looking at me in that…that…everything way again. I felt my chest heave.
He backed his lips away. I flitted my gaze at them, wanting them again. But that stare of his recaptured me.
“Hey,” he said, in a gravelly whisper that sent shivers up my spine.
“Hey.”
His smile was sensational. He grabbed for my hand and pulled me toward the smaller building with the bar where the few guests who’d stayed past the official end of the party were gathered.
Liam’s hand gripped around mine was a physical embodiment of the connection that just rocked us into a transformed reality. So, when he let it go at the bar to accept a couple glasses of water, I wanted the contact back. Already, I began to doubt what I’d felt. Surely that wasn’t real.
But if the twitch of his fingers, the pop of his lips meant anything, he hungered for my touch too. No sooner had he walked us to a tall cocktail table than in came Scarlett and Lachlan, and we both reacted by straightening, drawing away from each other.
Scarlett made a beeline toward us. I tried not to fidget, but her gaze darted back and forth between us as if she knew his lips had just been on mine. Without thinking, my fingers made their way to my mouth. Liam noticed right away, his eyes on my fingers.
My eyes didn’t know where to go, and somehow, they became ensnared in his. And though I did my best to look away—literally anywhere else—this locked gaze was where we were when Scarlett and Liam approached.
Though it wasn’t an outright scowl, my sister was not known for keeping her emotions under wraps—mostly because she wasn’t capable of lying—and I could see that she caught on that something was up. And she wasn’t happy.
But this wasn’t the time nor place to talk about it, so God bless her, she focused on the reason we were here tonight and smiled, snuggling into the arm Lachlan curled around her back.
“Mr. and Mrs. Close!” I said, curtseying. I didn’t think I would ever get used to the billionairess my sister had become, and this was my ridiculous way of dealing with it.
Lachlan quirked a brow while Scarlett rolled her eyes. “What’s ours is yours. You’re loaded now. You need to get used to it, Kath,” my sister said.