I’d woken to the feel of his strong fingers grazing the silhouette of my body and it was heaven. In seconds, I was under him, his cock just as incredible as it had been the night before, the effect of his hands on my body just as destabilizing.
But we weren’t drunk, or even able to claim we were, anymore. This was Liam. And he was looking at me like he wanted another round. But this was Liam. The guy Scarlett and I referred to as The Angry Aussie. How did I think this was going to end?
The reality was this might happen a few more times and then he’d go on to ruin some other girls for the rest of their lives and then we could start a support group.
Even worse, I’d have to see him every holiday and special occasion until I died or emigrated.
He reached for my arm. “Come on, Kath.”
“What?” I could already feel my body giving in to his touch. I wanted him. I wanted to feel like this all the time. But this was Liam. He was bad news. What had I been thinking? My excuse was flimsy. We both knew Scarlett and Lachlan had people to do all the prep work. The guests of honor would show up at the last minute just like we would.
“Don’t freak out.”
“I’m not freaking out.” But, yeah, I heard the screech in my voice.
“We can be adults about this, can’t we?” Was he referring to fact that we said it would be a one-night stand and then pretend it never happened?
Or did he mean the sex we’d had transcended within the first five minutes and then we’d been in a different galaxy overnight, one that proved insta-love was an actual thing—but only with the completely wrong person so the rest of your life would be a clusterfuck of awkward gatherings, tiptoeing around each other, pretending you didn’t want to rip each other’s clothes off?
“Mmm-hmmm.” Yup, I got how manic my nodding was. And nope, I couldn’t stop. Ditto for the bulging thing my eyes were doing.
Said eyes caught on the way his lips touched. I tried to look away. No luck. He caught me. There was that smirk again. Fuck me. I had to get out of here.
He sat up, the sheet tenting over his once again rock-hard dick, the sight of which had my opening clenching. I tried not to look. Again, my eyes failed the test.
He stood and the sheet slid off. He placed my hand on his shaft. Even he was not immune, his eyes shut and a growl escaped his troublemaking lips.
“If we’re never going to do this again, then we should probably give it one last go, don’t you think?” His words were casual, but the way he pulled me into him and sucked on my earlobe was anything but.
I didn’t trust my words. I shook my head.
“No?” he asked, his tongue flicking at my ear in a way that drew a sharp exhale, my hand tugging at the length of him as he rocked into my palm.
I shook my head again.
His kisses migrated along toward my lips. My face in his hands was bliss. If he kissed me again, I was never going to leave. When he captured the flesh of my bottom lip between both of his, I tried to pull away but the second I did, I wanted more.
I crashed back into him, frenzied this time, dropping the clothes I’d gathered and backing him onto the bed so he was sitting and I straddled him.
This time, I reached for the condom in the bedside drawer and lowered it on him, unrolling and staring in awe at the length of him. I wanted it so bad. Every single inch.
Perhaps, I couldn’t help but give in, but I could and would show him who was boss. I was an independent woman who was not letting Mr. Bad News be the ruin of her. Hell no.
Five
LIAM
It was cute, the way she needed me to see that it was her choice to stay the morning after. She was feisty and hell-bent on showing me this was just sex. But we both knew it was going to blow our minds. That we were going deeper and further than we’d gone so far, and that this was only going to underline the intense exchange of emotion, feeling, and shit, something as close to that L word as I’d ever known.
And the funny thing was this adorable game of hers just made me want her more. This was her trying to fight whatever this was between us. And I knew in the end, she wouldn’t be able to. But watching her descent into this circle of us, this new reality inhabited by Liam and Kath, was something incredible. And I was going to enjoy every second.
When she spread her legs and lowered herself onto me, she was an absolute vision. If I could freeze a moment, this would be it. As we nosedived into the cloud and fug of our physical connection again, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. She let herself be completely consumed by our rapture, her hips bucking as she ground me deeper and deeper into her soaking, tight, pussy.
My body drove up into her over and over, and every time, that dirty little smile of hers stretched bigger. She felt so fucking good.
She was stunning as we rode closer and closer to coming. My hands found their way to the curve of her hips, pushing her deeper and deeper still. She called out. Rode me harder.
“I’m coming,” she said. What a thing to watch, the way her toes curled, her head fell back, the most primal sound passing between her lips, while her pussy clenched and shuddered around me.
“You,” I said. “Look what you do to me.” And then I came in the hardest, most intense, orgasm I’d ever experienced. I watched as she bit her lip, lust dripping from her smile, from those incredible green eyes, while she once again twitched around the judder of my spurting in the condom inside her.
God, I wished there was no condom between us. Just the idea of that intensified my orgasm. I pulled her down to me, held her tighter than I’d known I was capable of, my hands through her silky hair. In that moment, I wanted to be everything to her.
My thought from this morning came back to me: when I’d woken, before opening my eyes, my first notion was, please don’t let the feelings be gone. Please don’t let that have been all a drunken fantasy.
Well, my prayers had been answered. I held her tighter, kissed the top of her head, breathed in her scent. I could stay here all week.
Man and woman. This was it. Fuck, was this it.
Six
KATH
Two hours later, I was in an overly scented Uber on my way to the newlyweds’ farewell party, devilish flashbacks playing in my head, distracting me from what I was trying to do, which was make a plan to act normally in the presence of Liam.
High on imitation vanilla, so far, my plan amounted to: I have to make a plan.
I was so royally screwed. Sure, I had an excellent poker face. Scarlett often expressed her envy of it. But it was going to take more than a Teflon expression to conceal the way I felt when I left his place earlier.
God, I missed my tough as nails BFF. Why did she have to take an Italian year of adventure now? She’d known just how to fire up my steely resolve. But Tilly, the aforementioned BFF, had missed the wedding because she’d been gone nearly ten months of a one-year job contract in Florence, and had booked herself for volunteer work at exactly the time as the wedding.
I shivered at the thought of Liam’s hands at the back of my neck as we’d kissed goodbye—endlessly, like a pair of teenagers. I forced myself to pull away. Against his lips, I tried to regain some ground, “So, this was just a one-night thing. Agreed?”