He let loose her hands, pressed his palms onto her hips, and pulled her flush.
Avery wrapped her arms around him and fanned her fingers through his hair while her legs clamped on and she pressed her core against his erection.
He saw stars. Serious specks of light as all the blood rushed below his belt.
Liam kissed her harder, cautioned himself to not leave a bruise.
For a woman with her strength and agility, she felt small in his arms. He traced the edge of her spandex pants and ran his hands up the back of her shirt. She was soft against his worn hands.
Avery broke from his kiss and moved her lips to his neck. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to stop,” she said.
He traced the sides of her breasts with his thumbs. “Not unless you tell me to.”
Avery shook her head. “Not a chance.”
He chuckled. “Shower first?” he asked. “Finish what we’ve started, then shower?”
Her hands ran over his ass.
Making it to the shower might not be an option.
Avery leaned back, pulled her shirt over her head, and tossed it to the floor.
A sports bra couldn’t diminish her beauty.
“This. Here. Now.” She smiled. “Shower later and then repeat.”
He tugged his shirt over his head to follow hers. She never unwrapped her legs from his hips. “What if I’m too tired for a second round?”
“Then I’ll do all the work.” She traced her hands over his shoulders and down his chest. “This looks even better than I imagined.”
He dropped his lips to the top of her breast and tasted the salt on her skin. “So good.” With a quick movement, he unclasped her bra and let it fall from her shoulders.
“You’ve had practice.”
He gathered the firm mounds of her breasts between his fingers and lifted them, one at a time, to his tongue. “I work with my hands,” he told her.
Her head fell back. “And your mouth.”
Yes to the left, and yes to the right. She was perfect. All of her.
The control he’d felt as he turned her into putty fell away when she traced the outside of his cock through his pants. Resting his forehead on her shoulder, he pushed into her touch.
“I want this inside of me, Liam.” Her husky voice drove through the fog in his head. “I want you inside of me.”
He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and tossed it on the counter.
Avery reached beneath the elastic of his pants and wrapped her delicate fingers around him.
“Good God, woman.”
She offered a deep laugh. “Feels like God was good to you.”
He dragged her off the counter long enough for her to peel her spandex off while he kicked his sweats and briefs to the side. The desire to stare and study and taste was overpowered by the need to feel.
“Here?” he questioned one more time.
With a grin, Avery wiggled back up onto the countertop. “Here, there . . . against the window where someone below might see us. I’ve pictured you everywhere, and now I want to make that happen.”
With hands on her thighs, he smiled into their kiss. “You have quite the imagination.”
“It isn’t as good as the real thing.”
From his wallet, he retrieved a condom and tore it free of the wrapper. “Next time we go slower,” he promised.
Avery opened for him and looked between them as he positioned himself.
Her breathing matched the quick staccato of his. “Please, Liam. I’ve waited long enough.”
With a sigh, he pressed into her warm folds and paused.
Avery’s long release of a breath tightened her body around his.
He shook his head, already fighting for control.
“Liam?” she questioned.
“Shhh.” He pulled away and slowly moved back in. “I got you.”
And he did. Standing as he made love to her made it a little easier to hold off while she warmed to the feeling. Her kiss was a barometer of where she was at and how close she was to the edge. Slow and easy at first, then a little faster, until she wasn’t kissing him at all. With her lips hovering over his, he felt her start to go. As she did, he lifted her from the counter and moved deeper until she called his name.
The feel of her insides squeezing took him over the cliff. He set her back down and rode the last waves of his release until his legs felt like blobs of Jell-O.
They breathed hard into each other’s necks while his heart rate returned to normal.
Avery pounded a fist to his back. “Don’t ever make me wait that long again.”
Liam kissed her shoulder. “Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter Nineteen
They made it to the shower, and that was when Avery digested every ounce of him.
The tattoo on his right shoulder was a geometric design he told her didn’t have a meaning. He’d been on spring break his second year of college, drunk with his friends . . . yeah, she could identify with that. She wasn’t sure how much of her college years she’d actually spent sober.
There weren’t many times in Avery’s sexual life that she’d showered with a man. Early on, when she wanted to try everything once. But in her most recent past, she never wanted a man to look at her the way Liam did. Every gentle swipe of his soap-filled hand told her she was beautiful . . . said he was lucky.
The moisture dripping off her hair as she stepped from the shower matched the volume of the ice that had been around her heart. Even as the thought entered her head, she tried to pull it back.
It’s just sex.
Even alone with her thoughts, she couldn’t convince herself that was true.
Liam was different. What that meant she couldn’t name. Refused to name. Men bounced once they slept with her. They always did.
With a towel wrapped around her and another one in her hands as she dried her hair, she watched Liam come up to stand behind her. Their reflection in the mirror brought a smile to her face.
“What has you so quiet?”
“Nothing.”
He rested his chin on her shoulder and stared at her in the mirror.
Before he could call her a liar, she squeezed out the only words she could find. “I really like you.”
He bit his lip as if he was trying not to smile.
“You just figured that out?”
Avery rolled her eyes and dropped her gaze. “Men never stick around. And you’re kinda growing on me.”
“I’m not like any other man in your life.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s scary.”
He laughed.
“Stop. I’m serious.” She shivered, looked at him. “Ever since we met, I’ve felt like there’s a wool coat on my bare skin, but I’m fine with it because feeling the coarse fiber is better than feeling nothing at all.”
His laughter faded. “I want to be the silk against your skin. But I’ll take the wool coat for now.”
He took the towel from her hands, set it aside, and grabbed a brush. With slow strokes, he brushed her hair without so much as a tug.
“You’re good at this.”
“I have a niece who doesn’t sit still unless I’m brushing her hair.”
“You’re too much.”
He nodded without shame. “I am.”
“Humble, too.”
Moving her hair to the side, he kissed the back of her neck. “Tell me something.”
Avery tilted her head to the side and encouraged him to kiss her again. “Yes.”
“Do you ever let men spend the night?” Lips on her neck, a tiny lick.
She shivered.
“No. I kick you all out once I’m done.”
He untucked her towel and ran the bristles of the brush gently over her back.
Her sex fluttered.
“What side of the bed do I get?”
Avery stretched like a cat waking up in the sunlight streaming through a window. Her eyes blinked open and the previous night rushed in. She closed them again and smiled. They’d made love until she cried uncle and then proceeded to curl into a ball at Liam’s side and fall fast asleep.
With one hand, she patted the space beside her, searching him out.
Not there.
Damn it.
On her way to rolling over and pounding the pillow beside her, she heard whistling coming from her kitchen. And coffee. She smelled coffee.
She left her bed naked and searched out a robe. When she couldn’t find it, she pulled on an oversize T-shirt she often wore as a nightgown.
In the kitchen, with his back to her, Liam sported her white, fluffy bathrobe. She swam in it. On Liam, it came up short on his arms and just hit his knees.
He looked ridiculous.
“Perfect fit,” she teased.
Without looking her way, he lifted a hand in the air to ward her off. “Desperate times deserve desperate measures. Don’t judge.”
He stopped chopping whatever he was cutting up, turned, and crossed to her side.
After dropping a kiss, he said, “Good morning.”
“Morning.”
His gaze lowered. “I’d offer you your robe, but then I’d be naked and you’d be dressed. And I like this ensemble you have going. The only thing that would make it better is if that were my shirt.”
Liam turned back to what he was doing.
“Are you cooking?”
“I am. But first thing, you don’t snore. And the second thing . . . there is nothing but rabbit food in here.”
“Organic rabbit food.”
He traversed her kitchen and poured her a cup of coffee. “What do you take in it?”
“Raw sugar. It’s in the—”
“Got it.” He had the lid off her sugar container before she could finish her sentence.
“Are you always this awake first thing in the morning?”
He paused, looked at her, then turned to the clock on the wall. It was almost nine thirty.
“Oh.”
“I am. After last night, I could take on the world.” He handed her the cup and kissed her forehead. “I hope you like omelets.”
“I can’t believe you’re cooking.”