13
Ty
Iwasn’t kidding when I told Liam he was distracting.
It had already been a struggle to read while he was banging away on his traps…and with all this new information rattling through my brain as my world transformed overnight.
I tried to focus on the page of the book, but my gaze kept shifting over to him.
I’d only seen him sleeping that one morning when he’d spent the night at my place. I’d struggled to even wake him because I wanted to stare at that beautiful face, enjoy the shape of his body, only half-concealed under the blanket I’d given him.
Now, similarly, he lay on his side on the couch, his arms folded before him, and I was annoyed they covered some of his chest. However, his impressive torso was on full display, pushing forward and pulling back, the deep lines in his abs flexing as he took deep breaths, the sound so pleasant to me. If only we could have lain beside each other so I could sleep to the sound.
I felt like a bit of a creeper, sitting there, watching him.
Wanting him.
I just wanted to sneak over and lick across his body, from the subtle hairs pushing forward from the waistband of his shorts, to his navel, toward his chest. Then I could work my way back down again, serve his cock.
I imagined him pretending to be asleep as I worked him up, until he couldn’t pretend anymore and gripped the back of my head, making me take more of him.
Well, now I’m hard.
I would make him feel so good. I could take away all his stress, and he could take away mine.
Strange to think that just before we were attacked, I wanted Liam to leave me the hell alone. He’d wanted me to hook up with Joey. He’d pushed me away. But now I understood why.
“Lord knows your father’s got his own secrets, and I’ve got mine.”
“You have a thing for trouble…”
“I wasn’t trying to pass you off to him, Ty. I was trying to do the right thing.”
His motives since I’d known him made so much more sense. He hadn’t been pushing me away just because I was Eric’s kid, but because he had lived his life refusing to get close to people. Not being able to because of what he did and the secrets he carried. In his mind, he wasn’t pushing me away—he was protecting me.
And now that he was sleeping, I was protecting him.
Now I understood what he’d meant about not taking for granted people or life. He lived in a world so different from my own. A world of secrets, deception, and peril.
And now here I was, living it with him.
Was it terrible that some masochistic part of me was fine with that? I remembered what he’d shared with me about growing up, feeling so on his own. It was so much worse than anything I’d experienced. He’d been on the streets. Struggling to survive. Clearly, he’d spent so much of his life that way: alone.
But not anymore. Not as long as he was with me.
As I began the same page I’d been on for the past hour, I realized getting through a book in that moment was a fucking pipe dream. My body was ravaged by the adrenaline rush that everything that had occurred awakened within me. I was swept up in the excitement of my mind finally catching up with everything that was happening, and the massive blue balls Liam left me with now that we could be close to one another but not share more. No book or article or movie would soothe my discomfort, so I got started on dinner.
I needed to pull my weight. Liam had done enough for me as it was, and I wanted him to know, even though I couldn’t offer the same value as he did while we were there, I wasn’t totally useless either.
I searched through the fridge and pantry, perusing my options, before deciding on a dish and getting to work. I’d just ripped open a package of spices and poured it into the meat I was browning on the stove when I heard Liam stir in the next room.
“Well, that’ll wake a man up,” he said as he walked through the doorway, groggy-eyed, looking no more refreshed than he had before he went to sleep.
“Sorry, I figured you might be hungry when you got up.”
“Needed to wake up anyway.” He sidled up beside me, putting his hand against the counter as he kicked his hip out, assessing my work.
I didn’t make any attempt to conceal my appreciation of his physique, or the way his cock hung to the left, thick and pushing against the fabric of his shorts.
