For one wild second, he almost did. He leaned in, breath grazing Liam’s lips before he realized he’d moved. Suddenly the car jolted. Jacob’s shoulder hit the door, Liam blinked, and the moment cracked.
Jacob pulled back first, just enough to remember that wanting him didn’t mean he could have him.
They didn’t touch again for the rest of the ride.
***
City lights slid past the windows in streaks of white and red. The driver had dropped Liam off first. Jacob sat stiff in the corner of the back seat, dragging a hand over his mouth before leaning his head back and closing his eyes.
That had been too close. He could feel it even now—the hunger to take, to bite, to leave marks. It hadn’t been fantasy or some passing temptation. It had been real and alive, right here in the backseat of this goddamn car.
He let his head thunk lightly against the cold glass as the car pulled off the freeway, winding through the dark canyons of Malibu. His house appeared on the hill like a painting, quiet and perfect.
The kids were asleep, and probably had been for hours. It was well past their bedtime. He checked on them anyway, pausing in each doorway to watch the slow rise and fall of their chests. He bent to kiss their foreheads, something catching in his throat when he did. This was real. This was his life. He loved them more than anything.
Caroline was in the kitchen, rinsing out a glass. She looked up when he entered, face tired but kind. “Hey,” she said softly. “You’re late.”
“Location shoot,” Jacob answered, voice even.
She stepped close without hesitation, rising on her toes to kiss him. Her lips were soft and familiar. He kissed her back the way he always did, but something was off. The part of him that should have answered stayed quiet.
Heat with Liam came too easily. A look, a breath, and Jacob’s control was already fraying. Here, with his wife, there was nothing. The silence inside him mocked him, and made him furious. He wanted to prove it wrong, prove Liam hadn’t stolen that part of him.
He kissed her deeper, chasing what was missing, searching for the spark he used to find without effort. His mouth moved against hers with more force than tenderness, his hand cupping her face and dragging her closer, willing something inside him to come alive.
He wanted it to burn the way it used to, but he was still in the backseat of a black SUV. He heard it again—Liam’s voice in the car, begging his name. That sound lived inside him now.
Caroline’s hands slid around his waist. He let his palms drift down her spine, and over her hips, as he guided her back until she met the edge of the kitchen table. She made a soft sound of approval, the kind that should have pulled him closer, but it landed all wrong. Too gentle and feminine. The sound that haunted him was deeper—a masculine timbre he couldn’t forget.
He kissed her harder as he slid his hand under her sweater, where he found warm skin and soft curves. It should have felt like home.
All he could think about was Liam in the backseat of that car. Liam with blown pupils and parted lips, his body strung so tight Jacob could feel the vibration of it even across inches. That would feel like chaos. Like falling into gravity. This felt like choreography.
Caroline gasped, pulling him closer. “The kids?” she murmured against his mouth.
“Asleep,” he said. His voice sounded wrong to his own ears.
He lifted her onto the table and stepped between her legs. Her thighs tightened around him as he pulled her sweater over her head and reached for her bra with the practiced ease of a thousand nights before. She moaned softly, touched his jaw, and whispered his name.
He stripped off the rest of their clothes, dragged her hips forward, and pushed inside her. He kept moving. Hands on her skin. Lips on her throat. Touches that used to mean everything, but all he could see—could feel—was Liam.
Jacob blinked hard, the room blurring for a second. He pressed his forehead to Caroline’s shoulder and tried to stay present. It was useless, because in his mind, it wasn’t her body wrapped around him anymore—it was Liam.
Liam’s head tipped back, that perfect throat exposed, voice breaking on his name. He’d be begging without even trying, like he wanted to be ruined. That image undid him. Not the woman beneath him. Not the body he’d known for years. Not the life he was trying so damn hard to hold together.
It was the ghost of Liam that finally dragged him over the edge. When his release ripped through him, it wasn’t Caroline’s name that lived on his tongue. He didn’t say it out loud, but God, he felt it. Every brutal second of it.
Chapter 17
Liam
The scene today was emotional. Nothing romantic on paper, just two characters laying things bare. Which only made it harder, because there was no distance to hide behind, no action to mask what was bleeding through.
He had barely slept in three nights, not since the moment in the car. His head felt stuffed with cotton and his body was running on nerves and caffeine. No matter how hard he tried, he kept missing his mark and stumbling over lines. He tried to laugh it off, but the sound came out thin. When he asked for a cue again, Ellen peered over her glasses like he’d become a problem. “Let’s all take five,” she said, clipped.
The crew scattered. A makeup artist made a beeline toward him, but he waved her off, needing air more than powder. He bowed his head, dragging a hand over his face.
He didn’t expect Jacob to move, but when he looked up, he was walking toward him with that steady pace. Casual, but careful, like he wasn’t sure if Liam would bolt. Jacob stopped beside him, shoulder to shoulder without looking his way, and held out a cold water bottle. Liam blinked before taking it, his fingers brushing Jacob’s in the exchange.
