She sighed, noticing how Wade tried to be stealthy in sending a text, no doubt to Liam.
Liam. As much as she craved him, craved his taste and his touch, this no longer felt right. Maybe it never did. She’d gained a lover, perhaps even someone she could fall in love with, but his acute attentions rattled her. His violent loving made her doubt her sanity. With him, although she’d experienced physical euphoria, it had left her numb and hollow.
He’d lost so much in life, and had made strides, especially by letting go of Michelle. But then he’d transferred those intense needs onto Kate. As much as she was glad she’d helped him with his abandonment issues, she was under no delusion that his demons had been vanquished. Not by a long shot.
He was two men in one. She might have fallen for the owner of those seductive grins, but she was scared of the man behind those dark appetites.
Oh God, Ihavefallen for him.
No. Impossible. She could never fall for anyone so grasping, so needy. In some ways, he reminded her of her father, someone who always needed more. More money, more friends, more attention. That’s what he really got out of his habit, but only for a time. She’d lived with lies and deceit all her life. If this was her new rock bottom, losing her friends, and she had to start over, she owed it to herself to start over in a healthier frame of mind.
What she had with Liam was in no way healthy.
She had to let him go, so they could both let go of the past. It was the only way. They’d been too wrapped up in each other, and it had become too easy to forget the outside world and pretend everything was okay. She couldn’t carry on this way, existing just for Liam.
And yet every time she remembered the way he caressed her, she grew weak in the knees. It was all so wrong. Hell, they’d barely had a real date. The night at Franky’s seemed so long ago. They’d gone from throwing barbs at one another to him throwing her on the nearest surface and fucking her senseless. Not exactly the basis of a stable relationship. How could she love him?
Maybe because she glimpsed something in him that no one else had ever seen. Even though he’d initially held back from her, he’d revealed his heart. She couldn’t forget that moment, as much as he’d walled it back up.
As she expected, by the time they pulled up at Vice, he was standing on the walkway, waiting for them. He was dressed for work, but his pressed shirt was open at the collar with no tie. There were dark circles under his eyes and his handsome face looked strained and pale.
Like an addict.
She slid her compact out of her purse, eyed her reflection, and saw the same qualities in her own face. She’d become a desperate woman, looking for her next fix.
She replaced the mirror in her bag and looked back at him. This wasn’t the same playfully cocky Liam Doyle she’d first met. Had that man ever existed? She wasn’t sure anymore. All she knew was, even though this Liam scared her, he also drew her like a six-foot magnet. She just didn’t know how to relate to him. She had questions he didn’t want to answer, and he wanted to explore carnal depths that made her only question him more.
He opened up the car door for her and she slid out. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Wade tells me you had a rough time. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t.” He let out a sigh and fiddled with one of the buttons on his shirt. “Listen, do you want to go somewhere and talk?”
Talk. Now he wanted to talk. Her heart walloped her insides in a beat she didn’t recognize. It was too late for talk.
She needed to do this. It was now or never.
This would be her true rock bottom.
“Kate?”
“You know, Liam, I’d say yes if I thought we were actually going to talk to each other, but that’s not going to happen, is it? We’ll go back to your room, or some other random room, and just fuck like we always do.”
He held her gaze, as if wondering where she was going with this.
“I’m checking out of Vice. I can’t be here. Just associating with you, being here in this hotel, has lost me my friends. I was wrong to come in the first place. I got carried away, got tempted by this glitzy world you live in, tempted by you, and now I’m paying for it.” She moved past him toward the lobby door.
He reached for her hand. “You can’t do that. You can’t go.”
“I can and I will.”
“Kate, it’s not safe for you out there.”
She whipped around on him. “Jesus, Liam. It’s not safe for me here! Don’t you get it? I can’t be around you. You make me…want things I can’t have.”
