His voice is full of sin as he stands to his full height, abandoning whatever it was he was working on. With slow and sure steps he walks over to me, not stopping until he is so close I can smell him.
Unable to stop myself, I breathe in his scent of oak. He smells like I would imagine a woodworker would, like he lives amongst the trees.
Oh god I’ve missed that smell. I’d held onto it for as long as I could those weeks after we’d been intimate, secretly keeping his t-shirt in my pack for the times the loneliness crept in too deeply.
I feel my blush coming to the surface at the thought.
‘What’s this, baby?’ He strokes my warm cheek. ‘Are you remembering the first time we met? How you looked at me exactly like that.’
Lips parted I don’t respond, not sure I actually can. My tongue darts out, swiping across my bottom lip as his eyes follow the movement.
Liam draws his bottom lip between his teeth, humming in appreciation.
Why had I come here again? What could have possibly been going through my mind to get me to approach the man I’m so terrified of.
The sound of wings flapping, helps aid me in clearing my mind of all things sinful and what exactly this man is capable of.
I look around his shoulder, stepping up onto my tiptoes to do so. I’m tall for a woman, Ru and I having tall parents passed on the long-limbed genetics to the both of us. Something I felt anxious about when I was a teenager and taller than not only all of the boys in my class, but for a short period of time, my older brother.
Kid’s were mean. Adults are fucked up. But I’ve long since learned to love my body, afterall it’s what has helped me survive all these years.
Liam somehow made me feel dainty when I was in his arms. He’s taller than me but not by too much. It’s his body that makes the difference. He’s built like a truck so wide with muscle I don’t remember being able to wrap my arms fully around him.
Now up on my tiptoes, eyebrows raised I manage a quick peep at what all the racket is about back there and my mouth instantly hangs open at the sight before me.
I drop back down to my heels, looking up at the contradiction staring straight at me — eyes hooded with a lazy grin.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Looking at the most beautiful woman I have ever set my eyes upon,’ Liam rasps.
‘No—’ I pause, wait did he really just say that?
‘Yes, princess. I really just said that and I can say a whole load more if you’d let me.’
I wonder what he would—
‘No,’ I shake my head, ridding my dirty mind of his influence. ‘What are you doing there?’ I point behind him.
Hesitantly, as if it pains him to take his gaze away from my body Liam turns around, glancing back at the… I’m not sure what to call it.
‘It’s… ah, well it’s a nest. I’m teaching them how to nest.’ He shrugs his gaze fixed back on my lips, and suddenly, I’ve forgotten what he’d just said.
‘You what now?’
I slap away his rogue hand, the one that looked like he was aiming to slip around my waist, as I step away from him. Climbing the few remaining steps I stop at the entrance of what looks to be rows and rows of bird houses, or more accurately should I say pigeon houses?
What the actual fuck am I looking at? Turning, I side eye the wall of muscle that is now looking a little sheepish.
On the floor in front of a selection of the houses I look closer at what Liam was working on. The misshapen lump of twigs and fluff are exactly what he’d just said, a nest.
This big fucking dafty is literally teaching pigeons how to build nests.
The worlds mad.
I’ve gone mad.
‘Why?’
