“What the hell was that?” I panted.
“Didn’t want you to feel like a cheat.” He apprehended one of my suspenders and ran it through his fingers, sliding along every piece of hypersensitive flesh on his way down.
“How obliging.” Even my vocal cords had become hypersensitive it seemed considering how my voice shrilled.
“I try.”
“Will youtryto help others out with their dares?”
His hand curled around my waist, settling on the small of my back to keep me close. “No.”
I swallowed, trying to calm my racing heart. A losing battle since his scent had infiltrated my body. “Whatever happened to me beingtoo youngandtoo sweet?”
“You still are. Both.”
Again, I tried to wrench myself free, but Liam’s grip was unyielding.
He dipped his face.Is your one-night stand still on the table?
I swallowed, stopping my wriggling. Of course, that was why he’d kissed me. To get to the sex part I’d offered. It wasn’t the start of a relationship. Why was I even contemplating a relationship? Especially with a single dad who also happened to be my Alpha? That would only lead to a mountain of complications, and I wanted carefree, horizontal—or vertical—fun.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Liam. I mean . . .” I licked my bottom lip. Once. Twice. “You’re really old. Not to mention quite ornery.” I delivered this perfectly straight-faced. Sure, there was truth to that second part, but obviously not to the first.
Twenty-three did not an old man make. Why was I talking to myself like an Elizabethan bard?
Liam stared at me for a full minute without speaking and without blinking. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or serious.”
“Both.”
That didn’t relax his eyelids.
“Why the change of heart? Was there a shortage of old, cruel ladies?”
He finally blinked. And then . . . and then he laughed. And like when we were giving Storm a bath, I became totally transfixed by his mouth and the sound it was making, and how it was still slightly flushed and shiny from our kiss.
Walk. Away.I urged myself.This cannot end well.
Myself did not listen.
“Had I known calling you sweet would upset you so much, I’d have come up with some other adjective.”
“The sweet part was fine. It was the adverb preceding it that did it. You don’t even know me. Maybe I’m a raging bitch, and not just biologically.”
“My son wouldn’t be so taken with you if you were crazy and malicious.” He raised his hand to my cheek, slipped his fingers to the nape of my neck.Come home with me tonight, Nicole.
It was strange hearing him call me Nicole instead of Nikki, but in a way, my full name made me feel older. Maybe his intent. “Idostill need a pair of male underwear.”
Amusement touched his mouth, softened the hard lines of his face.
The arm curled around my lower back glided off me, his fingertips brushing the back of my bare thigh, just below the hem of my skirt. The contact lasted a mere second, but its effect endured.
I cleared my throat. “Oh wait. I can’t use the same guy for all my dares.” I waited to see what my bogus rule would do to him; I waited to see just how much he wanted me. If it, at all, matched how deeply I wanted him.
If darkness were personified, it would’ve been Liam Kolane—his eyes went as black as a moonless sky.The fuck you can’t.
I. Smiled.
“You were trying to get a rise out of me, weren’t you?”
