thirteen
taking matters into my own hands
Liam
I’dbeenmopingatthe B&B since slinking out of the bookstore with my tail between my legs.Moping about Maya shoving me out the door.Moping about failing so spectacularly when I’d tried to go to her rescue.Moping about … well, everything.
To make matters worse, Mrs.Patterson wouldn’t stop slipping notes aboutHot Dudes, Hotter Planetunder my door.This morning, along with fresh towels, she’d left me sticky notes, a handful of highlighters, and a note suggesting whatspecificallyI should highlight and annotate in the margins.That woman wasseriousabout her smutty romance books.
Speaking of book club…
I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and typed a message to Greg, asking if he wanted to move up his next visit.
Greg
Why?Is Maya giving you a hard time?Need someone to run interference?
I barked a laugh.It made sense that Greg would think I needed his help with Maya.The last time he was here, she wasn’t shy about telling the world she hated me.Or was it ‘hates me’, present tense?With how she dismissed me from the store today, it could be the latter.
God, I hoped it wasn’t the latter.
Liam
Maybe.I’m not sure.But that’s not why you should come.Nana’s desperate to see the two of you again.
She already bought a gift for Mr.Fluffy.
Really?That’s so sweet of her.Tell her I miss her.
Maybe I should conduct a tiny-town test run before I do something reckless … like sell my place and move there.
Why did I get the sense he was giving me shit for doing almost that very thing?I mean, I hadn’t come right out and said I was moving here forever, but I had packed up my place and left the city.
Carlisle Creek felt like where I wanted to settle down eventually—it felt like home, more now than ever before.
I had always known that if I wanted to raise a family, I wanted to do it in Carlisle Creek.It held such wonderful memories for me; I couldn’t imagine settling anywhere else.If I ever found someone I wanted to start a family with, that is.
With that thought, the image of Maya popped into my head.
Okay, Romeo.Keep dreaming.If Maya didn’t hate me, she at least felt a strong dislike for me.She wouldn’t have pissed on me if I were on fire, never mind gotten naked with me to touch private parts.
But damn … imagine if she did?
Blood rushed to my cock at the thought of it.
With an annoyed groan, I tossed my phone onto the nightstand and reclined on the pillows, lacing my fingers behind my head.I needed to drive these thoughts of Maya out of my mind, because thinking about her like this wouldn’t get me anywhere but uncomfortably hard and chronically unsatisfied.
With no work to catch up on and no job prospects to chase after, though, I had nothing to distract me from fantasizing about a honey-eyed cutie with a penchant for making death threats.I launched off the bed in frustration and paced the room.
Maya was a puzzle.She didn’t know which way was up when it came to me.One minute she hated me; the next we were laughing like old friends.And I’d for sure caught her checking me out when she thought I wasn’t looking.She liked what she saw, almost as much as I liked what I saw when I looked at her.
But despite being attracted to me, and occasionally enjoying my company enough to laugh, she kept pulling away.It’s almost like she was forcing herself to dislike me, and I didn’t get it.
When I saw her, I’d wanted her instantly.Well, okay, maybe notinstantly.At first, I’d been curious to find someone other than Nana manning the store.But when she started giving me sass, and I noticed the fire sparking in her eyes, I was intrigued.And then?That face, the tilt of her plump lips, the way her novelty t-shirt had strained across her chest as she confronted me with no hesitation?Well, after that, I was full-on smitten.
If her cat hadn’t chosen that exact moment to use her body as a ladder, I’d probably still be standing in the middle of Bishop’s books, stuck in a Maya-induced stupor.When she’d recovered from being clawed, though, she’d gotten all gooey-eyed over Greg and Mr.Fluffy, and the spell had been broken.
Even the sight of her cute, round ass couldn’t dull the stab of jealousy I’d felt when I no longer had her attention.Which is why I’d jumped at the chance to tend her wounds.Not that that had gone well.
