“You threw me over your shoulder and deposited me in the car.”
He smirks. “We both know you would’ve left if you’d actually wanted to. But you didn’t, despite your doubts and insecurities about your place here with me. You stayed so we could work it out, and to me, that’s trust.”
“I—Then—Do you want to talk about our breakup now?” I ask.
“Not really something I want to get into after drinking,” he says,fighting a wince. “Ihadbeen waiting for one of us to raise the topic when you weren’t in the middle of writing a love song, but they just keep coming, so—”
I thunk my head into his chest and Liam laughs, the reverberations of it seeping through me.
“But I do want to kiss you,” he whispers.
“Are you sure?”
“Of this and little else.”
His thumbs, still on my throat, pulse twice in signal. I love it when he does that. Uses my throat, my hair, to direct me.
I tilt my head up, and Liam’s hand is a magic wand, arching my spine toward him as it moves down in one swipe. Our mouths lock,finally, our want all-consuming. It settles over us in a hot sheet.
It was intense, between us.
Time skips, like a scratched CD. I’m flush to the wall, Liam’s mouth over mine, the memory of his kiss pulled through the space-time continuum to now.
He knows what I like. I know how he likes it.
He tastes like something pent-up, combustible at any moment. These are slow, drugging, life-wrecking kisses.
“There will always be another hotel room,” he mumbles, teeth skating past my jaw. “Drives through the night. Work on the weekends.”
Hands in my hair, fingers in his belt loop.
“I understand,” I breathe.
“I don’t own a mattress,” Liam grunts by my ear. “I’ve heard it’s a red flag.”
“ButIown a mattress.” My hands are on his stomach now. “Which means you have a bed to sleep in, a place to come back to.”
His nose traces my collarbone. “I never should have given you space.”
“I never should have forced you away.”
“We should have fought more,” he rasps.
“We should have fought for days,” I agree, gasping as his mouth parts over my skin.
“Weeks.”
“Even months.”
“And then made up,” he mumbles.
“And stayed together,” I agree.
We slow down, then stop altogether. We both know after a night of drinking, in a shared house, when it’s beenthis long, we can only take things so far.
Liam pulls back, his tone certain but eyes wavering. He catches his breath and says, “But you’ll stay with me now.”
I nod, every cell in my body in tune with his wants.
