He shakes his head. “Not yet. We need to figure out where we’re going first,” Liam murmurs against my mouth.
There’s thatweagain.
I know I’m not crazy when he talks like that.
“Less than a month until the draft, Bristol. If you still want me then, I won’t be your sort-of, kind-of boyfriend anymore. I’ll be whatever the hell you need.”
I see forever in his eyes. I canseeit in his eyes. I see it when he makes love to me, feel it when he texts me first thing in the morning, hear it in his laughter, taste it on his skin.
So why, when he saidwhere we’re going,did it sound like he really meantwhere each of us is going, where the other one of us won’t be?
Chapter 27
August, Now
Soft sheets. Brain fog. The first deep inhale of morning. A slow warmth builds in my body, nestled on all sides by cool cotton or blazing bare skin.
I’m ripped from my dream and wake up to something better.
Liam’s mouth on the back of my neck.
His lips are damp as they kiss the top of my spine, his breath heated as it brushes the hairs at my nape. I curl my chin toward my chest to give him room to explore the back of me.
One of his hands slides heavily from my hip bone to my stomach, dragging a trail of fire across the front of my body. He flattens his palm, pulls me back against his core. A rush of air leaves my mouth, nearly inaudible.
Nearly.
His first word of the morning comes out a gravelly, breathless rasp. “Bases.” The vibration of it coasts along my skin.
My limbs are heavy, but I urge my nervous system to wake up and respond. To tuck my knees in, push my ass farther into the hard planes of his body behind me. My reward is a low moan that traps itself in his throat.
“We’re doing that?” I ask, my own voice reedy.
Liam’s kisses go longer, sucking between each one. I haven’t opened my eyes yet, but there are white spots behind my eyelids.
When he’s damn well ready, he mumbles, “It’s been a while since I’ve gotten clear on your consent. So yeah, we’re doing that.”
God, I forgot how hot he makes this.
The sexual bases started as a bad joke between Liam and me the third night we were together. Up until that point, he’d been used to constantly asking for consent because he was rarely with the same woman more than twice. I told him it wasn’t necessary with us anymore, but Liam suggested it could be, especially if we were trying something that one or both of us had never done before.
“We could shorten it into a code,” he’d joked.
I’d immediately said, “Like first base, second, third?”
He’d smirked, amused by that. “If you want.”
“A little on the nose, isn’t it?”
“That’s the point of consent, isn’t it?”
The first time we tried it, neither of us could stop laughing when he asked permission to go to first base, then second. But just like everything else about him, Liam adapted quickly and found a way to make it one of the most erotic things about our sex. We didn’t do it all the time, but when we did, it was a game of its own.
Liam would ask me, on occasion, if stealing was allowed. Sometimes, I said yes—effectively handing over the reins of control to him. Knowing he’d touch me however he wanted, in whichever order, nothing tentative or hesitant or careful about it. Other times, I said no and made him beg for it, at length, out loud, before he could advance.
Finally, I peek my eyes open, my view catching on the tip of the St. Louis skyline beyond the window. We got here late last night—Liam in the car with his boss, me on the tour bus with the others, having spent hours workshopping my Belmont tracks together. I’d jumped in the shower right away and came out to find Liam asleep on top of our duvet. I pulled off his shoes, roused him enough to climb beneath the covers, and ninety seconds later, we were both asleep.
Liam’s teeth bite softly into the curve of my shoulder as his fingers rub circles on my stomach. “Do I make it to first?” he asks low.
