“Do something for me,” she said softly.
Anything. Everything. He’d harness the moon and bring it to her on a silver platter if he could.
“Kiss me,” she whispered. “Just once.”
Liam groaned, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. He was so far off the beaten path he’d stumbled into quicksand and was hanging on by a twig. If he didn’t put an end to this, he was going to do something terribly, deliciously bad. “I don’t want to ruin your life, Cora.”
“You won’t.” This time, she stepped close enough that he could feel her soft breath against his face. She gently pulled his hands from his eyes, then peered at him from beneath thick, dark lashes tipped with gold. “It’s just one kiss. If you hate it, we’ll never do it again.” Before Liam could answer, she stood on her tiptoes and pressed a soft, featherlight brush of her mouth against his.
Every rational thought was eclipsed by the sweet, raspberry-citrus whisper of his name on her lips. “Liam.”
And that was all it took.
The twig snapped, and down he sank, spiraling into sweet, perilous oblivion and unable to care. Logic and reason scattered like dandelion fluff on the wind. He heard the need in her voice, and he answered.
Wrapping one hand around her waist, Liam slid the other up to cradle Cora’s head as he pulled her tightly against him, claiming her mouth with his. Her soft moan of pleasure sank under his skin, stoking the fire inside him until it licked at his self-control. Her body was sweet and warm and lush, melting into all his hard edges until instinct crowded in and took over. Without breaking the kiss, he lifted her up and sat her on the counter, fitting his hips between her thighs.Mine.Everything about being with this woman,hiswoman, felt so inexplicably right, to believe otherwise seemed more like a sin than the one he was committing.
They had to stop. Deepening the kiss, he slid his hands over the luscious swell of her hips to circle around her narrow waist.
Nothing good will come of this.She trailed her fingers under his shirt, tracing along the bare, muscled ridges of his abdomen.
Liam groaned.This is madness!But she tasted so much like heaven that risking his soul to hell didn’t seem like such a bad trade if he could just live here in her arms for a few moments longer.
Suddenly, his phone began to ring, the shrill sound echoing off the kitchen walls.
Cora pulled away. He fought against the driving need to yank her right back where she belonged. Instead, he tried to rise above his baser instincts, but he wasn’t feeling particularly buoyant, so his voice fell flat when he said, “I should get that.”
“Or you could let it go to voice mail?” she suggested.
Brilliant woman. That was a much better idea. Like magnets, they came together again, only this kiss was far more carnal, escalating quickly until their movements became urgent and more demanding.
A minute later, his phone rang again.
Liam growled like an angry lion, and Cora giggled against his mouth. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and yanked out his phone. Slice Biddlesworth’s name flashed across the screen. Liam held it up to show Cora.
She sat up straighter. “You’d better take it. Maybe he found the pictures.”
In a tone far grumpier than he intended, Liam answered with a harsh “What?”
“H-hey, man,” Slice said hesitantly. “I was just going to leave you a message.”
“I’ll hang up, then, and leave you to it.” Mind already on the delectable woman who was smiling in amusement, Liam started to hang up, but she grabbed the phone.
“Hi, Slice. It’s Officer McLeod.” She put the phone on speaker. “Did you find the pictures?”
“No, because I still haven’t found my laptop,” Slice said. “I thought I threw it in with the boxes my mom was taking to storage, but there’s a slight problem.”
“What is it?” Cora scooted off the kitchen counter and began to pace the small kitchen. Already, he could see her lighting up as she slipped into investigative mode.
The caveman part of Liam’s brain wanted to yank away the phone, crush it under his heel, and carry her down the hall to bed. Instead, he took deep, even breaths and tried to ignore the raging lust still pumping through his body like wildfire.
Walking to the sink, he gulped down an entire glass of cold water, then braced his arms on the counter and stared blindly out the window into the backyard. Slice couldn’t have picked a worse time to call. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, this was divine intervention, but it felt more like a sadistic prank. Somewhere down there, the devil was laughing, long and hard.
“My stepdad was also doing a dump run that day,” Slice was saying. “And he had a bunch of boxes in the garage, too.”
Cora sank onto a kitchen chair. “Please don’t say what I think you’re going to say.”
“There’s a slight chance my laptop got thrown away by accident.” Slice sounded nervous. “I know I said I’d call you guys that day you came to Zippy Lube, but I haven’t been able to find it yet.”