“Are you going to marry him?” she asked, stripping the relationship to its bones with childlike simplicity.
“Doubt it.” Damn that wistful note in my voice. “Are you hungry?” I changed topics to an immensely easier one.
After a pastry from Cuppa Joe, a little more cleaning and a solid lunch at home, I took Sophie to the beach. Sitting there on the sand, watching her spin and laugh with the birds and surf, I felt it in my soul. I’d come home. That was where I belonged, where I could be my true self. Now I just had to work like hell to make it reality. It was going to take hard work and determination, but I’d prove I was more than just a poor little rich girl loafing around in mommy and daddy’s mansion living on her trust fund. I’d do whatever it took, run through fire and back to become a bona fide small business owner and contributing part of the community.
“Dance with me, Auntie!” Eloise pulled on my hand and together we spun and twirled and leaped in the waves. She was the best dance partner I’d had in a long time.
* * *
§
* * *
That night my phone dinged with a text.
* * *
Liam: You up?
* * *
I let it sit there for a bit. Liam Connolly, texting me at ten o’clock at night, it felt surreal. I’d spent so many days, weeks, months, years apart from him but never forgetting. And there was also the guilty truth of what I’d been doing in bed right when I got the text. Remembering how he’d looked at me, that intensity I felt coursing through him, I knew he had such passion and fire beneath that congenial exterior he showed everyone else. I’d been lying in bed fantasizing about him while I touched myself. So it took me a few minutes to reply.
* * *
Sophie: Hi
* * *
When my phone rang, I jumped as if it had come alive. I hadn’t expected him to level-jump like that. What was next, him throwing rocks at my window to get me to sneak out? He’d done it before. And now I wouldn’t even have to sneak.
“Hey.” Sitting up in bed, I answered the call like it was no big deal talking to the one-and-only love of my life I’d thought was lost to me forever. No biggie.
“What are you up to?” He sounded all casual.
“Nothing much.” Definitely not wet and slightly breathy over a hot fantasy of you pushing me up against a wall and fucking me hard.
“I’ve been thinking about your project.” He started talking to me about flooring, how he thought he might approach removing it, how he figured it would be a good idea to bring over his buddy to get his opinion, too, since he’d just worked on a historic home with water damage.
“Sounds good.” I sounded distracted, because really I was wondering what Liam was doing at 10 at night devoting all that time to a flooring project.
“Sorry, am I boring you?”
“No, no, not at all.” I quickly tried to dispel any misconceptions. “Thank you so much for your help. I know it’s a tough project, but I’ll do whatever it takes to get it renovated. I’m just…” I paused, searching for the right words in the midst of so many I wasn’t sure how to say. “I’m grateful you’re up at night thinking about the project.”
He paused. Until he told me, “I’m up at night thinking about you.”
I leaned back against the pillows, the weight of his words like a blanket over my body. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, either. I closed my eyes.
“It’s good to see you again, Sophie.” His voice flowed low and intimate through the phone into the darkness of my bedroom.
I swallowed. “You, too, Liam,” I whispered.
We both sat there, phones in hand, so much unsaid.
“I’ll let you get some sleep,” he offered, letting me go. I didn’t want to get off the phone. I wanted him at my window, throwing pebbles until I rushed out in my pajamas into his waiting arms to stay there and only there until the sun rose the next morning.
“Sleep well,” I murmured.
“You, too.”
I sat there with the phone in my hand for a long time after he hung up. This was big stuff we were playing around with. I’d lived with George and felt much less for him than I did for Liam. That a brief conversation about relatively nothing at all could rock me to my core scared the hell out of me. But it was unavoidable. One way or another, it looked like Liam and I both still felt a strong pull. I just hoped it didn’t pull me apart.
8
Liam
It took me a while to fall asleep after talking to Sophie on the phone. I could picture her on the other end, lying in bed with her hair down, long and lush on her pillow. Back when I knew her she used to wear spaghetti strap tank tops and boxer shorts to bed, all thin, soft cotton. When she’d sneak out she used to drive me crazy on my lap in my truck, twisting against me and getting so wet as we made out. She’d always been so responsive. We’d always had explosive chemistry, every touch making us both crave more.
It had been a mistake to call her. Just like it had been a mistake to stop by her store and offer my help, entering willingly, even eagerly into this entanglement. I barely recognized myself. Women were the ones who pursued me. All I did was head out, be my usual, friendly self and my phone lit up with flirty messages and calls. “What are you up to tonight?” “Come hang out!” “Thinking of you!” All I had to do was pick and choose.
It worked for me. It kept me busy and required little to no effort. A bunch of the guys I knew were green with envy at how girls served themselves up to me on a platter. They thought it was because I was big, brawny and handsome, and, hell, that didn’t hurt. But they hadn’t learned my secret: paying attention. I guess I’d picked it up from growing up with my mom, having to be sensitive to even her non-verbal cues. I’d learned to watch for things like which shoulder she couldn’t raise after my father’s latest bender so I could jump in and get the dishes down from the top shelf.
In my experience, if you paid attention to a woman, really listened and observed and asked the right questions along the way, it was all over. They’d lose their minds over you. And I didn’t mind doing it. Everyone had a story to tell. I wasn’t in a rush, generally.
Paying attention was the secret to being a good dom, too. That might seem surprising. Lots of people thought domination meant selfishly inflicting pain. But in my experience it took keen insight to intimately read a sub, understanding exactly what she needed before she even knew. True mastery only came through paying close attention.
I was paying attention to Sophie. Close attention. But I was also playing with fire.
I shouldn’t mess with a good thing. The set up I had worked for me. I worked the darkness out of me once a month off the island, then just enjoyed myself with casual fun the rest of the time on Naugatuck. I got my release, plus earned the happy, good guy reputation that mattered so much to me. It made no sense to pursue the one woman who could completely screw that up. I couldn’t be just one or the other with Sophie. She’d bring out all of me. Only that could never happen.
Thankfully, I had a 24-hour shift at the station to keep my mind occupied. No storm this time, we still kept plenty busy with tourists doing stupid things like leaving on the gas and setting bonfires on the beach. It was all routine stuff we were able to keep at annoyance instead of catastrophe, tamping things down before any real problems emerged. But my mind still kept up a steady stream, repeating the same film reel, with Sophie in my arms just two days ago kissing me back so ardently, eagerly.
After I clocked out I forced myself to try to get some shut eye, then headed over to her building around one. She was there when I knocked, fresh and pretty, walking toward the door to let me in with a spring in her step. She wore a simple little dress, light blue cotton, scooping at her neck and ending at her thighs. Hungry, I watched her hips sway as she led me toward the back of the store.
“Thank you so much again!” She chatted sweetly, telling me how grateful she was, offering me some water. As she passed to fill a glass from the tap,