* * *
Hours later as Liam sat back and stretched after working through the stocktaking, he still couldn’t get that last searing kiss out of his head, after Caitlin had said, I’m in. The thrill of triumph that had surged upward was almost embarrassing to recall now. It had taken all of his control not to throw her over his shoulder and lock them in his apartment there and then. Liam scowled and threw down his pen.
The insidious accusation that he was severely flouting his own work rule not to mess with the staff mocked him. He was strict about it but he knew others weren’t. Toby was a liability, having seen off more than one heartbroken waitress. And Candy chewed up and spat out cute busgirls for breakfast. Liam had given up trying to control their libidos and had come to terms with the fact that they were too valuable to him to fire.
And all he could think of right then was spreading Caitlin’s legs apart and seeing her laid bare for him, seeing her pussy glistening with her arousal....making her come. He smiled grimly, with the best will in the world, he was only human and there was no way he could adhere to his normally rigid moral code and resist her.
* * *
I jumped about ten feet in the air when the buzzer sounded the following morning, exactly when Liam had said to expect him when he’d dropped me home on his bike last night. My palms were sweaty, my heart hammering. I’d barely slept a wink.
I lifted the intercom. ‘Hello?’
His voice was low and gravelly. ‘Let me up, Caitlin.’
Ooooh. That stern tone. Why did it have such an effect on me? A shiver went directly to the pulse point between my legs. I pressed the buzzer and heard the door downstairs slam. Hurriedly I looked around. I’d tried to rearrange my aunt’s apartment so that it looked slightly more normal and not so kooky.
I’d taken down the line of great feminists from over the bed and put them in a drawer, mentally apologizin
g to them for not giving them a voyeuristic sex show. I felt exposed enough without adding the weight of their impassive stares.
A sharp rap on the door made my whirling thoughts stop. I took a breath and opened the door. And as feared, my brain ceased to function. Liam was leaning against the doorjamb. Arms crossed. Dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. Hair looking deliciously tousled, with a clean-shaven jaw.
‘Morning,’ I managed to croak out. How was it possible that he got better looking every time I saw him?
He smiled and my hand tightened on the door.
‘Morning.’ He straightened up then and took me by surprise, asking, ‘Have you had breakfast yet?’
I shook my head, I’d been too nervous to eat.
‘Good, me neither, and I’m starving. Let’s go for a ride.’
I suppressed the urge to giggle and comment that I thought that was the aim of the weekend. This man short-circuited any intelligence in my brain.
He bent down and picked up a duffel bag that he’d dropped at his feet and threw it into the room behind me and then held out his hand. My stomach cartwheeled and in all honesty I jumped at the chance of a brief reprieve before...my blood sizzled at the thought of what was to come. Namely, hopefully, me.
Chapter Eight
‘This is the best-kept secret in New York, owned by a good buddy of my old man’s.’
I looked around the classic-American diner, taking in the fifties-inspired decor and faux red leather seats. It was heaving with obviously very loyal customers and there was a queue out the door of trendy good-looking couples and young families. But as soon as the small barrel-chested owner had seen Liam, we’d been ushered in like royalty.
‘It’s straight out of a movie,’ I said, still feeling a little stunned that Liam had driven us over the iconic Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn Heights. He’d said before we’d come in, ‘On the way back you’ll be able to really see the view of Lower Manhattan.’
Right now, though, the only view I was interested in was him. He sat opposite me in an elegantly sexy sprawl, arm across the back of his seat, T-shirt stretching across his chest. Blue eyes narrowed on me, making me self-conscious as I tried not to wolf down the delicious breakfast of waffles, pancakes, scrambled eggs and hash browns and endless refills of coffee.
‘You mentioned your father...does he live in New York?’
Liam nodded, but I saw how his eyes avoided mine now. I breathed in, at least I knew one way to get his focus off me.
‘He’s out in Queens.’
Curious now, I asked, ‘Is that where you grew up?’
He shook his head, definite tension in the air. ‘We grew up over the bar, in the apartment where I live now. But when my folks split up, my dad moved to Queens and my mom moved back to L.A., where she’s from.’
‘How old were you?’ My two hands were around the coffee cup, and even though it was hot outside, I felt a faint chill run through me at the stark lines in Liam’s face and jaw.