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Chapter Fourteen

The last forty-eighthours have been the most exasperating and intense of my entire life. Having Liam around and being on my best behavior in front of my parents has been a challenge. Every time Liam and I occupy the same space, which happens quite often since Mom has us working together and we are sharing all meals, not to mention our Saturday movie night, a tradition in my family for as long as I can remember.

We had to share a love seat. His thigh pressed against mine for the entire two hours and thirty-three minutes of Armageddon. Plus, the trailers of six other movies on the DVD. At five-foot-seven and one hundred and twenty pounds, I’m not exactly tiny, and he’s a big guy, six-foot-two and two hundred and twenty pounds easily. We were nearly glued to each other’s sides. Add to that the fact he’s sleeping in the room right next to mine and I can hear him moving about and can smell his scent every time I step into the shared bathroom across the hall. Yeah, I’m batshit crazy with pent-up anger.

Yes! That’s what I’m calling it. Anger. Deal with it!

He’s not making it easy on me either, the bastard. I swear last night while we were watching the movie, and he put his arm around the back of the seat, he was playing with the ends of my hair. And earlier today when we were loading bales of hay onto the back of the truck to feed the horses out in the back pasture, he kept brushing against me on purpose and every time he took a bale out of my hands, his finger grazed mine. The fucker is teasing me and I caught him staring at my ass more than once.

I don’t know what his game is, but I’m not playing it.

No way.

No how.

Fucker!

* * *

Liam

I’ve nursedeither a semi or a hard-on for nearly three days. Three fucking days of discreetly trying to adjust myself. I think River’s mom caught me at least twice. I can’t even look at her straight anymore. That woman sees and knows everything, I swear.

Logan and Skye are working with her dad. They have it pretty well-organized. I enjoy the work. It’s not hard. I relish the physical exertion. After so many years in the marines and the last year backpacking through Europe and working on small farms much like this one before I decided to come back home, I kind of miss the physical demands of daily workouts.

I’ve been running and sparring with the punching bag Logan has hanging in the garage, but I think I’ll join a gym when we get back home.

That’s a bittersweet word for me, home. I haven’t had a home for so long and I’m starting to think of Logan’s place as my own. Well, it has always been ours, Grandma made sure of it. She made sure neither of our parents would ever have any stake in the house she grew up in and she transferred ownership of it to us years back. My thoughts go back to River.

She’s been around me for most of our waking hours. We’re either helping her mom with some of the chores that are normally done by employees—they got Sunday off to spend with their families—or eating every meal together. We even have to share a bathroom. And I may or may not have jerked off with River’s conditioner. What the fuck is wrong with me?

* * *

River

Dad is makingburgers for lunch while the boys clean up. They worked up a sweat and said some cooling off is needed. I’m in the kitchen with Skye gathering chips and drinks. This will be a light lunch. Just enough to hold us off until five-thirty when we have our traditional Easter dinner. Pies have been baked, veggies are cleaned, cut-up, and ready to go. And Dad has a slow cooking roast in the smoker outside on the kitchen porch.

I bring the pitcher of lemony ice tea I just made to the table while Skye gets the rest of it set for lunch.

“Skye, I’m checking to see if Dad needs help with anything,” I call out to her before leaving the kitchen through the backdoor. I take two steps down the stairs when I hear a sound to my right and I see Liam less than six feet away.

A shirtless Liam with the water hose and he’s washing himself. He’s bent at the waist and has the water over his neck and head. It’s running down his back, arms and chest. That water has to be freezing. It’s no more than fifty degrees out. He doesn’t seem to mind it at all.

He finally notices me standing here when he rights himself and turns off the faucet. I’m stuck in place, my eyes glued to the tiny drops running down his chest and getting caught in the hard ridges of his stomach. The first thought that pops in my mind is that I want to lick those little drops.

Lazily, he reaches over to a bush and picks up the blue and gray flannel shirt he was wearing and pulls a white T-shirt from the inside of it. He must have been wearing both before. I tried really hard not to look at him all morning.

So much for that because I can’t stop staring at him now.

He’s drying himself, very poorly I may add, with the white T-shirt. He tosses it back on top of the bushes along the porch and puts his flannel shirt on, buttoning only the three middle buttons, leaving the top and bottom open. I’m staring and I’ve forgotten my words. All of them are gone. If I thought he was hot that first day we met when he was also shirtless, now, shirtless, wet, and smirking at me instead of glaring Liam is even hotter.

Yeah, I’m so screwed.

* * *

Liam

The way Riveris looking at me right now is not helping matters one bit. Matters being the bulge in my pants. So much for the attempt to cool off with the freezing cold water I dumped over my head. I guess it was the wrong head. Should have doused my other head in the freezing water, the one farther south and currently holding hostage all my blood supply.