Page 10

10

Alana

I t had been so long that it was easy to forget that once upon a time, Liam had been just at home in my room as he had been in his own.

Watching him stick up the Jacob poster he bought me when we were sixteen threatened to unlock a part of me that I had buried the key for. But I couldn’t let it. If anything, now that I had signed us up to share a room for the next couple of weeks, I had to keep the part of me that was a little bit in love with Liam Mulligan firmly locked down.

“It looks better now though, right?”

I smiled and looked away from his proud face as I sat on the edge of the bed. Liam perched on the other side and suddenly, the king-size bed felt too small for the both of us. And we were just sitting on it.

“Do you think they think we’re up here christening your bedroom?” I heard in his voice that he was teasing, but underneath was something deeper. Huskier. It was like he had subconsciously turned on his bedroom voice now that we were on a bed. I hated that part of me wanted more of that. I wanted it deeper, broken, desperate in my ear. I wanted the power that came with knowing that I was the one who had done that to him. The thought flashed through my mind that he was probably really pretty when he begged.

I cleared my throat. “It wouldn’t be a christening. That happened a long time ago.”

I don’t know why I said it. Especially because it was a lie.

The truth was my childhood room had never seen a hint of two-player action. I didn’t date in high school and Liam knew that. There had been exactly one chance for me to have sex in this bedroom and Kai told me that he was not going to have sex with me under my father’s roof. He respected my dad too much to defile his daughter. No matter how many times I insisted that Coach Fitzpatrick (because that was what he called him even when Dad insisted he call him Rob) gave exactly zero shits who was defiling me, as long as it was consensual and I was being safe. Instead, I had to take down a Jacob poster.

Liam was kind enough to not call me out on what he probably knew was a lie.

“They probably wouldn’t think that anyway, what with the fact that you told them we were taking it sloooowwwww .”

Liam laughed as he flopped onto his back. I could see a strip of skin between his sweater and sweatpants. How had I only just noticed he was wearing sweatpants? Sweatpants that clung to his muscular thighs and teased the cut of muscle by his hip bone. I could feel the body heat coming off him and I was regretting not standing my ground with Mom and insisting we sleep in separate houses.

“I doubt they’re thinking that because it’s been barely five minutes, and I don’t know about you, but I need a tiny bit longer before I am raring to go.” I tried to go for a teasing tone, but I missed the mark and crossed straight into flirty.

I looked over my shoulder, taking my time to drink up the sight of him lying on my bed just ready for the taking. His face though, was almost unreadable.

“I dunno, Len, your ass in those leggings is a good start. It wouldn’t take me long after that.” If possible, his voice sounded deeper now and despite myself, I looked down. In truth, the sweatpants did a pretty good job of concealing everything, but still, I looked. Stared. Studied. Tilted my head to see if there was even a suggestion of a bulge.

There wasn’t. But I hadn’t exactly been subtle, and his deep laugh filling the room made me want to fold in on myself and disappear.

“I was joking, Len. I mean, your ass probably does look good in your leggings, but I haven’t really seen it, what with the fact that you had a long coat on and when you removed that, it revealed a sweater that would probably be too big on me.”

I told myself it meant nothing that all I wanted to do was stand up and lift my sweater to reveal what it was hiding. It wasn’t important that I wanted to feel his eyes on the actual curves of my body or prove that, yes, these leggings did make my ass look great. It was a great ass, leggings or not. It didn’t mean anything because I stayed seated, swathed in my massive sweater, fiddling with the ring on my hand instead.

“It might be a tight fit, but I think you’d squeeze—” I cut myself off. Liam laughed again and stood up while I buried my head in between my knees and wondered if I had made myself small enough to become invisible.

“I’m sure it would fit just fine, Alana.”

Liam rarely called me by my full name. Sometimes, I wondered if he even remembered what it was. It sounded like a whole new name in that deep, almost dirty voice. It made my thighs clench. It shouldn’t have affected me like that, but it did, and now I needed him to leave so I could take a deep breath for the first time since he’d handed me my coffee at the airport.

Fuck, had it only been a few hours? I was already feeling strung out and choked by feelings I had done so well to keep locked up.

I heard the bedroom door open, but not close, and then the tread of Liam walking down the stairs. When I could no longer hear him, I uncurled from my ball and lay back on the bed. It was still warm from his body. I rolled into it.