Page 41 of Captivated By You
I wouldn’t get answers from a gossip column so I moved on, checked the news, national and Savannah local because it was habit and because I was curious. With no mention of anyone I knew, I moved to my messages.
I deleted all three without bothering to listen when I recognized the Savannah area code. It was either an old friend who had turned on me and needed more gossip fuel for her popularity race or Harrison. I had nothing to say to any of them.
Tossing my phone on the chair, I pushed to my feet and headed down to the beach. I’d walked this stretch every day, sometimes twice when Liam was at my side. We held hands, swung them in the air like the carefree children we weren’t and I never was, and we’d spent hours talking about our families. Our lives. How he was discovered in a rundown bar in East Hollywood because the person who was supposed to be there didn’t show. He’d stepped out behind the bar where he’d been slinging drinks and played a few tunes. He’d lived in L.A. for years already by that point, but that night was his.
Anne Marker walked in. Approached him. Signed him. The rest was history.
It wasn’t anything I couldn’t find and hadn’t read online, but hearing his own words, seeing the way he’d blush when I teased him about his fame. Or how his grip would always tighten to the point of pain when he talked about Sophie and his demon spawn of a nephew.
All those tiny little gestures were mine, given freely by a man I hadn’t had yet but was desperately beginning to crave with every ounce of my being.
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He never came for me. Through lunch and all afternoon. I tried not to let it bother me. After returning from the beach, I looked for him only to hear murmured voices behind his locked bedroom door so I left him to it. I checked several times throughout the afternoon, and every time I went to his room and lifted his door to knock, his shushed voice drifted toward me.
I walked away every time.
When he was ready to talk, I was ready to listen.
But after I packed and ate dinner alone, coming down to the kitchen to a mess of plates telling me he’d eaten in the time it took me to pack, I figured he was avoiding me.
And I didn’t like it. I had given him his space, I’d done what he asked by packing and giving him time, but if he was taking me into a storm, I had every right to at least arm myself with an umbrella to dodge the bullets.
Walking to his bedroom, I stayed quiet, ears perked and listened for the sound of his voice but when it didn’t happen, I knocked on his door.
Footsteps sounded and then the door opened.
Liam was there. Towel around his waist, water trailed down the center of his chest before separating and falling over ridges on his stomach.
“Hey,” I said, staring at a string of musical notes on the side of his ribs.
I can’t read music for shit. Mom taught me to play by chords. Then by ear.
He’d said that to me…and inked something he couldn’t read on his side.
“Do you want to come in or keep staring at me?”
“Yes,” I whispered, smiling. Heaven help me, but he was so beautiful. His frame and width and strength in the palm of his hands should have intimidated me. All I saw was how gentle his finger had been against me this morning. I fought a delicious trill of excitement that bubbled at my center.
“She’s got jokes.” My grin widened and he reached for my wrist, pulling me to him and shutting the door behind me. “I’ve been an ass today. How pissed are you?”
“Are you apologizing?”
“I would if you stopped staring at me like I was a piece of meat.”
“But you’re so pretty…”
He’d stolen my filter. The fact I was blaming him for me losing my self-control proved how muddled he made me.
Beneath his towel, he was already growing a bulge. Unable to hide it because he waslarge,as I’d learned that morning, I didn’t truly think he was complaining.
I kept staring. I wanted answers and the apology was nice, but crap on a cracker, I really liked his body. I lifted my hand and trailed a water drop down his chest until it disappeared beneath the towel at his waist.
His hand gripped mine, stopping mine. “Pretty? That’s like calling a guy nice.”
I lifted my gaze. “I like nice guys.” Despite the grin on his face, his eyes were red, like he’d either been rubbing them all day or heaven forbid, crying. I couldn’t picture it. But there wasn’t amusement in his face even if he was hard and teasing me. “How are you?”
“Fucking tired. And I still have to pack.”
