Page 58 of Power Play

“Wait. Are you propositioning me for sex? That’s not cool.”

He shook his head. “It’s not sex. It’s a kiss.” He was close, too close, and I wanted, stupidly, foolishly, to get closer.

“Why?” I whispered. “I mean, why do you want to kiss me?”

I could see he didn’t want to answer me. That whatever his reasons were, they were his. But he couldn’t just ask me for a kiss without some explanation.

I was his enemy after all.

“Because I need to know. I need to see if what I remembered…was just in my head.”

“What I remembered didn’t have a whole lot to do with your head,” I fired back.

He laughed and I just realized I’d made a joke about that night. That night that had been such a life changing event for me. It had always loomed so large, always there in the background of my mind.

I couldn’t move on with my life, until I’d paid Liam the debt I owed him. He was giving me that chance with this job. But I also couldn’t move on with my life until I put him, and that night, away. Forever.

So yeah, maybe I needed to know too. That instant electric chemistry we shared. Maybe it was just a mirage for both of us.

“Not here,” I said.

“Obviously,” he said.

“So? When?”

“When I choose,” he said. I rolled my eyes so hard I saw my past lives.

He laughed again. I loved the sound of it. So much more than his disdain.

The door to the back garden banged open and Tess came running in, flushed and wide eyed. “She. Has. Fairies!”

Ms. Rene followed at a more sedate pace. “The fairies have been to visit,” she confirmed. Without having to look, I knew she had a pocket full of strawberries that Tess was sure had been eaten by fairies.

“We need more strawberries,” Tess said, and grabbed the few Liam hadn’t eaten off his plate and ran back outside.

Ms. Rene watched us with her mind-reading eyes.

“Nothing happened!” I all but shouted at that question on her face.

Ms. Rene laughed. “Oh honey. You are in such trouble.”

I didn’t need anyone telling me that, I knew it down in my bones.

This was a gigantic mistake, but I was good at mistakes. A past mistake survivor.

I’d survived Liam Locke before. I could do it again.

15

Liam

Dillon was so pumped about me coming up for a vacation, I almost felt bad. Like, how could I live up to this guy’s excitement? He had a house for us to stay in – something right on the beach with three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

But I realized as we drove north and the land got wilder and the traffic lessened, I was getting excited on my own. It reminded me of home. Of growing up in the farmhouse in Vermont. Hunting with Wyatt and Dad and playing shinny every winter until it got too dark to see the puck.

It made me want to call my dad.

Also, Tess was really excited and that shit was infectious.

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