Page 91 of Power Play

Exhausted, I smiled. “Agreed,” I said. I grabbed the closest thing my hand could reach and used it to wipe up our bodies.

“Sorry, Shrek,” I said.

“You’ve desecrated Shrek!”

“He’ll recover.”

We laughed and I curled my arm around her, my eyelids fighting to stay open. “Gimme a second,” I said. “And I’ll let you rock my world again.”

Her head was tucked into my chest. I could feel how all over fucking relaxed I was.

“Liam?” she asked tentatively.

“Hmm?”

“I want you to know that I understand what this is. Okay? I know what we are and what we’re not. So don’t pretend.”

“I’m not,” I said.

She patted my cheek. “You’re doing it right now. You can’t help yourself. I’m not going to be one of your girls. Your ex-girl’s.I’m not going to be someone you give a job to. Okay? That’s…I don’t want that.”

“Okay,” I agreed. But really I thought everyone was making too big a deal out of me helping people I liked.

“I need you to say it,” she said. “Exactly what this is.”

“This is an affair,” I said. “That’s it. We leave Calico Cove and this is over. I won’t even friend you on Instagram. That’s what you want?”

She took a deep breath. “That’s what I want.”

Part of me felt like howling. Mourning. But a week is a long time and I was pretty sure I could convince her we could be friends when this was over. What was wrong with that?

“Well, then, if our time is limited,” I said and rolled over her, pressing my weight between her legs. “I better rock your world one more time.”

“You better,” she said.

So I did.

21

Kit

So…that happened. Three times. Four really.

Nothing had changed, obviously. I mean, realistically. Outwardly, maybe. I didn’t know. Nothing should have changed, but it felt like everything had. Him. Us. Me.

Especially me.

After making me come two more times and another of his explosive orgasms across my tits, he fell asleep almost immediately. I watched him for a minute. His eyelashes were so long. Longer than you would think. They were light, so you didn’t notice them at a distance, but close up like this, they were long and lush and pretty.

Pretty.

I was losing my mind. Honestly.

I grabbed my Shrek shirt but didn’t put it on. Poor Shrek, we’d used him terribly. I slipped Liam’s shirt over my head instead. The smell of him enveloping me like a cloud. Warm and masculine. I lifted the collar and buried my nose in it.

A good smell. The guy had a good smell and pretty eyelashes and a filthy mouth and fingers that were a gift from God. He was a full package of sin and trouble and charm. That rookie I’d met in Nashville that night had grown into a man, but he’d kept the things about him that made him special. He hadn’t become jaded or cynical. Despite what had been done to him.

I had built a thousand walls between me and the world and he’d skated right through them, like the defenses of a far inferior team.