Page 123 of Back to Willow

“I don’t care,” he counters, looking me in the eyes and holding my cheeks. “Whatever it is, it won’t change the fact that I’m all in. You’ve told me the most important piece of information.”You won’t think so when I tell you.“And I know you’ll tell me when you’re ready. I’ll respect your time.”

“And what about the fact that Dylan might not—”

“No.” He cuts me off. “I don’t care about that. Even if he isn’t biologically mine, I don’t care at this point. He’s mine,” he breathes in, deeply and adds, “He’s ours.”

His eyes hold so much emotion. They’re shiny and the brightest they’ve ever been, his sapphire blue locked on my plain brown ones.

Liam Davis is my weakness. No resolve can make me resist him and his charm.

“Are you sure?” I insist.

“I’m so damn sure.” He steps forward, forcing me to stumble back. We stop only when my back hits the wall. “I’ve never been surer in my life. I can’t sleep if we’re not on good terms. I haven’t been this sleep deprived since you left me. I can’t go through it again.” His breath feathers my skin, bringing back so many memories.

Memories that I hold dear in my heart, that I miss so damn much.

“Liam…”

“Let me,” he asks, his nose bumping against mine. “Let me kiss you again.” His voice cracks at the same time he presses me tighter to the wall.

“Liam...we shouldn’t–”

“Please,” he begs, cutting me off.

What the hell am I thinking?

I want this as much as he does. I want to give in.

He’ll hate me once he knows the truth. And I know it’s incredibly selfish of me to want to take advantage of this for as long as I can, but it’s stronger than me.

The need for him to be right here, close to me. It’s overwhelmingly irresistible. Irreplaceable.

With a sigh, I give in, nodding for him to do it, and he doesn’t waste time crashing his mouth onto mine.

The kiss is not aggressive but it’s desperate and emotional. It’s what we’ve wanted ever since that talk in my bathroom and have been deprived of.

And like it used to be, the moment we get lost in each other, everything else ceases to exist. No more time. No more world. No more people. No more problems. It’s just him and me like it used to be, all those years ago.

After all this time, the fire burning within should’ve been extinguished. It isn’t. It was just dormant. And with every word, touch, and kiss that we share, it’s slowly lighting up again, getting stronger and stronger.

It’s making me fall in love with him all over again. But just like Frank Ocean said, “Feelings that come back are feelings that never left.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

Willow

“Hey,”LiamwhisperswhenI open the door for him to come in.

He leans on the door frame, looking at me so intensely that it feels like he’s burning me alive from the inside out. That kiss kicked up the tensiona lot. So much that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and from the looks of it, he hasn’t either.

“Liam!” Dylan shrieks, cutting the moment off while pushing past me, before jumping into his arms.

He’s no longer the “bad man who made Mummy cry”. He’s done a one-eighty, and my boy loves him, thoroughly.

“Hey, bud. How are you today?” He ruffles his hair with one hand, while the other is holding him close to his chest, half-hugging him.

“You almost missed us making the Christmas tree!” Dylan answers, excited.

“What?” Liam frowns, confused. “It’s the eighteenth, how isn’t it done yet?” Then he steals a heated glance at me and whispers, “Worse, how didn’t I notice that yesterday?”

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