Page 32 of So Bad It Must Be Good

She sighed dreamily. She loved that she could tell just from looking at the curve of his arms as he held himself above her that he was strong enough to carry her around. She already loved the way the whiskers of his beard scratched against her skin. And she loved that he could smile and look at her like he wanted to devour her at the same time.

“If you don’t like anything, tell me to stop,” he said, his eyes diamond blue on hers, his voice threaded with graveled seriousness.

She blinked at him and she supposed for some people that would be obvious, but to her it was like a revelation. She could and should speak up when she didn’t like something, when she wanted something else.

That had never truly occurred to her before, not in that serious, straightforward way. She’d always figured with sex or anything leading up to sex you were supposed to say what the other person wanted to hear, do what the other person expected of you.

He watched her expectantly, waiting for her response. Was there a response to that that wasn’t an enthusiastic, Yes, sir. “O-okay,” she managed to say

This was all astonishing. Liam Patrick’s mouth had been on her breasts. He’d touched her everywhere except where she pulsed, needy and desperate for him. Liam Patrick.

He wasn’t that gruff, disapproving figure she’d made up in her mind. Liam was none of the things she’d assumed of him or attributed to him. He was warm and he was kind. He called himself a fixer, but what he really did was help people.

Because he could, and because he felt like he should.

He carved lovespoons and read up on symbols. He went to mass because his grandmother wanted him to. And he’d kissed her like she wasn’t some timid, fragile thing.

She rubbed her fingertips over his bearded jaw, in awe of so many things about Liam.

“What do you want, Kayla?” he murmured, brushing a kiss against her mouth, and then her shoulder. He kept one hand pressed to the mattress by her waist, keeping his weight off of her, but his other hand drew patterns down her arm, across her stomach.

Still, agonizingly still, he hadn’t touched her where she most wanted him. What did she want? She took a deep breath, steeling herself to ask for something. She’d learned to refuse things she didn’t want, and that had been hard once, but asking for what she did was untested. New.

Fucking terrifying.

Be brave. Be brave.

“Touch my . . .” She couldn’t quite make her mouth form the word. Surely he knew what she was getting at. That was close enough, right?

But he raised an eyebrow, as if daring her, and damn it, she was brave. She could say dirty words. She could demand things she wanted. “Touch my pussy, Liam.”

His mouth curved into a grin she’d never seen on him. Nearly wolfish and self-satisfied. Unbearably handsome. “Have you never said that word before?”

She laughed nervously. “Uh, no. At least not during sex, or almost sex, or yes, probably ever.”

“My daring Kayla,” he murmured, dropping his mouth to hers, even as his hand slid down her abdomen, and then her thigh, pushing her legs open.

Daring. His. She liked the idea of both of those.

And then he stroked, one long, blunt finger tracing her. She made a strangled sound, fidgeting restlessly underneath him. Each stroke was slow, delicious torture. Too light, too easy. She needed more, so much more.

“Liam.”

“Hmm?”

She huffed out an irritated breath. Usually these things went fairly quickly and she didn’t have to do any talking, but usually they didn’t feel like this. Like she was nothing but fissuring light, pleasure and desperation, and a sharp clawing feeling in her chest that things would not be okay until Liam was on top of her, inside of her.

“More,” she said, and her voice wasn’t the least bit stuttering or whispered this time. She demanded it, loud and sure. “More, please.”

And though she’d told him, he was still far too slow about it. His finger sliding only incrementally deeper with each stroke, but it was like drowning in ecstasy, a wonderful pleasure, a wonderful need, but she needed more of it. She needed so much more of it.

His mouth trailed down her chest, her stomach, and it took her far too long to realize what he was doing. It didn’t fully come together in her head until he slid off the bed and pulled her easily until her ass was at the edge.

Her chest clenched, a hard fist of nerves. No one had ever . . . She wasn’t even really sure she’d ever wanted someone to. It seemed so . . .

“I didn’t mean that you had to . . .” But his tongue touched her, one long, slow, delicious slide of friction, deeper and more insistent than his finger had been. His dark hair between her legs, his big, scarred hands on her thighs.

“Did you want me to stop?” he asked, his gaze meeting hers over the length of her body. His eyes fierce and sharp, and everything about the moment a little bit scary and yet she was brave and daring and that had felt so very good.

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