Page 81 of Gravity of Love
Who knew that ripping open an Otter Pop with your teeth could be such a turn- on?
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Liam sat silentlybeside Frankie as they ate their Otter Pops. He couldn’t believe what a jackass his brother was, but for once in his life, he couldn’t be happier that he was. When he was out with Lucy in the backyard letting her do her business before bed, he’d heard his brother talking to Emmanuelle on the balcony. He wondered if Frankie was going to clock it. Not ten minutes later, he heard his brother storming down the steps of the basement to sleep in the game room.
As the strawberry-flavored ice slid down Liam’s throat, he considered what he was going to say to Frankie, who he could tell had clearly been crying. Was he going to apologize for his brother? Was he sorry that Tristan behaved that way? No. Was he sorry she was hurt? Yes.
Part of him didn’t want to address the situation with his brother at all and just tell her how he felt. He wanted to tell her that he loved her. That he realized he’d stayed away from her the past ten years because it scared him how much he loved her.
He wanted to talk to her about everything her mom told him at the rehearsal dinner. He wanted to tell her that he’d kept his distance from her tonight because he didn’t trust himself not totouch her or tell her how fucking beautiful she looked. That he knew the second he laid eyes on her she was going to be a test of his self-control, and he was pretty sure he’d fail. And that even if, by some miracle, he had been able to keep his hands to himself and not say anything inappropriate to her, he was scared if he was near her, or even looked her direction, everyone in the room would have been able to see how he felt about her. They would be able to see that he loved her. That he loved her more than he’d ever loved anything in his life. That she was his life.
But he knew this wasn’t the right time. Since Tristan showed up, Liam had been so focused on his feelings he hadn’t considered Frankie. Watching them together, seeing the way they were on the dance floor, as much as it killed him, had opened his eyes.
Frankie wasn’t just going through a breakup. She was going through a broken engagement. Not just any broken engagement, it was happening on the weekend that both of their parents were getting married and her ex was going to be her stepbrother. And if things did work the way Liam hoped, he would also be her brother-in-law.
This situation was all sorts of Freudian levels of fucked up. She needed a friend. She needed the Liam he’d always been to her when they were growing up. The Liam that loved her but wasn’t in love with her. That didn’t see her in a sexual way. He wasn’t sure how to be that again, but this was Frankie so he was going to figure it the fuck out.
Frankie's head tilted to the side, a motion so subtle that it might have escaped anyone else, but Liam had always been tuned to her frequency. He watched as she blinked hard, then pretended to be fascinated by the blue sludge creeping up the translucent sleeve. He caught the flash of pain in her eyes—a muscle twitch in her jaw and the way her shoulder hunched inward defensively, as if she could fold her hurt into the marrowof her bones and hide it. Frankie could be the loudest, boldest person in any room, but her suffering was as quiet as frost on glass.
Liam caught every flinch of discomfort. He watched her neck with the clinical detachment of a physician and the primal sharpness of a wolf. He waited. He counted the beats between her breaths. He noted the way she inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. She tried to project strength, but Liam had spent his whole life learning the particular dialect of her suffering.
He discarded his finished icee and stood. Without saying a word, he walked into the bathroom and started the bath. Next, he grabbed a washcloth from the linen closet, turned on the cold water at the sink, and placed it under the tap to soak. He pulled out a bottle of water from the mini-fridge on the way back to the bed, opened it, and handed it to her.
“Drink.”
“I’m not?—"
“Drink,” he restated as he took her empty Otter Pop wrapper.
Her fingers curled the bottle with a sigh. He locked the bedroom door, went back into the bathroom, dimmed the lights, and checked the bathwater to make sure it was at the optimal temperature. He came back to the bedroom and removed the bottle, now a third empty, from her hand and set it aside.
“I can wal—” she started, but he was already looping his arms under her thighs and behind her back, lifting her as if she weighed nothing, because she did.
Any fight she had in her dissolved as her body instantly molded into his. He did his best to ignore how good she felt, reminding himself this was therapeutic only. Once inside the bathroom he set her down and tested the water once more.
Frankie watched him through the mirror, her eyes narrowed.
Her voice trembled with bravado as she asked, “Is it normal for you toignoresomeone all night, flirt with the bartender?—"
“I didn’t flirt with the bartender.” He couldn’t even remember speaking to a bartender.
She narrowed her eyes, then continued, “—show up at their door with an Otter Pop, force them to drink a bottle of water, then run a bath for them, or am I special?”
From her question, he realized she was upset he’d kept his distance at the rehearsal. He’d have to make it up to her. Liam regarded her with the practiced calm he’d inherited from a lifetime of managing volatile people with minimal words. “You’re special.”
He stood in front of her and, with slow gentleness, began to peel the t-shirt from her body. She allowed it, raising her arms in grudging compliance, and the shirt came away with a soft whoosh. He tossed it to the tile. He hooked his thumbs under the waistband of her underwear, pausing for a moment in silent question. Frankie rolled her eyes, which he took as acquiescence. He pulled them down her legs, and her hands rested on his shoulders as she stepped out of them one foot at a time.
When he straightened, she stood in front of him completely nude, small, unadorned, eyes alive with something provocative and innocent all at once. The skin along her throat and over her collarbone was dusted with freckles, but her cheeks were flush, and her lips were parted and defiant. Liam’s thumbs bracketed either side of her neck, and he looked at her, really looked at her, with a silent, searching patience that used to annoy her so much when they were kids. Now he hoped she understood it was the gaze of a man who cataloged everything worth protecting and cherishing.
After one more test of the water’s temp, her eyes lifted up to his, and he could see she expected this to go places he had no intention of it going. He leaned down and kissed her on the topof her head, then lifted her up and gently lowered her into the bath. He then grabbed the cold cloth from the sink, wrung the excess water out of it, and laid it across her forehead, applying pressure to her temples.
Liam knelt on the tile beside the tub, rolled up his sleeves, tilted her head back, and used the shower head to spray her hair, turning the setting to pulse. Frankie closed her eyes, sighing into the sensation, her lips quirking in what could almost be called a smile. She moaned as he moved the spray all over her scalp, down her neck, and over her shoulders. She went slack, allowing herself to be cared for. He continued until the water temperature from the nozzle began to drop, then he turned it off.
As he placed the showerhead back into its cradle, Frankie removed the cloth from her forehead and looked up at him.
“Are you going to get in, or just watch me like a pervert?” Her voice was a contradiction of boldness and vulnerability. Her mouth curled in a smirk, but her eyes searched his, both a dare and a plea. The bathwater shimmered with movement as her hands fanned out through it.
“Is your migraine better?” His words felt like a parachute, meant to slow the freefall, but he already knew the answer. He knew that the pressure and pain she’d been suffering may not be completely gone but they were dulled.
