Page 23 of New Girl in the City
Chapter Six
The next morning found me waiting for Liam at the curb before he had even turned the corner, and I shivered from the early morning chill. The sound of a horn blaring to my left made me jump, my body going tight for a beat before I squirmed and refocused on the car gliding around the corner. I smoothed my hands over my thighs, my goddamn traitorous thighs that pressed together as I watched the dark car approach. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say to him, or what he would say, or if he would even bring up the previous night’s events. Events that had made me want Liam. Had me looking for safety and softness with the big man.
Things that I should not be wanting from him.
In any event, I wanted to thank him again, but I was worried that I would try to bring it up to him only for Liam to ignore me---or to pretend that nothing had happened at all. That would be tough to swallow, but fair. He did have his own boundaries and was militant about keeping to them. I was lucky he had stepped in when he had, after all.
I was still debating whether or not to mention it when the car came to a stop in front of me, my reflection looking back at me in the glass of the car’s windows. I frowned and bit my lip. What the hell was I going to—
“Mornin’.”
My eyes unfocused from my reflection to see that Liam had joined me. He was standing behind me, his big frame in his normal dark attire a sharp contrast to mine. I had chosen a white pantsuit for that day. I had yet again another day full of meetings, but these were going to be in person, no video calls, but time spent with the US side of Arington Press and that meant I needed to look sharp. There was nothing an all-white get up with blood red pumps couldn’t handle.
I shivered again, fingers curling into my palms. We looked good like this. Even if he was frowning at me.
I tilted my head to the side and looked at him, preferring him to his reflection. If I looked at him like this, then I wasn’t seeing him with me. That made it easier to keep the thought of us together out of my head.
There would be no us. No couple in dark and white. We were just two people standing on the sidewalk. I could focus on that if I kept looking at him like this.
“Good morning,” I said, my voice even. He nodded at the door in front of me.
“Get in.” He reached past me and opened the door. I sighed, the tension I had felt over seeing him and what would I say this morning melting away, as he displayed his normal gruff demeanor.
“Yeah, okay,” I mumbled and stepped past him and into the car. The noise of the city instantly vanished with the door closing and I sighed, leaning back into the leather of the seat. My eyes stayed fixed on Liam as he rounded the car and got in.
I found that I didn’t have to worry too long about the subject of last night coming up, because Liam seemed to have an agenda of his very own.
“You need to learn how to fight.”
I blinked at him in the rear-view mirror. “Sorry?”
“Fight.” He lifted a finger from the steering wheel and pointed at me in the mirror. “You need to learn how to do it.”
“But why?” I asked. “I’ve never even thrown a punch. Where do you expect to learn how to fight?”
“You need to learn how to fight to protect yourself from predators, Princess. You’re not always going to have me there.” He was looking back at the road now, turning the steering wheel as he approached our building. “And don’t worry about where, I have that covered.”
Now that surprised me. Was he hiring a personal trainer for me? Someone with a black belt in ass kicking, he was going to hand me over to so I could protect myself when the next creep made a grab at me? I chewed on my bottom lip and crossed my arms as the car came to a stop.
“Okay, I’ll bite. Where and who am I learning to fight with? I don’t see why this is necessary.” And it was true, I really didn’t, but that had been from living a life where strange men didn’t just come up and grab you. I had been safe in Colorado, safe in a small town where everyone knew each other. No one was apt to do such a thing without at least half the street having something to say about it.
But things were different here in New York.
Maybe Liam was right.
He put the car in park and only then did he move, twisting his body around to look at me over the seat. He put an arm out, resting it casually against the back-seat headrest, and his eyes did a slow take on me. Those flashing aquamarine eyes darkened as they stared at my ankles. I nervously crossed one over the other, the movement causing his eyes to flick down to the strappy heels I’d picked for the day. I shivered, wondering how the hell he was doing this to me just looking at my damn ankles. This must be why ankles had been considered risqué in the Victorian Era. They must have known what a man like Liam could do to a woman from just looking at that seemingly innocent span of soft skin and delicate bone.
I shifted, feeling hot and like I needed to move—where I didn’t know, maybe in an ungraceful tumble from the town car. Maybe forward and into Liam. Whatever it was, I needed it. My hands balled into fists as I waited for him to speak.
“Your shoes are a problem,” he said softly and that did something to dampen the flush spreading throughout my body.
“What?”
“You can’t run from anyone in those.” He flicked a finger at my shoes to make his point.
“It’s called fashion, honey,” I retorted, and he laughed. Only then did his eyes move up the span of my legs, to my knees and then finally my thighs. By that time my balled fists were clenched tightly now, my fingernails biting into my palms.
“That’s not how you make a fist,” he said with a nod towards my hands at my sides.
