Page 51 of Hold

“Later. Just for now… please, Liam.”

She had him between her legs now, her knees lifting and parting without conscious thought. He was hot and hard against her roving hands, and when he gasped and backed away from her, she knew she’d won. She put her legs back down so he could remove her own jeans, but both of them were still partially dressed when she pulled his mouth back to hers. She ran her tongue along his lips, then plunged deep into his mouth, making him groan and his hands tighten on her hips. She held his head still so she could play with his mouth and tongue while he massaged her, pressing and releasing her skin so that their moans mingled.

It wasn’t long before he broke away from her lips and put one hand out to the floor beside him. After a second or two, Thea realized he was looking for something. “What?” she asked, looking over at the coffee table.

“My backpack,” he said, his voice cracking with the effort of concentrating.

“Now?”

He looked back at her, a slight flush coming into his cheeks. “It’s got a condom in it, T.”

“Oh.” Thea blushed herself. “Well,” she went on, trying to recover. “You do come ready for anything, don’t you?”

His eyes bored into hers. “I’ve been ready for this for two months.”

“Oh.” It was a sigh of pleasure, relief, longing. She didn’t move, and he tried to move as little of his body off her as possible, finally finding his backpack behind the arm of the couch. He had the condom on in seconds, and his blissful weight was on her, and then he kissed his way down her exposed skin, leaving a line of open-mouthed kisses along her belly, to her hip, to her thigh and closer, so that she was shouting his name and pulling his hair and her nails dug into one bicep.

“Okay, okay,” he said, smiling that heart-melting smile up at her.

“I’m going to kill you!” She pulled any part of him she could reach. Liam finally consented to move back up her body, settling onto one elbow above her. His smile gone, he watched her carefully as he entered her. Thea tried to be embarrassed about this, but she felt only beautiful and sexy and desirable, and she closed her eyes again and arched her breasts closer to him, knowing that it would turn him on even more.

He began to move inside her. “Oh shit, why don’t we do this all the time?” Thea said and gripped his thighs with hers, her feet still caught up in her jeans and his. Liam laughed and kissed her and used the hand that wasn’t supporting him to play with her breast, putting his thumb in her mouth to moisten it and running it over her nipple.

This, combined with his steady strokes, turned her to white fire. Thea felt herself melting, falling, with an anticipation that built with exquisite force until she crashed, then crashed again, crying out against his mouth, tears coming back into her eyes and a laugh following right after.

In one smooth maneuver, Liam had moved her off the couch, the coffee table pushed out of the way so he could press her hard into the floor. Thea helplessly welcomed him, angling so he could thrust deeper and deeper, until he buried his face in her neck and yelled her name, and Thea held him to her until they’d both stopped shaking and their sweat had dried on them and she realized they were still half-clothed and she still, in fact, had not seen Liam naked.

Chapter 15

“Liam!” she exclaimed.

“What?” The panic in her voice made him raise his head and look around—was someone looking at them through the windows?

“How old are you?”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” He dropped his head back onto her shoulder. “You scared me.”

“Seriously. I need to know this.”

He knew that. He wasn’t sure why he was reticent about telling her, unless it was that she would make a bigger deal out of it than it was. He’d hate to lose her over a pedantic thing like age.

“How old areyou?” he countered, buying time.

She shifted his head off her shoulder so she could frown at him. “I’m old. That’s my point.”

“For God’s sake, T. You are not old.”

“I’m thirty-five. There. I said it.”

“Wow. Okay, that’s it.” He pretended to get up. “I’m outta here.”

“Come on, Liam,” she begged. He saw that she was genuinely worried.

“Haven’t you figured out yet that I like old things?” He waved toward the window, where the blue monster baby—dammit, now he was calling her that—slept.

Thea punched him. “Ow,” he said, rubbing his ribs. “Jeez, I’ll have to remember not to get the old lady angry.”

“Liam!” she warned.

---