If I Can't Let Go (If You Come Back To Me #2) (9 page)

Natalie picked up her iced tea and took a large swallow. “It’s so scary,” she murmured. “You could have easily been killed at a dozen different times during that investigation. I don’t understand how you did it, living so secretively…so dangerously for almost a year.”

“It wasn’t that bad. For the most part, I was just carrying on with my normal job.”

“You make it sound like your ‘normal’ job was as safe as selling Tupperware. I, for one, am glad you decided to quit the Chicago P.D. and come to Harbor Town.”

“Even a sinner deserves a couple of peaceful years, huh?” he teased.

“I have a feeling life would never be calm around you.”

He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, as if her low voice had tugged at him like a magnet. Dusk had settled, soft and hushed. He stared at the feminine curve of Natalie’s cheek as wisps of her hair fluttered against it.

“Take off your glasses.” When he realized how blunt he’d sounded, he added softly, “Please.”

She removed her glasses and set them on the table. Her face was beautiful in that pregnant moment when the day meets the night, enigmatic…sublime.

“Spend the night here.”

Her expression stiffened.
“What?”

“I don’t want to take you home. I will, if you want me to, of course.” When she didn’t speak, he continued as if he thought he was making up for a dire mistake. “We don’t have to…you know. Not if you’re not ready. You can have the guest room.”

“Liam…you say the strangest things sometimes,” she said, disbelieving.

“You think it’s strange that I don’t want you to go home?”

For a few seconds she just stared at him, her mouth open. “No,” she whispered. She turned her chin. “No, I don’t think that part is strange.”

“Which part, then?”

The glow from the lights in his kitchen allowed him to see her elegant throat convulse as she swallowed. He hated the separation of the table between them.

At that moment, he despised all the barriers between him and Natalie.

“You never told me what Jack Andreason told you,” she said so quietly he almost didn’t hear her.

“You never answered me about staying here with me tonight,” he countered in a voice just as hushed.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet. Now tell me about Jack.”

Liam sighed and leaned back in temporary defeat. He could tell by the hint of steel in her soft voice he shouldn’t push the topic for now. He forced his mind to focus on the conversation he’d had with Jack Andreason that afternoon.

“I drove over to St. Joseph—that’s where Jack lives now. He bought a little restaurant on the beach. Jack was tending bar when I got there. He actually recognized me right away.”

“He did? Did you know him well when you were young?”

Liam shook his head distractedly as he played with his napkin. “Nah. He said he recognized me because I looked like Dad.”

“Oh.” After a pause, she asked hesitantly, “Do you? Look like Derry, I mean?”

A vivid memory came to him: his father holding out a color photo. The boy in the picture might have been Liam himself, standing on a Harbor Town beach when he was twelve years old, so lean he was almost more bone than flesh, his skin darkened to a golden brown, a cocky little half-smile ghosting his lips.

Of course it hadn’t been Liam, but his father at the same age.

He remembered glancing up from the photo to see the knowing sparkle in his father’s eye; he recalled the rush of pleasure that filled him in that moment…the intangible bond he’d felt with the man who stood before him.

“I look a little like him, yeah,” Liam muttered.

“And you asked Jack about what you saw on the tape?”

Liam nodded. “He said he’d never seen my dad the way that he was on that night.”

“And he knew Derry fairly well, right?”

“My father had belonged to the Silver Dunes Country Club for seven years. He and Jack were friendly.”

“Did he give any theories about why he thought your father was so upset?”

Liam gave her a wry glance. “He said something similar to what Roger Dayson said the other night. Apparently Dad’s bad mood had the same effect as a cornered dog baring its teeth. Jack remembered the way my father barked at him to leave the television alone when he started to change the channel.”

“Did he have the impression that it was just that segment your father was interested in?” Natalie asked.

“He couldn’t recall for sure. The next thing he knew, he saw my father getting up to go. He did say one thing that struck me.”

“What?”

“He said that for a second there, he thought my father looked mad enough to vault over the bar, but he couldn’t decide if my dad wanted to hit him or the television screen. According to Jack, he looked a little wild.”

“That’s so strange. What do you think, Liam?” she asked, leaning forward intently with her elbows on the table. She wasn’t asking idly. It seemed clear from Liam’s somber expression he’d done some wrestling with his thoughts on the matter.

He paused before replying. “That news story was about the corporate takeover, so we researched the companies. But Jack couldn’t see that television screen like I could on that surveillance video—or like my father could. Lincoln DuBois himself was being interviewed for the segment.”

“You think your father could have been upset about Lincoln DuBois? But I thought you said your parents didn’t know him.”

“He’s a celebrity in the financial world, but my parents
never mentioned knowing him personally. Is Lincoln DuBois even alive? I never hear about him on the news anymore. He used to be a media favorite, didn’t he? He’s got to be alive—he didn’t look all that old in that television segment.”

“He’s alive.”

Liam’s head shot up with interest. “He is? How do you know?”

Natalie nodded. “I read about it in an old
Forbes
article while you were combing through the newspaper references this morning. DuBois has had several strokes in the last two years, and I guess they caused some serious functional impairments. According to the article, he’s still running the company, but he does so from his Lake Tahoe home. He lives an isolated life.”

Liam’s brows shot up with interest.

“What part of Tahoe?”

“South Lake. Apparently, that’s where he grew up. DuBois comes from money, in addition to creating an empire on his own. His father was a multimillionaire—made his fortune in real estate and cattle. DuBois always kept it as his home base, even though his major corporate hubs are in both San Francisco and New York.”

“You’re brilliant,” Liam mumbled, preoccupied.

“I just read an article. Liam…what’s wrong?” she asked, leaning forward.

He blinked and pushed his chair back. “Nothing. The mosquitoes are starting to bite. Come on, let’s go inside.”

Her mind started jumping around as if she’d just consumed two turbocharged lattes as she followed Liam inside the screen door. Their conversation about Derry had distracted her for a few minutes, but now she couldn’t stop thinking about Liam asking her to spend the night.

The fact that she was thinking about accepting his proposal
shocked her even more. If she agreed to sleep with Liam, she’d have to tell him she’d never had sex.

She grasped wildly for a safe topic of conversation as she helped Liam do the dishes, but her rising anxiety got the best of her. Luckily, Liam didn’t appear to be uncomfortable at all in a silence that felt suffocating to Natalie. He was absorbed in his thoughts, but he seemed to rise out of them as he shut the dishwasher.

“Do you want to see what I’ve done to the cottage so far? I’d like your opinion on a couple of things.”

“Of course,” she murmured.

“I don’t want to waste money loading it up with furniture when I’m not really sure what I want yet,” Liam explained as he led her through the sparsely furnished living room.

“That’s a good idea. This place has such a light, open feel to it, like it was meant to be filled with clean lake air and sunlight. It wouldn’t do to cram it full with a bunch of heavy furniture. I pictured a golden tan for the walls in this room, and then filling it with rich browns and ivories. It’d make it look like a sunlit globe in the mornings. When I thought about buying the cottage, the first thing I fantasized about doing was restoring the fireplace to its former glory,” Natalie said as she ran her hand across the age-and-smoke-dulled wood. The magic she’d once felt sneaking into the rundown, yet still elegant old home, returned to her full force. “It’s made of carved African mahogany and Carrera white marble.”

Liam looked impressed. “My mom told me I was nuts when I said I was considering slapping some paint on the mantle. She could tell it was fine craftsmanship, but she didn’t know all those details. How’d you find out that stuff?”

“I dug up a few historical facts on the cottage when I was thinking about buying it. George Myerson, the original owner, was the president of the Pacific Railway and he commissioned Ellison Raft of Chicago to design the place. I
copied the old articles I found. I still have them somewhere, if you’d like me to give them to you.”

“That’d be great, thanks,” Liam said as he led her up the stairs. Natalie followed him into the large, west-facing room.

“I can’t figure out what I should do with this space,” he said.

“Myerson used it as a saloon—a kind of nineteenth century Guys Only Club, where he and the other men played pool, smoked cigars, told fishing stories…avoided their wives,” Natalie added with a small smile. She opened a door, which led to what looked like an enormous closet or small room, and stepped over the threshold. “This was the actual bar in here, where he stored spirits and wine.”

“Huh,” Liam spoke from just behind her. “I’ve found the local expert on my house. How lucky am I?”

Natalie laughed and turned to face him. Her smile faded when she realized how close he was. He’d been peering into the small room from behind her, his arm braced above her head on the door frame. His tall, rangy body blocked her exit.

She couldn’t decide if her hammering heart was trying to tell her to escape or submit to her urge to stay put.

“I’m not an expert in the slightest. You could find all this stuff out by doing a little research.”

He ducked his head so that his warm breath brushed against her nose and cheek. “That sounds much less exciting than hearing all this wisdom straight from Natalie Reyes’ mouth. Especially,” he continued, his low, vibrating voice causing a shiver to skitter down her spine, “when it’s such a lovely mouth.”

“Liam.”

She’d meant to say his name in a warning tone, but instead, it’d sounded like an uncertain plea of longing. Liam brushed his mouth against hers in a coaxing kiss, his lips warm and firm.

“Don’t be afraid of me, Natalie.”

Her lips moved, and Natalie herself couldn’t be sure if they did so to speak, or to caress Liam’s coaxing mouth. “I’m not afraid of you.”

His hand remained braced on the doorframe, but he placed his other hand on her lower back and then palmed her hip. His lips shaped hers gently and Natalie felt those careful, deliberate movements all the way in the core of her body.

“You’re…afraid…of something,” Liam muttered, taking small bites of her lips. His hand moved, stroking her back. Natalie’s spine arched slightly against the pressure, as if her flesh were melting against the heat of his palm. Liam took a step closer and lowered his other arm. His hands bracketed her waist as he continued to kiss her, his mouth still closed, but his movements grew increasingly feverish.

“What, Natalie? What are you afraid of?” He lifted his head, pinning her with a blazing stare. He pulled her closer, their bodies melding into that supreme fit that she recalled all too perfectly.

“This,”
she admitted softly.

He just stared down at her for a moment, his features cast in part-shadow. She had little doubt that Liam knew she referred to the heat that resonated between their pressing bodies at that very moment, the electric charge that always seemed to occur whenever they touched.

“It’s probably a bad idea, Liam,” she whispered, even as her forearms slid against his waist and her fingertips discovered the muscles of his back through the fabric of his shirt.

“It might be unwise,” he granted gruffly. His head lowered. “But it feels unstoppable.”

He leaned down, forcing her back to arch against the firm hold of his hands at her waist. All the restraint he showed in
his former, questing kisses evaporated. She was submerged in Liam’s heat, his possessive kiss…his fierce spirit.

And she knew he was right. They’d unleashed a force of nature neither one of them could control.

N
atalie altered beneath the power of Liam’s kiss, transformed into a sensual creature, suddenly unafraid of the deep passions that frothed at her core. It was a little like losing herself in the dance. When she allowed the movement to overcome her, she forgot the audience or any expectations it might have of her.

She craned upward, wild for more of his taste, desperate to quench her tingling nerve endings with the hard pressure of his body. She slid her tongue next to his and treasured the sound of his low moan of arousal. He stroked her hips and back with increasing excitement, molding her flesh against his, as though he knew he was creating a fire beneath her skin with the added friction. Natalie began to explore him as well. Her opened hands found the upward slant from his ribs to his chest fascinating. It was like holding the essence of power in her very hands, caressing Liam.

That feeling of power spread to her when she sensed how much he liked her touch.

He groaned into her mouth. Their tongues dueled sensually and she felt him grow even harder, his muscles flexing beneath her seeking fingertips, his arousal flagrantly obvious next to her straining body.

He sealed their kiss, but, as if he couldn’t get enough of her mouth, he continued to nip at her lips. Natalie responded in kind, nibbling at him feverishly. He tasted so good, it wasn’t enough. Her tongue slicked along his lower lip as if it had a mind of its own.

He groaned roughly. The next thing Natalie knew, he’d shifted her in his arms and she was airborne. Her mind and body both seemed to be flying, falling headlong into the pool of sensual pleasure Liam always created with his touch. The bedroom where he brought her was dim—only the light from the hallway illuminated it. He laid her on the bed with what struck Natalie as exquisite care, as though he thought she’d break.

She stared up at him, her breath coming fast and ragged. Anxiety had started to rise again, but the image of Liam looking down at her held her so spellbound that she couldn’t focus on her nervousness overly much. His expression was rigid with arousal. She could just make out the gleam in his eyes as he watched her. He brushed back the hair on her brow in a gentle gesture. His hands felt hot and dry next to her skin. He looked down at her as he rubbed the tip of his thumb over her lower lip. As if he’d pushed a secret button, Natalie parted her mouth to better feel his touch.

His nostrils flared with arousal.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured. “I want to see all of you. Can I undress you?”

Natalie nodded, unable to speak. She didn’t necessarily
believe in the truth of his words on a personal basis, but in that moment, she could read his expression perfectly.

Liam thought she was beautiful.

His stare remained melded to hers as he reached for the hem of her shirt and lifted it over her head. When the neckline snagged on her bun, he gently loosened it and then tossed aside her shirt. She felt his fingers moving in her hair.

“How many of these things do you have to use to keep all that hair on your head?” she heard him murmur in amusement as he drew out one pin after another. He kept one hand on her body, stroking her shoulder and neck, as if he didn’t want to lose physical contact with her even as he undressed her. Natalie suspected he’d sensed her nervousness, and was reassuring her with his humor and touch.

She smiled. “I don’t know. I don’t count.”

“Twelve,” Liam said a moment later as he deposited the last bobby pin on the table.

“Thank you for solving that little mystery for me,” she said shakily. The flicker of amusement she experienced faded when she saw his face as he ran his fingers through her unbound hair.

He tried to smile at her comment, but he looked strained as he gazed down at her wearing nothing but a bra and low-riding shorts, her hair spread across the pillow. He extended one long finger and traced the curve of her hip to her waist. She shivered when he touched the side of her ribs. Her nipples prickled with pleasure. She’d had no idea she had so many sensitive spots on her body until Liam showed them to her.

“You were made by a true artist, Natalie Reyes.”

“So were you,” she whispered.

“You got some extra attention.” The muscles of his face were so tense with desire that he looked almost grim in the dim light as he reached behind her to unfasten her bra. As he slid it from her body, the combination of the cool air and
Liam’s heated stare made her bare breasts tingle. She didn’t shrink from his gaze. Why would she, when he looked at her as he did at that moment?

“You’re so pretty.”

The hint of awe in his tone made her reach for him. She brought him down to her, wincing in pleasure when he placed his mouth at the upper curve of her left breast. His moving, caressing lips seemed to create a trail of fire as he explored her contours.

“So soft,” he murmured.

His palm came up to cradle her right breast, as if testing the weight of it. She knew how strong Liam was; she sensed his power like a tightly coiled spring. The gentleness of his touch contrasting with all that strength made her heart seem to swell in her rib cage. His hands were large, and his fingertips blunt, but they became precise instruments for evoking pleasure when touching her.

She shivered when he gently scraped his teeth over a rib just below her breast. Her nipples puckered tight at the sensation. As if Liam had known precisely the effect his caress would have, he slipped the sensitized crest of her breast between his lips.

Natalie’s breath caught at the feeling of being enclosed in his warm mouth. He applied a soft suction and laved his tongue over the beading nipple and Natalie forgot how to breathe, the pleasure that coursed through her was so sharp…so imperative.

She whimpered with need. As if desire connected them, Liam growled deep in his throat at the same moment, the sound vibrating into her breast and down to her heart.

She called his name in a plaintive plea, and he lifted his head reluctantly.

“You taste so good,” he muttered, sounding a little incredulous. Natalie moaned when he pressed his entire face
to her abdomen and nuzzled her belly button with his nose. His whiskers scraping gently against the skin should have sent her into a fit of ticklish laughter, but instead, his actions created a hot, thick sensation in her lower belly. The sensation only increased when he opened his mouth and she felt the heat of his mouth penetrating her.

He rose over her and took her mouth heatedly. It was a wild kiss, a torrid one. It told Natalie loud and clear how much he wanted her.

She treasured that knowledge.

The tips of her breasts ached. She pressed closer to his chest, desperate to alleviate the prickling sensation. He groaned into her mouth and reached between them, his fingers finding the fastenings of her shorts. Then his fingers were touching her—gentle and knowing.

Natalie stared blindly at the ceiling fan, poised on a precipice of bliss, listening to Liam whisper an anthem of desire to her, overwhelmed by sensation. She clung to his shoulders as if she thought they were the only things saving her from falling. “You’re even sweeter than I thought you’d be…and I imagined plenty.”

It suddenly struck her through a thick haze of arousal what was happening. She was supposed to let go…surrender to this hot, building need. Surrender to Liam.

The realization felt huge in that moment…frightening. If she gave herself in this physical way, she doubted she could ever go back. Her soul, too, would be his. And Liam didn’t know this about her; that she was a novice when it came to love. For him, this was just the inevitable conclusion of two people desiring each other. He could give of himself in just a physical sense, while Natalie couldn’t.

Not with Liam, she couldn’t.

Despite her doubts, however, his hand kept moving, creating a wild tempest in her body, his mouth kept burning
her lips and neck and breasts, and she was falling…falling. She struggled for a thread of reason in the midst of flooding pleasure.

“No, Liam…wait,” she managed to whisper next to his mouth. Despite her words, she shaped his lips to hers feverishly.

“I don’t care about our families, Natalie. I don’t care about the past. Nothing matters right now but this.”

“No…it’s not that,” she whispered. She clutched desperately to his shoulders and arched against his hand. The need for release from this delicious, mounting pressure nearly ruled her in that moment. It
would
rule her. She couldn’t seem to stop it—

“It’s just…I’ve never really done this before.”

She barely noticed his mouth pausing against the throbbing pulse at her neck. Pleasure loomed like a wave about to crash over her.

It did.

She couldn’t control it. Her body shook at the impact, bliss shooting through every nerve and muscle. She distantly heard Liam say her name, and then he was using his right arm to roll her on her side. He held her against him, as though he used his body to buffer her in a storm, helping her absorb the shock of her pleasure. She pressed tightly to him, needing his strength as she rode the waves of an uncertain ecstasy.

She opened her eyelids a moment later, her body still zinging with aftershocks of pleasure. Liam straightened slightly, looking down at her. He felt hot next to her—hot and very aroused. It took her a moment to focus on his face. His goatee looked dark in the dim room, outlining the grim set of his mouth.

“What did you mean?” he asked.

Her breath froze on a pant. She had no doubt to what he re
ferred. Vulnerability oozed up, breaking through the surface of her dazed consciousness.

“I…I meant I’ve never been with a man,” she said in a cracking voice when she noticed that his rigid expression didn’t break.

“Why not?”

Her mouth fell open. She shrugged helplessly.

“The right opportunity just never came up.”

Her cheeks heated in rising embarrassment when he continued to stare down at her. She’d thought about telling him the truth ever since he’d first mentioned he wanted to make love to her, but she’d never imagined telling him at such a charged, intimate moment.

She closed her eyes. He must think she was a freak of nature. A virgin…at her age.

“I know it must seem strange to you,” she whispered through lips that still felt swollen from Liam’s kisses. “But after the crash—once I got out of the hospital and went back to school—everything was different for me.” She opened her eyes. A rising sense of trepidation grew in her when she noticed the hint of bewilderment in his eyes. How could she make him understand, when she’d hardly put the experience into words herself? It was just part of the air she breathed, those lonely years of her adolescence, daily feeling her difference in comparison to the children and young adults that surrounded her.

She licked her lower lip nervously when Liam didn’t respond. She sensed he was listening, however, with a tight focus, so the words continued to spill out of her as if a pressure valve had been released.

“I was a year behind in school because I’d spent so much time recovering in the hospital,” she continued in a cracked voice. “The friends that I’d had moved ahead of me, and I didn’t know anyone from the lower grade. That was bad
enough. Add to it that Harbor Town is so small. All the kids knew what happened to me. They were cautious. They were curious, too…about the scars. They were actually worse when I was younger. I had a few surgeries after I started school again. Most of the kids avoided me. I don’t blame them at all—they didn’t know how to talk about serious things.”

“Most adults don’t, either,” Liam said suddenly, startling her. She wished she could interpret the expression on his face. Disappointment swooped through her, so strong it felt akin to nausea when he released her. He pulled the blanket around her, covering her, before he flung his long legs over the side of the bed. Natalie watched in growing helplessness as he remained there, seated at the edge of the mattress with his elbows on his knees and his forehead pressed against his hand.

“And it just kept going?” he asked after a moment. “You were what—twelve years old when you went back to school? Are you saying that people continued to avoid you?”

“Not completely, of course not,” Natalie murmured. Was that anger she heard in his voice? She pulled the comforter up higher over her chest, feeling awkward in the knowledge of her nudity. “I made a few friends. But things have a sort of domino effect. Because of what happened to me when I was young, I became known as the shy girl, I guess. The quiet one…the different one.”
The scarred one,
Natalie added in the privacy of her mind. No reason to state the obvious. “The girl nobody ever asked out on a date,” she finished with a self-conscious laugh.

His head turned sharply.

“That’s the most…” He paused, his mouth shaping into a frown that made it look like he wanted to spit something out in furious disgust. “Infuriating thing I’ve ever heard. How could people be so insensitive?”

She exhaled in relief when she understood the reason for his anger.

“It’s only natural, Liam,” she said softly. “It just seems strange to you. You were the captain of the football team. You were the homecoming king.”

“What the hell has that got to do with anything?” he asked, his bewildered expression telling her loud and clear she might as well have just told him the moon was made of green cheese.

“You lived in a different world than I did during your teenage years. Think about it—if we’d been in the same year at school, would you have sought me out as a friend?”

He looked mutinous. “Of course I would have.”

She smiled, grateful to him for his indignation. “You’re just saying that because we both were affected by the crash. That made you see the world a little differently than a typical teenager. I should have included in the hypothetical question that you weren’t involved in any way in the accident. Would you have wanted to hang around me then?”

He opened his mouth but then paused. Something flickered across his features. He turned his head.

“I was an idiot when I was teenager, especially before the crash. I didn’t take anything seriously. It’s not fair to judge me based on that.”