Sweet Child of Mine (7 page)

As Abigail smoothed a small drop of pure shea butter over her cropped curls, she listened to a voice message from her mother. “Sheila told me she’s babysitting for Liam tonight. And you’re going out tonight. Are you going to tell me what that’s about?”

“No,” Abigail answered. Instead of ringing her mother back, she called Laura. If anyone would know what she should wear, it’d be the fashionista.

“Do you mean to have sex with him or just show him what he could have?” Laura asked once Abigail explained what she needed.

“I think sex has to happen. I may lose my natural mind.”

Laura hmmed. “What about that red dress you wore for the premiere you and Haillie came with me too?”

“The one where we barely stopped you from dry humping the lead actor?”

“Yes. That dress. That one means business.”

Abigail crossed her wardrobe to where the red dress hung, in coordination with her other red items. She draped the material over her bed and examined it.

“Well?” Laura asked. “Just wear matching underwear beneath and you’re good.”

“No, I’m just amazed by your memory.”

“It’ll work. With the hair and your boobs all jacked up right? You’ll be a hollowed-out lemon tomorrow. All the juice sucked out of you.”

“Laura, go and get help. I swear.”

Laughing, she ended the call and did what her lovely, nutty friend suggested. Forgoing her usual polka-dot uniform, she went for smooth silk in the bra and a matching thong. The dress was unforgiving to anything that wasn’t practically invisible. Already she could feel Liam’s hands on her curves. He was collecting her in ten minutes and she hadn’t sorted herself out. Moving around her room in determination, she was soon in her highest heels, a light trench coat under her arm and her Mulberry bag waiting by the door. The wonderful thing about Liam was he enabled her to wear heels. He still topped her.

Exactly as predicted, a knock sounded at her door at seven on the dot. Liam stood outside and he took her breath away. He’d cut his hair. Not trimmed. Cut it. The beard was trimmed to match. No longer a member of the Kings of Leon, or a lost nineteenth-century pilgrim, he was a sex god. How did he expect her to sit across a dinner table in public and not throw her clothing at him?

“Too much?” he asked, grinning at her expression.

“No... No, it’s... Wow. You look great.”

“You look stunning,” he murmured, leaning forward to touch their mouths together. “Ready to go?”

She picked up her bag and closed the door behind her. “Let’s go.”

He took her hand and led her to his car. “I’m just making sure we get home safe. Only one drink, mind.”

“Just one?” she teased.

“Don’t want anyone to think you’re taking advantage of me.”

They sat pressed together and after the briefest of awkward pauses, launched into conversation. It was the easiest thing in the world to talk to Liam, and it seemed she could tell him anything. They barely paused when they arrived at the Michelin-starred restaurant in Richmond to order something light and fast with a bottle of Montrachet. He asked surprisingly deep questions, showing how very interested he was in her relationship with her dear father.

“He wouldn’t have approved of you, that’s for certain,” she told him.

“The beard?”

“For starters.”

“Ah. Does my dear departed wife have anything else to do with his approval?”

Abigail shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Maybe.”

“Well, she was nice enough to not have started divorce proceedings before she died.”

“It doesn’t matter. Dad isn’t here.”

“Yes, he is. Because he was a good father, I should explain.” He sighed for a moment. “I didn’t tell you about it, but the DNA kit I used was sent by one of Sarah’s boyfriends. His name’s Mark. Mark Wooldridge. He’s the same guy she insisted on leaving me for.”

This wasn’t really first date conversation, Abigail thought, but she wanted to know.

“He was also the same gentleman in the passenger seat of the car she crashed. Whatever guilt he has is probably all now wrapped up in trying to prove that Leila is his child. That he can make up for Sarah’s death by being her daughter’s apparent saviour from mean old me. God knows what she told him about me. God knows what she told her parents about me.”

“Why was she so horrible to you?”

“Don’t you mean ‘
What did you do to her
?’ I don’t know. We lived in a nice house. I earn a nice chunk of money from the web creation business. We had a good life. But then, I committed the cardinal sin. I fell in love with our daughter. I’m sure your father would have told you that you were the most important woman in the world to him.”

“All the time.”

“How’d that make your mum feel?”

“Like we had to compete. And we did. It’s only now that he’s not here anymore that we’re not as catty to each other.”

“Leila wasn’t old enough for Sarah’s games. So she took it out on me instead.”

“Why am I different?”

He held her gaze for a long time. “I don’t think you’d have any trouble telling me to reassess my priorities. And I learn from my mistakes, Abi. There’s room enough on the top tier for you and Leila.”

“I’m not sure Leila would agree with you.”

He smiled. “I think you’re the only person she’d share me with.”

She wanted to ask him how he’d even know, but his hand was on her knee beneath the table. “You’re just flattering me.”

“Just telling the truth. I spoke to Ted Dalbury-Scott, by the way.”

“Oh? What for?”

“About your licence. I don’t know why I’m helping. It means you can have the café open for longer.”

“You’re so out of order! Arranging my life and we’re barely dating!”

“Hear the rest and see if you’re still cross. He said he didn’t recall rejecting an application from you, but he would definitely review it and he saw no reason to not approve it.”

Abigail’s mouth fell open. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. He’s sending me an email as soon as he’s located it. Or you can send it to me and I’ll forward it to him. Still cross?”

She grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket, pulled him over the table and slanted her mouth on his. “A little,” she answered, after releasing him.

“Is this a prelude to what I’d get if I emptied the dishwasher?”

She grinned, lifting her wineglass. “Can’t give away all my secrets. You can give me one of yours. What made you cut your hair?”

He brushed a hand over the shorn locks. He’d turned from scruffy undercover stud to airbrushed sexual near-perfection. “You. Well, your mother. She told me I should tidy myself up if I wanted to give myself a running shot with you.”

“Don’t know what she means. My dad had a humungous Afro when they met.”

He laughed. “Hair thing is genetic.”

“You didn’t need to,” she said, feeling shy.

“Why’d you cut your hair? In your graduation photo you had hair down to your shoulders.”

“This has saved me several hundred pounds a year and provides a lot more sleep.”

A wolfish smile spread over his face. “Sleep?”

“Yes, sleep!”

“Means you won’t miss as much tonight?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said primly.

“How much sleep were you thinking of getting if I’m inside you?”

She put a hand on her chest to tell her heart to calm the hell down. “Wouldn’t you need to go home?”

He simply smiled. “You’re assuming we’re going to be at your home.”

“Course we are!” she heaved. “I’m not explaining to your mother what I’m doing at your house.”

He folded his arms on the table. “Let me hear it.”

“What?”

“The explanation you’d try to give my mother if we went home together.”

“You’re showing me website designs,” she said blithely.

He gave her a slow clap. “Very good. But don’t you have a website already?”

She closed her mouth to stop herself from telling him to shut up. “What would you want me to say? We’re ending our drought?”

“She wouldn’t appreciate that without a ring on your finger. She’s a traditionalist.” He glanced at her plate. “Finish your food.”

“Am I going to need the carbs?” she joked.

“Whatever’s going to give you the energy to keep up.”

“Liam!” They wouldn’t be doing anything if he kept trying to give her a heart attack.

“All I’m thinking is how I’d look in your mouth. Feel all of this,” he cupped her jaw to brush his thumb around her mouth, “on me. Around me. Jesus. You make me feel out of control!”

“Are you sure this isn’t just unresolved sexual tension?”

He tapped his fingertips on the table. “All right, let me tally it this way. I haven’t even looked at anyone since Sarah passed. Couldn’t bring myself to invest even the smallest bit of trust in anyone. Or switch my brain off long enough for my dick to have its way. I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve had phone sex with and it doesn’t go above one. I feel comfortable with you, like I’ve never been with anyone else. We laugh together. Even if I take away the overwhelming need to fuck you until sometime next year, I still like you. So does my kid, and she doesn’t like anyone.”

What could she say to all of that? It was not only flattering, it was opening the door to something else entirely new and frightening and hopeful. “Discerning tastes?”

“It’s a McNamara trait. You’d fit right in.”

“Liam,” she said softly.

“Yes, Abi?”

“I don’t want to talk anymore.”

Dinner at the nicest restaurant with wine that almost rivalled her own and a shared chocolate fondant dessert was really all a very minor prelude to Liam pressing her to her front door and kissing her as if he meant to do the same all over her body.

“Open the door,” he insisted, barely stepping back from her to allow the door to be opened. He took advantage as she did, kissing her bare neck and slowly grinding his crotch against her bottom. Shivers chased up her spine as she felt the growing bulge in his trousers between the cheeks of her buttocks.

“Don’t you need to...help out your babysitter?”

They stumbled inside and Liam closed the door behind them with a kick to the wood. “Benefits of an early dinner. We can take our time.” He caught her with such an intense gaze she lost her breath. “I want you. But I can wait.”

“I can’t,” she admitted, wrapping her arms around his neck to kiss him. “Bedroom’s upstairs.”

With barely a grunt of effort, he lifted her up and carried her up the staircase. He kicked open the door and she again thanked her OCD for ensuring that not a thing was out of place. Her bed was neatly made with Egyptian cotton sheets and decorative pillows and her wardrobe was closed. Makeup packed away and her day bag was hanging neatly on the back of the door.

“Tidy,” he asserted. Carefully, he placed her on the bed and yanked off his jacket. Abigail couldn’t find her breath, resting back on her elbows as he removed his clothing piece by piece. “You look like you’ve paid for a show.”

She threw her head back and laughed. “What’s the going rate?”

He chucked his cuff links onto her dresser, the white lapels parting to reveal the fine mist of hair covering his defined chest. Relief. She couldn’t bear those overly waxed, hair-removal-cream-loving, fake-tan-obsessed metrosexuals who spent more time grooming themselves in a night than she ever would in a month. “For you? You get the good rate.”

Bare-chested, he rested his hands on either side of her hips. “Lift up.” She did as he commanded, and he slid his hands under the hem of her knee-length dress to catch the edges of her thong. Without taking his eyes from her face, he slowly removed it, the material slipping damply down her legs. Just as he’d said he would, he caught her high-heeled foot in his palm and laid a kiss on her ankle. His thumb stroked over the bare skin above the bone and she shuddered. God, if he was only touching her ankle, what the hell would happen to her when he reached the peak?

“Liam?” she asked as his mouth reached her kneecap.

“Yes, Abi?”

“Did you... When you found out about Sarah...did you? Test...”

He gave a nod of assent and reached for his jacket. “I did. Had to go back three months later for HIV as well. Here.”

He handed her his mobile phone and the email confirmation that his tests were clear. She gave a sigh of relief and handed the phone back. “You’re not going to ask me?”

“I’d trust a woman who worries about a dishwasher overnight would be as discerning about her sexual health.” He crouched before her once more and resumed his kisses at her knee. “You’ve got beautiful legs. We’d call you a good filly, back home.”

She couldn’t stop laughing. His beard tickled the delicate skin of her thigh. When his tongue touched her bikini line, smooth of hair, she stopped laughing. He shimmied the fabric of her vibrant red dress to her waist and gave a sigh that sounded worshipful. With a kiss to the swell of flesh above her sex, he parted her thighs with the breadth of his shoulders and closed his mouth over her.

“Oh God,” she groaned. “Oh my God!”

His thumbs rolled over her pelvis and brought her closer to him.

The raw rub of his softened beard on her delicate inner skin drove her crazy, forced her hips higher against him. Yes, this was good, so very, very good. Her knees trembled each time his tongue drew over her flesh, her whole body arching to a climax. Heat bloomed on her lower belly and his hand spanned over her abdomen. The stark white of his hand against her rich, dark skin burned in her mind. He flickered his tongue rapidly against her clit before he suckled at the bud of flesh, kissing it as if he were kissing her mouth. With reverence he sighed her name, his lips moving over her nether ones, forcing an explosion to rain over every single part of her. She couldn’t move for a few minutes and Liam lay next to her. “Dress,” he nodded.

She sat up and wriggled the dress over her head, leaving her in the bra alone. He reached over and lightly traced the globe of her breast. The touch sent a shudder through her, the echo of her orgasm. She caught his hand against her and pressed his digits harder into her skin.

“Everything,” she whispered. In a flash he was completely naked. He didn’t give her the time to admire his nude form or appreciate the beauty of his figure. He spread her thighs apart and knelt between them, his bones cushioned by her ridiculous pillows. She glanced down and saw his latex-covered cock aimed straight at her dewy pussy.

He slowly drove into her and she watched every inch parting her pussy lips. The moment she felt the coarse hairs of his balls pressed tightly against her, she kissed him. This felt right. Her pussy clenched at him, still trying to pull him deeper. He cupped the back of her head, his fingers dancing over the top of her spine as he began to draw out of her only to slam back in. She cried out, her body now frantic at the spot where his cock was rubbing.

“You take me beautifully,” he murmured, lowering his head to trace kisses over her breasts. Her arms trembled with the pressure of keeping her body upright, and each time he pounded into her, her limbs nearly gave way. It was only the sheer strength in his arms that kept her as she was.

“Hold onto me,” he commanded, stroking his dick in her slick canal. She did as she was told, her legs raised by her tiptoes, her breasts shaking with each thrust. He seemed mesmerised by the motion and every so often would lean down to suck one nipple. She let go, moaning as he stroked her pussy, rubbing the knot of flesh that was threatening to unleash a volcano of an orgasm. He tasted of her, sweet and creamy, and the scent mixed with his sweat and musk tightened her body in its entirety. She couldn’t kiss him hard enough. Pull him any harder to her. Groan any more in time with his movements inside her. Without withdrawing, he laid her back on the bed, and pulled her legs to his shoulders. He kneeled almost underneath her bottom, and her eyes widened as he slammed down into her to depths no one had ever reached before. Once to her wail of pleasure. Then again to a resounding shriek. His third thrust broke her completely.

She kept coming while he drilled into her to his own satisfaction.

Staring up at his damp face, she uncurled her legs from his shoulders and lay facedown on the bed. She really wanted to do that again. When she could move. If she could move.

“Sweetheart?” he said gently, sounding out of breath.

She lifted a hand and formed a thumbs-up. He laughed and she heard the snap of latex and the swing of her bin lid. Skin to sticky skin, he lay next to her, pressing a heaving kiss to her jaw.

“You smell like me,” she warned.

“Good! Why shouldn’t I?”

“So think about the one other person you’re going to kiss good night...”

“You realise you’ve just killed any chance of another hard-on?”

She lifted her aching body to angle her mouth towards his cock. Nice to be assured how well-proportioned he was. She gently blew on his damp skin and was amazed when it twitched in response.

“Come here,” he said gruffly, pulling her up the bed and on top of him. Comforted and comfortable, she felt herself drifting into sleep when a subtle beep sounded. She’d set an alarm for half ten. Her sense of organisation was costing her precious time with Liam. Lifting her head, she told him the time. “Seriously, go and wash your face.”

He grinned and paused in the doorway. “A little while longer. Then we’ll be able to wake up together. It makes a difference.”

“I know,” she said, drawing her knees to her chest and sending him a small smile. Goodness only knew what his mother would do if she discovered Abigail was corrupting him into abandoning his daughter for the night. He disappeared into the bathroom to clean himself up and she flopped back onto the bed.

“Don’t get up,” he insisted as he returned from the bathroom with a towel around his waist and pulled on his clothes.

“OCD,” she reminded him, wrapping a robe around her body.

“You’re locking the door behind me,” he said. “Whatever makes you feel safe.”

She followed him downstairs, unable to help feeling disappointed that he had to leave.

“Thank you for tonight,” he said softly, gazing at her with an unreadable emotion that almost prompted her to tell him to stay. “I don’t normally put out so fast.”

She laughed. “Me neither.” He grinned, his teeth pinching his lower lip. Leaning forward, they shared a light peck, which caught them both by surprise by how quickly it became intense. She felt movement below the belt of her robe and saw he’d unravelled it, revealing her nudity in the stark light of the corridor.

“You have to go!” She moaned, her hands gripping the padded shoulders of his blazer.

“We won’t be long,” he promised, unzipping his trousers and letting them fall to his ankles. He reached inside his jacket pocket for a condom and smoothed it over his rock-hard member. With a hand hooked underneath her knee, he pressed her to the wall and pushed inside her once more. They moved together in fluid unison, arc after arc of pleasure lifting them both with each punch of the other’s hips. She clasped his head to hers, kisses frantic and open while his hands were free to cup her breasts at will. He flicked her nipples with the edges of his thumbs before he moved one hand between her thighs, just above where his cock drove rapidly in and out of her drenched pussy. She came before she could even stop to enjoy the sensations swamping her. He jerked within her in random fits and starts, grunting into her mouth. The final shudder hailed his climax was complete.

“Now I’ll go home,” he breathed.

“You smell like me still. I mean, what was the point of the shower?” she asked as he removed the condom.

“Getting good at this.” He smirked, launching the latex into her wicker bin. She’d at least wait until he was gone before putting it somewhere less obviously slutty. “And yes, I do smell like you. Means I’ll sleep well.” He framed her face between his palms, kissing her deeply. “Goodnight.”

“Night.”

She watched him disappear into his car before she closed her door. It took her a while to drift back to her bedroom, feeling at a loss of what to do with herself. She buried her nose in the sheets and caught a whiff of Liam’s scent. For once she skipped her pre-sleep shower to enjoy the mingled scent they’d created together. Definitely the best sex of her life. Only trouble was, he’d gone home. To make sure his child had no idea what was going on. Abigail wasn’t any good at artifice. It didn’t suit her and as young as Leila was, she wasn’t stupid. She had a bad feeling that Cornwall would be the scene of a long line of battles.