Wilde Heart (Wilde Women Book 2) (9 page)

O
KAY. SHE WAS TALKING, AND it didn’t feel like she was ready to pounce on him at any second and rip his head off. So—that was good, right?

Six months ago, he’d been head-to-head with a bunch of serious Middle Eastern moguls, financiers, and princes, hammering out a venture that he and his savvy team had taken control of from day one. Billions of dollars were on the line. Lives held in the balance. And throughout the whole exercise, he hadn’t broken a sweat, been anxious, or wavered in any way.

Five minutes in the backseat of a car with Rhiann Wilde and he was sweating bullets—his heart thumped and for some odd reason he didn’t know what to do with his hands. Should he fold them in his lap? Maybe stretch one arm out along the back of the seat? He put a hand on the armrest of the door and absently tapped his fingers, only stopping when he thought the pose made him seem bored.

Jesus.
He wasn’t bored. Far from it. In actuality, he was wondering if he was having an anxiety attack. Or the beginning of a heart attack.

Liam inhaled deeply and attempted to calm the fuck down. In typical Rhiann style, she was talking and animated. Something about a wedding. He liked that she was smiling instead of snarling.

Obviously, inquiring about her family had been a smart move. Liam liked the Baron-Wilde clan. Rhiann and her quirky sisters aside, he’d always hold Professor Wilde and his wife in deep regard. They’d been uncommonly kind. Welcoming. Interested in him as a person. Helpful. And that was another link in the chain of why he’d had to end things with Rhiann. Sleeping with the professor’s virgin daughter felt like a betrayal.

She paused and he slid into the conversation with a half smile. “Your folks must be thrilled. How is the professor? He ever finish cataloging those books?”

Rhiann fought a smile—it was cute how she tried to keep it off her face. Unbuttoning her jacket, she crossed one leg over the other while smoothing a grey colored skirt over her knees. For a second, she was a curious blend of a young girl and sexy woman.
Probably the sneakers,
he mused.

“He’ll never finish.” She chuckled. “Finishing isn’t the point! For him, it’s all about the books. Looking at them, holding them. Turning the pages. My dad can rhapsodize ad nauseam about that musty library smell and the way a good book feels in your hands.”

This was something he understood. What she’d just described was exactly how he felt about her. He liked looking at her. Liked holding her, too. Turning the pages with Rhiann had been an adventure. And then there was the other stuff. How she smelled. Tasted. Felt under his hands. He’d never be finished with her.

Deep in thought, he hadn’t noticed when she stopped talking and turned to stare at him. He wasn’t prepared when she did a full one-eighty, steering the conversation in his direction.

“You’ve done well, Liam,” she told him with her big green eyes bright with approval. “More than well, actually.”

He fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat. None of that meant anything when she was around. It made the ground underneath him feel like shifting sand when he realized that Rhiann’s importance far outweighed any of his business accomplishments. She was the one thing missing.

“It’s okay to be successful,” she murmured.

Damn. It was like she could read his thoughts.

The gentleness in her voice surprised Liam. “Your mother must be so proud! How is she?”

With those few words, it was like something detonated inside the car. His eyes snapped to the rearview and found Roman staring at him. Liam’s fierce scowl returned.
His mother.
Not someone he wanted to talk about.

“What’s wrong,” she asked. “Did I say something?” Her eyes were darting back and forth between him and the back of Roman’s head. Obviously, she sensed the undercurrent and was concerned.

“No. It’s okay, Rhiann. You didn’t say anything wrong.”

She was staring intently at him in the darkness of the car as it inched along in the gridlocked evening traffic.

“My . . .” he started to say then paused. “Carolyn passed away a few years back.”

Before any more words came, he heard her moan softly and grasp his hand in the darkness. He marveled at her reaction—which was to immediately comfort him. Liam didn’t know how to react to that.

Whispering so just he would hear, Rhiann squeezed his hand and leaned closer. “I’m so very sorry. I know how much you loved her.”

Words swirled in his mind. He should respond. Say something. Act civilized. But her small, soft hand holding his was wreaking havoc on his tightly checked emotions. There was nothing disingenuous about her reaction. Rhiann actually
cared
about his pain.

Liam reached out and wrapped a hand under her messy ponytail, around her neck. She felt warm. And soft. He swept his thumb from the delicate shell of her ear and along her jawline. Time slowed as he watched her lips part on a quiet gasp. In the shadowy darkness of the car, her eyes were more smoke than green.

He took his other hand from hers and used it to cup her face. She was so lovely it made his heart ache just looking at her.

Long seconds passed while the two former lovers stared at each other in the deepening quiet.

“I would have been there had I known,” she whispered. “If you needed me . . .”

Liam groaned at her words.
If he needed her?
Oh, my god. Cutting off her words and his thoughts, he lowered his head until their lips were barely touching, and they were breathing each other in.

He heard and felt her whimper—his lips pulsing with need.

At first, he kissed her slowly, almost reverently. Her mouth so sweet and perfect under his. She let him lead, so he did. Taking the kiss further, he nibbled on her lips, sucked on the fleshy part of her bottom lip, then swept his tongue around the outline of her mouth.

Liam was vaguely aware that Roman had switched on the satellite radio when the sound of soft music made its way into his senses. It wasn’t at all like him to be kissing a woman in the backseat while his security chief was right there—hell, he didn’t do much kissing at all, if truth be told. He was more direct and to the point in his sexual encounters. Saved time and cut out a shit ton of emotional bullshit that he wasn’t interested in.

But here? Now? With Rhiann’s mouth pressed so sweetly to his? Fuck, man. He hoped the trip to her apartment took all night so he didn’t have to stop kissing her. And if he had a shred of honesty left inside him—he had to admit that he was more than interested in as much emotional bullshit as she could dish out.

Before long, he’d maneuvered her quite deftly onto his lap and somehow divested her of the hideous jacket. He had a hand on her bottom where she angled into him and the other arm wrapped securely around her trembling body as he laid waste to her mouth.

She was clutching him, a hand fisting his shirt and tie while the other was making a mess of his immaculately styled hair. With her mouth answering his every desire, she was making quiet little moans and grunts as their tongues slid sinuously against each other.

Saliva worked around the edges of their mouths as the kiss lengthened, deepened, and came perilously close to going off the charts. Liam remembered another time when being in the backseat of a car with her body pressed to his had ended with her jeans in a ball and panties in shreds as he made feverish, desperate love to her.
Shit.
He had to pull back before he took her without a care that they were in no way alone or in a private setting. After all, there was so much more going on with them than hormones and desire. Now wasn’t the time to force the issue.

Once he settled that in his mind, Liam was able to lose himself at the moment knowing he had the situation under control. Kissing the quivering woman squirming in his lap was pure bliss. Cradling Rhiann in his arms felt natural—as if a space had been carved out just for her.

The car sped up and slowed down, making its way into the village where he’d be forced finally let them both come up for air. Until then, though . . .

Everything was spinning, and Rhi wasn’t sure she was going to survive the kiss scrambling her senses. What Liam did to her mouth was beyond words. He devoured. Worshiped. Challenged. Rewarded.

His lips consumed her—taking Rhi to a place she never wanted to leave. When his tongue snaked slowly around hers, she whimpered helplessly. Her mouth remembered this. His taste. The way he took control.

She knew damn well they shouldn’t be doing this but—
what the hell.
Emotion led her body and no amount of desperate clinging to common sense was going to make a difference.

Surrendering to what she was sure was going to turn out to be a moment of piss poor judgment, she sank into the kiss and let him take her well beyond Rhi’s comfort zone. She’d loved the boy she knew, but was leery and suspicious of the man in whose arms she trembled. He had an agenda. One that involved her. And though that thought might have thrilled her years ago—memories of his cruelty and how he’d cast her aside, turning away from her without a backward glance after she’d given him everything she had—urged caution.

“We’re here, Boss,” she heard through the libidinous stupor that enveloped her.

Liam gentled the kiss and brought her slowly back, his big hand sweeping from her waist to her knee and back again.

An emotion—something she couldn’t quite face—tore at her when he drew back, calmly lifting her off his lap and setting her back onto the seat. Feeling limp and boneless, a fine shiver ran through her nervous system when all of a sudden she felt the sting of tears. Just like that, she came screaming full speed back to the present.

Oh, hell no.
She wasn’t crying over this man anymore. It was her stupid, damn belief in white knights and true love that kept leading her astray. Never again. He’d dumped her like an out-of-warranty cell phone, and she’d do well to remember that. He might kiss like a god—or at least like the dark angel he sometimes became in her dreams, but that wasn’t reason enough to invite that kind of hurt again. He’d left her so devastated when their affair ended that she knew there’d never be another like him in her life. So she never bothered to look. Or dream. Or hope. Not once in the almost eight long years.

But now here he was and all she could think of was how complicated and fucked up the situation was. She knew he was a closed book—always had been. There was dark shit going on his mind that he never shared—not even with her. And that frightened Rhi. He was too powerful. Too damn good-looking. Too wealthy. She wasn’t stupid—he could pretty much have anything he wanted.

She glanced out the window and was relieved to see the rain had stopped. Well, at least there was that small mercy.

“Rhiann,” he husked, deep and low.

Hesitantly, she looked at him. His eyes were dark and stormy—like the weather.

“We need to talk.
Alone,
” Liam muttered with a scowl at the back of his driver’s head.

Talk? Okay. But there was something she needed to know first. No more dancing around the subject, so she blurted out the question that never left her.

“Did you buy the magazine because of me?”

“Yes.”

His swift answer left Rhiann floundering. Somehow, she hadn’t expected him to take ownership of what was essentially an accusation.

“To what end, Liam? I mean . . .” She paused searching for the right way to express her fears. “We didn’t exactly part company as friends.”

She saw his slight flinch and nodded. So—he knew he’d been a dick. Honestly, Rhi didn’t have a clue what to make of this.

“No one’s ever been that mean to me,” she confessed in an anguished whisper. “You broke my heart, Liam Ashforth, and I’ve never forgiven you for it.”

“Nor should you.”

She was getting worked up and anxious. “If you feel that way, what the hell is this all about? Have you come back for round two? Is this about destroying me completely for the sin of actually having loved you? Because, if it is—say so now. I’ll resign from
Passion
and save you the trouble.”

He sighed and looked out the car window. She watched him clench and unclench his fist and just wanted to cry. Liam Ashforth might have everything, but he didn’t know how to deal with the world of emotion.

On a strangled groan, he turned back to her and whispered, “I know it’s a lot to ask but could we please start at the beginning? Again?”

“What are you saying, Liam? Start at the beginning of what?” Glaring at him with a furious frown, she growled, “I’m not sleeping with you! Technically, you sign my paycheck. That’s where we are now. Employer. Employee. I don’t see where a new start figures in.”

His scowl fractured into a hundred pieces and darkened his face. “I see,” he answered frigidly. “And for the record, I wasn’t asking you to my bed.”

Wait a minute.
What in the hell just happened there? Was he actually sulking because she hadn’t fallen headlong into his arms? Oh, for heaven’s sake. Was she supposed to forget that he’d just dropped her all those years ago—like a lead weight? And now, after interfering in her life to the point that he bought the company she worked for, he was going to act all pissy and grumpy because she wasn’t immediately on board with whatever crazy fuckery was swirling in his head?