Finding Forever(21)

After he plundered her mouth for a few moments, he shifted, and then she was being lifted into his arms and carried to the very inviting couch sitting in front of the burning fireplace.

He laid her down and then stretched his body out across her, pushing his hips against hers, making her moan with the pleasure of having his arousal cushioned right where she wanted it to be.

On the tip of her tongue were the words that would stop this, but she couldn’t force herself to say them. Not when it felt so good, so right.

He tore his lips from hers, but only so he could trail his tongue down the side of her neck. He sucked her skin into his hot mouth and scraped his teeth over the point where her pulse was pounding.

“Liam …,” she moaned as his fingers made quick work of slipping beneath her sweater and traveling up the taut skin of her stomach.

“You taste so incredible, Whitney,” he moaned before drawing the sweater over her head and letting it slip to the floor.

This would be a great time to come to her senses, but as his mouth found her lace-covered nipple and he sucked it inside, all she did was arch up against him, overcome with pleasure.

He reached behind her and undid the clasp of her bra, leaving her upper half bare to him. He massaged her tender breast with one hand while his mouth continued making magic with that swollen nipple.

When he left the sensitive peak and his mouth slid back up her neck, she writhed against him, feeling an ache unlike anything she’d ever imagined feeling before. Pressing her hips upward, she reveled in the feel of his hardness seated against her.

Thoughts evaporated as his lips captured hers once again, burning her up in a passion so intense that colors flashed behind her eyelids.

Just as he reached for her jeans, the lights suddenly flashed back on, and the phone began ringing. It took a second for Whitney to realize what was happening, and Liam was unaware of any of it.

But the distraction was exactly what she needed to come to her senses.

“Liam, stop!” she cried out, her voice hoarse and thick with passion.

But he did stop. Slowly, he lifted his head, his eyes hooded, blazing with lust and confusion.

“Don’t make me stop, Whitney. We both want this, and you know it.”

“This has gone way too far, Liam. Please … please get off me,” she said, suddenly on the verge of tears.

This wasn’t the type of woman she was. She didn’t make out with strangers, and she certainly didn’t allow them to strip her and nearly ravish her. The only thing she could blame this on was temporary insanity.

“The phone is ringing,” she told him.

For a brief moment she saw anger and then frustration rage through his eyes, but then he blanked his expression and sat up. As soon as he was walking toward his phone, she shot up and grabbed her bra and sweater, turning her back to him as she threw the garments on. She was grateful there wasn’t a mirror anywhere in the room.

She had no doubt her hair was a mess and the little makeup she was wearing was smeared. A woman didn’t get ravished so thoroughly — okay, not quite ravished, but why put a fine point on it? — without looking like it.

Running her fingers through her hair to smooth it out, she listened to the clipped tones Liam used with the caller on the other end of the line. When he hung up, she looked in his direction without looking into his eyes.

“That was Mr. Smotter. My father’s concerned and is sending him over here right away to give you a ride home.”

There was no emotion at all in his tone. That was so like Liam’s usual style.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

She turned and moved toward the door, afraid to even look in the man’s direction. She should have realized, though, that she wasn’t getting away quite that easily.

“Whitney.” Those two syllables were spoken in a tone of utter command.

She turned slowly back toward him, afraid of what was coming next. And she had every right to feel that fear. Because the look in Liam’s eyes assured her that he wasn’t finished with her — not even close to being finished.

She fled.

It didn’t take long for Mr. Smotter to arrive, and when he did, she sprinted to his car and didn’t say a word on the short ride back home. She gave him a quiet thank-you when they arrived, and she went straight to her bedroom and practically fell into her bathroom.

Even after a hot shower, a cup of soothing tea, and hours of lying in bed wide awake, she still couldn’t find sleep. She wasn’t sure whether she was more upset that she’d nearly made love to Liam or that she hadn’t completed the act.

Either way, she spent the entire night tossing and turning — and incredibly angry with Liam for making her suffer this way.