“Tell me why you’re scared. Tell me why you’re fighting this.”
“Scared?” Kennedy gave me a puzzled look and laughed. “There you go acting like you know me again, Liam. You don’t. You don’t know me, and you do not own me. You need to forget about what happened between us.”
“Forget about you?” I asked softly. “You can’t ask me to do that.”
Her dark eyes bounced back and forth between mine for a few seconds before they dropped to the floor. “After what I saw of you and that girl this afternoon, I don’t think it’ll be that hard for you.”
“What you saw with Cecily was her trying to make sure you would want nothing to do with me—nothing more.”
She shook her head a few times and choked out, “I can’t.” The words came out thick, and I watched her face tighten as she fought through whatever emotion she was trying to hide from me.
“Kennedy,” I whispered, and leaned close to speak into her ear. “Yes, you can. If you would give us a chance, you’d see exactly why I would be good for you. You’re scared; I want to erase your fears. You’re fighting something that happened long before you met me; I want to face whatever it is head-on so the pain in your eyes goes away.”
She didn’t say anything for long moments, but I stood there waiting for the words that would either confirm what I already knew or cause me to back off for good.
“Moon, please,” I begged.
Her hands pressed against my chest again, and I held back a disappointed sigh as I took a step away. But as soon as I raised my head, her hands were curling into my shirt and she was reaching up to crush her lips to mine.
This time there was no fight. Kennedy never tried to gain control. Her body immediately relaxed between mine and the door, and she easily moved with me when I pulled her farther into the bedroom.
Our lips never parted as I laid her on the bed and followed her down until I was hovering over her. One of her knees curled up along my side when I settled my body onto hers, and I ran my hand up her long leg, pushing the loose material of her skirt up her thigh until it was bunched in my hand against her hip. Moving down her throat, my lips made soft passes against her skin, and a frustrated whimper escaped her mouth at the teasing touches. My fingers gripped against her hip and the bed as the need to run my hands over her grew stronger, but I knew if I went there, I wouldn’t stop—and I needed to stop. “You’re done pushing me away,” I said against her skin.
“I’m done,” she agreed breathily. Kennedy’s hands moved from where they’d been gripping my shirt between our chests, and made a slow trail down. The moment they touched the skin just above the top of my shorts, I groaned against her neck as I fought with myself over what I knew we needed, and what we both obviously wanted. Before she could do anything else, I pushed away so I was hovering high above her, and stared down into her dark blue eyes.
“We already know what we’re like together, Kennedy. I’m not making the mistake of starting this with another night like in Vegas.”
“You’re saying Vegas was a mistake?” she asked huskily, but even with the breathy sound of her voice, it was obvious she was joking.
“Never. But sleeping with you the moment you give yourself over to me again would be a mistake. You could easily disappear from me in the morning, or realize how much you don’t want this once the night is over because I rushed things with you again. I’m not taking that chance.”
She looked at me for a long moment without saying anything, her eyes thoughtful. “And if I’m the one who wants tonight to go a certain way?”
The corners of my mouth curled up, and I leaned closer to run my nose down hers and kiss her quickly. “You wouldn’t be the only one who wanted it, but it wouldn’t matter if you begged for it. I’m not risking it after fighting so hard for you. You finally acknowledging that you are mine is all I need tonight. I’ve been waiting for that moment since you fell back into my life, Kennedy Ryan.” After another slower kiss, I pushed up and rolled away from her to sit on the bed.
Kennedy followed me up, but sat facing me. “That girl—what’d you say her name was?”
I looked at her with my forehead bunched together, but before I could ask who she meant, I knew the answer from the way her eyes took on that same betrayed look they’d had this afternoon on the beach. “Cecily?”
“Right, Cecily. Who is she?”
As much as I wanted to say she was nobody, I knew I couldn’t. To any other girl in my life, that would have been my immediate answer . . . but not to Kennedy. “She was one of many girls who meant nothing more than the fact that she was convenient to have around. She also works for your uncle, and we’d been . . . uh, seeing each other for a handful of months before you moved here. Nothing ever happened outside of work or our places. If we happened to be out with the same group, we acted like we worked together and that was it. That was what I liked about her. She wasn’t clingy, and she saw me simply as someone who could satisfy a need. It wasn’t until I backed away and started turning her down when you moved here that she got mad. I think she wanted to make you ignore me, and have me make a big scene so it would look like she had been wronged.”