The Coldest Summer✓

Forty

"I'm sorry I left you like that," I breathe, my eyes adamant but soft on his shade of blue.

Sighing, he takes my hands and brushes his mouth against my knuckles.

"I missed you," he says, and I'm baffled that it's the only remark he can give.

I expected an ireful amount of scolding or a bit of a why question. But I'm glad, even if this is more than I deserve if I'm being purely honest with myself. Being alone has been my safety net, and I wonder if I can do well otherwise after that one gruesome experience.

I close my eyes and drift, the ache still fresh and warning.

"What is it, Kira?" Liam whispers, confusion thick in his voice as he studies me carefully the moment I blink my eyes open and gaze upon him.

I want to tell him something I haven't told anyone but my therapist.

I want him to know my darkest secret that still tortures me from time to time.

"Are you having doubts about us?" Liam asks, a deep wrinkle between his perfect eyebrows. Hauling me toward him, he seizes my chin to have my eyes locked with only his, and I comply. "Why? Is there any problem?" he adds.

"No, there's no problem, Liam. I'm just trying to. . . " My voice trails off.

How exactly do I tell him that stuff? Fear rises inside me, but I know I ought to let it out in one way or another.

A soft breath emits from his breath as he leans into me, letting my hands off so his warm palms can hold my face in place. Soft eyes stare down at me, and my heart tingles, especially when he sensually grazes his lips against mine, too gently and close that I can taste them.

It sends a quiver in my stomach and a quick pulse between my legs for some misplaced reason.

"Do you want me to go?" he asks. My body electrifies at the tone of his voice, and I shut my eyes as he transforms my mood. "Tell me, Kira Jones. Do you really want me gone?"

"No," I hardly breathe, my eyes wide open alongside my conscience. "I don't want you to go and I'm sorry about all the times I turned you down back in Miami and I'm glad you're here," I tell him truthfully, for I've had enough of being a coward.

His lips curl into a smile, almost flushed. "I forgave you even before you asked for it, Kira. But I think we still need to straighten up things between us; we need to have a serious talk about your mysterious ways to love and then push me away, even at this particular moment when you're deliberately trying to conceal something from me."

Conceal something from him? Shock knocks me off the sweet, erotic bubble.

Busted! Sneers my fevered subconscious.

"Must it be now, Liam?" I ask because I don't think what I'm craving at the moment can wait for later.

But my shady past can surely be discussed at a later time.

"I believe so," he replies curtly, sheer concerns bathed in his luminous eyes that scan me so intently. "I can't afford you running away once again, so I need you to—"

"We'll have time for that, but not now. What I need, what my body sternly needs, is not to talk." I slowly set my arms around his neck, missing not a single blink of his crinkled eyes. "I want to kiss you," I whisper, uplifting my head to lay my lips on his.

Liam makes a soft sound akin to a groan when my mouth invades his. His heart beats as violently as mine when he grabs me tightly, although loosely at first, squeezing me in an impatiently perverted fashion, kissing me back ravenously until our breaths thicken.