Chapter 12: Breakfast Interruption
The morning light through the guest room’s thin curtains was merciless. It striped the rumpled sheets and exposed the dust motes dancing in the air, each one a tiny accusation of the night before. Dizzy awoke to the unfamiliar weight of an arm slung across her waist, the solid heat of a body pressed against her back. Liam’s breath was soft and even against her nape.
Memory returned in a warm, liquid rush. The bathroom. The hall. The bed. His mouth, his hands, his cock. The things he’d said. The way he’d looked at her. A flush spread from her chest to her cheeks, a mix of searing embarrassment and a deep, humming satisfaction.
Carefully, she tried to extricate herself. The moment she shifted, Liam’s arm tightened, pulling her back against him. He was awake. He nuzzled the sensitive skin behind her ear. “Morning,” he murmured, his voice gravelly with sleep.
“Hey.” Her own voice was a croak.
He didn’t say anything else. He just held her, his hand splaying possessively over her stomach. She could feel him hardening against the curve of her ass. The reality of it—of him, here, in this sun-bleached room—was absurd. Liam Walker. The quiet, handsome guy she’d mostly exchanged polite nods with over takeout containers in Chloe’s living room. Now his fingertips were tracing idle circles on her hipbone, his erection a persistent brand against her skin.
“We should… probably get up,” she whispered, though her body arched infinitesimally back into his.
“Why?” His hand slid lower, cupping her mound through her—through nothing. She was naked. He was naked. His fingers combed through her damp curls, finding her folds still swollen, tender from his attentions. He groaned softly. “You’re still so wet.”
“Liam,” she breathed, but it was a protest without conviction.
He pushed a thick finger inside her, and her breath hitched. It was an obscene, intimate exploration in the clear light of day. He worked her slowly, his palm grinding against her clit, until she was panting, pushing back against his hand. He added a second finger, stretching her, a blunt reminder of how he’d filled her last night.
“I can’t get enough of this cunt,” he muttered into her hair, his voice thick with sleep and desire. He fucked her with his fingers, the wet sound obscenely loud in the quiet room. She came quickly, brutally, biting her own fist to stifle her cry as her inner muscles fluttered around his thrusting fingers.
When she went limp, he withdrew his hand, brought his fingers to his mouth, and sucked them clean with a low, appreciative hum. Then he rolled her onto her back. His eyes were dark, focused. He didn’t ask. He simply hooked her knees over his shoulders, lowered his head, and put his mouth on her again. This time it was slower, more thorough, a luxurious re-mapping of her terrain. He licked and suckled until she was shaking, until she came again with a broken sob, her hands fisted in his sleep-tousled hair.
Only then did he move up her body, lining himself up. He pushed into her in one smooth, claiming stroke, seating himself so deep she could feel him in her throat. He held still, buried inside her, his forearms braced on either side of her head, his gaze locked on hers.
“Still real,” he stated, his voice raw.
She nodded, unable to speak, overwhelmed by the fullness, by the daylight on his face, by the sheer undisguised need in his eyes.
He fucked her then with a steady, grinding intensity that felt like a conversation. Each thrust was a question; each gasp she made was the answer. He watched her face the entire time, learning what made her eyes flutter shut, what made her mouth fall open. When his rhythm faltered and his thrusts became ragged, she wrapped her legs tighter around him, pulling him deeper.
“Come inside me,” she heard herself whisper, the words shockingly filthy and utterly sincere.
A shudder wracked his frame. With a guttural sound that was half-groan, half-her name, he obeyed, spurting into her in hot, pulsing jets. He collapsed atop her, his weight a sweet, crushing anchor.
They lay like that for a long time, slick with sweat, listening to the gulls cry outside. The world, and all its complications, waited on the other side of the door.
The kitchen smelled of stale coffee and lingering bacon grease. Chloe was at the counter, viciously scrubbing a frying pan. Ben was conspicuously absent. The sliding door to the deck was open, the sound of the waves a serene counterpoint to the tension thickening the air.
Dizzy, showered and dressed in yesterday’s shorts and a tank top, hesitated in the doorway. Liam was right behind her, a solid, silent presence.
Chloe turned. Her eyes were puffy. She looked from Dizzy’s carefully neutral face to Liam’s guarded one, then back again. “So,” she said, her voice too bright. “You two are… talking now?”
Dizzy moved to the fridge, needing something to do with her hands. “Something like that.”
“I heard talking,” Chloe said, putting the pan down with a clatter. “Last night. Through the door. A lot of… enthusiastic talking.”
Liam leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed. He said nothing.
Dizzy felt a flare of defensive anger. “You were listening?”
“The door doesn’t latch, Diz! It was either listen or stand guard in the hall so Ben’s uncle didn’t walk in on… whatever that was.” Chloe’s composure cracked. “I was worried. You went from looking like a hostage situation to… to…”
“To fucking on the other side of a broken door,” Liam finished, his voice flat. “We’re aware.”
Chloe flinched. The word, in his calm, deep voice, seemed to land in the sunny kitchen like a physical blow. She turned her hurt eyes on Dizzy. “Is this… is this okay? With you? Because it doesn’t look okay. It looks intense and… and a bit scary.”
The concern was genuine, and it pricked at Dizzy’s heart. This was Chloe, who’d dragged her out of depressive slumps with junk food and bad movies, who’d tearfully confessed her own fears of being too much. She was trying, in her clumsy way, to protect her.
Before Dizzy could formulate a response, the orange juice carton slipped from her fingers as she pulled it from the fridge. It hit the linoleum with a wet thud, the cap popping off, a river of cheap pulp beginning to spread across the floor.
“Shit,” Dizzy muttered, bending over at the waist to grab it.
Her shorts, loose and sleep-softened, pulled tight across her backside. She was acutely aware of the position, of the fact she wore no underwear beneath the thin fabric. She fumbled for the carton, the sticky juice coating her fingertips.
She heard Liam’s sharp intake of breath.
Then his hands were on her hips, warm and certain through the cotton. He was behind her in two swift strides. Chloe’s gasp was a sharp punctuation in the room.
“Liam, what—” Dizzy started, but the words died as his fingers hooked into the waistband of her shorts and her panties—the same ones he’d torn last night—and yanked them down to her knees in one brutal motion. The morning air was cool on her exposed skin.
“You see this, Chloe?” Liam’s voice was low, charged, directed over Dizzy’s bent form. He wasn’t asking. He was showing.
His palm came down on her ass cheek, not hard, but a firm, possessive slap that made her jolt and gasp. Then his hand slid between her legs from behind. She was still tender, wet from him. He plunged two fingers into her cunt without preamble, a blunt, shocking invasion. Dizzy cried out, her hands slapping against the sticky floor for balance.
“She’s still dripping from me,” Liam said, his voice rough with a dark pride. He worked his fingers in and out of her, the sound lewdly wet in the quiet kitchen. “From how hard she came on my cock this morning. You hear that? That’s my doing.”
Dizzy was pinned, exposed, her face burning with a cocktail of shame and breathtaking arousal. She could see Chloe’s frozen shadow on the floor, could hear her friend’s shallow, shocked breaths. Liam’s fingers curled inside her, finding a spot that made her vision blur. A moan was torn from her throat.
“This isn’t scary,” Liam growled, his movements becoming more purposeful, fucking her with his hand. “This is her. Wanting it. Wanting me. You set this up, Chloe. Now you get to see how well it worked.”
He scissored his fingers, stretching her. Dizzy’s knees trembled. The humiliation was a live wire, but the pleasure coiling in her gut was stronger, fed by his audacity, his raw claim. She was pushing back against his hand, seeking more.
Chloe made a small, choked sound. “Dizzy…?”
It was a question, a plea for denial.
Dizzy, her forehead now pressed against a sticky lower cabinet door, turned her head. She met Chloe’s wide, stunned eyes. She didn’t speak. She just let the moan building in her chest escape, low and desperate, as Liam’s thumb found her clit and pressed hard.
It was all the answer Chloe needed. Her shadow vanished from the floor. The patio screen door slid open and shut with a decisive click.
Alone in the kitchen, the sound of the waves rushed in to fill the space Chloe had left. Liam didn’t stop. He drove her with his hand, relentless, until she shattered, her orgasm a silent, convulsive wave that left her shaking and weak against the cabinet. He held her through it, his fingers still deep inside her, his other hand anchoring her hip.
When she could breathe again, he slowly withdrew. He gently pulled her shorts back up over her trembling legs. Then he turned her around. Her back was against the counter, the edge digging in. Juice was smeared on her hands and knees.
Liam’s face was stripped bare. The fierce possessiveness was still there, but underneath it swam a vulnerability so deep it stole her breath. He looked as shocked by his own actions as she was. He cupped her face, his thumbs wiping at tears she hadn’t realized were falling.
“Tell me that was okay,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “Tell me I didn’t just…”
She leaned forward, closing the distance, and kissed him. It was salty, messy, and tasted of her own arousal. An answer more profound than words.
From the deck, through the screen, they heard Chloe’s voice, thin and strained, talking to Ben down on the sand. “…and he just had his hand… and she was… and I didn’t know what to…”
Liam rested his forehead against hers. Their future, the fragile new thing between them, now sprawled in the sticky mess on the kitchen floor, witnessed and questioned. The ocean kept sighing, indifferent. The clock on the microwave ticked forward.