As much as I’d wanted to watch him finish himself off, my morals had finally kicked in. It had been wrong to look in the first place, but now, it was all that played in my mind while I slid two fingers deep inside myself and worked myself to the brink.
My right hand moved to my heaving breasts and squeezed while I quickened my movements with my other hand, which had just struck gold. With Liam on my mind, our hug from tonight in my heart, and my fingers in my pussy, stars burst beneath my squeezed eyelids. I came alive.
11
Liam
When I knocked on Chelsea’s door in the morning, she was all ready to go. She stepped out and turned to lock her door. Damn, was my first thought.
She was dressed in white jean shorts that showed off her perfect sun-kissed legs, a pale-blue T-shirt that was tucked into her shorts, and tan sandals. Her hair was down and lightly curled around her shoulders, and the only touch of makeup she appeared to be wearing was a layer of gloss on her lips.
She carried a small backpack that she threw over her shoulders then smiled. “Ready to go?”
“Hey. That was my line.”
Chelsea stepped forward with a little laugh, placing her sunglasses over her eyes and walking past me toward the gate. “It’s mine now.”
That exchange was my first clue as to how the day would go. Flirtation. It was right where we’d left off last night, and right where we would pick up that day.
“How’d you sleep?” I asked once she was buckled in the driver’s seat.
I swore her cheeks darkened a shade. “Fine. And you?”
I studied her face a little longer, confirming a blush was creeping up her cheeks. It could have meant anything, but I wanted to imagine Chelsea getting naughty after I left last night. I sure as hell had. After all the sexual tension that had been suffocating us during our drawn-out goodbye, I couldn’t have gone to sleep without a little release. Chelsea had no idea the effect she’d had on me since I’d met her.
My lips twitched with amusement. “I was pretty wound up, so I worked out a little, then I slept like a baby.”
If she had turned to look at me, she would have seen the sly smile on my face, a tell that my workout consisted of one hand and thoughts of the bombshell in the driver’s seat. But she didn’t turn, so my secret was mine to keep.
She drove us to the same area we’d parked the other day for lunch, then we crossed the street to the entrance to Waterplace Park. We walked along the river and then across it, finally settling under a tree where she pulled out a blanket and laid it down for us to sit on.
“Another beautiful day in Providence. We never luck out with weather like this back home.”
“Really?”
“Not for this many days in a row. Have you ever been? To London?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never left this area.” Then she smiled at me sheepishly. “Sad, I know, but I’ve never had a reason to go.”
“You don’t need a reason to travel other than to want to experience life. C’mon, Chelsea. You’re a writer. You can’t possibly tell me you’re not curious about the places you write about.”
She laughed. “Sure, but there’s this thing called the internet. I can look up pretty much anything, and that’s just as good.”
I could feel my eyes bulging in my head. “I can’t believe I just heard that. You’re honestly telling me that you’re not learning anything more right now by sitting under this tree than you would watching a streaming video site?”
Chelsea shrugged, and her smile faded. “Sometimes that’s as good as it’s going to get, and some of us have to be okay with that. My parents traveled plenty, but they never once took me on vacation. I paid for college on my own, which meant I didn’t have a single dime to spare.”
“Wait a second. Your parents didn’t help you with college?”
She shook her head, seeming confused by my surprise. “My parents are comfortable and happy, but they don’t make a lot of money. Besides, a lot of my peers had to pay their own way. That’s what loans are for.”
“But you dropped out of school?”
“It’s complicated.”
I folded my arms across my chest and grinned. “I’ve got time.”
Smiling, she shook her head and started to tell me the short version of her college story. “I got a late start at school. After high school, I didn’t have any desire to go to college, so I took up odd jobs just to afford a small room in a house I shared with three other girls. After a couple of years, I felt unsettled and kind of guilty for not going to school like my parents had always encouraged me to, so I got my associate degree at a community college then moved on to a four-year college to get my bachelor’s in communications. When I still hadn’t decided what to do with my degree, I continued on to get my master’s in business. I took up nannying full-time to pay for what I could, so it was taking me forever to earn my credits. Eventually, I realized that I would rather nanny than go to school. Thirty credits shy of graduating.”
She laughed, but I couldn’t find the humor in what she was telling me. I always wished I had pursued higher education in something, everything. And there she was with nearly three college degrees she’d paid for and earned on her own. No matter what she wound up doing, she would always have her education.
She sighed. “Anyway, two months ago, I dropped out.”
“To write?”
She nodded, holding her notebook tighter to her chest.
“Can I read something?”
She looked down at my sketchbook. “Only if I can look at what you’ve drawn.”
I grinned, ready to accept her challenge with a little twist of my own. “I have a better idea.” Then I stood, dusted off my khaki shorts, and pointed to the tree across from her on the other side of the trail. “I’m going to sit over there and sketch. You’ll be here writing. When we’re done, we’ll show each other what we worked on.”
For a second, she just looked at me like she didn’t know whether I was bluffing or not. Maybe she was scared to actually go through with it and show me something she pulled from that beautiful brain of hers and put onto paper. Eventually she nodded and mumbled something like “Okay.”
My tree was not nearly as comfortable as the one she’d chosen. Hers seemed perfect for lounging, while mine had roots growing all over the place above ground. Eventually, I nestled into a spot, which I made a home of for the next few hours as we worked in silence. Every now and then, I would look up and catch her staring off into space. She was beautiful in those quiet moments, and with each glance, I grew more eager to look at what she was scribbling in that tiny blue notebook. Every so often, she would catch my sneaky glances with one of her own, and her cheeks would blush in response.
I must have checked the time over a dozen different instances, hoping for the excuse to break for lunch so we could meet up again. She was the one to make the first move. After shoving her blue notebook in her bag and standing up, she walked halfway toward me, and I met her in the middle. I offered her my sketchbook so she could look at what I’d drawn.
She shook her head. “I need a drink first. Lunch?”