“You climax deliciously,” Liam breathed against her neck. His breath tickled. His musky masculine scent mixed with the fresh mountain air. “I’d like to hear it again.”
The full meaning of Liam’s words only registered in Jaz’s foggy mind when she felt him pull her shorts all the way off and kneel before her. Cool air touched her dripping sex, but with her arms restrained above her head and Liam pushing her thighs apart with his hands, she could do nothing to shield herself.
Her traitorous sex awoke to Liam’s touch, arousal rebuilding itself in slow, needy leaps. Liam brushed her folds. Up and down, up and down, flicking the right and left side of her clit until she was writhing with need. Oh God.
“Liam.” The word came out as half moan, half plea.
He put his finger at her entrance and slid inside her tightness, her channel clenching greedily around the intrusion. In and out, in and out. Despite the impossibility of it, the desire seizing every fiber of Jaz’s exhausted body kept rising higher and higher until her own muscles no longer heeded her control. She arched and bucked and writhed, all at the mercy of Liam’s hands. His mouth. His tongue, which now lapped away at the beading moisture around her clit. A little harder each time. Her heart raced, the inevitable abyss spreading wider and wider beneath her.
Then Liam put his lips right around her apex, and sucked.
Jaz fell into the gaping chasm, only to be caught, lifted, and sent off the edge again. Endorphins raced through her blood with dizzying speed, her unabashed screams filling the mountains themselves. There was no holding back. No restraint of sensation. Only world-spinning primal pleasure like she’d never experienced. Never even had known was possible.
17
Liam
Liam pulled Jaz’s small, exhaustedly limp body into his lap and cradled her against his chest. Bare skin against bare skin. Her flushed, sated warmth flowed into him through the coolness of the mountain evening. As Jaz’s eyes closed in relaxation, Liam swallowed too many emotions to sort through. Strong, competitive, independent Jaz had given him the gift of her trust, and the delicious response of her body had touched a void Liam hadn’t realized existed inside him.
He hadn’t felt this satisfaction with a woman in years. Hell, if he were honest with himself, he hadn’t felt like this ever. But this level of connection was also stripping him to the bone—because he shouldn’t have let it happen. Jaz had been tired and vulnerable, assaulted with guilt and uncertainty and fear. She knew little about the sensual games he took for granted. But he knew, didn’t he? Just as he knew that many powerful, independent women found erotic pleasure in giving up control. He knew it all, and he went for it anyway. Took advantage of her trust.
Because he hadn’t been able to help himself.
Liam settled the sleeping Jaz into her sleeping bag, and stroked her hair. She looked peaceful. Content. He couldn’t shut his eyes, though, not when he kept seeing her shatter with release each time he tried to. His cock was so hard and pulsing that it hurt to breathe from the pressure, yet he had to draw deep breaths just to ensure he didn’t come right then and there from memories alone.
She’d enjoyed herself. He’d enjoyed himself. Liam had no idea where it left him. Where it left them. Because this thing between them could never be more than just sexual pleasure. Jaz deserved better than that. She deserved love and a real relationship, one with a man whose heart was as open and generous as hers.
Liam was the dark opposite of that.
“Wake up, soldier.” Jaz’s voice penetrated through his deep haze some hours later, which was Liam’s first indication that he had, in fact, fallen asleep. Not just fallen asleep, but stayed that way the whole night. That was new.
He blinked and rubbed his face. “Not a soldier. I was in the navy.”
“Potato, potahto.”
“No, not really.” He sat up, studying her face critically. She’d probably want to talk about their extracurriculars last night, and he didn’t know what to say to her. With someone else, he might have offered compliments and discussed what parts they enjoyed the most, so as to know what to build on in the future. But in this case, there wasn’t going to be a repeat performance. “What time is it?”
“Seven.”
That late? Shit. He scrambled up. “You want tent or breakfast duty?”
“Like I’m letting you anywhere near the gear.”
“You just hate cooking.” He unzipped the tent and stuck his head out into the fresh mountain air they’d enjoyed a little too much last night. Making short work of donning his hiking boots, Liam brought out the small stove and decided on coffee and oatmeal with raisins for their last meal, while Jaz secured all the technical gear.
“Can I ask you something?” she said into his back.
Here it came. Liam’s shoulders tightened.
“Why were you such a jerk to me when you spent the summer with us?”
Liam twisted and stared at her incredulously. That was what she wanted to ask? Why he was a jerk all those ago, when tween Jaz wrote him a love letter? “Because I was a teenaged boy and an idiot. If it helps, I thought I was doing the right thing.”
She put a hand on her hip. “How is humiliating a twelve-year-old with a crush the right thing? After you showed that letter to everyone, I couldn’t look my brother in the eye for a year. Not to mention that my parents went berserk. They actually took my bedroom door off the hinges to make sure I wasn’t secretly sneaking boys in.”
Liam took out two bowls, poured in oatmeal, powdered milk, and raisins, and added hot water. “I was trying to protect you. You were growing up in Hollywood: best schools, extracurriculars, playdates, and tutors. When you live like that, it’s easy to think guys who take advantage don’t exist near you. But they do. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“So you hurt me instead.”
“Yep.” He turned, holding a conciliatory bowl of oatmeal toward her. “That about covers it. Would it help if I apologized now for how I went about it?”
She took the food. “Not really.”
“That’s what I figured too.”
She snorted and crouched down beside him to eat. “Why did you spend the summers with us anyway?”
“Didn’t get along with my mom and her boyfriends.” He let a corner of his mouth twitch. “I hear I was an asshole at that age, so perhaps that’s not so surprising?”
Jaz laughed, her bubbly, energetic voice filling the small clearing. She was so full of life, positive energy, and perpetual motion that it shifted the very fabric of a normal day. Jaz was the kind of woman who was the life of every gathering, while Liam was its warden.
They were already buckling on their packs when the topic Liam thought he’d safely escaped finally came up. And it started, unsurprisingly, with Jaz turning the shade of her neon-pink neckerchief.
“About last night,” she said, starting into a walk on a narrow trail that made eye contact impossible. “Do you think we could not mention it to Kyan? Or, well, anyone?”
“Given that I like my nose unbroken, I support that idea fully.”
The end of the first challenge was much less glamorous than the opening, the photographers apparently having gotten all they came for the first time around. Once Jaz got her debrief, an admonishment about confidentiality, and a banana, they were released into the wild. Sebastian had already been flown back, which left Liam and Jaz to get some rest and catch their flight early the following day.