“No, I’m not.” He stood, brushing invisible lint off his shorts before tugging at his linen shirt. “But the most important person to me in the whole world is, and she deserves better.”
“Is she happy?” Ella asked quietly, the knots that had unraveled beginning to bind themselves all over again just behind her belly button.
Liam slipped his sunglasses on and looked at her, eyes blocked by the dark lenses. “If he’s not good enough for her, if all he’s doing is riding her coattails to fame and fortune, does it matter?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but he waved her off, spun and, with a spine that appeared totally unbending, stalked away.
Despite the fact that he couldn’t hear her answer, she offered it anyway. “I’d be willing to bet it matters the world to her.”
Liam stomped into the bungalow, his insides a bloody riot of opposition. He wanted to throttle himself for thinking he could disrupt a wedding by giving poorly placed and outright gaudy suggestions.
He wanted to strangle Mike Feigenbaum when he got off the plane. Liam would send the body to some remote region to be dumped. He had the funds to pay people who knew people.
He stumbled to a halt. Sweet mother of God, what was he thinking? He’d never order a murder even under the worst of conditions.
Doesn’t this qualify—breaking a deathbed vow?
He shook the thought off and then stilled as he realized what he really wanted to do: grab Ella Montgomery and run. He wanted to stay in bed with her for a week, to talk and make love and order room service and, shockingly, talk some more. Everything about her calmed him. She was the counterbalance to his personal crazy, and he craved her nearness, hungered for her touch, longed for the scent of her perfume on his pillow. All that and more. So much more. Emotions he refused to look at head-on and was unwilling to name thundered around him in a war chant, demanding he take up the fight to win her, claim her and, above all, keep her.
But it would never happen. Liam wasn’t programmed for happily-ever-afters. Hell, he was trying to stop that very thing from happening because if life had taught him anything, it was that fairy tales were best suited to paperbacks and afternoon matinees. They didn’t hold a place in the real world becausethey weren’t real.
He’d seen friends marry and divorce and become bitter shells of their former selves.
He’d seen heartbreak and hurt in abundance, but never had he seen that thing called love,romanticlove, rise above any given situation and conquer all.
It simply didn’t happen.
Loyalty was a far more desirable trait. Tangible. Reliable. Measurable.
Liam rolled shoulders gone tight with that bevy of emotions. What lay ahead of him was a combination of obligation and love of family. That kind of love could be compared to loyalty, and Liam was comfortable with that. It was, after all, the characteristic he valued most.
The latch on the door snicked open, and Liam turned, expecting housekeeping. What he found was a wedding planner, arms overflowing with fresh flowers and a flush of sun on her skin.
“Hey. I wanted to tell you I didn’t mean for us to part like that earlier. I really—oomph!”
He crossed the room and pulled her into his arms, crushing delicate blooms between them so that the spicy fragrances swirled around them like nature’s perfume. His mouth found hers and swallowed her gasp of surprise even as one hand grabbed her ass to pull her closer and the other hand relieved her of the floral bounty. One word repeated through his mind.
Mine.
There were whispers of other words, words he’d spent the last hour denying.
Liam didn’t care.
The only thing that mattered was finding the solace he’d been so sure he could do without. Solace only this woman offered him. He needed it like a diver needed air.
Their tongues dueled in the most intimate dance—thrust, parry, retreat. She met him move for move, never backing down, never giving him permission to take the lead. No, not this woman. She was fierce. A woman who held her own, and he found her strength, her determination, her give-as-good-as-she-got absolutely sexy as hell.
Her hands went to his chest and yanked at his shirt. Buttons flew, plinking across the hardwood floor. She shoved the destroyed garment off his shoulders, her hands roving over his upper body with a possessiveness he’d never cared for...until now. She nipped his bottom lip before breaking the kiss, her mouth tracing his jaw, down his neck, between his pecs—all with stinging nips followed by soothing kisses.
A wildcat. That’s what she was.
And he loved it.
Reaching his pants, she made an inarticulate sound of frustration when the tie at his board shorts knotted. He tried to help, but she pushed his hands away. Warm feminine hands and nimble fingers slipped underneath the waistband of his shorts and the fabric slithered down his legs, setting his cock free.
Ella dropped to her knees and, before Liam could say a word, she took the length of him in her mouth. Deep, so deep. The head of his cock bumped the back of her throat and she hummed around him with pleasure as he shouted out the same. She swallowed his length even deeper, cupping the ridged underside of his cock with her tongue as she worked him slowly, so slowly. Then she eased off and started all over again.
Clever fingers slipped up his legs, higher and higher until she parked one on his thigh for support and the other—