The Chatsfield Short Romances 6-10

Liam hesitated and her smile felt frozen as she waited for him to tell her that the jig was up. ‘Of course.’

Chloe felt her shoulders sag as she followed him toward the makeshift bar against the back wall. Lucky she’d never wanted to be a double agent, this whole lying business was far too stressful.

And it was lucky that Liam was interrupted by every person he walked past either with a pat on the back or an attempt to engage him in earnest conversation because it gave Chloe a chance to pull herself together. She was completely out of her depth trying to play some sexy seductress who could handle a man who was so potently, so dangerously, male he made every one of her feminine hormones sit up and beg for his attention.

He turned towards her as she was berating herself for being so affected by him and handed her a highball glass. ‘Sorry about all the interruptions. Maybe we should go somewhere more private.’

Oh, yes, they definitely should.

‘No.’ Chloe cleared the squeak out of her voice and sipped her water. ‘I love parties.’

His gaze was penetrating. ‘Really? You don’t look like you’re enjoying this one. You look like you’re waiting for someone to pounce on you.’

Chloe swallowed and tried to come up with some witty repartee about him pouncing on her when she was jostled from behind. Her hand came up as she tried to stop herself from falling and somehow it managed to mould itself to his hard, muscular chest. She could feel the outline of his powerful pecs and a flat male nipple beneath the fine fabric of his shirt and when she brushed over it she heard his swiftly indrawn breath and felt her own body tremble in response.

The beat of his heart was like a jungle drum beneath her palm, matching her own, and in an instant the world shrank to the tiny space they occupied in the buzzing room. When her eyes rose up to meet his she completely lost her train of thought at the fierce expression she found there. Sexual desire hummed between them and in that instant Chloe knew for sure that Liam Hunter wanted her. The knowledge was heady. Intoxicating.

Who was to say she had to dump him before she’d seduced him anyway?

His hand clamped around her wrist, pressing her palm harder against his body and her brain went into free-fall. She’d never had sex before, but she wanted to. She wanted to know what all the fuss was about. So far she’d never met a man she could trust enough to give her body to. But trust wasn’t an issue between her and Liam Hunter because she already knew he couldn’t be trusted. She also knew that the sex would be phenomenal. There was just something in the way that he moved – the innate grace of a man comfortable in his own skin. Of a man who knew his way around a woman’s body. But could she do it? Have sex with Liam Hunter and walk away? It would no doubt be a bitter blow to his ego if she announced who she was right after. Oh, yes, then he would feel like an idiot. He would know she had used him as he had used her. That–

His chest muscles flexed beneath her hand drawing her eyes back to his. The predatory intent she saw there made her feel like Red Riding Hood facing down Mr Big Bad I’m-about-to-devour-you-in-one-bite Wolf.

Chloe took a gulp of her water. Maybe she was out of her cotton-picking mind to think she could go through with something like this.

Chapter Five

Liam knew if he moved a muscle right then every person in the room would have their phone cameras out snapping pictures of him having sex with Chloe Tyler against the bar. Come to think of it they probably already did have their phone cameras out and he took in a long, fortifying breath and reluctantly dragged Chloe’s palm from his overheated chest.

He knew he’d deluded himself that he’d only invited Chloe to a party to connect with her and to ease his conscience. He wanted to ease a lot more than that and he wanted to do so inside her hot body. And if he wasn’t mistaken she wanted the same thing. He’d always sensed that there was something special about Chloe Tyler and it was all he could do not to kiss that plump lip she kept gnawing on as she gazed up at him with those big innocent blue eyes.

When her fingernail raked across his nipple again he nearly jumped out of his skin for the second time. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t that innocent after all.

His eyes dropped to her magnificent breasts and he almost groaned out loud when he saw that her own nipples were hard little points like his. God he wanted to touch them. Lick them. Suck them. Taste them.

He wanted to tease her sweet mouth until she opened for him and let him take whatever he wanted. Everything, his brain whispered. Yes, he thought, he wanted everything from her and he didn’t care if that had never happened to him before. It was happening now and it felt right. Liam had never ignored his gut instincts except that night he’d completely failed her. He hadn’t meant to hurt her back then but would she believe him and, more importantly, would she forgive him?

I thought you were going to apologise, his conscience reminded him. Show her you’re not a grade A asshole anymore. Show her that you’ve changed.

Yes, good point. Apologise first. ‘We need to talk.’ His voice sounded like it had been coated in gravel and now that he’d given free rein to his feelings he was so hard he wondered if he wouldn’t break the zipper on his jeans. He took her half-drunk glass and dumped it on the bar. ‘Come with me.’

Fortunately she didn’t argue as he grabbed her hand and all but dragged her towards the only room in the suite he could be guaranteed privacy.

Pushing open the door to his bedroom he nearly changed his mind when he saw the romantic setting that confronted him. Softly lit lamps beside the turned down bed. Champagne in a silver ice bucket with two flutes and a large bowl of chocolates beside it. And were those… his eyes narrowed. Shit, Noelle had left condoms on the bedside table. Liam grimaced. His PA wasn’t known for her subtlety and by the tension radiating off the woman beside him she didn’t appreciate it either.

‘Nice touch,’ she said in a voice that could have restored some of the ice caps in the Arctic Circle.

‘This isn’t what it looks like,’ he said, wincing at the lameness of that statement. This was exactly what it looked like and more.

***

Chloe wondered if this romantic scene was really set up with her in mind or whether, from Liam’s earlier comment about wondering if she was going to turn up, he had in fact picked up someone else at the party and intended to bring them in here. The thought was an immediate dampener to her overheated system. ‘Really? What does it look like?’ she asked archly.

He ran a hand through his hair and left it gorgeously rumpled. Chloe walked over to the chocolates and… condoms? ‘Nothing like being prepared,’ she said more determined than ever to go ahead with her original plan.

‘I told my PA that I might bring someone back after the party and she… well, she’s a frustrated event manager and she tends to run with an idea until she gets to the next city.’

Chloe stifled a surprised laugh. She was so not going to find him amusing. ‘I’m sure she’s done this before,’ she said, ‘and she has great taste in chocolates. You should think about giving her a raise.’ She had wanted her voice to sound light and mysterious – as if this whole seduction scene was exactly what she wanted from him – but somehow the words sounded choked and unsure as her nerves once again set in.

‘I’ve never asked her to do anything like this.’ His smile was a little self-mocking. ‘I’ve never thought that I might need champagne or chocolates as props before.’

Of course he wouldn’t need them and they both knew it.

Chloe pressed her feet more firmly into her stilettos and felt them sink further into the plush carpet and tried to imagine it was a certain part of his anatomy. She could hear the faint sounds of partying beyond the closed bedroom door and prayed that no-one would come in and find them together. Being humiliated by Liam Hunter for the second time was not on tonight’s agenda.

Which brought her mind back to what was on tonight’s agenda which had nothing to do with the hot sex that kept replaying inside her head. And maybe now would be the perfect time to reveal who she was and reject him. But somehow the words wouldn’t come and before she could take another breath Liam was directly in front of her.

She was nearly at eye level with him thanks to her heels but he was just so big and broad he still made her feel small. Feminine. She met his gaze at the same time as he took her face between his warm hands and brought his mouth to hers.

Shocked, her heart beating ten to the dozen, Chloe didn’t move, her whole body alive to nothing but Liam Hunter’s sweet, soft kiss.

Before she could lose herself in it he pulled back, his tongue gliding over his lower lip as if savouring the taste of her. Dazed, she let him take her hand and tug her forwards until he was sitting on the great bed with her stood between his spread thighs. They weren’t touching but the chemistry was like a buzzing force field between them and when she looked behind him she saw the line of his broad back in the full length mirror with her hovering before him. Her eyes fell to the back of his head and the broadness of his shoulders until the stroke of his fingers over her knuckles brought her attention back to his face.

‘I wasn’t going to bring any other woman back here. I wasn’t even sure I would bring you back here but I’ve wanted to kiss you since I saw you in the interview room and I couldn’t wait any longer.’

Chloe felt dizzy and wished she had the courage to plunge her fingers into his thick hair and test its weight, its springiness. This close she could smell him and when he inhaled deeply she realised he could scent her as well. The sexual attraction that had betrayed her when she was eighteen seemed to have doubled and her heart fluttered as she tried to block out the emotions urging her to once again throw caution to the wind. And she might have even succeeded if Liam hadn’t placed his large hands either side of her hips. ‘I know we should talk first, Specs, but I feel like I might die if I don’t touch you. If I don’t see you.’

Shockingly, Chloe felt the same way and her sense of self-preservation seemed to get further out of reach the closer she got to him. All she wanted to do was touch him and kiss him and have him do the same to her. Have him… suddenly his words – the name he had called her – permeated her fogged brain. ‘You called me Specs.’

‘Yeah.’ He smoothed his hands down her thighs as if he adored her shape. ‘Whatever happened to those cute glasses you used to wear? If I remember rightly you were legally blind without them.’

Not really hearing him above the roaring of blood in her ears Chloe stared at him completely dumbfounded. ‘You know who I am.’

His eyes narrowed as if he was trying to work out the answer to a complex puzzle. ‘Ah, yeah. Was I not supposed to?’

‘When? When did you figure it out?’ she demanded.

He cocked his head and his brow furrowed in that cute way that made him look like he wouldn’t hurt a fly. ‘The minute I saw you outside the hotel. What’s going on?’ His frown deepened. ‘Were you actually trying to pretend to be someone else?’

‘No,’ she snapped, smacking the palm of her hand against her forehead. How was it that she kept making such a colossal fool of herself in front of this man? ‘Your PA got it wrong not me.’

‘So why didn’t you correct her?’

‘I didn’t see the point. I wasn’t expecting to see you for more than five minutes.’

‘Ah,’ he looked at her with a combination of guilt and wariness. ‘And you weren’t going to tell me.’

‘Why bother?’

Liam’s mouth flattened into a straight line. ‘I have to say I’m struggling to get my head around this.’

His firm gaze swept over her, reminding her that she was still standing between the legs of a guy she was supposed to be rejecting. She was truly pathetic. ‘I have to go. Excuse me.’

Before she could move Liam snagged her wrist. ‘Chloe?’

She shook him off. ‘How could you know it was me? I look completely different now.’

‘No you don’t.’

Chloe stared at him. Was he suggesting she still looked as bad as she used to?

‘Fiery red hair, incredible blue eyes with tiny gold flecks, long legs. Breasts.’

Chloe tried not to feel warmed by his words and scoffed. ‘All girls have breasts.’

‘True, but since moving to Hollywood I’ve learned that not all girls have real breasts.’ Chloe felt her cheeks heat as his eyes dropped to her cleavage. ‘I always thought you had magnificent breasts.'

Appalled by how affected she was by his words, how aroused, she just wanted to run away and hide. Forever this time. She stepped back from him again. ‘Please Liam. I know what you want but I don’t want it.’

‘Not now that I know who you are, you mean.’ His eyes grew as stony as chipped emeralds. ‘Tell me, what were you going to do, Chloe? Have sex with me as Candy and then bolt.’

‘No.’

‘What then?’

Chloe squared her shoulders. ‘I wasn’t going to have sex with you at all.’

‘Ah.’ Somehow he’d moved so that he was standing in front of her again, his chest inches from her own. ‘Payback then.’

‘It’s no less than you deserve,’ she felt stung into retorting.

‘I know.’ The anger she had felt in him moments ago ebbed away. ‘I was an utter jerk to you back in high school, but I didn’t invite you up here to have sex with you. I invited you here so that I could apologise.’

Chloe scrunched her brow in confusion. ‘So what was all this?’ She waved her hands in the direction of the champagne. The chocolates. The condoms. ‘If you don’t want me then it really was for someone else.’ She knew she sounded accusing but she was so confused by her own rioting emotions that she was struggling to think clearly. ‘This was never for me, it was–’

‘Chloe, I do want you. Hell.’ He grabbed hold of her elbows. ‘Dammit, would you stop trying to get away from me and listen.’

‘No.’ She shook her head violently, determined not to embarrass herself any more with him. ‘I want to go. I don’t want this.’ She forced herself to hold his stare. ‘You. I don’t want you.’

‘I’m sorry, but it was you who stroked my chest before.’

‘It was an accident.’

His look told her he knew that had been no accident. ‘You did it twice.’

‘I have to go.’

Liam tightened his hold on her. ‘Stay.’

Chloe looked at him and knew that years of hurt and humiliation were reflected in her blurry eyes. ‘You had a bet with your friends that you could make me fall in love with you,’ she cried.

‘Yes. And I’m sorry I did that to you.’

His honesty and the sincerity of his apology floored her and it must have shown because he laughed. ‘You weren’t expecting me to confess my part in it?’

No she wasn’t.

‘I admit that I initially invited you out as part of a dare,’ he began slowly, ‘I was… I was messed up at the time but I promise you that I had nothing to do with the proposal or the video. In fact I had my father take it down from the internet as soon as he could.’

Chloe wrapped her arms around her waist. ‘So your friends improvised. Big deal. I’m over it. I’m over you. I’m over your pity.’

‘What pity?’

Chloe really didn’t want to have this conversation but she only had herself to blame because she’d started it. She’d come here on some stupid mission for revenge that she should have known she didn’t have the wherewithal to pull off. ‘The pity I saw in your eyes the moment I threw my arms around your neck and said yes, I’ll marry you.’ She gave a self-deprecating laugh that rang hollowly in the quiet room.

‘That wasn’t pity you saw in my eyes’ Liam said quietly. ‘That was regret over my actions.’

She made a noise in the back of her throat. ‘God, I must be the village idiot. How could I have ever thought…’ She checked herself and shook her head, her hair falling around her face in soft waves. ‘Please forget you even know me and we’ll call this the end of it.’

‘Dammit, Chloe, I do not pity you.’

‘Sure.’

‘I’m serious about seeing you again. In fact I want you to come with me to the premiere of Time Could Wait tomorrow night.’

‘Your movie?’

‘Yes.’

‘The one that will be lined with about a gazillion women all screaming your name and throwing knickers at you.’

‘They don’t tend to do that anymore. And some will be screaming Bethany Lord’s name, but yes. That one.’

Chloe wanted to she realised. Really badly. Which was a very good reason why she shouldn’t. ‘No.’

‘Give me one good reason why not?’

Liam had widened his stance as if he was going into battle and Chloe wished for one brief moment that all that hard male perfection could really be hers. ‘Give me one good reason why I should?’ she countered.

‘I want to see you again and tomorrow I’m busy all day in radio interviews and then I have to fly to Paris for the next leg of the junket.’

She shook her head. ‘And what if someone recognises me from that awful prank?’

‘Then I’ll tell them what a stupid jock I was.’

‘And damage your pristine reputation?’

‘I don’t care about my reputation.’

Chloe knew her scepticism must have shown because Liam ran his hand through his hair in frustration. ‘I don’t. I learned a long time ago that if you valued the opinion of others above your own then you would be unhappy and make everyone else around you miserable as well. Sometimes you have to seize the moment.’

Chloe felt her throat tighten up at the thought. ‘See now I sort of did that once and it didn’t work out so well for me.’

Embarrassed and upset she turned to go and felt Liam’s fingers fix onto her waist from behind, preventing her from leaving.

‘Don’t leave like this, Chloe.’

She stilled. ‘You have a party to attend to.’

‘No, I don’t. I only have you to attend to.’

***

Liam felt Chloe go utterly still and his gaze dropped to where his hands circled her waist. His thumbs were pressed against the pearl like bumps of her lower spine, his fingers spread out over her warm, soft belly. Chloe’s body trembled beneath his hold and it was all Liam could do not to haul her back against him and show her just how much he desired her. But this had to be her decision, not his.

‘Stay.’

His breath stirred the tendrils of hair at the nape of her neck and he couldn’t stop his need to press his mouth to her bare shoulder and bite down gently. She gasped and jerked against him and his hands tightened on her waist to hold her steady.

‘Liam.’

His name was a decadent whisper on her lips and her hips vibrated beneath his touch. God, he wanted her right now. He’d give up almost anything and everything to have her. ‘You know I got a ninety five in English senior year because I remember almost every syllable that came out of your pretty mouth,’ he murmured, laving the space he had bitten with his tongue and breathing in her heady, musky scent.

She turned within the circle of his arms and he let his hands slide around her as she did. Her hands rose to his shoulders and when he saw the naked flame of desire darkening her irises he felt a thrill of victory flood through him. ‘You did?’

Liam gave a husky laugh at her guileless expression. ‘Yes, I did.’ His hands smoothed over her back and he stepped closer to her. ‘I want you Chloe. I want to kiss you and lick you all over and then I want to make you come until you can’t even remember your own name.’

‘I…’ her throat bobbed as she swallowed and he pressed his lips to the pulse point throbbing just beneath her delicate skin. She moaned and gripped his shoulders more firmly and he stroked his lips up her throat and sealed his mouth to hers in a kiss that didn’t even pretend to be tentative.

Immediately her tongue wrapped around his at the same time as her hands forked into his hair, the movement flattening her firm breasts to his chest.

Liam growled low in his throat like a wild animal that had been kept locked in a cage for too long. His mind had already forged past the idea of foreplay and had him opening her legs so he could plunge inside her.

‘Liam.’ She writhed against him as if the same desperate need that was driving him was driving her as well.

Muscles bunched he lifted her, carried her to the bed and laid her down. Her long hair spread out on the cream bedspread like a red flame and Liam came down over the top of her. He balanced his weight on his elbows and their eyes locked together. For a minute he felt slightly unsteady. ‘Are you sure about this, Chloe?’

Her smile was steady and clear and beautiful. ‘Yes. I don’t care about the past or the future just… touch me, Liam. Please. And don’t stop.’

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