When They Weren't Looking: Wardham Book #3 (7 page)

Her face, mostly in shadows now, tipped up and her eyes searched his face. “Because?”

It’s the right thing to do
seemed like the wrong thing to say. It felt wrong, too. It wasn’t what he’d rehearsed, but the truth surged up from his core and he let it out as he leaned closer and brushed her cheek with his free hand. “Because I think we could be really good together. Better than good. Awesome, in fact.”

She caught her next breath and held it for a moment before carefully asking, “What are you doing?”

“Asking you to marry me, Evie. I know it’s slightly out of order, but I’ll make it work.”

“Oh, Liam.” She slid toward him on the couch, letting his hand drift back into her hair. The silky slide of the blond strands over and around his fingers stirred a physical response that he couldn’t wait to act on. At least they wouldn’t have to worry about chemistry. That was as good a foundation as any to build a relationship on.

She stopped a few inches away and slid her hands over his shoulders and up his neck to cup his face. Her eyes moved up and down, searching his face before she parted her lips with a sigh.

“Are you insane?”

Uh…his brain actually stuttered for a moment, then blanked completely, like a systems reset. He blinked twice, and when he refocused on her face, the romantic diffuse lighting had faded to a somber dimness. Shit.

“You don’t know me. I don’t know you. We’ve had one good chat, one night of good sex, and a bunch of awkwardness in between. That you think we should get married just underlines that you are living in a fantasy world of lunacy.” Evie pursed her lips together and took a deep breath. He thought for a moment that she might snap his neck, just to be done with him, but then her grip on his face eased and she dropped her hands back to his shoulders. Her gaze remained firmly on his face, though, a reminder she was in charge of the conversation. “Listen to me carefully, Liam. There is nothing romantic about what’s going on. I got knocked up. I’m going to get fat. I’m going to have a baby,
your baby
, and that’s going to be difficult and awkward, and eventually expensive and awkward, and one day you’ll marry someone else and have other babies of your own, and I’m going to hate you at that point, because you’ll start skipping weekends with our kid, and I’ll be left explaining why. Between now and then, we’ll have some good moments, too, because we’re going to share a unique bond, you and I. But don’t think for a minute that I’m going to let myself imagine that bond to be anything other than biological.”

He was with her until she took a leap into the future and turned him into an asshole. Okay, so proposing had been the wrong idea. He’d known that, and done it anyway. And he noted for the future that romance wasn’t the way to win Evie over—check. But he wasn’t that guy she already hated a little bit, never mind whatever would come later. “No.”

“I’m sorry?”

He reached between them and placed his hand vertically over her lower belly. Hard to imagine a baby growing in such a small space. The heel of his palm rested just above her pelvis, and the flare of anger in her eyes told him he was on thin ice touching her there, or anywhere. His fingertips rested on her sternum, and he pressed gently, a reminder that he wasn’t trying to cop a feel. “Our bond isn’t
just
biological. You don’t know what it is, yet. Neither do I. I know that every time I’ve seen you since I arrived in town, I’ve wanted to throttle you one minute, then press you up against the wall and kiss you senseless the next. It’s an uncommon feeling for me, and I think I like it. And Evie?” She raised her eyebrow in skeptical, silent response, but her shaky intake of breath gave her away. He leaned closer, sandwiching his hand between their bodies. “I think you like it, too.”

He dropped his mouth over hers, mostly because he’d wanted to kiss her for days, but also to ensure she didn’t snap back a witty response right away. He didn’t normally care about being overtly in control of situations, but with Evie, his inner caveman came roaring to life.

He meant it to be a simple kiss, a promise of future opportunity, and that’s how it started. He brushed his lips over hers, then back again, before settling right in the middle, enjoying the plump fullness of her bottom lip between his, then below. The soft cleft that hid secret, warm pleasure. He swelled at the memory of her eager kisses that first night, but tonight wouldn’t be a repeat, so he moved to ease away, only Evie’s hands tightened around his neck, holding him next to her face.

“Hang on a second,” she whispered. “Let me just…”

She licked her lips, their faces so close together he could feel the moist pink tip of her tongue swiping between them, and then it was her turn to close the gap. But her first effort wasn’t sweet or promising. It was hungry, and hurried. She laved her tongue across the seam of his mouth, and he opened for her with a groan. This was a terrible idea, but she tasted like heaven and he wanted more. He slid his hands around her waist, pulling her into his lap. Under his fingertips, her dress bunched up, and he knew if he skated his hand south, he’d encounter bare skin. The question of how much bare skin was burning through his mind, and between them, his cock went from alert to ready. Even as Evie ground against him, he knew they needed to stop—that she’d want them to stop, and soon.

But her mouth…

And that was as far as his mind got in the back and forth reasoning, because holy hell, her mouth was joy and angst and the very meaning of passion. So he let her take her fill, and in the process, he got Evie riding his lap, which he certainly hadn’t dared hope for. He just waited for the inevitable shove.

When it came, it wasn’t as forceful as he expected.
Promising
. She pulled back with a shaky breath, pressing her fingers to her mouth for a moment before speaking. “I didn’t know that you wanted to kiss me.”

“Did that remind you why I might have been thinking about it?”

She blushed. “This isn’t going to be a regular thing, me attacking you.”

“That’s a shame.” He eased her off his lap, ignoring his protesting dick, and lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles. “If you change your mind…”

“I really shouldn’t. It’ll just complicate things between us.” But the glint in her eye told him she was considering it. How long would he have to wait before the hormones kicked in? He feared it was longer than his body would find acceptable.

“Already complicated, sunshine. Might as well make the best of it.”

“No.” Evie couldn’t quite believe what she was about to do. Kissing Liam was like heaven coated in chocolate and peanut butter, and she was about to put a ban on it. “We can’t do that again. Not just
not regularly
. Not at all.”

“Why not?”

He was still stretched back against the couch, looking hard and sexy, and the woman in her asked the same question. But the mother in her pointed out that they would forever need to be civil, at the least, and hopefully friendly, and a doomed-from-the-start physical relationship would ruin the rest of it. The more important part of it. When he blandly shrugged at her pronouncement, she jumped up and paced to the kitchen.

He followed. Of course he did.

“Evie, what’s wrong?”

She’d opened the tea cupboard, because tea made everything better. After she grabbed the teapot and a box of chamomile, she turned slowly and laid it out, not looking at him because that made thinking difficult. “You. Sitting out there, standing in here, all calm and rational and at peace with the situation—”

“You just said three things that mean the same thing.”

“That’s…” She jerked her head up. “Is that a West Wing quote?”

He chuckled. “Look at how much we have in common.”

“What were you, like, five when it was on the air?”

He squared off his shoulders, successfully projecting a look of strength and…damn him, maturity, as if to underline the fact that while he might be a few years younger than her, he didn’t have a juvenile bone in his body.

And as he stood in her kitchen, silently chiding her for the unnecessary attack when he was being nothing but mature about this, this… She lay a protective hand over her tummy and his face softened. Damn him for being so nice. “Okay, that was uncalled for, I’m sorry.”

“I was a politics nerd in high school and university.”

“Oh.”

“I’m surprised you recognized the line, it’s pretty obscure.”

“It’s a memorable scene.” She muttered the lie under her breath, then sighed and met his unwavering gaze. “That I’ve seen half a dozen times.”

He tilted his head and furrowed his brow.

“You don’t have to look so surprised.”

“I’m not surprised you liked it. I’m trying to figure out when you had time to watch a seven-year TV series over and over again.”

“I was on bedrest a lot during my first pregnancy and spent the first three months with both boys nursing either in bed or on the couch.”
Sexy share, Evie
. Although maybe it would help convince Liam to stay hands-off.

From the look on his face, he was definitely concerned at the very least.

“What do you mean, bedrest?”

Oh. Again, with the nice and understanding. “ARGH!”

“Was it something I said?”

“It was everything you said, and everything you didn’t. Why aren’t you freaking out?”

“I’m sure I’m freaking out. On the inside. Deep down, buried under years of WASPy training by my mother. But my whiplash reaction to becoming a father is secondary to actually becoming a father, right? That’s going to happen. So I’d rather not get to that point and be unprepared. Or, god forbid, get to that point before that thing—” he pointed at her stomach “——is ready to come out. So…bedrest?”

“Uhm…I had high blood pressure with my first pregnancy. It’s part of what lead me to a healthier lifestyle, and I didn’t have any problems with my second pregnancy.”

He was nodding, but his attention had shifted to his iPhone. He was alternating between tapping and scrolling with his thumb, and after a minute he glanced up. “Pre-eclampsia?”

“Yes, in the end, but just a mild case.”

“Hmmmm.”

“What?”

“Are you going to have an OB consult?”

“If my midwife thinks it necessary, yes.”

He nodded. “Right.”

Right? “Since when do you know so much about…everything?”

“Since you told me you were pregnant.” He tucked his phone away. “Evie, I’m an information junkie. There’s nothing about your pregnancy that I’m not going to want to research.”

“Wait until I start bitching to you about being horny in a few months.” The words were out of her mouth before she realized who she was speaking to.

He tucked his thumbs into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, a grin dancing across his face. “The second trimester, right?”

“How do you know that?” She cringed as she heard her voice pitch up at the end. This conversation was not going at all how she’d expected. She was coming off like a nutbar and he was Mr. Know-it-all. She could not take another eight months of this. And then eighteen years after that… “Have you already researched daycare options as well?”

“No, of course not. I’ll do that closer to whenever we need daycare. Do you anticipate that’ll be soon after birth?”

She needed him to settle down. Like, completely. She held up one hand and bowed her head.

“Too much?”

“Way too much.”

He stepped back and angled his head toward the door. She nodded and followed him out of the kitchen.

At the front door, he started to speak, but cut himself off. She reached out and touched her hand lightly to his chest. Something flashed in his eyes, but she couldn’t figure it out before it disappeared again and Mr. Easy returned. She knew it was a mixed signal, but she couldn’t help herself.

“Thank you for being patient with me.”

He shook his head. “That’s not something to thank me for.”

“Yeah, well. I appreciate it nonetheless.”

Again, he shook his head, but cut himself off from responding further. Instead he reached out and squeezed her hip. The oddly intimate act made her chest squeeze tight, and she pressed her hand more firmly against him. Two points of contact. She’d set the rules, this was all they could have.

It wasn’t enough, and they both knew it.

CHAPTER SIX

“Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom.” Max took a deep breath. “Mom!”

“Mmmm?”

“She’s got stuff on her mind, buddy.”

That got her attention. “Connor, I don’t have anything on my mind.” Lying to her children. Great plan.

“Then are you just ignoring Max?” Ooooh, the cheek. He wasn’t wrong, but still. She gave Connor a hairy eyeball, and he turned his attention back to his dinner.

“I’m sorry, Maxster. What did you want to tell me?”

“Ask.”

“Ask?”

“I want to
ask
you something, not tell you something.”

God, grant me the serenity…
“Okay, what did you want to
ask
me?”