Page 100 of Veiled in Brick

I looked up to him, and he trailed his nose from my forehead down to my cheek, kissing the side of my face with smiling lips.

“No?” he asked, his voice full of a sleepy grit. “Kinda hard to fool around if I’m sleepin’.”

“I wasn’t planning on that,” I admitted quietly.

Liam stilled for a moment, and then pulled away from me to glance at my expression.

“Wait, wait,” he leaned back, throwing an arm overhead to reach for the lamp on the bedside table, and turned it on. Ambient light flooded the room from the small bulb, and Liam looked at me, perplexed. “What d’you mean, you weren’t planning on it?”

I exhaled. “Don’t make me say it.”

“Weirdly enough,” Liam joked, “I’m not a mind reader, so…ya kinda have to.”

“I came in here to sleep.”

His eyebrows flew up. “Well, now I’m awake. You wanted to sleep with me?” I nodded into his chest again, unable to look into his questioning eyes, and he mocked me in a gentle, adoring tone, “First the I want to be with you comment, now this—what, are ya goin’ soft on me?”

I muttered a, “Maybe,” that was almost entirely muffled by his skin on my lips. I kissed his pectorals a few times and asked, “Are you?”

He looked down to me, silently beckoning me to angle my face to his with his lack of a verbal response. His dark eyes held a contented gaze, and his mouth crooked up in the tiniest of grins.

“Is it not obvious?” he whispered, and I shook my head. His nose brushed against mine, and my eyes fluttered closed at the feel of it as he murmured, “You’re my home, Zoey. I’m a hell of a lot more than soft for you.”

His quiet confession whilst being tangled in his arms hollowed me out—cracked my chest open—carved his name on my insides. And though there were moments in which I had felt as though my feelings for Liam were lost within a burn that I couldn’t suppress, they paled in comparison to what was currently roaring around me. I was gone. It went against everything that I had ingrained in my individualistic fuck men mentality that I had built for myself over my entire life, but I knew. I knew that I loved Liam Cohen.

I brought my hands up into his hair and pulled his face to mine, our lips brushed together, and as I felt his vocal cords rumble in his throat in a satiated hum, I pondered if I had, in fact, turned to ash. Singed past the point of recognition only for me to blow away in the wind—and I found that even if I had, I wouldn’t have cared. Our tongues slid against each other’s as the kiss deepened, and, having willingly accepted my cremation of sorts, I moved against him greedily.

Liam pulled away from me with a wry smile, noting in a single breath, “Thought you wanted to sleep.”

I dragged my mouth to his neck, his five o’clock shadow gloriously scraping against my lips as he tilted his head back.

I rapidly replied, “Change of plans.”

I nipped at his pulse point, his hum vibrating through his skin and onto my mouth, and his hand grasped at the material of my shirt, tugging it gently upwards in a silent suggestion to remove it. I begrudgingly took my mouth away from his neck, sitting up to pull the top over my head. I threw it to the floor with every intention of doubling back to once again feel his heartbeat tickle my lips, but I didn’t have the chance to. Our roles were quickly reversed, and Liam was now working his way down my neck with his tongue. I tangled my hands in his hair once more, ushering him to the spot between my clavicle and my throat. I sighed, and he lingered there until my hips were rocking forward and back with the expectation of a friction to appease me.

His mouth traveled down to my breasts, trapping my right nipple and trailing his tongue over it languidly.

“Lia—”

I had begun to moan his name, but his hand was promptly placed over my mouth. His dark, heavy-lidded eyes glanced up at me.

He whispered with a wicked smile, “Don’t wake the house, Sweets,” and went back to work.

I laughed softly. The endearment matched Liam’s persona somehow, and, because I knew that he did see me as sweet when so many others didn’t, I found it settling over me like a warm blanket. My initial chuckle turned to a tremble as Liam tugged at the waistband of my shorts, moving them just enough to place his hand against my clit and circle it gently.

The, “Ah,” that burst from me was muffled, and his grip squeezed at my jaw.

His fingers entered me, stroking me in a come hither motion that made my eyes roll into my head, and he moved his lips from my nipple to my ear.

“Does that feel good?” his deep voice rumbled, and I nodded. He bucked against me in time with the thrusting of his hand, his erection hard against my hip, and I groaned into his palm. He cooed, “Shhh,” and removed his fingers from me.

I whined a quiet, “Come back.”

He brought up the two fingers that were glistening with my arousal and placed them in his mouth, eyeing me with a scorching gaze as he sucked at them. Truthfully, I could have come from the sight of that alone, and the look on his face showed that he was well aware of my appreciation of the gesture. Smug, the corner of his lip pulled up in a lopsided, pleasure-induced grin, and his wet fingers moved down to his briefs, yanking them away.

I pulled my left leg out of my shorts and bent my knee over his hip, Liam angled himself toward me and touched his forehead to mine, and when he pushed into me, both of our bodies froze. The pleasure of the action was intense, as it usually was, however at the moment that we joined, the bedframe creaked loudly—so loudly that the concern of being heard was a valid one.

“This won’t work, will it?” Liam breathed.

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