Page 24 of Stronger Than Love

“What’s going to happen now?”

“No idea, why don’t we just enjoy the moonlight?”

My fingers clung to his arms as we stayed wrapped around each other. Why could I never find this level of comfort with anyone else?

When the sun started to break the horizon over Burr Point in the distance, Liam dragged both of us off our rock to wander toward home.

“I thought you didn’t want to talk to me,” I accused in a small voice.

His sigh sounded like it was from the depths of his soul. “I don’t, but my body has different ideas. It was as if it knew you were there waiting for me on the rock last night. I was never able to resist you, even when I was five.”

“I don’t want to fight, Liam. I stayed away from home for ten years.”

He tucked a wayward strand of hair behind my ear, his face serious. Somewhere in the past decade he’d lost all the softness of his youth and in its place was masculine hardness.

“Truth or dare, Oonagh?” Liam stared at me with an intensity that make my legs weak.

The truth could destroy what remained of my heart. “Dare,” I whispered, staring out toward the ocean.

“Have dinner with me tonight. You can say what you want about the past, and then we’ll bury it so we can both move on. Deal?”

“You make it sound like an invitation to a wake,” I tried to joke.

A sad smile flitted across his full lips. “Maybe that’s what it is. We can’t keep tearing each other apart with secrets and misunderstandings. This is the last summer I’m coming back here. In the future, I’ll travel.”

I chewed the inside of my mouth, trying to keep the despair that I felt inside. “One last summer,” I finally agreed. “One more time of being Liam and Oonagh.”

Summoning my courage, I held my hand out to him. He studied it for several seconds before his fingers wrapped around mine. “Are there any rules to this agreement?” he asked in a low, husky tone.

“Such as?”

“Are there any benefits?” His head canted slightly to the side as he watched me.

My lips pursed together before I finally brought my gaze up to his. “Doesn’t every friendship have benefits to it?”

What the fuck was I doing?

A sensual smile curved his mouth. “My friendship with Niall doesn’t have the same sort of benefits as I want with you.”

Why did he have to be so hot and tempting? Why could he not have aged badly and have a nasty temper? And why did my body respond only to his?

I could do this.

One summer to get him out of my system for good.

One summer to mend my heart and make me whole again.

The tiny voice in my head whispered that if I gave him one summer, he’d walk away with my whole heart this time…

***

Chapter Eleven

Oonagh

I was more nervous than a schoolgirl going on her first date. This was Liam, the man who knew all my likes and dislikes, and all my most sordid secrets. Yet, my stomach was in knots and my head was pulsing with an impending headache.

A week ago, I believed that Liam had deliberately and callously broke my young heart and left me alone and pregnant. Now, I realised that he wasn’t the villain of our story, but that in my naïve innocence, I may well be the person in that role. Several times already today the story of Liam being taken to Callum’s bedside in a police car tormented me. I should have been there beside him.

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