Page 107 of Gravity of Love
“Abducted by aliens?” He did love that he never knew what Frankie would say, but this was really out of left field.
“Whatever yourdumbassreason was for not speaking to me. You didn’t answer my texts. My calls. That wasfuckedup. Do you know how that made me feel? And nowthis.” She waved her arm around the cabin as more tears fell down her cheeks, but she swiped them away and set her jaw, refusing to let herself collapse in front of him, voice quivering but stubborn. “You were with someone. You don’t have to lie. So, who was here?” Her words were shaky, but she forced them out anyway, as if willing them to hurt less by saying them quickly.
He looked at her, really looked, and saw the hurricane of emotions swirling behind her eyes. The challenge. The hurt. She held her head high and he could see she was bracing herself. Bracing herself for the inevitable pain the impact of his answer was going to cause her. The desperate hope that he’dsay something—anything—that would make this better. He was furious at himself for making her feel like he had. All the time he’d been selfish, protecting himself. Everything he’d accused his brother of, he’d done. He hadn’t considered what his silence was doing to her. He assumed she was busy, busy with Tristan, busy with Zion.
Taking a deep breath, he held her gaze and stripped away all his defenses.
“No one was here.”
She stared up at him, confusion clouding her gaze. “Then why were you in the shower?”
“I tried to help Athena off the dance floor, she got sick on me, your Aunt Joanna slipped in it and clocked me in the face, and I got a bloody nose. I came to take a shower and clean up.”
Her eyes turned from anger to worry in a single blink. She closed the gap between them, peering up at his nose as she lifted her hand. “Oh, my god, are you okay?”
His automatic response to being the subject of care or concern was to flinch and turn his head. He hated when people fussed over him. “I’m fine.”
Frankie took his recoil as a rebuke and retreated, her lips pressed tightly together, gaze dropping to the worn planks of the floor. It was the smallest movement, but the effect landed like a hammer blow in Liam’s chest. When she looked back up at him, he could see that there was a distance between them, not physically, but emotionally, that he’d created.
She was the most confident, self-assured, badass woman he’d ever known. She was Mighty Mouse. The fact that she’d offered him, with a look, a gesture, the softest underbelly of her heart, and he’d kicked it made him feel, once again, like the biggest asshole in the world.
He was used to being the person who had the walls up, who protected himself, it took him this long to see that Frankiewas protecting herself, too. Fromhim. That was the moment something vital broke loose inside him. He wasn’t going to let this be the day she gave up first.
The misunderstandings were over. From that night forward, Frankie wouldneverhave to question how he felt about her again.
30
Frankie stoodin front of Liam, her limbs trembling from a fatigue that went bone-deep, her head throbbing with a dull pressure behind her eyes. She’d used ‘coming down with a migraine’ as an excuse for leaving early, but it turned out karma was a bitch, or maybe she just wanted to help balance out Frankie’s truth-to-lie ratio, since the scales had been heavily tipping towards lie as of late.
The past week had hollowed her out, and now all that was left was an empty shell. She’d unwittingly gotten in line for the Emotional Turmoil Roller Coaster, before she knew it, she was strapped in, and no one had stopped the ride. She was mentally and physically exhausted. She was so tired that her typical instinct to crack a joke or throw up some kind of sarcastic shield was utterly absent. All she just wanted to do was go back to Yaya’s, crawl into bed, pull the covers over her head, and not move for a year, maybe two.
Instead, she waited in a face-off with the most emotionally unavailable man on the planet, and when nothing happened, it made her want to scream. Liam was a lone wolf. He always had been. She wasn’t going to beg him to let her care for him.His reaction to her, even trying to see his injury, spoke volumes about his feelings towards her. She wasn’t going to break herself in half just to prove that she loved him.
She took a step back, ready to leave, but he moved first, blocking her path. “Where are you going?”
“It’s none of your business,” she snapped, unblinking.
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not,” she repeated, less because she believed it and more because she needed to say it. If she said it enough, maybe she would believe it, and it would become true. Speak it into existence, wasn’t that one of those self-help sayings?
He loomed above her, studying her, eyes narrowed, maybe trying to figure out what she’d do next.
A quick sidestep failed when he anticipated her move and shifted his stance.
“You’re wearing my sweatshirt,” he countered.
For a split second, she thought he might be joking, trying to lighten the mood, but there was nothing humorous about his face. More important than the words that were coming out of his stupid, handsome, sexy mouth was the fact he kept playing defense. He stood between her and the door to freedom. His voice was calm and passive, but reading between the lines of his statement and stances, the message was very clear, “You’re mine, and I’m not letting you go.”
Every self-respect-cell in her body rebelled against that sentiment, for all the reasons she’d outlined to him. Her hormones, however, were of a different mind. This very scenario was every sensual fantasy, every romance novel come to life. The man of her dreams, the love of her life, was demanding her to stay, claiming her, albeit silently through body language, as his own, her lady parts were saying, “um…yes, please!”They were firmly Team Sexy Time, marching in protest of her ego, chanting, “Take Pleasure Now, Take a Stand Later.”
Luckily, her pride held the picket line of her sex strike. Her arousal, as strong and determined as it may be—and it was both—was not able to penetrate it, which stopped him from penetrating her. This was a penetrate-free zone.
If Liam thought, for even a nanosecond, that the fact she was nekkid beneath his dumb, amazing smelling, too-big, ultra-soft sweatshirt meant he had some kind of claim on her, then he must have forgotten who she was. If he thought she wouldn’t pop it off in front of him, then he clearly didn’t know her as well as he thought he did. If he thought she’d have an issue putting on soaking wet clothes and walking back out in the pouring rain, then he grossly underestimated her.
She stared at him, calling his bluff. When he didn’t move, she reached down, peeled off the sweatshirt, and let it fall to the floor with a heavy plop.
The air pricked her skin as she stood in front of Liam, naked as the day she was born. His eyes travelled over her, tracing every inch. Not in a sleazy way, but in the way a man stares at something he’s hungry for and trying desperately not to devour. Her nipples tingled as they puckered beneath his gaze. The flush of arousal that crashed over her, heated her from the inside out. She felt it spread through her like butter in a hot skillet but was determined in herself not to give in to the desires roaring inside of her. Her cheeks were hot and she was so turned-on she was pretty sure if she was rocking her Raggedy Ann costume right now, she wouldn’t need any makeup. Every second she spent in Liam’s presence was one more second he wore down her resistance. She was only human.
