Page 24 of The Wolf's Surrogate

Gray sweatpants on that man should have been illegal. He held a silver pan in one hand and a spatula in the other. Bacon crackled in the pan, pulling me the rest of the way out of my dazed slumber. As soon as my feet touched the carpet, I wandered in a trance across the room, tripping over my own damn boots.

I stumbled forward, stopping inches away from the pan. Liam tapped my chin with the handle of his spatula. “Damn, girl. If I knew that would get you up, I would have tried that twenty minutes ago.”

“What?”

“I tried to get you up, but…” His eyes narrowed as he glanced around me. “Mr. Fluffy over there didn’t want me to disturb you.”

I straightened up and fixed my romper. “His name is Memphis.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“What time is it? Where am I?”

He drifted back, allowing me room to step into the short hallway. Stairs led to the living room below where my memory came back in patches. Ugh, Phil had faced off with Liam. Liam had brought me here. I had fainted from nausea.

Embarrassment made me want to hide. But I was already halfway through the living room and heading into the kitchen where the delicious smell of breakfast invited me to sit at the table. There was a glorious spread in front of me—scrambled eggs, buttermilk biscuits, strawberries with yogurt, and toast. Pancakes were stacked on a smaller plate. Two glasses of orange juice separated the plates from me.

Liam wandered to the stove where he returned the bacon to the hot element. A few minutes later, he set the bacon on a toweled plate and brought it over to the table. He dropped intothe chair across from me and dug in, waving for me to do the same.

Nausea lingered from last night, twisting my stomach into knots. I reached for the toast first, trying to add a little butter to get my hunger going. Once I got that down, I went for the eggs, and eventually the bacon. I didn’t worry about filling up my plate or picking through my food. Liam seemed pleased with my appetite.

Honestly, he seemed pleased with me, period.

That was a nice feeling after such a hard night. “Is Phil okay?”

Liam promptly stopped chewing as he glared at me.

I looked down at my plate. “I mean…”

“Ani, it’s alright,” he whispered. “Yeah, he’s fine. I called my connections and he’s in the drunk tank.”

“But he wasn’t drunk.”

He shook his head. “You didn’t smell his breath up close.”

“Really? You sure?”

Stop it, Anita. You’re defending him.

I cowered away from my inner critic. While that voice didn’t come up very often, it never failed to appear when Phil was in the mix.

And unfortunately, Phil had most certainly been thrown into the mix.

Liam patiently lifted a napkin to his lips. “He’s not your problem anymore.”

“He hasn’t been for a long time. But—”

“No buts, Ani.” He rested his hands on either side of his plate while calmly holding my gaze. “Alright?”

I nodded slowly. “Alright.”

The smile that broke out on his lips made me burn, pine,perish. “Good girl.”

That was just plain rude. Ever since we met—ever since he casually pointed out how he liked my blushing—I had been a wet mess thinking about him. Hunks like him didn’t hit on chicks like me. It just wasn’t something that happened. People like Phil were a good case in point, because that man had been hotandmanipulative. It was like I couldn’t have handsome without the hurt.

Yet with Liam, I got everything that made my thighs tense and my flesh flare with goosebumps. Whole scores of them flooded my chest, turning my nipples into pointed nubs that yearned to be touched. The longer I stared at Liam, the more I wanted him.

And the more I realized I had to get that feeling under control before I made this situation infinitely worse.

---