Crack In The Ice - Chapter 41: Chapter 41

Liam's lips taste the same as they always have.
They feel the same against mine as I remember. I can feel his hand at the back of my neck where it's been countless times before, and despite the cold flash of fear that swept over me when he turned to go, I think this has to be a good sign.
When we part, I see a fire burn in the deep blue of his eyes that makes my stomach clench. Over Liam's shoulder, like a sobering bucket of freezing cold water, I catch a glance of Owen's arched eyebrow. I can't process that beyond merely registering the observation, though.
The awareness that Liam and I are not the only ones in the room, and are in fact surrounded by people, struggles to reach the front of my mind. I think I hear flashes and a buzz of voices, but it reaches me like slightly toned down background noise.
I feel the strong hand that wraps around my arm and forcefully steers me through the crowd toward an exit. It's all I can do to grab Liam's hand and pull him with me. He doesn't resist.
We are hauled into a side hallway of the arena. The hand around my arm disappears and then my coach is in my line of vision saying a lot of words. He opens a door to usher us through it.
"They're getting a car ready and you're both getting in it," his voice finally forms clear words in my head.
I squeeze Liam's hand and feel him squeeze back just as we're both put into a car.
I think we drive around for too long. Maybe intentionally. But then we're at an underground parking lot of the hotel we're staying in and we enter an elevator that takes us straight to my floor. Liam follows me into my room.
When I close the door, it all catches up to me.
I feel a little lightheaded so I lean against the wall. Closing my eyes, I try to breathe deeply, in through the nose and out through the mouth. I repeat it a few times until I don't feel like the floor is tilting underneath my feet.
When I open my eyes again, Liam is standing there. The room comes into focus.
"Right. So." He sounds cautious. It brings me back to a night years ago, when I dragged my sorry, not-nearly-drunk-enough ass to his room in a cry for help. He was cautious then too. Choosing his words carefully.
I'm not sure how I feel about seeing that look in his eyes once again.
He lets out a breathy laugh, one hand going up to take a fistful of his short hair. "I have no clue what the fuck just happened, so I need you to talk to me," he says. "Tell me what you need."
I pull away from the wall and kiss him.
Liam lets me. He kisses me back, without trying to take control. His hands come to my sides and something kindles inside me. He trails his hands up over my shirt to my shoulder plates, then in through the shoulders to slide my jacket off. I let it fall to the floor before walking him backward against another wall. My fist fills with the thick cotton of his sweater.
A sound rumbles in his throat. One of his hands tightens around my hip while the other cups around my neck, taking control. I feel it all dissolve. The tension around my neck and shoulders. At the pit of my stomach. Deep in my chest. Liam's taking over now, and that always works for me.
That heat inside me swells and a breathless sound escapes my mouth as his teeth graze my jaw.
"Shit. This is really not what I had planned."
Liam stops. His hands stay on me, but his mouth is not. I feel cold where it left me.
"What did you have planned?" He asks, with swollen lips and unsteady breath.
"I was going to talk to you," I say. Because I was. I ran it over with Owen and Olie, so they could force me into following through if I chickened out.
"I had it all figured out," I say. "I even prepared what I was going to say to you, and exactly how I was going to say it."
"Say what?"
I gulp. "That I love you. And that I want to be with you." Then after half a second of doubt, "If you still want me."
Liam's lips part.
I think my heart skips a beat.
Then he's on me again.
He grabs my face, kissing me with an urgency that wasn't there before. I wrap my arms around his waist to press him against me, even as he walks me backward farther into the room.
One of his hands ventures down to crawl up the hem of my shirt, but finds its way block.
"Shit," he hisses against my lips, tugging at my tucked-in dress shirt. "This needs to come off."
"What?"
"All of it."
He manages to release my shirt from my pants, but then his fingers fumble with the buttons. I chuckle into an increasingly sloppy kiss and he groans.
Gently, I pull his hands away so I can take care of the buttons myself. Liam watches my hands while I watch his face. At the shadow of lust I see settle over his eyes, I slow down on purpose. Trying to hold his gaze there. Reaching the final button, I let my shirt fall open and his eyes lift to meet mine. My breath hitches.
Liam licks his lips, holding my gaze, breaking the contact only to pull his t-shirt over his head. Following his lead, I pull my shirt off my shoulders while he starts unbuckling his belt. Slowly, piece by piece, we undress in front of each other.
Fully naked, he steps up to me, laying a hand on my face. "Bed," he whispers.
I don't need telling twice.
In a horizontal tangle of limbs, we fall on the mattress. Heat touches me where our bodies come into contact. It almost feels like too much, but also nowhere near enough.
"I want you," he whispers into the skin of my throat, answering the concerns I voiced earlier..
"I want you," he whispers into my collarbone, lips brushing my skin.
"I want you," he whispers, mouth trailing a wet path down my stomach.
And I believe him.
I believe he means it. I believe it's not too late. I believe we can still be together.
He comes back up to kiss my neck and I melt. His arm hooks around one of my thighs, pulling it up, and I have no more mind of my own. My body is Liam's for the taking.
Feeling too warm in my own skin, I hear myself repeat those three words I should have made myself say to him much, much earlier.
"I love you too," Liam says, kissing my cheek.
Slowly, he crawls back down my body. He mouths at the inside of my thigh and I feel it in my stomach. Tight and coily and hot. Deep desire, but all the rest too. Like giving myself permission to admit my feelings to him made them blaze stronger than ever.
A choked sound gets stuck in my throat when he takes me in his mouth. He doesn't seem to be in a hurry. His movements are slow and deliberate. Because he knows my body better than anyone else. We've spent years getting intimately acquainted with each other. Every dip and crevice. Every ridge and corner.
But now that I have him here, I don't want to be tortured into a half-satisfying end. I want all of him.
"I have stuff in my bag," I say, sliding my fingers through his hair.
Liam looks up at me. His eyes are nearly black. "Where?"
I point to where my unpacked duffel bag is carelessly thrown on the floor. Liam gets up and I miss the heat of his body immediately. Searching between my stuff, he finds the bottle of lube. No condoms. But we ditched those a while back.
"How do you want to do this?" He asks.
"I want you inside me."
His grip on the lube tightens and I see his jaw tick. "Don't you have another game soon?"
"I'll be fine," I tell him, sitting up slightly and leaning on my elbows. "Come here. Please."
"Fuck," he croaks out, rushing to his hands and knees over me.
He kisses me, all tongue and teeth. It's been a while for both of us.
I mean. I didn't ask, but I don't think he's been with anyone else since me.
"Is it too hot?" He huffs, feverish lips taking their fill of my neck. "God, it's so hot."
"Liam. Just get on with it."
"Yes. Fuck, yes. I'll do that."
He barely lifts his lips off me as he pops the lube open. My body greets him with some resistance, because it's been a while. But it's Liam, so it's fine. My body knows his touch, no matter how long it's been. And the slight sting of intrusion barely registers over the feeling of his lips wreaking havoc on my chest.
He's gentle and patient. Twice he has to stop because I get to close to finish before we even start. When I tell him I'm ready, he doesn't retreat his fingers right away. Like he's enjoying it just as much as I am.
When he sinks into me, I think maybe I could have used some more preparation. But we both need this too much. His lips stop what they had been doing until now and his head falls forward, nestling into the crook of my neck. Like it's all too much for him. Like he can't focus on both tasks at the same time anymore.
Without really thinking it through, I roll us over until he's flat on his back. This is new. For both of us. Before I can overthink it, though, I roll my hips to meet his. Liam's head sinks into the pillow, tilting so far back his neck strains. I want a taste so I lean down to get it. This gives him room to meet my hips halfway and we find our rhythm like this.
Everything goes hazy for a minute, because it's too hot. I think I can hear him breathe out my name, but he could just be mumbling indistinct sounds. Eventually, I must lose control over my movements, because he sits up, wrapping an arm around my waist while his other holds both of us up.
"I'm almost there, baby," he whispers into my ear.
When we finish, it's mere seconds away from each other. Liam has flipped us at some point before it happens, so he can collapse on top of me after. I wrap my arms around him to keep him there.
He said he wanted me, but I still want to make sure his body doesn't go away from mine.
We lie there, sweaty and tangled, flushed and spent, until we're not breathless anymore.
He doesn't roll away after we've cool down. Not immediately. He stays there, lying on top of me, my arms around him and his face tucked into the space between my neck and my shoulder.
I let one hand trail up to get in his hair.
"You still alive?" I whisper.
He groans. "I dunno. Check."
I snort.
Liam lifts his head to look at me. His hair his mussed up, his tan skin tinged a faint red still, and his lips bright and shiny. He looks like fucking sex impersonated.
"Fuck, you look so fucked out," he says to me.
I smile. "You should get a mirror."
"Yes, please," he says. "Let's do that next. Always wanted to try mirror sex."
Laughing is hard with him on top of me, weighting down on my chest. Looking somewhat begrudged, even through his smile, he rolls off without going far.
"Is that a no on the mirror sex then? Or just a maybe?"
"You're an idiot."
He grins. "An idiot you love," he drags out the word. "That's what you said. Can't take it back now. There were witnesses and all."
As though summoned by those last few words of his, I hear my phone vibrate in my pants pocket. The smile falls off my face.
Taking note of the shift in my demeanor, Liam's playful expression slowly melts into that cautious look from before. When he gets up, I want to tell him not to, but the words don't come out. He walks over to where we left my pants and his jeans and fishes out our phones.
When he hands me mine, I can see it must have been vibrating for a while, even if we didn't notice it. Too many notifications stare back at me from my blocked screen. When I look at Liam, his phone is in his hand but he's watching me instead.
"So?" He tries, looking like he's ready to either comfort me or be kicked out.
Taking his hand, I pull him back into bed with me.
"I'm not checking," I say.
A crease forms between his eyebrows. "Shouldn't you, though?"
Yes, I should.
"I don't want to," I say, turning my phone off just as it starts vibrating again.
"Eli."
I discard my phone onto the top drawer of my nightstand. Out of sight, out of mind.
"Eli," Liam repeats.
"What?"
"Ignoring it won't make it go away," he speaks softly.
"I know."
When that doesn't wipe away the concerned look from his face, I huff.
"I do, okay? I know," I say. "But I don't want to look just yet. This got messier than I intended and I'm not ready to..." I bite my lip. "Not yet, okay?"
"Okay," he says slowly. "When?"
It takes me a moment. "Twenty-four hours."
"What?"
"Twenty-four hours without phones," I say, looking at him. "After that, I promise I'll check all the notifications. And I'll deal with whatever needs to be dealt with. But can we get twenty-four hours first?"
Liam looks at me like he's searching for something. I don't know if he finds it, but eventually I see him turn off his phone.
"Fine. Twenty-four hours."