Scoring Wilder(49)

My cell phone rang from the passenger seat, but we both ignored it. He tilted his head toward me and gently skimmed his lips along mine. It wasn’t a kiss, it was an invitation. He wanted me to make the first move, so I pressed against him, the force of my kiss pushing his head back against the seat. He moaned just loud enough to drive me crazy. I pushed my hands under his shirt feeling hard, coiled muscles beneath my touch. I'd never been with a guy like Liam. He made Josh and Trey look like boy scouts. My hands kept drifting higher over his abs and I could feel his chest tightening in response to my touch. I loved it.

Then my cell phone rang again and I broke the kiss with a heavy sigh.

"What the hell?" I reached over and grabbed my phone. BECCA flashed across the screen and I instantly stilled.

"What's up?" I asked as soon as the call connected.

"Jeez! Answer your phone quicker, lady. Are you guys still outside? You need to move or duck or something. I just saw Tara leaving the house a second ago. She walked past my window, but I’m not sure where she went after that. Maybe she got into a car or something."

"Crap," I said, quickly scrambling off Liam's lap and sliding down in the passenger seat so that my head barely met the base of the window. "Do you think she saw me leaving?"

"I have no clue, but you need to be more careful. This isn't a game." I know she was watching out for me, but her warning made me mad.

"I'll be back in a second," I answered, and then ended the call abruptly.

"What's going on?" Liam asked with concern. His eyebrows were drawn together and his brooding expression was back.

I explained what Becca had just told me.

"I haven't seen her," he answered, quickly glancing around his car.

"Well, we were occupied. She could have already walked by. Shit," I mumbled, trying to stay calm. Becca's words kept replaying in my mind. This isn't a game. This isn't a game. She was right, so why couldn’t I bring myself to stop playing?

"It'll be okay, Kinsley. I'm sure we're overreacting. There’s no way she followed you. No one is that insane."

I nodded but stayed silent. Was this worth it? Was the anxiety worth the ten minutes that I could sneak into Liam's car and be with him? What kind of relationship is that?

But then I glanced toward him. He was facing me, his hands were clenched into fists, and everything about him was wound tight. He was absolutely breathtaking with the streetlight seeping in through the window behind him. I could just barely make out his smooth jaw, the disheveled hair, the piercing eyes. I realized in that moment that I was helpless in deciding my fate. There wasn't a single cell in my body that would let me walk away from Liam Wilder without a fight.

Even if I ended up fighting myself.

"I'd better go," I mumbled.

He nodded and I could see his jaw tick back and forth. "Are you okay? I can walk you back?" I knew the situation was killing him as much as it was killing me. What kind of guy wanted to take a girl on a date in his car and then watch her walk home by herself?

“You’d better not,” I said, shaking my head.

"I'm going to drive by in a minute to make sure you got inside okay," he stated. I knew he thought I was upset with him still.

I pushed off my seat and leaned forward to give him a goodbye kiss. It caught him off guard at first. Maybe he wasn't expecting one. My lips pressed against his and then in an instant his hands were in my hair, my hands were gripping his neck, and we were both ensuring the other didn't pull away. We poured all of our worry and angst into the kiss. His tongue demanded entrance and I tilted my head to get a better angle. He sucked my bottom lip into his mouth until I whimpered and kissed him harder.

When I pulled back my lips felt swollen and tender. We stared at each other, our desire written across our faces, but neither of us said a word.

It felt like I needed to say something, something to confess how I felt for him, but we both knew. It was apparent in everything we did.

"I want to tell you I like you, but that seems dumb, like it's not enough," I admitted before turning toward the handle of the car.

Liam reached over and touched my hand to stop me. "I know," then he paused, thinking it over, and repeated his words, "I know."

…



The rest of the weekend passed quickly. Liam had a photo shoot in New York so Emily, Becca, and I stuck close together. We went to the beach Saturday morning with a few other girls from the team. Everyone laid their towels in a row and pulled out a magazine or book. Becca was the only one brave enough to test the waters. I stood on the shoreline, dipping my feet and ankles into the icy water.

Josh texted me a few times over the weekend. I never responded to any of them because I knew that he wouldn't move on if I didn't nip it in the bud. I'd tried to be nice to him in the beginning, but the longer he tried to win me back, the more I realized I couldn't give him an inch or he'd take a mile.

Saturday night Becca got a text from Penn.

It was the holy grail of texts. We squealed over it for twenty minutes before realizing that she had to formulate a response back to him. He was taking it slow and steady, asking her about her day and how her week of practice had been. I'd explained his situation, that he’d just left a long-term relationship, and Becca seemed more than happy to take it slow.