Unplugged (Blue Phoenix, #3)(13)

Cerys takes my hand and moves it away. “I’m fine. I can sort myself out. Once Christmas is over.”

I try really, really hard but fail and my gaze wanders downward again, to her open jacket and the soft swell of her amazing tits. Jewellery free. She tugs her blue top upwards. Crap, now I’m in trouble.

I look up and attempt an apologetic look. “I guess I can’t say I was staring at your necklace this time?”

“No. I lost the necklace.” She touches the space on her neck where the heart pendant always hangs.

“Shame. It was pretty.” She laughs at me. “What?”

“Pretty useful because you could stare at my tits and pretend you had an interest in jewellery?”

I smirk and feign insult. “No, as if!” Cerys raises a ‘yeah, right’ eyebrow. “Was it special? You always had it on whenever I got to admire your… jewellery.”

She can’t help but join in the smile but her eyes tell a different story. “Yes, it was special. I think I lost it when I went out with Lou last night. I feel a bit naked without it.”

Shit, don’t say ‘naked’ when I’m currently trying to keep images of a naked you out of my head.

“Ah, last night.”

She purses her lips. “What’s that mean?”

She doesn’t remember, obviously. Those lips – plump, inviting… I wish I’d kissed her. “Nothing.”

“Why are you looking at me like that then?” she asks in a low voice.

f-uck it. “Because I want to kiss you.”

I expect her to look away, blush, or walk straight out of the room. She doesn’t and her deep brown eyes reflect my own desire.

“Why?” Cerys asks.

“I don’t know.” I groan. “That sounded bad.”

The unspoken between us continues to reflect in Cerys’s eyes. “I don’t know why I want to kiss you either.”

I cross the last of the space between us and rest my forehead on hers; aware the speed of her warm breath matches mine. “Maybe because it’s wrong?”

“Maybe.”

“But we should do it anyway?” I ask.

The long pause. Is she battling the same as I am? “Maybe.”

Cupping Cerys’s chin with my fingers, I tip her face and place my lips on hers. There’s a hesitancy that worries me, from both of us. My mind says ‘gentle’; but when Cerys presses her mouth harder, I know I’m gone. My body wins and I drag her hips toward mine, pushing my tongue into her mouth. Cerys makes a small noise as she welcomes my deeper kiss, and I hear the juice cup hit the floor as she winds her fingers into my hair and presses herself into me. Her soft lips and her sweetness have a power over me that’s going to hurt because I want her more than I’ve wanted anything or anybody for a long time, and she’s not mine.

This is turning me the f-uck on, I’m hard against her hip, and if I sneak a hand beneath her clothes to touch her skin, I’ll want to consume her like all the girls before. But this kiss is different; this kiss consumes me.

Heaving back self-control, I tone down the kiss and wrap Cerys’s small figure in my arms. I’m lost in a strange unity I didn’t expect. Kissing her is like coming home; warm, familiar and, even though we said it was wrong, the most natural feeling in the world. Cerys relaxes into me, letting go of the tension she carries everywhere and intensifies my need to take care of her.

Cerys pulls her head away and touches my lips. “That didn’t feel wrong.”

“No.” I move her fingers and attempt to catch her mouth with mine again but she steps back, unwinding my hands from her waist.

“Ella.” Cerys tips her head to indicate her daughter.

“She’s asleep,” I whisper.

“I don’t want her to see me kissing someone who isn’t her dad.”

I cringe at the reality. Okay, Cerys isn’t married; but five years is a long relationship, longer than any I’ve had. I rub my thumb across her cheek. “I want to take you out, somewhere Ella can’t see us kiss.”

“I don’t think that’s very realistic, Liam.”

The fuzzy, happy feeling retreats as quickly as it came. “Why?”

“A few reasons, Liam, think about it.”

How can she snap back to logic so easily? “So the kiss was wrong?”

The sound of the front door opening shifts our focus and Mum calls a greeting upstairs. With the first family member home for the evening, I know this is the end of our conversation, and whatever happened here. The doorway we stand in faces the top of the stairs. Downstairs, Mum hangs her coat, and before she turns, I reluctantly move away from Cerys.

Ella isn’t the only one we don’t want aware of our kiss.

CHAPTER 7



LIAM



The next morning, I’m woken by Ella screaming and charging around the house. After half an hour trying to ignore the noise, I head downstairs. An apologetic looking Cerys almost bumps into me as I walk into the lounge.

“What’s going on?” I ask. “It’s 6 a.m.!”

“She’s getting excited about Christmas. I promised her I’d take her to see Santa today. Big mistake.”

Ella walks in, wrapped up in her blue puffed jacket and scarf, one shoe on and the other in her hand.