Beautifully Cruel (Beautifully Cruel #1)(33)

I whisper, “Liam. Oh god.”

He rocks his hips against mine and sucks harder.

My nipples are so hard they ache. I want his mouth on those, too. And his teeth, that gentle bite. I need to feel the scratch of his beard against my most sensitive skin, hear that low, masculine rumble of pleasure go through his chest as he manhandles me with those big rough hands, moving me this way and that on the bed, growling filthy words into my ear as he drives into me.

Picturing it, a whimper of need rises from my throat.

He pulls away from my neck, grasps my jaw in his hand, and stares down at me with burning eyes. I’ve seen him on the edge of his control before, but never like this.

Breathing raggedly, he says, “Twenty-eight days.”

I blink in confusion. The room is spinning, I’m panting, and my heart is a hammer in my chest. What is he saying? Does he need a calendar?

“W-what?”

“I have to go out of the country tomorrow for three weeks. When I come back, I’m here for twenty-eight days until I leave again.”

I stare at him, not understanding his point.

Until he says, “I want us to be together for those twenty-eight days. I want you to stay with me at my home. To be with me all the time. To be mine. All mine, every minute, in every way.”

He pauses, then delivers the most shocking part of this proposal.

“Then we’ll never see each other again.”





13





Tru





Stunned, I breathe, “You want me to…”

“Move in with me.”

“For…”

“Twenty-eight days. Then leave.”

He stares at me with blistering intensity. A disbelieving little laugh escapes my lips.

He says, “I told you I don’t do relationships.”

“And this is your solution? A month of round-the-clock cohabitation, followed by permanent separation? It’s a little drastic, don’t you think?”

His gaze drops to my mouth. He growls, “I think it’s the only way for us both to get what we want without any lasting damage.”

I stare up at him. He can’t be serious. “Liam—”

“Yes or no. Decide.”

I arch my brows and slide my arms from around his shoulders, flattening my hands on the broad expanse of his chest. “And I’m the bossy one?”

“I need to know right now.”

“Why? Where’s the fire?”

Through gritted teeth, he says, “I can’t concentrate on anything else. Every time I see you, it gets worse. It needs to be settled.”

“It?” I say archly.

“Us.”

I study him for a moment, all his frustration and impatience.

I don’t feel a shred of pity for him, the arrogant ass.

“You know, this is how it is for normal people. The not knowing. The uncertainty. This is what most of us have to deal with in relationships all the time.”

“I’m not most people,” he growls. “And I don’t do—”

“Relationships. So you’ve said.”

Aggravated, I pull away from him. Turning my back, I fold my arms over my chest and glare at my bed. Why does he have to make everything so intense?

His voice comes very low from behind me. “Decide.”

I roll my eyes to the ceiling. “Can you give me a minute to catch my breath?”

“No. Decide.”

I turn around and look at him, standing there boiling with heat and danger, like a volcano about to blow its top. “If you want a decision right now, the answer is no.”

He falls still and glowers at me.

Heat creeps up my neck. “Oh, I see. It was a foregone conclusion that I’d say yes, right?”

He presses his lips into a thin line and says nothing.

Even more aggravated now, I start to pace the length of the room. It’s a small room, so I feel a little ridiculous turning around every four steps, but I have to work off some of this frustration and sexual tension somehow.

“I have a life, you know. Work. School. Friends. I can’t just drop everything and disappear for a month.”

“I didn’t say you had to disappear. You wouldn’t be cut off from the outside world.”

“You said ‘all mine, every minute.’ I took that to mean I’d be chained to your bed.”

His eyes grow hot. He likes the idea.

“No,” he says, his voice husky. “I’m not asking you to be my slave.”

“So I could leave?”

“Are we negotiating?”

I stop short and stare at him. He stares back at me from under lowered brows, his gaze level and unwavering.

He’s never looked hotter, more intense, or more dangerous. My mouth goes dry.

I whisper, “I don’t know. Maybe.”

He adjusts the knot in his tie, then adjusts his cufflinks, one by one. He shifts his weight from foot to foot. He stares at me like all the mysteries of the universe can be discovered in my eyes.

“What would make you say yes? Name it.”

He really wants this. He wants it so badly, he can barely stand still.

A strange feeling moves through me. It’s so unfamiliar, it takes a moment for me to identify it, but then I realize what it is.