Spiralling Skywards: Falling (Contradictions #1) (9 page)

Once again the communication between my brain and mouth was sadly lacking, and I jumped up and started clearing our plates to hide my embarrassment. I didn’t want him to feel pressured into telling my brother about us. I wanted him to do it
when
and
if
he wanted to. After all, he had a whole lot more to lose than I did. I’d just have a pissed off Luke to deal with, whereas Liam could possibly lose part of his livelihood and the new business venture he just moved to the other side of the world to help set up and establish.

Liam followed me to the kitchen, and after I rinsed the plates and cutlery, I handed them to him to stack in the dishwasher. I hadn’t asked him to. He’d just opened the door and waited for me to pass him the plates. It was a simple domestic scene re-enacted between millions of couples around the world every day, but it was a first for us, and the hope and yearning for more simple scenes of domesticity between us in the future caused an ache in my chest.

Liam’s arms slid around my waist as I stood with my back to him and dried my hands at the sink. I’d imagined a man doing this to me since I started reading Nan’s Mills and Boon romance novels when I was about twelve. I’d so desperately wanted to grow up and have a “normal” life. A hard-working husband who loved and adored me. A spotlessly clean house. Two perfect children—a boy who looked like his dad and a girl who maybe resembled me in some small way. My husband would call out, “Honey, I’m home,” when he came through the door each night, and I’d call out, “In here.” He’d walk into the kitchen and find me at the sink, wrap his arms around my waist from behind, kiss my neck, and whisper into my ear . . .

“Fuck, you smell delicious.”

Never did I imagine the dream man of my pre-teen fantasies would be a six-foot-tall, blue-eyed Aussie, but if that was what life had planned for me, then I’d take it. I just hoped that I was something along the lines of what he’d been dreaming of.

I was wearing a two sizes two big sweatshirt that hung off one shoulder, and Liam ran his nose from the curve of my neck up to the back of my ear, inhaling deeply the whole way.

“You have the softest skin, and I love the way it responds to my touch. I love the way it flushes and goose bumps spread out from wherever I make contact.”

He retraced his movements, except this time he scraped his teeth over my flesh, pulling the tiniest of moans from somewhere inside me. I tilted my neck more to the side, giving him better access. I felt dizzy and lightheaded, almost as if I were floating. It was a sensation I’d experienced almost every time he’d kissed me those previous few weeks, and I’d finally worked out it was desire that I was feeling. At twenty-two years of age, I at last knew how it felt to want a man.

Liam moved his hips, pressing himself against me. I closed my eyes and waited for what would come next.

“Babe, we need to talk.”

That wasn’t what I was expecting, and a pain shot through my temple as the blood pumping through my veins turned to ice.

“I can’t stand this anymore.”

I held my breath and placed my hand over the spot where it felt like my heart had stilled and was just hanging in my chest, expectantly waiting for the words that would either crush or revive it.

“I hate not having any privacy. I’m a thirty-year-old bloke. My days of pashing in a car are behind me.”

He turned me around so I was facing him and looked at me, but I was too afraid to meet his gaze. I knew that if I turned my eyes to his, he’d see the disappointment and so much more that I couldn’t hide.

“I’ve spent a bit of time looking at properties this week. Prices in this area are the lowest they’ve been all year.”

My heart slowly restarted and began to pick up its normal rhythm as he lifted my chin and held it between his index finger and thumb, forcing my eyes to meet his.

“I know these past few weeks have been intense and that tomorrow’s your day off, but I was wondering if you’d come with me and have a look at a few places?”

My heart was now galloping behind my ribcage and I could hear my own blood whoosh through my ears. I opened and closed my mouth a few times before finally responding with a barely audible, “Yeah, sure.”

***

Liam had done his research. Prices were pretty reasonable in our area and had in fact fallen considerably since the start of the year. With it now being November and with very few people looking, it was a buyer’s market. Despite him telling me he’d viewed mainly brand new apartments, it was a house that Liam took me to see. It had been repossessed by the bank and was going for a bargain. It was a beautiful, old detached house in one of the best parts of town. It had been built in nineteen twenty-six and had huge bay windows both upstairs and down on either side of the front door. There was a sweeping in-and-out drive, and a huge garden out the back. The house was situated at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac lined with mature chestnut trees. It was a quiet and peaceful location.

I fell in love with it as soon as we pulled into the drive on that freezing cold Saturday morning. Because the place was empty, the agent had given Liam the key so we could have a wander around by ourselves. The front door sat inside a recess and was arched to match the entryway. The hallway was wide, with double doors going off to each side and a gorgeous staircase at the end. The doors to the left opened into a huge living area with a real fireplace, and there were bifold doors that opened to what I assumed could be used as a dining area. It was open plan so the dining area led straight into the kitchen, which had a large island for people to eat at. The kitchen led through to a large laundry room, a downstairs bathroom, a study, and another large living space. Upstairs there were four bedrooms and a full bathroom, the master bedroom had a full en suite and at the end of the landing was a separate toilet and shower room. It was huge, way too big for what Liam needed.

“It’s mohasive,” I told him.

He shrugged his shoulders. “You’ll have to give me a clue on that one, coz I’m stumped.”

We had spent the past few weeks teaching each other English and Aussie colloquialisms and slang. I was getting pretty good with the Aussie phrases, basically, all I had to do was shorten a word and add an “O” to the end. Ambulance was an ambo, Steve became Stevo, the petrol station, which in Australia were called service stations, became the servo, and this afternoon became this arvo.

English slang was proving to be a bit more difficult for Liam to grasp, simply because there was so much of it. He’d learned some from working with my brother but would usually just shake his head and say “stumped” when he had no idea what I was saying.

“It’s big,” I explained.

“Why thank you, Ms Carter, but you really have no idea.” He wiggled his eyebrows whilst stalking towards me, looking at me as if I were his prey, which rightly or wrongly, turned me the fuck on.

I’d quickly come to terms with the fact that wanting him the way I did was normal. We’d spent a month controlling ourselves, sometimes him better than me, but we were both now ready to take things further.

We’d seen each other a grand total of twenty times and had agreed last night that we needed to come clean and make things official between us, which meant telling my brother. Sasha was the only person that knew so far, although I had a feeling that Will was getting suspicious that I was seeing someone. He’d called and asked me out for a drink three times in the last two weeks, and each time I’d either already been out with Liam or had made plans to see him.

I wouldn’t have gone, even if I hadn’t had plans. What Liam had said about Will liking me as more than a friend had been playing over and over in my head, and it bothered me. I loved Will in exactly the same way as I loved Luke. I’d not thought of him in any other way since I’d gotten over my childhood crush on him years ago. Now with Liam on the scene, I doubted I ever had real feelings for Will. I didn’t want to hurt him, though, so I just kept my distance.

“Well?” Liam asked looking down at me. He gripped my arse cheeks, pulling me into him as he ground his ever-present and always growing erection against me.

I needed sex. I wanted to experience sex with someone that I actually had feelings for. I wanted to take the level of intimacy we were sharing that one step further.

“Sarah?”

“What?”

He frowned and shook his head in obvious frustration at my lack of ability to keep up with the conversation.

“What are your thoughts?”

“It’s hard.”

“Sarah, I’m around you, of course it’s fucking hard. I was asking what you thought of this place, not for confirmation on the state of my dick.”

“Sorry, I was distracted.”

“By my dick, baby? By my rock hard dick?” He was talking in his deepest, best porn star voice, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“That voice is doing nothing for me, and I think we may have gone totally off topic here.”

“What voice, baby? This voice? Oh yeah, tell me, baby girl. Tell daddy what you want.”

I shook my head.

“Sex will never happen between us, and by ‘never’ I mean never ever, if you continue with that voice.”

“No? Not doing it for you?”

“No. Not on any level.”

“What about role play? You be the estate agent, and I’ll be the horny home buyer?”

“No.”

“I’ll be the builder; you can be the desperate housewife?”

I raised my eyebrows and looked at him, all the while trying not to smile.

“The plumber? I’ve come to plug your leak, darl’.”

My lips twitched, but he kept a perfectly straight face.

“The postman? Special delivery, a
huge
package for Sarah.”

“Liam?”

“Sarah?”

I sucked in a long breath and let it out slowly. We stared at each other in silence for a few moments.

“Why are we looking at a house big enough for a family with nine children, three dogs, two gerbils, and a cat to live in?”

He stopped grinding against me and was quiet for a moment before taking a step back.

“Come with me.” He took my hand and led me down the stairs and back into the kitchen. It had cream cupboards and beech wood worktops. There was a large green aga style oven and a butler sink. Whomever had decorated it had gone for a farmhouse look, which probably looked great ten years ago.

“What would you do with this space?” He stepped away from me, looked around, and gestured with both arms that he meant the whole area.

“I don’t understand, what do you mean?”

“This area here, the kitchen. Would you leave it as is, or would you modernise, bring it up to date?”

“Modernise.”

“How?”

I looked around. The layout was perfect, apart from the décor, the whole house was perfect.

“Well, I wouldn’t change the layout since the flow is perfect. I love the fact that you can close that front living area off with the bifold doors and that you have those big double doors that lead to the garden. I’d be inclined to pull up the carpet and have hardwood all the way through, put a new kitchen in, something nice and neutral, and add a glass splashback and stainless steel appliances.”

I shrugged my shoulders and pursed my lips together, suddenly feeling shy. I’d gone through a stage a few years back where I was obsessed with home and lifestyle magazines. Planning and designing what my dream house would look like, if I were to ever meet my dream man, who would eventually become my dream, neck-kissing husband. That dream had ended, been snuffed out by reality, taking my obsession with it. I was under no illusion that I would ever get to live in one of the houses I had dreamt up.

“Sounds perfect. Wanna help me do it?”

“Wha? You mean you actually wanna buy a house this size? You’re a single bloke, why would you wanna rattle around in a place this big?”

I watched as he pushed one hand into the pocket of his jeans and raked the fingers of the other through his hair. He left his hand at the back of his neck, as if he were trying to massage away tension.

“Okay, I don’t want you to freak out at this suggestion. Just hear me out first, yeah, Sares?”

That statement alone would generally have had me freaking the fuck out, but all I’d actually gotten from it was that he’d called me “Sares”. I thought I’d heard him say it in the week, and it had made my heart do handstands because of the level of intimacy it implied was between us. It was nothing and yet it was so much.

It was everything. This time, he’d definitely said it. I felt like I was floating. My whole breath didn’t quite reach my lungs, my head hurt ever so slightly—probably due to the lack of oxygen reaching it—and I felt just a little bit dizzy, but it was all good. Everything was okay because Liam Delaney had just called me
Sares
.

“I know we’ve only been seeing each other for a month, but I’m old enough now to know my own heart and to listen to my own head.” He looked down at his crotch before looking back up at me. “Generally the big one more than the little one, but anyway.” He let out a breath. “I’m not asking anything from you, Sarah. I don’t want your promises or declarations of undying love, we’ve known each other four weeks and this is real life, not a made-for-telly film that they show on weekday afternoons. We will get to that shit, but not until the time is right.”