Blizzard (BearPaw Resort #2) Read online

  His throat worked. “I lost my career. I fell to the bottom of a pill bottle…”

  “Even still, I’ve never met anyone who compares to you.”

  The back of his head hit the couch. “You mean it.”

  I smiled. I’d barely—if ever—seen him vulnerable before. Not like this.

  It was adorable.

  Smiling, I climbed into his lap, my thighs falling to either side of his hips. “I love you, Liam, and nothing will ever change that.”

  The sound of him inhaling as his lips met mine set my heart to a fluttering pace. It felt he was somehow sucking out a piece of my soul and keeping it for himself.

  I let him take all he wanted.

  When finally our lips pulled apart, I smiled. “Maybe now it will be easier for you to tell me the rest.”

  He smiled, a new ease surrounding him, and it made me feel guilty for not giving it to him sooner. “I’m an open book, sweetheart.”

  “All right then,” I mused. “Read me another page.”

  Liam

  I shouldn’t have doubted her.

  Staring at her now, into her earnest blue gaze, and physically feeling the unwavering support she boasted, I should have known.

  It was hella hard, you know?

  To realize someone could possibly love you as much as you love them.

  Now I knew. It was undeniable.

  I didn’t have to hide that darkness in me. That deep change addiction had caused. I was more jaded as a man than I’d been at seventeen.

  Bellamy was still here. Still in my lap.

  Just wait until she sees that darkness up close. Knowing it’s there and seeing it are two completely different things…

  Shut. The. Fuck. Up. I told the taunting voice inside me.

  In my lap, Bellamy turned and reached for her coffee, which she’d abandoned on the table. Once it was in her palm, she turned back and took a sip, still focusing those blue orbs on me from over the rim.

  “You gonna share that?” I rumbled.

  She smiled and, instead of offering the cup, she pulled it to the side, leaned in, and kissed me. I sucked the coffee flavor off her tongue.

  “Best coffee I’ve ever had,” I murmured when she drew back.

  “I love you,” she told me.

  Those words seemed overused these days. Three words that had been spoken so much by everyone you would think people would become desensitized to them.

  It was different when she said it.

  Almost as if she spoke in another language, but it was still perfectly clear.

  “Now talk.” She demanded.

  I obliged.

  “It was after my surgery. I started taking too many pain pills. They were meant to dull the pain in my knee, but they also seemed to dull everything else around me. It made it easier not to think.”

  “What about your parents? Didn’t they realize?”

  I swallowed, the remnants of some old feelings rising. “My parents weren’t in Denver with me. They, ah, weren’t there.”

  Bellamy’s forehead creased. I watched her try and reconcile what I’d just said with what she knew about my parents. It didn’t match up, something I was all too aware of. “I don’t understand.”

  “They had pressing commitments here,” I answered.

  “But you’re more important.”

  I’d thought so, too. Yet another reason you fell into the bottom of a bottle.

  Clearing my throat, I moved on. Rehashing the way it cut when my parents weren’t as present when my life imploded wasn’t something I wanted to do. Besides, it didn’t matter now. I’d come home, and it was like that time hadn’t even happened. My parents treated me as they always did.

  Which made their absence all the more confusing.

  Still, I wasn’t going to dwell.

  “Alex came to visit. He figured out real fast the doctors there were letting me have too many pills—perks of being a star athlete, you know.”

  Bellamy’s face pinched. “Those doctors knew you were abusing pain pills and did nothing!” The fire in her eyes and the way her small hands fisted at the mug was endearing. She had a lot of intensity in her for someone half my size.

  “I can be very convincing.” I wagged my eyebrows.

  “That is not funny, Liam Mattison!”

  It was kinda funny. “Well, I was a lot easier to deal with drugged up. Like I said, I was a beast of a patient.”

  “You couldn’t have been that bad.” She doubted.

  “Yes,” I intoned, allowing just a touch of the darkness in me to show. “I can.”

  Crossing her arms over her chest, she huffed. “You don’t scare me.”

  “That’s because I would never hurt you, baby,” I told her gently. “But not everyone is you.”

  Her eyes widened a bit, hearing the underlying steel in the words.

  “Anyway, Alex cut off the supply of pills, sat his ass beside my bed until I was discharged, then convinced me to come home.”

  “The doctors listened to him?” Bells questioned.

  I chuckled.

  She grimaced.

  “Alex can be very persuasive, too.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Did he punch someone, too?”

  I smiled, nice and toothy.

  She groaned. Then she surprised me. “Whoever he punched deserved it. They weren’t supporting you; they were hurting you. I wish I could punch them, too.”

  My heart tumbled. I kissed the backs of her knuckles. “No punching people, sweetheart.”

  “Could you walk?” she asked, going back to the subject. “When they released you?”

  “By that point, yeah. I still wore a brace. I still used crutches, which I fucking hated.” My voice turned growly at the thought of those damn wooden chopsticks. “I sat in this cabin for a few weeks, surly and pissed off.” I blinked, trying to clear the old emotions that still felt so fresh, and smiled at my girl. It was hard not to smile when she was looking at me so innocently with those cerulean eyes.

  “That’s when Sharon brought me Charlie.”

  She sat up a little straighter, interested. “Sharon gave you Charlie?”

  “His owner died in a car accident. He was lonely. I was lonely… Sharon knew we needed each other.”

  Charlie knew we were talking about him and lumbered into the room with a giant string of drool hanging from the side of his mouth. His tail wagged when we both looked at him.

  “Oh, Charlie,” Bells crooned and patted the space beside her on the couch. Needing no more invitation, the dog leapt onto the couch, making it dip, and crawled as much of his body into her lap as he could. The drool smacked into our clasped hands and slimed us both.

  “Ew!” Bells shrieked.

  I laughed, and Charlie tried to push closer, his hot dog breath filling the air.

  “Dude,” I told him.

  His tail beat against the couch.

  Making a face, Bellamy lifted our hands and began wiping them on the blanket. “I’ll do laundry later,” she murmured.

  Charlie’s giant tongue licked up the side of her cheek. She squealed again, and I laughed out loud.

  She released my hand and used the shirt she was wearing (which was mine) to wipe her face. Then her humor-sparkling eyes turned to me. “He made you feel better.”

  I smiled and nodded. “After that, things seemed to get easier. I started getting out more. Alex and I spent some time together… I got back on a board and started picking up some lessons. It was good to be back in the snow. It made me feel more normal, less like my life was over.”

  “You were happy again,” she surmised softly.

  I reached out and dragged my fingers through the silky length of her hair. At the ends, I curled it around my fingers, tangling us together. “As happy as I could be without you.”

  She smiled and leaned forward, pressing her cheek against my chest. It took a moment of untangling, but once I was free of her hair, I tucked my arm around her and held her close.

>   “Was it hard? You know… to stop taking the pills.”

  I stared over her head at the fireplace. Kicking the addiction to pills had been brutal. “I can only imagine how much worse it would have been had I been taking them for years instead of just a couple months,” I replied.

  “What about your career?”

  “No one brought it up for a few months. I think everyone was afraid it would send me spiraling again. I might have been putting one foot in front of the other, but it was still a huge loss for me.”

  Her head lifted off my shoulder, and she met my gaze. “I’m sorry, Liam. I know what it’s like to feel like you’ve lost your entire life and to have to start over again. I know how hard that is. And you did it all in the face of addiction.”

  We gazed at each other for long, charged moments.

  “I’m proud of you,” she told me.

  The electricity and tension in the air was palpable and caused a tightness in my lungs. I honestly didn’t know how I’d spent the last eight years without her. How I could ever spend another day without knowing she was mine. In that moment, I knew she understood my losses. She’d had them, too.

  But in that moment, those losses paled in comparison to that morning eight years ago when she never came. In this moment, the greatest loss of my life had been her.

  But she was back. She was here. “You’re mine,” I growled.

  Surprise widened her eyes, along with a veil of confusion because we hadn’t been talking about us. I moved quickly, my body leaving the back of the couch, torso twisting to face her. My hands cupped her jaw, thumbs stroking lightly over her jaws.

  “Promise me you’re mine. That you won’t leave. No matter what.”

  “Liam,” she breathed out. “I already promised you that.”

  I gave her a gentle shake. I needed to hear it again. Listing off everything I’d lost over the years and knowing… knowing there was more to come left me desperate. “Promise me, Bellamy. Again. Right now. I can handle anything as long as I have you.”

  A troubled look came into her eyes. Tears welled, threatening to spill over, but they didn’t. “I’m yours.”

  Our mouths fused together with the sound of my breath expelling. Against my ribs, my heart hammered wildly, and the tips of my fingers sank a little deeper into her skin. Bellamy tilted her head back and opened up. My tongue plunged into her mouth and twisted around hers.

  We kissed until oxygen became essential and the demand of my own body made me mad. Ripping free, I gulped in great breaths even as I yanked the neck of the T-shirt down to expose her collarbone and shoulder. Dragging my lips across her skin, deep satisfaction teased inside me.

  I wanted more.

  Needed more.

  “Liam.” Bellamy gasped.

  Her hands palmed the sides of my face and forced it up. My stare slammed into hers, and her breath caught. I let her see the bold desperation in my eyes, just how bad the need was.

  She didn’t say whatever it was she’d planned.

  Bellamy didn’t say anything at all.

  Instead, she lowered her mouth to mine once more.

  Bellamy

  I couldn’t have everything. Not unless I gave it.

  Right now, Liam didn’t want words. Or explanations. It was clear he would talk and confess anything I ever asked. It was also clear a man with his kind of demons needed far more than just a listening ear.

  Kissing Liam was what I imagined free-falling would feel like. Thrilling, breathtaking, so intense that thoughts couldn’t even form in your head. There was no fear, though, because I knew when I landed, it would be in his arms.

  A rough sound vibrated his throat, and his body pushed closer. Flattening a palm against his warm shoulder, I pushed. He went because I went with him, not once breaking the contact of our mouths. His back hit the couch, and I rocked instantly against the rock-hard erection between us.

  I pushed off of his chest, forcing our mouths free. Liam’s eyes shot to mine, his stare like a silver lightning storm in a summer night sky. His chest heaved. His lips were glossy and plump from the kiss.

  With gentle hands and flashing eyes, he pushed the length of my hair behind my shoulders. I couldn’t stop the shiver wracking through me as his hands brushed over the bare skin of my shoulder.

  The second my hair was out of the way, Liam hooked a single finger into the neckline of the T-shirt I’d stolen from his drawer. In a sudden and seductive move, the sound of it tearing filled the room.

  I glanced down, surprised, as the morning air brushed over my bare chest. My nipples turned erect instantly, from the breeze or the way he looked at me.

  I was possessed. Completely. Totally. It was almost as if I were no longer my own… but solely his.

  The shirt hung tattered around me. His large hands made such easy work of the soft material. I wanted to speak, but his stare held me speechless. I wanted to smile, but the intent on his face left me anticipating.

  Pushing the shirt off, I allowed it to fall onto the floor behind us. Liam made a sound and surged forward, his hands cradling my back as his mouth latched onto one of my breasts. I arched into him, fisting my hands in the long, messy locks on his head. He sucked deeply, so deliciously that my center began to ache and throb. Rocking into his erection, I arched forward, riding his rigid cock while he sucked and rubbed my chest.

  His nails dragged down my back when his face finally lifted, and I continued to ride him, wishing there was a lot less clothes between our bodies.

  Liam surged up, hugged me to him, and latched onto my neck. He sucked deep and hard. I cried out, and he started to pull away. The tension in his body changed and spiked.

  I pushed his head back down and gasped. “No.” I tilted my chin up. “You didn’t hurt me. I liked it. I want more.”

  He growled. The sound vibrated my throat when he went back for more. I sighed deep, bearing down on his middle as tension knotted within me.

  Liam’s hand tangled in the hair hanging to my waist. He wrapped his hand around it and held my head back while he assaulted my throat and neck and sucked until I knew without a doubt there would be a mark.

  Shoving my hands between us, I rocked back enough for me to work my fingers down into the waistband of his shorts, beneath the boxers, to brush against his head. Breath hissed out from my lips when I felt the dampness on the tip and exactly how rigid he was.

  Liam moved so fast I didn’t register the movement until my back hit the couch and he was over me, all bare skin, wild eyes, and straining muscles.

  Charlie retreated somewhere in the house. I heard his nails clicking over the floor, but then Liam ripped the panties off my body and threw them over his shoulder.

  I was breathing heavily when he rose onto his knee (the good one) and scorched me with the heat in his stare. I watched him shove down the shorts and boxers, his proud, thick dick jutting out from his body and literally quivering with need.

  He lifted my ankle, draped it over the back of the couch, and then placed his palm against the opposite thigh and pushed wide.

  Completely spread out beneath him, his eyes raked over my body and his fingers dipped into my dripping core. He groaned, and the tendons stood out in his neck.

  “I’m yours.” I reminded him, almost a taunt.

  In one single motion, his body came over mine and pushed deep with a single stroke.

  Both of us moaned. My body sank deeper into the couch as some of his weight pushed against me. Both of us had gone still with that first rush of blissful contact, but then Liam started to move.

  Our stares caught and held as he thrust into me over and over again. The sound of our skin smacking together and the way his hair fell over his forehead as he drove was incredible.

  “Liam,” I whispered, reaching up.

  He dropped down, bringing our chests together, grabbing the end of the couch over my head and using it as an anchor to pull himself even deeper inside me.

  My mouth fell open and my head rocke
d to the side as pleasure unlike anything I’d previously felt before vibrated through me. He was so deep I knew he had discovered a part of me no one else had. It was almost as though he were taking my virginity all over again.

  He was my first for the second time… my only forever.

  Breath hitched in my chest. Liam rocked, and his head rubbed against my walls. I felt his hand on my chin. My face was tilted up, and I knew he was looking at me. I tried to look back, but everything was blurry.

  His voice was gruff. “You’re crying.” I felt his thumbs brush over the wetness on my cheeks I hadn’t even known was there.

  I sensed his retreat before he actually moved. I reacted fast, locking my legs around his ass and holding tight. “Don’t,” I whispered. “Stay.”

  Liam pushed deeper. My eyes rolled back in my head, and I began to move against him. I felt every single inch of him, and every time I rocked, his head rubbed the perfect secret spot.

  He held himself deep and let me fuck him, my breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps the closer I got to the edge.

  Suddenly, I felt his lips at my hairline, drifting softly over my forehead. The gentle sensation of such a tender kiss combined with the unyielding steel literally filling me up was my undoing.

  My legs fell open as I rocked down on him one last time. A cry tore from my throat as an orgasm ripped through my entire body, taking over and robbing me of every single sense but pleasure.

  When my body went slack, Liam began to move. He mimicked the way I’d been fucking him just moments before, rotating his hips and rubbing that spot over and over again.

  My body quivered and shook beneath his. The amount of force behind the orgasm that ripped through me lingered even after it started to fade.

  Liam drew back just slightly, and I looked up, but I still couldn’t see. His warm chuckle made my eyes slide closed, and I arched into him with a moan. Even after that soul-shattering orgasm, he felt so incredibly good.

  “Can you handle more?” he asked, his voice gravely and restrained.

  I smiled. “Can you?”

  His body rose, his dick retreated from my body until it was almost gone, and then he plunged back in. Over and over, he thrust into me, fast and hard, bringing my satiated and spent body back to the edge again.