Page 61 of The Focal Point

“What?”

I realized the fabric must have muffled my declaration and craned my head back so I could look up into Liam’s face.

“I love you, too,” I repeated and knew it was the truth.

The grin that grew on his face in answer to my words was possibly the largest and sunniest I had ever seen on him. Then he dipped his head and gave me the kiss I had been dreaming about.

The kiss held all the words, feelings, longing, sadness, and turmoil of the past three weeks. But it also held joy and desire. I had Liam’s suit jacket off by the time his fingers edged under my sweater and tugged it over my head. His shirt followed, discarded on the floor, as we backed toward the couch without breaking the rhythm of our kisses.

When I felt the couch on the backs of my calves, Liam took a moment to pull back, his gaze searching my face like a man wandering the desert and encountering water. His expression was full of wonder and love.

Then there were no more words as he laid me back on the couch, tossing throw pillows out of the way to make more room.

He kissed his way down my body, causing a purr in the back of my throat as I wriggled with the blossoms feeling of desire, a fire in my belly before following the same path down to the apex of my thighs. Liam dragged my leggings and underwear down as he went until they were off and discarded, then kissed his way back up to my mouth.

“Every inch of you is incredible,” he murmured against my throat before kissing the skin there. “I will never stop showing you how much I adore and admire you.”

“Pants” was all I could gasp. I had been missing him for three weeks, and it was all I could do not to let the animalistic part of me take over and tear his pants away with my teeth.

Not that I thought I could actually pull that feat off.

Liam discarded his pants quickly, and I opened my legs to allow him entrance. We both cried out as he pushed into me, my head falling back with the cry. It was clear we had both been missing one another.

But despite that, our rhythm was slow, unhurried, as we reveled in one another’s bodies, in our closeness that we had thought was gone forever. My hands wandered his skin, his kisses deep, his muscles shifting and bunching underneath my fingers.

Our cries mixed as our bodies tangled, moving as one, just as our hearts beat together. This was something I never wanted to be without—this man, who I loved. I never wanted to be apart from him again.

I could feel my finish building, like the moment before a firework burst, until suddenly it surged forward, bright enough to block out everything but the feeling of pleasure and desire and Liam around and inside me, pulsing with his own orgasm.

Afterward, when we lay cuddled together on the couch, the sweat cooling on our bodies, I knew I had everything I had ever wanted—my business, the ability to do the job I loved, and the best man in the world.

“You’re pretty incredible yourself, you know that?” I finally answered and felt Liam’s chuckle rumble through his chest.

“I’m happy,” he said.

And so was I. And this was going to last, right?

Chapter 26

Liam

Four Months Later...

I took a deep breath and let it out, a sense of deep satisfaction welling where the breath had been. From my vantage point on the lawn, I could see the hospital’s director and several administration staff talking and laughing with Jordan on the back deck. Gloria and her husband conversed with a younger couple under the shade of an arbor, out of the heat of the day, and Tom was fiddling with the food on the catering table even though this was not his barbecue. The guy could never relinquish complete control of the grill, even for professionals.

A warm breeze brought with it the scent of the bougainvillea and honeysuckle we’d had planted around the backyard, and I took a sip of cold beer as my salute to a job well done.

But an even greater sense of satisfaction came when I spied Bailey by the corner of the two-story house, once more wearing the necklace I had bought her at the gallery all those months ago. She talked animatedly with some of my family, including my sister, with whom she had become fast friends. From the way everyone was laughing, my girlfriend was probably describing some of the ordeals we had gone through to get the house ready. I could tell by the way she stretched her arms, then brought them together in a quick motion that ended with the slap of her fist into her palm—I knew because I had been there when the curtains had fallen, the rod unable to anchor to the wall we hadn’t realized was crumbling from the inside out.

That had been fun.

But seeing my girlfriend with my family, I felt a swell of emotion. She had met the members who still lived in Sacramento, but this was her first time meeting those who had moved—siblings, their spouses, and their kids, and, of course, my dad—who had flown in for the opening of the first house of the hospital’s new Hope’s House program.

Bailey had come up with the name one day randomly in the car on our way to some event—Hope had been my mother’s name.

“You found a good one, Liam.”

My father’s voice by my side startled me out of my thoughts, and I looked over to find him strolling up, his hand around a bottle of beer—the same as mine, of course.