Page 10 of Holiday Home 2

She waited. Instead of hurrying to close the gap between them, to take advantage of the free rein she had over him for the next minute, Tess remained seated on her couch cushion. Still smiling,stillcausing his heart to pound raucously inside his chest, she just looked at him, making no overt movements.

Liam swallowed, trying to control the anxious lump of coal burning in the pit of his stomach. Tess’s smile subtly grew, butstill,she didn’t approach him. It was the kind of torture he might have expected Avril to submit him to, but never Tess.

0:52

Liam blinked after checking the timer on her phone with a sideways glance. Had it reallyonlybeen eight seconds since the game had begun? Suddenly, it was like he was in elementary school again, staring at the clock above the door, begging for the final few minutes of the school day to skip ahead so that he might hear the benevolent bell free him from his desk. This was just too cruel.

Tess’s cruelty didn’t abate until only thirty seconds remained on her minute. Only then, only after burning away half of the time she’d earned with her victory, did she shift. Standing up to avoid disrupting their decks by crawling over them to reach him, she languidly stretched her arms above her head. In any other circumstance, his eyes would have latched onto the swell of her breasts the gesture resulted in. But in this one, his focus remained affixed to the cruel—playful but cruel—gleam in her beautiful blue eyes.

0:21

Tess walked up to his side, and Liam was powerless to do anything. Left sitting on the couch, he could only look up at this woman, who he’d so ignorantly believed was the kindest angel of them all.

0:16

Tess glanced toward her phone. She waited another five seconds before she brought her attention back around. Looking down at him, eyes sparkling mischievously, smile taunting him mercilessly, he forced himself to ignore his body’s nearly overwhelming desire to yank her onto his lap and break the rules of their game.

As her timer ticked down to just ten seconds left, she finally touched him. Cupping his cheek in her hand, she infused it with the warmth spilling out of her palm.

0:08

Her hand leaned his head back a few extra inches.

0:06

Tess lowered her lips to his, stopping just centimeters before they would have brushed together. Liam clenched his body with an iron will before he propelled himself up to force the contact she was dangling—literally—above him. If she was testing him to see if he could keep his cool, he’d pass with flying colors.

There will be more wars—a ton more of them,he told his disobedient body.Keep it together.

0:04

Those centimeters disappeared. Lightly, lovingly, intoxicatingly, Tess placed her soft lips against his. Eyes alight with mirth, she cupped his other cheek, holding him still as their lips worked in tandem. Tess closed her eyes, sighing softly, breathing him in. Electrifying sensations left his mouth feeling almost numb. Wildfire raced through his veins. It was that easy for Tess. She only needed seconds to arouse him.

At least in this instance, seconds were all he got. A wretched, horrid chirp opened Tess’s eyes.

She started to pull back, but Liam arched upward to add another handful of seconds to their experience. Tess smiled against his lips and placed one of her hands on his shoulder. That pressure kept his butt on the couch as she pulled back, breaking their too-brief kiss.

He frowned immediately. In response, Tess stifled a giggle behind the back of her hand.

“That was so mean,” he complained.

“This is bound to be a long game,” she replied, unapologetic. “We should pace ourselves accordingly. After all, we have all day together.”

Liam responded to what had apparently become the day’s mantra with only a grunt. After silencing her phone’s incessant whine, Tess returned to her spot on the couch. Pulling one leg up, she rested her chin on her knee, eyes vivid and enthralling as ever as she looked at him.

“If you want to do things differently, you’ll just have to win the next war.”

“I will, and I will,” he said, pushing the cards she’d won toward her stack.

Beaming with amusement, Tess collected her winnings and stuck them at the bottom of her deck. It didn’t take long for the next war to pop up before them.

Liam lost it. In fact, he lost three moreafterthat second defeat. Apparently, Tess was playing the role of Genghis Khan in this game of War, which left him to take up the part of all the warlord’s victims.

“It seems that luck is on my side today,” Tess cooed into his ear after claiming her fifth straight victory, peppering his jawline with small kisses.

Mercifully, she hadn’t tormented him with the same inaction from her first victory again. However, she’d continued “pacing” things. After one win, she’d spent the whole time kissing the back of his hand to the top of his shoulder. After another, she’d made him lie back while she used the entire minute to skim her soft fingertips over his abdomen. On this fifth defeat in a row, she’d progressed a bit further.

Sitting sideways on his lap, she’d wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed her breasts into his chest, and began laying down a scorching barrage of fleeting kisses over his face. However, when he’d instinctively brought his hands to her lower back, she’d eyed him, paused, and wasted ten precious seconds waiting for him to remove his hands.