Page 27 of Holiday Home 3
His heart pounded boisterously in his chest, leaving little room for him to act as if he wasn’t excited. In a chamber rife with water, Liam had still never felt more parched in his life. Was she really suggesting what he thought she was?
Yes, in fact, she was.
“So, you should experience what any man at Bellmore, Perrymont, or otherwise would kill to experience. You should tell Avril you’re interested in her, too, and let the rest of your winter break overflow with the excitement we both know she’ll ensure you experience.”
He didn’t have a response. He didn’t just not have a response; he didn’t have the capacity to have even considered something like this occurring. Liam's mouth hung ajar. He was stupefied, mystified, all the appropriate -fieds.
To her credit, Tess seemed to have anticipated such a response. Amusement shimmering in her boundless blue eyes, she rubbed his arm to motivate him out of his stupor. Once he began blinking rapidly, she took that as proof he’d returned to his senses.
“It’s quite an unexpected offer, I know. Quite the opportunity, too.”
“Y-Yeah, it definitely is,” he said, referring to the unexpected part most of all. “But… well… I mean, why?”
“I just explained why,” Tess reminded him. “As unfortunate as it is that she knows this, Avril is a commodity among commodities. Wherever she is, men want to be there, too. On no fewer than three occasions, I’ve seen bikers crane their necks so much that they crashed when they passed her by. She’s come jogging with Victoria and me several times, and the stares she collects are numerous.”
“Okay, but that’s a little unfair, don’t you think? For you to have seen that happen means you were there, too. You’re just as likely to have caused those crashes.” He didn’t mention Victoria, who was just as likely to have been culpable for those accidents.
“Maybe so,” Tess said, rewarding his compliment with another deep kiss. “But my point still stands. Rare is the man who wouldn’t be leaping through my roof at the opportunity I’ve just presented you. So, why does it seem to me that you’re hesitant about accepting?”
She knew why. Her smile revealed as much. He would have appreciated it if she could have spared him the torment she now inflicted upon him, but she showed no intentions of answering her own question.
“I just… don’t want to potentially screw things up between us.”
“It won’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
A thousand dismal ways in which Tess might come to regret her gift whirred within his mind. Catastrophe after catastrophe whispered into his ear. All of them saw his relationship with Tess ending in tragedy. It was the one thing he couldn’t allow to happen. He’d come to that conclusion last night, and he came to it again here.
“Because I’ve thought it over, Liam. And I want you to trust me. What we have is special to me. It’s special in a way I would never have imagined before you came home from school. We’ve had a few conversations about our relationship, what we both want from it.” Color singed her cheeks as she paused to inhale. “We’re certainly going to have more of those, including this one.
“Today, right now, I am telling you that Iwantyou to go have as much fun with Avril as you can. She is everything a man your age wants, and we both know that. So, go. Go and make this winter break so filled to the brim with fantastic memories that you’ll end up staring at the ceiling in your dorm in a few weeks as you marvel at what transpired during it—and why you really should have picked Bellmore over Perrymont.”
“You really had to slip that knife in again, didn’t you?”
“Of course.” Tess grinned. “If you’re going to keep calling me Professor Williams, I’m going to keep needling you for not allowing me to be your professor officially.”
“A fair price to pay.”
Rolling her eyes, Tess pulled her body back from his. Well before he ended up back in his dorm room in Perrymont, he was already marveling at the gift Tess had just shocked him with.
It’s like they’re all trying to one-up one another,he thought, thinking about the massive jar of fortune cookies Avril had secretly gifted him on Christmas Eve.
The wildest part was he was alreadyin an intimate relationship with Avril. Had been the whole time. Hell, she wasfirst.He owed her so much for the help she’d given him along the way, and he stood where he did now, sharing a shower with the woman of his dreams, because of her assistance.
And yet he’d been planning to call things off because of yesterday because he’d feared losing Tess if Avril took things too far again. He almost experienced whiplash because of the sudden change of fortune looking him in the eye.
“It isn’t a test,” the beautiful woman before him reiterated. “I would never do something like that. If you have any interest in Avril, and we both know you do, I’m giving you unfettered permission to explore it for the rest of winter break. No matter what happens between you two, it will not change anything about our relationship. You’re my new showering partner, no matter what.”
“Okay,” he answered. “Okay.” He paused, chewing on the corner of his mouth. “Did you two end up talking about… this?”
“No, and that’s one of two stipulations I have,” Tess explained.
Strangely, he was almost relieved to hear that such things existed. He nodded and waited for Tess to go on.
“Firstly, no bringing up our relationship with her. Any part of it. If she’s alright with you telling tales, that’s great and all, but I want our private business to remain that way. Okay?”
A red-hot lance of guilt caused him to nearly wince. Their private business had been anything but that. He’d shared plenty of what they’d done with Avril, though at least he could say he’d done so to get her advice, not just so he could brag about his conquests.