Page 50 of Holiday Home 3

Avril’s grumpiness magnified. He didn’t even understand her response, so garbled and grumbled under her breath as it was. But he knew he’d struck a bullseye.

“Let her do her own thing, Avril,” he said, bumping her shoulder with his. “She got one over you for most of winter break. She’s not helpless.”

“She got one over me bypretendingto be interested in you. Her version of not being helpless is avoiding being in a relationship.”

“And now she really is interested in me, or so you say,” he said, adding the final bit to cover his and Anna’s tracks. All of this would have been so much simpler if he could just say, “Look, she’s doing it on her own, so you don’t need to keep pushing,” but he knew he needed to keep that fact to himself.

“Please, I know it, you know it; even the cards here know it. I’ve never seen her hit anybody, but she looked ready to come over and sock me off your lap a few times.”

“And you’d probably have deserved it if she had,” Liam noted.

Avril shrugged, and then she sighed. “I guess. Suppose how things went with you aren’t how things will go with her.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Liam said, smiling. “But just see if you can let Anna handle things her way. I like coming here to spend time with two extraordinarily beautiful women, but it’s not so nice when they’re glaring at one another every other minute.”

“Oh, so that’s the reason you come over?” Avril snorted. “We couldn’t tell.”

Liam lazily brought his shoulders to his ears. “What can I say? I’m a little addicted to Ashgrove now.”

“You know, I get a referral or something if you put my name down when you move in, assuming you could give up your current neighbor.”

Liam shrugged again, and they both shared a smile.

“Answer me just this one thing,” Avril said as she propelled herself to her feet. She turned and stepped in front of him to prevent him from easily doing the same. “If Annadidwant to have your fake relationship be a little more real, would you let it?”

“Would it upset you if I said I would?” Liam asked.

“No, it wouldn’t. It’s the same with her as it is with Tess. Oh, right, nothing there between you two.”

“That’s right,” Liam said, nodding. “And good to know. Because I wouldn’t mind—but you arenotallowed to tell Anna that. Our relationship isourrelationship. It’s the same between you and me.”

“Oh, is it?” Avril said, staring down at him with a catlike grin. “What kind of relationship do you think we have, again?”

“The kind where you infuriate me one minute, then arouse me the next.”

Avril’s grin broadened. “You’ve certainly come a long way, saying something like that without any ‘ums’ or ‘ers.’ Your face isn’t even all that red.”

“My face isn’t redat all—”

That might have been true when he began protesting, but it wasn’t by the time she cut him off.

She struck like a viper. Retaking her position on top of him, her lips cut off his objection, stoking the lustful embers that just being near her caused. One hand pressed on his chest; the otherused his knee for stability. Her mouth demanded that he move at the frenetic pace she’d set, and it was all he could do to keep up. Her tongue entered his mouth, finding his, keeping him from finding any breath in his lungs.

Her mouth pulled back, but slowly, intentionally so. The fingers of the hand against his chest curled in, clutching his shirt. Avril’s next demand was that their lips remain entangled as they rose to their feet, and it was one he didn’t mind fulfilling.

His mouth pursued hers as she pulled back. His hand clutched her wrist as she sought to remove it from his knee. They stood, and her breasts mashed against his chest because of how little room they had between the couch and the coffee table.

He released her wrist so he could settle both his hands on her enviously curvaceous hips. Their mouths continued sharing the warmth spilling off their lips, tethered together by unbound lust. It’d been a few days since they’d stood like this, and there’d been a fair amount of conflict since then. But maybe that was behind them, so they could just resume focusing on the pleasure they each sought from the other’s body.

Eventually, Avril tugged head far enough back that the kiss had to end. Grinning, she nodded at him.

“See? Red as a ripe ole tomato.”

“I’m just a mirror of what you look like,” he retorted.

“Not a chance. It takes more than a little kiss to get me looking like you do.”

“Then let me give you more than a little kiss,” he husked. He tightened his grip on her waist, and her verdant eyes flashed excitedly.