Page 44 of A Foster Fling
“Don’t hurt yourself,” a familiar voice says.
Glancing over, I roll my eyes. “Are you stalking me now?”
“You could say that,” Liam remarks, taking the place next to me. He sits close, our legs touching, and those same emotions I felt in my dream flood me now. I chuckle, shaking my head. I don’t fucking get it.
“Why can’t I hate you?” I whisper, holding back tears. “All these years have passed and I’ve hated you, I tried so fucking hard to forget you, to move on from you. Then you come near me and all these things—these, these memories I could never remember start to run wild in my head, and all these emotions I thought I’d forgotten about suffocate me. Why is that I want to hate you, but I can’t because you make me forgot how infuriated I am. You make me forgot how fucked up things are for me. When you’re near me, I don’t think about Gabe, or how much I miss him. I don’t think about how I feel like less of a son to my mom because she fosters. I don’t think about my dad and how I haven’t spoken to him in years. You make me feel like maybe everything isn’t as fucked as I think it is.”
Liam looks at me for a long time, his face devoid of any emotion. I should have known dumping all that out would be what silences him. Just when I think I can’t take it anymore, he speaks.
“Believe it or not, I’m not the bad guy in your story. I’m not this monster you’ve conjured up to poke a pitchfork at every time you get mad at your brother for what he did, or what your mom does or even your dad. I was just the kid who was there to protect you from seeing something you shouldn’t have. I was the kid who, before what happened, tried to get your attention every time we were alone because I really liked you…I still do.” He stops talking, the gears turning in his brain, picking his words carefully. Maybe he's right. Maybe he isn’t the villain here.
“You aren’t the only one who’s fucked up,” Liam adds, grabbing a handful of sand, letting it pour from the bottom of him slightly open fist. “I don’t sleep. I stay awake for days on end because the nightmares give me panic attacks. What I saw that night…I didn’t want you to see you to see it.”
He was trying to save me. All these years I hated him for not letting me get to Gabe, but he was just trying to protect me.
I huff slightly. Looking over, I see a cut under his eye and dry blood on his cheek. I almost forgot about our fight. The burns on my back and arms don’t hurt as much as they should.
We’re silent for a long time, looking out at the ocean as the waves come and go. I don’t know what compels me to do it, maybe it was the me back then that didn’t have the gall to do it, but I reach over and put my hand on his thigh. He doesn’t move it, he doesn’t say anything, he just stares out in front of him.
Maybe I’m not supposed to hate him.
Maybe he’s a part of some other plan the universe has for me.
I try not to think too much on it, because if I do, I know I’ll put my guard back up and leave the beach just as mad as when I came here. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be angry anymore. I don’t want to feel this pain anymore and Liam takes all of it away just by being near me. Before I can think twice on it, I speak up, breaking the silence.
“Prove it,” I say.
“Prove what?”
“That you aren’t the bad guy in my story.”
Chapter Seventeen
Liam
We’ve been sitting on the beach under the pier for what feels like hours. There isn’t a soul to be seen other than us. The sun should be coming up soon and beachgoers will begin swarming the sandy landscape. We won’t be alone anymore, and it scares me because I don’t want this moment to end.
“Prove it,” Cole whispers.
“Prove what?”
“That you aren’t the bad guy in my story.”
Finally.
Reaching over, I place my finger under his chin and turn his face toward me. Rubbing my thumb over his bottom lip, I drink in his features, cementing every bit of them into my memory. I don’t want to forget this moment.
Shifting my body, I lean over and start kissing him, starting on his chin, then moving to his cheek, and then his lips. Cole moans into my mouth and it travels through my veins and into my core. My dick grows with anticipation. It’s been waiting for this moment for years.
Without breaking our kiss, I turn and climb over him, feeling his hard cock beneath his jeans pressing against my ass as I straddle him. My hand moves down his body to lift his shirt and I pull it over his head. Taut muscles and delicious, tanned, sandy, skin wait to be touched and admired by my hands.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” I tell him, running my fingers over his stomach, trailing the patch of hair that starts at his navel and disappears into his jeans. Placing both my hands by his head, I hover over him, looking into his gorgeous eyes. “What do you want me to do?”
His hands roam freely over my shirt, the barely-there touch setting fire to the growing desire in the pit of my stomach. He grips the hem and pulls it over my head and tosses it to the side. “Ruin me.”
A smirk pulls at my lips and the hunger that dances in his gaze when he sees it sends me over the edge. A primal need to devour him takes charge. My mouth crashes against his, surely drawing blood with the force of my desire.
I don’t hesitate to reach down and unbutton his jeans. Cole lifts his hips, lifting us up as we push them off together before getting to mine. Soon, our naked bodies are flush together as we make out, our tongues fighting for dominance.