Page 103 of Fall For Me
“I ruined everything.” My voice cracks. “Your parents—the party—your mother spent a month planning this, and I just?—”
Liam makes a face. His jaw tightens, a muscle jumping. “I am so mad at my mom,” he says, each word bitten off and precise, “I don’t even want to speak about it. She had no right to ambush us like that.”
I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. Very bridal. “But what about the guests? Your entire family is at the house…”
“And. I. Don’t. Give. A. Damn.” He fixes me with those gray eyes, and the intensity behind them pins me to the concrete.
I stare at him.
This is the same man who walked on an injured, infected leg for an entire business gala to avoid disappointing his dad. He bandaged a severe road rash with a first aid kit and polyester pants rather than risk Charles Rockwood’s disapproval. He has spent years contorting himself into whatever shape his parents required, absorbing their criticisms, swallowing his pride, chasing their approval blindingly. Liam married me just to impress his father.
And now he’s sitting on his motorcycle in the cold, telling me his family can go to hell.
For me.
I’m shocked. Frozen in place.
“Get on, Peyton.”
The order, coming from Matt, would’ve chafed. Every directive from him came with an invisible leash attached. Coming from Liam, the words send a thrill down my spine. A liquid rush of heat that spreads through my limbs. He isn’t asking for submission, only taking care of me.
Wrangling the tulle so it doesn’t drag on the road or melt against the exhaust pipe takes a solid minute. I bounce most of the fabric up, bundling it between us, and slide onto the saddle behind him.
Liam turns his head. His profile is sharp against the pale sky and so painfully gorgeous. I get lost in the cut of his jaw, the sweep of dark lashes, the curve of his mouth that I’ve been dying to feel on mine for days.
“Hold on tight,” he says.
I wrap my arms around his waist, locking my fingers together, and press my cheek against the worn leather between his shoulder blades.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask.
“Home.”
And no word has ever felt more right. Home isn’t an address or a new ZIP code I memorized five weeks ago. Home is the certainty that wherever this bike goes, I want to go too.
He revs the engine. The Ducati leaps forward, and I tighten my grip, pressing closer. We shoot down the private road, through the canopy of bare oaks and evergreens, the wind whipping the loose fabric of my skirt into a frenzy. My hair, however, doesn’t move. The stylist’s concrete-hold spray has turned the updo into a helmet that not even this speed can disturb.
It feels like taking off. Liam must be going easy on the gas for my sake, but the acceleration still punches the air from mylungs. The world smears into streaks of brown and green. The cold wind stings my cheeks and bites at my legs, exposed from ankle to knee.
Despite the chill, I’ve never felt hotter.
I am molded against him, my inner thighs gripping his hips to keep steady. The vibration of the engine travels through the seat and into my body. We’re fully clothed, yet this tangle of limbs, this overwhelming trust I have for him, makes me more vulnerable than if I were stripped naked.
When his house comes into view, my first—disarming—thought is that I don’t want the ride to be over. Despite the cold and the wind biting at my skin and the dizzying sensation of being suspended between where we’ve been and where we’re going.
Liam kills the engine and plants his boots on the driveway, holding the bike steady between his knees.
“You have to get off first,” he murmurs.
I untangle myself from the mountain of tulle and slide off the seat, hitting the pavement with the grace of a collapsing tent. He kicks the side stand down with a sharp clack and swings his leg over. Before I can straighten my skirt, his hands find my waist.
He doesn’t let go.
His palm settles on the small of my back as he steers me to the front door.
Liam doesn’t even take off his jacket before he starts to fuss. He might look tough in a black leather jacket, but right now, he is pure worry. He ushers me into the living room, takes off my coat, and replaces it with a warm blanket that he drapes over my shoulders. Only then he flings his jacket onto the couch next to mine. He’s not wearing a tux underneath. His mother must’ve failed to turn him into a show pony. Did he also want to call off the ceremony?
Liam crouches by the fireplace and stacks kindling in a neat pyramid.
