Opposition: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (NYC Doms), page 12
“Cora?” I turn to see Giada approaching me.
“Hey,” I say, smiling at her. I haven’t seen her in a while, and we greet each other with a brief hug. “I thought you were done taking classes?”
“I am,” she says. “But I actually came to meet a…” her voice trails off and she shoots me a secret little smile… “friend of mine for lunch.”
It’s still a well-kept secret on campus that Giada dates Geoffrey, a professor of literature here. She’s no longer a student, but she sure as hell was when they met, so we all keep it a little quiet.
“Ah, nice.”
“I saw your name on a protest sign at the bookstore,” she asks, tipping her head to the side. “Are you on a crusade?”
“Yep,” I tell her, but suddenly I don’t feel so good about this anymore. I don’t want to think of Liam the businessman, because that one’s an asshole. I prefer Liam the dom.
Both, sweetheart. I’m both.
“What’s it all about?” she asks. God, I wish I could tell her everything. I could seriously use some advice, and Liam doesn’t have any clauses in our contract that prohibit me from talking to anyone. Still, discretion is best, and we both know that.
“Well… the Greenery is under construction,” I tell her. It saddens me a little that the cause that meant so much to me even a week ago seems so silly now. People are starving to death in third world countries, boys and girls who aren’t old enough to drink are enlisting in the army and willing to put their lives on the line, women and children are being abused and mistreated… and I’m concerned about The Greenery?
Well, yes. Yes, I am.
“Is it?” she asks. “Wow. Well that sucks. And you’re protesting to try to prevent it?”
“Yeah,” I say, and it sounds a little hollow.
“Nice,” she says with conviction. “I’m proud of you. See you at the club tonight?”
I breathe a sigh of relief, because I don’t want to talk about this anymore, and I like feeling like I belong at Verge.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “I’m, um, not tending bar anymore, though.”
Giada gives me a bold wink. “I know, babe. And all I’ve gotta say is good for you!” Leaning in, she gives me a quick hug, the fragrance of her perfume reminding me how very different we are. Giada is the one who should be in my position, not little ol’ me. She’s thin and beautiful and elegant, walking away from me on those heels I’d kill myself on. No wonder Geoff fairly worships the ground she walks in.
I sigh.
I suck at this, and I’m not super happy about the reminder of my damn crusade that Liam’s going to raze with the blink of an eye.
My phone vibrates with a text from him.
Tests are all clear. You’re mine.
My heart stutters in my chest and my mouth goes dry. Oh, boy. So now sex is on the table, too, apparently.
I walk home in a daze, completely forgetting that Liam told me I’m supposed to get a ride from Manuel, and I’m about a block away when my phone rings.
When I see Liam on the caller I.D. I suddenly remember.
Shit.
“Hello?”
“Hello what?” he bites.
I look around me, and we’re in NYC so of course there are a million people in every direction. Whatever.
“Hello, sir,” I say. What crawled up his ass?
“Where the hell are you?”
“I’m walking home,” I tell him. “I’m at the corner of Rose and Trinket Ave. And shouldn’t you know, since you’ve got the tracking app?”
“Yeah, but I wanted to hear you say it. Stay right there. Do not fucking move.”
Click.
Well. I guess he takes this sort of seriously.
He’s gone, and I’m standing in the middle of the sidewalk being jostled by people who walk by. My heart trips an erratic beat in my chest. Damn, I suck at this. I mentally berate myself until I see the familiar black car cruising to a stop beside me. The door opens, and Liam steps out, walks over to me, takes me by the arm, and hauls me into the car.
I sit quickly and reach for my seatbelt, but he’s already got it in hand. Buckling me in with a scowl, he finally sits back and shoots me a fierce look of reproval.
“I forgot,” I say with a shrug.
“Right,” he says. “I’ll be happy to remind you tonight.”
“Oh?” I ask, my heartbeat racing. “Um. What might that entail?”
Not blinking, his eyes blaze into mine. “Six with the cane should do it.”
I look down, chastened. Jesus. A cane? Of course, I’ve never had it before, but he’s the one in charge and I agreed to it.
“Well. Okay,” I say. “I’m sorry. But you know it’s going to take time getting used to this, right?” I hazard a glance back up at him, and see his gaze begin to soften. “I’ve never had a driver before.”
Sighing, he takes my hand in his. “Yeah, Cora,” he says. “I’m sorry. I overreacted. I didn’t see you where we were supposed to meet, and I thought the worst. I tried calling you, but it went to voicemail. You must’ve been in a dead zone or something.”
“It didn’t even ring,” I tell him, and even though I feel his reproval, my heart does a little somersault.
He cares.
God, he cares.
And literally no one ever has before.
Hell, I love that.
“So… does your overreaction mean no, um, cane?” I ask. Oh my God I don’t even like saying the word.
I may be imagining it, but his eyes twinkle a bit even as he frowns at me. And then his voice softens, which does unpredictable things to my body. “I don’t think so.”
I feel like I’m going to cry when he says in a soft voice, “I just don’t want to see you hurt, Cora. Now give me a kiss and make me forget I need to cane you later.”
I actually smile when he leans in to greet me with a kiss.
The car cruises to a stop. “So… you know I need to run upstairs and check on them, right?”
“I do,” he says. “Thirty minutes enough time?”
“Yes,” I tell him.
“Just so we’re clear, I’d prefer to be going up with you,” he says with a scowl that I swear is almost a pout, “but I know you want a little privacy. But you keep your phone in your hand while you walk and if I text, you answer immediately. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
He’s already pulling out his phone and opening his email when I open the door. I want to be quick about it.
I exit the car and head toward the entrance to my building.
“Cora. There you are.”
I inwardly groan. Is this “bump into Cora on the street” day?
“Yes?”
It’s my landlord at the entryway to the building, holding a cigarette between her dry, cracked lips and peering at me through dirty glasses. “Rent, or street? This is getting old.”
I brush past her. “I’ll have a check in your mailbox within the hour.”
“That’s what they all say,” she says, reaching for my arm, her nails biting into me. I try to tug away, but she’s got a firm grip.
“Let me go,” I tell her. I could pull away, but this is complicated. If I hurt my landlord… “I promise—”
“Is there a problem here?” We both freeze.
I almost forgot how tall Liam is until he’s towering over the tiny woman who cowers in his wake. She lets me go like I’m on fire and stares up at him with wide-eyes and her mouth parted in a perfect “O.” Though he’s shrugged out of his suit coat and removed his tie, he looks every bit the part of someone who so does not belong standing outside an apartment building like mine.
And he’s with me.
I barely refrain from sticking my tongue out at her like a child, but I’m victorious. He got out of the car to defend me, and I’ve never had someone stand up for me like this.
I like it.
“No, there’s no problem,” she says, her eyes going from me to him and back again, then roving the expensive cut of his suit. “She your girlfriend?”
“It’s none of your business who he is,” I snap, saving him from having to answer, but her shrewd little eyes take in the new phone in my hand and the nice clothes that I’m wearing.
“Isn’t it?” she asks.
“You said there was no problem,” Liam reminds her, giving me a gentle push to the door. “We need to go.”
“You know,” I say, keeping my gaze fixed on her. “Why don’t you come up with me after all?’
It surprises me how much I like watching his eyes light up like that, like I’ve just granted him something that makes him happy, but as soon as he starts to come with me, I regret my momentary lack of discretion.
I don’t want him here. How will I explain his presence to Bailey and Ben?
He’s too good for a place like this.
But as we make our way in the apartment building, he’s talking about the landlord and holding my elbow, and I suddenly don’t care about our threadbare couch but wonder what Ben and Bailey will think. Hell, I need them to meet him, though. I’m his for the next two months.
“…and if she ever puts her hands on you again, Cora, you call the police. I mean it. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, of course,” I tell him. “I promise. I was… a little late with the rent this month, but that will be taken care of now.”
Stopping on a landing, he pulls me to him and fixes me with a steady look that borders on a glare. “That doesn’t give her the right to physically intimidate you.”
“Only you get to do that?” I ask before I can stop myself.
And then his mouth is on mine, and it doesn’t matter that the light in the hall is dim and covered in cobwebs or that some kind of rap music blares so loudly down the hall the balls of my feet are vibrating, or that it smells faintly like burnt microwaved popcorn and curry. None of that matters, because all I see is the blue of his eyes. All I hear is the pounding of my heart. All I smell is Liam, the brisk musk of his cologne, both soothing and classy, and everything else fades.
Every time he kisses me, a little part of me draws closer to him.
Every time he kisses me, I lose a little of the stronghold I have on my emotions.
Every time he kisses me, I’m more in danger of breaking rule number six and that cannot happen.
I pull away too soon, because I can’t let Bailey or Ben see us. Not like this.
“I need to get my things,” I say, pulling away too soon and not letting myself look into those eyes for one more second. I take out my keys and face the door.
“I… I have to admit, I wish I hadn’t invited you up here,” I tell him. “Please keep in mind our place is very… simple.” My hands are shaking so badly I can’t fit the key in the lock. I turn my back to him so he doesn’t see, but it doesn’t matter. His hand dwarfs mine, steadying my trembling fingers, and he glides the key in the lock but doesn’t turn it quite yet.
“I didn’t come here to look at your apartment or eat a gourmet meal,” he tells me. “I came here because you’re mine for the next two months, and I keep what’s mine safe.”
I don’t know how I feel about what he said. I like that he came up with me. I like that he’s calling me his. I shouldn’t, but I do.
But… I’m only his by contract, so that makes this act of chivalry really for his benefit.
Or something.
I think.
Doesn’t it?
He pushes the door open before I can sort my thoughts. Bailey’s laying on the couch, ear buds in, singing her heart out, and Ben is sitting at the dining room table with the same Lego set he’s been building and reconstructing for six months. He freezes when we walk in, his large eyes rounded in surprise at the sight of Liam.
I don’t blame him. Not only is Liam dressed for the office, he’s huge and intimidating, taking up the whole doorway.
“Hi,” I say, and Bailey still doesn’t realize I’m home, as her eyes are closed while she’s crooning to the music. “Um, Bailey?” I say, casting a sideways glance to Liam. His lips twitch, but he tucks his hands in his pocket and steps inside the door, trying to be as unobtrusive as he can, which is honestly not super effective. Shutting the door, he checks the lock, then frowns when he realizes there’s no deadbolt. I don’t miss the disproving look he shoots me. I shrug. Something tells me we’ll be talking about that later.
Why do I like how ridiculously overprotective he is? How he gets angry at the thought of my safety? I don’t mean anything to him. This is really nothing but a front.
“Hi,” Ben says. “Wow. Who are you?”
Liam reaches his hand out to shake Ben’s. “Liam,” he says. “And you’re Ben?”
Bailey chooses that moment to open her eyes, and her reaction would be comical if I wasn’t so on edge. She squeals and tries to sit up, but in her excitement, she topples sideways off the couch and falls to the floor on hands and knees.
Ben snorts with laughter and Liam starts coughing, which sounds suspiciously like he’s trying to cover up a laugh himself.
“Um, hi, guys,” I say. Bailey tries to get to her feet gracefully, but her earbuds are wrapped around her ear and her hair’s askew, and the poor thing’s bright red in the face.
“Hi,” she manages weakly. I motion for her to take her ear buds out, and she scrambles to do it, her cheeks flushing.
“So, um. This is Liam,” I say. And to my relief, Liam isn’t looking at the worn sofa and thin walls, the carpet that’s so old and worn it’s little more than tatters, the cheap linoleum floor in the kitchen or the bare lightbulb that hangs from the ceiling. He’s reaching a hand out to Bailey and giving her the warmest smile I’ve ever seen from him.
I didn’t know he could smile like that, with his eyes crinkling around the edges and his mouth crooked and charming.
Jesus, I wish I still didn’t know he could smile like that.
“What are you guys doing here?” Bailey asks, trying to get herself together.
“We have, um…” How do I say it? I have to fulfill my contract as a high-end prostitute tonight. “I wanted to come see you before I have to go to work tonight.” I can’t look her in her eyes. I don’t want her to know what exactly that work entails. “How did things go today?”
Ben tells me about his science project for the fair next week and runs to his room to get it. Liam takes a seat at the very edge of our couch. He’s so big in comparison to the dilapidated thing that he looks as if he’s going to fall straight to the floor, but it doesn’t seem to bother him.
Where is the aloof, cool demeanor? Where’s the scorn and anger I’ve come to expect? This guy seems almost… nice.
“It was a good day,” Bailey says. “I got my first ‘A’ in geometry, but don’t get your hopes up because I’m sure it was a total fluke,” she mutters.
“God, geometry,” Liam mutters, shaking his head. Bailey flushes beet red.
“Good job,” I tell her. I look back to Liam. “Um, is what I’m wearing okay for tonight?”
“Why wouldn’t it be okay to tend bar?” Bailey asks, confused.
Liam smiles. “Fine, Cora,” and somehow the deep, steady timbre of his voice settles my fraught nerves, but I can read that wolfish grin of his.
It doesn’t matter what you wear. It’s coming off.
Ben comes back into the room with a contraption I haven’t seen before, with a penny and wires and a potato and lightbulb. I have some vague recollection of a similar science experiment in my grade school years, but I know nothing about Ben doing a project, and a little part of me is sad that I didn’t even help him with this. I look to Bailey, who notes the question in my eyes and nods. She helped him with it and hell, I didn’t even know he was doing it. I swallow back the tears that threaten to blur my vision.
I can’t help this. I’m not out partying with friends and neglecting my brother and sister. Hell, I’m barely taking care of myself. I’m trying to keep us together with what little I’ve got, trying to keep us from falling apart.
I have to.
I walk to the kitchen to cook them some food, opening the cabinets, when Bailey reminds me, “Hey, um, remember you said you were ordering pizza tonight?” When Liam looks up at her she flushes nearly purple, puts her head down, and joins me in the kitchen.
“Oh, right. Pizza,” I said.
“You can’t let Ben down. He’s been dying for real pizza,” she says.
“Of course not,” I say. I pick up my phone, but I’m flustered, and my fingers won’t work quite right. I’m not really sure why. It isn’t just Liam sitting in this room, and my fraught nerves at letting him down. It isn’t just the run-in with my landlady, or the discussion with Giada, or all the unanswered questions Bailey will have for me that I don’t really know the answer to. It isn’t the essay I need written by Friday or the exam coming up. Or hell, the punishment I’ve got coming tonight at Verge, and whatever Liam decides to do to me when he has me alone.
It’s everything.
“But it doesn’t exactly work the way it’s supposed to,” Ben is saying, frowning. “And I don’t really know why.”
“I know why,” Liam says, but instead of taking it out of Ben’s hands and fixing it, he looks at Ben and asks politely, “May I show you?”
Ben’s eyes light up.
“Just let me order the pizza first, okay?” Liam asks.
I swallow hard.
Don’t be nice to them. Please, don’t be nice to them.
“Cora,” Bailey whispers. “Who is this guy? What the hell have you been hiding from me?”
Liam asks Ben what kind of pizza he likes, and Bailey and I give him our requests. When he puts the phone up to his ear to order, Bailey hisses in my ear.
“Where the hell did you find that god of a man, who is he, and, I repeat, what exactly are you hiding from me?”
“Bailey,” I hiss back. It’s so not cool my kid sister’s calling him a god of a man.
“Cora,” she responds.
Jesus.
“His name is Liam,” I tell her, which only earns me an eye roll and she smacks my arm playfully.
“I got that part, sis.”
“I met him at the coffee shop,” I tell her in a whisper. “And we’re sort of dating.”
