Calm down, Lucy… Calm.
Damnit, I can’t look at him. I’m embarrassed.
“Lucy. Fuck. I’m sorry.”
Something about his voice enables me to lift my head. I look into his eyes, finding them wide and full of remorse. I guess that’s what it is. He looks almost scared.
“Why be sorry?” I ask softly.
He pushes a hand into his hair, shaking his head as he looks at the grass.
“Seriously,” I offer. “It wasn’t just you.”
He makes a low sound of disgust. “I don’t want to be this way with you.”
“What way?”
Liam sighs. “I’m going to control myself. So you can have a good time here.”
God. So I’m friend-listed. Why is that so depressing? I push my own hair out of my face and nod, trying my best to keep my face neutral.
“I’m having fun. No worries. Seriously.”
He leans down and helps me to my feet. He draws me to him for just a moment, and I can feel his lips on my hair. Then his hands are rubbing up and down my arms. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” I lie.
Back on the horses, riding down the beach toward the path back to the castle, I tell myself to forget what just happened. He’s trying to be a good host. He doesn’t want me to feel…what?
Is this about him feeling too aggressive? Maybe that’s it. He’s such a manwhore. Even though he’s also really nice, and really caring, he’s a manwhore. Maybe he’s embarrassed about that? He doesn’t want me to feel like he’s taking advantage. That’s probably it. By the time we get into the grassy fields around the castle, I’m over my hurt feelings.
This is good, I tell myself. I just need to try to get to know him more, maybe hang out another day or so—if there’s no threat of me messing around with him, what’s the danger?—and then I’ll tell him in the way that seems best.
We get back to the castle and have lunch on a table outside, under some mossy trees. Turkey and cheese sandwiches and wine.
“Is that a punching bag?” I ask, pointing to one hanging in a nearby tree.
Liam gives me a crooked smile. “It might be.”
“Yours?”
“Guilty.”
“That’s kind of hilarious.”
“A castle yard has always had a lot of sports equipment.”
“You mean like jousting and stuff?”
He smiles. “Do you want to see me joust?”
“Hell yes.”
His smile turns into a smirk.
“You don’t joust, do you?” I arch one eyebrow.
“What do you think, Lucy Rhodes?”
“I think if you don’t joust, you better at least shoot a bow or something for me. I want entertainment,” I tease.
He winks. “Your wish is my command.”
I watch him as he saunters off.
*
Liam
I don’t know what I’m doing with this girl. Something that I’ve never done before, that much is sure. As I come back around the corner of the castle’s rear wall, bow over my shoulder, arrows in hand, I stop there in the grass to watch her. She’s eating a green apple, and I swear to Christ she looks like something from a vision. From a dream.
Her dark hair is down, flowing around her shoulders as the breeze kicks it. I want to touch her hair again, to feel her soft, warm body up against mine. Usually, I’d take what I want. She would want it too, of course. Most of them do. They want to tell their friends they fucked a prince. I’m as big a prize as the twelve-point bucks mounted in the castle.
But…Lucy isn’t like that. She doesn’t care about the color of my blood. She wouldn’t brag to anyone. Declan told me Mags told him that Lucy claimed she didn’t even like me as a person before that night in the Hamptons. She thought I was a player or some shit. I haven’t heard that word since middle school, but that’s what Dec said.
Does she like me now?
I like to think she does. I make her smile. I try to make her smile. While she’s here, that’s all that’s on my mind—or all that needs to be. I want to show her all the best things on the island, keep her mind off fucking TMZ. I can’t make her happy if I’m trying to get in her pants. If I’m only thinking of that gorgeous body. She didn’t come here for that. I don’t know how, but I can tell.
She seems distracted. Weighted.
I know I can take that weight off if I try. I can be a nice guy. Just a friend. I adjust my pants before I walk toward her.
*
Lucy
I’ll admit it: I’m trying to make him laugh. I’m trying to charm him. And why shouldn’t I? It’s not as if I’m trying to get into his pants. Just trying to be sure the time he spends with me is fun.
If I can show off my bow-shooting skills, all the better, right?
Just after he reappeared with two bows and some arrows, Liam pulled a deer-shaped target from a notch under the castle’s lower wall. Someone, sometime, had drawn a dick on the deer, and Liam said his cousin Heath calls the deer Don Juan.
“I have no idea why.”
“Well, he’s clearly a playboy deer. Just look at that.” I couldn’t help snickering.
I had a black sharpie in my purse, so I drew a little smile on the deer’s face when Liam wasn’t looking. That earned me a laugh.
I’m starting to realize that I love it when he laughs. It’s so…hearty. He drops his head back, so the sunlight dances on his handsome face. His big chest shakes, and I just want to wrap my arms around him.
Of course, I don’t. I wouldn’t. That’s not what I’m here for. But the Prince of Clary—Gael—is definitely magnetic. I can see why girls toss their panties to the wind when he’s around.
As for me, I give him a grin as I pull my arrows from the Styrofoam deer’s neck, and strut as I traverse the fifty or so yards to where he’s standing with his arms folded.
“I’ve got a new one,” he says, chewing on the side of that delicious lower lip.
I wiggle my brows. “Shoot.”
He smirks. “The eye.”
“Huh?”
“I want to see if you can shoot Don Juan in the eye.”
“In the eye? How will he get ladies if I shoot his eye off?”
The corners of Liam’s mouth twitch. “I think the key word there, Miss Rhodes, is if.”
I let my own mouth drop slowly open. “Oh—it’s on. To hell with Don Juan’s eye. He’ll need a pirate patch after I’m finished.”
I hear Liam’s sexy chuckle as I nock my arrow. I draw the bowstring back, then turn so I can meet his eyes. “You ready for this?”
He grins.
I turn back toward Don Juan, propped up against a thick tree trunk, focusing on his little black-painted eye as I anchor, hold, and then release.
The arrow sails toward Don Juan with a satisfying whoosh, and like I knew it would, it hits him right in his little painted eye. Hell—I squint—I think it went almost all the way through his head.
I give Liam a smug look, then shake my hips again and strut around him.
“You’re better than I am.” His eyes are wide, his brows lifted.
I smack him in the shoulder. “You say that like you’re shocked.”