Free Unwrapping Liam: A Good Girls Don't Novella by Gennifer Albin

CHAPTER ONE
    T he house loomed up the driveway with it’s columns and tiled roof and neatly trimmed hedges. One single strand of glowing Christmas lights and a wreath on the door betrayed the season. It hadn’t snowed yet in Olympic Falls when we left, but at least Washington had the decency to turn cold and gray in winter. The sky here was clear and cheerfully bright. If a gaggle of bikini-clad blondes had skipped up the sidewalk with giant beach balls, it couldn’t have been more obvious that we were in Southern California. But the only thing that was warm here was the weather.
    “Is this it?” Liam asked. I’d asked him to drive the last leg to ensure we actually made it to my parents’ house.
    “Keep going,” I instructed him.
    Liam peered down the road, slowing the car to stare at me. “I’ll drive off that bluff if I keep going.”
    “Exactly.”
    “Chicken.” The car came to a complete stop and he reached for my hand, threading his fingers through mine. It was amazing how his touch still sent tiny shivers running down my back. Liam had spent the last few months making my toes curl from pleasure every opportunity he got, so it made sense that even the slight touch of his hand would get me excited. “We’ve been driving for fifteen hours, I’d love to lie down in a warm bed, preferably with you.”
    “Fat chance that will happen with Tara around.” I tugged my hand free and crossed my arms. 
    “Leave your mum to me.”
    “That sounds promising,” I said. “Poison? Cut her brake lines?”
    Liam shook his head. “Worse. I’m going to win her over with my irresistible charm.”
    I couldn’t quite swallow back a snort at this. “You are, huh?”
    “It worked on you.”
    “I have a heart and warm blood pumping through my veins” I reminded him. “How is your charm on reptiles and other cold-blooded animals?”
    “I feel like my plan will work better if you try a little harder yourself,” Liam said in a soft voice.
    “Don’t use I-statements on me, Mr. McAvoy.”
    “A little interpersonal communication might be exactly what you and your mum need,” he said with a shrug.
    “I could have dragged Professor Markson to be our personal relationship coach and gotten nowhere with Tara. Some things are a lost cause.”
    Liam laughed at this. 
    “What’s so funny?” I demanded, punching him lightly on the arm.
    “You sounded like a girl I used to know. She liked to tell me she was a lost cause, too.” Liam leaned over the center console until his lips were temptingly close. “Good thing I didn’t listen to her.”
    “Maybe she was right,” I said quietly. Now that we were here, on the verge of spending a whole week with my parents in separate bedrooms, my recently discovered faith in myself—and us—was failing me.
    “Stop,” Liam ordered, taking hold of my chin so that I was forced to meet his blue eyes. “Nobody talks about my girlfriend that way.”
    “I’ve known her longer than you,” I reminded him, trying to sound cool as I fought the tears rising in my throat.
    “Well, I know things about her that you couldn’t possibly know.”
    “So that makes you the Jillian Nichols expert?” I said. “What do you know that I don’t know?”
    “I know that there’s a freckle on the crease of your inner right thigh that makes you moan when I kiss it.”
    Liam kissing me anywhere down there had that effect on me, but he was right. I didn’t know that he had a particularly mark he concentrated on.
    “I know that your cheeks get rosy when you sleep.”
    I had to admit that I had never seen myself sleep.
    “And I know that you are the bravest, smartest, most beautiful woman in at least two continents,” he said.
    “Only two?”
    “The ones I’ve been on,” he said with a wink. “Although I’m willing to bet that I could travel the entire world and never find anyone as amazing as you.”
    “Is this the charm you plan to use on Tara?” I asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “It might