Free Tell Them Lies (Three Little Words Book 3) by Karla Sorensen Page A

can touch you in front of my mom and you won't knee me in the balls."
    Then she laughed, bending forward to rest her hands on her knees. It was a relief, her laughter, but there was a giant, nagging part of him that wanted to say it again. He'd wanted to kiss her. It wasn’t for show, it wasn't fake, and it wasn't for his mom.
    But it would scare her. He knew enough at that point to know that. And since he wasn’t exactly known as the guy chasing down marriage, it wouldn’t surprise anyone that he was just happy to be with her. She'd be scared of whatever those intense feelings were that were sweeping through him. She'd be confused about what they were supposed be doing.
    Most surprising of all was that he wasn’t confused or scared of how he was feeling about her already. Something was good and right about her, about them. But if he pushed her, Kieran had the strongest suspicion that she’d flee without a backward glance.
    So he only smiled, and turned to pull the marinating chicken from the fridge.
    "I'm gonna go start the grill."
    "Sure," she said, looking more settled now that he'd dropped the subject. "Now what can I do to help?"
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    I t was official .
    His mom was completely in love with Liz, and if he was being honest, after two hours of eating and laughing and trading stories between the three of them, Kieran was halfway there himself.
    She just...glowed. With warmth and sweetness and intelligence. It was in everything she said and did.
    The way she asked his mom questions about her cancer, the way she talked about her friends and their lives, the way that she listened to everything that came out of their mouths with a genuine interest that was impossible to fake. The way she didn't push them to hurry through dinner, the way she got up to refill glasses without being asked, the way she brought his mom a gift of essential oils, something help with her aches and pains.
    Sitting back in his chair, he watched them laughing at a story that his mom was telling, about him as a teenager. When they'd caught their breath, his mom coughed, the sound deep and heavy in her slight body, and it broke the levity of the moment. Kieran pushed back from the table, and brought the last of the dishes over to the sink.
    "So, Liz," his mom said once she'd calmed her racking cough, "I know a mother isn't supposed to pry about these things, but how long have you and Kieran been dating? I couldn't get much of anything out of him."
    "Oh, um." Her blue eyes flashed over to Kieran, who just shrugged helplessly. "Not... not too long. A month?"
    "Oh, I figured it was longer than that, just from watching you two interact."
    "Well," Kieran interjected, and holding her gaze, "it's really been more like six or seven weeks, right, Liz? I mean, from when I first took you out."
    "Right. Yes, you're right."
    His mom laughed, turning to look at him with unmistakable fondness in her eyes. "It doesn't surprise me in the least that you'd pay attention to stuff like that, honey. I knew there was romance underneath that skin of yours. Now, I want to know the most romantic thing he's done for you, Liz. A mother doesn't get to hear stuff like this very often."
    Oh. Shit.
    He had to give her credit, she kept her face from looking panicked, only the slight widening of her eyes gave it away to him. Her eyes stayed unmoving from his face, and again, he watched her filter through what she could possibly say.
    "That's easy," she said, briefly glancing over at his mom, and Kieran inexplicably found himself not breathing, the dish he was rinsing suspended above the water. "It was the first time he kissed me. The way he made me feel. It surprised me, and I was starting to think that I was past the point of having that happen to me."
    That was the God's honest truth, those words that fell from her lips, he knew it. He knew it because of how she was still looking at him and he felt it like she'd jammed her hand down his throat to rip his heart up and out of his