This time when I shoved him, he stumbled back again. “No, you cannot! And I didn’t even bring it to California.”

“You’re telling me that you’re going to tell me about this, and then deprive me of seeing Bessie?”

“Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying!”

“Whoa, whoa, wait!” he said suddenly with a serious look on his face, and my laughs stopped while I waited for whatever he was about to say. “Is that why you have the crescent-moon tattoo?”

“What?”

“Because the cow jumped over the moon. You have the cow, you needed the moon to complete it.”

“Oh my God, how did you even put those two things together? You’re so weird!” I called out as I walked away from him.

“But it’s perfect! I already call you Moon, now I get to call you Bessie too!”

“I will never speak to you again if you do!”

“Aw, come on, Bessie.”

“I hate you,” I said through more laughs and tears. “Seriously, this is not okay.”

“It’ll be fine, Bess. I’m sure of it. I promise to only say it in public if—”

His words cut off when I turned and dumped the rest of my margarita over his head, and now I wasn’t breathing because of how hard I was laughing.

Liam was staring at me with wide, shock-filled eyes as the icy drink dripped down his face, and in that moment, nothing could have looked better. “Now, that is perfect.”

With a deep breath in, he said, “That wasn’t nice, Bessie.”

Before I could tell him I didn’t agree, he lunged forward and grabbed the back of my thighs before lifting me up over his shoulder. “Oh my God! Put me down!”

Liam didn’t say a word as he began walking, and I slapped at his back.

“You are covered in icy liquid, and it is freezing! Put me down!”

“Trust me, I know just how cold it is.”

I stopped slapping him when I realized what direction we were walking in, and shrieked when he started jogging into the cold water and it splashed up on my legs. “Don’t you dare, Liam!”

“What?”

“You know what! Don’t. Do. It—” My last word ended on a scream as he launched me away from him and into the ocean.

As soon as I came up from the water, Liam was pressing his mouth to mine and slamming us back into the water.

“I hate you so much right now!” I yelled when we both came up.

I took off for the shore and, once I reached it, had only made it a few feet before I was bear-hugged from behind and started falling toward the sand. At the last second, Liam turned so he landed on his back with me on top of him. I awkwardly rolled over on top of him so I could yell at him, but his lips were on mine again, and for a few moments, I gave in to the kiss until he started rubbing sand all over my wet skin.

A high-pitched sound rose up my throat, and I struggled to get off him. I was running the instant my feet hit the sand again, and though I knew he was right behind me, he never made another grab for me until I made it up the first flight of stairs to the rinse-off station.

Liam’s arms wrapped around me and he slammed me against his chest as he moved backward. One of his hands came up to the side of my face and turned my head so his mouth could find mine, and he grunted into my mouth when he hit a wall. Turning around, he pressed me against it and moved down to kiss my neck.

“I hate you,” I whispered even as I pulled him closer, and a low, husky laugh vibrated against my skin.

“I doubt that, Moon.” Liam slammed his hand against a button on the wall as he brought his mouth back to mine, and water started pouring down on us from the showerheads.

Grabbing the back of my thighs again, he lifted me up so I could wrap my legs around his waist, and then he was pressing me up against the wall again. I met his next kiss eagerly, and my fingers secured themselves in his hair as his tongue met mine with teasing strokes. I moaned into the kiss when I felt him harden against me, and let my head fall back against the wall when he pressed himself closer to me.

His lips traveled down my throat and chest, and one of his hands moved up to push my bikini top aside before his tongue and lips were torturing my nipple. I wanted to move against him, but couldn’t given the way I was pinned between him and the wall, and a frustrated whimper left me.

Liam glanced up with a heated look in his eyes as he tried to catch his breath. “Let me take you back to my place,” he pleaded, and it wasn’t until that moment that I realized we were outside with a party going on not far above us.

I nodded and pressed my mouth to his once more before he released me and righted my top. “Let’s go.”

As soon as we got our things back from Chris, we were in the car and on the way back to Liam’s . . . but no words passed between us as the heated tension grew. When we pulled into the complex, I checked my phone and saw nothing from Kira or Zane. With a quick text to Kira letting her know I might not be home tonight, I shoved my phone back into my purse just as Liam parked.

I reached for the handle on the door, but stopped when I realized he was just sitting there watching me.

“I need to know what you’re thinking right now,” he said on a deep rumble.

“What do you mean?”

“You haven’t touched me or talked to me since we got in the car thirty-five minutes ago. I need to know if you’ve changed your mind about being here.”

A small smile crept across my face, and I leaned forward to slowly press my mouth to his. “I haven’t been talking because I’ve been anxious to get here. And now I’m wanting nothing more than for you to take me inside.”

As soon as I grabbed for the handle again, Liam was opening his door and getting out. He waited for me at the front of his car, and pulled me into his arms when I got closer. Despite how I’d been envisioning this, I knew it was about to be completely different.

After the heated moments at the party, I’d been ready for us to start tearing at each other as soon as we were in his apartment. But even the walk to his apartment was slow, as I knew our movements would be inside. And once he shut the door and locked it behind us, I knew I was right.

He was looking at me with a stare that had goose bumps covering my body and my breathing deepening, and he wasn’t even touching me.

After putting his stuff on the table just inside the door, he walked up to me and reached for my purse before putting it down as well. And with his eyes still on me, he grabbed my hand and walked me to his bedroom. Liam hadn’t bothered with any of the lights in the apartment, and somehow the last of the setting sun’s glow outside of his windows was making the moment more perfect than I could have imagined.

Stepping up to him, I slowly started lifting his shirt, then let him finish taking it off. My eyes fell down to study his upper body and all the ink covering it, and I reached out to run the tips of my fingers across his skin.

He sucked in a soft breath at my touch, causing the corners of my lips to twitch up. The dark orange glow outside lit my forearm and hand when I rested it on his chest, and my fixated stare on it had Liam glancing down and grabbing my hand to press my fingers to his lips.

Turning me around so I was facing the window, Liam pulled off my shirt before slowly trailing his fingers up my arms and across my shoulders to untie the top of my bikini. Once it, my shorts, and the rest of my outfit were on the floor with my shirt, I leaned back against his chest as his hands made light passes across my skin—and never once took my eyes off the unblocked view of the ocean and multicolored sky until one of his hands made its way between my thighs.