Read Online A Not-So-Innocent Seduction by Janice Maynard - Free Book Online

swamped her. In his own way, Liam was as much of a loner as she was. Both of them surrounded by people much of the time, and yet still lonely. The difference was, Liam had his family nearby. Perhaps they didn’t live in each other’s pockets, but they were a unit.
    Even so, she could see him in her imagination, rattling around in this big, fancy apartment at night with no one to talk to or sleep with. Perhaps he was a workaholic because he had never known anything different.
    She had been lost in her thoughts for a long time, because when she finally surfaced, Liam was eyeing her quizzically. “Am I boring you?” he asked, a hint of something in his voice that said her checkout had either unnerved or irritated him.
    “Sorry.”
    “What were you thinking about?”
    She hadn’t expected a direct confrontation, but she should be learning by now that Liam was nothing if not direct. “Oh, this and that,” she said.
    Her evasion displeased him. His eyes flashed with irritation. “May I ask you a question, Zoe?”
    It wasn’t much of a request. More like a command. “I suppose so.”
    “What do you do for a living?”
    Her ankles tightened on the rungs of the stool. “I sing,” she said simply. “In nightclubs and bars and coffeehouses. Nursing homes, too, sometimes, but those are freebies.”
    The intensity of his stare made her want to escape, but she held her ground. She knew what he really wanted to know. His actual question was, how could she afford a six-week stay at the Silver Beeches Lodge if she was an itinerant musician?
    But he wasn’t rude enough to ask it that way, and she didn’t volunteer the information. That was a subject she wasn’t prepared to broach. At least not yet.
    “I should go,” she said, anxiety rising like a dark cloud in her chest. She liked being an anonymous stranger. Perhaps that was why Liam Kavanagh both attracted and threatened her. She sensed that he could break through her inviolable secrets. Walls and barriers and protective shields. She had them all.
    “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly, his cheeks ruddy with color. “I promised myself I wouldn’t pump you for information. It was rude of me.”
    “Anyone would ask the same question over drinks or on a blind date. Don’t beat yourself up because I’m an odd duck.”
    “Odd, but beautiful.”
    His honest compliment warmed her. And judging by the look on his face, he had decided he could live with her eccentricities. “I’m harmless, I swear,” she whispered.
    “That remains to be seen.” He smiled to soften the blunt response.
    She hopped down from the stool and rubbed her damp palms on her pants. “Thank you for the coffee.”
    Liam stood as well. “What’s your rush? You haven’t even seen my etchings yet.”
    She cocked her head. “I’m assuming you’re talking about sex and not real pen-and-ink drawings—right?”
    His lips twitched. “A woman who speaks without censoring her words. How interesting.”
    “Are you calling me a social disaster?”
    “On the contrary.” He moved closer. “I believe your species might be as rare as the unicorn.”
    “Don’t malign the female sex. Men play games, too.”
    “How so?”
    “Pretending they feel something for a woman when all they want is a quick hookup in exchange for buying her dinner.”
    He looked at her gravely, his expression guarded. “Unless I’m mistaken, I believe you bought your own dinner. And I haven’t been all that interested in quick hookups since I left my grad school days behind.”
    She bit her lip, feeling outclassed and outplayed. Or perhaps that was a result of her insecurities kicking in. “What do you want from me, Liam?”
    His fingers slid beneath her hair as he curled a hand behind her neck. “What do you want, Zoe?”
    Though the room was plenty warm, gooseflesh broke out on her arms. “Answering a question with a question is classic avoidance behavior.”
    “But I’m not avoiding you,” he said with perfect truth as