The Dream Guy Next Door: A Guys Who Got Away Novel Read online

  Pleasure tears mercilessly across my entire body as Liam thrusts into me. His right hand slides down my leg, grips my knee, and pushes it up high against my chest.

  “Yes,” I moan, grabbing his ass, holding on tight. “I love this,” I whisper, words falling from my lips, sensations spreading wildly through every molecule. But those words don’t feel like enough. And even though I never thought I’d be one of those heat-of-the-moment people, I also never thought I’d feel so much for one person, and I need to say what’s in my heart.

  I lift my hands, hold his stubbled face, and meet his gaze.

  He slows down. “You okay, love?”

  There it is again.

  Love.

  “I love this. I love you,” I say, and it comes out needy, breathy, and full of passion.

  “Love you so much,” he answers.

  And that’s all. That’s all I needed to say. But saying it makes the most amazing sex somehow even better.

  Because it’s fucking, and it’s making love, and it’s forever.

  It’s all of those things I didn’t think I wanted.

  And it’s everything I love having.

  When we come together, lost in each other, we pant, moan, and collapse.

  I murmur, lazily stroking his back, “You’re kind of a sex machine.”

  “And this is a problem?”

  I laugh, shaking my head. “I like machines.”

  He eases out of me. “Good. Because this machine is always ready to do the job,” he says, then heads to the bathroom and returns seconds later with a warm, wet washcloth to clean me up.

  After he tosses it in the hamper, he returns to my side, drawing me close. “Was that makeup sex?”

  “Kind of,” I whisper.

  “Should we break up again to have it?”

  I swat his chest. “Take that back.”

  He laughs, then presses a soft kiss to my shoulder as something scratches at the door.

  Or rather, someone.

  With four legs.

  He rises and opens the door slightly. Steve Trout bounds in, leaps onto the bed, and sniffs my shoulder. I’m glad that’s where her snout goes.

  I laugh. “Your dog likes the way I smell.”

  “The dog has excellent taste.”

  Liam returns to the bed again, looping an arm around me and the dog too, who is tucking herself into my armpit. “You should sometime, you know, spend the night,” he says.

  “I know. I should. Maybe when Wednesday goes to Audrey’s house for a sleepover. I don’t mind slipping out for an hour or so when she’s home, but I can’t stay long.”

  He sighs heavily. “If only there was a way to solve that problem.”

  I shoot him a curious look. “Like build an underground tunnel between our homes?”

  “That or move in together,” he says, flashing me a you know you want to grin.

  “But I have a house,” I say, though, even as I say it, I do love the idea of being with him every day and night. After all, that’s what we both said we wanted.

  “Yeah, so do I,” he says, tapping his chin. “Hmm. I like mine. And you like yours. Fine, we’ll build a concourse between them, like two terminals at the airport.”

  I laugh. “Are you really asking me to move in?”

  “Woman, I told you I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Yeah, soon I’d like it not to be in separate homes.”

  The thought should scare me.

  But it doesn’t.

  Not at all.

  Not in the least.

  I want all of that with him, with all of us.

  I tap his nose. “Why don’t we look for a place that’s ours, then?”

  “That sounds like a brilliant plan from a brilliant woman”—he takes a beat—“who wants to get in my trousers every night.”

  I roll my eyes. “Duh. You are good in bed.”

  “As advertised.”

  “And in the kitchen.”

  “Admit it, I’m a catch.”

  I kiss him again. “You’re a man-i-corn.”

  “That sounds dirty and sweet at the same time.”

  “Just like you.”

  He gives me yet another kiss. “And just like you too, love.”

  Love.

  Yes, that’s what he calls me in and out of bed, and I love it all the time. Because it turns out he’s the right person in the right place and at the right time.

  31

  Liam

  The next few months fly by in a blur.

  I treat patients, spay cats and dogs, administer shots, and tend to both broken and full hearts at my practice. All in a day’s work as a vet.

  I visit my dad a lot. He’s making the best of things, with laughter and jokes and lots of long conversations.

  Not only with me, but with Ethan, though Ethan is often distracted by the need to ringmaster his three-dog circus, taking Steve Trout into the backyard with the musical girls, tossing Frisbees to all of them, and inviting lots of face licks.

  So the conversations fall to Mum and me, or January and me, or to Wednesday.

  Funny thing I didn’t see coming—Wednesday gets on great with my dad. She reads articles to him on new trends in website design, then blog posts on ethical hacking trends, and she likes to describe the sites she’s working on to him. It helps her design, she says, to have to give them words so he can visualize them.

  And he likes hearing about it.

  And likes weighing in too, offering her tips now and then.

  Some of them she takes.

  Mum paid January to fix the cupboards.

  She was determined to win that battle, but January won too, giving the money immediately to a reading-for-the-blind charity.

  We do other things together, like go to parents’ nights at both the elementary school and high school, and to dinner at the sandwich shop we all like, and to the bowling alley.

  January beats us all at bowling.

  She’s good with her hands.

  And those skills intrigue Ethan, it turns out. He asks her to help him build a doghouse for Steve Trout, so one day in November, they go to the hardware store run by his friend’s dads and pick up the wood and other supplies, then she spends the day teaching him how to build.

  Honestly, it’s the best thing I’ve ever seen. In my entire life. Especially since Steve seems to dig the doghouse.

  For about a minute.

  Which makes us all laugh.

  The next day, Wednesday asks me to teach The Hacker a trick.

  “Cats aren’t very good at tricks,” I say.

  “I know that. But how about a high five? I have a potential client who makes cat toys, and I want to send a video to impress her to win the deal.”

  “By all means, then, let’s do it.”

  A few days and several thousand pieces of tuna later, and The Hacker can work a high paw like no one’s business.

  By the time the holidays roll around, the woman I love begins work on a new expansion project.

  Not that.

  She hires some additional contractors and begins expanding the attic in my home.

  In the end, we decided we liked this house.

  The pool helps a lot.

  But teenage girls need more space, so January devised the brilliant idea to make this home bigger, and then rent hers next door. As for that accent wall she wanted, she painted one wall in the living room pink.

  My bachelor-pad vibe has been crushed, julienned, and chopped to pieces, and I couldn’t be happier.

  One fine day in December, as she’s finishing up work in the attic, I pop upstairs, enjoying the sight of her in her work clothes. What can I say? January and her hammer have always done it for me.

  I rap on the doorframe.

  She must see me out of the corner of her eye, because she hits pause on her phone and removes an AirPod.

  “Are you trying to finagle a quickie?”

  “Is a quickie an option? Because sure.”

  She lau
ghs. “It’s usually an option.”

  “I’ll take it, then, but mostly I wanted to know if you wanted to go for a drive when you’re done?”

  “A drive?” she asks suspiciously.

  “Yeah, that thing you do in cars and trucks?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Sure. But don’t think I don’t know that you’re trying to take me to some lovers’ lane and park.”

  I shrug sheepishly. “Maybe I am.”

  Later, after she showers, we hop in the truck and go for a drive. Something we used to do when we were first dating.

  Something we’ve kept up.

  It’s fun sneaking off.

  Especially in a small town full of rolling hills, wineries, and train tracks that occasionally glitter.

  Seems fitting.

  I point to a side road that runs along the tracks. “Let’s go there.”

  “As you wish,” she says, and soon we pull over, get out, and walk along the tracks while the sun dips in the sky.

  The days are shorter now, but this being California, the weather is still warm enough for a walk without jackets.

  As we wander, we talk about our plans for the holidays, seeing friends and family, being together, and all that good stuff.

  The plans are nothing out of the ordinary.

  It’s just us, doing life, living it every second.

  Which makes it all the more fitting that this moment is the one where I stop, tug her close, and drop to one knee. I waste no time. I cut to the chase. I ask the question we’ve both known was coming. “Will you marry me?”

  She laughs, then she sinks down to the ground. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “Hey, it’s not like I waited that long,” I say, cupping her cheeks.

  “Three months. Such an eternity.”

  “You knew it was coming.”

  “I did, but I’m still happy, Liam.”

  “Me too.”

  I reach into my pocket, take out a box, and show her the ring that Alva and Wednesday helped me pick out last month. The joking ceases when January sees it. The diamonds catch the light from the fading sun. They’re all laid out in a platinum band, ideal for a carpenter.

  “Oh my God. It’s perfect for me,” she says, a smile lighting up her whole face as she gazes at the ring.

  Pride suffuses me, along with love, certainty, and so much happiness. “I wanted it to be one you could wear while working. I want it to be one that makes you happy, that feels like yours.”

  She swallows, twin tears slipping down her cheeks as she holds my face. “You feel like mine. And I love you.”

  “And I love you, but let’s put that ring on.”

  She lets go, waves a hand in front of her face like she needs to settle her tears, then exhales. I slide the ring onto her finger, and we admire the diamonds.

  When she lifts her head, she whispers, “What are the chances you meet the right person at the right time in the right place?”

  “If he moves next door to you, I’d say they’re pretty damn good.”

  She grins, gazes at the ring once more, then says, “I’ll take those chances every day for the rest of my life.”

  “Good, because I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  And we kiss as the sun sets over this small town that’s become my new home, where all the glasses are full.

  Epilogue

  Liam

  * * *

  By the next summer, The Hacker can sit on command, roll over, play dead, and go for walks, all thanks to Wednesday.

  “I hacked all the dog training tips I could find and engineered them for cats,” she says one Saturday morning as we take the pets for a stroll.

  “Steve can do all those things too, and she can sit up and beg, and shake, so I’m kind of winning,” I point out.

  “That only makes me want to teach The Hacker to retrieve radishes and bring them to your bed,” she counters.

  January laughs, giving me she got you eyes.

  Ethan laughs. “Do it, please. That would slap so hard.”

  “I’d pay good money to wake up with broccoli or radishes next to my fiancé,” January says, reaching for my hand.

  “Not fiancé for much longer,” I add.

  In fact, a few hours later, in the town square with my mum and dad, my sisters, their kids, January’s family, and all our friends looking on, including Oliver, Summer, and Aunt Jane from New York, plus Alva, Audrey, Missy, and Betty, the woman I moved next door to walks down the grass, joins me in the gazebo, and hands the bouquet of daisies to her daughter.

  When the justice of the peace asks if I promise to love, honor, and cherish January for the rest of my life, I say yes, and my heart soars when she says the same.

  “And now the rings,” the justice of the peace says.

  My son hands them to me. I slide a band on January’s finger, matching her diamond band, and she slides one on me.

  Then I kiss the bride as the ducks wade in the pink pools and glitter sparkles on the pavement, and I am happy with all the family I have.

  Living every moment.

  And loving every second of it.

  * * *

  THE END!

  * * *

  Intrigued with Liam’s cousin Oliver? What’s the story with Oliver and his best friend Summer? Find out what happens next to this crew when Oliver needs Summer to pretend to be engaged!

  Oliver and Summer’s romance is available everywhere in Dear Sexy Ex-Boyfriend. And be sure to sign up for my mailing list to be the first to know when sexy new romances are available or on sale!

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