“Ah…” I moaned in both pain and pleasure. I missed feeling him inside of me. I wrapped myself around him as he pounded into me. Biting my lip, I fought the urge to scream out…fuck as my legs shook uncontrollably. I understood that he needed this, we both did. It was everything we couldn’t put into words, it was how we worked out our issues, and even this remnant of the recent past caused my heart to ache, but not the way I was growing accustomed to. I was desperate for this, I needed it, I needed him to remember and yearn for what was, the same way that I did.
“Divorce is…” he paused, thrusting into me with a delicious harshness I enjoyed. He pushed me back onto my back and held both my hands in one of his while he gripped my thigh with the other. “Never on…” Again he paused after a punctuating thrust. “The table.” It seemed as if this was a reminder, and I wondered briefly who really needed the admonition.
He didn’t stop after those minute pauses. Biting my ear and kissing my lips, his mouth was everywhere. I tried to keep my eyes open, however I couldn’t even breathe and think at the same time, much less control my body.
“Liam!” The sweat from his nose dripped onto me as he held me tighter. My toes curled in my shoes as I rode an almost painful orgasm to its end. His cinnamon and honey scent filled all of my senses. He was all I could see, smell, taste and hear. He surrounded me from every angle, and I missed him, I missed everything about him…about us.
“Ugh,” he grunted as he came.
He swallowed slowly above me, breathing me in as I was doing to him.
“You’re stuck with me. Until the day we both die. The contract says it. I fucking say it. So if you bring it up again…so help me God, Melody, I will you show you the very definition of a madman.”
Pulling out of me, he fixed himself and didn’t look back as he walked out. He must have felt proud of himself…manly even. He’d fucked me like a caveman. But I had won here. I knew what was running through his mind since I had shown up, I had seen it in his eyes—the conflict, the indecision. I had to remind him of who we were, where we came from, and how we handled our conflicts. Divorce was never on the table for us, not being together was never an option, and he needed to remember that. I’m not sure how he’d ever lost sight of who we were, or that this was how we dealt with things—we simply fucked it out of our system. But I’d made him remember because he had somehow forgotten.
I’d won, not him.
EIGHT
“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”
—Winston Churchill
OLIVIA
Ring. Ring. Ring.
ARHG! Answer the damn phone! I paced furiously in the bathroom, brushing the tears from the side of my face.
“Olivia,” the old voice, smoother than snake oil, finally answered.
“I want out. You told me she wouldn’t be back and here she is. I only did this because you promised—”
“Olivia, I’m going to hang up now and you are not going to call me again…do you understand? Some of us have work to do. Stand your ground and wait. It’s your life on the line, so I suggest that you do not fail and be found out.” He hung up and I wanted to smash the phone and scream.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t fucking breathe. I had told him everything about the family, in exchange for Neal and Ethan. Neal was going to take over, I was going to have Ethan, and everything was supposed to be alright. Everything was going to be the way it should have been.
Falling against the wall, I slid to the ground. I wasn’t sure what to do. Mel was going to find out and she was going to kill me.
“Oh, God,” I gasped out.
“Olivia? Sweetheart, are you okay in there?” Neal called from the other side of the door.
My hands went to my mouth trying to stop the building panic as my whole body shook.
“Olivia?” The handle rattled.
“I’m fine, Neal,” I finally managed to say.
“Okay.”
There was silence for a moment and I thought he had left. Standing, I roughly washed my face and opened the door only to find him standing there, arms crossed, waiting for me.
“I hate when you lie to me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said bypassing him as I walked to my vanity.
He sighed loudly. “Olivia, look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on you. I was worried about Liam, and now that he’s back, I remember how much of an ass he is. But I don’t have to worry anymore. He’s going to take over…”
“Do you want him to take over?” I whispered, as I rubbed my moisturizer over my face.
“Are we going to have this fight again?”
“And what fight is that?”
“The one where you tell me to step up. Be a man—”
“You said you didn’t want to ‘walk on the dark side,’ that you hated it. The last thing I want to be is a snake in your garden. So—”
“Olivia.” He grabbed my shoulder. “You aren’t a snake in a garden. You’re a snake in pit full of snakes. And while it lasted, it was nice not worrying about Liam breathing down my neck.”
“What are you saying?” I whispered.
He kissed my head as he met my gaze in the mirror. “I have no idea. I just don’t want you to ever think I’m letting you down.”
“You could never.” I was the one letting him down…he was going to hate me. But I couldn’t let Bloody Mel win. She had everything, got everything. She couldn’t have it all. I was stuck, there was no turning back, and it was either die by Avian’s hands or by Mel’s. At least with Avian there was a chance that I wouldn’t suffer.
He didn’t want to control the drug trade or get rid of it.
He had said the junkies weren’t the problem, it was the dealers. The junkies didn’t care where they got there next fix. As the head of the FBI, he didn’t want drug wars breaking out across the country for control. If Mel and Liam were brought down, there would be a vacuum of power left that would be perfect for Neal and me to snatch up. I knew Neal wanted it, he just didn’t know how to get it.
Feeling confident, I leaned into him. “I love you, Neal.”
“Well, I am good looking.” He kissed the side of my head before answering his phone.
They all thought I was obsessed with Ethan and a part of me was; he and I had bonded. He would stare at me with those bright green eyes of his and it would just pull at my soul.
Mel was just jealous. She was to blame for this situation, not me.
She was just a Prada wearing thug. I was the first daughter. I was Olivia Colemen-Callahan. While they worried about me with Ethan, I was going to do everything in my power to bring them down.
They were snakes and so was I. And I was going to do whatever was needed to get everything I was entitled to.
It was all going to work out. It was only fair. They’d had their chance, now it was my turn.
“Olivia!” Neal grabbed my hand and pulled my fist open. I saw the blood that I had drawn myself. I hadn’t felt a thing.
The first drawn blood of war.
“Olivia, you’re really starting to worry me.”
“My nails are sharp, babe. Seriously, don’t worry about it.” I brushed my uninjured hand over his cheek. “I’m fine. I’m going to clean this up and then we can head out.”