I follow up the stairs silently. He’s angry, but turned on I think. When I enter the office, he swings the door shut and then he’s on me.
His lips are on my neck, kissing, sucking, and biting. His hands roam down my body, over the swells of my tits, and down over the curve of my ass. His touch is warm and wandering.
“Why would you come here?” He finally pulls back just enough to whisper the words in my ear.
“I wanted to feel something.” I whisper, reciting the words from the question he asked me that first night in his car.
“This was stupid, Gemma.” He says my name and not Princess, which makes me think he’s being serious, stern even.
“I don’t need you to lecture me,” I say, pulling away from his grip just slightly. “I have enough men in my life telling me what to do.”
“I’m not saying coming to me is stupid. Whenever you want to feel something I want to be the first person you call.” He leans in close to me, holding me with one arm around my waist and the other hand holding my face in place, looking at his. “You better fucking call me anytime you feel numb. Anytime you think for even a second you want an escape I should be the first number on your list. Hear me?” he asks. “But we need to be careful. If my brother saw you out there, he wouldn’t just beat your ass, he’d fucking kill you.”
I nod. In awe of his protectiveness and understanding of me. “Okay.” I whisper.
He pulls me tight to him, kissing down my neck and then over my collarbone. “Do you want to finish what you started in this office?” he smiles.
It feels like more than just what I started tonight.
What I started two weeks ago, out by myself, needing to feel something.
And now, I feel everything. My whole body lights up, tingles run down my spine.
“Liam,” I moan.
“Yeah, Princess,” he smiles. “I know what you want.”
It’s late afternoon when my phone starts to ring.
Chloe lights up on the screen, no picture, no last name. It’s the contact Liam put in my phone. I debate answering. This thing with him is going to break apart my family.
Then again, it showed me my family was easy to break.
I thought we were stronger than that. I thought we were different, but maybe I was wrong. I think it was Ma’s death that broke us. It left us each so individually destroyed that everything we touched burst into flames.
“Hi.” I answer the phone, my voice soft and timid, something very unlike me. But everything with Liam is unlike me.
“Hi, Princess.” His words cut through me and I remember being in bed with him, his dirty words, the feeling of his mouth on my skin. Heat floods through me gathering at my core. “What are you doing?” he asks.
“Uh, nothing.” That’s true. I’m still curled in my bed with Waldo the black cat cuddled into my side.
“I wanted to…” He trails, and there’s something sweet about it, which is rare for this demanding, intimidating man, it’s like he doesn’t know what he wants to say. I understand the feeling. My mind disappears when I’m with him, I turn into a fucking cave woman. “I wanted to make sure you're okay.”
My breath hitches and I close my eyes tightly, inhaling all the air I can. I’m not going to cry to him about my family, so I seal away my tears. “I’m okay.” My voice cracks, just barely, but it does.
“Gemma, are you sure?”
“What would you do?” I blurt. “If your sister was doing this, what I’m doing?”
I hear his sharp intake of breath. “Gemma…”
“That bad, huh?”
“It’s hard to answer that question.” He laughs nervously. “I would want to protect her.”
“Maybe she doesn’t need protecting.”
“You don’t think you need protecting?”