Once I’m finished putting my things away, I hesitate. I can’t hear Liam talking on the phone anymore, and I wonder if I should go back out. I don’t know what he has planned for the rest of the day, and now that we’re back home, I feel uncertain. I try to picture us just sitting on the couch, watching tv like an ordinary couple or reading next to each other, and I can’t quite imagine it. But at the same time, just like our lunch date, I have a sneaking suspicion that if we did it, it would feel natural. Like something we’ve always done.
Everything with Liam has felt, if not exactly easy because of our respective pasts, both apart and together, natural. Safe.Good.It’s felt normal, like a relationship should, like relationships I’ve had in the past but so much better.
If I can just put Alexandre behind me, I could find out how far, exactly, this could go.
Tentatively I walk out into the living room to see Liam sitting on the edge of one of the barstools, the phone on the counter in front of him. He looks up to see me and gives me a small smile.
“I made your appointments for you,” he says.
“That easily? It took me weeks to get in back in Manhattan.”
“My connections can come in handy.” Liam grins, standing up. His smile fades slightly as he looks down at me, his expression turning somewhat stern. “You’re not to miss any of them, is that understood? Sofia mentioned to me once that it was difficult to get you to keep your appointments back in New York. You are not to miss these.”
I feel a small flicker of upset at Sofia for telling him that. Still, it makes sense in a way—I suppose she and the others wanted Liam to understand what he was getting himself into, bringing me here. If I’m thinking about it logically—probably more for my good than his. If he hadn’t realized at least some small part of what I’d been through and the effect it had had on me, he might have gotten me here and been frustrated with me or expected things I wasn’t ready to give. I know Sofia was looking out for me, even if it feels a little strange to know that they’d talked about me without my knowing.
“Ana?” Liam looks down at me, the look in his eyes intensifying, and I feel a small shiver work its way down my spine.
“What if I do?” My voice is ever so slightly defiant, my chin tipping up despite myself. I don’t know what possessed me to test him like that, but I narrow my eyes, my mouth twitching slightly.
“What?” Liam looks startled, his mouth tightening. “After I made an effort to make the appointments, Ana, the least you could do—”
“Are you going to punish me?” I arch an eyebrow, moving a little closer to him, wanting to know how he’ll respond. I can feel the tension between us rising—not the good kind of tension, either, Liam looking as if he’s preparing for an argument before my last words sink in.
And then he realizes that I’m trying to tease him in more ways than one, and the irritation in his eyes gives way to the heat that’s becoming more and more familiar to me.
He reaches out, one finger beneath my chin as he tips it up so that I’m looking at him. “Is that what you want, little lass?” His voice is darker than before, lower, his accent thickening, and my heart suddenly is racing in my chest. He’s never called me a nickname before, never called me anything more familiar than my own name, and the way it makes me feel startles me.
“I don’t think I’d know unless you tried,” I murmur, my own voice dropping as I unconsciously move a little closer to him. “I might like it, though.”
“Oh?” Liam’s eyes heat even more, burning in his face as he moves closer, backing me against one of the stools. “I don’t think you know how I’d punish you, little lass. It wouldn’t be what you’ve been used to. I don’t think you’ve experienced anything like it before.”
“Are you sure about that?” I feel breathless suddenly, my heart racing at my own daring. I don’t know if I should be teasing him like this, but now that I’ve started, I’m also not sure I want to stop. He’s so close to me, his muscled body leaning over me, and I can easily imagine him kissing me, his fingers under my chin gripping it and bringing my mouth to his.
“Taking into account how you react when I touch you,” he murmurs, his fingers stroking along my jaw, “I think it’s safe to say that you’ve never felt anything like what I’d do to you.”
He steps an inch closer, close enough that his body is brushing against mine, close enough that I can feel that he’s hard, the thick ridge of his cock against my inner thigh. It sends a shudder of desire through me, remembering what he felt like inside of me last night, and when his hand strokes down the side of my neck, I want him to kiss me so badly that I feel as if I could cry.
“Liam—” I whisper his name, and that’s what stops him.
He goes very still, his fingers almost to my collarbone, and his green eyes bore deeply into mine. “If you want more, little lass,” he says, his voice so rough with desire that it’s almost a growl, “you’re going to have to do as you’re told.”
Liam steps back then, and I can see what an effort it takes for him to do it. “Go to your appointments,” he says quietly. “And then we’ll see what kind of reward a good lass deserves.”
He turns and walks away, and I realize that I’m gripping the sides of the barstool, my chest heaving as I try to catch my breath, my heartbeat thundering. I lick my dry lips, feeling almost dizzy with how turned on I am. The moment I see his door click shut, I rush down the hall to my own room, slipping inside and closing the door behind me, leaning up against it.
My entire body feels as if it’s on fire, my pulse beating wildly against my throat, my blood hot and racing through my veins. I know even before I slip my hand into the front of my jeans that I’m soaking wet, my clit throbbing with the need to be touched, all of me aching for him in a way that I’ve never ached for anyone. I tilt my head back against the door, gasping as my fingers slip between my folds, instantly seeking out my clit. I don’t bother teasing myself; I’m already on fire, already dying for the touch that I need so badly.
“Liam—” I moan his name as I rub my fingers over my slick, swollen flesh, my knees already weak with the pleasure rolling through me just at the friction of my fingers. I think about him coming down the hall and hearing me, realizing what I’m doing, and I know the thought should horrify me. But it only turns me on more, the thought of him realizing how much he arouses me, how much I want him. I press my hand tightly against my pussy, my fingers moving frantically against my clit as I imagine him walking in on me, the way his eyes would heat with desire when he caught sight of me, the way I would see him get hard from watching me.
I close my eyes, imagining him pushing me back against the door, yanking my jeans down, lifting me up so that my legs wrapped around his waist and he could drive into me, his cock filling me as he fucked me up against the door—or turning me around, my jeans around my ankles as he thrust into me from behind, his fingers running down my spine as he takes me fast and hard—
“Oh god, oh god—” I moan aloud as I feel my pussy clenching, wanting more than just my fingers, wanting his cock, and I know I’m on edge. I remember kneeling down for him in the hotel room, taking him in my mouth and tasting the salty tang of his cum on my tongue, the way he’d tossed me on the bed and devoured me afterward, how many times his tongue had made me come. A dozen scenarios flood through my mind, each one of them dirtier and more erotic than the last, until I feel myself starting to shudder with my oncoming orgasm. My hips buck forward, my fingers rubbing frantically as I feel my clit pulsing under my fingertips. I clamp my other hand over my mouth, muffling my strangled moan as I brace myself against the door in an effort not to crumple to the floor with the force of it. My knees go weak, nearly buckling, the wet noises of my fingers rubbing my pussy making me blush red at the same time that I’m gasping and moaning, coming apart at the seams with the imagined pleasure of Liam inside of me.
I sink to the floor as the last of the pleasure drains out of me, pulling my hand out of my jeans as I close my eyes.Why couldn’t it have been like that last night?In those final moments as I came, it was just Liam that I’d thought of. It wasn’t until I’d finished that thoughts of Alexandre started to creep back in, all the nights that I’d hovered outside of his bedroom door watching him, touching myself.
Alexandre.I’ve never felt so conflicted in my entire life as I do now, thinking about the two different men. I can’t help that I miss him, as much as I wish that I didn’t. I can’t pretend that part of me doesn’t miss the way he made it possible for me not to have to decide, not to have to figure out how to live without all of the things that had once brought me joy, because he’d forced me into living only for him and his pleasure. He’d taken away everything that had tormented me, all of the potential future that I couldn’t see a way forward to, and given me a different sort of life with him. In a way, that life would have made me happy, if I’d stayed.
But I hadn’t. Liam had come for me, grabbed me and taken me away, shaken me back to life and back to reality. I know that Alexandre wasn’t necessarily a good man—he’d proved that when he’d forced Liam on me, “testing” me in that horrible way. But until then, he hadn’t hurt me. He’d tried to care for me in his way, even given me pleasure, and I’d understood parts of him that I think maybe no one had understood for a very long time—maybe not since his stepsister. He, in his way, had understood me too.