I can see the hurt in Liam’s eyes as I speak, but he doesn’t say a word or get angry. He just listens to me as I talk, and I stumble over my words, wanting to explain it in a way that makes sense.
“I—I just wanted to feel something, somethinggood. I wanted to feel close to someone again. I didn’t think I was ever going to leave—I thought I was going to be his forever, and I didn’t want to be alone. But we—” I swallow hard, biting my lower lip. “He never did what you did to me, just now. He snuck into my room at night once and touched himself, watching me sleep. But he never did—that. And we never did it at the same time, watching each other. He never knew I was there until I went into his room one night, and I pretended not to know when he was in mine. We never did it together, like—like you and I just did.”
Liam lets out a long breath, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking, if he’s upset or angry, if finding that out has ruined everything all over again.
I push myself up, sitting up against the pillows and looking down at him as I struggle to keep talking, not to cry. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know, Liam. I’m not trying to keep secrets from you. But—I want to start over with you. I don’t want him to hang over us forever. I swear I’m trying to forget, trying not to miss him, to miss—it. I don’t even know if it’s him I miss. I think I miss not having to make decisions, not having to face how horrible the things that happened were, just losing myself in pleasing someone and having that be my only goal. I don’t know how else to explain it. I know it wasn’t love in the sense that—that—” I take a deep, shuddering breath and force the next words out, even as my heart feels like it’s going to explode out of my chest with anxiety.
“It wasn’t love like you and I could love,” I whisper. “It wasn’t a—a partnership. He owned me, like you said. It was different. I can’t take it back, Liam. I can’t make it go away, and I can’t change how I felt or what I did, and neither can you, like you said. But we could—we could try to start over. Iwantto try. I want to keep trying to move forward with you, here.”
“I want that too,” Liam murmurs. He reaches for me again then, pulling me down into his arms against his chest. “We’ll go slow,” he whispers. “One step at a time. You have a therapy appointment in a few days. Talk to her. Figure out what you need for yourself, and I’ll try to do the same.”
He presses his lips against the side of my temple, and I close my eyes, feeling tears start to drip down my cheeks. “I love you, Ana,” he whispers. “I swear to you, I want you. I’ll do whatever I can to keep you.”
“Forever?” I whisper it back, and part of me wishes I hadn’t because I’m afraid of hearing the answer. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to stay awake long enough to hear it—my eyes are fluttering closed, the warmth of his body around mine and the soothing safety of his arms holding me lulling me to sleep.
But I think, just before I drift off, that I hear him say it back.
“Yes, Ana. Forever.”
20
ANA
For a few days, things feel almost normal. I wake up the next morning in Liam’s bed, although he’s not there. When I stumble out, sleepy and half-dressed in my tank top and panties, I see that he slept on the couch.
“I didn’t trust myself to wake up next to you and not wind up inside of you,” he says simply, pushing back the cashmere throw he’d tossed over himself, his red hair rumpled and his own face soft with sleep.
I wish you would have,I think, but in the bright morning light, I can’t bring myself to say it. I just flush pink, and I see desire flicker over his face, the same desire that I felt when he’d said that, but he doesn’t move to get up or touch me.
“Dinner burned last night,” Liam says with a laugh. “We’re lucky the penthouse didn’t burn down while we—”
“Oh my god!” I clap my hand over my mouth. “Shit! I’m so sorry—”
“It’s fine.” Liam unfolds himself from the couch, striding towards me. I realize with a fresh wave of arousal that makes my knees feel weak that he’s wearing only a t-shirt and his boxer briefs, the latter of which are clinging to the bulge of his morning wood in a way that makes me want to drop to my knees and take him in my mouth.
He reaches for me, pulling me against him, and I gasp.
“God, Ana,” he whispers, running his fingers through my hair as he looks down at me. “I don’t know what it is about you, but I can’t fucking help myself when I’m around you. I see you standing there, half-dressed, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from tossing you on that couch and fucking you until you come so hard on my cock that you scream.” His hands slide down my waist, resting on my slender hips, and the sound of his voice murmuring those words, his Irish accent thickening ever so slightly, makes me feel almost dizzy.
“But I can’t stop myself from doing this,” he murmurs, his hand sliding around to the back of my head as he lowers his lips to mine, and I reach up, wrapping my arms around his neck.
His mouth feels so good, warm and soft, gently brushing over mine as he kisses me with a slow, unhurried leisure. He lets his hands roam, just a little, skimming over my ass in the tight cotton bikini panties that I’m wearing, sliding around the outside of my thighs.
“I should get to touch you, too,” I whisper, dropping my hands to his chest, scratching my nails lightly over the muscles there, down to the ridges of his abdomen. “Fair’s fair, right?”
“You’re a little vixen when you want to be, lass,” Liam growls against my lips. “Where’s the shy girl I brought back here? The one I met in Russia?”
“Is she who you want?” I look up at him, my lips hovering near his, my fingers resting on his abs. “The scared, shy Ana? Is she who turns you on?”
“Fuck no,” Liam growls, his hand tightening in my hair and a feeling of relief that I hadn’t expected washes over me. I hadn’t known until right that moment that I was afraid he’d wanted her and her alone, the trembling, shell-shocked, dependent girl in the wheelchair that he’d made laugh in a Russian garden.
“I want the girl in the videos Sofia showed me,” he murmurs, his hands on my hips, pulling me closer. “I want the one who curses, who dances, who laughs, who knows what she wants and how to get it. I know parts of her are gone, that the girl who danced so beautifully on stage is lost, that you can’t pick all the pieces of yourself back up again. But I want all that’s left of her, and I want all of who you are now, Ana. I wantyou, and all I want is for you to want me too, and only me.”
“I thought—” I breathe in, feeling myself trembling under his touch. “You’re pushing me so hard to talk, to go to appointments, tofixit—I thought maybe you could only love me if I could, or that you wanted me to discover that I couldn’t, and depend on you—”
“No.” Liam shakes his head. “I want you to heal for yourself, Ana, so you can be happy. I want you to be able to leave Alexandre behind, so that maybewecan be happy. But I love you now—rightnow, just as you are.”
He bends his head then, his lips capturing mine as the sunlight floods in through the French doors just beyond us. I feel as if I could burst into tears and laughter all at once, my spirits lifting in a way that I’d almost forgotten they could. “I love you,” he whispers against my lips. “I want you to be happy, Ana. That’s all—”