“I promise I won’t move again. Not even an inch.”
“I’m not talking about tonight.”
“Can you please not be cryptic for like half a minute? I’m enjoying this.”
He makes a sound low in his throat, a masculine noise of pain or pleasure, I can’t tell which. He says, “Me too. That’s the problem.”
He’s holding me so gently. Like I’m fragile, a piece of bone china he might easily break. I love it exactly as much as it annoys me.
I don’t want him to manhandle me per se, especially not now since I’m sore and bruised pretty much everywhere. But when I’m healed, I hope he doesn’t treat me like I’m so breakable.
In fact, I hope he maybe gets a little…I mean it might be nice if he lost some of that steely self-control and got just the tiniest bit…
Rough.
Like love bites on my neck rough. Faint bruises on my hips from his fingers rough. That lovely ache deep inside the next day after you’ve been had by a man who knows exactly what he’s doing, how to put his hands on you and touch you in just the right way to make you moan and shudder and lose yourself to him, and love losing yourself, and beg for more.
Imagining it, a shiver goes through me. A thrill like a single violin note, singing high and sweet.
Into my ear, in a gravelly voice that sounds like he’s on the outermost edge of his restraint, Liam says, “Whatever you’re thinking right now, lass, stop.”
My ears go hot. I breathe, “Sorry.”
He’s tense again. A big ball of tension and nerves, his frustration seeping out with every uneven breath.
I wish I didn’t find his reluctance so seductive. I wish I didn’t think his ambivalence is so hot. But the harder he fights himself and denies himself what his body so obviously wants, the more intrigued I become.
I’ve never met a man who denied himself anything. From what I’ve seen, men walk around assuming the whole world is their candy jar. They delight in taking whatever they want.
But even beyond that, they assume that candy is their birthright. Their due for being born with a dick between their legs.
They think candy is what they’re owed.
Not Liam Black. He wants, but he doesn’t take.
“I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid for you, for all the things I want from you that I think you just might give.”
Remembering his words, I wonder what kinds of things he wants from me.
What kinds of things that would make a man like him afraid.
Liam’s chest rises and falls with his sigh. “Go to sleep, lass. Get some rest.”
“Will you be here when I wake up?”
He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t have to. Because I whisper, “I hope so,” and I hear his soft groan of despair, and in that despair I hear a surrender.
I wasn’t sure before, but now I know it in my bones. Even if he’s not here in the morning, he’ll come back again soon enough.
The important question now is why he wishes so badly that he wouldn’t.
9
Liam
She falls asleep like children do. Fighting it at first, stubbornly rebelling, until the lids droop and the breathing changes and suddenly they’re gone like a light switched off and not even a bomb could disturb them.
Her arm is a dead weight as I ease it from around my body. Her mouth is slightly open, full lips parted as she draws deep, even breaths. She doesn’t stir when I rise from the bed, or when I don my jacket and shoes, or when I pull the covers over her shoulders and stand staring down at her for a long, long time.
Taking that first step away from her toward the bedroom door is disturbingly difficult.
Locking the front door to her apartment behind me is even harder.
Exiting the building without turning back around is the hardest of all.
As I knew he would be, Declan is waiting for me at the curb in the Escalade. He starts the car the moment I emerge through the lobby doors and doesn’t say a word as I open the door and get settled in the back seat. We pull smoothly away and drive for a while in silence.
Until I say, “Go ahead. Let’s hear it.”
His gaze never leaves the road. “Not my place. And you already know.”
I do know. That’s the problem. One of the many problems.
I drop my head back against the seat and close my eyes. I expect darkness, relief, but instead an image of Tru’s smiling face appears under my lids.
Christ, those eyes are haunting.
“But…”
I open my eyes and find Declan studying me in the rearview mirror. “But?”
He tilts his head thoughtfully, looks back at the road. “Rules are made to be broken. Even if they’re your own.”
I huff out a laugh. “You know as well as I do how badly it could go wrong.”
“I’m not sure she’s as fragile as you think.”
“They all are.”
“Aye, and they’re all afraid of you, too.” He glances at me again. “Except she isn’t. Wasn’t afraid of me, either. That’s something.”
“What do you mean, she wasn’t afraid of you?”
“I mean she gave me lip when I told her to be careful when I dropped you two off earlier. You know when the last time was that someone gave me lip? Never. But she did. Straight up. Told me to go fuck myself in so many words, and did it with a smile.”
I stare at him, incredulous. “Are you telling me you think this is a good idea?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”
His pause is loaded, and I know he’s carefully choosing his words.
“But she was about to get shot—or worse—and she fought back. You saw it yourself. On the ground, outnumbered, beat up, gun in her face, she throws a punch instead of all the other things she could’ve done. Begging for mercy. Giving up. Crying.”
He lets it hang there, knowing I have enough personal memories of men far stronger than she doing exactly that.
Aggravated, I yank on the knot in my tie because it suddenly feels like a noose. “So she’s a fighter. That doesn’t make it right.”
“Aye,” he agrees, nodding. “But maybe it makes it a little less wrong.”
I glare out the window, muttering a curse. I can’t believe he’s saying this. Him, of all people. I expected him to be silently seething with disapproval, not taking her side.
Not admiring her.
“You’ve been alone a long time, Liam. If you were careful—”
My temper breaks. I glare at him and thunder, “I won’t risk her life!”
Declan’s expression doesn’t change. His grip stays loose on the steering wheel, his gaze doesn’t dart away in panic. He simply meets my eyes in the mirror and tells me a devastating truth.
“You say that like you haven’t already.”
I grit my teeth and look out the window, hating that he’s right. Hating myself for letting it get this far.
I had a chance, when all I was doing was memorizing her profile while she poured me bad coffee. Before I knew the particular way she falls asleep. What her skin smells like after a shower. How her body feels pressed against mine.