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“Do you think … is that something you want … someday?”
“Is what something I want, Ace?” His gaze stays on our curving route, but I think he knows exactly what I mean. He’s just fucking with me.
“To be in love. Maybe not an epic love. Not everyone finds that, what Wells and Ivy have, but …” Good God, I’m babbling. My heart jumps to my throat. I hope Ivy wasn’t wrong. If she was, I’m screwing this all up.
“Yeah,” he says, features instantly stony. “Someday.”
Well, there’s my answer. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. He’s satiated me into a crumpled mess of unrequited emotions. Should’ve limited it to blow jobs between us, maintaining my position of power. Although the orgasms he bestows could keep me hot and bothered for years to come. Pun totally intended.
But all that is secondary to the throbbing fissures splintering through my heart.
The GPS only has a couple of minutes left on it, turns voiced in quick succession. The scenery is breathtaking, but the air inside this Lamborghini Urus is stifling. Liam silently follows along, releasing my hand and dragging his down his face with a frustrated groan. That just-below-the-surface simmering wrath from last night seems to be returning. No idea why, but this wouldn’t be the first time he’s given me whiplash with his moods.
With less than a minute left until our destination, his voice fractures the loaded quietude with an unyielding chill. “Let me be abundantly clear, Ace. I heard that fucking doubt in your voice when I carried you out of the warehouse. And now, you say that shit about Wells and Ivy. You and me”—his finger wags between us—“this has been so goddamn fucked up from the start.”
Jesus. He’s so pissed off. I’m not even sure why. Because I mentioned Wells and Ivy? Being in love? This is what I feared. That it was all alpha, possessive, caveman bullshit.
And everything that’s happened, it’s all confirmation of what my mother voiced. It may have been the political world that started it, my brother stealing a book, but she’ll see it as me choosing the enemy or the wrong side of the tracks either way. I’m giving them up, and for what? A fleeting affair with someone who doesn’t want a life with me.
“You’re fucking doing it right now. Goddammit!” He slaps his palm against the steering wheel and grunts as we pull up the steep driveway with a jolting halt from the emergency brake. “Stop fucking overthinking and strategizing. It’s enough!”
“What exactly is enough, Liam?” I twist back to the front, whipping the blanket into the back seat, packing up the discarded contents of my bag, and slamming them inside, as though each item has personally affronted me. “Please enlighten me as to how I fucked with you this time,” I grit out with an acidic tenor.
I’m so exhausted. Nothing is making sense. He wouldn’t shatter my heart like this.
He throws his sunglasses on the dash, jumps out of the car, strides around the front, swings my door open, and hauls me against his chest. His body is vibrating with a current of either anger or lust—maybe both. Or maybe the lust part is just me. He’s so beautiful when he’s unhinged. Muscles taut and flexed in his Henley, eyes hungry, rosy lips parted on a heavy breath.
Not sure if he wants to fuck me or bury me. Maybe both. Back to square one.
Lifting me into his arms, he sets me on the hood and consumes all the air. Even outside in the crisp, wintry mountain breeze, he sucks it all from existence. His long, sculpted limbs encase me so that I’m trapped like a hood ornament, breathless and sweaty and sopping wet.
“I’m not fucking asking,” he snarls, lips grazing mine, “and I’m not going to tiptoe around what this is. I thought I’d made myself crystal clear at the restaurant before that motherfucking prick …” His jaw snaps rigid, cheek muscles pulsing in and out. “And afterward—the week and a half I took care of you. Then again in the steam room and when my family gave you a role and reiterated everything I’d been saying. You. Belong. With us.”
My heart stutters. I want that, but I’m still afraid. A lifetime of coded messages and veiled truths tampers with trusting people at their word.
“It’s just … I’m not sure we want the same things—”
“Fuck that,” he hisses, leaning so far into me that I find myself bending back to accommodate him. “I’ve put up with too much bullshit, Celeste. Now, we’re doing things my way.” His midnight forest gaze is in full bloom, winter evergreens, muddy and frozen. He dusts his knuckles over my cheekbone, trailing them down my throat as my breath hitches. “You touch another man or even consider going to dinner with him, and he’ll be six feet under by dessert. A man touches you, and cutting his tongue out and choking him with it will seem like child’s play.”
That gives a whole new gory overlay to our non-fairy tale. “Who knew you were such a Romeo?”
He ignores that, his incensed glare boring into me like lasers threatening to burn my soul as he smacks his chest with every word. “You. Are. Mine, Ace.”
Stroking his scruffy chin, he groans, but then he’s back on me, fingers lacing into the loosened sweep of my hair, palms cradling my face. “I’m so fucking in love with you; I can’t see straight. I’ve been dizzy since you danced through my front door and probably long before that if I’m honest with myself. Don’t come at me with this bullshit that we don’t want the same things.” His voice softens slightly, so much vulnerability shining through. My golden god is a fragile demon. “You can have anything you want,” he rasps, tucking a feathery strand behind my ear. “Anything. All I want is you.”
Jesus, that balls up in my throat, like the ghosts of dreams I swallowed years ago clawing their way back for oxygen. He loves me. Wants me. I should leave it at that, tell him I reciprocate his feelings despite the eerie delivery. I will. But I enjoy goading him too much. It’s like picking at a scab. Shouldn’t do it, but can’t help myself.
“What if I said I wanted something other than us?” It’s not only goading. I’m curious. As much with him as myself. What do I want to hear?
His fingers curl around my jaw, wrenching my chin higher. “That’s a damn lie—one I plan to take out on your ass.”
Yeah. That’ll do.
He arches a haughty brow. “You’ve been warned about that sass. But to answer your question, I guess I’d say, well played. You exposed my lie. ’Cause you can’t have that. Anything but that.”
Best answer ever.
Anything but that is also a lie though, so we might as well hash it all out. I need to grasp all this life will be, and I don’t want to play the hide-and-seek games I’m used to. No more chess strategy.
