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“Or you are?” He rips the covers back to reveal my naked body, snaking his hand between my legs before I can protest.
When he thrusts two fingers inside me, I whimper as my hips buck slightly of their own accord, to which he grins victoriously.
“My ravenous girl. I had you panting all night, and you’re drenched again.” He tsks. “Sopping after ogling my abs. And you lied. I’ll have to deal with that later.”
His fingers move between my entrance and clit over and over again, but I resist the urge to tank this line of questioning and crawl on top of him.
“That feels good,” I breathe. “But you’re not answering my question.”
He arches a cocky brow. “Want me to stop?”
I shake my head, a chiding frown tugging at my lips. “If you can’t multitask, Liam, don’t feel bad. You can take care of me later. Right now, I want the answer.”
He laughs, removing his hand, sucking on his fingers in the most lewd manner, and standing beside the bed. “I’m impressed by your focus.”
As he drops his towel, his dick bobs inches from my mouth. I let my tongue sweep out across my lips because I’m salivating for him and messing with him is fun.
He smirks and slides his shirt over his head. “My caseworker was this thirty-something lady. Nice, except for the pity she had for me. Fuck, maybe it was failure. I was the kid she couldn’t save.”
Stepping into a pair of boxers, he continues, “Anyway, I talked her into getting me approved for the Navy at seventeen. She was all for it. She helped me graduate early and dropped me off at the processing center before boot camp.”
He pulls on his gray joggers and snaps the waistband as his hazel gaze lands on me. “The last thing she said to me was that we’re not all given equal hands in life. The key is to stop looking at other people’s cards or wishing ours were better and just learn to play the hand we’re dealt.”
With a far-off look, he flops onto the bed, propping himself against the headboard and dragging me into his embrace. “I carried that around with me for a few years, busting my ass to overcome my shitty hand. But when we got erased, I realized I didn’t want to learn to play a fucked-up hand. I mean, it made sense in theory. I could bluff. But if I was called out, I’d still have the same worthless cards. Or—the strategy I prefer—I could tell everyone in this goddamn world to fuck off and steal the card that wins every time.”
I can see that being his outlook. So different from how I was raised and yet maybe not. In the political world, we’re all just dealing in the currency of family names, connections, and wealth to win our hands and stay on top. Some would consider much of what’s achieved in that area stolen.
And my father—although I wasn’t aware of the nefarious side of his business until recently—he always taught me to size up my opponent’s weaknesses so I could determine my strategy. Maybe that’s a little different, but I’m guessing the roots are similar.
Play their game.
“So, that’s your philosophy?” I ask.
His fingers skate up and down my arm, bumps erupting in their wake, both from his touch and from him offering another piece of himself. “To show up every day with the winning card, not because it was given to me, but because I was the one skilled enough to fucking take it? Fuck yeah. That’s my philosophy, Ace.”
He uses my nickname, but doesn’t grant me the correlation.
It started the night we gambled at La Lune Noire—maybe that’s all there is to it. If I assume more, he’ll tease me ruthlessly. No sense in showing all my cards.
Never let them see.
I’m not going to play games with Liam, but old habits die hard. And vulnerability isn’t my strong suit.
He strings his fingers through my hair as his other hand lifts my chin. “Is that what you were looking for?”
If I had any doubts about whether he sensed my underlying hopes, he decimated them with that. But still, I’m not going to ask for more. Everything’s been so perfect between us. I don’t want him to think that I expect a tattoo he’s had for years to have a deeper meaning regarding me.
So, instead, I nuzzle my head against his chest and give him a version of the truth. “I wanted the story behind it, and you gave it to me. Thank you.”
He chuckles under his breath. “Fine. Have it your way.”
“I do have one other question about all your tattoos actually. Or what’s beneath them. I noticed they cover scars …” I’ve wondered about the scars for a while. Most are barely visible through the ink, but my fingers graze across them daily, and if he’s willing to share, now seems like the time to inquire.
His arms cinch around me as he inhales what sounds to be a laborious breath. “You didn’t really ask anything, but I’ll let it slide because it’s about damn time you understood nothing is off-limits between us. I’ll answer anything you want to know. There’s only two from this life—one on my back and one on my chest, both from the bullet I took when I was protecting Ivy. That fucker went right through me, so I consider those a token of luck. I wouldn’t have survived if that bullet had hit her.”
A deep sigh billows out of him as he snatches his Zippo from the nightstand and proceeds to flick it open and shut. “But those other scars don’t belong to me. They belong to the kid who had assholes as foster parents. The warrior who died in combat. The soldier who was a POW. The man who was relentlessly tortured because the motherfuckers imprisoning him had realized the best way to torment the Chief was to harm his men. But that guy is buried, Ace. So, there’s no sense in dredging any of that up.”
As unhinged as Liam can be at times, after a lifetime of those types of scars, he seems incredibly grounded.
