“I know. And I’m so goddamn sorry I pushed you away,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I couldn’t see thatyouare more important than a job.”
Min cupped his face, the thick hair of his beard a foreign sensation beneath her fingers, and he leaned instantly into her palm. “How do I know you won’t leave me next time things are difficult?”
He gripped her free hand and pressed it to his chest, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb. “I will never leave you again. There is nothing in my life as important as you.”
“What about your music?” she asked, not sure she wanted the answer.
“Nothing. There is no music without you, Min. I have nothing without you.”
She searched his eyes, the way they sparkled with unshed tears, the fear that she might turn him down. Could he really mean it? “You worked so hard for that program,” she said, the reality of everything he’d lost searing through her again. Would she ever get over the guilt?
“I’ll start another. I’ll start ten more if it means I get to keep you,” he rumbled, and her skin felt too tight, her body overfull with the promise of those words. “I love you, contessa.”
“I love you.”
Before she could even finish speaking, he’d pressed his lips to hers, stealing her words and her breath, lapping the love from her lips. She melted against him, wrapping her arms around his neck as Liam wound his free hand around her waist, his hand at her nape angling her face up to him.This,she thought,is coming home.
He broke the kiss, panting and keeping his lips mere millimeters from hers. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“So am I. What will you do?”
“I don’t know.”
“We’ll figure it out together.”
Liam nipped at her bottom lip, smiling so wide his eyes crinkled at the edges. “Together,” he agreed, kissing her again, his hands winding in her hair.
She pressed herself against him and he made a soft noise that sent heat pulsing between her legs. “From now on,” she said as he trailed his lips over her throat, “we face things together.”
He hummed in agreement against her skin as his tongue swirled over the shell of her ear. “God, I missed you.”
He chuckled, a deep, dark sound that flitted over her skin and promised so much pleasure, a sound that called to her on such a primal level she was powerless to resist.
“You’re mine. And I’m yours,” he murmured.
She took Liam’s hand and lead him up the stairs. She didn’t want the first time Liam met her family to be her mother walking in on them having sex on her cream-colored sofa, and she needed him too much to wait until they were somewhere else. She opened the door to her childhood bedroom, leading him inside and locking it behind them a fraction of a second before he had her pressed against the door, his fingers already working the button of her jeans.
Liam pulled her jeans down over her hips, leaving her panties in place, dropping to his knees and helping her step out of the denim. How did he still look so in control even on his knees? He pressed his nose to her cloth-covered mound, his tongue sweeping over the damp lace clinging to her swollen cunt, and she shuddered.
“Let me apologize properly,” he said, glancing up at her as he lifted one of her legs over his shoulder, opening her up to him even further. “Let me make you feel how much I love you.”
The next swipe of his tongue made her knees buckle, but he had her held so expertly, the movement only drove her clit harder against his mouth. Min dug her hands into his hair, her hips bucking of their own accord against his mouth. “That’s it, baby,” he said between scrapes of his teeth against her sensitive skin, the wet lace rough on her soft folds, “use me to make yourself feel good.”
She rocked against his mouth, but that damn lace kept him from giving her what she needed to find her release. She whimpered her frustration and the infuriating, wonderful man between her thighs chuckled. He got to his feet, grasping her panties in his fist along the way and pulling them so high and tight that the fabric pulled against her swollen clit. She gasped, rising on her tip toes to get away, thrusting her hips forward to get closer. Liam kissed her, rough and demanding, but his grip on her panties didn’t relax.
“God, I’ve missed you,” she gasped, squirming against him.
With a final yank on the fabric, Liam released her. “On the bed, contessa,” he commanded.
She didn’t hesitate, shimmying out of her panties as she went and clambering onto the bed, her knees falling open and displaying herself for him. And then he was there, kneeling between her legs, his knees wedging her thighs wider apart. His hands slid beneath her, squeezing and spreading her ass cheeks. This time, he didn’t bother to tease her. He devoured her as if he would die without her release on his tongue, as if he needed the taste of her as desperately as he needed his next breath. Min dropped her head to the side, her face pressing into the quilt while Liam sucked mercilessly on her clit, and it was so wrong to be doing this in her childhood bedroom, so deliciously dirty that she came, shivering against his face.
Still he didn’t stop. He sucked and licked, his hands digging into her hips, until one orgasm blended into another, until her hips began pulling away from his touch instead leaning into it. With a long probing lick, Liam pulled back. He dragged his lips over the softness of her thighs, across her belly, his beard damp with her release as he draped his body over hers.
“Come home,” Liam rasped, his voice thick with emotion and arousal as he notched the fat head of his cock at her entrance. “Come home with me, contessa. I never want to spend another night without you in my arms. Make a home with me.”
Min lifted her hips to meet him, the tip of his cock slipping into her heat. “Ask me again,” she said, “when you’re not inside me.”
He pistoned his hips into her, seating himself to the root and banding his arm around her to hold her pelvis tight to his own.
