“I will explain, but there's nothing between her and I, if that's what you're all pissed about. Which—” He sounds amused, and I want to confront him deeper.
“Which what?” I cut him off, secretly thankful he clarifies, because deep down, that’s what I want to know.
“It's really none of your fucking business.” He is so much closer to me now, and it’s increasingly difficult to hide my body trembling.
“Well, whenyouhave gotten in my face telling mewhocan’t touch me, you make it my business, Liam.” I glare at him.
For a second, he quiets everything. It is just us and this tension I can’t allow myself to sink into. He walks beside me and heads to the chair in the middle of the room, sitting down with his arm propped up, relaxed, waiting for me to say more, but nothing comes out.
I can't help but take him in. He is intimidatingly ravishing, tall, his body is made to touch, and I want to claw his eyes out. My chest hurts as I can see some of Joe in him, but it isn't Joe, it'sLiam, and I am recognizing what makes Liam more Liam than Joe.
Did I… did I miss Liam?
“You provoked me, Sara. Now finish it.” His deep voice startles me, and I forget where we are, who we are.
His presence reveals torn pieces I want to take apart and have him shatter until we’re both unrecognizable in our sins and regrets. The music plays around us, and the song "Church" by Chase Atlantic engulfs us.
I hypnotically move closer to him, holding my breath as his hands curl around my thighs, and my chest heaves from the way his eyes pierce mine and his callous touch.
Sadness and anger, flood through me like wildfire, and my hand moves before I can stop it. The slap across his face cracks through the air, stinging my palm. His head snaps slightly to the side, and I intensely observe his every microscopic movements, as if I’ve been starved to see him again.
He doesn't move.
Doesn't yell. He just sits there, jaw tightening, and my heart skips a beat.
“I'd love to say I deserved that,” he murmurs, voice rough. “But I can't find a good damn reason for it.”
My chest lurches, and I let slip words with embarrassing passion. These words shouldn't be directed at him, the brother of the man I loved, but they tumble out anyway. “You left me.”
“I didn’t leave you, Sara,” he says quietly. “To leave you, there’d have to be somewhere I could go that you aren’t already there.”
His stare is maddening, unleashing an admission that holds too much power over me. Something shatters in my chest from rage, longing, grief, as they all merge until I can’t tell them apart.
So, I do the only thing that makes sense. I climb onto him, his gaze never faltering from mine with a glint of lust, as his jawtightens. I feel his body heat pouring from him, and my legs lock around him, bringing us chest to chest, and relief washes over his features.
He smells like him, a scent I’ve somehow learned to recognize, and elicits a strange calmness. His body presses hard against mine as his hands grip my hips over my dress, and my body pulses, filling my stomach with a carnal heat.
The song throbs, a heartbeat made of smoke and bass, and I roll my hips slow over him, deliberate as my hands, hesitantly at first, thread through his hair, his face mere inches from mine. His eyes trail down my mouth, and with his thumb, he releases my bottom lip from between my teeth. Then with tender strokes of my fingers on his jaw, I memorize every detail, I’m overcome by a powerful, magnetic pull. His sadness, strength, solitude, and power, which I stare into, are spellbinding.
Even now, I see a dangerous man who could break into an unfair work of art; paint strokes of life battles he's had to carry on his own.
Beneath me, his body stiffens, his cock hardens and his breath hitches, compelling me to grind and drag my hips against him deeper. His hands slowly travel inch by inch up to my shoulders, softly moving my hair aside, erupting goosebumps, tracing his fingers from my chin down my neck and even lower to where he needs me, just above the hem of my dress, where I need him. Begging for his touch, my hips rock over him, while his lips hover over my pulse in my neck, eliciting a small moan from me. I want to kiss him again. I crave his lips against mine.
crave, crave, crave.
He inhales me, and my arms wrap around his neck. I can’t help holding on, softly placing my lips at the curve of his neck, and he feels like a desolate home that never welcomed me and yet locked me inside.
His lips finally collide against my skin, gently leaving a trail of kisses at my collarbone, and he lets out a breath for the first time when his hands grip my hips and thrust his hard length, my underwear soaked under him, my dress hiking up. As if he’s been waiting for this, I feel a thrum between my legs when his hands squeeze my ass into his palms, and a pleasuring pain when his teeth sink into my flesh. I gasp at the searing touch, at the feel of his cock under my throbbing clit. Only material separating us. It’s heaven. It’s too much.It’s everything. I want to rip everything off.
“Fuck, Sara…” He pulls my face up to him, leaning me in closer, and my breast rests against his chest. I want to drag my hands under his shirt and scratch his skin to crimson until everything I can’t have of him bleeds under my fingernails.
One more kiss and never again,but the air between us already bleeds. He says he hates me, but hate shouldn’t feel like this. Perhaps loathing someone implores to break its own rules until it turns into something else entirely.
I want relief. I want to ravage him.
Deeply intertwined, I feel both pain and desire. Liam’s hands are a promise of a destructive addiction, a killer in all its glory. I feel his heart beating so fast against me and I want more, but the rush becomes almost unbearable.
He hates me, and I hate him.
