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I blinked to find myself pressed against the wall, Aria in front of me, Max and A.J ten yards down with Liam and the heap on the floor that was Tuck. My eyes and mouth wide open, I stared, trying to push forward and see what the hell even happened, but Aria stopped me. I caught my breath, wading through my memories of the last ten seconds. I recalled that Max had pulled me off Liam before I could stop him from hurting Tuck.
“Oh God,” I breathed when I saw blood on the ground.
“It’s okay,” Aria whispered as A.J came over to us. “Just breathe, Sasha. Max stopped him before he could do much damage.”
I stared down the hall. “That’s not damage?”
A.J looked annoyed. “Not for his standards. He did worse to the guy at your bar,” he said, referring to the night the cops came. “You girls get a cab and go home. We’ll take care of this. I’ll make sure the asshole’s alright.”
“Tuck?” I asked.
“Liam, but we’ll make sure the other guy’s fine too,” A.J muttered, b
arely looking at me. My heart dropped as I felt the shame and fault of the whole mess that just happened. I tried again to make my way to Liam, but my body was shot, and Aria easily contained me, bringing me downstairs. She walked me out of sight from our table of friends and muttered under her breath about Natalie as we made our way outside. But when she tried to hail us a cab, I resisted.
“I can’t leave here without Liam,” I said. “I really can’t.”
I didn’t have to say much more for Aria to understand, so instead of going home, she wrapped her scarf around me and sat me on a bench a couple doors down, both of us waiting for the boys to emerge from the lounge. I waited eagerly at first, every word I knew I needed to say at the tip of my tongue. But a full hour passed before Liam finally came out, and by then, I’d lost my speech to the jumbled mess of thoughts in my head. I sat up, blinking myself out of my haze as Aria read A.J’s text aloud to me.
“He says, ‘Tuck guy will be fine, won’t need hospital. Max is cleaning it up. If S wants to go home, Liam’s about to head back now. Look for the black Yukon outside.’”
I stood up and on the corner of the block, quickly spotted the car Liam called when he needed more privacy than he’d get in an Uber. A knot formed in my throat as I wondered if he anticipated getting into an argument with me – if he needed a wall separating us because he wanted to spare the driver from the crying mess I’d be when he told me he couldn’t do this anymore. Maybe I was losing it but I could’ve sworn I felt a difference in us. Already. I could feel a tension, an emotional wall that hadn’t been there just an hour before, when we were at the Rutkowski’s diner.
I couldn’t feel or sense Liam the way I swore I usually could.
As Aria walked me to the car, I realized I barely wanted to get in. A part of me wondered if I should just run and hide till I figured out a plan for us – a way in which we could live freely. We could move to California. You could open up the West Coast Cage Kings. Max would go with you. A.J wouldn’t. I’d lose Aria. But we could be together without worry. We could just be in love.
But then Aria opened the door.
Behind it, I found Liam sitting on the other side, elbow propped on the window, eyes staring ahead. The moonlight gleamed onto his long, straight nose, his perfectly carved lips. Guilt weighed on me as I noticed the cut near his eye. It was dark, but I could still see that it was bad, and that the bruising would be worse by tomorrow. I kept it together as Aria kissed me goodbye, but inside, I was falling apart because Liam looked beautiful and intimidating and every second he refused to look at me, I felt my heart weaken. I stood there for a moment, waiting for him to change his mind and tell me to find my own ride. To tell Aria I’d be moving in with her. But he didn’t. He didn’t look at me, but he didn’t tell me to leave.
So without a word, I climbed in.
The second the door shut behind me – the second we were alone again – I felt that basic need rush back. I needed to touch Liam, to just feel myself in his arms. I had ten years of regret throttling my brain and I just needed him to console me, to tell me that he was here and everything was going to be okay. It was angst and relief and heartache all at once, and it only heightened as he continued to ignore me.
“Liam, please,” I pled uselessly, grasping handfuls his shirt. I didn’t know where I was going with this. While the car pulled out of its spot and glided toward Houston, I knelt beside him, directionless, painfully blank and unsure of what to say. “I’m sorry,” I breathed, tears streaming down my cheeks. “Please let me explain what happened, ‘cause I can’t handle you ignoring me right now, I just – ” I drew in a sharp breath when he turned to me, still unreadable. With his stare on mine, the tears sprung from my eyes. Shame washed over me as I let myself break down and cry. I hated sounding weak, so desperate, but Liam was the one person on Earth I’d allow to see this side. So I let it all out. “Liam, I would give anything to turn back the clock on my life and do things over so I was never your burden, but I can’t, and I can’t handle you hating me right now when I just need you to hold me, Liam, please. I can’t. I can’t – ”
Without a word, he grabbed me. Yanking me onto his lap, he gripped me with anger. Urgency. One hand under my jaw, the other squeezed my dress, stretching it tight over my breasts as his lips crashed over mine. He pried them open to let himself in, his tongue rough, hot as he kissed me with a fury that left me so breathless it hurt my chest. But I didn’t stop him. Tears still streamed down my cheeks, and I wanted to be dominated so fiercely my mind went numb. I wanted to think about nothing else in the world but the sensation of being with the man I loved.
As he ripped open his shirt, I stripped off mine, down to boots and panties that he grabbed and twisted, tormenting me with the pleasure of lace stretching against my clit. I throbbed as I heard the threads straining against me, ripping extra slowly then tearing all at once. I gasped when immediately Liam thrust two fingers inside me, pumping hard and rumbling at the sound of my wetness. Bouncing lightly on him, I undid the top of his jeans, exhaling when I wrapped my fingers around his cock. The inside of the car was scorching hot as we went on, silent, panting, our breaths replacing the millions of things that needed to be said. I wanted to clear it all up – I was desperate to. But more than that, I was desperate to just drown in Liam’s touch.
He cursed when I sank down onto him, his hands squeezing my ass and my breasts bouncing in front of his mouth. He licked up their heavy swells before catching my nipples between his lips roughly, kissing them angrily, swirling his tongue around and groaning deep with more than just pleasure. I could hear every emotion in Liam’s voice. The ecstasy, the pain, the desire and regret. It made me dig my fingers into his muscled shoulders and ride him harder, filled to the point of pain as I grinded against him. I wanted to make him feel so good he’d forget everything. He’d done the same for me too many times to count, and I ached to just return the favor.
Because while our bodies were joined, lost in the same fiery need, I was still scared for us. I felt no more secure than I did waiting on that bench with Aria. I still felt the wall and the doubt I had before I climbed into the car. Liam loved me and he would never stop but that didn’t mean he’d never hurt because of me. And right now, he was still hurting over everything I’d done, and everything I refused to do. He hated living in secret, and being forced to watch another man touch my body. I knew he hated when he couldn’t be the one to protect me. He hated so much about our relationship.
He did love me, but I wasn’t sure if that was enough.
So I tried to live in the moment.
The air was humid now, filled with the sound and the scent of our sex. Fisting my hips, Liam jerked me forward, catching my mouth with his, kissing me angrily and then tearing away to watch me ride. He did it several times till I was dizzy, so hot and aroused I wanted to scream. Instead I moaned out when he caught my breast with his hand, squeezing hard, dragging the flat of his tongue over my nipple. The sensation lit a spark in my core that rippled hot to the rest of my body.
I pitched forward when I came, crying out as Liam caught the nape of my neck and held me cruelly down at the base of his shaft. His stare dug into my weak gaze, his eyes piercing through me as I shook on him, my cheeks still wet in tears he didn’t wipe away. He let me breathe for a minute, still staring at me, holding a handful of my hair now and making a fist around it. Then with a guttural sound, he came inside me, his teeth gnashed, his groan tortured. I gasped for breath as he pulled me close, pressing my naked chest to his and panting hard against my collarbone. But within a few breaths, he lifted me off his body. Hurt prickled my skin as I sat away from him again, hugging my arms around my body.
This wasn’t what I was used to after we were finished. I was used to feeling him close – feeling happy and content. Not unsure and ashamed.
I looked out the window. We sat in traffic, ten minutes from home. Fully sober in every way, I turned back to Liam. His hair was damp and matted to his forehead, his Adam’s
apple bobbing as he caught his breath. I waited for him to look at me and when he did, his eyes were harsh, and his voice was gravel.
