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It was all so fast, there was nothing I could have done to stop it.
Liam pulled his fingers out of me, pushed back his chair with a screech, and threw his napkin on the table.
In the blink of an eye, Liam was crouched down next to Matt, discreetly jamming a fork into his thigh, deep enough that it stood on its own.
Matt winced, and a low growl rumbled in his chest, but other than that, he didn’t even react.
“Touch her again, and you die.” His grunted words had a shiver running down my spine.
I had never heard Liam’s voice so laced with hate and fury. And directed at his brother, of all people.
He stood back up and fixed his jacket before turning around and disappearing through the double doors of the hall, leaving me to feel like the worst person on Earth.
Because I am.
Chapter 17
Liam
“Another,” I grunted to Lilly, Dea Tacita’s bar manager, seeing her disapproval plastered all over her face. “Keep your judgment for your real customers. The ones who can’t have your job and your head in the same night.”
“Sure thing, boss.” She mumbled, not masking the acidity in her tone, “I’m just not sure Signore Matteo would approve of me not saying anything.”
“Fuck Signore Matteo!” I practically spat. “If he doesn’t know I’m here getting shit-faced, he doesn’t know me at all.”
I was waiting for Alison at the club, sitting in my brother’s chair, in the office that reigned over Dea Tacita like God from the fucking sky.
No, no.
This was as far away from Heaven as one could get. This was Sin City—like the devil from his stone throne in the depths of Hell sounded more appropriate.
I couldn’t have run faster from that fucking table. When I saw Matt savoring Jamie’s mouth, when I heard her moaning against his lips, I couldn’t take it anymore.
There was no choice but to leave. The alternative was too bloody and unsuitable for my baby sister’s birthday celebration. How I managed to be so objective in that moment was beyond me.
I yanked my hand from inside of her straight away, and Jamie swung her head my way, shooting what looked like an apologetic and confused look. I didn’t care. The damage was done.
Matt was proving a point, I was aware. Still, I had to remind myself over and over that it wasn't real. But this rabid feeling in my chest that yearned for my fist to punch a hole in his face was too telling of my own feelings. Feelings that bothered me to be feeling.
I hadn’t asked for this. I didn’t want them. But fuck, I wanted her.
That fork in his leg? It was a kind concession because he was my brother.
Lilly poured me another drink. Was it the tenth? Fifteenth? I had lost count. But it slid down my throat with the same ease as all the others and did nothing to appease the burn in the pit of my stomach.
I had scanned the line of people waiting to get into Dea Tacita. There were over a dozen women who would have caught my eye any other day. They would be easy fucks, uncomplicated, and with zero strings. No phone call the next morning, no sleepovers, no tears, no names. Impersonal as fuck, but the itch would have been scratched, and my life made easier.
Why I was craving the clusterfuck that Jamie would mean was out of my spectrum of understanding.
She could be like Michelle.
I had tried that line of thought, only Michelle never meant anything. We had slept together before she started at AD and occasionally did because it was convenient. There were no blurred lines there. She knew what the deal was from the start.
Jamie didn’t fall in that category. She had one of her own, where no other women had ever come close to.
I’d be happy to hold her while she slept, as I did last week, with my dick neatly tucked in my pants.
That was definitely a first. Liam Battaglia, craving to cuddle. Shoot me now!
