“Complaining?”
He chuckled, running his hand along my spine. “No, ma’am.”
After easing me upright, he swept my hair aside, kissing the back of my neck. “Still up for our adventure?”
“Depends . . .” I spun to face him, gripping his still semihard cock. “Since you’re still up, how are we going to leave the room?”
I couldn’t stop smiling when he bent me right back over and fucked me again.
Three hours later, we’d showered and napped and finally gotten around to dressing for dinner. I probably should have been tired, but instead, energy stemming from our love pulsed through me. Liam was my adrenaline, my fix, my cure.
“It’s about time,” Carol noted. She wore a satiny-gold slip dress that hugged her every curve. She looked stunning in her usual elegant way.
“Sorry,” I said, knowing I must look like a rumpled child alongside her. Though Liam had instructed someone to stock my stateroom closet, instead of choosing one of the elegant gowns, I’d opted for floral shorts and a breezy white tank. My hair hung loose and wild, and alone with Liam, I’d felt like the most beautiful woman in the world. But now that we’d rejoined the world, my confidence wilted like a plucked flower. How could Liam love me, when he’d been with a perfect woman like her? I hated this flaw in myself—the fact that Blaine had me so beaten down that I could no longer appreciate any special qualities that made me uniquely me. I prayed that given time, I once again would. Until then, I took Liam’s hand and found comfort in knowing that what good I couldn’t find in myself, he found for me.
“No need for apologies,” she said after sipping her martini. “I’ve just been all alone up here for hours, reduced to flirting with deckhands.” She winked.
“Where’s Nathan?” Liam asked.
“He took off in one of the shore tenders to fish in deeper water.”
“Sounds fun,” I said. “Maybe we should’ve tagged along?”
Liam pulled me against him. “I’ve already bagged my limit.”
“You’re not even close,” I teased.
He kissed me and I kissed back until Carol cleared her throat.
“Sir?” a steward asked Liam. “Chef wants to know what time you’d like dinner served, and whether you’ll be dining on the aft deck or in the dining room?”
“Ladies?” Liam asked. “I vote let’s eat outside, as soon as the mighty fisherman returns.
What do you think?”
“Works for me.” Carol turned to the steward. “But could I get a drink refill?”
“Of course.” The steward bobbed his head before turning to me. “May I bring you anything?”
I would have loved champagne, but opted for sparkling water with lime.
The three of us gravitated upward to find a beautiful table had already been set. White china plates and gleaming silver rested alongside crystal stemware that cast rainbows from the last of the day’s sun. Soft jazz played from hidden speakers, and the only other sound interrupting our peace was the engine hum from Nathan’s tinder.
“Catch anything?” I called over the rail when the engine was killed.
“A couple of groupers and a snapper.”
“Cool! Stay there. I want to come see.”
“Sure you’re strong enough?” Liam asked.
I kissed his frowning lips. “I feel great.” To prove it, I took his hand, leading the way back down below where we fussed over Nathan, taking his picture with his catch. Once a steward whisked the fish to the kitchen for the chef to transform into fillets, I said, “Go wash up and then head upstairs. We’re having surf and turf.”
The setting sun turned out to be quite a showboat, streaking the vast horizon in luminescent mountains of orange, violet and gold. Our meal was calm and happy, a quiet celebration of all Liam and I had overcome.
When the stewards cleared the last of our molten lava cake, and Carol and Nathan had said their good nights, Liam and I sat together on a padded bench seat.
He held his arm around me and I rested on my side, curved into him. Even that afternoon, when he’d been inside me, we somehow hadn’t seemed physically close enough. The experience of having been taken by Blaine was still too fresh for me to fully relax even though in our current location, I couldn’t have been safer—at least physically. With his shoulders back, and his new buzz cut, Liam looked every bit the hard-assed military man who didn’t take shit from anyone. If Blaine tried anything again, Liam would be ready. The majesty of the sunset and the way Liam made me feel with the slightest brush of his lips had me once again believing in miracles.
I forced a deep breath, then blurted what had been on my mind since that afternoon. “I want to get married—right away.”
“I’d like nothing more.” He nuzzled my neck, raising goose bumps along my forearms. “But you know that’s not possible.”
“What if I think maybe it is?”
His eyes narrowed. “I’d wonder if you’ve been hitting the bubbly. Now that we’ve seen what Blaine’s capable of, we’re going to have to come up with one hell of a plan to bring him down.”
“No. I’m done with all the assumed names and elaborate schemes. I want to try a more reasonable approach.”
He smoothed my hair back from my forehead. “Reasonable and Blaine aren’t two words I’d use in the same sentence.”
“Agreed, and I know you’ve probably got teams of people working on ways to take Blaine down—I love you for that—but I want to go to him. Just one-on-one, and—”
“No. You’re not going anywhere near him.”
“You don’t understand. If you’re with me, he’ll go ballistic, but on my own—or maybe even with my parents in tow—I’m not saying it would be easy, but if I returned in a calm, rational way, it’s possible he could reciprocate and let me go.”
“What don’t you understand about the word no?”
“Liam . . . I love your protective streak, but as we’ve already been over, we can’t hide on this boat forever.”
“Technically, we could.”
“Okay, well, that may be a great plan for you, but I need to see a doctor.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” His furrowed brows harshened his features, so I reached out to smooth them.
“I might be pregnant.”
“Babe . . .” Tears shone in his eyes. He took my hands. “For real? How do you know?”
“I know, because I know. I’ve been pregnant before, and—”
“Wait. What?” He released my hands.
“I-I should have told you sooner, but . . .” I bowed my head. “Talking about it hurts.”
“Did that bastard do something to make you lose it? Or do you have a kid out there he’s keeping from you?”
I clamped my hands to my aching forehead. “I had a miscarriage and it was awful. I’m sorry I even mentioned it, okay? I just know that now that I’m off of the drugs, I still don’t feel right. My breasts are too tender and I’m always queasy. That’s how it was the first time. If I’m pregnant again, I have to know the baby’s safe. What if all the drugs—” I was crying again and hated it. I was tired of feeling weak. I knew that deep down resided a strong woman, but how did I find her?
Liam gingerly dragged me onto his lap. He stroked my hair as if I were made of rare, fragile porcelain. “First thing in the morning, I’ll have the captain fly out a doctor. Then, we’re going to come up with a plan to safely deal with Blaine.”
“I already have a plan. Like I said, I want to try having a rational conversation—at least as rational as Blaine’s capable of being—about what it’s going to take for him to grant me a divorce.”
“No. Can’t let you do that.”
“Let me?” Even though I knew Liam only wanted the best for me, his manly-man routine wasn’t going to work this time. “Sweetie, I love you even more than Rice Krispies Treats, but I’ve already been with a guy who controlled me, and no matter what, I won’t play the role of victim again. What happened at that clinic made m
e feel as helpless and violated as the night I lost my first baby.” I relayed all of it. The beating. The rape. The hospital psych ward—even the cameras.
I expected Liam to cut in, but he remained stone still, save for his chest’s smooth rise and fall. “What are you thinking?”
“Guess I’m wondering what happens when he says he wants you back.”
After gulping deep breaths that I hoped filled me with more courage than I actually had, I said, “I’ll go. I’ll move back in with him—only rig his place with more cameras and mics than the Big Brother house. You can do that, right?”
“Of course, but no fucking way will I let you put yourself in that kind of danger— especially if you are pregnant.”
“But that’s the beauty of my plan. How am I going to be in danger with you watching me 24/7? Blaine’s ego is the size of a third-world country. He hates losing. I suspect we just need to work out an amicable way for him to save face. Maybe I offer to let him tell people I’m so crazy he was forced to divorce me?”
“I don’t like it—any of it.”
“You think I do? But what choice do I—we—have?”
A muscle ticked in his steeled jaw. “I’ve been thinking, too. Sure, I’ve got wheels turning to take Blaine down financially and emotionally and every way in between, but why not just hire a hit man? You’ve gotta admit it’d be a hell of a lot faster.”
“I’m going to forget you asked that.”
“I’m serious. I want you. You want me. This asshat’s the only thing in our way. Why not eliminate him?”
I cupped his dear cheek. “Because we’re supposed to be the civilized ones.”
“Fuck civilization.”
“I’d rather you just fuck me . . .”
He did.
True to his word, by ten the next morning, Liam had a helicopter land a doctor aboard our boat.
After my last experience with a doctor—even though he’d been a shrink—I couldn’t help but be wary. I kept conversation to a minimum, and he soon told me I wasn’t pregnant—just that often in times of great stress, women miss their menses.
This news came as such a blow that even after the doctor said his goodbyes and left me on my own in the cabin, I was too embarrassed to find Liam—not that it took him long to come to me.
“Well?” he asked, closing the door behind him.
I shook my head, refusing to cry. It had been selfish of me to even want to bring a child into our messed-up world.
“What does that mean?” He took my hands. “Talk to me. How far along are you?”
“I’m not pregnant, okay? I was wrong and feel stupid and don’t want to think about it.
Forget I ever even brought it up.”
“Babe . . .” Though I’d tried wriggling free from his hold, he wasn’t having it, and reeled me into a full embrace. I wanted to run, but where, when the only place I felt safe was here, with my cheek pressed against his chest, with his strong heart beating in my ear? “We have all the time in the world to make as many beautiful, blueberry-blue-eyed babies as you want.”
“Just stop. You don’t understand.” I didn’t understand. Considering the daunting task ahead in finally ridding myself of Blaine, my not being pregnant was the best-case scenario. In my head, I knew this. My broken soul, however, told a different story. My soul craved the joy of a tiny life growing inside. I needed that validation to prove that what Liam and I shared was real. That I hadn’t imagined it. Because honestly? Deep down in those horrifying dark places where I’d resided as a dead girl before meeting Liam, that clinic made me believe I had dreamt all the complex beauty we’d shared. No one knew better than I that if a man seemed too good to be true, he wasn’t. “That doctor—back at the clinic—asked things I never wanted to even think about, let alone voice out loud. He made me question everything. Could I have done this myself?” I touched my breasts. Made slashes to prove it was physically possible. “Could the shock of the rape, and losing my baby, have freaked me out to a degree I can’t even comprehend? Is that a more logical explanation than believing the husband who everyone thinks hung the moon was the one who actually did this? Is it more plausible—even probable—that everyone in my life believes this is what happened because it did?” The mere act of carrying my deepest fear into the light was horrifying. My eyes no longer had tears. My chest ached from my questions’ crushing pain.
“No offense to your shrink, but I’m not buying it. You’re fine. Your soon-to-be ex is the one with a problem.” Liam pressed his hand to my cheek, then graced me with his slow grin and the emerald-eyed stare that had made me first love him. I grabbed hold of that normalcy, of his beauty, his light. “Wanna take a walk?”
I nodded.
We made our way to the water-sport deck, where Liam placed my inner tube in the water, then draped me atop. He towed me across aqua water so calm it resembled sun-warmed glass. The sky soared so vast and brilliant and blue that it rendered me incapable of thinking. All I could do was arch my head back and feel—not just the way the heat made my limbs heavy and calmed my panicked pulse, but the way Liam’s automatic rejection of Dr. Carthage’s theory made me once again believe—mostly, in our love. But also in the facts that had launched me onto this incredible journey. I didn’t leave Blaine because I’d been crazy, but because I’d had no choice. His abuse had escalated to the point that I hadn’t merely feared he’d one day kill me, but known.
Liam’s strong, sturdy legs reached the spun-sugar shore. He scooped me from my ride and set me to my feet, where warm sand embraced my every step.
He took my hand, lacing our fingers like a precious prayer cloth while we walked.
His touch reinforced my belief in miracles. He made me believe we would not only have babies, but one day even build castles with them upon our very own Big Sur shore.
When he led me under and around smooth, car-sized boulders and into a private grotto, he removed my bikini top before arching me against one of the sun-kissed stones. Thousands of years’ heat radiated into my back, making me feel as if I were held by not one lover, but two.
My mortal love fondled and caressed my breasts, drawing at my nipples until I cried out for him to give much-needed attention to other areas as well. Balmy water lapped between my thighs, almost touching my begging core, but not quite.
“Liam, please . . .” I managed on a quivering half-breath.
“Please what? Kiss you?” He did. “Stroke you?” He feathered the backs of his fingers so delicately across my collarbone that I shivered.
Fuck me was what I wanted to say, but the words felt too coarse for this enchanted place. “Don’t make me wait. I need you . . . inside.”
I leaned forward, but he pushed me back against the unyielding strength of my other lover. The stone’s heat radiated through me, and after Liam untied my bikini bottom’s strings, he hefted me higher until I rested spread-eagled, with only my calves and feet in the water. Cradled in the stone’s embrace, welcoming even more partners by exposing myself to the seductive sun and sky, I moaned when Liam dipped between my legs, spreading me wider, teasing and taunting and torturing me with his tongue. After I’d come, he kissed me, and I tasted myself on his breath and squirmed for more.
He raised my arms above me, pinning them at the wrists while still kissing me, then impaling me, claiming me, with every thrust possessing me. In and out, he lifted my spirit like a rising tide.
He slanted his mouth atop mine, and our tongues said what words couldn’t.
I felt helpless, yet at the same time empowered. This man, our love—together, we could conquer anything.
I lowered my arms to twine them around his neck, pressing my fingers into the back of his head. I needed him closer, deeper, in every possible way.
I tried meeting him thrust for thrust, but my position rendered me incapable of movement. The sensation was at once frustrating and yet strangely liberating, in that my ultimate satisfaction rested solely with him. The realization not just fit this moment, b
ut mirrored our lives. Maybe it was okay to relinquish some control. Maybe the key was in recognizing that I alone held the power to decide if and when I wanted to share.
When I cried out in satisfaction, and he stiffened, filling me with his very essence, I wanted to take this fleeting happiness as a sign. I wanted to believe that just as he slid my tingling, limp frame off that rock and into his waiting arms, my soul would soon be as content as my body. But how was that possible with Blaine’s storm looming just off our horizon?
How could I be sure Liam and I would survive until my first marriage was officially dead?
Liam
Two days later, the jet “Jack Jones” chartered touched down at a private airport located just north of Memphis. Rain fell so hard I couldn’t see a hundred feet beyond the runway.
The pilot taxied the craft into the hangar where Ella and I would disembark.
I’d sent Nathan and Carol back to San Francisco via a commercial flight. Both had been pouty about the decision, but they understood this was something Ella and I needed to handle on our own.
Ella and I had forged a loose plan in regard to how we’d deal with Blaine. We’d compromised by having her call Blaine and set up a meeting for just the two of them on neutral ground at the Memphis Peabody.
In reality, he’d be meeting me.
Ella would be safe at another hotel.
I would calmly and rationally inquire how much cash it would take to make him welcome a divorce. Garrett had, of course, already taken this route, but I had to try dealing with the bastard myself. I had to see my opponent face-to-face, to search out his weaknesses, then use them against him. The fact that Ella had trembled during a brief call to the bastard steeled my determination to keep her out of this whole transaction. Every man had a price. I’d simply find Blaine’s.
If that failed, Garrett and I had explored another route. If it panned out the way I hoped, by tomorrow afternoon, Jack Jones’s charter would be headed home with this ordeal behind us.
To further ensure no additional surprises, what Ella didn’t know was that I’d hired a virtual SWAT team of guns-for-hire. They’d been instructed to be potentially lethal ghosts. This time, I wasn’t taking chances. This time, I was in control.
Found (Bad Boys with Billions Book 2) Page 17