I, on the other hand, wore nothing but jeans shorts that didn’t spend its time up my ass crack and actually covered a decent amount of my upper thighs. I guess I wore tank tops, but not the strappy ones that looked like they’d snap if you needed to take off at a run. These were like the female version of wifebeaters—that name sucked now I knew a literal beater of his wife.
Who the hell had come up with that name? I asked myself, then I realized I was going off on a tangent when all my hopes and fucking dreams were close to being realized.
Stupid brain.
His hand cupped my wrist, and I shivered again as his callused fingertips drew shapes on the sensitive flesh. It was tender anyway, but mine was more so than most. I had scars there. Scars that I’d been teased over all my life because stupid people thought I’d tried to kill myself. Yeah, because when you slit your wrists, you went all the way around to the back of your hand, right?
I’d know, because I’d contemplated it a time or two when I was sixteen and the combination of no sleep and nightmares had gotten me so depressed, I didn’t know how to make it through the next day, never mind another night.
It was weird to research ‘how to slit your wrists,’ but a shit ton of stuff had come up. You sliced down, not across, but it had never reached that point for me. Mostly because I’d known the move would be selfish.
I was loved.
So, so loved. Not just by my family, but by my friends—Saint and Keys. Heck, their parents loved me too. And then there was Ink.
My warrior.
He’d been a soldier before he’d been a brother. I knew he had to have seen and endured worse things than what had happened to me, and yet, he stayed standing. He didn’t take the easy way out.
That was when I’d crept into his bed that first night. It was too easy. After my kidnapping, the security on the compound had become crazy, but only around the perimeter. More brothers were set on shifts of protecting the gates and any weak points on the compound. Extra alarms, dogs, barbed wire and broken glass on the walls, you name it, we had it.
The tree that Aaron had climbed to get into my bedroom had long since been cut down. My momma had set fire to the pieces and I’d watched, feeling safer for seeing the destruction, but I hadn’t needed to go to such lengths.
At sixteen, it wasn’t like my parents checked in on me at night before I slept. Sometimes, they went to bed before I did to do things no sixteen-year-old wanted to think of. I’d just stayed outside on the verandah, and when darkness had fallen? I hadn’t needed to climb down a tree. I’d simply crossed over to the compound, slipped past the party that was going down, and headed into Ink’s room.
I knew I’d been lucky to find him alone.
And every other night I’d spent there since, knew he had to have made a conscious decision to sleep alone just in case I showed up on a bad night…
Was that him wanting me all along?
Was that proof of that?
My stomach churned as these crazy thoughts flashed through my brain, and all the while, he stared at me as I waited for him to answer. Waited on him to tell me how he felt for me, if he wanted those naughty, dirty, dark things from me.
When he kissed my fingers, I almost fainted. Honest to God. I licked my lips as I lowered my hand and watched his mouth move as he answered, “I want everything from you.”
My throat worked as I processed that. “You know I love them too, don’t you?” I had to get that out there. Couldn’t hide the truth from him, even when I was so close to getting him… because without them, there was no me.
I knew that sounded crazy, dependent to the max, and a shrink’s wet dream as they tried to figure me out, but I didn’t give a damn about any of that. Ink wasn’t the only one who’d stopped me from hurting myself. I needed Keys and Saint just as much. They all grounded me. Kept me sane. And maybe I shouldn’t need men to do that, maybe that was what Prozac was for, but hell, I’d take my guys over that any day of the week.
“I do,” he murmured, and those words sent tingles waving down my spine. His eyes didn’t darken with anger, his face didn’t even flicker with a frown as he spoke. No, he looked just as calm as ever. “You’re your mother’s daughter,” he teased, then he winced. “I just… I wasn’t sure if you wanted me too. Thought, maybe, I’d be too old.”
I didn’t particularly appreciate being compared to my momma, even if Lucie Steeler did kick butt, but heck, I’d take it. If it meant I didn’t have to fully flesh out why I needed all three of them, then I was happy. My momma did things her way. She’d been raised with the five men who were my daddies, had almost been parented by them to a certain extent. I hadn’t had that with Saint, Keys, and Ink. They hadn’t been like my daddies. They’d been my saviors. My guardians. The keepers of my sanity.
So, nope, I was more than okay for Ink to confuse the two.
What I wasn’t okay with?
Him not being sure I wanted him.
“I sneaked into your room so often I’m surprised you didn’t kick me out, Ink,” I whispered rawly, the memory of all those nights flipping through my mind like a picture book. All those miserable nights where I’d needed him to hold me, and he had.
No judgment.
No questioning.
Just acceptance.
Of course, I’d wanted more, but that he’d been willing to give me so much had been an act of mercy in and of itself. And, as he’d said, if anything had happened, he could be looking at a statutory rape charge… That wouldn’t exactly be proof of my gratitude, would it?
“You didn’t come on to me.” He shrugged. “I just thought you wanted comfort.”
I gaped at him. “I could have gone to my dads for that!” When he just crinkled his nose, I reached up and rubbed that crinkle. “I need you, Ink.”
He cleared his throat. “Liam.”
My lips curved at that. “Liam. You want me to call you that?”
“Think it’s only right,” he said, his tone staunch. Well, for Liam.
Shyly, I smiled at him, and sighed when he raised his arms and drew me into them. When I pressed against his chest, I could feel his heart beating, but even better? I felt his cock under my butt, felt its hardness and knew without a shadow of a doubt that that was as much mine as his heart was.
“I love you,” I whispered. “Have since I was a little girl, and over the years, it morphed, changed. At first, I loved you for saving me. But every year, that feeling evolved, deepened, until I couldn’t even think about seeing another day through without you in it.”
“Hey,” he rumbled, his hand moving so that he could tip my chin back. “I ain’t going nowhere.”
How had he heard that from what I’d said?
How had he sensed my biggest fear?
I gulped. “You promise?”
“I fucking swear it, baby girl.” The pad of his thumb settled into the slight peach-butt of my chin. He rubbed there slightly, then murmured, his words almost a parallel to my own, “I love you, too. Have for a long time.”
Twisting my head out of his hold, I buried my face in his throat and whispered, “I’m sorry for being a pussy.”
He snorted, and just like that, the emotional few moments broke as he chuckled at my words. “You have to be a pussy. You got one.”
“Momma ain’t a pussy,” I grumbled, but I was secretly pleased that he was laughing. I’d made things whiny and weird, overly emotional when I should have been trying to entice him into bed. But I’d always been able to make him laugh, and I liked his laughter almost as much as I liked his ass—trust me, the man’s ass was award-worthy.
“Nobody could accuse Lucie Steeler of being a pussy, that’s for sure,” he teased, “but hell, you ain’t your momma, Ama. You’re you. And I love you as you are, even if you’re making me talk about mushy shit.”
I peered up at him, watched him wink, and grinned. When his eyes darkened, I knew what was about to happen, knew it and welcomed it. My breath stuttered in my chest as he tilted his
head down and slowly, so slowly it felt like ultra slow-mo, he moved until our lips were a scant hairsbreadth apart.
Unable to breathe, I just waited for him to bridge the gap, to connect us in this way that was purely sensual, truly unlike anything else we’d ever experienced together, and when he finally did it, finally let our lips brush, it felt as though the earth quaked beneath me.
I’d been waiting on his kiss for a lifetime, and he didn’t disappoint.
As his mouth brushed mine, tenderly at first, my eyelids dropped and I shuddered in his arms. He dropped gentle pecks here and there, then he began to nip at my lips before faint licks made an appearance.
My breath began to hiccup from me as he teased me, taunted me into needing more, craving more, wishing for and wanting all he had to give.
My lips parted on a gasp when he sucked my bottom lip between his, and he took swift advantage and thrust his tongue against mine.
And that was it.
Not for him, but for me.
I couldn’t take anymore.
Pulling away from him, moving so fast that I knew I made him jump, I resettled myself so I was straddling him, until my sex and his were almost brushing, and I shoved my fingers through his hair, reuniting our mouths.
The second we were connected once more, a sob of both relief and desire escaped me. I shuddered into the kiss as he took over again, dominating where I needed him to because this was my first real kiss.
It wasn’t stolen from me like some of the idiots at school had tried to. This was purely for me, for us. It meant so much to me and it felt so good I dropped my hands to his shoulders and buried my fingers in the thick pads of muscles there.
His tongue thrust against mine, making me think about what we’d be doing later, and when his hands dropped to my hips? I almost died. Why? Because he ground up as he pushed me down and his cock and my pussy collided.
I tore my mouth from his and whimpered, “Fuck!”
“Fuck’s the right word for it,” he grunted, his head falling back against the sofa headrest. His eyes remained glued to mine as he carried on grinding us together, and Jesus, I was—
“I-I think I’m going to come,” I moaned, my eyes finally closing as a mixture of mortification and need overwhelmed me.
“Open your eyes, Ama,” he growled. “Let me see you. All of you. The real you.”
My throat worked as I tried to force my eyes open, but I could only get them into narrow slits. My vision blurred as his rough touch changed, sped up, and a sharp cry escaped me as the pretty innocent second base took me right where I needed to go.
When another cry escaped me, this time higher and louder, his arms tightened around my waist and he hauled me into him. Before I knew what the hell was happening, I let the release take me, stirring me into a whirlwind that was like nothing I’d experienced on my own.
As the pleasure ricocheted inside me, I grunted when I felt his mouth on my throat. His teeth nipped and sucked, licked and flickered against the sensitive skin, and I shivered as it prolonged the delirium that had overtaken me.
My hips rocked of their own volition as I milked this for everything I could get, but when I finally came down, it was to the wonder that was Ink’s heavy breathing as his own need made itself known to me.
A need he was experiencing for me.
Angling my head to the side, I nibbled on his earlobe, loving his grunt as I teased him in turn. With his hands still on my ass, I wasn’t altogether surprised when he surged upward. Quickly wrapping my legs around his hips, I clung to him as he walked me over to the bed.
With each step we took, I was half certain he’d change his mind.
Why the hell would this gorgeous man, this beautiful soul, want me? I was broken. Wrecked. Even before I’d had a chance to live, Aaron had messed with my head… why would he want that in his life?
And yet, when he tipped back onto the bed, I clung to him harder and squealed with laughter as we both bounced once his back hit the mattress.
Just as he always did, as they did, he took my mind from the past. I forgot my dire thoughts, forgot anything but him as we stared at each other, me down at him, him up at me.
Pressing my hands to his chest, I leaned against him and murmured, “Liam?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Yeah?”
“I want you.”
His lips twisted with a cocky grin that set me alight. “Yeah? Not as badly as I want you.” With that, he sat up, and his hands went to the hem of my shirt. “You ready?”
“I’ve been ready for years.”
His eyes darkened at that, and then I couldn’t see him as he ripped the tee over my head. For a second, with my head covered, my mind went to a darker place, and then it was gone as I stared into his beautiful face once more.
All the while our gazes were linked, his hands went to my bra. He worked it open, freeing my breasts a second later, but he didn’t look down. Didn’t stare at them like I’d seen some of the brothers stare at tits like they had the answers to world peace scrawled on them. No, he saw me, needed me to the point where I wasn’t just a body. Wasn’t just limbs and body parts that were sexy or appealing to a man.
To him, I was Ama.
And that was somehow the sexiest thing this man could have done. Ours was a highly sexed world. Fucking happened everywhere. It was on tap. The clubwhores pretty much existed for that reason. They were holes for the brothers to fuck—mean of me, I knew, but it was the truth.
I knew, point blank, that wasn’t what I was to Liam, and it made me love him more.
Reaching for his hands, I pressed them to my breasts. When his fingers were there, the callouses scraping over my flesh, I shuddered and murmured, “I’m ready for anything you can throw my way. Although, I’d suggest we postpone the anal until I invest in a butt plug.”
He blinked at me, then burst into chuckles. Though his hooting laughs had my lips twitching, I was actually being serious.
For a few seconds, I let him carry on with the male equivalent of giggling, then I slapped his chest and pouted. “I’m being serious.”
“I know, and that’s what’s even more hilarious.” He curled his lips inward as he stared up at me, and shaking his head, mumbled, “I swear to fuck, Ama, you come out with stuff at the damnedest moments.”
I hitched a shoulder, and was satisfied this time when his gaze dropped to my tits as they jiggled with the gesture. “No point in lying.”
“This is true.” He sighed, reaching up and gently cupping one of my breasts. His fingers tweaked my nipple, coaxing it to bud, making me sigh. When he pinched, I jerked in response and glowered at him.
“No fair!” I reached down, and through his tee, pinched his.
He grinned, sat up, curved his arms around me again, and then hauled me down until we were chest to chest. Rolling us both over until I was on my back, I sighed as his weight centered between my thighs, which I parted the second he settled over me.
After his tongue swiped over my bottom lip, I whispered, “I’m ready, Liam.”
“Fuck, you saying my name messes with my head.” He groaned, then reared backward and began shucking off his tee. I didn’t like it when he moved away, but I appreciated the view as he shoved his jeans down, baring everything.
I mean, I’d seen way too much of the male body thanks to where I’d been raised. But seeing my man? Fuck, it beat everything else.
Licking my lips as I stared at his thick, long cock, I empathized with all romance novel virgins—the ‘how will it fit?’ question surged to the forefront of my thoughts, but before I could worry about it, his fingers were at my fly. Within seconds, he was hauling my shorts down my legs, panties too, and I was just as naked as he was.
It was the first time I’d been naked with anyone, and yeah, I kind of felt shy, but also just ready. I was so beyond prepped for this moment.
I’d been waiting a long time, and it seemed incredible that my desires were well within reach.
&n
bsp; His hands smoothed over my legs, making me very grateful I’d epilated the day before, and when he trailed them down the insides of my calves, I licked my lips as I parted them, making space for him again. Except, he surprised me, he pushed them wider, nudging them apart even as he dropped to his knees at the side of the bed.
Though I stared at him in surprise, I didn’t squeak as he dragged me to the edge and ordered, “Put your feet on my shoulders.” Obeying, I slipped them there and dropped my legs open.
I kind of wanted to cringe, but mostly, I was just presented with this tempting image of the man I wanted who looked like he was dying to taste me.
Biting my lip, I rose up onto my elbows so I could watch. Heck, I needed to watch.
He smirked at me as he dropped his mouth to my pussy, and somehow, that smirk did more for me than that first lick. I narrowed my eyes at his arrogance, then I understood.
“Fuck,” I whimpered, my head tilting back on my shoulders as I groaned out my pleasure. He licked and sucked, stroked his tongue along the central channel of my pussy, then slipped inside me. It was sweet torture, a delicious torment as he ate me out.
For the first time in my life, I understood what that meant. He made me feel agony and wonder. My legs clamped around his head and my belly felt like it was caving in as he explored my pussy, making me need him more with every flutter of his tongue around a part I hadn’t even known was an erogenous zone—I’d just thought the clit was the MVP—how he proved me wrong.
When I came, it hit me out of the blue, just like my first one with him. The scream that escaped me was unplanned, and it was followed by a guttural groan as he sucked on my clit in a move that had me shuddering and falling back into the bed with a kerplunk.
I felt both tense and relaxed, and I had no idea how to deal with the discordant emotions. Apparently, he knew. Even though I was jealous of his past conquests, I had to be grateful that he knew how to read me. When he moved on top of me, his weight grounding me, I grabbed at him, clinging to him as I’d clung to him throughout my life.
When his cock brushed against my pussy, I moaned again, and when he slipped inside me, it hurt, but fuck, it hurt good.
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