by Ford, Hannah
Liam took my hand and helped me up so that we were sitting on top of the table, our knees bent, resting our feet on the top of the bench below us.
“So,” I said.
“So.”
I took a deep breath. “If I stay with you, I want there to be new rules.”
“Like?”
“First, I want my phone back. Permanently.”
“No.”
“Aren’t you even going to ask me why?”
“Why? So you can post selfies to your instagram and drive college men crazy?” He was referring to the selfie Maddie had posted to my account that day, the one that my lab partner James had left a comment on, and I shook my head.
“That guy wasn’t driven crazy,” I said. “He’s my lab partner, he’s not even –“
“No male lab partners.”
I stared at him incredulously. “Wow,” I said. “I understand now why you’re one of the most successful men on the planet.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I brought you out here to tell you my demands, and within the first five seconds, you’ve somehow turned it back around so that you’re telling me what I can and can’t do.”
“That’s how it has to be.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
I looked at him, sitting there in his Stanford sweatshirt, a baseball hat on his head, turned backward, his jaw dusted with stubble. He looked more like a sexy catalogue model who’d stepped out of the pages of a tailgating spread rather than a powerful billionaire.
“I can’t accept that,” I said, frustrated. “I love you. I want this to be real.”He didn’t say anything.
“And if you can’t do that, then I have to leave.” It wasn’t a threat. It was the truth. I couldn’t do this anymore. It was one thing when we’d just started out, when he’d kidnapped me. But now he’d paid off my ransom. There was no reason to stay with him now, not like this, except maybe for the fact that Robbie had threatened me. But something told me that if I wasn’t with Liam, that particular problem would go away.
I waited another moment for him to respond, and when he didn’t, I stood up. Conversation over.
“Wait.” He tugged my hand, pulling me back onto the picnic table. “Fine,” he conceded. “You can have your phone back. But no social media. And I will have a tracker on it, access to all emails, text messages, and anything else.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he held his hand up, stopping me. “It’s for your protection, Emery.”
“Fine.” I licked my bottom lip, emboldened by this victory.
“Anything else?”
“Oh, we’re just getting started.”
“Sounds good to me,” he growled. His hand was on my leg, pushing the bottom of my shorts up and exposing more of my thigh. I grabbed his hand and removed it. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to have this conversation inside.”
“You think being outside is going to stop me?” His tone was teasing, but his voice was sexy and low and laced with promise.
I shook my head.
“This is serious, Liam.”
“Oh, I’m being serious.” His hand slid the cloth up further, and his touch on my skin burned through me.
“I’m not done.”
“There’s more?”
“Yes!”
“Fine. Continue with your bargaining, Ms. Waters.”
“Thank you,” I said automatically, before I realized I was acquiescing to him again. He’d stopped moving his hand on my leg, but kept it there, the pressure of him letting me know that he might be seemingly open to talking, but my command of this conversation was still very fragile.
“I want dates.”
“Dates?” He said the word distastefully, as if it were some kind of old-fashioned institution that he’d never heard of.
“Yes. Twice a week. Dinner, a movie, whatever, but I don’t want to be hidden away in your house.”
“I don’t date.”
“That’s bullshit. I’ve seen you date. I’ve seen pictures of you out.”
“Those are events, Emery, not dates. And you are more than happy to accompany me to events.”
“Fine,” I said. “I mean, okay. But I want to go out, too.”
“I’m very busy.”
“It’s non-negotiable.”
“Fine. Twice a week. One you pick, one I pick.”
“Agreed.”
“Next, I want to know things about you.”
“You do know things about me.” His arm snaked around my waist and he slid me across the top of the table toward him. He nuzzled his face into my neck, inhaling my scent. “You know how to kiss me until I’m crazy. You know how to suck my cock until I’m so hard I can’t take it. You know how to use your pussy to clench me so tight I explode.”
My hair was still slightly damp from the bath and he smoothed it away from my face as the warm night air slid over my skin and made me shiver. His lips brushed over the spot right under my ear, and butterflies fluttered around in my stomach.
“I’m not talking about sex,” I said, pulling away. “I’m talking about things about you.”
I scooted away from him on the table, turning to face him and crossing my legs.
He regarded me across the table, his eyes burning bright as his gaze slid over my body.
“I’m serious, Liam.”
“I am, too. As a heart attack.”
“Don’t try to be cute.”
“If you think I’m so cute, why don’t you come over here?”
“Liam!”
“Fine.” He sighed and looked up at the sky. “What do you want to know?”
What I really wanted to know was why he was so upset that I’d been talking to his mother on the phone before, why he was so intent on punishing me in his basement, where those scars came from, who Vienna was. But my instinct was to start with something simpler and less complicated, like how old he was when he lost his virginity, or what he was like when he was younger.
I wanted to know those things, too. I wanted to know everything about him. But to start with a simple question like that would have been a copout. Because when I told him I wanted this to be real, I meant I wanted it to be real.
Not just me finding out what he was like in high school or if he played T-ball when he was a kid. Real things.
And to pretend otherwise would be disingenuous. So I went right for the question.
“How did you get those scars? What happened?”
He shook his head. “Emery.”
“What? I told you how I got mine.”
“That’s different.”
“How is it different? It’s the same thing.”
I felt the shift between us, the air becoming heavy with meaning and anticipation. A second ago I’d been pushing him for things. Dates, my phone… and he’d handled it well, even been joking around.
But now I’d pushed the conversation toward something even more dangerous and forbidden. He got up to go, but this time I was the one to call out to him.
“Liam,” I said.
He turned to look at me.
“Please. Stay.”
He stared at me with those dark eyes and my heart broke. Whatever the circumstances that had caused those scars were dark and twisted and kept buried deep inside of him.
I got up and went to him, wrapped my arms around his neck.
He turned his head away from me, but I wasn’t going to let him push me away. I wanted to let him know that no matter what I was going to stay, that I wasn’t going to give up on him.
“You don’t have to tell me right now,” I said. “But please, I just want you to try.”
“Fine,” he said. “But it’s going to be on my own time.”
I nodded. “Fair enough.”
He kissed me then, his mouth moving over my lips slowly, and he pressed into me, his hands sliding through my hair then roaming over my body before coming back to touch my face as the kiss deepened.
Hi
s tongue moved past my lips, forcing them to part as his hands roamed my body. I pulled away when his hands reached down and squeezed my ass.
My core was pulsing, my pussy damp. Every nerve ending in my body was aware of his presence, right there, so close. It was going to be a constant struggle to not make this always all about sex and control when my whole entire body, my whole entire being, wanted to submit to him, wanted his hands all over me, touching me, coaxing me, owning me.
A plane flew overhead, so close it felt as if we could touch it. The wind kicked up at the same time, making it feel as if the plane was blowing our hair back, and we stood there, staring up at the sky, both of us watching as the plane finally touched down on the runway in the distance.
Liam pulled me close and tipped my chin up to the sky.
“Venus,” he said, pointing it out.
“I remember,” I said, “when you showed me that first night.” I remembered the statue in his office, the one of Aristotle, the way he seemed so into the sky, how all his offices and living areas were above ground. How he’d told me that being down in that basement punishment room had something to do with what had happened when he was younger.
“I want to know everything about you,” I said.
We sat there for a few minutes, watching the planes whisk over the sky, the glittering lights like the promise of a new day.
* * *
When we got back to the plane, he pulled out the handcuffs.
“No.” I shook my head.
“Emery.”
“No, Liam. I’m not going to be handcuffed to the bed.” I was standing at the foot of the bed, looking at the clothes he’d laid out for me -- a lacey pair of red boy shorts and a matching camisole. “Clothes, too?”
He came to me, running his hands up my bare arms.
“You promised to try,” I said.
“I know. And I meant it. But this is what I need.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
I swallowed. “So this…the handcuffs…it wasn’t about the kidnapping?”
“It’s about my needs,” he said, and I knew he meant his need to control. He was watching me carefully, and he’d already given up so much. The phone, the dates… If he was trying, I could try.
“Fine,” I said, grabbing the clothes off the bed. “But this is a subject open to ongoing negotiation.”
I slipped back into the bathroom and pulled on the boy shorts and camisole. The skimpy outfit was sexy, bordering on obscene, but the material was soft and silky against my skin. It made me feel sexy, him dressing me like this. Even the thought that he wanted me to stay with him so badly that he was going to cuff me to the bed sent a dull ache through my body, a heavy pounding of desire and lust. It turned me on to be controlled.
“You are complicated as fuck, Liam Rutherford,” I muttered. “I’ll give you that.”
When I got back to the bedroom, he was crouched by the side of the bed, installing a hook into the wall.
“You always come prepared with hooks for your handcuffs?”
“Just for you.”
I crawled under the covers and he cuffed me to the bed.
I thought we would talk about what had happened, but instead, he turned away from me, and I reached out and ran my hand down over his bare skin, but he didn’t turn back around.
I waited a few moments, wondering if I should say anything.
I couldn’t tell if he was asleep.
But it didn’t matter.
For the rest of the night, at least, he was gone, his walls up again, impossible to penetrate.
* * *
I woke to the stillness of the room, the darkness surrounding me like a heavy blanket. Even the planes in the distance couldn’t be heard anymore, and I didn’t know if it was because they’d stopped taking off for the night, or if the walls of the jet were so impenetrable that even the sounds of other planes couldn’t get through.
“Emery.” His voice was a rough whisper in the dark.
His body wrapped around mine.
“Was I having a nightmare?” I usually remembered my nightmares, but I wondered if I’d been freaking out, if I’d woken him with my screaming or thrashing.
“No.” He shook his head.
I turned to face him and he tangled his legs with mine. He was still wearing his soft pajama pants, but he was shirtless, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I couldn’t help but notice his biceps, his triceps, the way the tiny bit of light that shown in through the windows bounced off his golden skin.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I can’t sleep.”
“Did something happen?” I tried to sit up, suddenly worried that Robbie was back, that Liam had heard something. But my arm was stuck in the handcuffs, making it hard to move.
“No, no, everything’s fine.”
I settled. “Then what is it?”
“I can’t stop thinking about what you said outside.” His fingers moved to my thighs and lingered over my scars. I wanted to ask him what I’d said exactly that he couldn’t stop thinking about, but since he was the one initiating the conversation, I didn’t want to push him, didn’t want him to shut down. So I waited, letting his fingers skate over my skin.
“Who did this to you?”
“I told you. A doctor.”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t remember.” This, at least, I was thankful for. I had no memory of his name, even though I could see his face clearly, could smell the antiseptic of his office, could smell the sweet anesthesia and feel the coldness of that room sometimes so clearly I thought nothing would get me warm.
“And your mom brought you there?” His fingers slid the sides of the lacey boy shorts he’d made me wear further up on my thighs, his touch sending heat hotter than a summer sun through my entire being. But his touch wasn’t purely sexual, even though desire pulsed under the surface, always there, the chemistry between us too strong to deny or temper.
But his touch was also comforting, like he was trying to make sure I was okay, like he was trying to make sure there were no more scars, no more marks he couldn’t see.
“My mom brought me there,” I said, the words feeling like sandpaper in my throat. “She told them she thought I had bone cancer.”
His body stiffened and his fingers stopped moving over the scars, his hand gripping my hip hard. I knew it was hard for him, this kind of intimacy, that any kind of emotions would make him want to fuck or punish me.
“He was about an hour away, this doctor. She, um… she found him on the internet, I think. “ Liam’s eyes hooded and his jaw clenched. I knew he was thinking about what I’d tried to hard not to think about. How my mom found this guy, what she’d searched for when she’d gone online. Had she found some guy that had a bad medical license, perhaps someone who’d been sued before? What had she found out about this man that let her know he would be so willing to operate on me? “She brought me to him, told him that I had bone cancer and that I needed chemo.”
“Jesus,” Liam murmured.
“He didn’t give to me,” I said quickly, as if that made it okay. “That wasn’t his particular kind of torture. But he did surgeries on me. He cut into me. Once he was in there, I don’t know what he did.”
“Why poison someone when you can cut them,” Liam murmured. “Sick fuck.”
My chest ached so hard I could feel a hard knot starting in the middle of it and moving to my throat. Don’t cry, I told myself. But something about hearing Liam say that doctor was a sick fuck made me emotional. I knew the doctor was sick, knew my mother was sick, but I’d never heard anyone else say it, mostly because I hadn’t ever told anyone else.
“Where’s your mother now?” he demanded.
“She left when I was thirteen. When I got old enough to be able to tell someone what she was doing.” My eyes filled with tears as I thought about it. “I don’t know where she is.” I swallowed. “I googled her once, a couple of years ago,
but I couldn’t find anything.” I forced a laugh. “She’s probably in a shelter or something, or maybe she found a new family to torture.”
But I could tell Liam didn’t find anything about the situation funny. “Emery,” he murmured. “God, Emery.” His lips brushed over my cheeks, kissing away my tears and then he was kissing my lips, the salty taste mixing between our mouths. His lips and mouth were warm, washing away the memory of what had happened to me.
We kissed and kissed, and just like before, his kisses and his touches took away the power of those scars. His legs tangled with mine, but he made sure to keep a bit of distance between our torsos. I was turned on beyond belief, my pussy beating with need, so wet I could barely take it. But I knew this was him trying, knew this was him trying to keep us apart so that it wasn’t all about sex.
And yet he kissed me hungrily, feverish with want, our tongues tangling and stroking, his lips sucking on mine, his stubble brushing against my chin.
When he finally pulled back from kissing me, I was breathless.
He held me, stroking my hair in the darkness, my head against his chest, listening to the soft beat of his heart.
I glanced up at him, and he was staring at me, and he pulled me up toward him, our foreheads pressed together, his arms around me. Every so often he would push a strand of hair off my forehead, or stroke down my shoulder, or softly take my bottom lip between his.
But most of the time he was just looking deep into my eyes, and it was one of the most erotic experiences of my life. I knew this was difficult for him, it was difficult for me, too, talking to him about these things, about what happened to me, saying it out loud after all these years when I’d never spoke of it before.
My core pulsed.
“I need to feel you,” I whispered. “Please.”
He reached into the nightstand and grabbed the key for the handcuffs, unhooking me.
Instantly, his hands were on me, tugging at my top and pulling at my boy shorts until I was naked.