“Spain? When were you there?” Liam reached for the bottle, and I waved my hand over my glass as he moved to pour more, so he moved back to his own and filled it. “Vacation or something?”
“No. Not quite,” I laughed uncertainly and swirled the remaining liquid in my glass. “I was born there and lived there until I was ten. My father didn’t agree with some of the values being passed down via our extended family, so we left when he was able to save up enough money to bring us all here.”
“Texas? Seems kind of random if you’re moving from a foreign country. Why not something more typical, touristy, like somewhere in New England?”
I licked my lips and smiled at his ignorance.
“My father heard of a group here. All of us are interconnected, as I guess, are the men who protect you.” There was no reason to pose it as a question when I was pretty sure he didn’t know how to answer it. He hadn’t been one of us for long.
“Wait, your entire family is into kickboxing? You were all traumatized by something? Or is it just training for all the crime they’re into?”
The horror on his face made me flinch.
Leaning forward, I reached for his arm across the small table.
“Fighting is in our blood. I’m sorry.”
My explanation didn’t seem to help him out. He blinked like a confused, slack-jawed son of a bitch. After a few moments, he picked his jaw off the floor long enough to grab hold of the rest of the wine in the bottle. Up-ending it, he gulped it down with a couple of giant swigs. It was such an unusually plain gesture, coming from a sophisticated man who had everything he could ever want. I couldn’t fight back the laughter that bubbled out of my mouth, and I let it rush out of me, cramping my stomach.
“Christ…” Liam fumbled running a hand back and forth through his smooth hair until it stuck up all over his head. That only made me giggle more, and I nearly fell out of the chair. “There’s no easy way for this to go, is there?”
“Wait, what?” Through my haze of laughter, I speared him with a disbelieving glare, trying to wipe the tears away from my face. “You don’t have to impress me. I’m not some society girl who’s toting around a small fortune. Don’t apologize, forget it. It’s good…to be ourselves…like this together.”
Now that I thought about it, it was freeing. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d felt safe enough with anyone to let go like this—even Jill. He must have had the same sobering thought, because he never looked away from me. Our eyes remained steady on each other, even as out laughter died away into the silence of the desert with all of nature’s afternoon sounds.
“You don’t have to pretend me with, Liam. I’ve seen you…in some pretty interesting situations…”
He frowned as if I’d reminded him of something and I winced internally knowing bringing up the kidnapping probably wasn’t in my best interest at the moment. Time to start again. Do over.
“What I meant to say is— “
“That I can trust you. Isn’t that right?”
His voice was flat, and the only sign that he had spoken was the way he cleared his throat and moved around in his chair in response. Mid-afternoon sun stroked his cheekbones, the reflection of his cufflink nearly blinding me.
“Yes, that’s what I meant. You can trust me,” His silence made me bold and I dug in my heels, prepared to argue until he believed me. Even knowing that with my family on the line and in the bargain, I was the last person he should trust. “We’re a lot like, you and I, both thrust into worlds we don’t quite believe in, right?”
“What do you mean exactly?”
“All of this money, you grew up with it, but you don’t let it define you. You’re not a snob or anything. You’re relatively down to earth for all your flashiness.”
“Is that so?” he smirked and leaned back in his chair, assessing me. “So I don’t wave around my riches, how does that make us alike exactly?”
“Obviously, I’m not rich. But you were thrust into a life from birth with no choice in the matter.” I took a long drink from what remained in my fancy glass and looked at him over the rim of the cup before putting it down. “I get that feeling. I’m the poster child for that feeling. Except mine didn’t come with a shiny Porsche and a new job, it came with overprotective brothers and a patriarchal society that wanted me barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen within the next year. By their standards, I’m practically an old maid. It’s all seventeenth century of them, minus the fact that I get to work because it’s with children and keep my bank account because it would be illegal to keep that from me by law. Other than that, I don’t get much of a say, and I don’t imagine as CEO of multiple companies you get much of a choice either, other than a brief change in responsibilities before another boulder rolls down the hill toward your face.”
We were both quiet as he twirled his wine glass between his thumb and finger shooting rays of light across the rock laid patio.
“Torturous, hmm? That’s what you think my life is like?”
“Isn’t it?”
“Honestly?” He took such a large breath I watched his shoulders go up with it before he exhaled as if he’d taken the weight of the world off of his shoulders. “I don’t know what my life is anymore. But I do know I need to rebuild, rethink some priorities, and relearn a lot. God, there’s so much to cram into my head, I sometimes feel like a five-year-old who’s never had any basic schooling or any idea of basic common sense.” He rubbed one hand along the line of his jaw, gaze flicking everywhere, but unable to look in my direction.
“Everyone’s offering me a hand up, a pat on the back, and good advice, but none of them realize that at the end of the day…it’s up to me. All me. No one else,” he whispered the last part as if were a secret he was afraid to reveal to even himself.
I didn’t think we were only talking about day to day life anymore.
Chapter 14 - Natalia
We were halfway through dessert, cheesecake with some kind of caramel and strawberry glaze when Liam swore under his breath as he looked at his phone.
“I’ve got to get to my meeting. We have to wrap this up. Do you want the chef to give you a doggie bag?”
“Hell, I’ll take the rest of the cake. I’d gladly take it all off their hands. Maybe eating it on the helicopter ride back will make me forgot my nerves.”
The mere thought of getting back into the contraption of death made me want to find the nearest set of bushes to puke into for a good long time. Instead, I hoped maybe I was buzzed enough to shove down my fear.
“Any chance you have any prescription drugs on you?”
“If I did, I would have offered already, sweetheart. You were practically pale as marble the first ride down here, I doubt the second one is going to be much better.”
“Hey, you guys done in there or is it not time for me to crash the party?” Tanner lumbered out onto the patio holding a giant cheesecake with two missing slices in his huge, meaty palm. “This is fucking fabulous, by the way, you got to give me the recipe.”
“Funny, I didn’t peg you for much of a baker.” Liam folded his napkin and put it on the table before coming over for me.
Too late, I screeched the chair backward on the stone and got up myself. It wasn’t ladylike, but it was efficient, and if we were getting back into that helicopter I wanted to do it now and not think about it. Any longer pondering it over and I might lose my nerve.
Liam bent forward as his lips caressed the shell of my ear and his breath eased across the nape of my neck. His hand closed around my arm, gentle yet protective. An odd little dance between men and women that I’d never been engaged in before and the correction in my world view left me a little breathless, slightly stunned. Every cell in my body perked up at the proximity of his body, enjoying the primal, proprietor way he touched my body.
“Thank you for this afternoon. It was…unexpected.”
I must have made a small involuntary noise. Memories of his hips pressing me back against my Jeep while hi
s lips moved over mine—self-assured and passionate—assaulted my senses. Whatever happened, I wrecked the moment. Liam dropped my arm taking a step backward, and I shuddered from the sudden icy chill that ran up and down my body without him so close to me.
He ran a hand through his hair making it stick up even more than it previously was before he looked at Tanner, who had a fork full of cheesecake halfway to his mouth.
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” His expression said he didn’t much care either way. Meanwhile I tried to keep a frown off my face. “My little alarm doohickey went off. You know, the one that you have synced to your calendar to remind us of important notifications?”
“We should go.”
Liam didn’t wait for either of us to say anything back. He headed into the house, presumably to get the car to give us a ride back to the helipad.
“Jesus, did you plan that?” I glared in the guy’s direction, not even trying to hide my annoyance at his barging in on us. We were getting somewhere!
“Time is time. We can’t change it.”
With that bit of cryptic creepiness in my ear, he sauntered off with my cheesecake and humming to himself. I closed my eyes, shoving down the urge to stamp my foot like a toddler. Everything up until the moment when Tanner interrupted us had seemed so real. Now actual reality was intruding in on us, and I didn’t like it one bit. Why couldn’t I have unstuck my throat and said something to him? Anything in answer to his sweet gesture! I’d panicked and lost whatever private foothold I’d gained with him—though my annoyance had nothing to do with the bargain I’d been forced to make with Jared.
Liam was a good man. It was nice to have a little good in my world.
On the helicopter ride back, I kept my head facing forward for most of the trip. Liam would not touch me. Neither of us did much talking either. I had to make it up to him next time. Or sooner. Luckily, I got the chance when Tanner swung out of the helicopter to do his job.
“Liam, wait.” I seized his wrist before he could go after the other man and bit my lip hoping I was going about this the right way.
He went deathly still under my hand. As if he moved, he’d give something crucial away that needed to be kept to himself. The rest of him seemed to vibrate, ready to fling himself out back onto the tarmac. His eyes were wary slits, knee bobbing up and down with nervous tension.
“What?” The single word cut through the air between us.
“Today was amazing. Thank you. Really.” I tried to make a sincere impression letting what our time together had meant to me take shape behind my eyes. “I’d love to do it again. I mean, if you’re up for it.”
I didn’t wait for a verbal reaction. There was only one other way to seal the deal—I didn’t hesitate for a single second. I ducked forward until my lips pressed against his mouth, warm, soft, and epically eager as his arms locked around my waist pulling me closer. Until I was in his lap, intimately wrapped around him. Our body heat swirled and combined in an invisible rush that left me panting to get enough air into my lungs. His hands were everywhere. Lips grazing every bit of spare flesh that his tongue could ease over or teeth could nibble. I could barely keep up with him, holding him still with my palm on the back of his neck while my fingers scrambled over his shirt buttons.
We practically fed on each other’s lusts knowing we’d been denying them all through lunch. Anticipation had made our moment that much sweeter. In a haze, I gave up on the half-unbuttoned shirt and instead worked my hand underneath his belt buckle and into his pants. When my fingers first grazed his thick, hot cock, Liam hissed in through his teeth and bucked so hard I thought I’d go careening off into the empty pilot’s chair. His hand latched onto my wrist keeping me pinned there as I blinked down at him.
“Stroke me. Do it.” His gray stare blazed into me with startling clarity, drunk all over again faced with the depth of his passion.
Despite the fact that I hadn’t touched a guy this intimately since my useless, awkward fumbling in high school, I was prepared to soldier forward to new territory with Liam. A sheltered life I’d told him I’d led; this stuff was no different. Hard to take advantage of life’s little sexual pleasures when I’d had hulking brothers following my every move. Liam seemed to understand my hesitation, nostrils flaring as his hand moved upward until he cupped mine through his slacks.
I couldn’t hide my nervousness as he began to move our hands together over his cock. His eyes met mine before they went half-lidded with pleasure. His fingers jerked and squeezed over mine.
“God, yes,” he hissed as my adrenaline flared outward in waves. “Just like that, so good.”
Our palms eased along his smooth length in a slow, teasing rhythm that made my breath catch in my throat.
“But what about…?” Unable to stay in the moment, my attention kept flicking to either window.
“No one will bother us. Don’t stop, Natalia.”
He arched his hips. The desperation threading through me made everything else fall away. For now, it was only us. Us, and our hormones, and the wicked heat of his skin beneath my palm.
“I won’t.”
I slowly wrapped my fingers around his shaft, and he jerked against me, eyes wide. His hand gripped the back of my head bringing me forward until his lips locked with mine.
“I want you,” I breathed into his mouth.
This attraction had been building between us since I’d first seen him tied up in that cage, half-naked, sweaty, and vulnerable. Sad, but undeniably true. My tongue teased across his lower lip, my other hand joining the one currently working his thick erection. A rumble ripped from his throat, and his fingers tightened against my scalp. His harsh grip only encouraged me. God, I was so sick of men treating me as if I was breakable.
I wanted so much to get used to being on the receiving end of this strength, entranced by his wild need. He shuddered and bucked below me. My name broke across his lips as he grasped my ass and began to tweaking my nipple through my dress until I leaned forward into his sharp, commanding touch.
“I can’t…I can’t stop…” his ragged voice no longer sounded in control, and gray eyes flickered with darkness.
“I don’t want you too, Liam. Don’t stop,” I encouraged against his neck, my teeth already pressed against his flesh. “I want you to…”
“What, Natalia? Tell me.”
I moved to suck his earlobe as he swore under his breath, hands tightening until I knew there’d be bruises. He writhed against my touch, both commanding it and lost to me, all at the same time.
“I need you to come for me,” my words were strangled, whether from fear of getting caught or lust, I couldn’t be entirely sure except my knowledge that this hadn’t been planned. My lower abdomen twisted, panties damp as I ground down on him. Goosebumps coated my skin. My insides seemed hollow, longing to be filled, while I worked him. “I want to make you feel good.”
“Christ, you do…you have no…idea.”
My thoughts hummed with pleasure while the rest of me longed to end all this teasing. To either pull my panties aside and plunge down on him or for him to come inside his pants. Neither option mattered to me anymore. Although I was a little less cavalier with the last option—mainly because I was a virgin. In the back of my mind, that part not ruled by my need for him, I knew I couldn’t have my first time in the back of a helicopter while the possibility of someone walking in on us loomed ever-present. I was drawn back into the moment as Liam cried out, jerking a few times against me as his cock twitched in my hands.
Thick, warm seed spilled across the top of my hand and in my palm where I cupped his tip while he writhed beneath me, calling my name. As quickly as it had happened, he went slack. His breath caught, panting in and out of his lungs as he helpfully supplied a handkerchief from his coat pocket. When he gently wiped my hands with his own, even as they trembled because of me, I swallowed past my spent adrenaline offering him a slight smile while heat infused my cheeks.
“That, uh, I
hadn’t planned…” I sputtered, unsure of how to continue when he was tenderly kissing my knuckles with an obvious frown on his face. “Was that okay?”
Liam blinked at me. Once. Twice. His frown switched into a look of complete disbelief that clouded his now gray eyes.
“That was perfect,” he murmured before shoving his crumpled, soiled handkerchief back into his pocket. “We should…uh…” he motioned to outside where people had been waiting for us for God knew how long at this point.
“What about your meeting?” The sudden thought made me scramble for the door handle as Liam fought me, trying to put me back to rights before I leaped out of the chopper.
“Slow down, it’s fine!”
“You were pretty damn clear it wasn’t fine when we made this arrangement. That you had a tight schedule.”
“I’m a powerful man, people can wait, Natalia. Stop fussing and let me adjust your bra.”
I frowned but went still under his competent hands. I also tried like hell not to think about why he was so good at putting a woman back together in public. My stomach clenched at the unwanted thought. I really wished I could shove it back in its little, chained box where it belonged, but there was a loud rap of someone’s knuckles on the window followed by Tanner’s voice.
“We better go before he takes this thing apart. He knows I can afford another one.”
Chapter 15 - Liam
“So, had a good time with her, did you? Tricky motherfucker!” Tanner slapped me on the back, laughing with caveman approval.
I don’t know how I thought I could keep it secret. At the time I hadn’t cared, all I’d needed was at my fingertips, and that’s all that had mattered to me. Now we were paying the consequences. My bodyguard’s ribbing was only growing worse, more insistent, and way more vulgar. I relaxed in the backseat of the town car and let out a deep breath. Breathing exercises probably weren’t going to help me for the next fifteen minutes that we were stuck in a car together as we shuttled to my meeting from the helipad.
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