“I’ll drink this whiskey until I’m dizzy with all things you. I’ll drink it until I can no longer feel that burning sensation that heals my soul.”
“What if my whiskey can’t cure your soul?”
“I’d say fuck the whiskey and just give me you.”
“So you’re saying that I’m worth the shot?”
I chuckle and remove the baseball cap from her head. “Well worth it.”
Gage groans and Isla doesn’t hesitate to reach out and slap his shoulder. “Grow a pair.”
“They’re fully grown, Madden.”
“As if,” she counters, resting her head against my shoulder.
It’s the bottom of the fifth when Gage gets up and shakes my hand, hugs Isla while she’s still seated on my lap, and excuses himself from the game. I know that under normal circumstances, he would never leave a Cubbies game before the last pitch, but something tells me that he’s going to dig a little harder into what happened at RW. I know that I should be doing the same, but I’ll consider this keeping an eye on my girl instead.
If it’s bothering him as much as it is me, then preventive measures need to be taken before I regret not having them in place.
I pull out my phone and type out an email to my head of security while Isla watches the game. My words are sharp and precise as I inform him that I want security around Isla, my mother, and my sister, twenty-four hours a day starting the second my security guys land in the States. I type out a short list of names to choose from. I won’t accept anyone outside of those names. Once I hit send, Isla speaks.
“I can’t believe that we’re tied right now. Let go, Cubs!” she calls out and shifts on my lap. “You know, Liam, you have two seats for a reason.”
I put my phone away and bury my face in the crook of her neck before baring my teeth against her skin and sinking them in deeper than I intended. She lets out a soft cry as I taste the faintest hint of warm copper on my tongue. I pull back to see exactly how I’ve managed to mark her before running my tongue over the now red marks where my teeth drove into her tanned skin.
“Holy shit, Liam,” she says through gritted teeth.
“Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy that. By the way, I don’t like these shorts. You should take them off,” I tell her as I run my fingers underneath the hem of the tight black frayed material.
“That’s justifiably forbidden in this country.”
“Yeah? Well, there’s something about breaking the rules that makes this unspeakably desirable.”
“You’re horngry,” she says as she digs her sweet little ass into my crotch.
“Horngry?”
“Yes. Like hungry and angry, but you’re more of the horny and angry type.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve gotten a sample of what a real woman tastes like, and now, nothing else in the world will compare.”
“I’d love to give you another taste or two. If the Cubs weren’t the ones playing, then we’d both be well on our way to multiple public orgasms right now.”
“My fucking luck.”
The Cubs hit a ball out of the park with the bases loaded, causing us both to leap to our feet and cheer as the four team members make their away around the bases.
“See, you’re good luck. Quit putting yourself down, Jensen.”
The only thing that I can think of at the moment as I watch the joy wash over her face is that I cannot wait until I get to call her a Jensen. The threat of having her taken from me seems to have affected me harder and faster than what one might expect and as much as I try to convince myself that these feelings are making themselves known by the mere thought of her disappearing, I know that it’s all bullshit.
They’ve been present for years.
“If you say so, Madden.”
She shoves me, but I catch her off guard by grabbing hold of her wrist and bringing it up to my lips. I ever so slowly run my tongue along her skin before kissing her in the same spot.
“I’m serious about what I said before.”
She works on swallowing before responding to me as the stadium calms down from their shared excitement. “Which was?”
“I want you permanently—not temporarily.”
“Liam.”
“I could start wildfires with the things I feel for you, Isla. You have to know that. It just took me longer to come to terms with it.”
Instead of responding or reacting to the game when the Cubs gain another run on their opponents, she stares at me. Everyone around us is up and out of their seats again, but I couldn’t give two shits. Their chants and cheers fill the stadium, but she’s all that I can focus on at the moment.
“You’re it, Isla. I could wait another four years, but that wouldn’t change what I ultimately want with you.”
“Liam,” she says to try and stop me from speaking my truths.
“You, doll, have made me realize that you were the only reason that I didn’t give up when I endured the flames of hell. Maybe there’s no such thing as a happily ever after, but I’ll take my chances with it if I get to wake up next to you every morning.”
“I thought that you had Adriana for all of that.”
Intentionally slowly, I take up the distance that’s separating us from each other and slide my hands down her ribcage and then around her back. “She might have been there for me to know in the biblical sense, but you, Isla, were the one to keep my feet planted on the ground when I wanted to dive headfirst into the turbulent seas. I see that now, and you know that it’s the truth, or you would have never stuck by my side. We’ve been providing each other with more than friendship over the years, but we’ve been blind to it. You have always been there while I silently promised you the world. I’ve already devoted myself to you by choosing you over everything else, but I need to know if you’ll do the same.”
I clear my throat and smile down at her. “You’ll wear white for me one day, but I’ll wear out three words that cause your skin to break out in goose bumps today.”
“You’re so sure of yourself and of us when you never were before.”
“My entire world flipped when I saw you on the floor in your loft, and since then I’ve chosen you day after day, and I don’t plan on ever stopping. I know that you’ve provided me with more than my share of second chances, but I’m tired of holding back. You want to be in my life as much as I want to be in yours, but in more of a way than we have been before. Show me, Isla.”
I’ve noticed that the few people around us have gone quiet and are now seated as I’m reading the lines of my soul out loud. I can feel the energy moving off of her body, and if I weren’t so sure of my stance, it would knock me off of my feet.
She hasn’t said anything else, so I dare to push her over the edge with what I have to say next. “No one will ever love you as I do in this very moment. Until tomorrow, that is, when the love that I didn’t think was able to grow any more does. Isla Madden, I’m in fucking love with you. I don’t mean a childish, seeing-stars love. I mean a soul-deep, burning love that not even the burn of whiskey could hold a candle to.”
As if on cue, I watch as she shivers in my arms and wild goose bumps break out over her exposed flesh.
“The fucked-up part of all of this,” she says while looking down at her feet, “is that I think that it’s always been this way.”
I tilt her chin up and place my lips against hers. “You own me.”
My entire world is focused on the woman in my arms as well as a tiny something that she’s carrying around with her. When she pulls away from me, her cheeks are burning red, and I run my thumb underneath her bottom lip in an attempt to clean up the lipstick that I’ve managed to fuck up.
“Yes.”
“What?” I ask as I move a lock of her wavy hair behind her ear. Our eyes are focused on each other’s and if I was able to capture this moment in a photograph, I would.
“Yes, I’ll wear white for you one day.”
I can feel my heart thunder as she openly gives her commitme
nt to me.
“You’re serious?”
“Very much so.”
“Holy shit, you’re serious.”
She nods and all I can think about is getting down on one knee in front of her, but she’s holding onto me so tightly that I don’t believe that it would be physically possible.
“I don’t have a ring.”
“I don’t need one,” she says while looking straight into my eyes. “This just got real, didn’t it?”
“In more ways than one.”
Life has a fascinating way of showing you what you need when you didn’t know that you needed it. I didn’t mean to fall in love with my best friend, or get pregnant, or get engaged, but here I am. I’m tangled up in all three, and as much as I should want to run, I’d rather be intertwined in this personal mess of mine.
It’s Monday morning, and the cleaning crew is just finishing up in Blended as I sit at the bar and watch them move the furniture into their respective positions. I scroll through the limited number of pictures of Liam on my new phone and sigh contentedly to myself.
Eden walks in through the back door a moment later and gasps when she sees what they’ve turned Blended into.
“Holy shit, Isla. Did you know that they were going to do all of this?”
“Not one bit. You should go and check out my office.”
“No way,” she says as she stops walking toward me and backs up to stick her head through my office doorframe. “Fuck me stupid, Isla.”
“I’m straight. Thanks for the offer, though.”
“Funny,” she says as she walks over and pulls out one of the new barstools, taking a seat next to me. “Mr. Brass has great taste.”
“He sure does. I like how he’s kept everything the same but just updated it. Do you remember my favorite wingbacks?”
“I do.”
“He just had the leather replaced, and they are on the opposite end of the floor now.”
She looks around again and nods at the larger space in front of us. “It’s the same, but not, you know? It looks as if it was just built.”
“It kind of was. They had to remove the exposed overhead beams and put in new ones so that they’d run the full length of the new expansion.”
“I love everything about it. It’s still so warm and inviting and just . . . whiskey. It’s like this place breathes it.”
“Very true,” I say as I pull my phone out of my pocket and open it up to take a picture and send it to Hadley, but I get distracted by a message from Liam.
What time will you be taking a lunch break?
Probably at noon, why? I hit send and wait as the dots bounce up and down on my screen.
I need to take you ring shopping.
I gasp and glance at my left hand for a second before Eden butts in. “Is everything all right? How’s pregnancy treating you?”
I can’t hide this. Not from Eden who I let see all of my dirty laundry. “Honestly, good. All of it. Everything went from being blue to fucking radiant colors.”
“Come on, you have to give me more than that. Is it about Liam?”
“It is,” I say as I type out a message to him: Will that make what we’re doing official then?
Official? You’re already my fiancée, Isla. The only thing left to do is get you in front of someone who is ordained and make it legal.
I draw in a deep breath and slide my phone over the bar top to Eden so she can read my text message exchange. It takes her a moment to scroll up and read them, but I know the second she gets to the one that he just sent me.
“Are you fucking with me? You’re engaged? Am I being punked right now?”
I shake my head and cup my hand over my mouth before letting out a scream that I had no damn clue I was holding in. “I can’t breathe,” I say while the palm of my hand is still pressed tightly against my lips.
“Have you told anyone?”
“No. No one, not even Brass.”
“Wait, does he know that Liam knocked you up?”
“Nope.”
She looks up from my face and over my shoulder, her eyes widening. “Well, oops. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but he just found out.”
“What?” I ask and turn around to see Wade standing there and watching me intently.
“If you wouldn’t mind giving us a couple of minutes alone, Eden, I’d appreciate it,” he says smoothly.
Oh shit.
I should have her call for help, and not for my own well-being, but for Liam’s. Dear God, get that man an ambulance before Wade even leaves the library.
Eden gets up without another word and leaves Wade and I alone in Blended.
Traitor.
He joins me at the bar a moment later and removes his suit jacket before taking a seat on the barstool that Eden vacated.
“Something tells me that you’ve been keeping a lifetime’s worth of shit from me.”
“I’m not, I mean, I didn’t mean to. It’s just . . . it’s been a really rough couple of weeks.”
“Why don’t we start from the beginning in order for me to understand?”
So, I do. I fill in all of the gaps with information that I’ve kept from him because I knew, regardless of what he said, that he’d be highly disappointed in me. I tell him about finding out I was pregnant in Iceland to having a mental breakdown, and to yesterday when Liam confessed his truths to me.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” He holds up his hand to stop me from speaking before he’s done. “This is a lot to take on all of a sudden, and regardless of how you feel about him and the friendship over the last couple of years, I need you to be certain that this is what you would want even if you weren’t pregnant.”
“I don’t think that what I feel for him has been drowned out or intensified because of the pregnancy, but I suppose that I can’t say the same for him.”
“I’ll have a conversation with him about it. I won’t get in the way if this is what you both want and if you’re happy, but I don’t want either of you to go into this because of old-fashioned moral expectations.”
I reach over and wrap my arms around his neck, hugging him as if he’s the lifeline I hold onto to prevent myself from sinking into the quicksand. “Thank you for being you and never holding back.”
“You’re both family to me, and I wouldn’t want either of you falling into a routine instead of living.”
“I wouldn’t want that either, but I know what I do want and that’s to be with him. I never meant to fall for him or feel this way about him, but I do, and I’m so sick of fighting it. I’ve learned a lot in this past year whether it’s been from watching you follow your heart or something that I was forced into. I’m just ready to start living my life. If I screw up, and things go awry, then it’ll happen, but I’m not willing to lose what I have with him. Not when he’s one of the two people in this world who know me better than I’ve ever known myself.”
“You’ve put yourself on the line for him, and I haven’t seen you do that before. Do what makes you happy, Isla. The rest will fall into place.”
“Thank you, brass balls.”
“Now. How far along in your pregnancy are you?”
I start the count in my head before I answer him, “I’m closing in on ten weeks. I know that you aren’t supposed to share it until twelve weeks when it’s safe to, but I had to tell someone.”
He nods and gets up to pour himself a tumbler of whiskey. When he returns to his seat next to me, he takes a long and slow drink of the Glenmorangie Pride 1981. I draw in a deep breath of the captivating and heady aromas of poached pears, pineapple, and nutmeg as he watches the liquid move around in the glass. My envy settles itself in my stomach when I know the flavors of honeydew melon, lemon, and vanilla are hitting his taste buds.
Ugh, what I wouldn’t give to have that long-lasting taste of sultanas and toasted almonds lingering on my palate right now.
“Don’t drool, Isla.”
“Shut up, asshole,” I laugh and nudge
his side.
“Nine months without whiskey is a long fucking time. Are you going to be all right with working here? If not, we can make another arrangement.”
“Do you really expect me to up and leave Blended?”
“I do not.”
“Then why would you even ask?”
“I needed to make sure that you’d be comfortable.”
“Well, thank you. Maybe if you’re nice, I’ll name the dewdrop after you.”
“The dewdrop?”
“Yes, my baby.”
He shakes his head at my nickname for it and swallows the remainder of his drink. “I need to get going. I have some things at the office that require my attention. Call me if you need anything, and Isla, I do mean anything at all.”
“Will do. And Wade?”
“Yes?” he asks as he pulls his suit jacket back on.
“Thank you.”
He leans in and places a kiss on my forehead before turning and walking out of Blended.
The rest of my morning passes quietly while Eden and I restock the remainder of the shelves with whiskey for our opening tonight. By the time noon rolls around, I’m so immersed in what I’m doing that I don’t notice Liam standing behind the bar until he clears his throat.
“Baby doll?”
I straighten up and grab at my chest as my heart pounds against it. “Oh . . . holy shit.”
His smile almost makes me drop the four-thousand-dollar bottle of whiskey that I’m holding.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“Hi. It’s okay. My mind has just been running in a hundred different directions, and I’m trying to play catch up.”
He walks around the bar and takes the bottle of whiskey from me, inspecting its label before placing it on a shelf and pulling me into his arms. “I didn’t get a response from you earlier. Are you having a change of heart?”
“What?” I squeak out and shake my head, “No. Not one bit. Wade came in and we spoke, and then I got distracted with everything that I need to get done before we open up tonight.”
“Mmm,” he hums against my neck as he runs his firm lips over my skin, causing my entire body to respond to him as every surface of my skin breaks out in thousands of little bumps.
Intertwined: A Redemption Novel Page 18