by Stacey Lynn
“It said you were just a teenager.”
He chugged the water and swiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “Doesn’t matter. I’d kick those assholes’ asses any day of the week regardless of how old I was.”
I stared at him, twisting on my lounger to get a better view of him while he waited for me. That wasn’t exactly…comforting.
He turned to me, lifted his feet off the lounger and placed them on the deck. Knees spread wide, his hands dangled between them, one holding the water. “My sister doesn’t want anyone to know. She’s fought for years to get out from all of this, but I swear, right now, she doesn’t want anyone to know even though the truth is closer to coming out now more than ever.”
“Okay.” Ominous didn’t describe the cloud of heaviness that fell over us.
“She was at some college party her freshman year. Went out with some friends, got ditched, found a guy.” The plastic bottle in his hands cracked from his tight grip. “He found a few more friends and they hauled her off to one of their apartments.”
“No.” My fingers covered my mouth.
His jaw clenched and he stared at the ocean, turning his head. The bottle in his hands, forgotten, became crushed plastic. Water dribbled down his hands onto the deck but he didn’t notice. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, the muscles popping from his anger so many years later.
“Short story, she called me, told me where she was and I got her help, took her to the police station and then I went back. Fuckers were sitting around, drinking more beer, higher than a kite.” His gaze snapped to mine. All the fury rolling through him, this could have happened yesterday not over a decade ago. “I’d kill them still if I could. Instead I beat the shit out of them, all of them, until the neighbors heard the noises and called the cops.”
“And you were arrested.”
“Got off because what man wouldn’t do the same damn thing for his sister, or mother, or daughter? Judge gave me a warning and community service and when I hit eighteen, the record was supposed to be expunged.”
“What happened to Sophie?”
“Trial. They were guilty. They’re also fucking out now and this is the first time all of it’s surfaced since I hit it big. But with the rape accusation last year…”
His voice drifted. Had I had any doubt before on the kind of man he was, he would have evaporated it with his vengeance on the innocent and abused. There was no way, this man, who would defend his sister so viciously against her attackers would ever turn around and become them. “Never expected her, never fucking wanted her to, but if this could have come out, if she could have said something earlier, it could have changed shit for me. But I’d do anything to protect her, and now, it’s coming. I can fucking feel it snowballing out of my hands or Anne’s.”
“I’m sorry.”
His jaw snapped shut. “Spent all day talking to her, warning her. Every time this shit gets brought up it’s hard for her. She spent years in therapy, moved on, but it’s always there. She knows it, I know it, her husband fucking deals with it every day and he’s protective of her. My arrest being leaked will only lead to the reason why and the snowball…” He shook his head and pushed off the chair. Moving to the railing, he gripped it in his hands like he wanted to tear it from the bolts.
Who could blame him? I wanted to do it, too. “Kevin’s pissed off. She’s scared. And I’m fucking helpless to do anything to stop it.”
I went to him and wrapped my hands around his stomach before thinking of what I was doing. He was just a man who needed comfort. My cheek pressed against his shoulder blade and I held him tightly. He was so large, my hands barely reached the front, and every muscle in his body was coiled to exploding and popping levels.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered against him. His back was hard as steel, hot and I could feel his blood pumping beneath my cheek. “I’m sorry it happened to her, to you. I’m so sorry. You’re a good man, Liam Allistor.”
He made a choking sound, shook his head, but was otherwise silent.
I held him until the sun set, until the light from his bedroom was the only thing illuminating our figures. I held him until his shoulders finally drooped, his limbs relaxed and he covered my hands with one of his at his stomach.
It was that touch, the beautiful, soft and tender touch that made me close my eyes. I moved my head, kissing away the tension in his spine, his shoulder blades. The expanse of his back. Once I started I couldn’t be pulled away from him. He tasted like body wash and sweat from stress. He tasted like real good, honest hardworking man who fought for what was his and earned the right to call it so.
Not like so many men I knew who made their success with backdoor, hidden deals and conniving.
Liam Allistor was unlike any other man I’d ever known and I ached with wanting to show him how much that meant to me.
In every way.
My kisses continued until his breath left him in short, little pants that showed his pleasure. Beneath my lips, his skin warmed. Goose bumps popped where my fingers brushed his lower abdomen, above his waistband and we stayed there in the silence, my coming to him. Comforting him.
Hiding so much of me, I still wanted to give him all I could.
“Liam,” I whispered, my hand moving south of his waistband.
“Don’t.” He stopped me with his palm before I reached him. “Not tonight. Too fucking strung tight and pissed to be gentle with you.” I went to yank my hand away. Rejection stung, even if I understood. The thought of him being anything but gentle though sent a quiver of excitement I couldn’t resist thinking about. “But I want you to stay with me tonight. Next to me. Let me hold you.”
“Of course.” He was paying me. I’d do anything. But in that moment, it wasn’t about the payment. It was about a man needing comfort, asking for it unashamedly. Like everything else I would give to him, that was something he didn’t need to ask for. “Of course I’ll stay with you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Liam
She was beautiful. I held her all night long, my dick hard as stone. More than once I’d woken up with my dick pressed into Claudia’s backside in my bed where I’d brought her after she just let me be on the deck last night. She’d come into my room with no hesitation, only going to hers to brush her teeth and dress in pajamas.
I’d decided then I was going to kill the personal shopper I’d hired to buy Claudia’s wardrobe. Dressed in a silk nightgown that barely skimmed beneath her ass, pale pink and innocent, the cups of her breasts were barely hidden by an even lighter sheer lace along with the hem at the bottom.
I’d ignored her, but my dick hadn’t. My mouth had watered for a taste of her and it took all my self-control not to thrust my hips, my dick against her ass when I settled her against me.
“I could help you,” she’d whispered, and her hand had drifted back to my thigh.
I’d growled at her to go to sleep. And I was a fucking idiot. Rejecting her advances and her touches made me a prick but it was for my own survival.
And hers. All day I dealt with Sophie and Anne. Our PR was working overtime to stop the spread of the story but it was pointless. I was once again being dragged through mud for not doing shit except for the right damn thing.
Fuck Hollywood and their craze to turn anything into a headline.
But now, with the sun just making its appearance lighting the sky outside, I could see all of her soft and gentle curves. Her dark lashes fanned on her closed lids. The tiny opening in her lips, where little puffs of breath occasionally escaped.
I propped myself up on one elbow, cheek in my hand, and with my other hand, I drew a line from her shoulder to her arm. I traced the outline of fingers she had curled and resting on her stomach.
Her shoulder length hair was pressed into the pillow beneath her, over her cheek where she was slightly turned toward me. I brushed it back.
We needed to wake up and get moving. We only had a few hours to get to the plane and return to hell and shitstorms and d
amnation and accusations I was so tired of trying to explain.
She shifted and her eyes fluttered open. Small, lazy chocolate pools appeared and then she blinked slowly. “Morning.”
“Morning.” I’d smile but there wasn’t much to be happy about other than this hottie in my bed. “We should get moving.”
I stayed still, continued running a fingertip over her arm, across her cheek to her nose. Back to her ear and down the length of her neck. She shivered beneath my touch, and her soft pink lips lifted into a grin. “You’re not moving.”
“I don’t want to.”
God if that was the truth.
“I don’t blame you.” My finger ran over her collarbone and her eyes drifted shut.
On a sigh, she whispered, “I love the way you touch me.”
Fuck it to hell in a hand basket. This girl.
I gritted out a smile even though my hard-as-steel cock had me biting back a groan. “I like touching you. You’re so soft everywhere.”
“You’re not. You’re all muscle and strength and scary scowls and glares.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah…” She turned, rose up to an elbow mirroring me and pressed her palm to my cheek. I leaned into it because damn I liked her touch—her gentle manner and her openness. “But you’re not so scary. You have honor. Something I haven’t seen in many men I’ve grown up with.”
The last thing I wanted in my head was men she knew. Probably all preppy little pricks who dressed in khaki shorts and pink polo tops with gelled back hair and entitlement that told them they could do whatever they wanted to any girl they wanted.
Much like the four men who had gang-raped my sister.
I swore and fell back onto the bed and shoved the heels of my palms into my eye sockets. Thinking of Sophie was the last damn thing I wanted to be thinking of with Claudia in my bed.
“What is it?” she asked, following me. She shifted closer and her hand landed on my chest. I wrapped a hand around her back, mine falling to her ass and, fuck.
My cock was trying to punch through my boxer briefs.
A puff of breath fell from her lips to my chest at the contact and she shifted.
Jesus. She rocked her center against my thigh like my hand on her ass was all the warm-up she needed.
“Liam,” she whispered. Eyes slightly wide, for a moment I wondered if it was fear. When she rocked against me, hot and slick, I knew it wasn’t.
It was desire flaring in her fearful little eyes, like she’d never known such pleasure of dry-humping until she got herself off.
I hadn’t done that since I was a teenager but hell if my cock didn’t jump at the idea.
My hand on her ass held her firmly against me, and I shifted, bending my leg until it was at the right angle.
“Liam.”
“You want to use me to get yourself off, go right ahead, sweetheart.”
Magenta stained cheeks and wide brown eyes stared at me. I grinned and pulled her closer. “God, I want to be inside you. I said we’d wait, though.”
“I want it,” she gasped. Her clit ground against my thigh. “I want it with you.”
“Soon.”
“Now,” she practically mewled.
And well…fuck it. Who was I to tell her no again? “Claudia—”
“Please, Liam.” She looked at me with needy, hungry eyes. Hell if I could say no again. “Before we leave the island.”
“Yesterday you were afraid.” Why was I still talking?
“I’m not. Not of you.” She was still grinding. Her wet clit sliding along my thigh. Fuck that was hot. “Not of this.”
“Fuck,” I groaned as her hand on my chest slid down to my junk. It jumped in her hand and she pushed down my boxers.
“You’re making it hard to say no,” I rasped. My forehead pressed against hers. I inhaled the coconut scent of her and lost it.
I’d never taken someone unclaimed, so pure. So damn trusting in me it made my chest hurt.
I’d make it good for her. “Lay back,” I said, pushing her and rolling until I was between her knees, my cock against her bare pussy.
Fucking hell, where was her underwear?
Her hands slid up my arms, hips still arching for contact. Groans filled the room as I nudged the tip of my cock with her slick heat and my arms began shaking from holding back.
“Don’t,” she whispered, lifting her head and brushing her lips against mine. “Don’t hold back.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I can handle it.”
I couldn’t. I never wanted to hurt her. Moving down her body, I kissed her everywhere. The curves of her breasts. Her stomach. I played with her nipples and sucked them into my mouth until she mewled and gasped, fingers digging into my hair. And when she was arching her hips, mindlessly searching for something to fill her. I moved further down.
“God, so fucking pink and wet,” I groaned, peppering her inner thighs with kisses. She smelled divine. Like woman and sex and good God, I couldn’t wait.
I stopped trying. I licked her slit, smiling as her fingers clawed at my hair.
“Oh,” she gasped. “That’s…that’s nice.”
I laughed. Sex was getting off and fucking. Not laughter and teasing. I liked this much better. And I proved it to her. I tasted her, sliding my tongue over her clit, my finger taking over when I dipped my tongue inside her heat. I needed her wet and relaxed so I could make it good for her, but her first orgasm of the day would be with my dick.
Her thighs trembled and her gasps came closer, more hoarse. I continued my assault on her clit until she started quivering and then I pulled back. With quick, nimble fingers, I reached into the nightstand and tore open a condom. I rolled it down my dick while still playing with her clit, teasing her with my finger, and then I was at her entrance.
“Sure?” I stopped to ask. At least I was still a gentleman. “I can stop.”
Please say no.
She shook her head wildly from side to side, her hands sliding down my head to my shoulders and my waist. “Please.”
“Keep begging, sweetheart. I like that.”
My cock was at her entrance and I pushed in slowly.
She gasped at the initial intrusion and I stilled. “You okay?”
Her face had twisted into a grimace, but she nodded. “It’s okay.”
“Hurts?”
“Just a little.” Her hands pulled on my hips. “More.”
Fuck. I didn’t want to hurt her. I wanted to do the opposite. I wanted to be the man who would never hurt her, but holding back was killing me.
“Liam,” she groaned, arching into me.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I pushed further into her, felt resistance from her tight, and oh so hot walls clenching around me.
“Fucking hell,” I groaned. “You’re so damn tight.”
Glorious. There wasn’t a better feeling in the world. I moved in slowly, knowing once she adjusted, everything would get better for her. She hugged my dick like a vise and as much as I wanted to close my eyes and surrender to the sensation, I watched her. I pushed my hand between us and leaned back so I could rub her clit. Slowly, I worked my way inside. There wasn’t the barrier I always heard about but it didn’t matter. It felt like it took hours to sink into her, pulling out, pushing in. My shoulders were shaking from restraint, but I didn’t give a shit about my pleasure, just hers.
Always hers.
Fuck. I was falling. Hard, fast, it didn’t even matter because as I began moving inside of her slowly, Claudia’s face, her rapture and pleasure was the only damn thing that mattered.
“Fuck you feel good, sweetheart.”
“Faster,” she gasped. Mewls of pleasure escaped her lips and I covered them, kissing her while I did what she commanded.
I was too captivated to argue. Too enthralled with her body and the trust she was placing in me to do anything except give her everything she asked for.
And when she finally came, crying ou
t my name and digging her pretty little fingernails into my ass, I followed right behind her, groaning out my pleasure in the crook of her neck.
If I were still the churchgoing man my mom raised me to be, I’d bust out in a Hallelujah chorus the likes of which my Southern Baptist church had never heard before.
“You okay?” I asked once I caught my breath and hers had settled some. “I didn’t mean to get rough at the end.”
Her cheeks were flushed, both of us were peppered with sweat. I pushed hair off the side of her face and kissed her neck, her jaw, moving to her lips.
“I’m good. That was…wow…that was incredible.”
I wanted to stay inside of her all day. I wanted to fuck her more. Make love to her. Take her wild and take her slow. Restrain her and let her have her way with me.
I wanted to teach her everything I knew.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t. So I rested with her as long as I could, carefully pulling out of her. “Stay here,” I said. “I’ll come clean you up.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.” I headed to the bathroom and removed the condom. Two dark lines of blood streaked down the side.
Fuck. Why did that make me hard?
“You sure you’re okay?” I asked when I returned to her with a warm, wet cloth in my hand. I’d made her bleed. I wanted to beat my chest and cover her in kisses.
She turned a lazy smile my way, sated and maybe slightly embarrassed as I began wiping her.
“I’m good, I promise. Thank you for making my first time good for me.”
I tossed the cloth to the floor and climbed on top of her, rolling us so she was on top of me. My hand slid to the back of her head and I held her in place.
She didn’t have to thank me for that. I wanted to make everything good for her.
“Always.” I pulled her close and sealed our mouths together. We kissed languidly, slowly. We kissed like we had all the time in the world, but I didn’t push it further.
We didn’t have the time now, but I’d have her again later.
Now that she’d given herself to me, I wanted to take everything.