by Leisa Rayven
“Oh, God, Liam…”
He works my breasts until I’m clawing at him to give me more. Then, he yanks me away from the bookcase and strides over to the couch, knocking over a vase and a floor lamp on his way. He shoves the coffee table with his foot, and the TV remote and a pile of magazines clatter onto the floor.
“Fuck,” he says, panting. “Sorry.”
“Don’t care,” I say. “Keep going.”
He collapses onto the couch and pulls me forward to straddle him. Every inch of my skin tingles and aches as he traces the curves of my breasts and hips with his fingers.
“God, I’ve missed you,” he whispers against my skin. “This body, your mind, your heart. All of it. Right now, I feel like a kid who’s had his Christmas present on layaway for six years and has finally gotten his hands on it. You’re so freaking perfect, you blow my mind.”
He kisses me again, and his sweet tongue makes me dizzy while his hands set every nerve ending on edge. I can’t wait anymore. The only thing that registers through my haze of hormones is an all-consuming need to have him inside me. To claim him as mine again and have him claim me in return.
I climb off his lap so I can undo his jeans. He helps me by pulling off his shoes and socks. Then he stands so I can work his jeans and underwear down his legs.
When he’s naked, I have to take a moment, because … God. Seriously? He’s a walking work of art. If Michelangelo had Liam Quinn as a model, I have no doubt there’d be a whole gallery dedicated to him. Maybe even with a wing just for his spectacular erection.
Liam sits back down on the couch and stares at me with barely restrained desperation. “Come here.”
He pulls me down to straddle him, and I use one hand to align us. I look into his eyes as I slowly sink down.
Oh.
Dear.
God.
Both our mouths drop open. Our eyelids flutter. Simultaneous groans fill the apartment as I rock and tilt until he fills me. When we’re fully joined at last, I gasp, then sigh. How I can feel so incredibly wired and relieved in the same moment is beyond me. This is what I’ve been missing for all of these years. Not just the physical pleasure of having him inside me, but the soul-heart connection that joining with him brings. We stare at each other in wonder, in mutual recognition of the fact that even the most vivid fantasies we’ve had while we’ve been apart pale in comparison to the spine-tingling reality.
“I love you, Liss,” he whispers as he grazes my face with gentle fingers. “I love you so much.”
I kiss him. “I love you, too.”
I clasp my hands behind his neck and start to ride him, keeping eye contact the whole time. He grasps my hips and guides me into long, deep thrusts. The sensation is so intense, it’s almost unbearable. The feel of him. The incredible expression on his face as he watches my every move. Every time I lift my hips he grunts like he’s in pain. When I sink back down, he moans with pleasure. Every movement seems too much for him, and I understand how he feels. After having nothing for so long, suddenly having everything is a shock to the system.
We keep that connection the whole time we make love. Even when I can feel my orgasm building, I don’t look away. Neither does he.
I brace myself on his shoulders as I increase my tempo. When my thigh muscles give out, he takes over from below. He thrusts, filling me, over and over again. My orgasm builds quickly, coiling and stretching so tight, I can barely breathe.
I grip his hair as his movements become faster, more intense. He clenches his jaw and groans, as if holding off his own orgasm is painful.
God, the pleasure. The debilitating, breath-stealing pleasure.
When he comes, the noise that pours out of him is beyond passionate. It speaks of a man who’s forgotten the extent to which he can feel. Of someone rediscovering how to be real after so many years of pretending.
I make a similar sound when my climax explodes a few seconds later. It’s not delicate or pretty, but neither are my feelings about Liam. They’re giant, messy, and inconvenient, but I wouldn’t give them up for anything.
As our final shudders fade, I collapse onto him, and he wraps his arms around me to bury his head in my neck. Our frantic breathing echoes in the quiet apartment, and we don’t move for a long time. When we do stir, it’s only because he’s hard again, and our second wind ends up turning into a hurricane. Chairs are knocked over. The bathroom door is dented. By the time we retreat into my bedroom, books are all over the floor, plates and bowls have been shoved off kitchen counters, and cushions and clothes litter every inch of the floor. The entire apartment is trashed.
Usually, we both despise mess, but right now, we’re too high on each other to care.
After Liam gives me the second orgasm in my bed and the fourth for the night, he collapses onto his back and pulls me onto his chest. He releases a huge satisfied sigh, then closes his eyes. I know we need to talk more about our bumpy road to being together, but all that can wait until tomorrow. Right now, I just want to enjoy being wrapped in the arms of my soul mate.
“Liam?” I whisper, as his breathing evens out.
“Hmmmm?” He’s barely conscious.
I can’t help but smile as I listen to the hypnotic rhythm of his heart beneath my ear. “Thank you for being my lobster.”
SEVENTEEN
COMING CLEAN
The next morning I wake to find Liam wrapped around me like a boa constrictor. I try to ease myself away from him, but his arms tighten.
“No,” he says, his voice dark with sleep.
“No, what?”
“Wherever you think you’re going that doesn’t involve staying in bed with me—no.”
“What if I need to go to the bathroom?”
“Hold it.”
He throws his leg over me for good measure.
“What if there’s a fire?”
“I’m sure New York’s Bravest will get here in time to save us.”
“Liam—” I squirm, and before I’ve even registered he’s moved, I’m slammed onto my back with my wrists pinned aside my head. When he settles between my legs I’m very aware of how extremely naked we both are. And how impressively hard he is.
“Elissa,” he says in a dangerous tone. “This is not up for discussion. I haven’t woken up with you in my arms for nearly six years. I’m not letting go anytime soon. You can either get on board with that, or I’m going to have to subdue you. Understand?”
“Define ‘subdue.’”
“Kiss you until you submit to my will.” He lowers his face so that his lips are almost brushing mine. “Make you come until you can’t move.”
“And this is supposed to deter me? Psychology—you’re doing it wrong.”
His face turns dark. “Doing it wrong?” He tightens his grip on my wrists. “Right. That’s it, woman. Prepare to be mauled.”
He growls and shoves his face into my neck, and I squirm and giggle as he nips and bites. When my struggling gets extreme, he lays his full weight against me to keep me still.
“Concede,” he orders.
“Never!” I try to buck him off, but it’s impossible. All those muscles weigh a ton. I huff in defeat and go still. “Okay, fine. You win.”
“Right answer.” He gives me a smug smile before rolling off and pulling me back into the cage of his arms. “On a related note, how suspicious would everyone be if we both called in sick to rehearsal today?”
“Very. But it might be worth it.”
He closes his eyes and holds me tighter. “Yeah, it would.”
With his right arm wrapped across my chest, I can finally get a good look at his tattoo. It looks like a coat of arms, but instead of animals, it’s made up of names. I lightly run my finger across the dark ink.
In the middle, “Jamie” is written in the shape of a heart. On either side, his parents’ names, “Angus” and “Eileen,” scroll around, and they’re surrounded by vines and flowers, just like the pergola Liam built for them. And beneath it all i
s a banner with …
“Oh, my God.”
Liam cracks one eye open. “I was wondering when you’d notice that.”
“When did you get this?”
“After the first Rageheart movie. Hollywood was getting me down, and I…” He strokes my back. “I wanted a permanent reminder of all the people I loved who I couldn’t be with.”
I run my finger over the letters etched into the scroll. At first I thought it was a generic compliment about his parents and brother: “My Bliss.” But then I noticed the capital L.
BLiss
I remember his phone message from years ago. “My beautiful Liss. My Bliss. See what I did there?”
He looks down at me. “I thought that if I had you tattooed on my skin, you’d always be with me, one way or the other. Stupid, right?”
“Not stupid. Beautiful.” I palm his cheek and kiss him softly.
We just lie there and kiss for a while. The sort of deep, languorous kisses which suggest we have all the time in the world.
“Every day I was away from you,” he says, in between teasing me with his lips and tongue, “I’ve dreamed of this mouth. Every time I had to kiss Angel, I closed my eyes and imagined it was you.”
Breathless and horny, I check the clock.
6 a.m.
I’m due at rehearsal at 9 a.m.
“So,” I say, and put a hand on his chest to stop him distracting me further. “Have you put any thought into how we’re going to handle things today?”
He flops onto his back and pulls me into him. “I’ve thought about it. Haven’t really come up with a solution yet. We’ll have to break the contract. There’s no way I’m going through with this wedding. I had issues with it before I saw you again. I can’t even pretend to marry Angel now.”
“What if Angel has a problem with it?”
He closes his eyes and rubs his forehead. “She may be disappointed about not having her princess moment, but realistically, she’s a victim in this as well. Neither of us have been able to have a proper relationship since this whole thing started, and I know she really wants one. She’s lonely. She wants a man to love her for real, and as much as I think I’m a great kisser, I can feel she’s sick of pretending with me.”
“So you guys have really never…?”
He shifts so he can look down at me. “No.”
“Why not? Didn’t you ever just want to make the best of a bad situation?”
He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “We tried. Once. It was right after the Rageheart premiere. We were both freaking out about the screaming fans and fame. I think we both figured we’d try to find comfort in each other, but…” He shakes his head. “I couldn’t get you out of my head. Or body. Angel tried her best to make me forget, but I couldn’t … uh … perform.”
I glance down at how tented the sheet is over his crotch. “Seriously? Because I’ve never known you to have any problems in that department.”
“Yeah, well, that’s because you’ve always made me harder than titanium. But most of the women on this planet don’t affect me like that. Not even Angel. To be honest, I don’t think she finds me attractive, either.”
I sit up on an elbow and stare at him. “Are you kidding? She has eyes and a vagina. How on earth can she not be attracted to you?”
He laughs and smiles at me. “Believe it or not, there are women on this planet who have zero interest in me.”
“Pfft. Lesbians and grandmas, maybe.”
“Actually, I’m pretty popular with grandmas.”
I smile, then snuggle back down into the crook of his arm. “I’m not going to lie. Knowing you and Angel have never jumped each other makes me happy, but I still hate that she was hurt by those pictures yesterday. We need to talk to her. Tell her the truth.”
“I agree. She’s been my only friend through this whole crazy ride, and she deserves better. Maybe when I’m out of the picture she can find a guy who appreciates her. I’ll talk to her after rehearsal today.”
“What about the fans? You can’t just come out and say, ‘Hey guys, guess what? We’ve been deceiving you for years.’ They’d lynch you.”
He strokes my hair. “Yeah, the irony is, in order to let them down easy, we’d have to lie to them more. I hate it, but I don’t see an alternative. Maybe Anthony will have some idea of what to do.”
“What if he tells you to just wait out the contract?”
I feel him tense. “No.”
“Liam—”
He pulls away and looks down at me. “No, Liss. That means another couple of months of pretending and not having you. No fucking way.”
“If you guys break up now, it could hurt the show, and you can’t do that to Marco.”
He lets go of me and swings his legs onto the floor so he can sit up. I can see the tension in his back as he leans his elbows on his knees and drops his head. “So, what? We just go about business as usual? How the hell am I supposed to hide my feelings for you?”
I kneel behind him and wrap my arms around his shoulders. “You’re an amazing actor. You’ll find a way. Just remember that I love you.”
As soon as the words have left my mouth, he turns to me, and his face goes through a spectacular range of emotions. Finally, his expression melts into one of awe.
“So many people say that to me every day. People who don’t even know me. But you … you’re the one person I crave to hear it from. Before last night, I didn’t think I’d ever hear those words from you again.”
He cups my face and stares into my eyes. “I used to think that if I just waited long enough, fate would bring us back together. That our stars would align, or whatever, and you’d come crashing back into my life to stay. But that didn’t happen. So now I say, screw it. I’m done waiting. Sometimes, fate is what you make it, and I’m making my life with you.”
He kisses me and pushes me onto my back, and I gasp as he covers my body with his. Lord, that much Liam is hard to handle. I run my hands down his back and over his magnificent ass. I love feeling his muscles tremble beneath my touch. So much strength wrapped around his sweet heart.
“We don’t have long,” I say, already breathless. “I have work to do before rehearsal.”
He presses his erection against me in ways that make me moan. “Don’t need long. Just need to be inside you.”
He kisses down my chest, and grinds against me at the same time. Within seconds, every muscle that was complaining about our epic lovemaking of last night is begging for more.
I lift my hips and urge him forward, and with minimum repositioning, he slides into me. When he’s fully inside, he lets out a quiet moan before going still.
“Along with you saying you love me, I’m also never going to get tired of this,” he says, his voice tight. “Ever.”
He moves, slow and restrained, and I breathe in time with his thrusts. “I still find it hard to believe that Liam Quinn, the world’s most desirable man, is inside me.”
He bends down to kiss me. “And goddamn…” He closes his eyes and pants. “The world’s most desirable man is about to come in record time because you feel so damn good. God, Liss…”
I don’t know how long we make love, but I know that it’s even better this morning than it was last night. Last night, it all seemed like a dream. Today, it’s a very sexy reality. Even though we know we’ll have to sort through a massive mess to make it happen, we’re no longer going to let anything stand in our way.
* * *
I watch, enthralled as a naked Liam trawls through the mess surrounding the couch. “Found my underpants!” he says, holding them up in triumph. “Not sure how they got wrapped around Cheese Lovers’ Quarterly, but whatever.”
I pout as he pulls them on. Thankfully, he ignores the rest of his clothes, which he’s already folded into a neat pile on the couch, and begins to clean in just his skintight boxer briefs. We’re both freshly showered, and I’m in my robe, and although I would like to stay in bed all morning, knowing the a
partment looks like a tornado has ripped through it makes both of us tense. Neat Freaks, Unite!
“I’ll do the kitchen,” Liam says, and gives me a quick kiss as he passes. “There’s broken crockery in there, and I can’t have my woman cutting her delicate feet.”
I smile at his choice of words. I’ve never been someone’s woman before. I like it.
Liam stops at the hall closet and digs out the dustpan while I start sorting through the mess of books on the floor. Did nothing survive our onslaught?
A shiver runs up my spine as I think about Liam slamming me against walls and counters. So worth it.
Liam hums as he cleans the kitchen, and I smile as I concentrate on stacking books on the shelves in my own particular fashion; that is to say, categorized by genre, then author, then color. Kind of sad, but whatever. They’re my shelves. I like them to look pretty.
I’m almost finished when I hear voices outside the door.
“Angel, stop.”
“No. C’mere, Josh. Jusforasecond.”
“I can’t hug you and open the door at the same time. Just stand there, okay? And for God’s sake, don’t puke. I don’t deal well with puke.”
The door swings open and Josh stumbles in with one arm around Angel. She looks terrible. When they see me and the mess, they both freeze. Angel sways and blinks as Josh turns to me. “What the hell, Lissa?! Did those asshole teenagers from the second floor break in and trash the joint? Because I’d love an excuse to kick some pimply, emo ass.”
“Josh, hey. Uh … no. Would you believe there was an earthquake?”
“No. What really happened?”
“Elissaaaaa!” Before I can answer, Angel lurches toward me and pulls me into a tight hug. “I love you. I had a shitty day yesterday, but seeing you makes it all better.” God, she smells like a brewery. “Will you marry me instead of Liam? He’s a dick. He makes me look stupid. He’s supposed to be my rock in the stormy sea of life, but he let me drown.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “Oh, my God. Someone write that down. I’m so freaking poetic when I’m hammered, it blows my mind.”