A Vine Mess (Love on the Vine #4)

20. Ella

Alongside my head, Liam’s palms pressed deep into the mattress, his muscles quivering as he leashed himself. I could practically hear that basic, feral thing in his chest screaming at him to fuck me like our lives depended on it. But he held himself back.

I wasn’t timid or a prude, but in comparison to my fuckboy ex? I’d had partners before him, but I’d never really got to explore the more adventurous side of myself. By the end, Alfie and I weren’t even having sex at all.

Liam, though, was a man , one who knew how to use those veiny, calloused hands for pleasure—the kind of pleasure I’d never experienced before. The kind I never thought I could.

It had been so hard for me to get off with Alfie, often requiring time and attention he didn’t have the patience for. With him, all that mattered was his baser needs.

Which meant, all too frequently, I found myself taking matters into my own hands .

I knew now the reason we’d stopped having sex was because he’d begun seeking his pleasure elsewhere, but also because I couldn’t fucking stomach the thought of him touching me. For a long time, it was impossible for me not to blame myself for that. I hated the exasperation that clouded his eyes every time we fucked and it ended with me silently frustrated and unsatisfied. Even before we broke up, I’d done a fantastic job at convincing myself I was the broken one.

In reality, it was Alfie who was broken, who was such a small-minded man that he couldn’t take the time to figure out what I liked and make sure he got me there every single time. He’d never once stopped to consider he was the problem.

Liam was not Alfie.

He still hadn’t moved, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, his breath sawing in and out of him, so I whispered his name.

Those baby blues popped open, and a blissful smile overtook his face like the sun coming out on a cloudy day.

“I want to remember this,” he said softly in answer to a question I hadn’t asked. “The first time I got to take you. The day I made you mine.”

I placed a palm on his cheek, his beard scratching at my skin, and he leaned into my touch.

“Not sure what I did to deserve you.”

“You didn’t have to do anything, baby,” he said, bending to give me a lingering kiss. He shifted so he could place a hand over my heart, and it thumped wildly against his touch. “I fell for the woman you are in here. The last three years haven’t changed that.”

Unable to hold them back anymore, my emotions from this whole day—hell, this whole trip and the last four months—boiled over, and tears slipped from my eyes and down the sides of my face.

Liam merely brushed them away. “I hope those are happy tears,” he murmured.

“They’re a lot of things,” I answered honestly, “but happiness is the main one.”

He leaned in and gently brushed his lips over the tracks of moisture, cleaning me up. Taking care of me, like he’d always done.

“I’m going to move now, okay?”

I nodded, sniffling loudly, instantly reminded that his cock was nestled deep inside my body. Experimentally, I clenched my inner walls around him, and he hissed.

“Wicked woman,” he gritted out, then shifted his hips backward, pulling his cock free to the tip before plunging back in.

“Fuck,” I breathed. The combination of the intimate words we’d just shared and the rough way he slammed into my body had pressure coiling low, my clit throbbing almost painfully, desperate for attention.

So I snaked my hand between us and passed my fingers over it lightly, hips jumping against Liam’s as I did.

His strokes were slow and measured to begin, his jaw clenched so tightly I swore he’d crack a tooth if he didn’t let go. I needed him undone, fucking me recklessly. I needed him here with me, not trapped in the past or somewhere deep inside his head where he thought he’d hurt me if he was any rougher. I didn’t use my words to urge him on, only lifted my hands from his nape and raked my fingernails down his back, pausing and digging them into his ass.

Like I’d hoped, he bucked against me, some of his restraint fraying.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Ella,” he ground out. “I don’t know what he did, but it wasn’t enough, and I don’t want you to think less of me for giving you too much.”

This fucking man. His heart was so incredibly big, it was a wonder his chest could contain it.

And he wanted to give it to me.

Goddamn, I was a lucky girl.

“Sex with…him,” I started, narrowly avoiding bringing my ex’s name into bed with us, “was very vanilla. And never about me. I’m not made of glass, Liam. I can take it.”

“You want it rough, Wildflower?” he asked, driving a little bit harder into me with his next thrust. My back bowed a bit, hips angling impossibly closer.

“I need it rough.”

The way he looked at me in the wake of those four words sent fire licking at my skin and coursing through my veins. I watched that leash snap, and he straightened, gripping my legs behind my knees and shifting them back so they were damn near at my ears, bending me in half. His eyes flared, their bright blue fading to something darker and stormier as he watched where we connected.

“Hold on, baby.”

I anchored my hands around his wrists as he gave me what I wanted at last.

There was no mercy in his thrusts, nothing I could do but take everything he gave me, my moans growing in volume until I was practically screaming for him, begging in nonsensical ways for him to get me there faster. Having him uncaged and feral like this was delicious, knowing I was the only one who got to witness it.

Even through my delirious, desire-induced haze, I was mesmerized by the way his muscles bunched as he flexed his hips into me over and over, branding that spot so fucking deep, the one no one else had ever been able to find let alone reach.

It was a claiming, the way he took me, and he confirmed it with his next words.

“Fuck, Wildflower,” he grumbled. “I knew you’d feel good, but I didn’t expect this. I was made for you. You hear me? My cock was made specifically for your perfect cunt.”

And I’d be damned if he wasn’t right, if the way he slotted inside me, filling me better than anyone—or any toy—ever had before, wasn’t the most exquisite, perfect fit. The kind predestined. All of our mistakes and missteps lead us right here, to the time when we finally came together.

“A little bit more, baby,” he huffed out, both of our chests heaving, both of us sticky with sweat, some even trailing along Liam’s hairline and dripping into his beard. “You’re so close.”

He moved one hand to my clit, ghosting over my swollen flesh, and I reached for his other with mine, lacing our fingers tightly, almost painfully, together. Like he was my harbor in the storm brewing beneath my skin.

“Come with me,” I begged. My orgasm was so close, shimmering at the surface. A few swipes against my clit would send me flying off the cliff—but I wanted him by my side.

Our gazes snagged, and I couldn’t look away. The world could’ve been ending outside the windows, and I wouldn’t have noticed, couldn’t have torn my eyes from his if I tried.

His hips pistoned impossibly faster, the entire bed shifting and creaking with the movement, and he groaned.

“Fuck, okay, I’m gonna come,” he said, then pressed the pads of three of his fingers to my clit.

I detonated.

My back arched off the bed as I screamed his name, pieces of myself scattering into the room around us as I broke apart. I was vaguely aware of him pulsing and spilling inside me. His murmured praises barely reached my ears as my entire body shook, goosebumps rising on my skin. I wasn’t aware of anything but the sheer amount of pleasure coursing through me.

By the time I came back to myself—days, weeks, months later—Liam had collapsed at my side, pulling me to his chest and holding me tightly.

We were silent for a beat before he chuckled softly, which quickly grew into full on laughter. Though my limbs were deliciously wrung out and it took every ounce of strength I had, I lifted my head to glare down at him.

“What’s so funny?”

He grinned at me, and his smile was so fucking beautiful it took my breath away. “Has it ever been like that for you?”

I shook my head. “I’ve never come that hard in my life,” I confirmed.

“You’re goddamn right,” he said, lightly tapping my nose, and I dropped my head to burrow deeper into his side. “I’ve had a thing for you from the very first moment I saw you.”

“The day you came in to buy flowers for my mom’s birthday.”

He lightly pinched my side. “Don’t interrupt. ”

I only giggled but remained quiet so he could continue.

“Watching you with another guy was…torture, to say the least. But some part of me always knew that we’d end up here. And now here I am, falling deeper for you by the day, having just had my brain scrambled by the best sex I’ve ever had in my life, and…it’s nice to know I was right. It’s funny because it’s such a fucking relief .” He rolled us so I was once again on my back beneath him, his expression earnest as he said, “Promise me, Ella. Promise me this is real.”

I softened, my heart melting straight into my stomach. Cupping his cheeks, I brought my face closer to his, our lips brushing as I said, “It’s real, Liam. It’s the realest thing I’ve ever felt.”

I had no idea how or when it happened. Somewhere along the way—honestly, probably in the months leading up to this moment where he sat by my side while I worked through my grief—I’d fallen for this man. For his giant heart, his kindness, his support and ferocity. How closely he paid attention to the little things that made me happy and never let me go a day without one of them.

How he held me. His filthy words and gentle touches. The way he said my name and called me Wildflower.

The ease I felt when I was with him, like I didn’t need to be anyone but me. With him at my side, I was free to be the Ella Delatou I was always meant to be. The best, most authentic version of myself.

That was the woman he wanted, and it was the woman I vowed to be from now on.

For the rest of the night, Liam took the time to map every inch of my body with his hands and mouth, willingly put in the time and effort to discover what I liked and didn’t, and took great care to make sure everything he did felt good for me. Each and every time, it was enough to coax my release.

Maybe I’d just never been fully comfortable with Alfie. Liam was so quick to have my body singing with pleasure multiple times over before ever seeking his own.

Hours later, as the sky beyond the windows began to shift from black to grey, we at last collapsed into a sweaty mess of tangled limbs and fell asleep.

It was the best sleep I’d had in years.