Unwillfully Wed to My Valentine (Fire at Will #1)

Chapter Twenty-Three

? ? ?

This is problematic.

Amber

“L-Liam, I just— I’m not— I—” I squeak, clamping my hands to my mouth as a warm finger traces the two small tattooed wings on my back. Generally, my black pj camis hide the feathered ink.

But with Liam’s eyes following my every move in a penthouse hotel room while I’m only wearing a cheap white camisole he picked up when he told me we would be indulging chapter twelve tonight, I guess some things show through bleached cotton.

How I ended up on my stomach in the center of a king-size bed with Liam looming over me and my shirt tugged down to reveal the full tattoo…I don’t know.

I can only assume business mindset is to blame.

Evil .

Evil, evil, evil Liam and his stupid manipulation tactics.

Oh, yeah, sure. Seeing a penthouse hotel room is probably great for research. You’re so right, Liam. It’s just research. Why would I be nervous about our fun research date ? How dare he. “How dare you,” I whisper into my fingers, shivering.

Breaths leave me in short bursts, and I know I’m never going to recover from this. Never even in a million years.

Liam moves, and the bed caters to his weight, dipping more toward one knee as it brushes my thigh while his presence over me consumes my entire existence. “Beautiful,” he whispers, and his damp exhale teases my spine.

He kisses. He swears. “You’re so—” Another curse. “—beautiful, love.”

I electrify. I lose my mind. I find myself, once again, attracted to my husband, and highly inconvenienced by the information.

“When did you get this?” he asks, his nose drawing the shape into my flesh.

“A few…years ago.”

He chuckles. “My dark angel…hiding in her little wings.” Another kiss. Another piece of my mind vanishes into the ether.

I am tethered to his puppet strings, at the mercy of his machinations. His fingers move, and I dance. I don’t know if I want to copy and paste this into my book, or if I want to keep it close and secret and mine forever.

I don’t know how to tell him to stop. I don’t know if I’d rather beg him to continue.

I don’t know anything right now.

He’s breaking cutie code.

This behavior cannot be allowed by someone who wears pink silk to bed.

Except, of course, he’s not wearing pink silk in this bed, now is he?

No.

He’s in a pair of sweats he picked up along with this infernal camisole. He’s in a pair of sweats and a bandage because my male lead was stabbed in my book recently. He is in nothing else.

Sweats and bandages do not cover enough to keep my poor mind out of the gutter.

Well after I’ve disintegrated into nothingness, his finger unlatches from my shirt, letting the fabric cover my little wings again. His weight gathers on my right. A sigh leaves him as he falls into the bed beside me. “Okay, I’ve had my fun. So cute.” Smile in his voice, he asks, “How’s that for research? Are you ready to turn the lights out, cuddle, and sleep now, Bambi?”

I am, actually, ready to die, Liam.

But thanks for asking.

Unhelpfully, I whimper, curling up in the fetal position.

My back blazes as my cells rewrite themselves.

My poor brain boggles, at a loss for words.

Liam equals husband—because of a marriage pact on a Taco Bell napkin made near a decade ago.

Liam equals little cutie.

Liam equals evil .

Pure. Evil.

Case in point, he chuckles, and the mattress shifts as his bare chest rolls into my thinly-covered back. His fingers set aside curls I’ve yet to trap in the bonnet he got for me with this stupid camisole, then his lips sear my neck. “You want more research, little princess?” he whispers. “I can think up a thousand things I’d like to teach you.”

“Liam, please,” I choke on the words.

He draws back. “Too far?”

Not far enough. Never far enough.

I don’t know why I’m this comfortable with him. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m mixing up the character I’m writing and Liam . I never would have expected him to be this good at fitting into a crime lord’s skin, but here he is—hot, possessive, perfect .

“Can you…be normal , please?” I swallow, wet my lips. “I’m done with research for today. I’m sorry you paid for this room, and I’m chickening out early. But…I can’t…”

“Shh.” His fingers delicately comb my curls away from my face. “It’s okay, Bambi.” He kisses my shoulder. “No more acting. All done.”

He is not acting all done if he’s kissing my shoulder, now is he?

“ Liam .” I shiver.

“Yes, wife?”

My heart skips.

His arm closes around me, embracing. “I’m listening. Do you want me to stop ? Or to be normal ? Because, I promise you, Amber, this is a normal fantasy of mine. Normally, I want to hold you and kiss you all night. It goes against everything in me that I don’t let myself. I am listening, Bambi, for your command. Today has been painless. I have lost myself in the idea that maybe—just maybe—I can become whoever you want me to be. From moment to moment. Hour to hour. Write me the script that makes me tolerable, and I will follow it until you have to write me another.” Laughing, he squeezes me, and my heart pinches. “I’m so… happy . You had so much fun today. With me. I want this all the time. Please.”

My muscles go limp. Cautious, I turn myself toward him, see the eager excitement brightening his dark eyes, find the hopeful smile painted across his lips.

He draws his free hand up between us and cups my cheek, sighing into the caress as though he’s never before had peace like this. As though everything finally makes sense. As though I’m the answer he’s been searching for his entire life.

“You…” I whisper, “You said being anything less than yourself isn’t sustainable.”

“I have not felt in any way less than myself today, Bambi.” He kisses my forehead. “I’m obsessed. That’s a common trait in your male leads, isn’t it?”

I mean. Yes. But… “You think of me like a cute little doll, not a female lead.” I shift my attention off him. “R-right?”

“Bambi,” he whispers, letting his lips lower to mine, brush them with his words. “I think of you as my wife.” He kisses the corner of my mouth. “Are you sure you aren’t the one regarding me as less than a man? I see you as no less of a woman just because you are the most adorable person I have ever met. You are seduction incarnate. How has it managed to evade your perception how deeply I want you?”

I…have no idea.

My mouth hangs open as he pulls back. My wide eyes trace his smile, get lost for a moment in the darkness of his irises. Shaking, my fingers lift and push the ink dark strands of his hair off his forehead. Something visceral darkens his gaze as I…touch him.

Liam.

Scary, brooding, evil Liam has always been harmless to me.

Because I knew all the secrets. I heard the hour-long rants about children’s cartoons directed at kindergarten girls. I saw the whimpering pouts when I’d tell him it was time to stop messing with my hair or hands because I had to move. I sat through the most innocuous primpings as he’d touch me and never, ever, broach a topic of anything less than innocent.

He’s right.

I have never truly thought to consider him as anything more than my weird childhood rival who abandoned me the moment we graduated.

Heat boils, and I flush. “Y-you mean…you…you think about…”

“Probably, yes,” he murmurs.

“And…with…me?”

“Only you, yes.”

My mind goes blank, and all I can do…is stare.

His attention slips toward the places where our bodies meet, then pink rises to his cheeks. “It occurs to me this information might be uncomfortable right now.” He begins to separate us, but my heathen foot wraps around his calf, stopping him. He looks down. He meets my eyes. A sensuous smile slips across his mouth. Silent, he paints the pad of his thumb across my bottom lip.

Blushing, I hide my face against his chest, let his arms wrap me up in the apricot scent of him. His heart pounds near my ear as his breaths hitch and stutter. Voice low, he says, “Bambi…”

“You don’t need a script,” I whisper. “Give me some time to see if I can reframe how I think about you just the way you are. Okay?”

His hand closes into a fist against my back. Breathless, he whispers, “You would consider giving me a chance like that? Really?”

“You’re a weirdo, Liam. And you’re evil. But I lash out too much and genuinely thrill over the idea that I get to sleep in a coffin bed next to a gravestone mirror. So maybe neither of us is perfect. But maybe everyone deserves to be adored. If I can’t be the person who fulfills that for you—”

“Then I still want you in my life, Bambi. I have no hope that you’ll ever adore me. Please don’t suggest that’s the deciding factor. I’ll do anything to earn your tolerance. If you can just tolerate me a little each day, forever, that’s enough. I’ll do anything to make it enough.”

“Liam…” I coil my arms around him. “You’re breaking my heart. Don’t you want more than tolerance?”

“Bambi. I want you. Only you. Forever you.”

“What if there’s someone out there better for you than me?”

His head shakes, and his arms constrict. “There isn’t.”

“But I’ve made you feel like a burden.”

He breathes a laugh. “I am a burden, Amber. You never gave up on me. For thirteen exhausting years, you’d sigh, roll your eyes, and call me cutie as though I wasn’t repulsive or too much. Even though I bugged you constantly. Even though I teased you mercilessly. Even though I’m stubborn and selfish. You treated me like a person worth an explanation, worth an argument, worth acceptance. When I’m with you, I’m happy. I don’t need you to adore me. I just need you to exist close enough for me to feel…something.” His thumb presses down the line of my spine, registering every bone. “I want you to know me again and choose to tolerate me for another thirteen years, then beyond that. I wish to be known, to be seen, to be understood. I don’t need adoration for any of that. I need whatever compelled you to keep smiling at me for so long as though…as though even if I were a burden, you didn’t mind carrying me.”

“What if—” My throat tightens. “—I can’t do that anymore? What if I never learn how to understand you again? What if I’m too bitter now to regain what we’ve lost?”

“Then I will learn how to understand you at a depth that fills your soul the way you once filled mine. Then it will be my turn to give.”

His turn to give.

Even if he gets nothing in return.

My eyes close. “Liam. What would you call that?”

He snuggles. “Hopeless desperation.”

Well. I might have another word for it. But I’d rather not say as much aloud until I can sort my own feelings on the subject. So I don’t say anything at all. I just hold him, until we fall asleep.