Chapter 17 Liam
LIAM
She’s drunk, but not gone. Eyes sharp even if her aim with the wine glass wasn’t. I shouldn’t touch her like this.
I’m going to anyway. And I’ll live with that sin.
I taste her surrender on my tongue. She tastes of defiance and hidden fire, and I’m going to drink every last drop until she’s nothing but need and want in my arms. Her fingers clutch at my hair, pulling me tighter against her. Her hips buck against my mouth, a frantic, unspoken plea for more.
I give it to her. I slide two fingers inside her, feeling the slick, hot clench of her cunt around them as my thumb finds her clit. She’s so wet, so ready, despite every word of protest, every ounce of fight. The lie is in her mouth; the truth is right here, between my fingers, against my tongue.
A guttural sound escapes her as I stare up at her. Her eyes are squeezed shut, her lips parted in a silent scream. This is control. This is possession. This is me marking her, branding her from the inside out so that she never forgets who she belongs to.
Her body shudders, a violent, beautiful tremor that starts deep in her core and ripples outward.
She comes apart on my tongue, screaming my name into the deluge, a sound of pure, unadulterated release.
Her legs give out, and I remove my fingers, rising to catch her, holding her against me as the aftershocks rack her body.
I haven’t won. This isn’t a victory. This is an unconditional fucking surrender, and it’s mine as much as it is hers.
Gripping her waist, I lift her and press her against the tiles.
She wraps her legs around me as the cold water crashes over us.
My cock, rock-hard and aching for her, nudges her pussy.
“Please, Liam!”
In one brutal thrust, I drive into her, burying myself to the hilt.
Her eyes fly open, wide with shock and a pleasure so sharp it looks like pain. A gasp rips from her throat, and she clings to me, her nails digging into the slick skin of my shoulders. The fit is perfect. Tight and hot and fucking mine.
“Eyes on me.”
Her gaze locks with mine, and I see the fight, the surrender, the desperate want she tried so hard to deny.
My thrusts are deep and punishing, setting a rhythm that’s all possession.
Each time I pull back, I watch her expression shatter a little more.
Each time I drive in, I feel her pussy clench around me, taking me deeper.
“You feel this?” I growl, gripping her ass, pulling her tighter against me. “This is real. Not family. Not business. This.”
“Yes,” she cries.
I’m not just fucking her body; I’m fucking her defiance, her pride, her loyalty to a family that would see her destroyed.
I’m erasing everything until the only name she knows is mine.
We have crossed a line we can’t come back from now, and I know the carnage we leave in our wake will be spectacular.
And I don’t give a flying fuck.
Her body is a battlefield, and I’m claiming every inch.
Her legs tighten around my waist, nails scoring my back in a desperate attempt to pull me deeper.
I drive into her again and again, chasing something more than release.
I’m chasing the truth I saw in her eyes, the one she’s been fighting since the moment we met.
This isn’t sex; it’s an exorcism, purging her of family loyalty, of every man who isn’t me.
“Mine,” I grit out, slamming into her again. My control is gone, shredded by the sight of her, the taste of her, the feel of her cunt clenching around me.
I feel her climax building, a frantic tightening deep inside. I meet it with my own, a guttural roar tearing from my chest as I empty myself into her. My release is a violent, possessive flood, a final branding that seals the pact we’ve just made in blood and sex and desperation.
Her head falls back against the wet tile, her body limp in my arms. I slump against her, my forehead resting on hers, the fight gone out of both of us.
All that’s left is the sound of the water, our ragged breaths, and the terrifying certainty that everything has just changed.
We’re not O’Neill and Kelly anymore. We’re this.
A beautiful, fucked-up catastrophe. She lifts her head, her eyes wide with the knowledge that she is about to purge something else.
With her still in my arms, I step out of the shower towards the toilet. Dropping her lightly to her feet, and helping her bend over the bowl. I hold her sodden hair back as she retches, the sound raw and ugly in the quiet bathroom, but I stay with her through it.
I’ve seen worse.
I’ve had worse.
When she’s finished, she sags against the toilet, trembling.
I hand her some toilet paper to wipe her mouth, and then I flush as she drops it in the toilet bowl.
Turning the shower off first, I then grab a thick towel from the rack, wrap it around her shivering body, and sling one around my hips before lifting her into my arms. She doesn’t fight me, just buries her face against my chest, her breathing ragged.
Dripping water, I carry her back into the bedroom and set her gently on the edge of the bed. She looks wrecked. She looks perfect. I grab another towel and start drying her hair, my movements methodical, gentle.
She watches me through heavy-lidded eyes, confusion and exhaustion warring in her expression. The fight is gone for now, leaving a fragile truce in its wake.
“I’m not sorry,” I say quietly, dropping the towel. “Not for any of it.”
Her gaze flickers, but she doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to. I can see it in the slight tremor of her hand, in the way she won’t quite meet my eyes. She’s not sorry either.
The war isn’t over. But we’ve just chosen a side, and it’s not the one our families would have picked for us.
I toss the damp towel aside and run my fingers through her hair, separating the copper strands.
She watches me, her eyes full of questions I don’t have answers for yet.
But I have one answer. The only one that matters.
She’s mine. Her father doesn’t know it. My father doesn’t know it.
She barely knows it herself, but it’s a truth branded into both of us now.
I stand and walk to her closet, the scent of her, lilies and expensive perfume, all around me. I pull out a soft gray sweater and a pair of black leggings. When I return, she’s still sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in the towel, looking lost.
“Stand up,” I say softly.
She obeys without question, her body still trembling slightly.
I slide the towel away and dress her myself, pulling the sweater over her head, guiding her arms through the sleeves, kneeling to pull the leggings up her long legs.
She lets me do it, her limbs pliant, her gaze never leaving my face, searching for something.
Maybe the monster she expected, maybe the man she wants. I’m both.
The shower scene plays on a loop. Her eyes glassy from wine, body pliant under my hands. I crossed a line. Several. Her yes doesn’t make it clean.
When she’s dressed, I lead her out of the bedroom, away from the wreckage of the shower and the scent of our surrender.
The broken glass and wine are still on the kitchen floor.
I’ll clean it up. I’ll make coffee. I’ll handle everything.
This is how it begins. Not with strategy or negotiation, but with the quiet aftermath of a storm we created together.
As I sit her down on the sofa, I know one thing for certain.
The war is coming for us, but they’ll have to burn me to the ground to take her away.