Chapter 57 Fuckolympics
fuckolympics
Lorien
Seriously. If this is how the other half lives, I’d be happy to become a woman of leisure. Well, except for the money.
And Strider.
Deciding what to do with the data on the flash drive has become my sole focus.
Thinking about Liam hurts my heart in a way I didn’t think possible, especially this quickly.
And since I’m face down, getting the best massage I’ve ever experienced, while listening to Sariah and Ayla discuss their husbands and children, I need something to focus on.
Renée has air pods in and is less responsive. If I were fifteen, I’d do the same. Heck, I want to do exactly that, but I’m worried about being rude.
But back to the matter at hand… my brother. Who can I trust with the data? Dr. Patel is out. All of his students would be the same. I won’t put him in that ethical position. The data would be too easily recognized as Platt’s, and I would be suspect number one.
So that means, it has to be me. I have to dig in, parse it, build it, model it, and test it. Impossible. Totally and utterly impossible. Even if I had access to the right equipment and nothing but time and money on my hands to make it my sole mission in life, it would take years.
So now what?
What would it take to convince Platt BioPharma to pick the project back up? Shareholders. What were Liam’s words? Shareholders care about profitability and leadership cares about the shareholders?
So, I need a majority share on the board? Even my brain is sarcastic at this point.
“She’d do anything for her brother,” Sariah says, interrupting my thoughts. Is she referring to me? “She dotes on him. It’s going to be hard when she leaves for college in a few years.”
She must be referring to Renée.
“I’d do anything for mine too.” Ayla’s voice is wistful but firm.
“That makes three of us,” I whisper quietly.
“How is your brother?” the redhead asks.
“Nothing a little research and money can’t fix.”
“I heard somewhere once that if money can fix your problems, you don’t have problems.”
“Spoken like someone for whom money is no problem,” Sariah grumbles to her sister-in-law as a door opens and closes somewhere far away to my blissed-out ears.
“I’m just saying. Memory issues, cancer, life and death stuff… there are things that are serious. The rest just need the right investment.”
“Well, it’s life and death and I have no money, so…” I speak into the hole of the face cradle.
“Well,” she starts mimicking me. “I’ve got money. Liam isn’t hurting either. What do you need?”
“How would you feel about a hostile takeover?”
If she hears my sarcasm, she moves right past it. “I’m about it. Who are we overrunning?”
“Platt BioPharma. So a pipe dream.” A very expensive pipe dream.
“I’m in,” Sariah puts in. “I took down mine a year and a half ago or so. It was stressful at the time, even if I was glad I did it.”
Pushing up onto one arm and wrapping a hand around the sheet to avoid showing them my breasts, I look to my sisters-in-law. “You did?” I ask Sariah. To Ayla, I add, “I wish.”
Sariah nods, but it’s Ayla who takes over. “You get that I’d do anything for my brothers?”
I stare at her, but she doesn’t require my participation to continue. “I’ve done well for myself. Christian has done really well for us. If money can make this better for your brother, we’re in.”
It’s too good to be true. All of it. This whole setting is beyond my imaginings. But the idea that a woman who loves her brother would help me save mine is pure fantasy, and one I can’t afford to have.
Sariah wiggles her toes from the pedicure chair. “I can probably penetrate their systems, find a vulnerability or something. The right vulnerability would offer an opportunity for a stock price drop. If it doesn’t, they’ll never know I was there.”
“That’s illegal,” I whisper.
“Only if I’m caught,” Sariah says. “And I won’t get caught.”
“But why? Why would either of you do this?”
“Can you save your brother?” Ayla queries at the exact moment Sariah asks, “Do you love Liam?”
The answer is the same for both. Even if they both break my heart. My one-word response is quiet and firm. “Yes.”
“That’s why.” They say in almost perfect unison. Their faces show humor until Sariah’s mouth flattens and her chin lifts.
It’s the last thing I see before I’m lifted in my sheet and thrown over a huge shoulder I quickly realize is Liam’s. I’d scream but there’s no sense in startling the babies who are sacked out in the playpen. Besides, I’m stunned silent.
I really thought that was something that happened to other people. I’m not the silent type. But since all my energy is going into keeping my body covered in the thin white sheet, and not hurting his shoulder or hip, I lay limp like a fish, as he ascends the stairs.
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” I whisper.
“Not by carrying you.”
“What does that mean?” Apparently, I wasn’t stunned silent for long.
We’re through the door when he spins, pressing my butt into the wall, and slides me down his body until I’m stopped, eye to eye with him, and darn near crotch to crotch.
“Lorien.”
I swallow and nod at the seriousness in his tone.
“I’ve had a rough day. I can’t decide if my morning was great or my morning was shit. So I want you to tell me.” His ochre eyes hold mine as that unruly coppery beard brushes my chin and dips to tickle my collar bone.
“I don’t—” I clear my throat but even then, my voice is small. “I don’t know how your morning was to tell you if it was good or bad. Mine was…” How would I define it? “Mine was low. Very low, but Ayla just said some things that make me think things are getting better.”
“We’ll talk about my sister later.”
My brow furrows.
“Now I want to know why your morning was very low.”
I look to the bathroom door, as if replaying the scene from this morning, before slamming my eyes shut on a wince.
“Eyes on me, Wifey.”
I look at him, really study him, until he squeezes me tighter to the wall.
“Tell me.”
It takes all my courage to whisper the words that slice through me like cold blades. “I told you I love you and you ran.”
His mouth hovers above mine. I hear his words and feel them as he speaks. “No, baby. You said falling in love with me was the worst part of your life.”
Liam
“That’s why I left.”
Confusion mars her beautiful face. “Well… yeah.”
Ice runs through my veins as she repeats her words. Man up, Murphy. You’re missing something. “Explain.”
Her brows scrunch, and she looks away, not toward the bathroom though. She’s not remembering, she’s conjuring.
I give her a squeeze to prompt her. My shoulder is not happy with this. Neither is my hip, but she can’t run, and I need to understand.
“I’d think you’d understand. I mean, you’re in this too.”
We’re going backward in clarity.
“In what way?”
“In the legal way. The contractual way.”
“Baby, I’m not following. Lay it out plainly. I’m begging you.”
She sighs. The force of it pushes her nipples into my tee and drops her naked pussy near my dick. This is killing me.
“Ugh. Why are you making me say this? Fine. It’s bad because I know it’s an agreement for you, and I know I’m going to get hurt, okay? You’re all… You.” What does that mean? “And I’m all… me.”
“What the fuck?”
“Don’t growl at me, William. You said ‘Lay it out plainly’.” She drops her voice an octave trying to imitate me. “And I’m trying. Being mad at me just makes it worse.”
“You think I’d hurt you? You’d think I’d allow that for one minute?”
“I think I’m in love with you and I’ll crumble when you walk away.”
“And I’m all me. What does that even mean? That I don’t give a fuck?”
She pulls back, slamming her head into the wall. “Ouch.” She lifts a hand to rub the back of her skull. “No.” She closes her eyes, trying to escape me, dropping her head to my shoulder.
A tear runs down my neck and startles me. I pull back, enough to force her to confront me—to confront us. Gingerly, I wrap a hand around her throat, feeling her pulse race, and tilt her head up.
Her eyes fly to search my face, but I watch my hand, seeing the weather-worn, ink-filled fingers as a choker around her pale blemish-free skin.
“You think I’d let you go? You think for one moment, Wifey, that I wouldn’t chase you to the ends of the earth to come back to me?
You missed it. Somewhere, along the way, you climbed under my skin, inside my chest, and made a home.
I have no idea how to do this, but I sure as fuck am not going to attempt this life without you. ”
I drop my forehead to hers and take her bottom lip between my teeth to her audible gasp.
Kissing my way to her ear, I whisper there, “You might as well be inked on my body, Lorien. You’re permanent.
We’re permanent. You don’t need to worry about me leaving.
I do want to address the way you speak about yourself, but after I climb inside your body the way you have mine. ”
Reaching between us, I undo my belt. “Guide me home, Wifey.”
She holds my eyes as I hold her throat. The sheet parts, and she uses her knees to scrape my pants down my legs, not able to take any great care with the wound on my hip, positioning herself above my stiff cock.
As she hovers, she touches my chest, saying so quietly I almost miss it, “I want to be inked on your skin. I want a permanent place on your body.”
I thrust up into her with one hard move, pressing her back into the wall, and take her with abandon. Her gasps and cries rise in volume until I take her mouth with mine. “Mine. Those moans are mine. Everything about us is mine. Do you understand?”
She nods with what little she’s able to move her neck before I release her throat and move us from the wall to lay her on the bed. She’s wrapped around me as if she’s afraid to let go.
I pound and rut into her, trying to mark her from the inside out like she’s done to me. Sliding one of her legs further up my back, I drive deeper and find her clit with my thumb.
“What do you feel?”
“Bliss.” Gasp. “Pleasure.” The word is stretched out in erotic pronunciations. “Everything.”
“No, Wifey.” I grind in hard with a twist. “Do you feel me?”
“Yes.” Dear God, she practically moans the word.
“Where am I?”
“Inside me.”
“Where am I, Lorien?”
One lone tear streaks to her temple. “Home.”
“Fuck, yes. I’m home. Here. Where I belong.” I thrust as if I’m trying to win the fuckolympics, and I want the gold.
“Liam?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, Wifey. Now come for your husband.”