Chapter 11 Roxy
“Nice place,” Mark said, making himself at home on the sofa. It was upholstered in a floral-printed fabric that was outdated by at least a decade.
“Thanks. Want a beer?” I called out from behind the refrigerator door.
“Sure—”
He was interrupted by three sharp knocks on the front door. The sound made my stomach plunge down towards my knees.
“Geez. Expecting company?” Mark said.
I could tell he was trying to keep the tone light, but there was still a slight tremor in his voice. It was eleven o’clock. There was no reason for anyone to be knocking at my door this late in the evening.
At the same time, I knew exactly who it was, and I proved myself right when I opened the door to find him standing on the other side. He was leaning against the doorframe in a charcoal Henley, looking like he hadn't slept. Good. He shouldn't have.
“What are you doing, Roxy?” Liam said, putting one foot over my threshold.
Instinctively, I backed away as Mark rose to his feet behind me.
“We got a problem here?” he asked, placing a protective hand on my right shoulder.
Liam’s gaze zeroed in on that hand like a laser-guided missile. A muscle tensed in his jaw. His hands flexed at his sides.
“We’re about to if you don’t take your hand off my wife,” Liam said in a deceptively calm voice.
Mark snatched his hand back as if my shoulder were on fire. “You’re married?” he said accusingly as he redirected his attention to me.
“Technically—” I began, turning towards him.
“Technically. So that’s a yes,” Mark said, nodding. His expression twisted with rage. Suddenly, all traces of the charming, considerate man I’d gone on a date with were gone, replaced by a mask of absolute contempt. A red flush began creeping up his neck.
Liam pulled me to the side and stepped in. “I suggest you leave while the circumstances are still in your favor.”
Mark raised both of his hands in a gesture of surrender, which was an instant turn-off. “Absolutely. I’d be happy to.” He moved towards the open door, leaving Liam to focus on me. Then, just before he physically left the building, Mark muttered, “Fucking whore.”
“Excuse me?” Liam said, whirling around.
Mark froze in the doorway, eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights of a car.
“I didn’t catch that. What did you just say?” Liam continued, taking two long steps towards him.
Mark held up both hands again, this time in an imploring gesture. “I…I didn’t mean it,” he stammered.
Before I could stop him, Liam’s elbow reared back. Then, he delivered a silencing punch to the left side of Mark’s pale, sweating face.
* * *
"We need to talk," he said.
"Funny. I was about to say the same thing. You first, or me first?"
"Ladies first."
"Fine." I set my mug down on the counter hard enough that coffee sloshed over the rim. "You had someone following me tonight."
Leaning back against the kitchen sink, I watched Liam’s face for the telltale signs: the flicker in his jaw, the half-second where he considered lying and then apparently thought better of it.
Liam had never been able to lie to my face convincingly.
It used to be one of the things I loved about him. Now it just made this easier.
"It sounds bad if you put it like that. I had someone keeping an eye on you," he said. "That's all."
"That's all?" I echoed with a bitter laugh.
"Yeah. ‘Following’ implies I don't want you to know. I actually don't care if you know."
"Oh, well, in that case." I threw my hands up. "How silly of me to be upset that my husband had a grown man chaperone my date like I'm a child."
Something dark moved across his face at the word "date," gone as fast as it came. "It's not about that."
"Then what is it about, Liam? Because from where I'm standing, it looks a hell of a lot like the same thing it always was. You deciding what I'm allowed to do with my own life, except now you've got the manpower to actually enforce it."
"That's not fair."
"Isn't it?" I crossed my arms, years of old arguments rising up my throat like acid. "This is exactly why I left. I need to be able to live my life the way I want."
He crossed the kitchen in three strides, close enough that I had to tip my chin up to keep glaring at him properly.
Close enough that I could smell his cologne, something clean and expensive that hadn't existed in our life together three years ago.
My whole body remembered him before my brain gave permission.
"You think I like doing this?" His voice had dropped low, rough at the edges. "You think I enjoy knowing my own wife is out there on some app, letting strange men take her out, and I don't get a say in whether she's safe?"
"I'm not asking for your permission. I'm asking you to stop."
"I can't." His voice grew soft and gravelly. "I can't just stop watching out for you, Roxy. Believe me, I've tried."
"Why not?"
He didn't answer right away. His eyes searched my face the way they used to right before he kissed me.
For one long, humiliating second, I wanted him to.
I wanted him to close the distance and kiss me right there in my ugly rental kitchen.
Wanted it so badly my whole body leaned toward him before my brain caught up and yanked me back by the collar.
"Because I'm your husband," he said finally. Not the real answer. I could tell. But it was the only one he was willing to give me.
"Not for much longer."
"We'll see."
"After we're divorced, we'll have no obligation to stay in each other's lives."
"We'll see," he said again.
"You've never been able to sway me, Liam Murphy. And you never will."
His jaw ticked. For a second I thought he'd finally crack, finally give me something real instead of these careful half-truths he kept doling out like rationed bread.
Instead, he reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering against my jaw a beat too long.
I hated—hated—how my whole body went still and warm under that one small touch, like a traitor.
"Just be careful," he murmured. His hand remained at my jaw, cupping the outer edge of it. His thumb rested near the corner of my mouth. "Please. For me."
"I'm not doing anything for you anymore." But my voice had lost its edge, and we both knew it.
He held my gaze a moment longer, something unreadable and hungry moving behind those green eyes. They drifted downwards towards my mouth when I bit my lower lip. His hand flexed, still cupping my cheek.
Suddenly, his mouth descended. Our lips made contact. Just as I registered that my heartrate was speeding up, his tongue dove forward, filling my senses with his taste, his scent, his breath. His hands wandered down to hold my hips, squeezing me.
An electric tingle shot up my back, finally waking me up to who I was kissing.
I broke away first, gasping.
But Liam held on tight, forcing his forehead up against mine, giving me no other choice but to look directly into his eyes.
“Was it really so horrible, being married to me?” he whispered gruffly. His hands started roaming my body, beginning with my ass. I gasped when I felt his strong grip digging into my flesh through the slippery, satin dress. “You can tell me the truth.”
“We were just kids. We shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place.”
“But I was good to you, wasn’t I?”
No. You weren’t. That was what I should’ve said, but didn’t. I was too weak to speak up at that moment, too distracted by the way Liam was pushing me back against the kitchen sink.
“I can think of three different ways to make you come right here, right now,” Liam continued. He tugged my dress up and ran his fingers over the front of my lace thong, bought just that morning. “I know every inch of your body, Roxy. Inside and out. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong, my mind screamed. But my body was paralyzed, joints and muscles locked in place as Liam’s finger slipped under my panties.
“Let me hear you whimper, baby. I know you want to,” Liam continued as he stared at my clenched teeth.
It was the “baby” that finally woke me. I pushed Liam’s shoulders, making him back away from me. “Sit down,” I said.
Liam sat, taking up one of the four walnut dining chairs. I stared at him for a few seconds, catching my breath. To his credit, he looked just as surprised as I was.
An unexpected rush of satisfaction surged through me. I planted my hands on my hips and took one step towards him. “Take out your cock.”
Liam gulped as his eyes raked over my body, from the top of my head to the strappy, black heels on my feet. “Shit,” he muttered, working his fly open. He winced as he pushed his boxers down past his hips.
And he was completely hard, just as I expected.
I took two more steps and stopped just past his knees. One more, and I’d be on top of him. Liam tilted his head back with his fist wrapped around his shaft, his brows furrowed and gaze soft. It almost looked like he was giving me an offering.
If it was war that he wanted, I was going to win.
I straddled his lap and placed my right hand on his shoulder. With my left, I pulled my panties to the side and lowered myself over his cock.
“Christ,” Liam hissed as his tip touched my opening.
“I can think of three different ways to make you come right here, right now,” I said, repeating his words back to him. I wiggled my hips, coating him with my wetness.
“P-please,” Liam sputtered.
I dropped onto his lap, letting him fill me. Liam cried out and grabbed my hips. Gripping both of his shoulders, I started grinding.
“You humiliated me in front of my date,” I said.
“I was wrong. Punish me,” Liam shot back. “Ride this dick, baby. It’s yours.”
“Shut up.”
I kept riding, focusing on my pleasure, not his.
Very unfortunately for me, Liam had a perfect cock, and he could get hard in less than a second.
It made sex with him satisfying, but also disorienting.
In other words, it made me feral, and it was probably one of the reasons why I could never keep my head on straight when it came to him.
Liam groaned as I moved my fingers through his hair. When I raked his scalp, his legs twitched under me.
“You promised me a divorce,” I said. I closed both hands, grabbing two fistfuls of his hair. I yanked his head back until his eyes wrenched open, and I stopped moving completely. “Give me my divorce.”
“Okay. Yes. Fuck. Just don’t stop,” Liam said in a tight voice.
He was still sheathed inside of me, still rock hard. I rose up an inch and slid back down, moaning as my pussy clenched around his shaft.
Liam groaned and grabbed my ass, spreading me wide. “Thank you,” he whispered as his eyes rolled back.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and rode his bucking hips. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.” I was the one saying the words, speaking in a voice I didn’t recognize. The pleasure coiled up tight inside of me, a deep ache on the cusp of explosion.
Liam cried out, and his body went limp. The disappointment washed over me like a cold wave.
“Fuck!” Liam groaned. “Fuck! You just made me—”
I stood up and pushed myself off of him in disgust. “A divorce is clearly for the best—”
Still seated, Liam grabbed my hips before I could walk away, and he swung me around until I was perched on the edge of the kitchen table. Then, he hooked his hands under my thighs. With one tug, he sent me sprawling on my back.
“What are you doing?” I gasped.
With his cock softening in his lap, Liam pulled my panties to the side and buried his mouth in my pussy.
“Oh my god,” I whispered. Then, louder, “Oh god! Liam!”
I gripped his hair as his tongue circled my clit, still aching and throbbing from unresolved, built-up tension. He teased my swollen bud with a few flicks before gliding down to my opening, where he lapped at the hot fluid leaking out of me.
I raised my head. “You’ve never done this before,” I said breathlessly as I watched him eating his own cum out of my pussy.
Liam’s eyes flicked up to my face. “I picked up some new tricks.” He kept his gaze locked on me as he drew his fingers to my entrance, pushing his index and middle digits inside. “Don’t worry. I’ll still give you your divorce. I just want to hear you say my name as you come, just one last time.”
He started pumping his fingers in and out. My legs trembled as everything went white in my head.
It was a struggle just stringing two words together. “That’s it then, right? No more war. Just divorce, then—” I choked on my words as his tongue returned to my clit, matching the rhythm of his pulsing fingers.
“Say it, Roxy,” Liam commanded. “Say my name.”
I shuddered as Liam pushed me closer and closer to the edge. There was no use hiding it anymore. Liam obviously knew what he was doing, especially when it came to what I liked.
“Liam,” I uttered in the split second before I climaxed.
My entire body seized. Liam’s fingers continued working, scratching that deep, primal itch in the most delicious ways, and I came again.
My body was buzzing, vibrating with bliss. Meanwhile, my head was slowly coming back to earth. Suddenly self-conscious, I hiked my dress back down and slid off of the table.
“We got a deal then, right?” I said. “We’re divorced. It’s over.”
“It’s over,” Liam assured me. “But if you don’t mind, I’d like to stay over and make sure you’re safe. Just for tonight.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I punched another guy in the face over you, Roxy! And if he’s mad enough to come back and get one in, I’d rather be the one who meets him at the door.”
I felt my shoulders sinking, as if I were deflating from exhaustion. In the end, I didn’t care if he was looking out for my best interest or not. As long as I got what I wanted, which was a bonafide, legal-on-paper divorce.
“Fine. But you’re sleeping on the sofa,” I said, nodding to the sofa in question. “I’ll get you a blanket.”
I went back to the bedroom and dug a flannel blanket out of one of my boxes. When I returned to the living room, Liam was already sitting down and unlacing his boots.
Seeing him there, amidst the blank walls and cold, impersonal furnishings, shifted something inside of me. For the first time since our reunion, I felt a twinge of empathy towards him.
“You can sleep by me tonight,” I said, relenting.
Liam raised his head, looking confused as his attention bounced from the blanket in my hands to my face. “Huh?”
“I said you can sleep in my bed if you want. But only sleeping, and just for this one night,” I said quickly. “Are you coming? Before I change my mind.”
Without a word, Liam slapped his knees, stood up, and followed me to bed.