Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
LIAM
We stand outside my flat, me maskless and her determined, looking up at the shitty building.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
Kat bumps me with her hip. ‘Shut up. I’ll happily be anywhere you are.’
‘It’s not exactly comfy and cosy like your place.’
‘You’re a bachelor, I’d be more concerned if you did have as many cushions and blankets and shit as me.’
Every crack and stain as we head up the stairs becomes more visible to me than it ever has before. I want to strangle the neighbours as they wail at each other next door.
The lock clicks, and I let the door swing open, bending to scoop Kat into my arms. She gives a delightful squeal as I carry her over the threshold and kick the door closed behind me.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Starting as I mean to go on.’
The moment her feet hit the floor, anxiety spikes into me.
Every corner of the place comes into sharper focus.
We’re in the kitchenette-come-sitting area, with the bedroom area sectioned off to the rear of the studio.
The floor is bare wood, and not the kind people pay thousands for.
The dining table and chairs are the only sitting space, and even they are held together with wood glue and duct tape.
My coffee mugs are stacked unclean by the sink.
Fuck.
I watch her face and wait for the verdict.
The cracked skirting board. The damp bleeding into the corner above the window. The bare bulb. The chrome coffee machine gleams on the counter like it’s from a whole other world.
Her eyes go to it.
‘Make me a cup?’
‘I don’t know if I can…’
‘Why?’ she asks.
I swallow and think of the panties.
‘I once stole your knickers and used them as a coffee filter for a day or two.’ In for a penny.
Kat’s eyes widen. ‘That’s heinous.’
‘I know. I’m not sorry. Best coffee of my life.’
‘Have you cleaned it since?’
‘Multiple times, it’s my pride and joy. And I have regular filters,’ I say.
‘Good. Well, I need a cup of coffee more than my dignity right now, and I kiss you after coming all over your mouth, so I suppose it’ll be okay.’
I can’t help but laugh, which makes her laugh. ‘We’re a right pair.’
‘Sorry it’s so shit here.’
‘Liam.’ My name in her mouth still makes me tingle. ‘I grew up in a house with thirty-two rooms, and I was lonely in every single one of them.’
‘I’d choose this over that any day.’
Pulling her in for a kiss, I thank my lucky stars that she gave me even a moment of her time.
That’s when the cat appears from behind the bedroom separator, padding out with his belly wobbling.
He’s enormous, but smaller than he was when I rescued him from Pete.
The two of us are working on getting him to a healthy weight.
My broad, battered tabby. One torn ear and a permanently perplexed expression.
Kat makes a noise I’ve never heard from her before. A sound I imagine an excited fox might make when he sees a rabbit.
‘You have a cat?’
‘He’s a recent addition.’
She drops to a crouch and extends her hand. The cat walks directly into it as trustingly as I took her hand all those years ago. Treacherous animal. He took far longer to come round to me.
‘What’s his name?’
‘I haven’t given him one.’
She looks up at me, scandalised.
‘You can’t just not name him.’
‘He hasn’t complained.’ I nod at the far corner where the new water fountain gurgles, the automatic feeder beside it.
‘Where did you get him?’ she asks, while loving on the cat, who flops in her lap and purrs like a bloody tractor.
‘Pete’s house. Before I burned it.’
She looks up at me. Her expression darkens.
‘This poor boy lived with that horrible man?’ Her focus fixes back on the cat, her voice rising to a high baby talk. ‘You have a much better daddy now.’
A daddy. I’ve never imagined myself with a family of my own. Feline or otherwise. Such a dream seemed utterly impossible. But watching Kat with the ball of fur makes my insides flame in a way that’s indescribable.
She’s my family. My hearth.
The cat kneads her thigh as she pets him. ‘He needs a name.’
‘Fine. You name him.’
She considers him with great seriousness, petting his little face between her hands. ‘I think he looks like a Reggie.’
‘That’s not a cat name.’
‘Reginald Mousefort the third. Reggie is just for his friends.’
I look at the cat. He looks back at me with his one good ear swivelled forward.
Damn, am I friends enough not to have to call him Reginald?
I make the coffee and set it on the floor next to Reggie and Kat, seeing as she makes no move to sit at the table. My flat smells like her shampoo, and I’m intoxicated by it. And I can barely think with her here in my space. I’m aware of every inch of space, and fur, between us.
A sound banging against the wall kicks up, and I sigh. The headboard bangs between rising voices, who don’t sound particularly happy to be shagging, yet neither seems to stop either.
I close my eyes.
‘I’m sorry, my neighbours tend to be fighting or fucking. Often both at the same time.’
‘Every night?’
‘There’s no rhyme or reason as to when.’
Reggie scowls at the noise and takes himself off to his bed, which is behind a dresser next to the boiler cupboard. The warmest spot in the damp flat.
Kat tilts her head, listening. A wicked smirk plays on her lips; clearly, she has devilment afoot.
‘Well,’ she says, taking a sip of her coffee and setting the mug back on the floor. ‘We’ll have to give them something to compete with.’
She’s already getting to her feet, extending a hand to me. So similar to that day in the stream, yet so, so much different.
My throat tightens. ‘Kat—’
‘What’s wrong, Liam…’ she says, taking off her top in one swift movement and dropping it on the floor. Her bra follows, and my mouth fucking waters.
She pulls me up, and I have her pushed against the wall in two seconds flat, her hands twisted into the front of my hoodie, my forearm braced beside her head. She’s laughing, which makes me laugh, which is an entirely unfamiliar sound in my flat.
She rips off my top, and I tug down her jeans, the sensation of her fingers on my skin a whole new level of intensity. In all our fucking, I’ve never undressed. Always so ashamed of the marks my body bears.
But now, I let her strip me of everything. Accepting that I am who I am, and she loves me anyway.
Less than a minute later, we’re both naked, and she pushes me back, taking stock of everything about me.
She forces me back against the wall while tracing her fingers over the patterns of my scars and the interwoven ivy tattoos. There are so many that my torso is nearly a covered mass.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ she whispers, pressing her sweet lips to my collarbone.
My darling. Breaking me apart with her words, and healing me with her kisses. I let her trail her lips and tongue over my flesh, mapping it out like she’ll need to remember every inch.
The touch is so soft and gentle, such a difference from the intimacy I’ve had before. It makes me ache from my chest to my toes.
Then she’s knelt at my feet, kissing my cock with as much sweet tenderness. It thickens in her grip as her hot, wet tongue curls around the tip. With her blonde hair mussed and those blue eyes drinking in my every expression, I’m a goner.
She splays her hands on my hips and takes me into her mouth, and I see fucking fireworks. I love taking control, and fucking her as raw and roughly as she enjoys, but this is far more glorious.
The sweeter her touches, the more they gut me, until I can feel my eyes prickling. Crying during a blow job is a step too far for me to cope with, so I thread my hands into her hair and bring her mouth to mine.
She sways on her tiptoes until I spin us around, backing her into the wall.
‘I thought we were going to show them who’s boss?’ I say, sliding her wrists up the wall with one hand until she’s pinned on her tiptoes. I kick her feet wider and press my hand over her cunt, not grinding or fucking, but just holding her.
‘Whose is this?’ I whisper into her ear, before nipping at her neck.
‘Yours,’ she squeaks.
‘Show me how badly you want me to fill it up, my darling.’ I grind the palm of my hand against her, and smirk as she arches her back and whimpers.
‘Fuck me,’ she pleads, and I reward her by sliding two fingers into her, fucking her desperately slowly with them. I adore the way it makes her breath catch.
‘That’s it. Spread those legs for me. Such a greedy little cunt, huh?’
She tips her head back and pants, trying desperately to take my fingers deeper.
Greedy, greedy girl.
‘Please, Liam,’ she whines in that voice I just can’t resist.
Relenting, I pin one of her thighs up and nudge at her with the head of my cock, teasing her wetness until she lets out an angry whimper.
‘Liam, so help me god put your goddamned cock in me.’
I do.
Just.
Just the tip. She moans as my cock splits her heat, but the moan turns to a growl when I stop, only giving her an inch.
‘Liam,’ she demands, and I take her mouth with mine, swallowing her protests as I rock my hips, giving her the same maddening inch again and again. Her kisses turn needy, her tongue seeking what I deprive her cunt of.
I adore having her so wound up.
The noise from next door increases, but I care little about competing. I’m lost in the exquisiteness of my woman. Her tits heave against my chest as she writhes against the wall, and I pull out to the very tip, holding there as she rages.
Looking down, I moan, seeing how wet she has my dick. It gleams from the pierced tip to the base of the head, her swollen lips still flaring around me.
She opens her mouth in a breathy gasp as I fill her in one harsh stroke, her ass smacking against the wall.
‘Your fucking cock is the best,’ she whimpers as I hold her pinned to the hilt. The compliment does exactly as intended, stroking my ego and turning me feral. Letting go of her hands, I pick her up and fuck her into the wall like I’m trying to put us through the thing.
Kat tangles her hands in my hair, tugging it fiercely as I bite her throat.
We’re lost in sweaty flesh, my moans and her cries filling the flat along with the increased noise from next door.
Digging my fingers into her ass, I fuck her with abandon, filling her again and again until she’s panting and begging against the wall.
‘I love you,’ I moan against her temple as the pressure builds in my core. But I need her to come with me, and I can’t touch her without dropping her. So I lower her to the floor and twist her, trapping her between me and the wall, her face pressed against the worn paint.
Sliding a hand between the wall and her stomach, I find the spot I’m looking for and circle it while sliding back into her.
Within a few strokes, her cunt starts to quiver, and her cries increase.
‘Oh god, Liam,’ she cries, her body giving way to sensation and gripping me tight.
‘Fuck.’ Thrust. ‘Kat.’ Thrust. ‘Take.’ Thrust. ‘Every.’ Thrust. ‘Fucking.’ Thrust. ‘Drop.’
Her body wrings the orgasm from me as I groan into her hair, unloading a seemingly endless stream of cum deep inside her.
The neighbours are quiet by the time I come back to myself.
‘Victory,’ Kat says.
Her voice is hoarse and sweet and so very tired-sounding.
I stand there with my girl against the wall of my terrible flat, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, I’m truly content.