Chapter 19 - Elexia
Elexia
Liam doesn’t look like a mafia boss right now. With his hunched shoulders, he looks like a man who’s been carrying a mountain for too long.
“My mother…” he starts, low and gravelly, barely more than a vibration. His accent nearly disappeared. Something purposeful. “She was a massage therapist on my father’s staff at his estate in Montauk. She was young, barely out of college, trying to make a way for herself.”
Solemn respect deepens inside my heart.
“During one session, my father…” He trails off, his jaw steeling. Shadows cloud his expression.
I sense where this is going. Tension radiates from him, muscles turning to granite. Even his tattoos seem blacker.
“Oh, Liam, I’m so—”
He touches his hand to my lips, shaking his head. “Don’t, Luv. It’s how I was conceived. My mother hated him. She feared him, especially because his wife couldn’t have a child. So when she learned she was pregnant, she ran.”
He lets out a harsh, dry laugh. “She moved upstate with a friend. She could have chosen to terminate the pregnancy or give me up for adoption. She would have been justified. But she kept me. She raised me as a single mom, worked her ass off to provide for us. We didn’t have much, but we had everything. ”
His lips press together into a hard, white seam. A cold, controlled rage.
“But… my father discovered what happened. He tracked us down. Mum tried to run with me to the Canadian border. But he caught up with us.” His voice cracks, a sound so raw it makes my heart bleed. “He slit her throat right in front of me.”
“Oh, God, Liam…”
Horror hits me like a physical blow. I slide my arms around his neck, pulling him toward me. He doesn’t resist. He collapses into my arms, burying his face in the crook of my neck. Holding me tight, he presses his hand against the base of my spine as if he’s trying to fuse us together.
“I held her while she bled out,” he whispers against my skin. “My hands were red for days. And then he took me away, had his goons get rid of her body like she was trash. He groomed me to take over the business. My Uncle Eamon trained me, taught me how to wield a blade with precision.”
He pulls back just enough to look me in the eye, his features twisted. “The irony, cause I used that same blade to stab my father through the heart two years ago.”
I search his face. All I see is the boy who survived—not the monster he believes he is.
“Surprised?” he tests.
I shake my head slowly. “After what you did to Brett? No. Impressed? Yes. He deserved worse than a blade, Liam.”
“Yes, he did.” He lets out a long, shuddering breath, his accent returning. “I dumped his body into the bay. And I’ve been runnin’ the Family business ever since. But…I began sanitizing it over the past year. Cut out the drugs, the trafficking. Turned it into somethin’ else.”
“So, how old are you?” I try to lighten the heavy air just a fraction.
“Thirty-seven.”
“I’m—”
“Twenty-eight. I know.” He raises a brow, a small, weary smile touching his lips. “Too much of an age gap, Luv?”
I shake my head, a small blush creeping up my neck. “No. Actually, it’s a trope I like when it’s written well. And…I’m proud of you, Liam. For changing things.”
He snorts, a cynical sound. “One year of redemption hardly makes up for years of carnage, Lexie.”
At first? Silence. But need rushes through me, a need to remind him, validate him, help him…heal. My favorite trope needles the back of my brain. No, I won’t reveal it, but it drives me now.
“It’s never too late. And if things had played out differently, maybe you wouldn’t have ended up in that alley. And maybe I wouldn’t have been there to find you.”
He blinks, then shakes his head, nostrils flaring with a sigh. He looks at me like I’m the eighth wonder of the world. “Savior, Lexie. Me sweet savior. Bloody Christ, how you find the silver lining…You fucking kill me, Darlin’.”
I smile, feeling a sudden, familiar jerk of his cock against my thigh. My body responds to the shift in energy, and I melt.
Before I can even think, he moves, flipping us until I’m pinned beneath his heat, the sheer silk of my chemise the only thing between us. He traps me with his arms, his eyes dark with a sudden, intense hunger. My nipples stiffen.
“No pressure, Lexie Luv,” he murmurs, opening his mouth along my jawline. “But would ye be interested in some mutual sharing? I want t’know more about the sensational woman who’s the only one I’ve ever shared my bed with.”
I nod, arching to give him my throat. “I was twenty-two, a year from graduating from nursing school, when my mom got sick. Cancer. Leukemia. I quit everything to take care of her.”
Somehow, I push through the lump in my throat. “My fucker of a father quit, too. About six months in, he decided he couldn’t handle the “stress” of her being sick. He put in a transfer to a different city and just…disappeared.”
Old anger flares up, turning my breath ragged. Liam rubs his lips and tongue along my throat, his stubble scratching pleasantly against my skin.
“I threw away every Christmas and birthday card the bastard sent.”
Lifting his head, he gives me a dark, predatory smirk. “Want me to track him down and dismember him?”
“Tempting. But first…my mom was a fighter. Stronger than me. She made it through chemo and lived for another three years. We’d saved up enough money to finally travel to Great Britain together, but then…she relapsed.”
I close my eyes, the cold memories of those final days washing over me. “She deteriorated so quickly. It was the worst six months of my life.”
My voice splinters on the last word, and a tear slips down my temple. Liam doesn’t offer empty words. Instead, he cuts his teeth on my collarbone, pulling me back from the brink.
I bury my fingers in his dark hair, pulling him closer.
“Don’t stop,” I plead. “I used the money for England for her funeral. Nana was there for me. She paid for my apartment so I could work at the flower shop and just…exist. But then Brett found me. In a bar. I spent a lot of time in them right after she died.”
I let out a low moan as Liam moves the straps of my chemise down, baring my breasts to the cool air. He captures a nipple in his mouth, sucking with a slow, deliberate pressure that makes my toes curl.
“He was so smooth,” I pant, rocking my hips. “Charming. Handsome. He knew how to control in subtle ways. Buying me the makeup he wanted me to wear, the clothes he wanted to show me off in. Oh, fuck, Liam, please!”
I sob as he circles his tongue around one nipple before moving to the other, nipping it just hard enough to make me gasp. He slowly slides the silk down my hips, his hands warm and possessive.
I briefly mention how River helped me find my feet again, how we met when I was at my lowest, and she was the only one who didn’t look at me with pity.
Once his head is between my legs, he pauses, eyes flicking up. “Why did you two not work out, if ye don’t mind me askin’?”
“If you go lower, I’ll tell you,” I challenge, my voice thick with need, my blood slow and thick with desire.
A dastardly smirk twists his mouth. “Your wish is my command, me savior. How about here?”
He sinks his teeth into my inner thigh, and I nearly bolt off the bed. “Ugh, Liam!”
Chuckling, he sweeps his tongue up to my wet lips, finding my clit and turning my vision white.
“Okay, okay.” Flustered, I clench the sheets tight.
“We were together for a year. Ungh, Sir!” I writhe, unfamiliar sounds rising from me.
“She wanted me to move in with her. And I did love her. But I didn’t love her world.
She’s a free spirit, always traveling, always at the next high-class party.
But I love my apartment. I love the shop.
After Brett, I just wanted something to hold onto.
Something that was mine. My mom used to visit that apartment…
I couldn’t leave it. So we decided we worked better as friends. Sometimes with benefits.”
“Oh, right there!” I mewl as he slides two fingers inside me, stretching me, while his mouth continues its relentless assault. His other hand fondles my breast, tweaking my nipple until the pleasure becomes too much to bear.
I crash. The orgasm rolls through me in waves of vibrant color and electric heat, leaving me panting and shaking beneath him.
By the time I come down, he’s climbing back up my body, then kissing me hard, fierce, and desperate. His length throbs through his boxers. I rub my body against his, our breaths tangling together.
“Do you want to guess my ultimate trope?” I ask in a sultry tone.
His teeth clench around a groan. “You want me that much, do ye, Luv?”
Shameless, I nod, rubbing against him.
“Hmm…” He lowers his head to kiss my brow. “Broken hearts healing together?”
I smile but follow with a sigh. “I love that one, but it’s not my favorite.”
“I’ll get it someday, Darlin’. Until then…”
“Until then.” I lower my hand to his boxers. “You’re tormenting me. Time for me to repay the favor.”
My hand finds the heavy, soft-wrapped warmth of him. I grip him, pressing his length against my still-wet pussy. I hold him there, then start to move, rubbing him up and down slowly at first, then picking up the pace.
He lets out a low, guttural growl, his head falling back. I keep going, finding a rhythm that makes both of us gasp, until he comes with a deep, soul-shaking roar, his body shuddering against mine.
Eventually, the world slows back down. We tangle ourselves together under the covers, my head on his chest, his arm wrapped tight around me. And for the first time in a long time, the silence isn’t heavy.
It’s peaceful.