Chapter 33
ROWAN
Since Brian took me away all those years ago, I haven’t been a heavy sleeper. When Liam kidnapped me… Well, I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep since. So, when a noise pulls me out of an accidental nap on the couch, my body is on alert.
If it wasn’t for the faint smell of sandalwood that meets my nose and the softest of touches pushing hair back off my face, I’d have bolted up off the sofa by now. Liam’s back from a last-minute business trip to France. Oh, how the other half live.
A blanket is pulled over my body, and then nothing. He doesn’t leave; I can still smell him, feel him, even with my eyes closed. Is he watching me?
I’m not sure if that’s sweet or creepy, but his attention sets my nerve endings alight.
His breath tickles my face, making my nose crinkle. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” His voice is soft.
I yawn, opening my eyes as I stretch. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
He looks exhausted in the warm glow of the lamp in the study.
A hungover Sorcha left early this afternoon after Maeve fed us a fry to mop up the alcohol in our systems. Apparently, Sorcha had stuff to do up north.
She said she’d be back tomorrow and to keep her updated on any developments.
Does Liam watching me sleep count as an update?
She even put her number in my burner, like we’re real friends. The house has felt empty all day, just my wee shadow Titan following at my heels from empty room to empty room.
Why do they have a house this big, if there’s no one around to fill it?
I’ve missed him, so I let myself stare at his stupidly handsome face, enjoying the flutter of wings in my belly. I dreamt of him during my nap, of our tangled limbs and breath, the way his skin felt against mine. How he’d hold me close afterward as though he couldn’t bear to let me go.
I’ve tried to ignore the attraction, tried to keep the wall between past Liam and Rowan and present Liam and Rowan strong. But it’s not strong. I’m not strong. Not anymore.
I sit up. He gives me space to put my feet on the floor, but he stays crouched in front of me so we’re level.
“Are you still angry at me?” I hold my breath while I reach out a hand to touch his face. This time, he doesn’t pull away. In fact, he leans into my palm. My heart damn near stops dead.
“I wasn’t angry at you, Rowan.” His breath skates across my face.
“But you were angry.”
He nods.
We’re so close.
“Why?”
His eyes flutter closed like he’s asking for strength, for what, I’m not sure. When they open again, he looks haunted. “Because he hurt…” His thumb presses into my hip. “What’s mine.”
The confession falls from his lips. His very…
kissable lips. Maybe it’s the nap, the memory of how they feel when they touch mine, or maybe it’s the conversation I had with Sorcha last night that tugs at me.
The idea that the last five years might not have needed to happen, that Brian might have controlled me for reasons I can’t fathom. But my body leans toward his.
I don’t know how it happens, or maybe I do, but when our lips touch, gravity pulls… inevitable… inescapable, and every single neuron in my body sparks at once.
He doesn’t pounce. He goes still, like maybe he doesn’t believe it’s real. Or maybe he’s deciding whether to let us crash over the cliff’s edge into the raging waves below. For a beat, it feels like he might not kiss me back, that Sorcha misread everything. That what we had might be gone.
I hesitate, my lips pressed against his, body poised, ready to pull back. I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be this close to another human being, but the faint tingle of embarrassment nibbles at my gut.
I’m already preparing what I’m going to say when he breaks the kiss, but he doesn’t.
His hand slides to my throat. He doesn’t squeeze; it just sits there, claiming.
I’m caught somewhere between breathing and surrender.
He cups my jaw before sliding his fingers into my hair.
He tugs, and I gasp. The sound I make breaks whatever restraint he was holding on to.
His kiss grows hungrier, harder, more demanding.
Relief loosens something in me, softening every muscle, but it’s desire that parts my lips, a moan slipping from my mouth to his.
He isn’t still anymore. His hand tightens in my hair, his other finding my waist. He tugs me closer. I respond by clawing at his shirt, a desperate need consuming me from the inside out. I trace my fingertips over his scar, and he lets out a half-moan, half-agonizing groan.
It’s not the explosion of need that I might have expected if I thought we’d ever kiss again, but it isn’t tentative and shy either. It’s exploratory, deliberate, like we’re both trying to determine if everything is how we remember it.
His thigh wedges between mine, and my hips roll before I can stop them.
My spine bows, head tipping back, exposing my throat like I’m offering it to him.
Heat floods low and fast, pooling between my legs, a brutal reminder that we’ve done this all before.
My body remembers him even when my heart and mind tried not to.
A small, broken sound slips out of me, and he moans like it fuels him. Call and response. We fit like we never stopped, like the last five years never happened, like we were never torn apart by a cruel twist of fate, like this was destined to happen.
He growls into my mouth and pulls my hair taut.
My body responds like it’s been waiting for this moment for five years.
Because it has. Our tongues dance to a familiar pattern.
A buzzing sound makes us pause, and when it doesn’t stop, his forehead drops to mine.
He curses, breath feathering my lips. “I should take this.”
His jaw tightens before his gaze drops to my mouth, then lower, like whoever’s on the end of the call matters, but so do I.
He doesn’t pick up. He ignores it, but it rings again. He kisses me again, harder, like if he kisses me enough it might stop whoever is demanding his attention from intruding on this moment. I almost pull myself into his lap because I don’t want it to stop either.
Call and response. Have we both been holding this kiss in our lungs for five years and are finally, finally getting to exhale? Because that’s exactly what this feels like.
When he withdraws, my heart flexes. “Liam…”
His name is a whisper. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him I can’t keep fighting the feelings I’ve harbored for years, but if I do, it could ruin both of us.
It’s probably for the best. Nothing good can come from kissing him.
Yet, my lips are swollen and tingling, my heart’s racing, and my skin feels like he injected me with pure energy.
I bite my tongue to stop myself from saying something stupid. Like I never stopped loving him. To tell him about the letters I wrote because they helped me feel closer to him, even when we were further apart than ever. And no good could come from that.
He caresses my cheek with his palm, a softness still in his eyes.
“If I start,” he sweeps his lips against mine, “I’m not stopping.
” It’s not a threat. It might even be a promise.
His chest rises and falls, as breathless as me.
He brushes his thumb across my bottom lip then glares at his phone like he wants to pitch it through the nearest window.
The ache between my legs throbs so hard I have to fight not to squeeze my thighs together.
He answers the call without stepping away. “Yeah?” His voice is rough, and his lips look as swollen as mine feel.
His free hand settles on my hip, his thumb brushing firm circles on the sliver of skin he found by ducking his hand under my shirt.
My breath catches as he looks at me—heat flaring in his eyes—like he’s completely in control of both situations at once.
His hand moves lower, sending goosebumps spreading across my whole body.
Is he really going to—my hands fly to my mouth to strangle the moan that slips out when his fingers sink into my pussy.
He cants his head, raising his brows in question.
I answer by spreading my legs wider for him, lifting my hips off the couch and sliding my pajama bottoms down a bit to give him some room.
He jams the phone between his ear and shoulder and uses both hands to strip my bottom half bare in a skilled, swift motion.
Give Liam Mahoney an inch, he’ll take yer knickers.
He pauses again, grunting at the person he’s talking to before nudging my thighs apart and just… staring. He drops to his knees between my parted legs and runs his nose up the inside of my thigh, painfully slowly like he’s trying to make a decision.
A second later, he turns on speakerphone and tosses the phone onto the sofa. The voice on the other end fills the room. Patrick.
“Look, brother, you’ve either got updates, or you’ve got problems. Which is it?” There’s an edge to his voice that, coupled with the bulge in his groin, tells me his cock’s pressing against his jeans, and he’s being driven as mad as I am.
I expect him to finger me, to drive me into a frenzy while he talks on the phone with his brother. What I don’t expect is for him to put a finger to his mouth telling me to be quiet before he buries his whole face between my legs.
How the fuck am I supposed to be quiet when he’s trying to suck my soul out of my clit?
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he’s like a man possessed.
My pulse stutters, my skin heats, and any rational thought in my brain leaks out as my body takes full control of the situation. My fingers tangle their way into his hair, my hips bucking toward his hungry tongue as my pussy rides his face.
When he pulls back, I groan. My gaze snaps to his, my arousal glistening on his face as he glares at the phone on the sofa next to me. “We’re still tracking leads,” Liam says, evenly, working my clit with his fingers.
I don’t hear what Patrick says in response because Liam’s tongue is back lapping at my clit.
Fucking hell. I’m panting, shallow, loud breaths sawing in and out of my body, but when he bites down on my clit on a grunt, presumably in answer to something Patrick says, I have to bite my fist to stop myself from screaming his name.
He doesn’t stop. My head tips back against the sofa, eyes rolling in bliss as he sends me higher and higher with his mouth.
He alternates back and forth between his tongue and fingers for what has to be a few minutes.
My body bucks and bows off the sofa, sweat beads across my forehead, and when his head’s between my legs, my nails bite into his scalp.
Turns out, he’s the one who can’t stay quiet.
“The fuck are you doing?” Patrick demands down the line, but he’s too late, the blissful bomb has detonated inside me, setting off a chain reaction of light and colors as I come all over his brother’s face.
“Liam? Where’d you go?”
I can’t hold back the noises bubbling up inside me.
They come out gurgled and muted, but they still come out.
When Liam’s hand slides to my throat and flexes, reminding me that he told me to be quiet, and he slides three of his fingers into my mouth to shut me up while my orgasm rolls through every cell in my body.
I sink deeper into the stars blurring my vision and my bones melting.
Not a man to be rushed, Liam takes his time dragging me through my release.
When he sits back on his heels, he looks like he’s back in control of himself.
His shoulders are relaxed, he’s got a lazy smirk on his face, and his eyes tell me he’s won some kind of inner battle to control both me and the situation we’re in.
“You’re fucking feral,” Patrick says.
Oops. That means he knows exactly what Liam was doing.
“You have five minutes,” he snaps before the line cuts.
The silence that follows is thick. Heavy.
I’m dizzy from the orgasm that raked through my body like a supernatural event and flush with embarrassment that his brother heard every damn thing.
Liam doesn’t move immediately. He doesn’t speak, but his chest rises and falls in a heavy motion that mirrors my own.
His gaze drags over me like he’s cataloging every single reaction, every crack he just forced into me. From my sweat-slicked hair sticking to my forehead to my still-shaking thighs he sees it all.
He reaches for the phone, glancing at the dark screen before tucking it into his pocket. “Go to bed.” His voice is quiet and infused with something that makes his voice heavy.
It’s not a suggestion, or an invitation.
It’s a command. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him he isn’t the boss of me, but instead, I find myself on unsteady legs, my body still humming, still aching, still very clearly his.
I gather what’s left of my dignity—and my clothes—and walk past him feeling his eyes on me the entire time.
Good. I hope he likes the view of my bare arse as it walks away from him. I can’t tell if we just crossed a line, or wiped it out completely, but either way, something just shifted in that fucking room.
One thing’s for sure. Liam can still kiss the air from my lungs and make my heart dance to a tune that plays only in our heads. What might happen if I push everything with Brian aside for a moment and let myself hope that this was just the beginning?
Do I dare to hope?
My lips still burn when I reach my bedroom.
And for the first time in five years, my want is stronger than my fear.
And that’s terrifying. It feels like fate correcting itself.
But fate has never been kind to me. And if I let myself believe this is safe, that he’s safe, I’ll never survive losing it again.