Chapter 40
ROWAN
Liam lowers us to the rug, his expression hesitant, like he’s afraid I might change my mind.
Not a chance. We’ve been apart for too long as it is, and the quickie in the bedroom last night, while good, didn’t sate this raging appetite that’s been building inside me since he walked into the pub that day.
Once my fear subsided, the need, the longing for him came roaring back.
He is, and always has been, The One.
The fire crackles behind him, turning the hard lines of his body molten. His hands frame my face, thumbs brushing along my cheekbones like he’s committing me to memory, or maybe reigniting all the old ones.
“This,” he murmurs, forehead resting against mine, “is not me trying to control you.”
“I know.”
His breath ghosts over my lips. Slow and measured. I close the distance. The kiss feels different, like we have all the time in the world. Outside this room, there are ghosts, grief, revenge, and more questions than we can count.
But in here, surrounded by the smell of worn leather, it’s just us.
My fingers curl into the front of his shirt, tugging him closer. “You don’t get to protect me by shutting me out,” I whisper against his mouth.
“I won’t.”
He eases me back onto the rug, arms braced on either side, his weight held carefully in check, giving me space to pull away if I want.
I slide my hands beneath his shirt, fingers meeting warm skin, solid muscle, then the steady thud of his heart is beneath my palm.
My throat tightens. I could have had this, had him for the last five years. We could have been together this whole fucking time if it weren’t for Brian ripping us from each other.
My chest threatens to cave in on itself. My lip quivers, hot tears prickling.
“Rebel?” It’s one word, drenched in concern.
I shake my head, freeing the tears down my cheeks. “We’ve missed so much, Liam.” I cup his jaw with my hand, stroking the jagged scar down his face. “We’ve lost so much time.”
He nods, his forehead pressing against mine. “We’re not losing a single moment longer. Hating you was exhausting, now I just want to—” He watches me for any reaction about where his sentence was about to go.
My brows shoot up, heart racing. He was going to say love, right? He just wants to love me?
Somehow that makes the tears fall heavier, faster. “Liam.”
He kisses my forehead, then each of my damp cheeks. “I didn’t really hate you, mo rún. I tried.” His lips twitch. “But the love I had for you never went away. It just got buried beneath so much anger.”
I stare at him as I process his words. “I didn’t want to leave.
” The words clog my throat as five years of heartbreak and agony bubble up from deep inside my body.
“I never wanted to leave you.” My voice breaks, my shoulders shaking on a half-sob.
“And I never stopped loving you either. I gave my heart to you years ago. And I never got it back.”
He doesn’t hesitate. The kiss that follows is deeper. Hungrier, but still careful and intentional. Two souls who already know each other on a cellular level reconnecting.
I roll us, turning him onto his back until I’m straddling him. The firelight dances over his face. His hands settle on my hips, firm but not controlling, a quiet acknowledgment that whatever happens in this moment is whatever I want it to be, whatever I choose.
“Still not scared, Rebel?” It almost sounds like there’s hope in his voice.
“Of you?” I lean down, brushing my mouth along his. “Never.”
That does something to him. I feel it in the way his hands tighten, in the breath he drags in like he’s steadying himself, in the way his eyes burn into mine hotter than the fire next to us. Like he’s making a choice too.
I kiss him until my lungs burn, until the questions in my head quiet, until the world narrows to our bodies tangled on the floor and the steady crackle of the flames.
When he rolls us again, stretching over me, he pauses there, breathing me in. I wrap my arms around him and pull him down to me. He’s too far away, there’s too much space, too many clothes, and too much lost time.
The way his mouth claims mine goes from exploration to desperation in seconds.
His mouth shifts from moving over mine with deliberate care to consuming hunger before my brain has a chance to catch up.
He wastes no time undressing me, but when I try to return the favor, fumbling in my haste, he growls and rips off his clothes and tosses them to one side.
Naked and pressed against each other, everything inside me relaxes, as though every inch of me knows I’m safe here. Heat flickers low in my abdomen, my nipples harden, and goosebumps spread everywhere he touches.
His hand slides from my throat down between my breasts, slow enough that my stomach tightens in anticipation. He watches my face like he’s studying a map, like he’s checking that he still knows the way.
“You’ve no idea how much it kills me that he ever touched you.” His voice is rough, jealous. Possessive.
My breath catches. “Liam—”
“I’m not angry at you.” His thumb presses on my bottom lip. “I’m angry at him.”
Heat coils low in my belly. His mouth follows the path of his hand, kisses trailing down the column of my neck, my collarbone, my sternum, my stomach.
He takes his time. His lips dragging torturously over my body.
It’s as though he’s proving to himself that I’m real, that he remembers, that I still react under his touch.
My back arches as his fingers amble lower.
“That’s my girl.” His lips smile against my skin. “Spread your legs for me, Rebel.”
I’m soaked, but I’m not at all embarrassed.
This is Liam, my Liam. This isn’t our first time, but it’s our first time in years with intention.
It’s not a quick fuck against a wall because the dress I wore unlocked a memory.
This time, he’s tracing every centimeter of my skin with painfully gentle fingers and lips, getting reacquainted with how my breath quickens with every touch, every breath, every kiss.
His fingers slide inside me. His head drops to my shoulder on a pained moan. “Is all this for me?” He collects my arousal as he explores my pussy the way he’s traveled my body. “You’re so fucking wet.”
He clamps his teeth over my nipple, sinking them into the sensitive flesh. My back bows more, my hips rolling, bringing us even closer together as his fingers circle my clit.
I don’t get a second to drift. Every time I tense, every time I try to squirm away from the sensation, he holds me steady.
The pressure builds too fast. My fingers tangle in his hair, my thighs tightening, inching closer together, but he shoves them apart. “Keep them spread, or you won’t come.” His command sounds real; there’s no trace of humor in his voice, so I force my legs wide. “Liam—”
“I’ve got you, Rebel. You’re safe here.” Every touch, every sweep of his fingers feels deliberate, like he’s reclaiming territory that’s always been his.
The first wave crashes through me so suddenly it steals the air from my lungs, a sound I don’t recognize tearing from my throat.
He doesn’t stop. He eases off a little, but he doesn’t withdraw. His hand stays exactly where I’m most sensitive, drawing slow, maddening circles while I’m still trembling.
“That’s one,” he murmurs against my breast. “You’re not finished.”
This time he builds me up slowly. Painfully slowly, with just enough pressure to keep me teetering at the edge of release but never enough to let me fall. The fire crackles and pops, the heat licking across my bare skin while his mouth moves lower again.
I try to shift away but he catches my hips, holding me in place.
“Don’t fucking move.” His voice is rough.
When he settles between my shaking thighs, he hooks his arms under my legs and jerks me across the floor toward his eager face.
He nips the soft skin of my inner thigh with his sharp teeth, and I squeal.
“Eyes on me, Rebel. Let me see how pretty you look when you soak my face with your cum.”
Fuck. I might climax from his words alone.
“I’m not letting you slip through my fingers again.”
I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or himself, but I don’t get a chance to ask.
He drags his tongue through my soaking wet folds, a delicious shiver rolling through every vertebra in my spine.
My head lolls back on a moan, but his tongue stops lapping, and a sharp slap rings out in the otherwise quiet room.
Heat radiates through my pussy as the sting warms my aching core.
“I said.” He slaps my pussy again, a little harder this time.
“Eyes.” A bite on my inner left thigh. “On.” One to match on my right.
“Me.” When he’s sure he has my full attention, he buries his head between my legs and feasts on me with such hunger it makes me lightheaded.
His grip tightens on my body, not to restrain me, but to anchor me—as if he’s afraid I might disappear again. “I should’ve been holding you all those nights. He stole that from me. Never again. You’re mine. Fucking mine. Forever.”
My second climax hits harder than the first. It’s deeper, dragging his name out of me in broken pieces on shallow pants of breath.
When it finally ebbs, I’m boneless, the soft fibers of the rug cushioning me. My breaths are ragged, skin coated with a fine sheen of sweat.
He looms over me, bracing his weight on his forearms. He’s breathing just as hard. “That’s two.”
A nondescript sound bursts from the back of my throat. The corner of his mouth lifts. “You ready for number three?”
Is he proving a point? It doesn’t feel like he’s trying to break me, but rather that he’s trying to keep me.
His eyes lock onto mine, flaring with something white-hot as he tips his head to the side. “Now, now. That’s not my Rebel at all. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Soaking into your expensive fucking rug.” My voice is hoarse, my breathing still broken. “So much adventure.” I smirk at him.
There’s no smugness in his eyes, no ego, just certainty.
This man is going to ruin me. He slides his fingers inside me, working my G-spot as he sucks on my swollen and sensitive clit, switching between flicking and licking and sucking, whipping me into a frenzy of need.
It’s no time at all before my hips roll, lifting my pussy to his face, my back arching, and my fingers sinking into his hair as I claw at his scalp. “Don’t stop.”
That was the wrong thing to say. He chuckles against my pussy then pulls back. “Thought you weren’t ready for number three?” His fingers don’t stop pulsing against my inside walls, the rhythm enough to keep me teetering.
“Please, Liam.”
I reach for his head, to push him back between my legs, to make him take away the ache and let me come.
“Please what?”
“Please just let me come.”
The only answer he gives is putting his tongue back where it belongs, and he laps at my clit like it’s his fucking job. I ride his face, holding tight to his hair so he doesn’t edge me again, and when I scream through my third orgasm, it’s his name on my lips.
“Five years.” He breathes against my sweat-slicked skin. “Five fucking years.” He kisses my inner thigh with gentle sweeps of his lips. “You’re lucky I’m not making you come three thousand times, Rebel.”
He’s joking, right?
Aftershocks move through me, my muscles twitching as they soften. I’m breathless. My hair’s stuck to my sweaty skin. Surely, now I get his dick, right? Or is this how I die? By an orgasm overdose at the hand of a mafia prince?
I can’t wait. I grip his hair in my fist and tug until he moves.
As he slides up my body, I palm my hands up his back, pulling him down until our mouths meet again.
His kiss is hungry, his cock rod-stiff against me.
And when I wrap my legs around him and drag him closer, it’s not about Brian or whether he made me come.
It’s about us.
It’s about the way Liam says my nickname like it belongs to him. Like I belong to him. Because I do. I always fucking have.
It’s about the way he looks at me like I am the only thing in this world worth fighting for, like he’d burn it all to ash if it meant he could get back the time we spent apart.
He drags his cock through my folds. Our moans echo around the library, embarrassingly loud enough that the books would turn away if they could. I scratch at his neck, pulling him close to make him keep kissing me as he eases himself inside.
His forehead drops to mine for half a second, breath shuddering out of him like he’s bracing himself. “I almost lost you.” His quiet voice breaks. I’ve never seen him so raw, so vulnerable, so cracked wide open and baring his soul to me. I never want to see that pain in his eyes again.
My body aches for him. No number of orgasms makes up for the emptiness, the fact I need him to fill me. When he’s fully seated, my body softens again, like we’re both exactly where we belong, tangled up on the rug with the dying embers of the fire flickering beside us.
He stills, his eyes locked on mine like he doesn’t want this moment to end. I don’t blame him because I don’t either. He fills me so fucking perfectly, like his dick was made just for me.
Sweeping my hair off my face, he grazes my cheeks with his thumbs. “Do you know how fucking beautiful you are? How strong?” He presses his lips to mine. “How brave?”
The familiar burn is back in my eyes, but I refuse to cry while his dick’s buried inside me. When was the last time someone called me beautiful or strong or brave?
“You survived without me.” His voice is rough. “But you don’t have to anymore. You’re home.”
I always thought the homesickness I felt when I lived in England was for a place, but it wasn’t.
It was for a person. Him. The other half of my soul.
We move in tandem, our breaths intertwining as he sinks deeper and deeper inside me, connecting on a level I’ve never experienced with anyone other than him.
He moves like if he holds me tightly enough, thrusts deep enough, kisses me long enough, touches every single piece of me inside and out, he might be able to erase five long and lonely years in a single night.
His movements grow erratic as he gets closer. I slide my hands down the planes of his back, sinking my nails into his arse cheeks, and pull him in just a little deeper.
“Fuck, Rebel.” His fingers bite into my skin, and I can’t wait to look at the bruises tomorrow and be reminded of this moment, the moment I made him come undone. He looks down at where our bodies are joined as he thrusts in and out of me.
“Look.” His voice is strained. “Look at how perfectly we fit together.” His teeth graze my shoulder, goosebumps blossoming across my skin.
When I flutter my inner muscles around him, he comes on a grunt, kissing me like I’m the most precious thing in the world.
He softens, but neither of us are in a rush to draw apart. So, we stay there, kissing each other, touching each other, and whispering promises that nothing will ever separate us again while his hand stays spread over my stomach.
And for once, I dare to believe them.