Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
ANDIE
While Tessa snores softly next to me, I gently extricate myself out of bed. Sleep isn’t going to come for me tonight. Too much shit rattling around my brain. As quietly as I can, I grab my phone and tiptoe out of the bedroom, shutting the door behind me.
It’s weird having an entire floor to myself. It may be fifteen-thousand square feet of space, but only about four-thousand feet have been renovated as a residence. The rest is empty and open. Declan said I could decide what to do with it. Maybe put in a gym, an office—the options are limitless. So much space for one person. Declan’s residence is right above me, and Rafe, Liam, and Tessa’s floor is above his. Just like at the Rossi mansion, guards are stationed everywhere. Declan promised me that there were no cameras or listening devices on my floor, other than the cameras that monitor the elevator and stairwell. It’s such a freeing feeling knowing that everything you do isn’t being monitored and recorded.
The hallway is dark, but there’s enough light coming from the kitchen and living area for me to see my way. There must be a plug-in somewhere or a vase of fresh flowers because the hall smells of roses. The scent makes me think of Rafe. On the nights I was able to sneak out of the house and meet up with him, he’d bring me one pink rose. Mi dolce rosa , he would say and tuck the thornless stem behind my ear.
My phone’s screen lights up with an incoming text from an unknown number. But I know exactly who it is. Once I had Tessa send the encrypted message, I had her route any incoming reply to my phone. She made sure no one would be able to trace it back to my new number.
Unknown: I accept.
I smile in triumph. Checkmate, asshole.
As I shuffle into the living area heading for the kitchen, a lamp clicks on, startling me.
“What are you doing in here?” I whisper-shout, keeping my voice low so I don’t disturb Tessa.
Liam is reposed on the couch, one arm behind his head. He’s also not wearing a shirt, much like Jax earlier today. My hungry eyes automatically roam his broad chest and all that delicious ink tattooed over his torso and arms. All four of the guys are covered in tats, and God help me, it’s my kryptonite.
“I’m your bodyguard, remember?” he sleepily replies, a hint of an Irish brogue popping out.
I’m still getting used to the idea of having a bodyguard. I don’t need one, naturally, as I can take care of myself, but Declan insists. And having Liam constantly around is going to be very distracting.
I toss my phone onto the other end of the couch from where Liam is and stroll in to the kitchen, taking two beers out of the small drink fridge. Twisting the caps off as I walk over to him, I hand him one and tap his leg, so he’ll make space for me to sit down. Of course, he doesn’t. Instead, he pulls me between the V of his muscular thighs, but I’m quick enough to whirl around until we’re facing one another, my feet on either side of his hips.
I look at him over the lip of my beer bottle as I swallow. His massive frame takes up the entire leather sectional. Surely, it isn’t comfortable. “You can’t sleep on my couch indefinitely.”
“Is that an invitation to your bed?” He grabs my ankle, circling it with long, scarred fingers, the simple touch feeling somehow sinful.
“No,” I reply too quickly and am rewarded with a knowing grin. “Besides, you have your own bed and your own room.”
We drink our beers in silence, the quiet hum of the refrigerator and my rapidly beating heart the only noises filling my ears.
Liam puts down his drink on the floor and tugs on my leg, bringing me closer. His thumb moves in soothing circles across the dip of my Achilles heel, those silver-gray eyes of his slowly scanning me as if he’s trying to discover answers to hidden questions. I actually have one for him.
“How does Keane know who you are?”
His eyes slice away from me for a second, almost as if he’s ashamed to tell me. There is so much I don’t know about him. From our one, brief night together, I know how he feels when he kisses me. I know every intimate detail of his body because I mapped every muscle with my tongue. I know he has a Jacob’s ladder, and how good it felt when he slid into me over and over. I know the timbre of his voice and the way his hands felt gripping my waist when we danced. But those are all physical things.
I want to get to know Liam, the man. What caused him to grab onto this brutal existence where one’s life expectancy is precarious at best? Why Keane accused him of being worse than Jax? Is his soul black like Jax’s or hardened like Keane’s? Is there softness inside of him like with Rafe? I’ve seen snippets of it, but I want to know more.
“I’m not a good man, bella .”
I put my bottle down on the coffee table. “No one in this life is.”
We’re all damaged, broken people tainted by a world that knows nothing other than blood and death. That’s why it’s so important to grab hold of the good that graces us. Cherish it. Nurture it. And never let it go.
“And you didn’t answer my question,” I remind him.
Finally, Liam meets my gaze that has been locked on to the side of his face the entire time. I find that people usually give themselves away, not with words, but with facial expressions. A tick of the mouth. A twitch of the eye. All are emotional barometers of how a person is feeling. Are they telling you the truth, or are they lying?
“Because you’re asking me a question I won’t answer. Not even for you, Andie.” His voice lowers, sounding more like an apology at the end.
It’s not like I’m going to rip open my chest and expose all my dirty secrets to him. Tell him the awful things I told the guys. I get how some truths are better never seeing the light of day.
The alcohol from the beer helps mellow me a bit, and I lean sideways into the cushions of the couch, resting my head on the top. The angle is awkward, and I have to adjust my legs.
“I talk to my dead brother.” I don’t know why I tell him that.
Liam mirrors me, our heads inches apart and our eyes aligned. With a glide of his fingertips, he roughs them down the side of my face, then tucks a strand of my loose hair behind my right ear.
“And what does he say?”
When Liam’s thumb trails down the curve of my neck, I breathe in deeply at the tingles it elicits.
“Not too much. Mostly that he’s sorry. He was there with me the night your men blew up the cabin. Told me to get my ass up and fight. Saying it out loud sounds crazy.”
Liam smooths a hand down my arm from shoulder to wrist. “No, it doesn’t. This past year, you talked to me all the time.”
Eyes wide, I gape at him. “Now that sounds crazy as hell.” I grin and he returns it, those sexy twin dimples making an appearance, turning his face from handsome to devastating.
I don’t know what it is between us, but I feel it. Just like I feel the pull between me and Keane, and Jax, and Rafe. Four dangerous men. Men who make me feel alive for the first time in my life. Seen. Desired. It’s a very heady knowledge to possess.
When Liam’s hand brushes across my palm, I open for him and weave our fingers together, needing that connection with him. Liam may think he’s not a good man. Perhaps he isn’t. He’s probably got as much blood on his hands as Jax’s knife, which is currently sitting on the dresser in my room. But I’ve witnessed that piece of angel inside of him. I saw it the first night we met. My angel-turned-devil. I can still feel his fingers threading through my hair as he washed it in the shower at Declan’s cottage. How he held me and took care of me, kneeled at my footboard as I struggled to come to grips with murdering the man who I once thought was my father.
I may not know every intimate detail about Liam, but I know who he is when he’s with me. We all wear masks to hide ourselves from the world. We all have done horrible things we regret in order to survive. For me to fault any of the guys for those things would make me the biggest hypocrite of all.
Scooting closer, I drape my legs over his outstretched thighs. “Liam, if I asked you to do something for me, would you?”
I watch as his pupils contract and the muscles of his arms tighten. “I’d destroy the world for you, Andie.”
Only someone completely messed up like me would find that romantic. I’ve had a year where Liam has haunted my dreams as I relived every second of our night together. And right this second, I want desperately to have his lips on mine again.
“Would you kiss me?” I whisper.
I know I’m in trouble when I see his mouth spread wide with a devilish smile. His large hand gently gropes up my chest, and I’m playfully shoved onto my back. Liam’s hands quickly shed my sleep shorts, and my lungs seize in suspense when he kisses up my right leg from ankle to thigh. He positions his smiling face right over my pussy, blowing a hot breath over it that makes my clit tingle.
“On my lips!” I giggle with alacrity.
“You never said which lips,” he murmurs against the quivering flesh of my stomach as he tosses my shorts aside and lifts my legs over his shoulders.
My body arches off the cushions when his entire mouth covers my pussy and he French kisses me deep inside.
“Oh, fuck !” I moan, gripping his hair and holding on when he inserts two fingers inside me, pumping them slowly.
I’m still sensitive from Jax and Rafe, the sting of pain melding with the pleasure Liam’s giving me. It’s a cocktail I’m not able to resist. The way the guys can make me come so quickly is embarrassing. Shouldn’t they have to work for it or something?
He gives my clit one long lick before crawling up my body and kissing me properly on the mouth. I suck in his tongue eagerly, the taste of us together more intoxicating than the beer I just drank.
“Have you ever been edged?”
I’m too busy wrapping myself around him, my arms and legs clutching his hips and back like vices, my lips frenetic as I try to taste every part of him I can reach.
“I don’t even know what that means.”
The deep rumble in his throat tells me that he likes my reply. Lifting me up, he switches our positions so I’m now on top.
“Sit on my face.”
Arousal coats my inner thighs and drips down my legs at his command.
“Pardon?” Okay, that was a stupid question to ask.
Liam’s biceps bulge and strain as he hefts me up and lowers me down onto his face, and all coherent thought flies out of my head as soon as his lips suck my tight little nub into his mouth. He works me over, again and again, bringing me so close to release, but then backing off right before I explode. It’s torture of the best kind. My legs and arms turn into a trembling mass of useless body parts, and I’m probably going to wake up Tessa with the loud moans and the even louder curse words I can’t seem to stop.
Coming so close to orgasm, only to be denied, and then Liam doing it all over again at least a dozen times, has my head spinning in a heightened dreamlike state and my entire lower half pulsing wildly, like a short-circuit of nerve impulses. Right when I’m about to beg for my life because the need to come is overpowering, he grips my ass and pistons me over him, fucking me with his tongue. The pressure inside of me expands and every muscle locks up and seizes. And then I feel his thumb breach the tight, puckered hole in back, and I detonate like a nuclear bomb.
“ Bella .”
My eyes won’t open, but I don’t want them to. I want to exist in this pocket of euphoria for a little while longer.
Lips tenderly kiss my ear. “Andie, open your gorgeous eyes for me, baby.”
When I do, Liam is hovering over me. I want to reach up and touch his face, but my arm won’t obey.
He kisses me again. “You came so hard, you passed out.”
“I did not,” I insist, my words slurred.
“You really did.” His smug smirk is blinding.
Groaning, I’m finally able to muster the strength to move. When I push his face away, he laughs.
“Tessa was worried that I killed you with my big cock.”
Oh my god . I bury my mortified face in both hands. “She heard me?”
Liam laughs long and hard, and it’s the most beautiful sound. I peek at him between open fingers. Happiness is an elusive thing, especially for people like us, so when it happens, I want to memorize every last detail of the multi-faceted, enigmatic man next to me who is both brutal and tender.
“If her shout of ‘You lucky bitch!’ from down the hallway is any indication, I’d say yes.”
I bite his shoulder in punishment, then kiss it better.
“You good now?” Liam asks me when I’m finally able to catch my breath.
“Depends,” I reply.
He cants his head. His hair is a mess, and his lips are glossy and kiss-swollen. “How so?”
My hand slithers its way between us, and I cup his erection through his sweatpants, then stroke up the metal bars of his Jacob’s ladder. But before I can work my way under his waistband, my phone lights up and vibrates.
Liam reaches over my head and grabs it, his expression caustic as he reads the message. I’m not surprised that he knows how to access my phone. I decide not to let it bother me. I have nothing to hide. Declan knows what my plans are—because I told him right after Tessa finished my nails—and by extension, so does Liam. Declan would have filled him in immediately after I left to go back and watch movies with Tessa. So why does Liam look pissed?
He turns my phone around so I can see. “Is she going to be a problem?”
I read something Tessa just sent me, so she must still be awake, sitting in my bedroom. I owe her big time for not barging in here. The clock on my phone says it’s now six in the morning.
I push against Liam’s chest so I can sit up, raking my tangled hair away from my face. Last year, Tessa told me about a facial-recognition algorithm she had developed that searched through social posts and live video feed from things like street cams, ATMs, and cell phones. I asked her about it earlier while we were watching Netflix. What better way to keep an eye on your enemy?
Apparently, Tessa’s software just flagged Julio Ortiz in the back alleyway of Spanks, a nightclub fifteen minutes from here on the other side of the city center. But that’s not who Liam is asking about. It’s the person standing next to him. What are you up to, Rita?
“We need to tell Declan,” I say, getting up and grabbing my shorts from the floor. “Go get Tessa, and I’ll find Rafe.”
Liam grabs my arm. “We’re calling off the meet. You’re being set up.”
I wrench my arm from his grasp, our playfulness from earlier gone. “They don’t know we know that. We have the upper hand.” I tiptoe up to kiss him. “Besides, my cousin and I have some unfinished business.”