Chapter 21 #2
He was already in bed, reading something in the dim light.
I propped myself against the door frame and just watched him.
Watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, the small furrow in his brow as he read, the way he licked his finger before he turned a page.
Heat slipped down my spine, settling low between my legs.
I was aching with it. Not the kind of ache that still hit my ribs if I twisted wrong.
This ache was hot, urgent, incessant. The kind that couldn’t be ignored and demanded to be sated.
“Liam,” I said, voice soft.
“Yeah, sweet—” His book dropped to his lap when he looked in my direction, every ounce of his focus now on me.
“I’m done waiting,” I said, sending my bathrobe to the floor in a pool of black silk.
His throat moved with a swallow. “Damn.” He sat up straighter, eyes locked on me as I sauntered over to his side of the bed.
I wasted no time and climbed on top of him, his sweats rough against my sensitized skin. He inhaled deeply when I slid my hands up his bare chest before settling in his hair. I leaned down, our noses brushing. “I love you,” I whispered, and then I kissed him.
The kiss was slow, deep, dizzying. A rekindling. A homecoming.
Liam groaned into the kiss. His hands roamed over my body reverently, as if he were discovering it all for the first time.
“I need you,” I murmured between kisses. My hips rolled against his, my nipples brushing against his chest and sending bursts of pleasure through me.
“You have me, baby,” he promised. He rolled us gently. Careful with my still-healing body. “Always have.”
He kissed me again. First at my temple, then my nose, my lips, and along my jaw. Then he lowered to my neck and down my body. He kissed every bruise, every scratch, every place Marcus had touched, as if he could erase that violence with love.
He peered up at me from where he had just kissed my hip. Dark hair tousled from my hands. Eyes soft and full of enough love, I could feel it. “I love you, Steph. Loved you all my life.”
My chest tightened, and I swallowed back the knot in my throat. “Come here,” I whispered, voice hoarse with the effort to hold back tears.
He climbed up my body, the rest of his clothes coming off in the process. And when he settled on top of me, his weight heavy and skin warm against mine, I’d never felt safer.
I wrapped my legs around his hips, and he reached between us, notching himself at my entrance. He lowered his mouth to mine and rocked forward slowly. The welcome intrusion stole my breath. My head fell back against the pillows as he filled me, a low moan slipping past my lips.
“Perfect,” he groaned. “Always so goddamn perfect for me.”
“Yes,” I breathed. I arched my hips, meeting him thrust for thrust.
We moved together slow and emotional, every thrust a promise, every kiss threaded with goodbye and reunion, ending and beginning.
Liam’s pace quickened, small grunts leaving him. The old bed frame creaked beneath us. He grabbed one of my legs, pressing it back to rest over his shoulder.
“Oh God, Lee.” I whimpered at how deep he was at this angle. But he kept going, pressing further like he couldn’t get deep enough.
“You’re mine,” he grunted, kissing along my calf, his hips snapping against me. His eyes met mine, dark and near-feral with what I couldn’t decipher. “Mine,” he growled, punctuating the word with a thrust that stole my breath.
My pussy tightened around him, loving the possessive look in his eyes. I nodded and pulled him down on top of me. I framed his face in my hands, our foreheads touching. “Yours. Yours forever.”
His eyes rolled shut, hands fisted in the pillows on either side of my head. He lowered his head to the crook of my neck. “Baby, you’re gonna make me come.” The words came out broken and strained. Something between a whine and a growl that brought me right to the edge with him.
“Give it to me,” I whispered, trailing kisses along his neck. “Make me yours, Liam.”
“Oh fuck.” His hips stuttered, breaths quick and hot against my neck. And then he slammed into me, deep and hard, his cock jerking as he fell apart on top of me, taking me with him.
After, we lay tangled together, neither of us able to sleep despite the physical exhaustion. His fingers played with my hair while I traced patterns on his chest—hearts and stars and the letters of his name—both of us pretending morning wouldn't come.
The room was silver with moonlight, and I could see every detail of his face—the scar through his eyebrow from a childhood fall, the laugh lines that were deeper now, the way his lips curved even in repose.
"You changed me," I said into the darkness. "Before you came for me in LA, I was disappearing. Becoming less real every day, like I was fading out of existence. You brought me back to life."
"You were always alive. You just needed to remember."
"No." I propped myself up on an elbow to look at him, needing him to understand this truth.
"You gave me back to myself. The ranch, your family, this life—it reminded me who I was before the world tried to make me into something else.
You loved me when I was broken, and somehow that made me whole again. "
"Steph—"
"I need you to know that. Whatever happens in LA, however long it takes, I need you to know that you saved me in every way that matters. Not just from Marcus. From a life that was killing me slowly, one appearance at a time, one fake smile at a time."
He kissed me then, deep and desperate, and we made love again, slower this time, trying to make the night last forever, trying to stop the world from turning toward dawn.
But dawn came anyway, as it always does, cruel and beautiful and inevitable.
I dressed quietly in the clothes I'd arrived in months ago—jeans that felt foreign now, a simple shirt that belonged to the other life.
Each piece felt like armor I was putting on for battle.
The designer boots that had seemed so important once now felt like costume pieces, props for a role I had to play one last time.
"You don't have to leave this early," Liam said from the bed, watching me pack the small duffel bag. He looked wrecked already, shadows under his eyes, sheet pooled at his waist. Even then, he was beautiful.
"If I don't go now, I won't go at all."
He nodded with understanding. Got up, pulled on jeans and a shirt, walked me to my rental car that Clay had picked up from town. The morning was cool, dew on everything, the ranch just waking up. Somewhere a rooster crowed—Caesar, probably—announcing the day with his usual arrogance.
We stood beside the car, foreheads pressed together, breathing the same air, existing in the same space for these last moments.
"Thank you," I whispered, my hands on his face, memorizing the feel of stubble against my palms. "For giving me back to myself. For loving me enough to let me go do this."
"Thank you for coming back. For choosing this. Choosing us."
"Always," I promised, sealing it with a kiss that tasted like coffee and tears and home. "It was always going to be you."
I got in the car before I could change my mind, before the magnetic pull of him could override my resolve. The engine started, too loud in the morning quiet.
As I drove away, I looked in the rearview mirror once.
He stood on the porch, hands in his pockets, watching me go.
Not waving, not moving, just standing guard like he'd stand there until I came back.
The rising sun backlit him, turned him into something mythical—my cowboy, my ranger, my salvation, my home.
The road stretched ahead toward LA, toward lawyers and contracts and the dismantling of a life I no longer wanted. But I wasn't running away anymore. I was running toward something. Toward the life waiting for me when I returned.
The last thing I saw before the ranch disappeared behind the hills was Poet, standing at the fence line, ears pricked forward like she was already waiting for me to come back.
"Soon, pretty girl," I promised the wind. "Soon."
Miles passed. The landscape changed from rural to suburban to urban. But I carried the ranch with me—Liam's kiss still warm on my lips, his scent still on my skin, his love wrapped around me like armor.
I was going to war for our future.
And I was going to win.