Liam, though, was aman, one who knew how to use those veiny, calloused hands for pleasure—the kind of pleasure I’d never experienced before. The kind I never thought I could.
It had been so hard for me to get off with Alfie, often requiring time and attention he didn’t have the patience for. With him,allthat mattered washisbaser needs.
Which meant, all too frequently, I found myself taking matters into my own hands.
I knew now the reason we’d stopped having sex was because he’d begun seeking his pleasure elsewhere, but also because I couldn’t fucking stomach the thought of him touching me. For a long time, it was impossible for me not to blame myself for that. I hated the exasperation that clouded his eyes every time we fucked and it ended with me silently frustrated and unsatisfied. Even before we broke up, I’d done a fantastic job at convincing myself I was the broken one.
In reality, it was Alfie who was broken, who was such a small-minded man that he couldn’t take the time to figure out what I liked and make sure he got me there every single time. He’d never once stopped to considerhewas the problem.
Liam was not Alfie.
He still hadn’t moved, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, his breath sawing in and out of him, so I whispered his name.
Those baby blues popped open, and a blissful smile overtook his face like the sun coming out on a cloudy day.
“I want to remember this,” he said softly in answer to a question I hadn’t asked. “The first time I got to take you. The day I made you mine.”
I placed a palm on his cheek, his beard scratching at my skin, and he leaned into my touch.
“Not sure what I did to deserve you.”
“You didn’t have to do anything, baby,” he said, bending to give me a lingering kiss. He shifted so he could place a hand over my heart, and it thumped wildly against his touch. “I fell for the woman you are in here. The last three years haven’t changed that.”
Unable to hold them back anymore, my emotions fromthis whole day—hell, this whole trip and the last four months—boiled over, and tears slipped from my eyes and down the sides of my face.
Liam merely brushed them away. “I hope those are happy tears,” he murmured.
“They’re a lot of things,” I answered honestly, “but happiness is the main one.”
He leaned in and gently brushed his lips over the tracks of moisture, cleaning me up. Taking care of me, like he’d always done.
“I’m going to move now, okay?”
I nodded, sniffling loudly, instantly reminded that his cock was nestled deep inside my body. Experimentally, I clenched my inner walls around him, and he hissed.
“Wicked woman,” he gritted out, then shifted his hips backward, pulling his cock free to the tip before plunging back in.
“Fuck,” I breathed. The combination of the intimate words we’d just shared and the rough way he slammed into my body had pressure coiling low, my clit throbbing almost painfully, desperate for attention.
So I snaked my hand between us and passed my fingers over it lightly, hips jumping against Liam’s as I did.
His strokes were slow and measured to begin, his jaw clenched so tightly I swore he’d crack a tooth if he didn’t let go. I needed him undone, fucking me recklessly. I needed him here with me, not trapped in the past or somewhere deep inside his head where he thought he’d hurt me if he was any rougher. I didn’t use my words to urge him on, only lifted my hands from his nape and raked my fingernails down his back, pausing and digging theminto his ass.
Like I’d hoped, he bucked against me, some of his restraint fraying.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Ella,” he ground out. “I don’t know what he did, but it wasn’t enough, and I don’t want you to think less of me for giving you too much.”
This fucking man. His heart was so incredibly big, it was a wonder his chest could contain it.
And he wanted to give it to me.
Goddamn, I was a lucky girl.
“Sex with…him,” I started, narrowly avoiding bringing my ex’s name into bed with us, “was very vanilla. And never about me. I’m not made of glass, Liam. I can take it.”
“You want it rough, Wildflower?” he asked, driving a little bit harder into me with his next thrust. My back bowed a bit, hips angling impossibly closer.
“Ineedit rough.”
