“If you take him out, someone else will just replace him. A fight like this never ends. It’s just a forever war.”
“I know.” Liam took a sip of tea, tongue stinging from the heat. It needed to cool some more. “But this is something I need to do.”
For his team. For his country. Ultimately, for himself, if only so he knew he’d done all he could to the best of his abilities to keep the people he cared about safe.
“You know, it would be easier to hate you if you had ended up a far less honorable man,” Oliver said.
Liam looked over at him, seeing Oliver’s mouth quirk at the corners, though there wasn’t any humor in his voice. “Do you hate me?”
Oliver blinked, but he didn’t look away. “I used to. I hated the bullying I went through because you thought more of winning a bet than you did about me all those years ago.”
Liam flinched and set his mug down on the low table. “Ollie—”
Oliver raised his hand, waving off whatever Liam was going to say. “Stop. I don’t want your apologies. I know you aren’t the same person you were back then.”
“I don’t know how to make up for my past actions, and Iwantto.”
Oliver set his mug down and stood. Liam thought he was leaving until Oliver stepped in front of him and sank to his knees. The space between the sofa and the low table wasn’t very wide, so Liam spread his legs and raised a foot to carefully shove the table back. Looking at Oliver kneeling before him made Liam’s pulse speed up a little.
“We’re neither of us who we were as lads,” Oliver said, undoing Liam’s belt and jeans with hands that never hesitated in their motions. “And there’s something about almost losing someone with all the words unsaid that gives you clarity.”
Liam licked his lips when Oliver’s fingers tucked beneath the waistband of his underwear. “Ollie.”
Oliver’s gaze was steady and warm, the blankness from earlier gone. All Liam could see was desire, raw and real, in his face.
“Next time you walk away? Say goodbye,” Oliver said in a low voice that went straight to Liam’s cock.
Liam swallowed, breath coming a little quicker. “You say that as if I’m going anywhere. I’m not, Ollie. I swear it.”
Liam watched as Oliver pulled down his underwear to free his cock and balls, ducking his head to suck at the sensitive crown. Liam groaned, enjoying the sight of Oliver swallowing him down. He wasn’t close to hard, but he knew he’d have no trouble getting there in the wet heat of Oliver’s mouth. He dragged his fingers through Oliver’s dark blond hair, giving it a gentle tug. Oliver moaned, and the sound made him shudder.
“Fuck,” Liam groaned, pushing up into that willing heat.
Oliver pressed his hands to Liam’s thighs, head moving as he dragged his tongue over the sensitive skin of Liam’s cock. Staring down at Oliver on his knees, giving Liam pleasure when all he’d ever done was give Oliver pain in return, felt like a form of forgiveness he wasn’t sure he was worthy of.
But he wanted to be.
Oliver sucked Liam to hardness with a deftness that left his lips puffy and face flushed with want. When he swallowed Liam all the way down, throat constricting around him, Liam swore hoarsely. His hips bucked, and he fit his hand around the back of Oliver’s head to keep him there as Liam ground his cock into Oliver’s mouth.
It wasn’t enough—wasn’t close to everything Liam wanted from Oliver. He gripped Oliver’s hair and pulled the other man off his cock, groaning at the sight of Oliver’s spit-slicked lips and the way his tongue flicked out to lick the tip of his cock, tonguing the slit there.
“Get up here,” Liam said hoarsely.
“No,” Oliver told him, batting his hand aside. “I want to taste you.”
Liam’s head fell against the back of the sofa. “Fuck. I’m not saying no to that.”
“Charming.”
“You’re a bloody tease.”
Liam tipped his head down in time to see Oliver smirk at him. “Tell me you don’t want to know what I look like with your cum on my face?”
Liam’s cock throbbed at those words, and he hooked his finger over the stiffly pressed collar and tie Oliver still wore. “Show me.”
“Gladly,” Oliver murmured before dipping his head back down.
Oliver licked at the skin over Liam’s balls before nosing back to the tip of his cock. He locked eyes with Liam and didn’t look away as he swallowed Liam down. Liam pushed up into Oliver’s mouth, sliding down that willing throat. Oliver moaned when he found the breath to, the sound muffled and nothing like the noises from the other night.
