“I held her while she bled out,” he whispers against my skin. “My hands were red for days. And then he took me away, had his goons get rid of her body like she was trash. He groomed me to take over the business. My Uncle Eamon trained me, taught me how to wield a blade with precision.”
He pulls back just enough to look me in the eye, his features twisted. “The irony, cause I used that same blade to stab my father through the heart two years ago.”
I search his face. All I see is the boy who survived—not the monster he believes he is.
“Surprised?” he tests.
I shake my head slowly. “After what you did to Brett? No. Impressed? Yes. He deserved worse than a blade, Liam.”
“Yes, he did.” He lets out a long, shuddering breath, his accent returning. “I dumped his body into the bay. And I’ve been runnin’ the Family business ever since. But…I began sanitizing it over the past year. Cut out the drugs, the trafficking. Turned it into somethin’ else.”
“So, how old are you?” I try to lighten the heavy air just a fraction.
“Thirty-seven.”
“I’m—”
“Twenty-eight. I know.” He raises a brow, a small, weary smile touching his lips. “Too much of an age gap, Luv?”
I shake my head, a small blush creeping up my neck. “No. Actually, it’s a trope I like when it’s written well. And…I’m proud of you, Liam. For changing things.”
He snorts, a cynical sound. “One year of redemption hardly makes up for years of carnage, Lexie.”
At first? Silence. But need rushes through me, a need to remind him, validate him, help him…heal. My favorite trope needles the back of my brain. No, I won’t reveal it, but it drives me now.
“It’s never too late. And if things had played out differently, maybe you wouldn’t have ended up in that alley. And maybe I wouldn’t have been there to find you.”
He blinks, then shakes his head, nostrils flaring with a sigh. He looks at me like I’m the eighth wonder of the world. “Savior, Lexie. Me sweet savior. Bloody Christ, how you find the silver lining…You fucking kill me, Darlin’.”
I smile, feeling a sudden, familiar jerk of his cock against my thigh. My body responds to the shift in energy, and I melt.
Before I can even think, he moves, flipping us until I’m pinned beneath his heat, the sheer silk of my chemise the only thing between us. He traps me with his arms, his eyes dark with a sudden, intense hunger. My nipples stiffen.
“No pressure, Lexie Luv,” he murmurs, opening his mouth along my jawline. “But would ye be interested in some mutual sharing? I want t’know more about the sensational woman who’s the only one I’ve ever shared my bed with.”
I nod, arching to give him my throat. “I was twenty-two, a year from graduating from nursing school, when my mom got sick. Cancer. Leukemia. I quit everything to take care of her.”
Somehow, I push through the lump in my throat. “My fucker of a father quit, too. About six months in, he decided he couldn’t handle the “stress” of her being sick. He put in a transfer to a different city and just…disappeared.”
Old anger flares up, turning my breath ragged. Liam rubs his lips and tongue along my throat, his stubble scratching pleasantly against my skin.
“I threw away every Christmas and birthday card the bastard sent.”
Lifting his head, he gives me a dark, predatory smirk. “Want me to track him down and dismember him?”
“Tempting. But first…my mom was a fighter. Stronger than me. She made it through chemo and lived for another three years. We’d saved up enough money to finally travel to Great Britain together, but then…she relapsed.”
I close my eyes, the cold memories of those final days washing over me. “She deteriorated so quickly. It was the worst six months of my life.”
My voice splinters on the last word, and a tear slips down my temple. Liam doesn’t offer empty words. Instead, he cuts his teeth on my collarbone, pulling me back from the brink.
I bury my fingers in his dark hair, pulling him closer. “Don’t stop,” I plead. “I used the money for England for her funeral. Nana was there for me. She paid for my apartment so I could work at the flower shop and just…exist. But then Brett found me. In a bar. I spent a lot of time in them right after she died.”
I let out a low moan as Liam moves the straps of my chemise down, baring my breasts to the cool air. He captures a nipple in his mouth, sucking with a slow, deliberate pressure that makes my toes curl.
“He was so smooth,” I pant, rocking my hips. “Charming. Handsome. He knew how to control in subtle ways. Buying me the makeup he wanted me to wear, the clothes he wanted to show me off in. Oh, fuck, Liam, please!”
I sob as he circles his tongue around one nipple before moving to the other, nipping it just hard enough to make me gasp. He slowly slides the silk down my hips, his hands warm and possessive.
