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“Brioni, you’re amazing.” I try to keep my deep voice soft, but it surrounds us in this compact space, like a thick rope drawing us even closer.

“It isn’t enough,” she says weakly. “I’m not enough.”

She sounds so defeated that I can’t stop myself. I wrap my arms around my self-critical Brioni, desperate to comfort her however I can. With my hips angled away from her, it’s just a hug. I can’t allow a repeat of the last time we were alone in this booth. When she whispered, “We shouldn’t.” I try to keep that whisper loud in my mind. But all I hear instead is the way she moaned my name in our bed.

Without realizing it, I tighten my arms around her, struggling to stay tethered to reality. In this moment, Brioni needs my reassurance.

“Of course you’re enough,” I tell her. “You’re more than enough.” You’re mine.

Her hands fly up to grip my forearms over her chest, as if she also needs a tether right now. She digs her fingers into my muscles. The same fingers she used to play with her pussy. While calling out for me.

“Liam.”

I’m not sure if she says it out loud this time, but I feel it in my veins. That rush of hot blood surging through me, threatening to overtake my control. But I am control. It’s who I’ve always had to be.

And I can prove it.

I keep my every movement slow. If there’s another we shouldn’t, I’m giving her all the time in the world to say it. But in my bones, I know there won’t be. She’s proven that she wants me. She wants this. Us. And still, I take my time.

Despite my entire body shaking with want, I lower my mouth to Brioni’s ear millimeter by millimeter. Patience bends to my will. I take hours, days, before my lips brush the soft skin of her earlobe. She quivers in my arms the entire time, her body as taut as a vibrating string.

Then I realize. She’s not shaking with desire like I am.

She’s shaking with fear.

My heart goes cold. I step back, turn her to face me, hold her by her shoulders so I can see with my own eyes. The shame on her face curdles my gut. She looks so goddamn vulnerable I hate myself.

Then that hatred lashes outward. Not toward Brioni, never toward Brioni. But toward that fucker I should’ve killed years ago. The one who caused this lasting fear in her.

Chapter 14

Brioni

It’s like the booth is shrinking in on us. I don’t know how to explain my reaction, my stopping what we both want, but I’m desperate to. I need Liam to know it isn’t his fault.

“I’m sorry,” I choke out. “It’s just, from behind, I can’t⁠—”

His eyes darken, storms of anger obscuring his vision. I go lightheaded, and I feel the risk of floating away, of disconnecting entirely. But then Liam tightens his grip on my shoulders, anchoring me to the here and now.

“You do not apologize to me.” His vehemence rumbles through my chest. “Ever. The words I’m sorry are no longer in your vocabulary.”

I draw in a shaky breath. Liam’s anger is its own beast. And even though he’ll never direct it at me, I always shiver in its presence. It triggers that delicious tingling down my spine, the one I feel whenever I witness Liam’s authority, anything that reminds me how quietly dangerous he is.

He lowers his gaze to mine, his eyes still clouded with intense emotion.

“We both know whose fault this is,” he growls. “And I will never let him hurt you again.”

My mind leaps to my phone, which I’ve been keeping turned off as often as possible. The threat of Harrison hacking it is constant. But with Liam so close to me, the threat of Harrison himself is kept at bay, like Liam’s presence is a wall of shelter.

“You’re mine to protect,” he says, and hearing those words from his lips again makes my body ignite. The tingling spreads throughout my every nerve, the sensation so overpowering I can barely think straight, with only one word ringing through my head. Mine.

I’m breathing so hard that my lips fall open. Liam tracks the movement, and the haze clears from his eyes. The next instant, they’re the brightest green I’ve ever seen. His hands leave my shoulders, and I miss his touch.

Then he’s holding my face in his palms. Kissing me. His lips are unyielding, his tongue insistent. There are no witnesses, no cameras. His passion for me isn’t for show. The desire between us, this need that’s been building, is real.

I sense the rightness of it in my soul, and I let him pull me closer. He circles his arms around me, supporting me as if he’s aware that my knees are weak, that I’m about to collapse beneath the weight of my want for him. He holds me tight, and the reminder of his physical strength makes me shiver like the last leaf on a branch.

Trembling, I glide my hands up around his shoulders. The solidity of his muscles beneath my touch epitomizes who he is. My Liam, my rock.