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Wave after wave of pleasure crashes through me, and I’m helpless as Liam pounds into me. He catches me against his chest, wrapping me in heat and sweat while continuing to thrust inside me. I’m so beautifully sore from being stretched, and he’s still slamming hard, wringing every drop of pleasure from my body.
Then his arms tighten around me, and his thrusts turn erratic. I feel him throb inside me as he shouts out a string of curse words, the filthy kind that make me feel naughty.
As he slows, he keeps his arms wrapped around me, weaving one hand into my hair to lift my head off his chest. My vision swims as I register his face, his eyes the only thing I can focus on in my haze of pleasure. My emeralds, my Liam.
My husband-to-be.
Chapter 32
Liam
I told her the truth. I told my gentle, tenderhearted Brioni the truth of who I am. I had to. I need her to know what I’m capable of. Not because we’re getting married. But because I need her to know me.
She reacted better than I’d expected. At first, I took it as a good sign. Because we’ve been so close for so long, she’s more aware of the darker side of me than I’d realized.
But it’s not a good sign. She’s still treating me like her goddamn savior. Which means she doesn’t truly understand. She can nod along in agreement with my words, but it’s not enough.
She needs to see my darkness for herself.
I make the necessary arrangements with Finn. We leave Peter out of it. The man’s developed an unfortunate soft spot for the recruits, like a misguided mother hen.
“Everything’s ready,” Finn confirms over the phone.
“Good.” I hang up, feeling confident in my decision to put him in charge of the recruits’ training. And very confident in what I’m about to do next.
A few minutes before her shop closes, I shoulder my way into Brioni’s workplace. Gus, on guard, has already spotted me. But it’s not until the shop door dings that Brioni and Antoine look up from their sewing machines. Antoine greets me with a deferential nod, then returns to his work.
Brioni leaps out of her chair. Her smile radiant, she bounds over all the mismatched rugs to give me a hug. I return it stiffly, and she senses immediately that something’s wrong.
I dismiss Gus for the day and ask Brioni if she’s ready to go.
“I still have a few more minutes,” she says.
“Girl, go.” Antoine flaps his hand over his sewing machine. Then he adds a wink at me, the cheeky bastard. I don’t like his familiarity, but I keep my aggression on a tight leash. I’ll be able to release it soon enough.
“Where are we going?” Brioni asks, pulling on her pink peacoat.
She slides both of her hands behind her neck, then flips her long hair out of her collar. It’s an everyday gesture, one I’ve seen countless times before. And yet it always strikes me somewhere below my heart.
She’s so innocently unaware of how beautiful she is.
“You’ll see.” I hold the door open for her as she bids Antoine goodnight. I tried to make my response sound as ominous as possible. But Brioni, being Brioni, gets excited about the surprise.
When she slips her soft hand into mine, that feeling below my heart becomes a twisting pain. I told her, but she still doesn’t understand. I clench my other hand into a fist in my coat pocket.
She will.
She leans her head on my shoulder as we walk under the streetlights. Another gesture that’s so simple, yet devastating.
When I turn us toward the pub, she lifts her head to give me a curious look, one with an edge of wariness. Good. Instead of going through the front, I lead us into the back alley. When I guide her through to the pub’s meeting room, she freezes.
I lock the door behind us. We’re alone in the O’Sullivan sanctum, this deceptively normal space that witnesses our real business. It’s also the entrance to our secret basement.
Brioni stares at the far corner of the room, her mouth open in shock. I’ve already pulled out the filing cabinet and opened the trap door beneath. I’ve shown Brioni the door before, in case she ever needed a safe room, but I’ve never taken her down there.
Now, it’s time.
I gesture for her to lead the way. She does so with hesitant steps at first. Then I see her do her cross-country warm-up, the way she did before our run the other day. Head to the right, neck pop, shoulders back. She descends the concrete steps with trembling confidence.
