No, now there was only air between her and Tieran.
And Tieran stood, heaving, clearly battling to keep his hands from throttling her.
{ Chapter 20 }
His fists clenching and unclenching repeatedly, the cords of muscles along Tieran’s neck strained as he stared at her, deep fury whirling with horrified betrayal in his eyes.
Liv’s mouth went dry, her heart stopping as she realized what she had said to him. Called him. “Oh, no…Tieran…Tieran…I…I am sorry—”
Her words jerked him into movement. Unleashed a beast she had never witnessed in him.
In one quick motion, he ripped off his jacket and whipped it around Liv’s torso to cover her. Without a word, he grabbed her upper arm through the jacket, yanking her from the room and dragging her down the corridor toward the back of the house.
The height of his hand wrenched her shoulder up and she twisted, trying to slow him, but it only shot a blast of pain down her arm. “Tieran…”
His grip dug in, his fingers gouging into her muscle, the sound of his seething breath going rapid. He veered into a dark room, stalked across it, and pulled her out a back door of the townhouse and alongside the brick building to the street.
Ignoring the many people milling about, gawking at the pair of them, Tieran’s stride didn’t break until he stopped at his carriage at the end of the block.
“Tieran—”
His arm wrapped around her waist, landing hard on her belly and cutting her breath. He lifted her, opening the carriage door and tossing her into the coach.
Tieran’s coat flew off of her body, and she scrambled after it, quickly shoving her arms into the sleeves and overlapping the front lapels across her chest as she righted herself on the cushioned bench.
He jumped into the carriage behind her, slamming the door closed as he sat opposite Liv.
“Tieran.”
“No. Nothing. Not a word, Liv,” he barked as he leaned forward, banging on the roof of the carriage. It jerked forward, the horses setting a brisk pace down the street.
Liv slumped back against the soft squabs, watching him. His focus on the slit between the curtains open to the window, his eyes avoided her, his chest rapidly lifting and receding, every breath fuming. And rightfully so.
The devil in hades, what had she done? Called him a monster. A monster.
Believed he was a monster.
Her fingers clutched the lapel edges of his jacket, drawing it tighter around her body.
She had been half naked with one of his best friends and had called him a monster.
There would be no recovery from this.
The carriage stopped, and Liv glanced past the curtain. Not her townhouse. The Reggard dower house.
She looked to Tieran, but he had already stood, ducking his head as he opened the carriage door and jumped to the street without waiting for the step. He turned, reaching back in to snatch her leg, pulling her along the bench. Before she could resist, he grabbed her about the waist, pulling her from the carriage and setting her on the street.
He snatched her arm again, dragging her up the walk and through the front door—setting all discreetness to the wind.
Not that she had any shred of propriety left. The scene of her being dragged away from the Jacobson’s ball had surely taken care of that.
He didn’t stop in the front foyer, instead pulling her up the stairs behind him. Her arm stretched to the limit, Liv attempted to keep up with his long strides, afraid to ask him to release her—afraid that he would if she did so.
Spinning her into the bedroom that had become theirs, he finally released her, leaving her standing in the middle of the room.
He turned from her, his movements slowing to a crawl as he clicked the door closed. He paused, his hand on the doorknob, not turning back to her.
Liv looked around the room—the room she had grown to adore—her eyes not finding a single spot, a single piece of furniture that they had not worshipped each other’s bodies upon or against. Even the window offered no reprieve from the onslaught of memories this room held.
She looked down at the toes of her silk slippers. Memories would be the only thing she had after tonight.
An eternity of a minute passed in silence, and she managed to lift her chin to look at Tieran. He still stood with his back to her, and she stared at his wide shoulders, the muscles straining under his waistcoat and white linen shirt.
Now he couldn’t even look at her.
She swallowed the lump in her throat, her arms wrapping around her waist, only the tips of her fingers reaching past the long sleeves of Tieran’s jacket. “Tieran. I know. You do not need to speak. I will collect my clothes.”
He spun around, his blue eyes blazing. “Why do you insist on the end of us every time I am furious with you, Liv?”
Her head snapped back, startled. “But what I did—”
“Why do you not think you are worth fighting for?” He took a long step toward her. “Why do you not think I—no, we are not worth fighting for?”
Dumbfounded, she dipped backward, her steps stumbling as her legs gave out. She landed on the wing chair by the fireplace just before falling.
“You…” She looked up to him. “You think I don’t fight for you?”
“Do you?”
Her look fell from him, landing at the wooden floor by his feet. “I…I don’t know.”
“No—you do—you know.”
Damn him. Damn him for always pushing her.
It took her long moments before she could lift her eyes to him. “I don’t think I can trust happiness, Tieran. I can’t trust being with you. That it is real and not just a dream slipping through my fingers. I had you once, and I was happy, and it was torn away. So how can I ever trust that again? How can I trust happiness when I know I am not worthy of it—when part of me is not worthy of you.” Her head dropped, the truth of her own words—never acknowledged before in her own mind—settling hard into her chest. “You want the girl I once was Tieran, not the woman I am now.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Liv?”
Her head stayed bowed. “Tonight was a mistake, but there are things I still must do, Tieran. Things you do not approve of. Things that are not honorable. Things you cannot stand by and bear witness to.”
His feet silent on the floor, he was next to her in an instant, his shin bumping into her knee. “No. Absolutely not, Liv. Do not even think it—you are stopping this insanity now—stopping this forever.”
“No.” She couldn’t lift her face to him.
His hand curled into a fist, driving into the side of his thigh. “This list of men—it is madness, Liv—no matter the reason for it.”
Her head still angled downward, she dared to lift her eyes, looking at him through her thick lashes. “There are you three on the list, mistakes, yes—but the rest of the list is still valid, Tieran. Men that need to pay. Men that need to be cut from ever buying another girl again.”
“You have to stop this, Liv.”
Her look pierced into him. “No. I have to do this.”
He growled, frustration boiling. “You don’t have to do anything, Liv. You can make a different decision.”
She jumped to her feet, the toes of her slippers butting into the tips of his boots. She looked up at him, meeting his condemnation full force. “I cannot. I cannot stop this, Tieran. I know you do not understand, but I have tried—tried to stop this before. I have wanted to stop—but I cannot.” Her hand flew up, thumping onto her chest. “I will make this same decision every time, and I cannot deny that. These men must pay. This is how I right what little I can.”
His head shook, refusing her words. “This is not your revenge to enact, Liv.”
She grabbed his arm. “No, it is. I was spared when so many innocent girls were not. This is how I repay fate for sparing me. What happens is an injustice of the cruelest kind—and it doesn’t need to be—not when I can stop it—stop them.”
“Liv,
you are repaying a debt you never owed—you never had power over what happened to you in the first place.”
Her hand dropped from his arm.
“Yes. But I have power now, don’t I?” She took a step to the side, walking around him, her arm flying through the air as she paced. “So if not me, then who? Who will ensure these men pay for their lechery, for the destruction they cause? They ruin lives and then go about their business, never having to think on what they’ve done, on the lives they’ve destroyed. One night of vile fun to them equates to a lifetime of disgrace and anguish and shame and ruin for the girl.”
She spun back to Tieran, her voice hard. “I am merely equalizing the consequences, Tieran. A ruined life, for a ruined life. And I can make no apology for it.”
His hand whipped up to the side, palm to the ceiling. “This is not your vengeance to deliver, Liv. You cannot let this become you. You are so much better than this, better than only wanting to inflict pain upon others.”
Her eyes narrowed at him. “I am not better than this, Tieran. I am not your perfect Rachel.”
“Rachel?” His head cocked to the side, his brows arched. “This is about Rachel? You think I compare the two of you?”
“Do you?”
“No. Hell no.” His fingers ran through his hair, his look suddenly wary on her. “But you hate her—hate who she was to me?”
“No. Goodness no, Tieran.” Liv sighed, her eyes going to the coffered ceiling, tracing the white plaster lines. “I adore Rachel. I never met her, but I adore her. Respect her.” Her gaze dropped to Tieran. “How could I not? I am beholden to her. She fixed you, cobbled you back together after the war. I could not have done that for you. But she did.”
“You could not have done that—why not?”
Liv bit the inside of her cheek, not wanting to admit to the painful fact that she had not been the woman Tieran needed in those years. Not by far.
She knew she would have pushed him—demanded him—to be the same man as he had been before the war. And she would have driven him away in the process.
If she was ever going to make him face the truth about the person she was now, she would also have to speak to the truth about who she once was. Speak to her failings.
She swallowed the lump that had gathered in her throat. “I didn’t know anything about life or death back then—I was still so young. I would not have been able to imagine the horrors you endured—not truly.” Shrugging her shoulders, the movement disappeared in the oversized black jacket covering her. “But the years I spent with Lord Canton, it changed me, taught me of the frailty of the human body.”
She shifted her hand upward, shaking it to clear it of the long jacket sleeve, and then rubbed her forehead, letting the memories of those years wash over her. “We are all at the mercy of time, at what our bodies can and cannot endure. In Lord Canton I watched the torture of a mind that was sharp, held hostage in a body that was crumbling. I watched a man fighting to keep his dignity. Fighting for what little happiness life had left for him. Fighting not to give up, when it was the only sensible option.” She swiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “Humility, and patience, and resolve, and peace with what one has to accept only because it cannot change—Lord Canton taught me all of those things.”
She took a deep breath. “But he also taught me about resolve—about the will to change the things one could. That was why he married me. That was why I took on the list. I can change this one part of the world, Tieran. I can fight for all of the innocent girls—all of them that will have the hand of the devil rip them from their innocent lives.”
Taking a step toward him, she locked her eyes on his. “I was a child when you left, Tieran. I still don’t want to accept it, and it kills me to speak it, but you were right to wait to marry me.”
He moved to her, his head shaking as he set his hands on her shoulders. “No. I was wrong to leave you, Liv. I would change it a thousand times over if I could.”
A sad smile crossed her lips, the sentiment squeezing her heart. “Just as you said you needed to leave for war to become the man that could be my husband, I had to go through what I did to become the woman you need. The woman you need today.”
His hands slid inward, moving to slip underneath the collar of his jacket on her skin, his fingertips caressing the back of her neck. “What if I need you to stop this vengeance—this madness, Liv? What if that is what I need from you?”
Her hands lost in the sleeves of his jacket, she gripped his wrists, clutching him with all her might. “I cannot stop, Tieran. Please don’t ask me to do so.”
“I only ask it for your own safety, Liv. For your own sanity. I cannot bear to watch how this will eventually destroy your spirit.”
Her head bowed as her heart contracted. “Please don’t ask me to stop, Tieran. I will only lie to you and agree to do so because you speak reason—and then I will still make the same choice again and again.” She lifted her eyes, tears brimming. “No matter what I lose—I will do this because I must, because it is who I am and know no other way to be, Tieran.”
She ducked from his hands, turning away from him to stand at the foot of the bed as she tried to wipe away her tears with the end of his jacket sleeve.
His arm around her waist was instant, pulling her back into his chest as he set his lips next to her ear, brushing past the dark locks of hair that had escaped from her upsweep. “Then I will not ask you to stop again, Liv. I will walk by your side. No matter where it takes us. I will walk by your side, in front of you, behind you—anywhere you need me to be. Anywhere.”
She doubled over, his words hitting her, shaking her to her core.
His forearm held her up, held her backside hard to him, his lips still by her ear. “I love you, Liv—all of you. The glowing debutante I remember. The exasperating, complicated, luminous woman that stands before me now. All of you.”
“All of me?” The words escaped as a whisper for the lack of air in her lungs.
“Yes. All of you.” His lips dipped to her neck, his fingers tugging down the jacket from her shoulder as his kisses moved along her collarbone. “The you that drives me to madness, yet is the very air I breathe. The you that is a warrior, determined to battle wrong, whether it is for a frozen bird in a snowbank, or for scores of innocent girls. The you that knows everything that I am, everything that I have done, and managed to never judge. The you that still finds the honor in me, looks at me as though I am her most favored champion.”
“Never mistake that one, Tieran.” His jacket already half tugged from her body, she let it slip off from her right shoulder. It dropped, along with the ripped silk of her dress as she lifted her right arm up, her fingers stretching behind her to wrap around the back of his neck. She held his mouth to her skin with every shred of strength she had. “I have only needed one champion in my life, and it always has been, and always will be, you.”
Tieran’s growl on her neck vibrated through her skin, into her chest. His hands glided along the naked skin of her belly, tearing, shoving down the remnants of her dress to the floor. The silk puddled around her ankles, twisting with his discarded jacket.
Before she could take a breath, his right hand descended, sliding between her naked thighs as his clothes dropped to join hers. Her core instantly alive, begging, her fingernails dug into his neck behind her, demanding.
His tongue slipped out to trace the dip along her shoulder as his fingers trailed up, slowly, torturously, moving into her folds, exploring, teasing as they circled her nubbin. Slow. Far too slow. Still clutching his neck, she bucked against his hand, the need for him staggering from only a few swipes of his fingers.
“Where do you need me right now, Liv?” His mouth moved next to her ear, his teeth clasping gently onto her earlobe. “Tell me. Wherever you need.”
The words twisted her chest, her gut, her core, stealing her breath. She pushed sound out between the reckless pulsating of every nerve in her body. “Tieran—behind me.” She exhaled raspy
words. “Behind me. Hard.”
A guttural groan escaped from his lips into her ear, ripping through the air. “Damn, Liv.” He ventured no hesitation, his knee shifting between her thighs, spreading her legs, and in the next breath he drove up into her from behind, lifting her with the force.
Holding fast to him with her right hand, her left hand went forward to grip the post of the bed in front of her, holding hard against the wicked onslaught.
His fingers plied her with every thrust. Circled. Dipped alongside his cock as he withdrew. Every breath in her ear, ragged, straining. Drawing her higher and higher until her body pitched with savagery she hadn’t known she possessed.
“Hell, Liv. Now.” His voice a storm, his fingers sped, his shaft swelling into the depths of her. “Take it, Liv. Deeper now. All of you.”
He withdrew, painfully slow. At her edge, a scream tore from her throat, pleading for heaven and hell and everything in-between.
Piercing, he buried himself far into her, his body ravishing every nerve. Higher. He pushed her higher. She shattered.
Fiercely, his body went taut, shuddering behind her. Wave after wave until he collapsed around her.
With monumental effort, he lifted the both of them over the low wooden footboard and they crumpled onto the bed, her tight to his bare chest.
Once proper breathing had returned, Liv tilted her head upward, opening her eyes only to find him staring at her. She searched the depths of his blue irises for any uncertainty, any lingering mistrust. There was none. Only love. “Ask me again.”
“To what?”
“To marry you.”
He inhaled, his eyes closing to her.
Slowly, he exhaled, the breath shaking his body and her with it.
Tieran opened his eyes, his look piercing her to her soul. “I want you in my bed, Liv. I want you in the morning smiling at me. I want you in the middle of the day chatting with me on the frivolities of the ton, or your thoughtful musings on politics, or your ponderings on investments. I want you in the evening, by the fire, curled up on top of me in a chair, staring at the blazes. I want your arm entwined with mine walking into the grandest ballrooms, without gossip, without shame, without hiding. Just simply my wife. I want you today. I want you when we are old and our bodies are mere shells. I want to be laid to rest next to you. I want you for eternity, Liv. From here until never.”
Oath Page 19
