by Ford, Hannah
My hands went to him, cupping his ass before tugging down his pajama pants. His cock sprung out, rock hard, and before I could stop myself, I gripped it, stroking the hardness from root to tip.
A drop of precum slid out of the top and down over my fisted hand.
Liam groaned.
“Emery. Oh, Emery.”
He pulled me to him, taking my leg and sliding it up over his hip until his cock was nestled between my legs.
“Keep your thighs together,” he whispered roughly in my ear.
I did as he said, clenching my thighs around his hard dick, until he was nestled against the slit of my pussy, searing hot and throbbing. But I didn’t move.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he whispered. “You know that, right?”
“I know.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You need to know it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t you. She was sick.”
“I know.”
“You are beautiful and perfect.”
The tears were flowing down over my cheeks now, and he kissed them away. His dick twitched between my legs, slick now with my desire, which was at an all-time high, stronger than almost anything I’d ever experienced in my entire life.
But I knew he didn’t want to make this about sex, even though I could tell it was taking everything inside of him, all of his self-control not to fuck me.
“Why me?” I whispered. “Why do you want me?” This was me, laid bare to him, voicing the deepest darkest thought I’d had ever since this had started to become real. “Is it because of the kidnapping?” I asked. “Is that the only reason why?”
“Oh, Emery,” he whispered. “God, Emery, no. Whenever I’m with you, I can’t help wondering why you want me.”
I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, and he kissed me again, his hands gliding through my hair as he slid his cock into me, soft and slow, letting me get used to the width of him.
He began to fuck me slowly, grinding his hips against mine, each thrust pushing him more and more inside of me, the tightness in my pussy starting to dissipate, even though he was stretching me to my hilt.
One hand was in my hair, the other moved down to my clit and thumbed it, causing my sex to become even wetter than it was, the slickness allowing him to push further into me with each stroke.
When he was all the way into me, he held me flush against him, our bodies completely pressed to each other.
He held the back of my head softly and murmured my name as he rocked in and out, fucking me, possessing me, making me his.
“Liam,” I cried. “God, Liam.” I came, his name escaping from between my lips over and over as the beat of my orgasm built to its peak and crashed over me. With the first clench of my pussy I felt him empty into me, spurting his cum into me as he continued to fuck me, making me take it.
He murmured my name like it was a prayer, and as we lay there, sweaty and spent, our limbs tangled together, his cock still buried inside my pussy, I began to feel like maybe, after all, I would be the one to save him.
* * *
He stayed inside of me, his cock semi-hard the whole time, even though he’d just orgasmed.
We laid like that for hours, stroking each other, half-asleep, waking only to kiss each other or stroke each other’s backs.
Every so often, he whispered my name, and one time, as I was drifting off and half asleep, I thought I heard him murmur, “I can’t believe you’re real.”
Something had shifted between us.
I fell into real sleep around 4 am, and when I woke again a couple of hours later, I thought it was because of the sunlight that had begun to stream in through the half-open blinds, or maybe because the planes had resumed their take off and landings, the roar of their engines close as they flew overhead.
But then I became dimly aware of two things at once.
First, Liam pulling away from me, sliding out of me, his hands leaving my body, his body heat taken from me and leaving me shivering.
Second, someone was pounding on the door of the jet.
Adrenaline and panic slid through me, and instantly I was wide awake, sitting up in bed.
A woman’s voice came from outside the plane. “He’ll want to see me,” she said. “Tell him I’m here and I know he’ll want to see me. This is ridiculous, and once Mr. Rutherford finds out, he’ll have you fired, mark my words.”
“Liam?” I tried. Unlike me, he didn’t seem panicked. He’d pulled on a pair of sweatpants and was sliding his arms into the Stanford sweatshirt he’d worn yesterday.
“It’s okay.”
“Who is it?”
“It’s fine,” he said. He leaned down and kissed my cheek. “Stay here,” he said. “And don’t move. Do you understand?”
I nodded, too shocked to say anything or ask him anything else.
A second later, I heard the door of the jet open.
“What the hell is going on?” Liam demanded.
“Oh, thank God,” the woman’s voice said. “Liam, these cretins wouldn’t let me in to see you.” By cretins, I assumed she meant the security guards, which made me instantly not like this woman, whoever she was. I wasn’t sure why, but I just didn’t. It was the way she acted like she didn’t need them to protect her, like they were annoying her instead of working their asses off to keep me and Liam safe. I knew about women like her. She was exactly the type that would have under tipped at a restaurant, the type that would complain about her service at McDonald’s, taking it out on some poor drive-thru window worker for something that wasn’t even their fault.
“Sorry, Mr. Rutherford,” one of the guards said. “We weren’t sure what to do, she said you would want to see her.”
“It’s fine, Jerry,” Liam said. Whoever this woman was, he obviously knew her. “Let her in.”
“Thank you,” the woman said, but she didn’t sound like she was sorry at all.
My hands gripped the blanket. I wasn’t sure why but I hated her, whoever she was. She sounded like a stuck-up bitch, and Liam was treating her with familiarity, and I didn’t like that, either.
The sound of the jet door sliding closed echoed through the plane.
The door to the bedroom had been left open slightly when Liam left.
“What are you doing here, Vienna?” His voice boomed through the jet, and fingers of anxiety slid up my spine. Vienna. The mysterious woman who’d I’d heard on the phone when I’d answered Liam’s phone and talked to Penelope, his mother.
Vienna, the woman my stylists, Tevi and Marnie, had told me about, the one London Banks was always getting jealous about.
Whoever this woman was, she was deeply intertwined with Liam. So much so that she apparently was friends with his parents and also felt comfortable enough to talk her way onto his private jet.
I slipped out of bed, pulling on Liam’s t-shirt and creeping toward the door.
I couldn’t see anything – the bedroom was off the hallway, and they were standing in the front part of the plane.
“I came to talk to you,” Vienna said. She had the polished sound of someone who’d grown up with money. Her cadence was clipped and it was hard to tell if she had an accent or was just… posh. She sounded like she’d spent summers in England growing up or something, and had picked up half of an English accent.
“What could possibly be so important that it couldn’t wait until later today? You know I’ll be in California later.”
“So you’re still coming?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Because we weren’t sure. You were supposed to be there yesterday.”
“Something came up.”
I stood by the door, transfixed by their conversation, wondering if Liam was going to bring me up, wondering if Vienna even knew who I was, wondering what was so god damn important she had to show up here at the crack of dawn, trying to get Liam to talk to her.
“Your mother said you’re bringing someone.”
“Yes.” I waited for him to elabo
rate, and apparently so did Vienna, since she stayed quiet.
Tell her about me, I screamed inside, like a high school student wanting her boyfriend to tell the pretty cheerleader he was taken.
“Can we go…can we sit down somewhere and talk?” she asked.
Liam sighed. “Can we do this another time?”
“No, I need to do it now. When we don’t have your family and… other people around.”
Other people? Did she mean me?
“Fine.” Liam sighed again. “We can go to the board room.”
To get to the board room they’d have to pass by the bedroom door, which I’d cracked open even further in order to hear better. I knew I should have run back to bed – Liam had told me not to get up, and I’d agreed.
Whatever Vienna had come to talk to him about, it was obviously something he didn’t want me to hear.
He was taking her to the back of the plane so that I couldn’t overhear. I should have gone back to bed. But my curiosity got the better of me. I needed to see her. I wanted to see what she looked like, what she acted like, if Liam was walking next to her.
I held my breath, not making a sound, flattening myself against the tiny alcove just inside the bedroom so that he wouldn’t see me if he happened to glance in when he walked by.
I watched, holding my breath, as their footsteps got closer.
He passed first, and a second later, I got my first glimpse of Vienna.
It was worst than I’d expected.
She was beautiful. So beautiful that she almost knocked the breath out of me, and I was a heterosexual female, so I could only imagine the effect she had on men. She was long-legged and graceful, with long wavy blonde hair, and a tiny waist that was encased in a navy sundress that nipped in at the waist. The top of her dress was a little slouchy by design, but it did nothing to hide her enviable body. She was tall, her legs seemingly that of a gazelle, and her skin was a deep golden California tan.
She wore a pair of high sandals with straps that crisscrossed up her delicate ankles and a spike heel. Despite the highness of her heels, she walked effortlessly.
Her hair was pulled back from her face into a smooth and loose chignon, her lips full and her face flawless. The last glimpse I got of her was her toes, which were painted a shocking hot pink, which contradicted the sophisticated elegance that the rest of her outfit gave off.
It was like she was broadcasting to the world that she had a wild streak, that underneath all that polish and perfection she was the kind of girl who would give you a killer blowjob.
Or maybe I was reading too much into it.
I waited until I heard the sound of them disappearing into the boardroom before I crept back to my bed. A second later, I heard Liam coming back down the hall. I waited, hoping he was going to come and check on me, that he was going to tell me that he was sorry for the intrusion, that Vienna was here, that she meant nothing to him, that he was just putting up with her until he could send her away again.
But Liam didn’t come in.
Instead, he shut the door firmly, as if to shut me out even more.
It infuriated me.
After what had just happened, all the closeness I’d felt with him, for him to shut me out was not acceptable.
I got out of bed, opened the bedroom door and walked down the hall toward the closed door of the boardroom.
I wasn’t sure what my plan was. In my head, I had the idea of walking in on them, knocking on the door and busting in, demanding to know what was going on. But that would have made me look a little psycho. Plus I was wearing a t-shirt and pretty much nothing else, and I was sure I had sex hair. There was no way I wanted to go in there looking like a mess next to the sophisticated and mysterious Vienna.
But did I really care?
I hardly knew her, and I was on a high from what I’d done earlier, when I’d been outside with Liam on the picnic table. If I meant what I’d said – that I wanted this to be real, that I wanted to know things about him or this was never going to work-- then I needed to stick with it.
I told him I loved him, and I’d meant it.
And I had a feeling he loved me too, even if he hadn’t said it yet.
I reached up and went to knock on the boardroom door.
But then I heard the soft murmur of Vienna’s voice, and I froze.
“You’re being so stubborn,” she said.
“It’s not your decision,” Liam said. I heard the clink of a glass. God, was he serving her a drink? When he’d gone to the front door of the jet, he’d sounded like maybe he hadn’t been that happy to see her, almost annoyed. And now he was serving her drinks?
Had that posturing before been for my benefit? Had he known I could hear, and now that he was alone with Vienna, that he knew I wasn’t near, he was going to reveal how he really felt?
I froze.
I didn’t mean to snoop, it was just… hard not to.
“I know it’s not my decision, Liam, that’s why I’m here.”
“Then you should stay out of it.”
Yes, I thought, even though I had no idea what they were talking about, you should stay out of it.
“It’s not that easy.” She lowered her voice and I strained to hear what she was saying, but the tone of her voice had changed. The volume was lower, and she sounded more contrite, her tone a little more… soothing, or dare I say it, sexy.
Liam said something back, but the tenor of his voice was so low there was no way I was going to be able to hear what he said.
All I could hear was bits and pieces of what Vienna was saying.
“…a long time, Liam…what was I supposed to do, what did you expect…”
After each murmured phrase there was a response from Liam, totally unintelligible, until finally they both went quiet.
I stood there in the hallway, telling myself to knock on the door, telling myself to go inside, and yet not wanting to do it, not wanting to see what it was they were doing. Was he holding her? Was she holding him? Kissing him? Whispering in his ear, telling him that it was going to be okay, that whatever thing she’d come here to talk about could be fixed?
My stomach turned and rolled, and when he started to talk again, I couldn’t take it anymore.
I reached out and turned the knob, pushed into the room, ready to see whatever it was that I was going to see.
Liam stood at the head of the table, bent over, his hands gripping the edge of the wood. In front of him, on a coaster, was a tumbler of clear liquid. Whiskey or vodka, I wasn’t sure.
Vienna sat in one of the chairs on the side of the table, the first one closest to Liam, her hand on his forearm. She had no drink in front of her, and I wasn’t sure what would have been worse, him serving her a drink, making it clear he wanted her to stay, or the fact that he obviously thought he needed to drink for some reason. Why was she driving him to drink?
Liam’s head was bowed, but when I walked into the room, it snapped up.
His eyes locked on mine, any trace of the tenderness he’d shown me gone as his face turned to steel.
“Hi,” I said, realizing I should have had a plan before I barged in here. “I heard voices.”
“I told you to stay in the bedroom,” he growled.
“That’s not nice, Liam,” Vienna said, rolling her eyes in a way that made my blood boil. I didn’t like the way she acted so comfortable with him, the way she acted like she knew him so well, like they were in on some big private joke I knew nothing about. “Hi,” she said, smiling at me. “I’m Vienna.”
“Emery.”
Her voice was friendly, but she didn’t make any move to get up or to hold her hand out to me, almost like she hadn’t deemed me important enough. “Emery,” she said. “That’s unique. I heard you’re going to be coming to California for the party.”
“Yes.”
“That should be fun.” She smiled again and looked at Liam, and then her eyes moved back to me. Her face was impassive, but everything she said was a thin
ly veiled insult. Calling my name unique instead of pretty, telling me I would have fun in California, as if that was all I would ever be when it came to Liam, something fun.
As her gaze met mine, and she took in the fact that I was wearing Liam’s t-shirt and that we’d probably been in bed together, I saw something flash over her face. Ownership.
Whatever Liam’s relationship was when it came to her, she felt possessive.
“Vienna was just leaving,” Liam said pointedly, but I wondered if he’d have sent her away if I hadn’t show up.
“Yes, well,” she said, standing up. She picked up a pair of sunglasses and slid them over her head. “Think about what I said. And I’ll see you tomorrow. It was lovely to meet you, Emery.”
And then she was gone in a haze of expensive perfume and sophistication.
We heard the door of the jet shut, and then Liam turned to me.
“I told you to stay in the bedroom.”
“Why? So you could be alone with her?”
He shook his head and went to move past me into the bedroom, but I reached out and grabbed his forearm, feeling his bicep clench under my touch. “What was that about?” I asked softly.
“Jealous isn’t a good look.”
“Really?” I laughed. “Because I remember you freaking out when someone left a damn instagram comment on one of my pics, much less showing up here in the middle of the night for a secret meeting.”
“That was different. That asshole was hitting on you.”
“Yeah, well, it sounded pretty cozy in here, too.”
“You were spying.”
“You were hiding.”
A vein in his temple throbbed. “Go to bed, Emery. I’ll be there in a minute.” He turned and grabbed his glass of scotch, drained it and then brought the bottle back to the bar.
“No,” I said. “No, not until you tell me what was going on, what she came here to talk to you about.”
“It’s not your concern.”
“It is my concern, Liam, it was obviously important if she felt like she had to come here in the middle of the –“
“Dammit, Emery.” He slammed his glass down on the bar and turned to me. “When I say something’s not your concern, then it’s not your fucking concern.”
