by Vivian Wood
“We haven’t fed you anything, darling. We’ve just… left you out of the loop. Only for things that were strictly need-to-know, you ken.”
“I do not ken. She said something about fighting! What the hell was that about?”
Liam took a deep breath, then blew it out.
“Your brother owes big, and the people who own his debt want him to repay it by doing pit fights.”
Audrey’s breath faltered. Her hand flew to her mouth. The phrase pit fights made her want to lose her lunch.
Liam’s expression shifted to concern. “It’s not as bad as it sounds, I promise.”
“It’s like… no gloves, no rules, kind of underground fighting?” Audrey asked.
Liam hesitated, then shrugged. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“So it’s basically exactly what it sounds like. Liam, he could be killed!”
Liam scrubbed a hand over his face. For a moment, his ever-present mask of confidence slipped away and Audrey could see the worry written on his face.
“I know, I know,” he said. “I’ve been trying to buy his debt, or…”
When he stopped his sentence cold, Audrey put a hand on his arm.
“Or what?” she asked, her heart flip-flopping in her chest.
“I came here to make our hostess an offer. Me for him, if I could work out favorable terms.”
“You were going to offer to fight in Jack’s place?” Audrey asked, feeling herself go pale. “You can’t do that!”
“I’m bigger than Jack, and I have a bit of experience in this kind of fight… If I could work it out so I only had to do a few, it might be worth it.”
“You have a professional career. You can’t just go around getting beat up and then expect to perform well on the field, Liam.”
“Neither can your brother, and of the two of us, I’m the one who can’t be fired. It’s in my contract.”
“Jack would never let you do it.”
Anger flared on Liam’s face. “Yeah, well, I don’t see him here digging himself out of this fucking mess. He’s just going to do the fights, roll the dice. He’ll get pummeled.”
Audrey took a moment, inhaling and exhaling. This wasn’t supposed to be a fight between her and Liam, after all.
“But you didn’t do it,” she said slowly.
“Nah, couldn’t,” Liam spat, seeming aggravated with himself. “One of the men in the masks is a team owner. I couldn’t discuss Jack’s business in front of him.”
Audrey’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times.
“One of the guys in line to get whipped?!” she asked, astounded.
Liam snorted. “Madame Richaud is a very discreet, very high-end sort of hooker. She’s probably got names in her black book that are a lot bigger than a partial owner of Atlanta Unified.”
“Ugh, this is… why is everyone so awful?” Audrey asked.
“Dunno. Got used to it by now, I guess,” Liam said with a shrug.
“So this… woman…” Audrey said, trying to gather her thoughts. “In exchange for us just… being here… she’s going to ease some of Jack’s debt?”
“Maybe,” Liam said, shaking his head. “It’s hard to say what she’ll really do.”
“We don’t have to like…” Audrey stopped, unsure how to even finish the sentence.
“Come here,” Liam said, snagging Audrey’s wrist and pulling her close.
She tensed, but he merely gave her a firm, reassuring hug.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you, or ask you to do anything off-color. That’s a promise.”
She let the embrace go on for a few more seconds, wishing that Liam’s soothing could take the edge off her worry for Jack. Then she sighed and moved back a step, glancing up at him.
“We just walk around and watch?” she asked.
“That’s it, I swear. Stick by my side, ignore everyone else if you want.”
“That’s the most ridiculous part. Even at a sex party, where you think most everyone would be liberated… I have to pretend to be your girlfriend, or I’m fair game to all the men here,” Audrey surmised.
“That’s about the sum of it, yeah.”
“All right,” she said at last.
“All right?”
“Yep. Let’s get it over with.” Audrey squared her shoulders and went to the door, swinging it open.
“Ladies first,” Liam said.
Audrey sucked in a deep breath and plunged into the hallway.
Liam was quick to catch her hand again. His palm was a bit rough against hers, big and warm and reassuring in a strange way.
Hell, if worse came to worst, at least Audrey had a big rugged professional athlete to protect her. As they walked along the hallway, peering into different rooms, a thought occurred to her.
Being here together tonight, Liam sharing more of Jack’s burden… It felt a little as if she and Liam had turned a corner.
As if they were definitely on the same side of the same fight now, where before they were somewhere between ally and enemy. Playing two different games, even.
“What happened to the room where they were just drinking champagne and listening to jazz?” Liam muttered beside her.
“Looks like… yep, there’s an orgy in the hookah room,” she affirmed with a quick peek inside. She glanced up at Liam. “Jesus, you would go to parties where orgies are a real thing. I never believed Jack’s stories, until this moment. Dare I ask what’s upstairs?”
“I don’t know, but it seems like a bad idea,” he said, seemingly unruffled by her comments. “If this is what’s openly allowed, what do you think is happening in secret?”
“Wait,” Audrey said, pulling him to a halt. “Look, everyone has their clothes on in here.”
“Mmmm…” Liam said, sounding unworried.
Audrey hauled him into a formal dining room. A white-gloved servant was pouring champagne and passing glasses around, and most of the guests were standing and talking amongst themselves.
“Is this the room for shy people?” Audrey wondered.
“Somehow, I doubt it.”
They accepted champagne and found a couple of chairs in the far corner. Someone put on music, a sultry electronic pulse that Audrey thought might be Massive Attack.
Just as Audrey downed her second glass of champagne and began to relax the slightest bit, someone closed the dining room door with a very final-sounding bang.
Audrey started to stand up, to protest that she and Liam wanted to leave, but Liam’s hand clamped down on her knee and kept her in place.
She glanced at him, and he gave her a silent shake of his head. In the next moment, she was glad she hadn’t drawn attention to herself.
A stunning ebony-skinned woman in a shimmering silver party dress rose, taking off her shoes and strutting over to the dining room table. She pushed a chair aside and hopped up to sit on the ledge, a smirk on her lips.
She was undoubtedly enjoying this moment. She looked around for a moment, extending her hand to point at everyone with a red-tipped fingernail.
She landed on a man near the door, then beckoned him closer. He moved to her eagerly, and she smiled and tapped a bare spot on her collarbone.
The man leaned down and pressed his lips to that spot, his hands coming up to unzip her dress. The woman’s lids grew heavy. She pointed at another man, who she called forth to kiss her neck and breasts.
She chose several more masked men, who proceeded to strip her naked and kiss her bare curves. Her head fell back as the men worshipped her with their lips and tongues.
The music grew louder, the beat more persistent. The servant brought more champagne, circling endlessly.
One of the men pushed her back on the table and parted her thighs. Another dropped to his knees and buried his mouth between her legs.
She cried out and arched her back prettily. Audrey glanced around the room and saw that some of the bystanders had broken into couples or triads, and were beginning to caress and kiss o
ne another.
It seemed as though she hadn’t escaped the orgy, after all.
She glanced at Liam, and knew a moment of petty jealousy when she saw him watching the woman on the table, who was now writhing and crying out.
He pulled his gaze away and looked at Audrey, and she could see a conflicted expression on his face.
“What?” she whispered, trying to keep her cool.
“I think I should kiss you, Audrey,” he said.
“What?” she asked, a little too loud. Several other people turned to look at her for a few seconds.
“Shhhh,” Liam warned. “I think if I’m not… otherwise engaged, that means I’m up for grabs.”
“Up for…” Audrey started, but Liam nodded at the table, where the woman was now pushing away some of her lovers and calling forth new ones. “Oh, for god’s sake.”
The woman on the table sat up, her bare breasts bouncing. She looked around, and for a heart-pounding moment Audrey saw her eyeing Liam.
“Unless maybe you want to see me fuck—” he said.
“Shit,” Audrey said, lunging forward and pulling Liam’s mouth down to hers.
He made a muffled sound as their lips crashed together. For a long beat, their embrace was stiff, cold.
One of Liam’s arms went around Audrey’s waist, pulling her closer. The fingers of his free hand tangled in her hair, cradling her head, his thumb bracketing her jaw.
When she softened a little, opened her mouth, his tongue flicked hers with a subtle, enticing touch. The strangers around them, the oddness of their surroundings, the tension between her and Liam… it all fell away in that moment.
She tasted the champagne on his lips, felt the warm brush of his tongue, her hands gripping his vest. He made another soft sound, a growl deep in his chest, and that set her off.
She suddenly felt desperate to be closer to him, to feel his body pressed against her own. Liam clearly felt the same, because he dragged her onto his lap, pushing the hem of her dress a few inches higher so that she could straddle his hips.
Their lip lock grew desperate, hungry. Through the thin fabric of her dress, Audrey could feel Liam growing hard against her belly. There was something raw about that, something animalistic that made her want him.
He was a cocky bastard, and lacking in polish, but… part of her liked that about him. Liam seemed too proud to ever let a woman leave his bed unsatisfied.
She shivered as he cupped her breast, teased her nipple. His fingers were gentle, but she remembered how rough his touch was before, and it excited her.
When their kiss broke, she nipped and sucked at his earlobe and neck. He groaned and moved his hands to her ass, grinding his erection against the damp warmth between her thighs.
Audrey gasped aloud when he brushed the right spot. Liam, ever responsive, rocked against her in a quick rhythm until her breathing grew quick.
He sucked at the sensitive spot below her neck, sending waves of hot lightning down to her breasts, down to her core. She was burning up, starving.
Liam had given her release before, but… she’d give just about anything to strip off his clothes, offer herself up, feel him filling and stretching her to the limit.
She wanted to fuck him, badly.
Liam’s movements slowed. He brushed back her hair and whispered in her ear.
“I wish we were anywhere but here, Ginger…”
Flushed and wanting, Audrey leaned back to see Liam’s remorseful expression. She heaved a sigh, then shook her head and started to crawl off Liam’s lap.
“Wait,” he said.
Audrey glanced at him, feeling awkward.
“What?” she asked.
“Just…” he said, then leaned in for one final, soft kiss. When he released her, he blew out a frustrated breath. “Usually I’d pick a better place and time for seduction.”
His words were clearly a joke, trying to ease the tension between them, but hearing them made Audrey feel like a fool.
Usually, meaning, with all his other meaningless conquests? How many times am I going to let him suck me in like this?
I am so, so dumb. Looking at Liam just turns me into some brainless, spineless moron.
She pushed off his lap, her movements stiff.
“Audrey…” Liam said.
“No,” she said, cutting him off with a shake of her head. “Don’t. I don’t know why this keeps happening, this… chemistry, this pull between us. But it has to stop.”
“You’re overreacting,” Liam said, keeping his voice low.
“No, I’m not. You and I come from two different worlds, Liam. On top of that, I’m your employee. There’s a piece of paper that we both signed saying that fraternization could get us fired.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
Say something. Anything! Put distance between you and Liam, you idiot!
“You don’t know that. Let me tell you something you do know, though. You know that if Jack finds out about us, he’s not going to react well.”
“I don’t think so,” Liam said.
“Really? Liam, he worships you. Has since the second he met you. He considers you his best friend, his famous best friend at that. It’s the one thing he boasts about, the one thing he thinks makes him special and cool.”
Liam went silent, brow creasing as he considered that.
“I didn’t know that,” he admitted.
“Well, now you do. I don’t know how he’d feel about your part in it, since he thinks you walk on fucking water, but I know that he’d think I was trying to hurt him. Trying to take you from him.”
Liam waited a beat, then dropped his gaze. “That’s fucking rubbish.”
“It is what it is and nothing more,” Audrey said.
People in the room were standing up now, beginning to leave. Going in search of more private places to finish their trysts, perhaps.
“Audrey, wait,” he said when she stood and moved toward the door.
“I have to get my coat,” she said, changing the subject. “But I think we should leave, don’t you?”
Liam hesitated for a second. “I have to see Madame Richaud again. Just for a second. Do you feel safe going to the car alone?”
“I’m fine,” Audrey said. Truthfully, a little solitude was all she wanted right now in her whole life.
Liam gave her a final glance, then handed her the car keys and turned to seek out their hostess. After grabbing her coat, Audrey strode to the car, berating herself the whole way.
She knew better than to kiss Liam. She knew better than to let herself get a crush on her employer, her brother’s best friend.
Not only that, but Liam could have anyone he wanted. If Audrey let herself get caught up in the whirlwind, she’d spend the rest of her employment sourly watching him hook up with girl after girl.
She’d be setting herself up for failure and heartbreak. No doubt about it.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Sliding into the car, she closed her eyes and tried to quell the anger roiling in her heart.
It was going to be a long ride back to the city.
9
Liam
To say Sunday morning’s match was rough would be kindness bordering on deception.
At the beginning, Liam was stunned to walk out onto the pitch and see the new stadium stands packed with curious fans. It made his blood run hot, knowing all those eyes were watching, waiting for him to do what he did so well.
He loved this feeling. Loved this bloody game. The feel of the fresh turf under his feet, the smell of the grass, the sound of the fans cheering — so loud, sometimes, that he could feel the vibration of it sinking into his very bones.
“I didn’t expect so many Americans to turn out,” Liam’s teammate Alejandro said as they trotted out to their positions at the center of the field.
Liam shook his head. “Here’s the proof. They love it almost as much as the Scots, eh? The whole bloody place is packed,” he said, pointing to the sta
nds.
A little cheer went up when he pointed, and he made sure to wave and grin as he moved. Atlanta Unified was selling him hard as an essential feature of the team, and he wanted to give the crowd their money’s worth.
Okay, maybe I like the blind adoration too, he admitted to himself. And getting to run circles around my opponents, that bit’s not bad either.
Today they were playing against Los Angeles Galaxy, the top-ranked US team. It wasn’t the easiest way to start their season, but that was fine with Liam.
Easy wasn’t really his thing, on or off the field. He might be a hot shot in England, but here he still had a lot to prove. A lot of hype that needed living up to.
A grin spread across his face as he took his place, ready to show America exactly what he was made of.
The beginning of the game was quick and intense. A lot of quick passing, with the ball going out of bounds quite a bit. The teams were testing each other, watching to gauge the strength of the other’s offense and defense.
Who was fast, who was cutthroat, who was weak. The first minutes established that both teams had fairly strong defense coupled with quick, focused offensive players.
As center forward, Liam’s job was simple. At the beginning of each play, the black and white ball was set precisely in the middle of the field. At the starting whistle, Liam was to surge forward and gain control of the ball, passing it to a midfielder.
Then he was supposed to sprint toward the other team’s goal, receive a pass from a teammate, and slam the ball into the goal by absolutely any means possible.
It was a process he loved, more than anything in the world. In the beginning seconds of a game, his excitement was so strong that he often got half a hard-on, just thinking about how amazing the coming ninety minutes would be.
Today was no different, though he could use a little more audience support. It was the first game, though. They weren’t quite the slavering madmen Liam was used to in the UK.
Not yet, at any rate. If Liam did his job well, they’d soon be converted to screaming, belligerent football fanatics.
Twenty minutes in, the tone of the game shifted. The fans grew more vocal, chanting songs, making their opinions known. Loudly, at that. It was a welcome feeling, the instantaneous feedback of the crowd’s raucous roars.
