by Stella Rhys
“I’m fine.” I winced as I sat up. My head spun a little, and I couldn’t decide if I was more exhausted or pissed, or just in plain disbelief. “My dress is on the floor, Tuck. You’re stepping on it,” I said blankly, the energy sucked out of my voice. Tuck cursed and jumped off my dress like it was on fire. He picked it up and cursed again.
“Fuck. My footprints are all over it.”
“It’s fine, I’ll wear it,” I said, deciding I was in fact more tired than anything. All I wanted was to go home as soon as possible, and I didn’t care if that meant pulling on a vodka-stained sweater dress that had just been trampled by wet shoes in a public bathroom.
“No… Sasha, you can’t wear this,” Tuck muttered, flustered. He thrust his hand in his hair and turned to me, but with a flinch, he looked away again. “Shit. Sorry. I forgot I can’t look.”
“It’s fine, Tuck. Just give me the dress.”
“No.”
I lifted my brows as he started unbuttoning his shirt. “Tuck, you don’t have to…”
“I want to.”
“I don’t want you to.”
This time, when he looked at me, he didn’t avert his eyes. “Why? You’re afraid Liam’s going to get pissed if you’re wearing my shirt? It’s okay. I’d rather he fuck me up than see you walk out of here looking like you got dragged through the trash.” When he caught the frozen look on my face, he gave something of a bitter laugh. “No need to deny whatever’s going on. It’s obvious – obvious enough that my sister’s literally pushing me on you to up her chances with him.”
I stared into the air. “God. I knew it,” I exhaled as I sat back against the wall. I was so tired and defeated I hardly wanted to move.
“Just take my shirt, Sasha,” Tuck insisted. “It’s long enough to cover you. Your dress has holes and stains at this point, just give it up.”
“Alright.” With dull eyes, I watched Tuck take off his shirt. His broad shoulders were tense as he undid each button, and I was thankful that he at least had a white tank underneath. “Thank you,” I muttered as I took the crisp button-down. I knew Tuck’s eyes were on me as I pulled it on. His stare was unblinking as the room filled with silence, but then he blurted out.
“Sasha, you’re amazing, and you deserve better.”
I cut my eyes to him. “Excuse me?” I stopped buttoning, quickly wanting nothing to do with his clothes.
“You know what I’m talking about,” Tuck said firmly. “I don’t know you well, but I’ve known you for awhile. I see you every year, and you get more beautiful every time I see you, but you never look any less broken. Or stressed. You never look as happy as I feel you deserve to.”
I tried to control my anger. “Maybe it just so happens that you see me at the end of the year, when everyone’s got a lot of shit going on.”
“Maybe that’s it. Or maybe you keep choosing guys who are wrong for you.”
I felt the fire in my eyes as I glared at Tuck. Right away, I started unbuttoning. “Forget it, I don’t want this. Give me my dress.”
He held it away. “For God’s sake, just wear my shirt so you can walk out of here decent. I’m not the bad guy here, I just want you to be okay.”
“Do you?” I challenged. “If that’s the case, stop prying into my personal life because you hope it’ll benefit you, and stop implying that you know how I should be living.” My hands shaking, I gave up on taking the shirt off. “I need to go now,” I decided, officially at my wits end. I thanked God that Tuck didn’t block the door as I rushed out, but I cursed the fact that he followed me down the hall.”
“Are you even happy like this?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what I’m even asking?”
I didn’t look back as I answered. “You’re asking me if I’m happy in my relationship with Liam, and my answer to you is yes.”
“So you’re just going to keep your romantic life a secret forever, and let him boil in silence every time a man flirts with you – as if he’s supposed to assume that you’re taken by your stepbrother? Sasha, come on. Keep in mind it’s going to go both ways. You’re going to have to watch him get hit on, and something tells me his self-control isn’t quite on par with yours.”
I stopped in the middle of the hall. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“No?”
“No.”
Tuck gave a dubious look. “I’ve spent the past four or five winter holidays watching Liam fuck girls in bathrooms just like the one we were just in – after four, maybe five minutes of conversation,” he said. “I’m not saying he’ll cheat on you for sure, I’m just saying that if he’s got free reign to act single ‘cause you guys are a secret, the lines are gonna blur fast. Even I’ll admit it – he’s not the kind of guy who walks into a bar and goes unnoticed by girls, so really, Sasha, how long do you think he’s going to stay loyal for?”
“You know what, I haven’t thought about it, and neither should you,” I bit back.
“All I’m saying is you have more to worry about than he does, and it’s going to be a long fucking life if you spend every day lying about what you’re doing.”
“Lucky for you, it’s my life and not yours,” I said, turning to go back downstairs. My boots clacked furiously down the hall as I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. I was so weighed down by every damned emotion pounding my brain that I wished I could just collapse to the floor and have Liam carry me home, but I knew it wouldn’t be so easy. I knew the second he saw me in this shirt, I’d have explaining to do. “Shit,” I hissed, looking down at Tuck’s half-unbuttoned shirt on my body. My trembling fingers tried to redo them as I went down the stairs.
But I got only two steps down before I saw Liam coming up.
“Sash?” He stared at me, processing first the sight of my tears and then Tuck’s plaid shirt falling off my body. I froze. My heart dropped when I saw the green of Liam’s eyes go from concerned to just blank. Dark and empty. Fuck. My legs shook but I tried to block his path because I’d heard so many times from Max about this look – the dark expression that cast over Liam’s face before he wreaked havoc. According to his words, it was a complete emotional shutdown because in seconds, it was about to get brutally physical.
“Liam, please – ”
I tried in vain to keep stop him, but he flew past me in a blur up the stairs, and before I knew it, he was face to face with Tuck, both of them muttering barely an inch from each other. Despite Tuck’s elbow in his chest, Liam powered into him.
“Tuck!” I screamed because he took the first punch and while it landed hard against Liam’s temple, I knew he was seconds from much worse. Everything was a blur as I ran to jump on Liam. I heard a grunt and a thud as I clung to his shirt and pulled him back. The words screaming from my lips were unintelligible. I couldn’t tell what was even happening. All I knew was that my feet were off the ground and suddenly, Aria’s voice was in my ear.
“Stay here. Stay here.”
I blinked to find myself pressed against the wall, Aria in front of me, Max and A.J ten yards down with Liam and the heap on the floor that was Tuck. My eyes and mouth wide open, I stared, trying to push forward and see what the hell even happened, but Aria stopped me. I caught my breath, wading through my memories of the last ten seconds. I recalled that Max had pulled me off Liam before I could stop him from hurting Tuck.
“Oh God,” I breathed when I saw blood on the ground.
“It’s okay,” Aria whispered as A.J came over to us. “Just breathe, Sasha. Max stopped him before he could do much damage.”
I stared down the hall. “That’s not damage?”
A.J looked annoyed. “Not for his standards. He did worse to the guy at your bar,” he said, referring to the night the cops came. “You girls get a cab and go home. We’ll take care of this. I’ll make sure the asshole’s alright.”
“Tuck?” I asked.
“Liam, but we’ll make sure the other guy’s fine too,” A.J muttered, b
arely looking at me. My heart dropped as I felt the shame and fault of the whole mess that just happened. I tried again to make my way to Liam, but my body was shot, and Aria easily contained me, bringing me downstairs. She walked me out of sight from our table of friends and muttered under her breath about Natalie as we made our way outside. But when she tried to hail us a cab, I resisted.
“I can’t leave here without Liam,” I said. “I really can’t.”
I didn’t have to say much more for Aria to understand, so instead of going home, she wrapped her scarf around me and sat me on a bench a couple doors down, both of us waiting for the boys to emerge from the lounge. I waited eagerly at first, every word I knew I needed to say at the tip of my tongue. But a full hour passed before Liam finally came out, and by then, I’d lost my speech to the jumbled mess of thoughts in my head. I sat up, blinking myself out of my haze as Aria read A.J’s text aloud to me.
“He says, ‘Tuck guy will be fine, won’t need hospital. Max is cleaning it up. If S wants to go home, Liam’s about to head back now. Look for the black Yukon outside.’”
I stood up and on the corner of the block, quickly spotted the car Liam called when he needed more privacy than he’d get in an Uber. A knot formed in my throat as I wondered if he anticipated getting into an argument with me – if he needed a wall separating us because he wanted to spare the driver from the crying mess I’d be when he told me he couldn’t do this anymore. Maybe I was losing it but I could’ve sworn I felt a difference in us. Already. I could feel a tension, an emotional wall that hadn’t been there just an hour before, when we were at the Rutkowski’s diner.
I couldn’t feel or sense Liam the way I swore I usually could.
As Aria walked me to the car, I realized I barely wanted to get in. A part of me wondered if I should just run and hide till I figured out a plan for us – a way in which we could live freely. We could move to California. You could open up the West Coast Cage Kings. Max would go with you. A.J wouldn’t. I’d lose Aria. But we could be together without worry. We could just be in love.
But then Aria opened the door.
Behind it, I found Liam sitting on the other side, elbow propped on the window, eyes staring ahead. The moonlight gleamed onto his long, straight nose, his perfectly carved lips. Guilt weighed on me as I noticed the cut near his eye. It was dark, but I could still see that it was bad, and that the bruising would be worse by tomorrow. I kept it together as Aria kissed me goodbye, but inside, I was falling apart because Liam looked beautiful and intimidating and every second he refused to look at me, I felt my heart weaken. I stood there for a moment, waiting for him to change his mind and tell me to find my own ride. To tell Aria I’d be moving in with her. But he didn’t. He didn’t look at me, but he didn’t tell me to leave.
So without a word, I climbed in.
The second the door shut behind me – the second we were alone again – I felt that basic need rush back. I needed to touch Liam, to just feel myself in his arms. I had ten years of regret throttling my brain and I just needed him to console me, to tell me that he was here and everything was going to be okay. It was angst and relief and heartache all at once, and it only heightened as he continued to ignore me.
“Liam, please,” I pled uselessly, grasping handfuls his shirt. I didn’t know where I was going with this. While the car pulled out of its spot and glided toward Houston, I knelt beside him, directionless, painfully blank and unsure of what to say. “I’m sorry,” I breathed, tears streaming down my cheeks. “Please let me explain what happened, ‘cause I can’t handle you ignoring me right now, I just – ” I drew in a sharp breath when he turned to me, still unreadable. With his stare on mine, the tears sprung from my eyes. Shame washed over me as I let myself break down and cry. I hated sounding weak, so desperate, but Liam was the one person on Earth I’d allow to see this side. So I let it all out. “Liam, I would give anything to turn back the clock on my life and do things over so I was never your burden, but I can’t, and I can’t handle you hating me right now when I just need you to hold me, Liam, please. I can’t. I can’t – ”
Without a word, he grabbed me. Yanking me onto his lap, he gripped me with anger. Urgency. One hand under my jaw, the other squeezed my dress, stretching it tight over my breasts as his lips crashed over mine. He pried them open to let himself in, his tongue rough, hot as he kissed me with a fury that left me so breathless it hurt my chest. But I didn’t stop him. Tears still streamed down my cheeks, and I wanted to be dominated so fiercely my mind went numb. I wanted to think about nothing else in the world but the sensation of being with the man I loved.
As he ripped open his shirt, I stripped off mine, down to boots and panties that he grabbed and twisted, tormenting me with the pleasure of lace stretching against my clit. I throbbed as I heard the threads straining against me, ripping extra slowly then tearing all at once. I gasped when immediately Liam thrust two fingers inside me, pumping hard and rumbling at the sound of my wetness. Bouncing lightly on him, I undid the top of his jeans, exhaling when I wrapped my fingers around his cock. The inside of the car was scorching hot as we went on, silent, panting, our breaths replacing the millions of things that needed to be said. I wanted to clear it all up – I was desperate to. But more than that, I was desperate to just drown in Liam’s touch.
He cursed when I sank down onto him, his hands squeezing my ass and my breasts bouncing in front of his mouth. He licked up their heavy swells before catching my nipples between his lips roughly, kissing them angrily, swirling his tongue around and groaning deep with more than just pleasure. I could hear every emotion in Liam’s voice. The ecstasy, the pain, the desire and regret. It made me dig my fingers into his muscled shoulders and ride him harder, filled to the point of pain as I grinded against him. I wanted to make him feel so good he’d forget everything. He’d done the same for me too many times to count, and I ached to just return the favor.
Because while our bodies were joined, lost in the same fiery need, I was still scared for us. I felt no more secure than I did waiting on that bench with Aria. I still felt the wall and the doubt I had before I climbed into the car. Liam loved me and he would never stop but that didn’t mean he’d never hurt because of me. And right now, he was still hurting over everything I’d done, and everything I refused to do. He hated living in secret, and being forced to watch another man touch my body. I knew he hated when he couldn’t be the one to protect me. He hated so much about our relationship.
He did love me, but I wasn’t sure if that was enough.
So I tried to live in the moment.
The air was humid now, filled with the sound and the scent of our sex. Fisting my hips, Liam jerked me forward, catching my mouth with his, kissing me angrily and then tearing away to watch me ride. He did it several times till I was dizzy, so hot and aroused I wanted to scream. Instead I moaned out when he caught my breast with his hand, squeezing hard, dragging the flat of his tongue over my nipple. The sensation lit a spark in my core that rippled hot to the rest of my body.
I pitched forward when I came, crying out as Liam caught the nape of my neck and held me cruelly down at the base of his shaft. His stare dug into my weak gaze, his eyes piercing through me as I shook on him, my cheeks still wet in tears he didn’t wipe away. He let me breathe for a minute, still staring at me, holding a handful of my hair now and making a fist around it. Then with a guttural sound, he came inside me, his teeth gnashed, his groan tortured. I gasped for breath as he pulled me close, pressing my naked chest to his and panting hard against my collarbone. But within a few breaths, he lifted me off his body. Hurt prickled my skin as I sat away from him again, hugging my arms around my body.
This wasn’t what I was used to after we were finished. I was used to feeling him close – feeling happy and content. Not unsure and ashamed.
I looked out the window. We sat in traffic, ten minutes from home. Fully sober in every way, I turned back to Liam. His hair was damp and matted to his forehead, his Adam’s
apple bobbing as he caught his breath. I waited for him to look at me and when he did, his eyes were harsh, and his voice was gravel.
“You put me through every kind of hell tonight, Sash.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“It didn’t have to happen. None of this tonight had to happen.”
Fresh tears burned my eyes. “I know, Liam, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I do to you. You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve the way I deal with problems, or all the anxiety I have. You don’t deserve the burden I’ve put on you every day since you met me.”
His fury was instant. “Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t use that word with me.”
My breath caught in my throat, I realized what he was referring to. Burden. He hated that word, but I couldn’t think of a better one to describe myself with – especially not tonight.
“Look, Sasha. The reality is that we could easily end the bullshit,” Liam muttered, fastening the buttons of his shirt over his chest. “We could’ve gone to dinner tonight together. As a couple. I don’t know what makes you think it’ll be any easier to tell Riley the truth in a year or two. It’ll only be harder, so just do it now. There’s no sense in prolonging the inevitable.”
My jaw tightened. I hated hearing his words because they were true. It was easy to make excuses, especially with Aria’s hopeful encouragement, but the reality was that the truth would hurt no matter when I revealed it. “What about you? There’s no one in your life who you wouldn’t want to know about us? Your dad? All the girls who are in love with you?”
“If you think I have the slightest shit to give about strangers, you don’t know me as well as I thought you did.”
