Atonement (The Atonement Duet Book 1)

by Selene Chardou

  “You want this?” he asked. “Tell me you want this.”

  “I want this,” I repeated.

  “You want what? I want to hear you say it. I want that beautiful mouth to exclaim she wants my cock.”

  My eyes never left his as I whispered, “I want your cock.”

  Liam pushed me further up on the bed and knelt down in front of my spread legs. “All in due time but first, I have been dying to taste that sweet cunt of yours.”

  Ugh, I hated that word, but I tried not to let it kill the moment.

  He spread me wide open with his fingers and traced my swollen clit with his tongue. I gasped as his warm mouth surrounded my swollen bud while his tongue flicked over the center with measured, teasing strokes, which drove me nearly to the brink.

  Liam slipped two fingers inside my soaking sex and began to slowly pleasure me from the inside out as he licked my clit. I thought I would lose it, but once I began to see stars and a powerful orgasm flowed over me, I knew I would be okay, physically at least.

  He crawled up my body and began to kiss me passionately. For one lost moment, I forgot about precaution because before I knew it, he’d entered me, his thrust hard and rough against my body. I placed firm hands on his shoulders and ended our kiss.

  “I’m not on birth control. We can’t bareback,” I lied smoothly.

  “Oh, okay.” He immediately withdrew and reached over to his bureau, where he grabbed a condom wrapper and sheathed his cock. He spread my legs and thrust inside me again.

  As he kissed me, I felt the difference, but whatever he had sheathed himself with wasn’t a latex condom. I could still feel the warmth of his hardness buried inside of me and every time he thrust into me, it felt as if we were still bare-backing yet we weren’t. I tried to lose myself in the moment, knowing he wouldn’t have put himself or me in any danger. Sex was great, but I had a strong feeling he didn’t see children in his near future and neither did I.

  His lips trailed my neck before he stopped and stared into my eyes. “Where are you? Because you’re not here, and you certainly aren’t in the moment.”

  “Yeah, I know, I’m sorry. What kind of condom are we using?”

  “Lambskin. I’m allergic to latex, and I get monthly HIV and STD tests. Should I be worried about you? To be honest, you don’t seem like the promiscuous type. How many sex partners have you had? One, maybe two?”

  His flippant description of my sexual history was a bit humiliating. “You’re the second,” I whispered as I felt my face heat up.

  “Listen, I wouldn’t be fucking you right now if I didn’t know we weren’t both safe. You said you weren’t on anything, and this condom will protect against pregnancy. As far as I am concerned, that is my only worry. I don’t make it a habit to bone my employees or random women, and I trust you. Do you trust me?”

  His sky blue eyes were so bright with lust and truth, I nodded before I could stop myself.

  Liam nodded and flipped me over onto my stomach. “Do you like it rough? Is that what will make you pay attention to the here and now?”

  I gasped before I whispered, “Yes, I like it rough.”

  He grabbed my hair as he entered me roughly from behind and fucked me hard. I lost myself in the moment, and it was exhilarating. Nothing existed outside of his hard thrusts and the way his cock felt inside me, opening me, commanding me to obey his every thrust and his need to get off.

  When one of his hands snaked between my legs and began to caress my clit, I lost all sense of time and place. His breath, hot and heavy against my neck, drove me over the edge as he caressed my body in the way an expert would tease the strings of a violin. He wasn’t trying to help me come at all but prolonging my orgasm as long as possible. The more time he had to enjoy me, the more I would want him, and that was the point.

  Liam might be a master manipulator, but I was on to every trick in his book of sexual play when it came to a woman he truly wanted to be with and enjoyed fucking.

  I lost count of how many times he made me come that night or how many condoms we went through, but it was more than three. As soon as I thought he was sated, he would be ready to go another round and as much as it embarrassed me to admit it, I felt the same way. I wasn’t ready for the night to end, not yet.

  Around four in the morning, we were finally finished, physically and mentally exhausted. Liam liked to cuddle, and he held me close in his arms as he kissed my neck and breathed my scent.

  “No one can know this happened between us,” I finally said after a very long silence. “They will think you gave me the job because you were attracted to me and not because of my skills. Plus, the last thing I need is workplace gossip. It is going to be tough enough to be the new girl. I don’t need talk about me being the boss’s whore to surface and ruin any shred of credibility I would have.”

  Liam turned me toward him and kissed my nose. “It won’t get out because I am worried about employee gossip too. Plus, it would destroy Colin. He’s my brother, and I know how he is. He likes you a lot, and I couldn’t do that to him. I’ve done a lot of shit to him over the years but hurting him like that would never be something I could ever do, Deirdre.”

  He sighed, his warm breath close to my ear. “If I didn’t think he cared about you so much, I’d let him know what happened and tell him that you would be better off with me rather than him. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. You deserve to have a man that can go toe-to-toe with you. Colin isn’t that kind of person. He’s got his strengths but in many ways, he’s weak. To be honest, if I didn’t love him so much, I would tell him straight up he doesn’t deserve a woman like you, and you’d be better off with someone like me.”

  I reached for his face and caressed the sides, which were rough with new growth, though I could barely tell due to his fair hair. “So, protecting Colin is your highest priority? That makes me feel really good because I like him too, but I couldn’t have done this with him so soon and not felt like a whore. I know it doesn’t matter. I don’t have a lot of sexual partners, but…I want him to take me seriously, and if something happens between Colin and I, I want it to be special.”

  “You mean not like this?” He laughed. “This was special, sweetie. I am very picky with who I allow in my bed and even more discerning on who I decide deserves my expert prowess when it comes to oral sex. Doesn’t matter that I’ve had you many, many times tonight. I want you again. In my bed. Tomorrow night and the night after and the night after. I could never get tired of your body and the way we just fit together. It was meant to be, but perhaps in another lifetime?”

  Liam wrapped his arms around me and held me close. “I’m an incorrigible bastard, Deirdre but…I can’t do that to him. Colin’s suffered because of my selfish desires before, and I won’t ever allow it to happen again. He’s been through so much, and all because of what I’ve done. I’m not gonna lie—I want his girl. I want you but this time around, I have to make sure his happiness comes before mine. It’s only fair.”

  “And what about you? Don’t you deserve to be happy?”

  Liam laid on his stomach and stared at an atrocious Picasso painting he had hanging on his wall above his bed. “No, not really. I have always taken what I wanted whether it hurt someone or not. I have done any and everything I’ve desired, and there are way too many hurt girlfriends I have left in my wake. I convince them they’re the one and they start having visions of us building a life together. Marriage, children, family time—until you, I have never met another woman I wanted to marry. Now that I know you’re not available, I will have to find someone else to feel this deeply for. However, I am betting it won’t happen. I’ll settle because it’s what I am good at doing. That’s not to say I won’t love her, but I won’t be in love with her. Perhaps in the end, that is best. Being in love with someone is very dangerous and can cause all kinds of trouble. Besides, we all have sins we have to atone for, and not getting the woman I really want is my cross to bear. You can’t live the kind o
f life I’ve had and expect a happy ending. It doesn’t work that way.”

  I lay next to him on my back. Our arms brushed lightly, and I could already feel the need inside me rising like an oncoming tide. “Perhaps you’re right. I have never been in love either, although I can honestly say Drew is the closest I have ever come to loving anyone. He is a great guy and he’s going to make some woman very happy, but it won’t be me.”

  “Didn’t he move out here for you?”

  “Yeah, he did. Right after the accident with my father. He abandoned his PhD and started working at the coffee shop and bar, just like Colin. The guy is incredibly intelligent and really good with computers, but he’d rather waste his life on the sheer chance we might get back together. I feel horrible because I don’t want to mislead him. He’s my best friend, and that is the way we should stay. We weren’t meant to be in a romantic relationship together,” I explained softly.

  Liam threw his arm across my waist. “Why? He seems like a decent guy. Is it the whole bisexual thing?”

  “No, not at all.” I looked his way and smiled. “Actually, I never had a problem with it because he never disrespected me or lied to me, although he’s an outrageous flirt with a lust for life. He can see himself happy with anyone, regardless of their gender, and I admire that about him. We were a great couple. It just so happens he was my first love and as ridiculous as it sounds, I knew there was more out there in life I needed to discover. I could live a very happy life with Drew, but then I would always wonder what I missed out on and why I was so afraid of living life. I didn’t ever want to have those feelings for him. I didn’t want to honestly think he’d kept me from living a very different life than the one we ended up with together. We needed to experience other people and see the world. It just wasn’t meant to be. At least not now, not at this time in our life.”

  He curled underneath me. “Stay here, at least until the morning. You could shower and change back into your dress. I’ll take you back to Colin’s then.”

  “And how do we convince your brother nothing happened between us if I do that?”

  Liam smiled devilishly. “Leave that to me.”

  I couldn’t resist his charm and I turned on to my side, away from him. He spooned me, and somehow it felt okay and all right. I had to keep trying to convince myself we’d done nothing wrong. Neither of us were in a relationship at the moment, so I hadn’t cheated and he hadn’t either. We were two adults of reasonable age who felt like having sex and were attracted to one another, so we did.

  Other than I cared for his brother way too much, what could possibly be wrong with the situation? What if Colin and I did become involved? Would I have to tell Colin what had happened between Liam and I? Would he want to know his brother knew every inch of my body intimately? Should I have to disclose anything at all? If the situation were reversed and Colin had slept with Caitlyn before we decided to involve ourselves in a relationship, would I expect him to tell me about it? Furthermore, would I really want to know?

  The answers to these questions came quite easily, as the answer was definitely no. I didn’t want to know about any other women he’d been with, although I knew he had a history. No one made it to their late twenties and early thirties without developing a history of heartache, love and loss, and pain and rejection. Finding an inner peace, whether it be through someone to love or spiritual means, was as certainly a part of life as was death, and if one wanted to play naïve, that was fine but I liked to walk through life with my eyes wide open.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep myself from settling within Liam’s warm embrace. It was so easy to let myself go and fall asleep in his arms. His body was complete and utter magic. His skin felt warm and satisfying against my own, and I loved being there next to him. More than anything, I felt safe, even though I knew he wasn’t the man for me.

  Part Two

  The World Is Not Enough

  Chapter Nine

  The next two days flew by, and before I could really process the time, Colin and I were waiting at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for our flight via Air France. It was nonstop, from Seattle to Charles De Gaulle, and I was extremely excited to finally start our trip and get it under way.

  Liam had been right, of course. He dropped me off that following morning after our tryst and during small talk with Colin, made up a story about the mojitos making me violently ill. According to him, I’d spent the evening glued to a toilet bowl while he held my hair and nursed me through one of the worst episodes he’d ever seen.

  “There must have been something in the drink I was allergic to and by all means, keep me away from mojitos when we arrive in Europe,” I said in an extravagant manner to throw Colin off the obvious scent of sexual chemistry that existed between Liam and me.

  I had to hand it to him. The story was brilliant, and his expert ability at lying to others was frighteningly good. However, I really liked mojitos and now I couldn’t drink them, so his choice of cover up kind of pissed me off.

  We sat side-by-side at the bar and enjoyed pints of Guinness. Our flight wouldn’t be leaving for another two hours, so we had decided the best place to chill would be a nice, quiet restaurant where we could drink and talk.

  Colin brought our second pints of Guinness, and I stared at him and smiled. “I’m cutting you off, mister. There is nothing worse than flying while you are drunk!”

  We both laughed. “When’s the last time you’ve been across the pond? To be honest, I wouldn’t prefer it any other way. I absolutely love getting smashed before I board a flight. I don’t make it that obvious, of course, but the point is, I sleep most of the way and that, my dear, is a joy.”

  “Do you honestly want to sleep the whole time we are in first class? I thought it was supposed to be absolute luxury,” I replied excitedly.

  I couldn’t hide the fact I was a bit tipsy. Guinness was quite strong, and I hadn’t eaten much throughout the day. I still felt guilty about my tryst with Liam and although I was having so much fun with Colin, part of me felt like a skank. How could I have slept with his brother so casually yet look at Colin as a potential mate? Something was definitely unhinged in my brain.

  “What’s the matter? Usually you’re so playful, but you seem to be a bit down. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  There was my chance. I could confess, and perhaps he would spend half the trip mad at me, but at least it would be out in the open. However, no matter how much I wanted to make my lips move to speak, they wouldn’t budge.

  I took the coward’s way out and shook my head. “I’m fine, seriously.” I clapped my hands together in girlish glee. “How long do we have in Paris before we leave for Nice?”

  “Two days, not including the day we arrive. I figured you would want to explore some sights, perhaps shop a bit and of course, see the Eiffel Tower or Montmartre…anywhere tacky and touristy. Then, we board a train on the fourth day first thing in the morning for Nice. I thought it would be cool to take the train down. Great scenery, and it’s just a beautiful way to travel Europe,” he explained passionately.

  I stared at him and tried to give him my best serious look. “How many trips have you made to Europe?”

  “Too many, to be honest, but I never get tired of seeing the old continent. My grandparents moved from the Netherlands to Norway, so I try to see them once every couple of years. They are getting up in age, and I like to visit them.”

  I swigged my Guinness. “Norway? Why there?”

  “The immigrant problem in the Netherlands mostly,” he responded flippantly before his crystal blue eyes met mine again. “My grandparents aren’t racist or anything. They are actually sweet people who were both adolescents during World War II. They saw what happened to their Jewish neighbors, and they watched people disappear and most of them never came back. The Netherlands has a rather large Muslim population for such a small country. Most of the immigrants are Moroccans, Algerians, Somalis, and Turks. They also have a sizeable minority of other
immigrants too, but it was the Muslim reaction to 9/11 which made up their minds. They also watched their whole small town change. They lived in Ede, a small town called Lunteren. They were happy there, but they decided they wanted to spend their golden years somewhere peaceful and quiet. They live in the small town of Oppegård, which is just right outside of Oslo.”

  I suddenly felt like the crappiest person on earth for making him explain to me why his grandparents had moved when it was within their right to do so.

  “Listen, I’m sorry. That was completely and unequivocally out of line. I would love to meet them some day. I know we weren’t planning to go that far out, but maybe next time?”

  Colin raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Who said anything about a next time? We haven’t left yet, and you might hate me as a traveling companion.”

  We both laughed again, and that is what I found so absolutely special about him. His brother made me feel sexy and like a dog in heat, but Colin relaxed me. I felt like myself when I was with him, and I loved that he always knew how to make me laugh. He was self-deprecating, he didn’t take life too seriously, and somehow I just felt like he got me.

  It was true: he wasn’t an alpha male at all, but when I really sat down and thought about it, I didn’t want one. Liam had been right. I was stronger than I thought I was, and perhaps I needed a man who would complement my strength as opposed to challenging it. Men like that made for delicious fantasies, but I’ve never wanted to share a life with that kind of man, and that was the honest-to-god truth.

  Colin was just normal. He was good looking, sexy, smart, and he had so much potential. I just wanted him to actually do something with his life so that when we did sit down and carve out a plan, we would know what to expect. I could see him as my husband, the father of my children. He was a good-natured soul with a kind heart. Although he was not weak by any stretch of the imagination, he was human and that vulnerable part of him spoke to me like no other man in the world.