1
Samantha
The search of the hotel suite takes fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes of standing by the door clutching my violin with an armed guard while Liam and another man search every door and window and cabinet with guns drawn.
“Clear,” comes the voice from the balcony.
“Clear,” comes a tinny voice through Elijah’s headset.
Only then does Liam return from the bedroom. “All clear.”
I wade through the plush carpet and fall on the leather sofa with a sigh. Thirty-six hours on a plane has made every joint in my body stiff, especially the ones in my lower back. Some women become radiant when they carry a child. I’m the opposite of radiant. A black hole.
Masculine murmurs track the progress of settling in an entourage and security team to the five-star hotel. I wish the precautions weren’t necessary, but I can’t argue with them. Not after the man I love was shot protecting me. Threats come from my past. They come from being in the spotlight. They even come from natural disasters, like the one we’re here to fight.
I gave my last performance a month ago.
As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I stopped booking concerts. The bushfires in Australia brought me back into the spotlight one more time. It shouldn’t feel so final. Motherhood doesn’t have to end a career, but I have this secret fear that it will.
Liam unmolds me from the sofa, tearing the violin case from my arms.
Orange light presses against the windows. I’m not sure whether it’s dawn or dusk. I’m guided into the bathroom, which features an oversize Jacuzzi tub. Liam goes instead to the walk-in shower with dark slate tiles. He tests the water with his hand until it’s right.
Then he reaches for my slouchy sweater. “I’m not in the mood,” I mumble as he takes it off. I’m unresisting as he gently pulls the tank top over my head. My nipples peak in the steamy air.
“I know,” he says, his voice grave, his expression solemn.
That’s the thing about Liam. He does know. I could refuse him every day throughout eternity, and he’d still be here, undressing me, bathing me, taking care of me with his every breath. There’s something not-right about this level of devotion, something I would never give up.
“I didn’t mean it,” I say, a tear slipping down my cheek. Not sadness, that tear. Exhaustion, maybe. And pregnancy hormones. I’ve been a mess for months now. My jeans slide down my legs, and I step out of them, pliant and almost numb. “I do want you. I’m just grumpy and jet-lagged.”
My panties come off last. Liam tugs them down with a brisk, businesslike movement. I could almost believe he’s unaffected except for the very large bulge in his black tactical pants.
I’m standing in front of him. Naked.
That would have been enough to make him hard, naturally. It’s different now that I’m pregnant. Even breathing is enough to make him hard. It’s like I’m exuding some kind of sex-drive chemical. What do I know about reproductive science? Maybe I am. It makes him want me nonstop, until I’m chafed between my legs, tender in the most secret places, until I wince when he pushes inside.
He isn’t pushing inside now. No, he’s got himself wrapped up tight. Like a punishment. I let him move me under the hot spray, but I don’t let go of his hand. Two hundred and twenty pounds of pure muscle. I couldn’t move him if he didn’t want to be moved. He lets me pull, pull, pull him under the water until he’s half-drenched and fully dressed.
His brow lifts, sardonic. “Do you want me to shower, too?”
Hot water plasters the black fabric of his T-shirt to hard muscle. That’s another thing that changed since I got pregnant. Five a.m. runs and three-hour workouts. Those are typical things for Liam North, ex-military, CEO of North Security. Now he’s training even harder, even longer. As if maybe this baby will be a hundred fifty pounds and need to be bench-pressed.
I reach up to place to a kiss on his bristly jaw. “Join me, Liam. Please.”
He’s stripping off his soaked T-shirt before I can finish begging. He’s hard edges and deep shadows. There’s no other word for it. He’s ripped. Droplets cling to the coarse hair across his chest. His cock rises in the spray, ruddy and rude. It should be awkward, his cock and my belly, these pieces where we don’t fit together. That’s how it feels a foot away. Then he closes the distance. Skin to skin, we fit together perfectly. No space between us. Only heat and sensation and that special familiar electricity.
“I’m sorry,” I say, breathless, though I don’t know why I’m sorry.
It seems like the right thing to say, because he laughs. A break in the clouds, that laugh. A brief reprieve of the severity with which he protects us both. “You are perfect and sweet. And most of all you’re tired. I’m supposed to be washing your hair.”
A drop of water falls from his eyelash, and I’m helpless. This strong man uses every ounce of muscle to protect me. He’s like the water wrapping around the earth. I want to soak him into my skin. “Wash my hair,” I say. “Later. I want you now. Liam, I want you.”
Those green eyes darken. “You should rest. And I should—”
“Do a perimeter check?” It’s not fair to tease him about this, but he needs the teasing. He needs something light and playful in his life. “I need my perimeter checked.”
Emerald glints down at me. “East? West? North?”
I take his hand and drag it lower. He’s my very own Atlas, holding up the weight of the world. It’s my job to make that load a little lighter. He lets me pull his hand between my legs. A light, watery touch makes me gasp. “South.”
He rubs my intimate places with blunt, casual strokes. “There does seem to be some weakness in your defenses.” Two fingers invade me, sandpaper on velvet. “Here.”
I’m gratified by the roughness of his voice, by the dark look in his green eyes. I’m spread open to him, vulnerable and wet, impaled on his fingers, but he’s affected, too. Hurting with it. His cock presses against my hip, heavy, insistent—hotter than the water that streams over my skin.
He moves his wrist. I feel the subtle shift in muscle and tendon against my skin. One second later, his finger brushes over a sensitive place. Darkness clouds my vision, pinpricked with light. The careful lover evaporates in an instant. Liam becomes merciless, driving me toward climax with knowledgeable caresses, fighting my body for a fast climb. I clasp his wrist as if to stop him, to tell him it’s too much, too hard, but I don’t have the strength to make him stop. It feels too good.
The orgasm rips through me like a tornado through a town, tight spirals of pleasure that feel almost like pain, leaving devastation in its path—trees torn out of the ground and buildings split in half. That’s how my body feels once it’s over. Every muscle seizes and goes limp. I would sink to the warm tile floor of the shower except that Liam catches me. I’m boneless in his arms.
Liam
I towel her dry. She lets me move her this way and that, unresisting. When I set her down in bed, she curls into the pillow. “What about you?” she mumbles, looking at me through glazed, half-lidded eyes.
She’s asking about having sex. Or maybe giving me a handjob. Something that would be fair, considering I got her off. I don’t give a fuck about fairness. That’s not why I touch her. This isn’t a goddamn trade negotiation. The flights exhausted her, but she still had a jittery energy. That’s why I forced that orgasm out of her—so she could relax enough to sleep easy. Well, it wasn’t entirely for that reason. I also love touching her. Making her come is the best thing I know how to do. These hands know how to fight and work and kill, but they can also make Samantha come so hard she almost passes out.