003

JESSICA

He smelled like whiskey and regret, and I hated how much I still loved that scent on him.

I told myself I wouldn’t do this. Wouldn’t hold him like I still had the right. Wouldn’t let myself get swallowed whole by the storm that was Liam Wilson.

But him falling apart?

It undid me.

Every damn time.

His tongue brushed mine, rough and desperate.

His tears tasted like guilt, like pain, like a hundred things I could never fix but still tried to. My fingers found his jaw, clenched tight, and I kissed him back like I was drowning in him. Because I was.

He’s drunk, I thought. He doesn’t mean this.

But then again, drunk actions are sober thoughts, and if this was what lived in the corners of his heart when he wasn’t guarding it...

God help me, I didn’t want to stop him.

We broke apart only when we had to. Our lips swollen. Breaths shattered. Eyes wide and dazed, like we’d both come out of something much deeper than a kiss.

His forehead pressed to mine. Voice hoarse. “Tell me to stop.”

I should’ve.

God knows I should’ve.

But my silence screamed louder than any no ever could.

And he heard it. Felt it. Read it in the tremble of my fingers as they clutched his shirt.

Then he was moving, slow, reverent, his hand slipping under my blouse like it belonged there. His palm found my bare skin, and I felt it like a live wire.

I gasped, arching into his touch as his fingers grazed the curve of my breast, tentative at first… then bolder. Hungrier.

He kissed down my throat, open-mouthed and hot. Each press of his lips left me aching, my pulse a thunderstorm beneath my skin.

“This is wrong,” I whispered, voice barely there.

But my body told another story.

I wanted this.

Wanted him.

Not the broken, bleeding version of Liam. But all of him. Even the parts that hurt to hold.

His hand slid behind my back, unhooking my bra with a flick like muscle memory. Before I could breathe, he was on his knees in front of me.

Liam Wilson on his knees.

His hands ran up my thighs, slow and sure, as his eyes found mine. They were dark…so dark…with years of unspoken need. Lust, yes, but more than that. Regret. Hunger. A lifetime of what-ifs clawing to the surface.

He lifted my blouse, dragging it over my head. Tossed it aside without breaking his gaze. I sat there, half-naked and trembling, but he looked at me like I was something sacred.

“Liam…” I breathed.

His lips brushed the swell of my breast. “I know,” he murmured.

Then his mouth closed over my nipple, and I almost lost my sanity.

My back arched. My hands tangled in his hair, holding him there as heat flooded my core. He sucked, slow and sinful, tongue flicking just enough to drive me mad. My moan was pure surrender.

“Liam...”

He groaned against me, like the sound of his name from my lips broke something inside him.

He stood long enough to lay me back on the couch, moving me like I was glass. Like he was terrified I’d vanish.

His hands found my jeans. “Tell me to stop,” he rasped again.

I lifted my hips in answer.

His fingers worked the buttons open, then he dragged them down…slow, so slow…watching me with a hunger that made my breath catch.

He kissed his way up my leg, every inch, leaving goosebumps in his wake. His lips found the inside of my thigh, barely a whisper of pressure, and my body lit up.

“Please, Liam,” I gasped.

He groaned like the word gutted him. “Say it again.”

“Please…”

His mouth hovered just above where I needed him. His fingers spread me gently, reverently. And then…

Oh God.

His tongue slid over me, one slow, deliberate stroke that made me cry out. I bucked, but his arm locked around my thigh, anchoring me in place.

“You taste good,” he muttered, voice hoarse.

He licked again, this time firmer. Deeper. My legs shook. My hands scrabbled for something to hold on to—him, the couch, my sanity.

He ate me like a starved man.

Slow, devout, filthy.

His fingers joined his mouth, curling inside me with maddening precision. I cried out, hips rolling into his face, shameless and desperate. He groaned like he loved the sound, like every whimper I made fed some darkness in him.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

I forced my eyes open.

And there he was, between my thighs, lips wet with me, eyes locked to mine like I was the only thing that mattered.

“Come for me,” he whispered. “Let go.”

I shattered.

Loud. Messy. Unapologetic.

My body convulsed around his fingers, my breath torn from my lungs. I sobbed his name, over and over, as he held me through it… never looking away, never letting go.

When I finally collapsed, shaking and wrecked, he kissed the inside of my knee. Then my thigh. Then my navel. Every inch like a silent apology.

He lifted me like I weighed nothing, like the world could burn down around us and he wouldn’t let me fall. Like his hands had been empty without me, starving for the shape of me.

My legs wrapped around his waist without thought, a gasp slipping from my throat as his grip tightened with something that felt dangerously close to ownership.

“You’re mine tonight,” he growled, voice thick with promise and something else, something unspoken and dark, like obsession cloaked in lust.

I didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. “Then take me,” I whispered against the sharp edge of his jaw, right before I bit him—just enough to draw a groan from deep in his chest and make him slam me harder against the door.

He didn’t kiss me at first. He stared. Like I was some fever dream he didn’t trust. Then his mouth crushed down on mine, and I burned.

There was no patience in him now. No hesitation. Just heat and teeth and tongues and filthy intent.

He carried me to the bed like a man on the edge of sanity and laid me down with shaking restraint, like I was the most precious thing he was about to defile.

He hovered above me, eyes dragging over every inch like he was memorizing me. Or maybe claiming me.

“Say it again,” he rasped, fingertips brushing up the inside of my thigh. Too light. Too slow.

“Please,” I gasped, hips already arching into his hand. “Liam, please…”

That was all it took.

He tore the rest of our clothes off like they offended him. Like the distance between our skin was a crime.

His mouth was everywhere, rough and greedy. Sucking, biting, and licking like he wanted to mark every part of me. His hands pinned me down like I might disappear if he let go.

Then he slid his fingers into me—slow and deep—watching every reaction like he needed it more than air. My back arched. A cry spilled out. His name, broken in half.

“Fuck, you’re soaked,” he whispered.

When he finally pushed into me, it wasn’t gentle. It was all-consuming.

One thrust and I shattered. Not from the stretch. Not from the shock. But from the weight of everything we hadn’t said, hadn’t touched.

He pounded into me like he wanted to ruin every memory of every man who came after him. Like this was the only thing that ever made sense in his broken, bloody world.

And I let him.

I clung to him. Wrapped my legs tighter and dragged my nails down his back hard enough to make him hiss.

"More," I begged. "Don’t stop. Not tonight."

He didn’t. Couldn’t.

He flipped me over, dragged me to the edge of the bed, yanked my hips back, and buried himself again—deeper, harder. One hand fisted in my hair, the other gripping my hip like he needed bruises as proof.

“Look at you,” he breathed against my ear, voice ragged. “Bent over for me. Taking every inch like it’s the only thing you’ve ever needed.”

I moaned, loud and reckless. My body rocked with every thrust, every filthy word he spit against my skin like a sin.

“You’re mine,” he growled. “You’ve always been mine.”

He was close. I felt it in the way he moved, frantic, desperate, like his soul was caught in his throat.

So I turned, straddled him, and rode him like I wanted to make him break. Like I needed him to come undone beneath me. Needed to hear him fall apart for me.

“Jess,” he choked out, hands gripping my hips like he’d die if I stopped. “Don’t—fuck—don’t stop.”

“I’ve got you,” I whispered, kissing him slowly while I ground down harder. “I’ve always had you.”

And he lost it. Snapped.

He flipped me again and drove into me until the bed frame slammed the wall, until I couldn’t breathe through the pleasure, until I was sobbing his name and clawing at his shoulders.

We didn’t stop until we had nothing left.

Until our bodies were slick and sore and trembling, and the air between us was heavy with everything we still couldn’t say.

When we finally collapsed, tangled in sweat and heat and heartbeat, he pulled me into his chest like he needed me to survive the night.

I stared at the ceiling, chest rising and falling in shallow bursts.

Not because I regretted it.

But because I knew it had changed everything.

His fingers brushed through my hair, soft now. Gentle. Like he was trying to remember how to touch without hunger.

“You’ll hate me in the morning,” he whispered.

I turned and met his eyes. “Maybe,” I said, voice low.

But the smile on my lips said something else entirely.

I wasn’t done with him.

Not even close.