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  “Noted.”

  Jenna narrowed her eyes when she plopped back down on the couch. “It’s cute how you two think I don’t know when you’re trying to be all secretive without me. Think I can’t guess what you were talking about?” She took one look at me and smirked. “Well, Sasha’s the color of a tomato, which means you were on the very sexy topic of Liam. Is he fucking some chick he met at the bar right now? Is that why you came here all pissy, Sash?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Well, here’s the thing, and I’ve been meaning to say it for awhile,” Jenna started, prompting Aria to sit up straight and flash her a warning look. I frowned, sensing the immediate tension and wondering what the hell was going on. Jenna tossed her cape of blonde hair and laughed at my inquisitive look. “Oh God, Aria’s going to kill me but I have to say it ‘cause all my friends have been asking me lately.”

  “Jenna,” Aria said stiffly.

  I frowned at them both. “Asking you what?”

  Jenna simpered. “Why I, of all people, still haven’t gotten together with Liam. I mean let’s face it, I’m every guy’s type and it should’ve happened between me and him a thousand times by now.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “Really.”

  “Yes, really.”

  “Well… I admire your confidence.”

  Jenna snorted at my tight expression. “Oh, you should, doll. But if you really doubt me let me give you the facts, number one being that just a couple months ago, Liam pushed me into the bathroom at your bar and pulled my skirt down to my ankles. Ripped the panties clean off my ass. But this little cockblocker here,” Jenna cut her eyes to Aria, “pounded on the door till the moment was sufficiently ruined. But trust me when I say that big boy was rock hard and ready to go.” Jenna grinned at the shock I failed to hide on my face, her words slurring as she sipped her Chardonnay. “Sorry, cuz,” she pouted at Aria and then at me. “Had to let it out. It was after Max’s big fight, Sash. We were all celebrating. Crazy night. I’m sure you remember.”

  My stomach twisted.

  I remembered. The bar was packed that night. I cut off some hammered asshole and after cursing me out, he chucked his water at me – glass, ice and everything. Liam had him on the floor in seconds, forearm on his throat and hand in his hair as he slammed his head into the ground. Max and A.J pulled him off before he could do too much damage but the cops came anyway. The guys from the gym stalled them while I went to change out of my soaked white T-shirt. I was in the closet looking for a spare top when Liam found me, cupped my jaws and asked if I was okay. I nodded but I was shaking, so with his lips pressed to my forehead, he ran his hands up and down my arms, warming me up.

  “You didn’t have to do that, Liam,” I whispered, gazing down at his bloodied knuckles. He pulled away from me to look me in the eye.

  “Of course I did.” It was quiet as he pushed the locks of wet hair out of my face. “I’d do anything for you, Sash. You know that.”

  I nodded and the silence resumed – but it was a loud one this time, the air thick between us, swirling with a million words unsaid. Suddenly, that little closet was a sauna. I could hardly breathe as Liam swallowed, visibly fighting himself but eventually letting his eyes dip down to my body, fixing them on the wet T-shirt that clung to the curve of my breasts and the dip of my waist. The look of lust in his eyes was instant, primal, and it had my fingers curling hard against his rock-hard chest.

  But the second I felt his erection, he pulled away.

  “We should talk to the cops,” Liam muttered before disappearing out the door, leaving me drenched in the closet but drowning in heat. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I had gotten my stepbrother hard. I’d felt it. In shock, it took ages for me to move but by the time I got upstairs, I saw Liam just approaching the officers. At the end of the bar, Aria stood with Jenna, firmly gripping her wrist and hissing something in her ear before coming to me with consolation. Jenna watched us, smirking hard. I remembered wondering what that face was for.

  But now I knew. She had just been in the bathroom with Liam.

  “So you do remember that night.” Jenna watched with satisfaction as the realization drifted onto my face. “Well, as A.J would say, boom. There’s your proof, doll. And that was just the most recent cockblock. I could’ve fucked Liam Cage a thousand times by now if it weren’t for Princess Aria threatening to kick me out of the fancy pad her daddy bought her.” Jenna looked around their apartment, heaving a big, tragic sigh. “I went with it ‘cause you know how shitty rent is in Manhattan. Couldn’t really afford to give up paying just eight hundo for a full bedroom in Gramercy,” she said incredulously, refilling all our wine. “Good thing Sugar Daddy’s helping me pay for a one-bedroom in Hell’s Kitchen. Right by Liam’s gym. So now that I don’t need this apartment,” Jenna gave a cutesy shrug, “I think I’m gonna finally fuck Liam. He just looked way too fucking good this morning and I don’t think I can control myself anymore. So it’s happening soon. Sorry, baby girl.” She clinked her glass of wine to mine. “But you can take comfort in the fact that you never really had a chance. So cheers to that.”

  Chapter Six

  I left Aria’s apartment with my anger bottled up so she wouldn’t feel bad. She walked me out the building and apologized a million times – for everything Jenna had said and for what she didn’t tell me the night the cops came to my bar.

  “You know it meant nothing. He was drunk and he was all worked up because of you. But he couldn’t have you so he went with the next pretty thing he saw, and it just happened to be Jenna,” Aria explained.

  “I know, girl,” I said. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine,” I assured her, kissing her cheek before getting hastily into a cab.

  Obviously, I wasn’t fine. But I couldn’t even pinpoint why. I tried listing all the reasons in my head. Well, to start, I was still pissed at Liam for the stunt he pulled at the bar. I was pissed that he had ever whipped his dick out around Jenna and I was afraid of what would happen if certain people were to find out that we’d fooled around even once. I hated admitting it, but I was intimidated by the fact that every beautiful woman in the city was so aggressively after Liam. I wasn’t used to being with that kind of smirking, smoldering, panty-dropping bad boy. Stepbrother or not, a man like Liam naturally came with all kinds of trouble – trouble I had no experience in dealing with.

  I was a grab bag of mixed emotions by the time I got back to Liam’s apartment. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I walked through the front door.

  But what I certainly didn’t expect was the redhead from the bar, standing naked in the kitchen, gripping a roll of paper towels and wiping streaks of cum off her belly.

  My jaw dropped as I stared, my shock spiking into rage as Liam ambled out of the bathroom, casually shirtless. Red was so drunk she gave me barely a second’s worth of attention before turning her big, fluttering eyes to Liam. I stood in speechless, white-hot fury, my pulse pounding like a drum in my ears, drowning out everything she said. I couldn’t hear. All I could do was stand and stare, Liam’s smirking eyes on me as Red sidled up to him, whispering in his ear and rubbing her naked tits all over his arm. I finally found the strength to shake my head at Liam, in awe of his nerve as he grabbed his beer off the counter and took a lazy swig, leaning back on his heels and just watching me as the naked girl started cupping his package.

  “Are you fucking kidding me, Liam?” I finally hissed in disbelief. I’d left him at the bar and apparently, he was pissed enough to bring a girl home, blow a load onto her body and simply smirk at me as I watched them clean up from their dirty little romp. “Jesus, I knew you were a fucking asshole,” I muttered through my clenched teeth as I paced to my room. I just didn’t know you could be that way with me. I had wanted to finish my sentence but I couldn’t bring myself to. It sounded too vulnerable and I didn’t exactly feel like exposing myself like that as Red took Liam’s hands and slapped them onto her tits. I heard her moaning for him to squeeze just as I s
hoved through the door of my bedroom.

  “A.J!” I yelped, shielding my eyes when I caught a glimpse of his naked ass as he pulled on his jeans.

  “Oh! Hey, Sash.” He was drunkenly casual. I opened my eyes to find him turning to me, shoving his half-hard cock into his boxers before zipping back up. The smell of sex wafted into my nose and suddenly, I was saying “oh God” and backing out of my room as A.J apologized on repeat. “I’m sorry! Don’t worry, I fucked her over your desk!” he called out after me. “I’d never do it in your bed, Sasha! Promise!”

  “That’s – that’s great, A.J,” I called back weakly, turning to face the open kitchen, where Liam stood smirking at me, ignoring the girl as he finished his beer.

  “I’ll let you put it anywhere,” Red lilted at him, wetting her lips and bouncing her tits to entice him. Liam ignored her to grin smugly at me.

  “Jumped fast to that conclusion, didn’t you, babe?”

  “Didn’t exactly try to correct me though, did you?” I countered as A.J came out of my room and tossed Red her bra and panties. Once she was fully dressed, he apologized again and shuffled her out, but not before she flashed the call me sign at Liam. Only I caught it because he’d yet to take his eyes off of me since I’d come back out of my room. I crossed my arms. “You were an asshole tonight,” I finally said. I was trying to look dauntless but I held my breath as Liam came to me. He slid his hands in his pockets, stopping an inch from my body, standing as close as humanly possible without touching me. I swallowed, feeling the warmth of his hard chest. His lip curling, he fisted my waist.

  “Yeah?” He grabbed me again when I pushed him away. “Tell me how I was an asshole.”

  I twisted away from him. “Are you serious, Liam? At the bar. You fucked with me at Riley’s expense. You knew how uncomfortable you were making me, you knew you were hurting her feelings and you just kept going.”

  “How was I hurting her feelings?”

  I chewed my lip. I was pretty sure it’d been obvious since day one but I didn’t want to be the person to tell Liam that Riley, like every other woman on Earth, harbored a deep, uncontrollable lust for him. “I… nothing,” I muttered. “Never mind.”

  “I told you this, Sasha. I have no intentions of hiding anything that’s going on between us.”

  “But Liam, we need to,” I pleaded. “Look, it’s my fault. I wanted you so badly that I was crazy enough to tease you the way I did. I wanted so bad for you to touch me that I didn’t even think about what would happen after you did.” I breathed out hard, backing up a step for every one Liam took forward. “I just wanted to feed this craving I’ve had for…” I shook my head. “I don’t know. So damned long.”

  Liam’s green eyes stared so intensely into mine that my gaze dipped to the floor. His murmur was husky, the low sound prickling over my skin. “There’s nothing wrong with that, Sash.”

  “No, there is,” I whispered as I backed away from him. “I didn’t think past the instant gratification. I’m never like that, Liam. I didn’t think about Riley or your dad or my mom or Jenna or all those other girls who – ”

  “What are you talking about? Who’s Jenna?”

  I stopped when I hit the back of the couch. “Are you serious? Aria’s cousin. You saw her today. Tall, blonde. Loud.”

  Liam made a noise of vague recognition. “Right.”

  “You almost fucked her the night the cops came to the bar,” I said bitterly, my breath picking up as Liam hovered over me, forcing me to a seat on the back of the couch.

  “You know I wanted to fuck you that night. That was the first time I couldn’t hide it, Sash,” Liam sneered. “You had my dick hard as a fucking rock and I couldn’t throw you against the wall and bury myself in your pussy like I wanted so I found someone else to take it out on. Don’t pretend you didn’t figure that out.” The heat of his voice seared my skin. I wet my lips, catching the breath I hadn’t even realized I’d lost.

  “I know, Liam,” I finally muttered. “But it’s still… hard for me to get out of my head. It’s hard for me to think about all the girls that throw themselves at you every night.”

  Liam tilted his head just so, studying me as he fingered the hem of my T-shirt. I bit my lip as he played with it, tugging the cotton so that it strained thin against my breasts. “What do you care about other girls?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, though I did. The truth was that for as long as I could remember, I’d felt possessive of Liam, despite having no right whatsoever. My heart beat faster when my friends flirted, sitting on his lap and rubbing his shoulders. My stomach lurched when they told me their plans to seduce him. And that was before I’d gotten a taste of him myself – before I’d put myself out there and bared myself naked for him. I didn’t realize there was room to feel even more attached to Liam, but apparently, there was.

  “Answer my question, Sasha.” Liam pulled my shirt till the neckline stretched down the curve of my breasts, hooking on my pert nipple. “And don’t lie to me,” he muttered, licking his lips when he realized I wasn’t wearing a bra. “Tell me why the other girls matter to you,” he murmured, rumbling with arousal when he gave a last yank on my shirt to reveal my nipple. Taking it between his fingers, he pinched. I gasped as he growled his demand. “Talk to me.”

  “I’m jealous,” I hissed under my breath at Liam, wincing at the pleasure and pain that radiated from my tight peak. I squirmed, hot need throbbing between my legs as Liam rolled me between his fingers.

  “Yeah?” he grinned, satisfied with my tortured reply. “Well. I can tell you right now, Sash,” he dipped me back and squeezed my breast, “that there’s no girl,” he wrapped his lips around my nipple, “or woman,” he sucked languorously, “who comes close to getting my dick as hard as you do without even trying.” He moved his hand to my other breast, massaging as his teeth nipped lightly at me, sending chills down the rest of my body. “There are girls who’ll never forget your name because I said it while fucking them in my bed. I’ve wanted you since I met you, Sash. I’ve jerked off to a million memories of you – some dress you wore, the way you said my name. The way your tits felt when you hugged me. The little sounds that come out of your mouth when you stretch. Every fucking thing you do gets me off. It’s fucking ridiculous. I’ve never wanted anything the way I wanted you and now that I’ve finally felt you,” Liam peeled my shirt up over my head and cupped my ribs as he kissed my swollen breasts. “There’s no goddamned way I can settle for anything less. So trust me, Sasha,” he undid my jeans with one hand, “when I say you don’t have to worry about the other girls.”

  With that he crushed his lips over mine. I moaned as I finally tasted Liam, his kiss immediately dominating me. I was vaguely aware of my surroundings as he swept his tongue through my mouth, lifting me up in his arms. A gust of cold air hit my back as Liam kicked his bedroom door open. He threw me on his bed and buried his face in my neck, licking my skin and groaning. “Every inch, Sasha,” Liam growled, kissing down my collarbone to my breast. “I need to taste every fucking inch of you,” he rasped, moving wolfishly down my body till he’d licked a trail down to my parting thighs. There was no warning before he ran the flat of his tongue over the length of my seam. I cried to the ceiling, fisting handfuls of his sheets as he slid his hands under my ass to better present my sex to his mouth. “Fuck, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Liam groaned, lapping greedily at me, his tongue giving attention to every last inch of my aching pussy. “You taste like fucking honey,” he growled. I moaned, my hands pulsing hard around his sheets. Because there was nothing slow or gentle about his touch. His mouth devoured me immediately, laving at me, drawing hot, wet circles over my throbbing clit. “Fuck, Sash, I knew you’d taste like fucking heaven.” Liam’s words tore from his chest as he buried himself in me, sparking my every sense to life. The taste of his kiss lingered on my lips. I sucked on it as I reveled in his scent, in his sounds and his long, hungry strokes between my legs.

  “God – Lia
m!” His name ripped from my throat as his tongue teased my opening before sliding inside me. My eyes shot wide open. Ho-ly. Shit. Liam thrust deep inside me – so deep I could hardly process what was happening. I didn’t know this kind of pleasure existed. I never knew it even possible. My back arched completely, the top of my head flat on the mattress as Liam’s tongue pumped firmly inside me, drawing the wildest, most untamed cries from my lips.

  “Christ, you’re fucking tight,” Liam groaned, returning his tongue to my clit and sliding his fingers into my pussy, merciless as he licked and thrust, his pace unrelenting till he felt my walls clench tight around him. “That’s right. Come for me, baby,” Liam rasped his demand, pulling away to watch my orgasm crash over me without warning, seizing every muscle in my body. The sweltering release launched me into another world. I shook the whole bed, crying his name with his every growl for me to do so. He kept his fingers inside me as he kissed me, gentle but passionate, grinning against me every time my pussy pulsed around him. “Goddamn, you’re so fucking sexy when you come,” he murmured. “I could listen to those sounds all fucking day.”

  I bit my smile back as I finally caught my breath, clinging to Liam’s neck and feeling his bulge grow against my thigh. “Now let me hear you,” I murmured, cupping the swell of his package and watching his lip twitch with hot need.

  “Fuck. I think we have a couple orders of business to take care of before I fuck you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  A wickedly sexy half-smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “No condoms, Sasha. That pussy’s going to take every last drop of my cum when I fuck you. Whenever I want, wherever I want.”

  His words alone had another orgasm mounting in my core. “Okay,” I breathed uselessly, my eyes lingering on the clear outline of his hard-on. It was fully erect and snaked impressively down the right leg of his jeans. “But I was still hoping to make you come tonight.”