The motor hadn’t stopped, and the driver hadn’t gotten out to open the door for us.

The divider was up and the windows were tinted, leaving Liam and I with complete privacy as the limo started down the cobblestone path and back toward the road.

Liam stared at me from across the seat, his eyes dark and stormy. And then he was on me, his body against mine, but I kicked at him, pushed him away.

“Emery,” he said, “Emery, please, God, Emery, please.”

“No,” I said, “No.” With one push I gathered my strength up and pushed him away from me. He stared at me, his eyes still hungry, and so I did what I hadn’t done up until that point. “Orange,” I said, and my safe word reverberated through the car.

He instantly released me, sliding his large frame over to the other side of the car, but not before I saw the look of pain on his face. As soon as he was gone, I instantly wanted him back on me, wanted his hands on me.

But for the first time, my need for him, for his body, for his touch, for his kiss, wasn’t enough.

I wanted those things almost more than anything.

But it was the almost that was stopping me.

Because the truth was, I wanted him more.

All of him.

His heart, his mind, his trust.

I wanted to know him, wanted him to let me in. I wanted to know about his scars, both figuratively and literally.

And if he couldn’t give me that, then… I was done. I had to walk away.

I looked at him, across from me, my body aching for him, and I felt my eyes fill with tears. I blinked them back.

“I thought…” Liam said. He trailed off, suddenly at a loss for words for the first time since I’d known him. “No one’s ever done something like that for me.”

“What?” I asked, confused. “Done something like what?”

“Stood up for me like that. Called my parents out for something they’d done to me.”

I could tell it meant something to him, could hear the emotion in his voice, and my resolve wavered. But then I thought about how he’d been since we’d been here, all the secrets, all the rules, all the punishments and things he wouldn’t let me do. All the things I was just supposed to except.

My hands curled into fists next to me on the seat, my nails cutting into my palms so hard it hurt.

“You think I did that for you?” I asked. “You think that that was because of you?”

“It wasn’t?”

I heard the hope in his voice, and I considered his question carefully. “Yes,” I said finally. “At least, partly. Your parents are acting completely insane and someone needed to call them out on that. It wasn’t right the way they announced you were going to invest in your father’s restaurant when you’d never said that. But the other part of it is that I can’t stay quiet anymore, Liam. I can’t just go around blindly accepting all this insanity and not being allowed to question it.”

He stared at me, his jaw clenching, his eyes narrowing.

He’d taken off his tuxedo jacket at some point, and the white shirt he was wearing underneath clung to his body, wet from the ocean, showing off every ridge of his perfect chest.

“Why did you let him say that?” I asked softly. “Why was I the one who had to refute it?” He was so strong and in control in every aspect of his life. Everyone was terrified of him, especially when it came to matters of business. He had no problem speaking his mind. So then why wouldn’t he speak out against his father? “It’s not like you have a problem saying what’s on your mind. So why not call him out?”

“Because fuck him, that’s why.”

I shook my head. “What does that mean?”

He turned away from me and looked out the window, shutting down, but I reached over and took his hand. “No,” I said. “No, you’re not going to shut down again. Tell me what you mean.”

He turned to look at me and he started to shake his head, but I pulled his hand closer to me and placed it against my cheek. “Please,” I said. “If you can’t…” I trailed off, not wanting to say the words, but we both knew what I was about to say. That if he wasn’t able to let me in, if he wasn’t able to talk about this stuff, then I was going to have to leave.

And this time, it wasn’t an empty threat.

I loved him.

I loved him so much that having half of him was worse than not having him at all. The thought of leaving him sent a piercing pain through my heart, a horrible sensation that was both physical and emotional.

“Emery,” he said, his voice filled with pain.

I took in a shuddering breath and moved toward him. I climbed onto his lap, straddling him.

He averted his eyes.

“Look at me,” I said.

He turned to look at me, his gaze locking on mine. I could see the emotion reflected there, the longing, could see that he wanted to be able to do this for me. But could he? Would he able to fight his demons? Or would they end up getting the best of him as they had so many times in the past?

“Touch me,” I said. “Please.” I knew I had to say it, knew he wouldn’t do it unless he knew it was okay, since I’d used my safe word not that long ago.

He reached up and cupped my chin with his hands, pulling me toward him and kissing me softly on the lips.

I trailed my hands down his damp shirt.

I began to unbutton it, running my hands over his chest, the solid wall of muscle, wondering if he kept his body like this, so hard and toned, as another way of keeping the world out.

I dipped my hands under the material, and skated my fingers over his abdomen, over the faded scars.

“Emery,” he said, his voice catching.

“Please,” I whispered. “Please, how did you get these?”

“Emery.” His voice had hardened, and I saw his jaw clench. He reached for my wrists, grabbing them roughly. “Get off me,” he voice was hard, cold.

“No.” I shook my head and clenched my thighs, preventing him from pulling me off him. “Not until you tell me where you got these.”

“Fuck, Emery!”

“Shhh,” I said, and now I was kissing his face, all over his cheeks, brushing my lips over his strong jaw, pulling his bottom lip between mine.

His tongue tried to push through my lips, at the same time his hands tightened on my wrists, his grip so tight I almost cried out.

But I pulled back, not letting him take control.

This was the moment where he would normally say enough was enough, and I could see the scene play out in my mind as certain as if it were a movie I was watching. He would push me onto my back, he would fuck me hard, he would spank me, tie me, beat me, whatever it was he needed to do to punish me for trying to push him like this.

I wanted that.

But I wanted more, too.

“Liam,” I whispered into his ear, pulling the back of his neck toward me. “Liam, tell me. How did you get those?”

“Emery,” he said.

“Liam,” I whispered. “It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.”

He tried once more to push me off of him, but I held firm. Between us, I could feel myself getting wet, the thong panties I was wearing so wet they clung to my core like a second skin.

His cock was so hard through the pants of his tuxedo that I could almost feel him pulsing.

This was us.

All of us, the sexual and emotional wrapped up together in one completely fucked up, dysfunctional package.

I was okay with the dysfunction.

As long as he could tell me what it was, as long as he would pull back the curtain and let me see the man behind it. The real man.

I waited for him to steady underneath me.

When he was finally still, I pulled back, resting my forehead against his.

His hands loosened around my wrists just the tiniest bit, and then his hands drifted gently, across my hips until he reached the bottom of my dress. He slid it up slowly, the fabric skating across my skin.

His fingertips trailed over my thighs, and the whole time he was staring me in the eyes.

The electricity between us, usually so strong I could barely take it, was even more intense than usual, so palpable that I felt physically charged.

“Please,” I whispered as he began to slide my panties to the side. “Please just… let me in.”

His thumb brushed over the outside of my pussy lips, the smooth skin there jolting at his touch.

I finished unbuttoning his shirt, rubbing the scars on his abdomen until he reached under my ass and hefted me up, pulling me toward him until the scars on my thighs were flush against the scars his torso, connecting us. The intimacy of the gesture stole my breath.

“You told me you gave those scars to yourself,” I said as he began to loosen the top of my dress from my shoulders. I wanted to ask why, but I started with something that I thought he would find easier. “How?”

“With a piece of glass.”

“A piece of glass?”

“Yes. A shard from a drinking glass.”

I closed my eyes, feeling his breath warm on my neck, my head spinning as I remembered Malcolm in the kitchen, his eyes cold as I searched through empty cabinets. That must have been why there were no glasses in the house.

“Why did you do that?” I asked around the lump in my throat.

“So they would take me away from them.”

I waited, and when he didn’t say anything else, I began to push myself against him, grinding my pussy against his pants, feeling him grow harder beneath me at the friction.

I knew what I was doing, knew that his need to punish me was somehow caught up in all of this, and I knew that by keeping him distracted sexually, it would be easier for him to let his walls down.

It was fucked up and depraved, but I didn’t care.

I didn’t care about anything except him, about the two of us, both of us becoming one, making this real.

“Why did you want to get away from them?” I asked.

“Because of the things they did to me,” he whispered. His voice was ragged, his hands pushing my hair back over my shoulders. He pushed the top of my dress down and angled me toward him. He kissed my neck, his tongue dragging along my collarbone and dipping down into my cleavage before he grabbed my hips and pulled me closer into him.

I gasped at the gesture.

I knew he was skating the edge, knew that he needed the physical feelings to numb the pain of what he was feeing emotionally. But I also knew if he gave in completely to the physical, if he dominated me and took over, then it would shut down the emotional part of him.

He began to grind me against him.

“I love you,” I whispered. “What did they do to you?”

“The kinds of things that didn’t leave marks.”

“What kinds of things?”

“If you knew…” he trailed off, and I saw the self-hate reflected in his eyes. His hands stopped moving me up and down on him, and he returned to grasping my wrists, as if he were going to try to push me off him again.

But I clenched my thighs around him hard, and when he still tried to push me off of him, I reached down and began to unbutton his pants, my hand closing around his hard cock.

“Tell me,” I said. “You can tell me.”

“If you knew, you would leave.”

“No.” I kissed him, and he pushed his tongue into my mouth, his hands tangling in my hair as he pulled me toward him. “Never.”

“You cannot promise that.”

“Yes,” I said. “I can.” His cock was hard and velvety in my hand, and he groaned as I stroked it, squeezing the tip.

“Emery,” he whispered. “Jesus Christ, Emery.”

“I love you,” I said, my hand moving slowly, up and down, finding a steady rhythm. My pussy pulsed with desire.

“I’ll ruin you.”

“No.” I shook my head as he pulled me to him, as he pulled my forehead back against his. When I spoke next, my lips were so close to his that they brushed together. “I’ll be the one to save you.”

He tensed, and I wondered if I’d gone too far.

My hand stopped moving, but I still held his cock in my hand, feeling it pulse, a drop of precum pooling at the tip.

His hands moved down to my panties, and I raised up a little on his lap, letting his thumbs brush against the inside of my thighs, and over the outside of my pussy.

I gasped at the sensation that burned through me.

I tipped my head back and he pulled down the bra I was wearing, sucking my nipple into his mouth, hard, his teeth nipping at the raised peak.

“Please,” I whispered, trying to get control of myself. I wanted him so badly, and I was helpless to stop it.

I allowed myself one more moment of pleasure, then pulled my head back up. “Can you find a way to let me in?” I asked, my hand starting to move up and down on his shaft again, the precum lubricating the velvety skin.

Liam swallowed hard, his eyes smoldering with emotion. “First, I need to… “ he trailed off, his chest heaving. “Do you trust me?”

I knew what he was asking.

He needed a release using my body, needed to be able to work out his demons sexually before he could do anything else. He needed to be able to do this first, before he could tell me anything.

He was asking for trust, and his hands were on my skin and in my hair.

I could see the hope in his eyes, and I took in a shuddering breath.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, Liam, I trust you.”

And then he was kissing me, really kissing me, his mouth sealed to mine as our tongues tangled together. It was the most erotic kiss I’d ever had, deep and probing, Liam totally in control.

We moaned into each other’s mouths, and his palms hefted the weight of my breasts as he kneaded the soft flesh.

“I need to mark you,” he growled. “I need to fuck you and mark you.”

He kissed me again, and then before I knew it, he was pushing me down on the backseat, onto my stomach, the switch flipped.

He wasn’t being soft and slightly vulnerable anymore. In fact, it was the complete opposite. He was treating me like a possession now, like something he owned, something he could do whatever he wanted to.

He pulled my dress up roughly, exposing my most private areas to him, and pressed his hands into my thighs, his thumbs pushing into me so hard that it hurt. A strangled cry escaped my lips.

“I need to bruise you,” Liam said from behind me, his voice deep and rough. His hands pushed harder into my thighs.

The words he’d said earlier about the things his parents had done to him burned through my brain – the kinds of things that didn’t leave marks.

Is that where this need to be rough came from, was this why he needed to bruise and mark me?

I didn’t have time to contemplate that, because he was brushing his thumbs over the outside of my panties again, loosening the damp silk from my pussy, before he pushed a finger inside of me, curling it and rubbing me deep inside my canal.

I gasped and cried out.

“So wet,” he murmured. “You like being treated like this, don’t you? You like being treated like my little slut, don’t you, baby?”

My eyes filled with tears, both because he was right, and because his words sent waves of humiliation pulsing through me.

“On all fours,” he growled, and his hand struck my ass.

I pushed up onto my knees, and then his cock was at my opening. He began to fuck me, the head of his cock pushing into me hard and deep. I held onto the handle of the door as he began to thrust into me.

Then he grabbed me, pulling my upper body up toward him as he fucked me ruthlessly, so hard my tits bounced up and down with the violence of his movements.

I closed my eyes, but he grabbed my chin and forced me to look at myself in the reflection of the window.

I saw myself, my hair wild, my dress bunched around my waist, ruined, his hand like a vice on my neck, my tits swollen as he impaled me on his hard cock.

My pussy clenched around his hard dick, and I saw his reflection smile at me wickedly.

“You like seeing yourself like this, don’t you? You came before, on the plane, looking at that video of yourself.”

I moaned.

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I like seeing myself like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like a little slut.” My cheeks burned with humiliation, and this seemed to turn him on even more. He reached around and began to pull the belt out of his slacks, and I closed my eyes.

He pushed up against the window, hard, so that my breasts mashed against the glass, and my cheek pressed against it.

He must have instructed his driver to just keep driving around, because I didn’t recognize the streets we were on. It seemed as if we were in a secluded area, the trees blurring together as they passed by through the glass.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

I felt the lash of the belt on the globes of my ass, his hand holding the back of my neck as continued to fuck me.

He was belting me hard, harder than he’d ever whipped me, and I knew there would be marks.

I bit my lip to keep from crying, but my body was on fire, the desire swirling so fierce and hard inside of me it was all I could do not to come.

He pistoned me with his cock, and the belt, the whole time his hand holding the back of my neck, forcing me against the window.

“Liam,” I cried. I tasted salt, and realized I was crying. I wasn’t sure if it was from the pain or from what he was doing to me, just the idea of it, if they were happy tears or sad tears or just tears from feeling so much for this man that it was overwhelming.

“You like that?” he grunted from behind me.

“Yes.”

“You like taking it like that, don’t you, slut?”

“Yes. More. Leave marks. Make my yours,” I said, and as I’d thought, he began to mark my ass more, his belt lashing my skin, over and over and over, the force unbearable. The only thing that kept me from safe wording was my need for him, for this part of him, the darkest, most hidden part of him, the part that he was afraid of. I needed to prove to him that he wasn’t bad, that there wasn’t anything wrong with him.

He pulled me back from the window and held me against him. “I’m going to come inside of you now,” he said. “Without a condom. I’m going to shoot my load right into your bare pussy.”

“Yes,” I moaned. My pussy clenched around his shaft again, sucking him further inside of me. “Get me pregnant.” I wasn’t sure where the words came from. A baby at this point in my life would have been a total disaster, but my body had taken over everything. All I could think about was him, this man, and how I could get closer to him.

My words sent us both over the edge, and I gripped his cock with my pussy as my orgasm shattered me, cresting like a wave as he emptied his seed into me, coating me with it just like he’d promised.

I’d barely caught my breath before he’d taken me around the hips and pushed me down to the floor of the car.

I looked up at him, confused.

“I’m not done,” he said, staring down at me, the look on his face nothing but wicked.

I waited, staring up at him.

He was sitting now, his cock already almost fully hard again even though he’d just come.

He took the belt and placed it around my neck, like a collar, tightening it until it was slightly hard for me to breath.

I stared up at him, not breaking eye contact, letting him know I could take it, I would take it for him.

“Suck me until I come again.”

I took his dick in my hand, and the velvety stiffness pulsed in my fist. I covered his dick with my mouth, sliding down in one smooth motion before pulling him back out of me and licking around his head, the tip of my tongue sliding under the underside.

“Fuck, Emery.” He groaned and pulled on the belt, tightening it around my neck. I knew that it, too, would leave a mark.

I sucked on him hungrily, working my hand at the same time, as he held my hair with one hand, his other around the belt, working his hips, thrusting them into my mouth, not letting me have a break.

Instead he bucked into me, forcing me to take him all the way down my throat.

I could taste my pussy on his cock, could taste our juices mixed together, and it was unbelievable dirty and erotic.

“Yes, baby,” he moaned as I began to deep throat him. “Yes, Emery, good girl, just like that, suck it until I come down your throat.”

I did as he said, almost struggling to breath as he really began fucking my mouth, so hard and fast I was gagging.

When he unloaded down my throat, I was shocked at the amount of come, since he’d just shot a load into my pussy.

I swallowed, taking it, wanting to please him, to show him I could do it, to show him I was his.

And when he was spent, and I’d taken every last drop, he pulled me onto his lap and whispered into my ear, “Tell me you’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” I said, wrapping my arms around his neck.

We stayed like that, silent and wrapped around each other, until the car pulled up in front of his parents’ house ten minutes later.

* * *

Liam helped me fixed my ruined dress before we got out.

My hair was still damp from the ocean, and the smell of sand and salt hung in the air.

We got out of the car, not waiting for the driver, and Liam took my hand and led me around to the side of the house, into the backyard.

There was a bulkhead at the back of the house, one of those heavy double-door ones that led down into a basement.

He stood outside of it, and for a moment, I thought he was going to take me down there to do more things to me. I wasn’t sure I could take it.

“Jesus,” he said, looking at me. He ran his hand over my throat, where I knew there would probably be a bruise.

“I’m fine,” I said, my eyes filling with tears. “Please, Liam.” He knew what I was asking. I’d let him do what he needed to do, and now I wanted him to do what he’d promised.

“Do you need… should we go inside first? You could change, shower, I could help you take care of your bruises.”

“No.” I shook my head. I didn’t want to take the risk that he wouldn’t live up to his end of the bargain, that he would get out of this somehow, that he was going to delay or get distracted or change his mind about telling me what he was about to tell me.

“Jesus,” he said. “Look what I did to you.” The self-hate dripped from his words, and I shook my head and took his hand. It was warm, and his fingers wrapped around mine.

“I don’t care about that,” I said. “Please, I just need to know why. After we deal with that, we can…” I choked up. “We can figure out why we…” I was going to say why we like being like this when it’s so fucked up. But the words wouldn’t come. “But first you need to let me in.”

His hand tightened around mine, and for a moment, I was afraid he was going to back out.

Then he pulled me toward him, gently, his hands on the small of my back. “I love you,” he whispered.

The air stole from my lungs, the words so unexpected.

“I love you, too,” I said, choking up.

“No.” He pulled back and looked at me, his eyes and tone serious, as if he was trying to convey something to me that was vitally important. “I love you. And I need you to know I’ve never said that to another person, and that… after… if you decide you don’t love me anymore, or that… you don’t want this, I will still love you. Always. I need to tell you that before we go down here.”

“What’s down there?” I asked.

“Everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yes.”

“Starlight?” I prompted.

“Yes.”

“Vienna?”

“Yes.”

“Your parents?”

He winced. “Yes.”

He was staring at me, and I looked at the door, wondering how it could possibly hold the key to everything I wanted to know about him.

Whatever was down there must have been serious. Trepidation slid up my spine, but I forced my mind to override it.

I looked back at Liam.

He was looking at me, gauging my reaction.

“Okay,” I said, trying to sound more determined than I felt. “Then let’s go.”