Guarding Her: A Secret Baby Romance by Lexi Whitlow (34)

“Yeah, we read books in there,” Brie says. “Let me show you. It’s like a castle. I helped make a healthy dinner too.”

This kid. She catches on fast.

Brie skips out of the room and runs down the hall, making the women follow behind her. “This is a pretty nice place,” Amber says.

“There’s no central heating unit, it doesn’t look like. I’d imagine they got it like that because it’s cheaper. Remember what the grandmother told us—”

Not missing a beat, Skye turns to them as we reach the bedroom. “There’s actually baseboard heat. It’s oil-based, but it’s provided by the landlord and included in rent. He has window units for air conditioning in the summer. Good ones.” She looks over at me. “And Liam is making enough to pay for the whole thing himself. It’s an up and coming neighborhood. Pretty expensive since it’s so close to Brie’s school. He’s worked really hard with his brother at the bar. He co-owns it, you know? He’s been saving every penny he’s earned. So even if Marta has you on the hook, give us a chance here. We’re not the enemy.”

Amber and Donna look between each other but don’t say anything. They follow Brie into her room, and Skye and I listen as Brie gives them the grand tour. It’s a sad thing that Brie knows well enough by now that her grandmother sends people—lawyers and P.Is. and now CPS—all to make sure that she doesn’t live with me. Hell, that she doesn’t even see me. That’s why Brie fell into line so quickly this morning. She knows exactly what this is about, and the poor kid is only six.

They stay in the room for a solid fifteen minutes with Brie, while Skye and I stand outside. The voices inside are low, and we can only hear scraps of conversation.

Neither of us say a word. Instead, we stand against the wall. When the time starts to stretch, and the churning in my stomach grows almost too intense, Skye reaches over and puts my hand into hers. I look over at her and see that her face reflects the same worry that I feel.

“I wonder what Marta’s done to get them out here on a Sunday morning,” she whispers, leaning into me. “Whatever it is, it’s not good.”

“No, it’s not.” My body grows tight, and I close my eyes. I imagine myself slamming my fist into the wall, what it would feel like to crush the drywall beneath my knuckles. But that isn’t me anymore.

It might be. But Skye is here. And she feels like a life raft in a storm, while my daughter talks to two women who will help decide the fate of my family—of my entire world.

When I open my eyes, I see the ladies shuffling out of Brie’s room. There’s a stern look on Donna’s face, but Amber still retains that slightly stunned look that doesn’t seem either negative or positive.

“Can we speak in the front room, Mr. Dougherty? Your wife can stay back here with Brie and Amber. If she knows Brie well enough, that is.”

Skye’s eyes grow wide in surprise, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she walks silently into Brie’s room, looking back at me for a brief moment. I nod to her and walk with Donna to the living room.

“What’s this about?” I try not to growl the words, but it’s hard after the intrusion.

“I think you know, Mr. Dougherty.” Donna looks at me expectantly, like I’m a particularly slow student who she’s sure will catch onto her assignment.

“No, I don’t think I do. I have a legal right to have my daughter for overnights now that I have an apartment and a stable relationship. And I know enough about CPS to know that this isn’t an ordinary visit.”

“Mr. Dougherty,” Donna says, sighing, “Brie thinks she’s going to live here from now on. And it seems that you and Ms. Williams didn’t let her know that’s not even a possibility.”

“It is a possibility. We’re going to court on the twenty-eighth with a preliminary hearing on the twenty-seventh, and we have plenty of evidence that this is a better living situation than she’s in right now.”

“With her grandmother, who loves her and sends her to private school. Can you afford the Catholic school she attends?”

I groan. “Yeah, I can. But since when is private school a concern of CPS? Is there anything here that would endanger Brie? No, I didn’t think so.” I sigh quickly and go to the door, opening it for Donna. “Unless there’s something here I don’t know about it, I’m going to kindly ask you to get the fuck out of here.” I give her my best charming smile.

“See—that right there. The anger. The attitude. And don’t get me started on this relationship you have with that young woman. Marta informed us about your history. It’s clear you picked this one up somewhere and convinced her to marry you. Give me a break, Mr. Dougherty. This is all confusing for Brie, and furthermore, it’s clearly not a good place for her to be. She has no place to put her clothing. She was given highly unhealthy food for breakfast, and I saw several empty packs of candy in the trash. That’s not how you treat a child you want to raise and support.”

“Come the fuck on,” I snarl. “This is all bullshit, and you know it. How much is Marta paying you? There, I said it. The big goddamn elephant in the room. I have plenty of experience with that sad excuse for a woman, and I know that’s what she does to get her way. She’s running out of money from doing all this crap, I bet. And now she’s trying to get me to fork over the money I have saved for Brie. That’s not going to fucking happen. I’ve got all that so she can’t get to it.”

Skye steps around the corner and comes to my side, touching my arm. “Please forgive my husband, Donna. He’s very protective of his daughter. And Brie brought to our attention that Marta isn’t providing adequate food for her. I couldn’t help but overhear your observations about her diet here. But it seems she doesn’t even get a full dinner at Marta’s house. We made tacos last night with a salad, and then we allowed her a treat. She also had fruit with her waffles this morning.” Skye squeezes my arm as she talks. “She says that Marta allows her only bread for dinner. Her grandmother takes away food as a punishment. Isn’t that the kind of thing CPS might be interested in? Write that down in your book.”

“I can hardly see how that’s true,” Donna says, unmoving. The breeze rolls into the apartment. It’s sunny and smells like spring outside, which doesn’t match the scene in here at all.

Amber joins us in the room, stepping up to Donna. “That is what Brie told me. Without Ms. Williams in the room. She also told me that when we visited her at the grandmother’s—”

“Hush, Amber,” Donna says. “We’re not here to discuss Brie’s current living situation. I do think it’s time we left. We need to type up notes for this visit so we can take them to the judge that’s seeing their case. And we both need to get on with the day.” Donna smiles, full of fake sweetness. “And Ms. Williams and Mr. Dougherty here—they might want to enjoy the time they have remaining with Brie. It doesn’t appear this is a place fit for a child. Not in my book.”

Skye steps forward, inches from Donna. “What was the first reason you started working for Child Protective Services? Was it actually to protect children? Or was it to take on outside clients like Marta and run your own rogue business on the weekends?”

Donna’s face grows pale. “I don’t see your point, Ms. Williams. We’re here working for the city, making sure that a child is where she ought to be.”

“I don’t think so,” Skye says. “I just checked with my friend, Rhiannon. She says there are plenty of people at CPS who will do anything for a few extra dollars. It’s not the most high-paying job, is it? And the city is expensive. I understand. But that isn’t the reason you started working for CPS, is it?”

“I think we’d better go, Amber,” Donna says, completely ignoring Skye.

“I think we ought to listen to what Mr. Dougherty has to say about Brie’s living situation,” Amber says. “He’s the biological parent—and the child seems quite happy here.”

“I said we need to go. Now,” Donna replies. “Fall in line, Amber. Your job is quite new. Please remember that.”

Amber looks like she’s about to say something, but she doesn’t respond. Instead, she follows Donna out the door, and Skye and I are left there, watching her.

“Farewell, Mr. Dougherty,” Donna yells back at us. “I’m sure you’ll be hearing our report when you get to the courthouse. Just a few days now.”

My heart sinks down into the pit of my stomach.

I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t know if there is anywhere to go.

But Skye is beside me, and that makes me feel like we might be able to fight. Her head is far cooler than mine, and maybe some of her words will get through to those women.

We can only hope.

 

Chapter Eighteen

Skye

It’s hard to say goodbye to Brie when Marta comes to pick her up. The old woman has a triumphant look on her face, like she’s already won. I fight the urge to tell her the fuck off. We might have hurt the case, or we might not have. There’s no way to know until we get to the courthouse.

With all that I’ve done for Liam, I’m holding desperately onto the idea that we can save Brie. That we can save this family.

I pace around the apartment, kicking off my shoes. I sit on the edge of the bed and lie back on it. The ceiling has that popcorn type paint on it. It’s ugly, but I’m getting used to it. I lie there and look at it, trying to clear my head of everything—Brie, Liam, the women who came here this morning.

“This is a lot for you to deal with, Skye. I know that.”

I look up and see Liam at the door of the bedroom, his changeable eyes cool and distant.

“It’s not. I just want to see it work out. And now it feels like we know even less than we did last week.”

“All this with the ‘we.’ And ‘our.’” His voice has that wry tone to it, the way it does when he’s teasing me.

I swallow hard, trying to read him. “What does that mean to you, Liam? You said you might want to have me around. What are you saying? Tell me.”

“I’m saying I might want you here. For as long as you want to be here. It feels like we’re in this battle together now. I don’t know if you’d want to stay—”

“I don’t know either.” I look away to the window, so I don’t betray my own feelings. I know very well what I want. And I probably wanted it since the very first time I walked up to his apartment. The first moment he looked at me, the first time he touched me. But what he’s proposing is less a relationship and more a marriage of convenience. With hot sex. Very hot sex. But still, is there something else I deserve—something beyond this? There isn’t a commitment here, not a real one. There’s a signed piece of paper, sitting somewhere in a courthouse, but it could be dissolved in an instant with a quick divorce. That’s what we agreed on. We didn’t agree to the vows we said—until death do us part. That was just something we said. Not something we meant.

I keep myself turned away. If I look at him, all my rational thoughts vanish and become a jumble.

“I think you want to stay.” I can feel him looking at me, and I hear his footsteps as he walks toward the bed. “Look at me, Skye.”

I follow the sound of his voice, my eyes meeting his. “And what if I do want to? Does that mean that we’re a couple? That this is real? That it means forever?”

“I don’t know,” he says simply. He sighs. “I’ve never had anything like that before. Like I said. Not with Tabitha. Not with any of the other women I’ve ever known. This relationship—this marriage—it provides real stability for Brie. It might mean the difference between temporary and permanent custody. It might mean that she has something to hold onto, something real to come home to.” His voice wavers, full of emotion. This isn’t the man I met back at the bar—he’s changed, grown. “Skye, I want you here. It’s not just for Brie.”

I let out a quick breath. “I care about you, Liam. I do. But we rushed into this. And there’s Marta. And the women from CPS. And the courts. I agreed to it—but it’s heavy. A lot fucking heavier than I thought it would be.”

“Let me make it clear. I want you to stay, Skye. I want you to change your fucking name so that there aren’t any more questions. And I want you to cancel the lease on your apartment in Brooklyn.” He shrugs. “Queens seems a little nicer than that shit hole, anyway. I’m warming up to Queens. Fewer hipsters here. Fewer than I thought.” He gives me a wry smile.

My heartbeat speeds up, blood rushing through my veins. “Liam, think about what you’re saying. The life you had before—”

“Wasn’t much of a life. The women came and went, and I was living free above the bar. That place doesn’t even have good water pressure. Or a dishwasher.”

“That’s what this is about—” I feel the irritation rising in me again, like it does with this man.

“No. Well, the nice shower and dishwasher here are just bonuses. But if you leave and go back home, then it’s just an empty box.”

“And if Brie moves in? If she doesn’t?”

“If she moves in, she’ll want you here too. If she doesn’t, you need to stay. I’ll need you to help me fight it.”

“That’s what this is about, isn’t it? All that stuff you said about Brie. The stability and the judges and all that. That’s always what it’s been about, and you said it from the beginning. If I stay, that helps make it stick.”

“It does.” He looks at me evenly. “But it’s more than that, too.”

“We’re talking in circles, Liam. Saying the same thing over and over again, and it makes me so tired. I’m exhausted. I think I’ve been tired since I first met you.” I turn over on the bed, my body still facing away from him. “I get that this is fun for you, and it has been for me, too. But we’re coming up on the hearing, and there’s going to be a decision one way or another. And then we’ll need to make a real decision about us.”

“I’ve made my decision,” he says, cracking his knuckles. “I want you here. How many times do I have to say it?”

Sunlight filters in through the window screens, and there’s a slight breeze from the spring wind outside. It feels comfortable and real, but the foundation of this relationship isn’t either of those things. It was based on lust and excitement and adventure—not just for me, but for both of us. This place, this marriage, this quest to get his girl back—all these things have occupied Liam’s mind. This marriage has kept his mind off of women, alcohol, the bar. It’s given him a weapon in his holy mission to get his daughter back. When the dust settles and all the shiny veneer wears off, there won’t be anything left.

Still, even on a morning like this, when the threat of failure looms closer than ever, Liam’s gaze on my body sends shivers down my spine, singing through every cell in my body. It’s a distraction, the pull between us. It’s why we’re both here right now, why we got wrapped up in each other’s lives.

“So?” He steps over to the bed and falls down next to me. His hands go to my waist, and he pulls me around to face him. “What do you say?”

“To what?”

“Giving me a chance. A real one. Living here.”

I laugh. “I think marrying you counts as giving you a chance. Don’t you?”

“Nah,” he says. He kisses my neck and works his way down to my shoulder. “It has to be official. You and me. In a relationship.”

“I’d call this a relationship. I live here,” I say. “We have sex. You deflowered me on our wedding night. It’s close enough.” I grin, and heat rises over my chest.

“Deflowered is a fancy word for what I did. I fucked you silly. Made it so you couldn’t stand straight the next day.”

“You did.” I can still feel it—that sweet, aching soreness between my thighs. The way I couldn’t walk quite right the next day, how opened and vulnerable I felt.

“I didn’t think fucking a virgin would be that good. I hadn’t done that since high school.” One hand moves between my legs, finding the wetness soaking through my panties. “A sweet little virgin.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not anymore.” I whimper as his fingers gently pinch my clit through the soaking fabric.

“Not what? A virgin? I guess you aren’t. I do wish I could do it all over again. The way you looked at me when I put my cock inside that tight little pussy the first time—that was fucking magical.”

“Magical? Since when did you get so romantic, Liam Dougherty?”

“That’s not romance. That’s the fucking truth. I’d do it again just to see that look on your face.”

I laugh. He’s already tugging at my panties, one hand roaming over my ass, the other pushing my panties to the side and dipping a finger inside of me.

“That’s not how it works. You can’t take someone’s virginity twice.” He slips a second finger inside of me and squeezes my ass. I whimper, and my eyes start to roll back in my head. When he touches me, it’s like he’s taking me to some other place, like I’m leaving my own body. Like none of the things I was thinking about before matter in the least. Not right now.

“I think I can, little girl. I’ve been toying with the idea of taking your virginity again.”

My face grows hot. “I’m a little girl, now, am I?”

“You are.” He flips me around, and he pulls my panties down to my knees. “And you’re still a virgin. My virgin.”

“No, I’m definitely not. I think you’ve got that wrong.” Deft fingers unhook my bra, and his hands go to my breasts, squeezing them, trailing down my body to the cleft of my sex.

“You’re dripping wet. A nice little girl wouldn’t be dripping wet like that. But you’re greedy for my cock, aren’t you? You’re desperate for it. I know you like it when you get stressed out. You like me to make you come.”

My breath hitches in my throat. It feels too far, like we’re skirting the edges of what we should be doing. And I can feel his cock getting hard against my ass. I gulp. “I’m not a good girl.” I pause. “I’m wet for you.”

My whole body feels like it’s on fire—red hot with shame and excitement and that feeling we’ve crossed over some edge.

“But you are a little virgin.”

“No, I’m not.” I swallow hard, but I want to say it again. “I’m not a virgin anymore. Because you fucked me.”

He groans, and I feel him stroking himself behind me. He thrusts his entire cock into my dripping wet pussy in one fluid movement, filling me to the brim. He still feels too big fore me, and he always stretches me far beyond my limit. Every time he enters me, I feel like I almost can’t bear to take any more.

“There’s not just one type of virgin, baby,” he says. His voice thick with desire. His hand finds my neck and holds it, the pressure heavy enough to give the slightest hint of danger. Fingers trail down my body as his cock rams inside of me, filling me brutally with each thrust. His thumb finds my asshole and presses against it slightly, adding a new sensation to his cock filling me again and again. “I told you, you were mine. Your pussy. Your mouth. Your ass.”

I moan as he presses his thumb into my tight little hole. There’s resistance, but it gives way, opening me in an entirely new way as he continues to throttle my pussy. My body aches and throbs, shivers starting from the base of my spine and reaching the back of my neck.

“I’m going to make you totally mine today, little girl.”

I groan, offering no protest. This is never something I would have considered with Charlie—or anyone else that my parents might have deemed more appropriate for me. Liam is so far from appropriate it’s not even funny. You don’t bring this type of guy home to Mom. And you sure as fuck don’t marry him.

Oops.

His thumb works against me. “Are you ready for this?” He thrusts inside of me again, moaning. “It feels like you are. You’re so fucking wet for me already.”

This isn’t something I’d thought would be in a real relationship, nothing I’d ever considered—not until I fell into bed with Liam for the first time. “Yes,” I whine. My eyes roll back in my head as he toys with my ass, bringing new, heightened sensations through my sex and straight to my core.

“Then you hold tight, baby. I have something that might help me fit inside that perfect little hole.”

He takes his cock out of my pussy and starts stroking himself, moaning as he moves to the other side of the bed. I arch my back to turn around and look at him, but he smiles and tries to hide whatever it is that he has. “Not yet, Princess. This is going to be a surprise. Turn back around, and let me see that perfect little ass. It’s mine now, and you’re going to love it.”

I blush deep red when he says it, but I follow his command and curl up on the bed, feeling small and helpless—and empty. My pussy throbs—needy, waiting for him. I bring my hand between my legs and stroke myself. I tremble in fear, but that only heightens the arousal pooling deep in my core.

“I think you’re going to like this.” I hear him open a bottle of lube. “Hell, I think you’re going to need it. My cock might stretch you a little too far without it.”

“Oh God—maybe we shouldn’t—” I babble, suddenly nervous. “You’re so big—it might not fit at all—” I gulp, turning beet red.

“There’s no going back now. You’re mine, remember? You agreed.” He moves closer to me in the bed, and I feel the pressure of something smooth and soft at the tip of my asshole. It’s not his cock—I know that feeling well by now.

“What is that?” I try to turn and look, but he holds my body steady with his strong hands.

“Just relax. Close your eyes.” The heat and pleasure mix with fear, pulsing through my body together.

“I just—I’ve never—had anything there before.” He pushes the tip of whatever the thing is deeper inside of me, and I hear him growl with excitement. His hard cock presses into the back of my thigh, and I whimper.

“It’s just a little toy,” he says, twirling it. The thing invades the entrance of my ass, stretching me out just a little. I moan at the sensation. “But it will help stretch you out, won’t it?”

He pushes it in further, and I moan. “Yes, it will.” My voice comes out in a whisper.

“What do you want, baby?”

“I want you to fuck me.” I look over my shoulder, meeting his eye. I whimper. He slides the toy in further, and I feel myself opening to him. This wasn’t a part of who I was—but wanting this, here with Liam, this is me now.

“How do you want me to fuck you?”

“Fuck my ass,” I moan. “And make it yours.”

Chapter Nineteen

Liam

“Goddamn,” I moan. When Skye first moved in, I picked up this little purple toy. The size of it isn’t even half of my girth, but a tiny girl like this needs a little warming up.

I wasn’t planning on letting her run away without giving me this. She said she wanted to learn all the ways to please me. She might not have meant this, not exactly. In this moment, I don’t give a shit. I push the toy further inside of her, and she whimpers. The wetness from her pussy is drenching my hands, and I can still feel the ghost of her hot, tight warmth on my cock. I’m hard as fucking steel, and I want to fuck her, want to feel her sweet, tight hole wrapping around me, smooth and perfect.

“Oh, my God—it feels good,” she whispers. I can see goosebumps forming on her skin, just as they did the first time I fucked her. “Put it all the way in.” There’s a desperate, searching need to her voice, and I’m happy to indulge it.

As I push the toy in with one hand, I stroke myself with the other. The lube and the wetness from her pussy cover my hand, slippery and inviting. But I’m slow. I take my time, filling her ass inch by inch with the toy until she’s moaning and writhing uncontrollably against my hand.

“Oh, my God. I didn’t think this would feel so good,” Skye says. I almost detect a note of embarrassment, a hint of shame. But she wants what I have to give her so badly that she’s beyond that now. She didn’t know I was serious when I told her she belonged to me. While we’re still married, I own her—pussy, mouth, ass. She’s my toy, my doll. For all the fighting I’ve been doing, I need some relief. And she’s exactly what I need.

“You didn’t know you’d want it so much, did you?” I press the toy in the rest of the way and let it rest against the entrance to her tight little hole. She squirms, bucking against me, and I move so I’m encircling her waist with one arm. “You didn’t know you could want something like this at all.” It’s a statement, one that I know is true. The guy she was with before wasn’t even man enough to get her into bed, let alone show her the pleasure she was truly capable of experiencing.

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t know—” She wiggles against me again, and I let my fingers trace over the muscles of her abdomen, down to the thatch between her legs. My fingers slip inside, circling her clit, dipping in her pussy. I find the ridged spot inside and tap it. The moans rise from her throat—lusty, throaty, forbidden. I have her filled in both holes, but she’s not as full as she’s going to be. I chuckle softly, biting the flesh of her neck as I work my fingers inside of her. She’s lost now, completely at my mercy. I could ask anything of her, and she’d do it.

“You like being all filled up, don’t you? Think you’ll like it when my cock is buried inside you?”

“Yeah,” she whimpers. “I will. Oh God. I will. Please—I want it now.”

My cock is pulsing, aching and hard with need. I gently remove the toy, and run my fingers over my shaft and the head of my cock, putting more lube on as I stroke myself. I want her body to accommodate my size, to stretch and fit me. And I need her not to tell me to stop—in this moment, I need to possess her fully, to hear her call my name as I fuck her, as I take her purity for a second time.

“Liam,” she says. She feels me stroking myself hard against the back of her thigh, feels the lubricant as I push the head of my cock against her hole. “I need it. Please. Oh—”

“Anything you want, my little librarian,” I say.

I start pushing the head of my cock inside her virginal hole, and she shudders against me, tensing like she’s preparing for pain.

“Relax, little one,” I say. I brush the hair away from the back of her neck and kiss her there. “I won’t hurt you. Relax every muscle in your body, and give yourself to me. I’m bigger than that tiny little toy, but I’m going to make sure you feel so good.” I kiss her again, nipping her with my teeth. “So good. Do you believe me?”

“I do,” she says, without hesitation. “But I can’t—I can’t relax. Oh my God,” she moans, shaking against me. She looks over her shoulder, a worried look in her eyes.

“Put your hand between your legs. Touch yourself again. It’ll help you focus on something else.”

She gulps, but she does what I say, bringing her slender fingers to her pussy. She finds her clit and opens her legs slightly, circling it, moaning as she plays with herself. Her orgasm seems to be a hair’s breadth away, her body giving itself over to the pleasure.

As she throws her head back, I press into her, this time slipping the girth of my head inside her. She gasps, but she furiously rubs her clit, moaning louder as I grunt and push myself further inside. I want to unleash myself, to fuck her hard and fast, coming inside of her. It would come quick, that release. But instead, I concentrate on sliding in one centimeter at a time, letting her feel my entire length.

She shudders against me, and her hand comes to my forearm. She looks over her shoulder, eyes meeting mine. She looks like a different person, pupils slightly dilated with lust, eyes hooded and heavy. For a moment, I think she might speak, but instead, she makes a desperate, searching sound and pushes back against me, taking me in farther.

I let out a long groan. Unable to resist any longer, I push myself in the entire way, filling her ass to the hilt. “That’s so good, baby,” I whisper. “You’re doing so good. Such a good little girl. You feel so amazing. So hot, so tight.”

I pull back and thrust inside of her again, moaning as I do.

“That’s so fucking amazing,” she says. Her voice dissolves into a series of rasps and sighs, and she grabs my arm, as if trying to bring me closer into her body. I respond in kind, pushing into her again and again.

“I want you to come for me while I’m inside you, baby,” I say.

For a second, I think she hasn’t heard me. But Skye’s hand returns to her pussy. Her fingers flick over her clit, bringing her to that edge of orgasm again. The way her body tenses and releases, as if preparing, signals me that she’s close. She’s been on the edge now since I started fucking her, and she’s so close.

“That’s a good girl,” I mutter. Skye’s body seems to be of one flesh with mine, responding to me fully as I fall into a rhythm. “A good little bad girl.”

She laughs at that even as she brings herself closer to the edge. I’m fucking her hard now, unleashing all my fears and insecurities, letting them fall away as I fill her. She tenses, body stiffening. From deep within her comes a long, sweet moan, and her hips begin to buck against mine, her juicy ass bouncing against my cock. My balls grow tight, the tingling warmth starting deep within my body. In one white-hot flash of lightning, I come undone, coming hard and deep inside of her. I close my eyes and groan, long and loud, pulling her hair hard as I buck inside of her greedy little hole.

I pull her body into mine, kissing her neck, holding her arms. Our bodies pulse together, and we both sigh and crumple together in exhaustion. We stay like that, wrapped in each other’s arms, experiencing the warmth of our bodies together, for a long time. Most of the women I’ve been with seem to have a need to fill the silence, pressing on and on about what I might be thinking, or if I can see them again, or when might be a good time to get together for dinner. Skye’s not like that, and she never was. Instead, she and I lie together in what I think they call a comfortable silence. I haven’t had that—maybe ever.

As my eyes begin to close, she finally speaks. “It’s a week until the preliminary hearing,” she mutters. “You need me to be there?”

That’s the next step. The thing we’ve been dreading. After today, with the people from CPS, it might be even worse than we thought. But we won’t know until we get there, until it’s clear what Marta’s got on us. Nothing she’s ever had has felt damning before, but I’ve been fooled so many times. This is why I have Skye. She represents stability for the judge. And maybe, more than that, there’s finally someone really and truly on my team. My mother and brothers have always been a part of this, too. But Skye is invested in a way I can’t quite fully define. Being next to her here, I can feel it. Her brain, calculating. The thoughts inside her mind, exploring the ways we can win.

If it were up to me, we’d stay in this bed and fuck forever. We’d skip the hearings, and Brie would magically come to live with us, without the effort and stress of going before a judge. But things like that don’t happen, especially not to men like me.

“Yeah, I need you. The judge will want see that we’re able to provide a good environment here for Brie,” I say.

“I hope the CPS people don’t report about the food we were eating,” she murmurs, finally turning to face me. “It wasn’t great.”

“They’ve seen shit that’s about a thousand times worse than a few scoops of ice cream and some M&Ms. I don’t ever see that kid. Do they think I’m going to make her a goddamn salad?”

She laughs and shakes her head. “I hope not. Salad sucks. I think there should be a ban on it, especially for movie night. We can have fruit and carrot sticks, instead. That’s healthy enough. Plus, popcorn is pretty much a vegetable.”

“Agreed,” I say. I stroke Skye’s hair as I speak. “I don’t know. Marta likes to play like she doesn’t have a dime of money, but she pulls from her family trust for this type of thing. She gets these people who used to know her family, and she pays them with whatever she’s got. And she gets them to fabricate shit for her. P.Is. watching me at the bar, and now these women from CPS coming on their day off. She’s about as smooth as a hunk of unpolished granite. But that doesn’t mean her tactics won’t work. She’ll have those women reporting we had some wild party, or a bunch of drugs hidden under the kitchen sink.”

Skye sighs heavily, like she’s taken on too much weight. In a way, she has. There’s nothing good about her being involved in this—not for her. The benefit goes to me. At least I can keep her in bed, relieving her stress with me. That’s maybe the only thing I can do.

“Well, I’ll be there with you. I’ll tell them it’s not true. They can’t really make that shit up, can they?” Her voice sounds small and fragile.

“I don’t know. I haven’t dealt with CPS before. They both looked dumber than two sacks of hair, so they might not be the ace in the hole Marta thinks they are.”

“We can only pray that they’re not,” Skye says. “That’s all we have—that hope.”

The next days will spread before us with deep anxiety and worry, but we’ll get through them. I’m realizing more and more how indispensable this woman is. There may be nothing to be done about Marta and her plans—but Skye keeps me strong and steady.

And perhaps she’s the missing piece I needed all along.

I can only wonder if she knows how very important she really is.

 

Chapter Twenty

Skye

It’s the day of the preliminary hearing.

My stomach is queasy as I pull my hair up into a bun. Because it’s so straight, my hair won’t stay in fucking place. It never has—or it hadn’t until Liam’s aunt and Rhiannon got hold of it on my wedding day. There was enough AquaNet in that room to kill a cow.

I smile as I think about it. The wedding. Running home in the rain. Liam, carrying me across the threshold, taking me to bed. Fucking me until I was sore for days afterwards.

The water turns off in the next room, and I hear the shower door close. Liam appears at the door of the bathroom, watching me as I dress. I don’t say anything. Instead, I choose a blue pinstripe skirt and a white button-down shirt. Something feels different when I put the clothes on, like everything about my body has changed. It’s not surprising, especially. Everything has changed. Even the clothes I choose each morning are different. Even my boss has commented on it.

“Do I look okay?” I ask. “I think we ought to go for professional.”

“This is just the preliminary meeting, Skye. The real thing is tomorrow.” He pauses for a beat. “But you look beautiful. If your looks have anything to do with the decision, we’re going to win full custody.”

I cut my eyes at him to see if he’s being sarcastic. He’s not. Instead, his face is serious, more serious than it has been since the day the women from CPS came. Since then, we’ve been able to see Brie a few more times. But now, the time has come. Decisions must be made. And I’ve become a part of all of this.

“Okay then. Get ready,” I say. “We’ve got to go in an hour.”

“That means we’ve got an hour,” he says, coming over to me. “I think that’s plenty of time for me to examine how these clothes look on you.” He kisses my neck, and a shiver runs down my spine. “And off of you.”

“Come on. I’m nervous—and you should be too—”

“I am,” he says. His hand cups my breast, pinching the nipple ever so slightly through the crisp fabric of my shirt. I whimper, because as much as I want to resist, I can’t. Even though he was inside of me last night and every day before that, I still want him. Want him to relieve the stress sitting inside of me, open me, remind me that I belong to him.

Roughly, he lifts my skirt and pushes me against the dresser. As he pulls my panties down to my knees, the towel around his waist falls away. His cock is already stiff, and he strokes himself as he holds me. He groans.

“You need some stress relief from your big man, don’t you?”

“Yes, baby, I do,” I sigh. He hikes the skirt up around my waist and hoists my body onto the dresser, parting my legs. He doesn’t wait. Instead, he thrusts inside of me, taking my breath away. His cock fills me to the hilt, still stretching me open after all this time. I love how it feels—that mix of pain and pleasure that I can feel for the rest of the day.

“You’re a greedy little girl, and you want my cum inside of you.”

“Yeah,” I moan. He pins one of my hands against the dresser, using my body as leverage. He thrusts inside of me hard, slamming into me, hitting my clit with each thrust. The power and pressure build up in my core, tightening into a white-hot coil of need.

“Tell me you need it, baby. Tell me what you want.”

“I want you to fill me up,” I whisper. “Come inside of me.” When I say it, my muscles grow tight and then release. The warmth and pleasure spread through me. My toes curl, and I cry out. My orgasm triggers his, and I feel him pushing harder, each movement bringing him closer. He comes, muscles tensing, a low growl issuing from deep inside of him, raw and animal.

We stay like that, panting, and he puts his mouth to mine, kissing me hard. “We keep doing this, we’re going to end up getting you pregnant.”

I feel myself growing pale, even though the thought has crossed my own mind. My arms are slung around his neck, so it’s easy enough to avoid his gaze. I don’t respond. Instead, I nestle deep into the crook of his neck.

“I’m still on the pill—” I mutter.

“I know. Maybe you should stop.”

“Liam, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I’m a grown ass man, and I do know what I’m saying.” He pulls away and looks at me. “Skye, I want this for the long haul.”

My heart skips, like they say in the movies, and my stomach feels like it’s dropping down to my feet. I move away from the dresser and pull up my panties. While I’m smoothing out my clothes, Liam comes to me and touches my back.

“I didn’t mean to scare you, Skye. I just want to let you know my intentions.”

“You have before, Liam. I think we need to get through all of this first, and then we can figure out where to go from here.” My stomach turns when I say it. I’ve been fighting the words, willing them not to come. It all still seems like a fairy tale, like we’ve been conning ourselves and the world around us for this entire time. But if you pretend something for long enough, can it become real? Do I even want it to be? I’ve been over it in my head a thousand times since Liam started talking about it—and he was the one, the one who kept saying we could be a family. If and when, and us, and we.

“I want to be with you,” he says. “A real husband. For the long haul. For Brie, and for everything else.” I look back at him, eyes wide. He’s pulling on boxers and a pair of wrinkled pants. Ordinary things, when he’s said something entirely out of the ordinary.

I can’t respond—don’t know how to. The emotion surges in my body, roiling in my blood like a tempest. I want to, so badly. But I can’t believe that Liam Dougherty knows exactly what he’s saying, what he’s inviting me to consider. A life with him—no other women. No apartment in Manhattan. No girls. Nothing else, but me.

I open my mouth to respond, but he puts his hand up to stop me. “Don’t say anything. I don’t want to hear it until after we’ve talked to the judge today. He’ll get us ready for tomorrow, and we’ll know more, okay?”

“Okay,” I manage to say. “We need to go, anyway.”

Liam takes my hand, and we walk together to the station. In silence, we ride to the judge’s chambers—a judge who, according to Marta, knows her family and isn’t such a fan of the Doughertys. He’ll be the same one seeing us tomorrow, the one who decides our fate, who makes this whole thing possible one way or another. The subway stops, and we exit the doors to the stale, humid air of the underground station.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen today, Liam,” I say as we step onto the escalator that takes us to the office. “But I’m with you.”

The judge’s chambers are ominous—the walls are all exposed wood, and the floors marble. For a judge who sees family court and custody cases, it all strikes me as a little ostentatious. But that’s how the legal system is. Far more self-important than it should be. Next to me, Liam shuffles from foot to foot, more nervous than I’ve seen him in all the time I’ve known him. With the CPS women at our house—funny that I think of it as our house now—we don’t know what today is going to hold.

The family lawyer, Donnelly, walks in with Liam’s brother Finn and nods to both of us. Finn even nods at me and puts a calloused hand to my shoulder. “Thank you for being here. You know you don’t have to be,” he whispers to me.

“Seems like this is what I signed on for,” I say. “Your brother wouldn’t let me get away with staying at home and painting my nails.”

Finn smirks and cuffs his brother on the arm. “Looks like you got yourself a keeper, whether you meant to or not.”

Liam looks over at me and grins. “Yeah, she’s all right.”

“The judge is coming in just a minute. But where the hell is that bitch Marta?” Donnelly looks anxiously between the four doors that lead into the chambers. We’re the only people here, and the high ceilings and lack of daylight make the whole thing feel a little creepy—like we’ve walked into a trap.

“That’s not the most professional language,” Liam says. “Especially not to refer to a woman who’s about to lose full custody.”

“Don’t jinx it, brother,” Finn says.

At that very moment, Marta walks in with Brie trailing behind her. Brie’s wearing her Catholic school uniform, but she’s pulled her shirt from out of the skirt and is worrying the bottom of it with her little hands. She looks up at me and smiles weakly. For a kid, this is all too much. Marta drags her around to parade her in front of all of us. Maybe to make us jealous, or maybe to prove some kind of point. If she were a real parent, she wouldn’t drag Brie along.

But it’s very clear that she’s not.

From the tight, angry feeling in my chest, I know the depth of my own investment. I hurt not only for Brie but for Liam, his brothers, his mom. Brie is a Dougherty.

Marta’s lawyer enters behind Brie, and following him, there are two people I can’t make out.

“Shit,” Liam says, spying them before I do. “It’s the women—”

“From CPS,” I say. I groan and roll my eyes. “Fucking. Bitches.”

Finn looks between us. “What happened now? Are these the people who came to the apartment to see how Brie was doing? I thought that was just routine.”

“Nothing is routine when it comes to Marta,” Liam says, his voice a low growl.

“Hey,” I say, catching his arm in my hand. “It’ll be okay.”

The judge steps in, looking old and tired. His hair is slate gray, and he carries a sheaf of papers. It might be our case, or it could be a stack of unrelated emails. There’s no way to know.

“I’ll see the case now,” he says, looking between the two groups of people. “This is for the Dougherty hearing tomorrow. And why is the child here? She doesn’t need to be around for any of this.”

“There’s a childcare issue, Judge Brockner. Mr. Dougherty hasn’t provided enough monthly income for a babysitter during these meetings. I’ve told Brie that her father doesn’t care enough about her to provide extra money—just the bare bones and nothing more—”

“Mrs. Maguire, there’s no call for that kind of language in front of the child,” the judge says, looking over at Brie. Brie is still looking down at her feet, even though she’s sitting now.

“She’s baiting you Liam,” Finn whispers. “Don’t take it.”

I hold onto Liam’s arm where we’re sitting. I never realized that I’d be so invested when this day came. Liam clears his throat, but it comes out sounding like a growl.

“I see this case is complicated,” the judge says, refusing to address Marta’s allegations out of turn. “It looks like Mr. Dougherty had sole custody of the child until the death of the mother and his subsequent imprisonment, at which time the grandmother assumed care of the child. Is that correct?”

Donnelly looks to Liam, who swallows hard and nods. “Marta used to split custody with my mother until her health started getting worse. We’re petitioning for full custody at this time.”

“‘We’ meaning you and your new wife, Mr. Dougherty?” The judge looks directly at me. I wonder if my outfit is conservative enough, or if this is all see through. If it seems as flimsy to him as it does to me.

“Yes,” Liam says. “That is correct.”

“We’re having this preliminary hearing today to discuss if the guardians wish to discuss joint custody or sole custody.”

“Sole custody, your honor,” Marta chirps. “That place he lives in isn’t fit for Brie—and we have witnesses to prove it.” She sounds self-satisfied when she says it—disgustingly so.

“Please, let’s save that for later,” Marta’s lawyer says, facing the judge. “But Mrs. Maguire is correct. There’s also the issue of the falsified marriage.”

My heart rate quickens. It was false—a fake relationship, fake wedding, all of it. But we’ve kept true to our vows, and we’ve made it real for Brie. There’s more stability now than there’s ever been. And I’ve been the one to see the changes in Liam. I want to shout all of this out, but I clamp it down inside.

“Falsified marriage? That’s a hefty accusation. One worth looking into. I’ll expect evidence on that tomorrow. Any documentation that you can provide. And we can get testimony from both Mr. and Mrs. Dougherty on that. What’s this about the house being unsuitable?”

“My client’s friends at Child Protective Services went to visit Brie last week, noting that she was given unhealthy food and an unlimited access to screen time during her stay. She was also forced to bear witness to the false relationship between Mr. Dougherty and Ms. Williams,” Marta’s lawyer adds.

“Ms. Williams?” the judge asks.

“Yes. She chose to keep her maiden name because she intends to get divorced and take her reward from Mr. Dougherty as soon as he gains custody. We intend to prove that she never intended to stay married to Mr. Dougherty. She was in it for a significant payoff from the client, from money that should have been going to child support.”

I stiffen in my seat. “That’s not right,” I whisper to Liam. “That doesn’t make sense.”

His skin turns pale, and he puts his hand to his face in a gesture of exasperation. “They know,” he says, whispering to his brother, Finn.

Finn groans. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he says.

The judge rambles on, and the words become a low buzz around me. From the look on Liam’s face, there’s something I don’t know. And it’s big.

 

Chapter Twenty-One

Liam

The ride back to our apartment is silent. Skye stares out of the window, and there’s a light rain beginning to fall. It’s not like that hopeful spring rain on the night of our wedding. Everything in New York is aggressively green now and totally covered with pollen. It’s that depressing part of spring where the air begins to get thick and humid, a reminder that summer is lurking around the corner. And there won’t be many days before the heat starts seeping in, before the air conditioning units begin humming in windows all over the city.

“It’s nothing that hurts our case,” I say, reaching out for her hand. She pulls it away and stays silent. “It’s about the money I have put away. Marta wanted it—she always has.”

Skye sighs heavily. “I’d thought you told me everything. But I should have known better. The wedding. The apartment. Brie. It was all too good to be true. Or—maybe it wasn’t. I can’t tell now.” Her voice is soft and solemn, like she’s thinking out loud. “Now we’re at the end of it, and I’m being made to look like a fool. Or I will be—tomorrow.”

“It’s not like that.” I sigh quickly. “There’s money, and it’s put away. I have it in your name so that Marta can’t get to it.” I look away when I say it. Even at the first, the plan all seemed so simple, so easy to pull off. It seemed like I could make it all happen, make it all so that Marta would lose custody. I’d had it all worked out, bit by bit, as things fell into place. When I got the idea to marry Skye, when she signed on to be part of my life. What I hadn’t considered was her—and how she might feel about all of this.

She groans slightly. “You realize what this looks like. Whatever she found out—it’s going to look like it’s true. Even if the judge isn’t your typical old school Irish guy or whatever, he’s going to side with the woman who’s held custody for the better part of two years. Because we look ridiculous. How could you do this—”

“I didn’t do this to you, Skye.” Even as I say it, the words sound awful coming out of my mouth.

“I didn’t mean to me. I mean to Brie. She wants to live with you. To be with you. To be a part of this family—or whatever it is. And you knew Marta had people, people coming out of the woodwork to help her.”

“She’s a phony. Talking about how she needs extra child support when she bribes half the town. Donnelly’s told me that this judge won’t side with her. He’s one we know. The one who wanted me married. We lucked out—”

“I can’t be a part of this,” she says. “I care about you, Liam. But I should have stepped out a long time ago. I should have known better. It’s best if I don’t come tomorrow.”

“Come on, Skye. I need you. I need you to be there.” When I say the words, I know I mean them, but there are so many things I’ve said along the way. Maybe these words don’t mean anything at all. Not to Skye, even if they mean something to me. “One last time,” I add.

There’s a long pause as the Lyft I ordered for us turns onto the street in Queens. The one where we live—the street and the little house where we started to build a life, one that was better than anything I’ve ever known. I don’t blame her.

For the first night since we moved in together, we’re silent. We don’t sleep apart, but she stays on her side of the bed, and I’m on mine. She has one of her bags packed already, sitting casually by the side of the bed.

We never even had the bed frame delivered, and she’s moving out. There are so many things I want to say, words circling around in my brain. Long after Skye is asleep next to me, I lie awake. I think about the decisions that brought me here, from the very first night I met her. I had never thought I’d have the opportunity to be with my child again. I had the money, the family to back me. But I didn’t have a reason, a catalyst.

Skye became that reason for me.

I haven’t said the words in years, and I’m not sure if I even meant them when I last did. Tabitha and I were hot and heavy, and we didn’t know how to be in a real relationship. We were selfish, young, not ready for a child in our lives.

But when I look at Skye’s small, beautiful body next to mine, its curves rising and falling in time with my own heartbeat, I can imagine myself saying it to her. I’m not sure why I haven’t already.

It’s maybe the stupidest decision I’ve ever made, not telling her. I sigh.

I put a hand on her sleeping shoulder, and she pulls away ever so slightly in her sleep, stretching. When her body returns to its natural place, she turns to me again, and I see the outlines of her body illuminated by the moonlight.

I want to wake her, to take her in my arms, tell her I’ve taken her for granted all along. I love her, all of her, and I want her to stay with me and be a part of this family, no matter what form it might take.

Instead, exhaustion overtakes me. When I dream, there are swirling images of the judge’s chamber, and a picture of Brie’s face, fading out further and further until I can no longer see her. Then, I’m alone. No Brie, no Skye.

When we wake, the words won’t come. Instead, we get dressed in silence, her in her pinstripe skirt. And she hands me an ironed shirt, and slacks that I haven’t worn for the past two years.

“Not sure if these will fit,” I say, watching her, and holding the dark khaki pants in my hand. She’s ironed them out so that the long wrinkle from the coat hanger is no longer there. She did it without asking, without mentioning a single thing to me. Because she knows this day is important—it means something to me, and more than that, it means something to her.

“They will,” she says without thinking. “I checked. They’re the same size as your jeans. And the tux you wore to the wedding. They’ll be fine. There’s a tie hanging over the towel bar in the bathroom, too. It’s blue. They say that’s good for courtrooms—the color blue. I think I read that in a magazine.”

“I trust you, Skye.” I look over at her, and she doesn’t meet my eye. She buttons up her blue shirt over her full breasts, and my stomach drops. By not being honest, I’m going to lose her too.

No daughter. No wife. I have a flashback to the lonely, dark cell I slept in for six months. And the empty apartment after that.

She doesn’t respond, and I don’t blame her. I used her. I didn’t consider what she would want to know, who she was, or what she needed. I think of that bank account, still sitting in Skye’s name. If Marta’s able to spin it the right way, we’re finished. Skye married me for nothing, and I’ll be in another dark cell—but this time, it will be one entirely of my own creation.

Skye checks her phone and gives me a glance, smiling very slightly. “Today’s the day,” she says. “I’m with you. But I should probably get going after tomorrow. If they give you custody of Brie, it won’t have anything to do with me. So, there’s no point.”

She walks up to me and helps me adjust my tie, cool fingers brushing against my neck. She puts one finger to my jawline and kisses me there.

“I’ve told you a thousand times I don’t want you to go, Skye.” My heart beats harder when she’s this close to me. Maybe I hadn’t noticed that before, or I hadn’t put a name to it. I lean in and kiss her, and she melts into me for a moment before pulling away.

“I know. It’s just best that I go before this gets messier than it is.” She gives me that weak smile again. “But I learned a lot about what I want. And I think it might be a man like you. I never knew that before.”

I swallow hard against the lump forming in my throat. “I don’t know if that’s true.”

“It is,” she says. “I see how strong and protective you are when it comes to Brie. How you fight hard for your family. It’s not just how you are in bed—there’s that too. I’m at home in my own body for the first time, ever. It’s how you are with everyone around you.”

“Just not with you, I guess.”

She shrugs and looks away. “We better get going, Liam. Whatever happens today, I think you’ll always be a big part of that little girl’s life. But don’t give up. Keep fighting, even after I’m gone.”

“Skye—”

“Let’s go,” she says. “We have to make a good impression when we get in there. Whether any of that is real or not.”

Despite everything, she reaches out and takes my hand. Her fingers seem small and fragile inside mine. I keep that thought in my head as we make the ride over to the courthouse and walk up the stairs, still silent, to the judge’s chambers. This time, my whole family is here, and each of them greets Skye with a hug.

There’s an air of eerie silence as we sit in the courtroom, waiting for the judge. Marta is sitting next to Brie, blocking her from my sight. But I can feel her here, just as I can feel Skye, sitting next to me, nervous and unable to relax. I put my hand on top of hers until I feel her grow calmer.

She’s worth protecting, too. Worth fighting for.

I sigh and look down at my feet. The benches in the judge’s room remind me of the pews at the church where I married Skye, where we said, “I do.” And all the other vows that said we’d stand by each other through thick and thin.

I look over her as the judge enters the courtroom. She’s fiddling with a lock of her deep brown hair, crossing and uncrossing her ankles. Like she said from the start, she’s in this. She has been from the beginning.

I wanted her then, and I still want her. I want her home with me, waking up next to me. Getting books from the library and eating breakfast at the kitchen table. Even if I have Brie, I think about that little first floor apartment in Queens, and it doesn’t feel like home without Skye. Not truly.

“I’m ready to hear the case,” the judge says. He sifts through papers, and I watch as Donnelly and Marta’s lawyer whisper, arguing about something. The judge raises his hand to stop them.

“It looks like Mrs. Maguire’s counsel has evidence about the marriage to present,” the judge continues, looking over at Skye and me. “I believe this is a new marriage, and Mr. Ellis has evidence here to show that the marriage is fake.”

Something deep in my chest clenches hard, and I try to stifle the string of curse words that want to come out of my mouth. I look up at my lawyer and grimly shake my head. There’s not much to say—since every word is true.

“And why would the father here engage in a falsified relationship? We went over this yesterday for a brief time, and it doesn’t seem likely.”

Ellis, Marta’s lawyer, hands a document to the judge. “It appears that Mr. Dougherty met the woman in question at a bar that he owns. He offered Ms. Williams a large sum of money that had been earmarked for Brie’s child support in exchange for her complicity in this ruse. The wedding and subsequent marriage are both for show. The father appears to believe it would make his case stronger so that he might regain custody of his daughter. My client told me that she believes Mr. Dougherty wishes to have full custody in order to enjoy the tax benefits and collect his deceased wife’s social security.”

“That’s enough,” I growl.

“Liam, please,” Donnelly says. He gives me a piercing look. “If you’ll look at this, your honor—the trust in question is set up to be in Ms. Williams’ name. However, it is not accessible to Ms. Williams under any condition. It becomes Brie’s property when she turns eighteen.”

I sigh, and I try to hold my tongue. I hadn’t set it up that way originally, but Donnelly may have pulled some magic behind my back in the past twenty-four hours.

“So, is the marriage in question fake or not, Mr. Donnelly? What are you saying here?” The judge adjusts his glasses and looks over the financial documents my lawyer has given him. “This does show that Ms. Williams doesn’t have rights to the trust, though it is in her name. Is this so that Mrs. Maguire won’t have access to the money?”

“That’s correct,” I say. “She doesn’t get a red cent of it. It’s all for my daughter.”

“Mr. Dougherty, this is an issue for the lawyers to sort out with me. Unless you have something to say about the validity of your marriage.”

“I do, your honor.” I stand from where I’m sitting and look around the courtroom. Everyone turns to look at me, and I’m about to give them the show of their lifetime.

 

Chapter Twenty-Two

Skye

Liam stands up in from the seat next to me, and I cover my face with my hands. I’d thought he was a typical bad boy from day one—rude and arrogant and brooding, all to hide the scars he carries inside. But Liam Dougherty is anything but typical. There are things about him that are ridiculous and goofy and totally over-the-top. I have the distinct feeling that he’s about to do something to prove that side of his personality. Right now. In front of everyone.

“Your honor, I object,” he says. He looks down at me, a sparkle in his eye. Where the expression on his face was heavy before, now it’s all amusement. His brother, Finn, groans next to me.

“I can’t fucking believe this guy,” Finn says to himself.

“There’s no jury here, Mr. Dougherty. And you are not an attorney, let me remind you of that. There’s not even anything to object to. These documents look to be genuine.” The judge pushes his glasses up on his nose and looks down at the papers again, nodding.

“If I may, your honor—”

The judge looks back and forth between the two groups of people sitting in the courtroom. “Is this relevant to the case?”

“It’s relevant to the accusation that my marriage to Ms. Williams was falsified for the purposes of gaining custody of Brie.”

“Okay,” the judge says, his voice tired. “I suppose you can address the court on that matter. But like I said, the documents here seem to be in order—”

“As I was saying,” Liam continues, barely giving the judge time to finish his sentence. “Marta Maguire, the woman who has been caring for my daughter—and she’s been doing a shitty job—”

Liam’s lawyer groans. “Liam—” He stops, but I get the impression he doesn’t really know what to say to make him quit talking.

“Told the judge yesterday that Skye Williams and I have been involved in a fake relationship. In fact, Skye just filed to have her name changed, didn’t she? So, she’s a Dougherty now. Let the record reflect that. Isn’t that what they say?”

“Go on,” the judge sighs.

“Well, Mrs. Dougherty here—she and I did have a fake wedding.”

“Like I said, Mr. Dougherty,” the judge says. “Everything here looks to be in order—and I don’t care under what circumstances you married Mrs. Dougherty, as long as you two are staying together.”

“That’s the thing, your honor. I’m saying our wedding was fake, but our marriage sure as hell ain’t.” I look up at Liam. The smile he’s wearing has fully reached his eyes.

A wave of embarrassment hits me. “Liam, sit down,” I whisper. Several heads swivel and turn our way, like we’re the most entertaining show of the hour. And I’m guessing we probably are.

“I’m in love with this woman. That’ll be recorded in the court proceedings, won’t it? Filed away somewhere so it’s official?”

The judge shrugs but doesn’t respond this time.

“I fell in love with her right away, but I was too stupid and too hurt to understand what was happening.”

“Come on Liam,” I mumble, but he doesn’t hear me. Instead, he just continues, looking awkward and proud in his button-down shirt. Before he starts again, he looks down at me and rolls up his shirtsleeves. Warmth pulses through me when I see his forearms, and I realize I can’t take my eyes off him. His brothers and mother are all watching him.

“I went through hell. I lost my wife. I lost my little girl. And I was too afraid to do anything but work at the bar. I kept living the same life, night after night. Until Skye walked in. She was different—beautiful. But not just that. She’s smart, too. She keeps me on my toes, and she pushes me hard, but in a way that I don’t really know she’s doing it until it’s done. And I love her. I do. I keep telling her to stay, but I haven’t given her a good reason to.”

He reaches down and takes my hand in his. “Liam,” I say. I don’t add anything else because I don’t know what there is to add. This is the one thing I’ve been waiting to hear, but there’s a crushing uncertainty. There’s no way of knowing that he won’t want to go back to that life, the one he built around the bar and taking women to his apartment upstairs. I know too little about him.

“We haven’t been together for years, like some people who get married,” he says, as if he’s reading my mind. “But I know this. I love her. That’s not fake. I want to wake up seeing her every day. And I want to grow old with her too. What do you say, Skye?”

“Liam, this isn’t really the place—” I start. Redness rises over my cheeks as I realize that everyone is looking at me, waiting for my response. “And I don’t quite know what you’re asking.”

“Skye Williams Dougherty, will you stay married to me?”

I pause, probably too long for Liam’s family and the other people in the courtroom. Even the judge is looking in my direction. His day has been interrupted grandly enough that I don’t blame him. He was ready to declare in favor of Liam before the man got up and started with his grand gesture. I close my eyes for a second, and when I do, I know the answer. I’ve known it all along, from the first time I woke up next to him.

“Yeah,” I say. “I will. If you sit down.” I smile up at him and laugh, pulling on his hand. “Please. Sit down.”

“Okay,” he says, a satisfied grin on his face. “I can do that.” He sits next to me and pulls me into his arms. His lips find mine, and he kisses me. For a second, everything around me fades out. Liam has that effect on me, that way of making me doubt the life I originally saw for myself. And when he kisses me like this, it’s like I’m in a dream.

It’s not a sea change, not exactly. I think I’d been waiting for this moment ever since I met Liam. He put words to the things I was feeling. We were rushed—our whole relationship was. But it doesn’t mean that there weren’t feelings there, a foundation that existed whether we knew it or not.

I keep my lips pursed tight, heart beating hard. I’ve never been good with being the center of attention, and this was a particularly strange experience. All eyes are on me, while a man declares his love for me in the middle of a courtroom.

Well, this is a lot more exciting than the entirety of my relationship with Charlie.

“We’ll make a note that the relationship will continue. That will be a good mark on your record with the state,” the judge says.

“This is ridiculous,” I hear Marta sneer. “It’s clear that this whole thing was organized and planned from the beginning. No one really believes that their relationship is real.” Her voice increases in volume, and she stands up, pointing her gnarled, arthritic finger in our direction.

“Please sit down, Mrs. Maguire. I haven’t reached my final ruling yet, and your role in the little girl’s life does depend on some of these things.”

“Me—I’ve taken care of her since her delinquent father went to prison,” Marta says. “It doesn’t matter whether he loves this woman or not. Their marriage isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. And this man is a criminal,” she adds, pointing at Liam. “He committed armed robbery!”

“You planned that whole thing,” Finn says across the courtroom. “You know you did. Liam never would have gotten tied up in any of that shit if it weren’t for you demanding money when he didn’t have a red cent to his name. And since he got out, he’s been a model citizen. Working his ass off for this kid, making sure there was money for her. He’s paid child support. He’s proven he can do what it takes to care for her. He put himself out there. What more do you want?”

Liam laughs beside me, a low rumble from deep in his chest. It’s not an uncomplicated laugh—there’s a sense of anger in it, of a long, drawn-out battle that is just now ending. “She wants Brie, and not because Brie is wonderful. Or smart. Or a pretty perfect kid, all the way around.” Liam looks over at his daughter, smiling. Her face brightens instantly, the way it does whenever she sees him. There are hopeful tears in her eyes. “Brie, come on over here. Sit with Daddy.”

Brie tries to extricate herself from her grandmother, but Marta holds on to her collar and yanks her viciously backwards. Brie yelps. “Ouch! Let go of me!”

Marta yanks Brie’s collar again and swats her viciously on the arm. Brie starts crying, tears streaming down her face. She’s asking for her father, but Marta still won’t let go.

The judge looks at Marta coolly.

I feel Liam’s fist clench as I hold onto his arm, but he keeps his cool. He’s waiting for what comes next.

“Enough!” the judge shouts. “Mrs. Maguire, this is not appropriate behavior for the courtroom. Furthermore, the complaints you brought to us from the CPS investigation you ordered don’t hold any weight. Despite your position in the community, we cannot prevent custody from going to Mr. Dougherty. He is the biological father, and he will be better able to care for Brie due to his physical and mental health and the seemingly stable relationship he has with his wife.” The judge lets out a heavy sigh.

“This is ridiculous,” Marta shouts. “I was told that the court would rule in my favor. I paid the other judge with part of the reverse mortgage I got on my house, and it turns out that we see you for this. This is not fair—”

“Please let go of the little girl, Mrs. Maguire. Let me state that your claims of needing more child support do not mesh well with bribery and the countless investigations you’ve paid for in order to keep custody of Brie for the past two years.”

Marta huffs, but she lets go of Brie’s collar. A defeated look takes over her aging face.

“This court hereby grants full custody to Liam Dougherty, and his wife, Skye Williams Dougherty. Mrs. Maguire will be granted supervised visits, should she want them.” The judge pounds his gavel once, and gets up to leave immediately. Brie rushes over to the two of us, wrapping her arms around her father’s legs while Marta watches us in dismay.

“This is unconscionable, ridiculous. I can’t believe it,” Marta keeps repeating. The older woman from CPS puts a comforting hand on her shoulder, and Marta brushes it away angrily. “I don’t know how you two screwed up, but you absolutely did. There’s no way that that man is fit to care for my granddaughter, and you both know it.”

“She’s coming unhinged,” Liam whispers to me as Brie hugs his legs hard, not letting go. Liam was right—this kid never needed to be in a courtroom. And I’ll make damn sure she doesn’t have to enter one again. “It’s beautiful to watch,” he adds.

The edges of Liam’s eyes crinkle up, and tears appear at the very edges of his lashes. He wipes them away quickly, but he chokes up, and more tears come. He picks his daughter up and pulls us both into a tight hug. “We’re a family now,” he says, kissing Brie on the cheek.

“I’m happy that we are,” Brie says. “I think we’ll all be happy together.” There’s a pause. “Should we go have lunch somewhere? I’d really like to eat at a restaurant. I’m hungry.”

I smile, and I lean my head against Liam’s shoulder. “Yeah. I think we should. Hot French fries. Chocolate shake.” My stomach rumbles. There’s so much that’s buried in Brie’s words. For the past two years, I bet she hasn’t been able to ask that of her caretaker. Instead, she’s been subjected to endless scrutiny and strange punishments—and worst of all, the lack of access to her father. She doesn’t say all of this because she can’t. She doesn’t yet have the words.

We leave the courtroom in a boisterous mob of movement—that’s how Liam’s family is. Everyone is talking over each other all at once, and we’re all laughing together. Brie can’t escape the hugs of her uncles and her grandmother, and she’s tumbling along with all of us as we walk out of the door into the sunlight.

When I look back, Marta is alone, scowling at us, arms crossed.

I guess that’s who she always was, but the effort she put out to get what she wanted—it wasn’t rewarded this time.

Liam, Brie, and I huddle into a Lyft that takes us through the traffic to our house—our home, back in Queens. By the time we make the turn onto our street, Brie is sleeping against her father’s side, her small chest rising and falling. I make a mental note to take her on a shopping expedition as soon as I can. The collar of her uniform is dirty, and she needs all the attention she can get. Even seeing her as infrequently as I have, I can tell she simply needs to be with people who care about her in a real way. And I do—I can’t help it.

This is my family.

“Liam,” I whisper.

“Hm?” He’s stroking his daughter’s arm, content even though we’re stopped in traffic mere blocks away from home.

“I’m not loud and—um, social—like your family.” I swallow hard. Everything has been building to this moment.

“No, you’re not,” he whispers, his hand resting on Brie’s arm. My heart swells at the sight of it. He chuckles quietly. “I don’t need anyone else like my family, though. I need you.”

“I want to stay. And I want to be part of your family.”

“Good. I didn’t think you were lying back there in the courthouse, but you never know. You Brooklyn girls.” He shrugs.

I smile. “I love you. That’s what I’m saying. And I want to be your wife.”

“Thought so,” he says, grinning. “I didn’t have any doubts about that.”

The Lyft pulls up beside our little house, and the driver looks back at us for a moment, giving the three of us a smile. “You two get married today? Congratulations.”

“Something like that,” I say. “Anyway, we’re a family.”

Liam slides out of the car after me, pulling Brie into his arms. When we step over the threshold, there’s a feeling of completeness that there wasn’t before. The first times we came into this apartment, nothing was for sure. But now, everything is.

 

Chapter Twenty-Three

Liam

Three Months Later

“You’re what?” Something clenches deep in my chest. Before I met Skye, I never felt this way—protective, worried, concerned. And that one word—it changes everything.

“Pregnant,” she whispers. She’s lying next to me in bed and holding one of those little white tests, the ones with the digital displays. I take it out of her hand, gingerly, like it might break into a million pieces or vanish into a cloud of dust.

Pregnant. Two to three weeks.

“Shit. Look at that.” We’re in our bed, in the safety and quiet of this house we share together. I let the tears come to my eyes and wipe them away, unashamed. “You know, I never had this with Tabitha. It was like—an emergency. She was four months pregnant when we found out, and we were real lucky she was mostly clean during that time. We got married real quick at the courthouse, and we were all walking on eggshells until Brie was born. She was perfect. But we never had this moment.”

“When it was just exciting? Not anything else?” She looks at me with wide eyes, still naked from the night before, her leg slung over mine. She must have creeped out of bed and taken a test before I woke up. I didn’t even know, but I was here, waiting for her, mere seconds after she took it. After she saw that word.

“Yeah. Something like that,” I say. Skye’s the one who has a way with words, but all of that memory poured out all at once. It floods over me right now—the mixed happiness and terror that comes when you have a kid too early with a woman you barely know. This—this thing right here with Skye—this is different. Entirely different.

“It’s still early,” she says. “I’m fucking nervous too. It’s not the same as with Brie, I know. But I don’t know. I’ve never done this before, and I have no idea what I’m doing. How to be a mom—”

“You already are one, my librarian. Brie hasn’t had one. Not one she remembers, anyway. She has this idea of her mom, but nothing else. You’re the one who’s been getting up with her for months when she wakes up at six in the morning. Packing lunches for camp and holding her hand when she crosses the street. I’d be fine on my own—”

“Sure,” she says, laughing. “I guess. I mean—you’d have to figure that shit out.”

“No, no. What I mean is—yeah, I’d be fine. But I wouldn’t be so goddamn happy all the time. I’d be surviving, making sure Brie got from place to place. You’re the one who’s mom.”

“I guess. I just haven’t had a baby before. And I don’t know what to do about work.”

I shrug, pulling her close into me. Her hair has that light, tropical scent I noticed the first time I took her in. Her body, as always, feels small in my arms. Soon, she will be growing larger, carrying a life from both of us inside of her.

“I was thinking of selling the bar,” I say. “It’s in a prime location. Bunch of fucking hipsters are moving into that neighborhood anyway, and we’d get a big-ass pay out. You take the year off. Write your first book. Grow that baby. Go back when you’re ready. Or who knows—you could make it big and we’ll never have to worry about money again.”

She laughs and puts her lips to my cheek. “That’s why you married me, isn’t it? So I could write romance novels and make millions of dollars?”

“That’s the only reason,” I say, laughing. “It was purely a business decision. Nothing else.”

“Then I think your business sense sucks. You’re betting on an unknown.”

“Nah,” I say. I pull her body into mine. The sun will be rising soon, and with that, Brie will wake up. She always does. A morning person, totally unlike me. Everything has been changing though, and I find myself waking up just to be with Skye before Brie wakes. “It was a very good decision. For business and otherwise.”

I pull Skye on top of me, and she yelps, trying to pull the sheet with her. “No—oh my gosh—I already feel all weird and bloated and fat.”

I pull the cover away from her and hold her by the hips. I’m growing hard just looking at her. She’s fucking beautiful in the gray predawn light of the bedroom. “You’re more perfect now than ever, Skye. I always had this dream,” I start. But then I pause because it’s a little bit embarrassing, and that dream never really made much sense.

“What was that dream?” She puts her hands on my shoulders and bends down to kiss me. The warmth and silky softness of her body brings mine to life, and I pause, just feeling her against me for a moment.

“Just you,” I say simply. “It was about you, I think. I just didn’t know it.”

I let my hands roam over her trim waist and down her back to the curve of her ass. She’s utterly perfect. Her breasts even seem fuller than they were before. I bring my hands to cup them and pinch her nipples, rolling them between my fingers. She moans softly. Acting automatically, almost on instinct, she positions her body over mine and takes my cock in her hand. I sigh, bucking my hips up toward hers. At first, Skye wasn’t confident. She wasn’t self assured or comfortable in her skin. But now, she gets on top of me by instinct, totally unabashed. She slides my cock inside of her, breath catching in her throat like it always does. I thrust upward to meet her, watching her as she sighs and starts riding me, her body falling into a steady, sweet rhythm.

She grinds her body against mine, and I watch as the flush rises over her chest. When she looks down at me, I see the lust in her gaze. Her eyes are hooded and hazy with it, her teeth biting one plump red lip. Her speed and rhythm increase, and I watch, patiently, as she begins to tip over that edge into the most beautiful oblivion.

Our wedding may have been fake, our relationship built on an impossibly shaky foundation, but the desperate, aching sound that comes from her is deeply, intensely real. She says my name, over and over, eyelids fluttering open and closed, her lips parted. I thrust inside her from below, filling her with each movement, riding her through her orgasm until she’s spent and falling against me. I roll over on top of her and pin her down, my hand on the nape of her neck. Her pussy is tight and hot, clenching me with each wave of her pleasure.

“I love you, Skye,” I whisper, tangling my fingers through her hair. Her locks are messy, fanning out on the white pillowcase like a halo. A surge of emotion rushes through me, fire rising in my core. I thrust hard inside of her, balls growing tight, and release, the flood of sensation filling every cell in my body for a moment before receding like a wave from shore.

Skye groans subtly, a soft sound from deep in her throat. She bucks against me again as I fill her, my body tired and spent. It’s quick—not complicated. We’re both quiet, hoping the noise won’t travel through the wall.

But this is the missing piece. It’s what I wanted but didn’t know I could have.

It wasn’t the women coming to my apartment, night after night. Nameless, forgettable. It was this—the contentment of waking up next to someone I love, a woman who keeps my family together, who puts me first. The woman strong enough to care for my child and carry my baby, fierce enough to keep me in line—and vulnerable enough to let me protect her and care for her as much as she needs.

“I love you too,” she mumbles, yawning. Her eyes close, and we lie in bed together. The air conditioning clicks on in the room, a low hum filling the room. I close my eyes and listen to it. In her room, Brie is stirring and starting to sing to herself, like she does every morning. There are footsteps in the apartment above us, the sounds of breakfast being made and served.

These are the sounds I might have thought boring before I ever met Skye. But here, with her, I realize these are the sound of a real marriage, of a life lived, a bond shared.

That echo of a dream comes back to me. It’s not all exactly the same, but the feelings are.

I lie beside Skye and close my eyes, buying a small slice of time before the day truly begins.

When we both wake, it will be the dream I’ve been waiting for, and I only hope that I’m part of hers as well.

This love will carry us far, for all the days of our lives.

 

 

 

For an awesome opportunity and my author info, flip to the very back of the book!

 

Deleted Scene

Skye

I can’t stay. I have to keep reminding myself.

“What’s happening between us…can’t be…” I start, but my thoughts won’t form into words. The wedding was two days ago, and we’ve fallen into a pattern that I don’t quite understand. We act like a real married couple. But after the court hearing, the document says that our marriage can easily be dissolved.

Where do I fit in his life? What does he want beyond his daughter and his job at the bar?

The word has crossed my mind. I hate to admit that it has. When I look at him, toweling off after a shower, my thoughts seem to scatter, and that word is the only thing I can think of. Love.

It’s almost like a reflex, that thought.

It must be mixed up in the desire I feel for his body.

“What?” He shrugs. “You put too much thought into things. Best not to.”

“Is that your life philosophy?” I go to the dresser in the corner and start looking for something I can wear to work. Something that might hide the bite mark on my shoulder. I blush at the thought and pull out a black knit cap-sleeve dress. It should be hung in a closet, but the closet doesn’t fit all of our clothes together. That might be a symbol for our entire relationship.

Not enough space to fit everything. Not quite. Not the right fit.

“Yeah. It’s gotten me this far.”

“Yeah?” I say absently, sorting through the drawers to find a bra. “And how far is that, exactly?”

Right as I pick up a lacy pink bra—one that Rhiannon gave to me right after the wedding with a saucy little grin on her face—I feel two strong hands around my waist, fingers traveling down to the waistband of my panties.

“It got me into your pants.”

“Oh good Lord,” I say, but I can’t help laughing. Each time he does something like this, I want to stop. To say no. To tell him I need to catch my train or read a proof for my boss. But I don’t. Instead, I wait for the tingle to begin at the base of my spine, the warmth to rise between my legs, the wetness to soak through my panties. I close my eyes and let the sensation overtake me.

“You’re fucking amazing. Seeing you like this. Every morning. A man could get used to this sort of thing.” He kisses my neck, and the sultry, shivering feeling seems to pass into every cell in my body.

I can’t help but put my hands over his, pushing them down into my panties, to my aching sex. My body is pulsing with need, and it’s rushing through my blood like an unstoppable, powerful wave.

“Liam—” I start. I always start what I mean to stay, and he stops me. Or I stop myself. It’s not really that clear.

“Don’t say a damn thing, woman. You’re mine, aren’t you?”

“For now,” I whisper.

“For now, what?”

“For now, yes. I am yours.” I lean my head back against his shoulder, and his fingers find my clit, circling it, pulling the wetness over and around it. I moan softly.

“Good. I’m going to show you what that means. Again. Because you’re fucking made for it.” He whips me around and pushes me against the dresser. His words are raspy with lust, echoing in my ear and sending vibrations into my core. Heat rises in my center, igniting me from the inside with a need as wide as the ocean.

Liam pulls my shirt off over my head and brings his mouth to my breasts, biting gently with his teeth. A whimper escapes my lips.

His eyes are serious when he looks at me, distant and cool. At times, I feel like there are so many things he’s not telling me, that there are secrets bigger than the two of us. But I push the thought aside, letting gooseflesh overtake my skin, giving myself over to the sensation and longing.

The need becomes urgent, pressing. I open my mouth to speak but he raises a finger to my lips.

“Like I said, you’re mine. And I get to use you like I please. Isn’t that right?”

A stormy tempest of arousal rises in my body. “Yes, that’s right.”

My love.

Surrender. Give in.

I close my eyes. There are no declarations of love, no talks about our relationship past the hearing, no mention of a future beyond today. But my heart longs for it. It’s what I wanted, and being married to Liam is tricking my mind into wanting it again.

I want to say this, but my words are gone. Liam’s hand is between my legs again, his fingers slipping inside of me, the base of his palm rocking against my clit. I suck in a sharp breath, and need winds its way through my body. I’m aching with it, desperate, hapless, miserable. I spread my legs for Liam, even though my mind tries to pull away. To separate.

Instead, I’m pulling off my panties and throwing them to the floor. Liam lifts me and carries me to the bed, throwing me down on the rumpled gray coverlet I brought from my apartment. I throw my body back so I’m posed on my elbows. Liam shuffles out of his towel, and I can see his growing length.

He wants me as much as I want him, and that confuses everything.

But when he joins me on the bed, there’s nothing that I can say.

Instead, his fingers are finding my sex again, and I close my eyes, letting my body draw closer to the edge of reason yet again.

There are things to be said, but the scent of this man, the way he smiles at me, the way he parts my lips with his… all of that takes over my thoughts instead, pushing out every hint of worry with coursing, intense lust that heightens my senses and threatens to destroy me completely. My nipples grow stiff in the cool air of the room, and he palms my breasts, fingers trailing over them, playing me like I’m an instrument designed for his pleasure.

I am his. His for now. The instrument he needs in this time and place.

Liam rolls to his side, next to me, stroking his shaft to an even greater hardness. My eyes meet his, and slowly, I spread my legs for him, my hand reaching for my slippery cleft.

Gone are the protests from before, and my thoughts about our relationship are getting fuzzy. Instead, I concentrate on circling my fingers over my clit and running my hand down the slippery wetness of my sex.

This is never something I would have done with Charlie.

He never would have asked. Never would have wanted it.

But it feels so natural, so necessary, with Liam. I’m compelled to show him my pleasure. My presence in his life. The aching sweetness that he gives to me each time we’re together.

“What do you want, my little librarian?” Liam’s voice is deep and husky.

My lips curl up into a smile. I might not know what this relationship means, but I am entirely certain about what I need at this very moment. “I want you inside of me.”

These are words I never would have said before.

Words that are on my lips each time we’re together like this.

There’s a first time for everything, and I am evolving.

I tilt my head back and lose myself in the pleasure, fingers working over my own body. Each flick brings me closer to orgasm, sparks lighting through every part of my body.

“Make yourself come, baby,” he groans.

I moan, loud, at the very sound of his voice. My mouth waters as I look at Liam stroking his length. I think of him, stretching me, taking my breath away. His mouth, his tongue, his fingers. Suddenly, I come with jarring force, shaking against my hand.

He watches me with hunger in his eyes.

“I want your mouth on me, Skye,” he says.

I kneel next to him, and the next thing I know, my hands are on Liam’s cock, stroking it, tasting his soft, hot skin and the saltiness of his essence. It makes the think of the first time we were together here in this apartment. My sex throbs as I suck his cock, taking his shaft to the back of my throat and listening as his sighs turn to groans. His hips move in response to my mouth and my tongue.

I’m ready for him to come in my mouth, hit the back of my throat. But he pulls himself away from my mouth and positions himself between my legs.

I look at him with wide eyes. “What did I do wrong?

“It’s all about what you did right, my little librarian.” He drops his body onto mine, and I can feel every chiseled muscle against my skin. “I’m going to come inside of you. Like I did last night and the night before. I just can’t resist.”

He kisses me hard, and he pulls my hair. Every bit of me is on fire, my body screaming out primally and fully. He puts his cock at the entrance of my pussy.

He groans. “So tight. So sweet. Are you ready?”

Before I have a chance to answer him, I feel the head slip inside. My sex pulses in response, and a network of fire explodes in my body. In one swift movement, he pushes the rest of the way inside, his bare cock pushing against my walls. Liam groans, throaty and rich, throwing his head back, lost in pleasure.

“I’m going to come fast, baby. Are you going to come for me again?”

His hips crash against my clit, the pressure building, the rhythm increasing in speed with each powerful thrust.

“Harder,” I moan. “Make me come. Please, make me come.” I’m babbling, groaning, hips bucking upward to meet him.

“Tell me I’m yours. Tell me that pussy is mine. Say it.”

My body is quaking against Liam’s, and I can barely say it, wave after wave of orgasm filling me with light and white-hot heat. But I manage. “It’s yours. I’m yours.”

He grips my wrists and finds his rhythm again, thrusting hard inside of me. I can feel his essence fill me, the warmth and satisfaction of it.

His body slumps against mine, spent.

If my last words were too much for him, he doesn’t let it on. Instead, he pulls me closer into his body and kisses me gently on the forehead. It’s not the gesture of an extended one night stand—that’s what this was supposed to be. It’s more intimate, more real.

Maybe this is preparing me for some brighter future, for some nebulous goal somewhere down the line. But right now, this all feels scary, like this is too far for either of us to go. But as I shower and get dressed for work, everything fades back into the sense of normalcy that existed before.

We’re married.

We’re living together.

We’re fighting for that little girl. For stability. For the courts. For everything we’d planned.

The word goes out of my mind again. It’s an emotion I could feel, given the right circumstances. But these are not the right circumstances, and Liam clearly isn’t the right person. I’ll let it ride.

But as I get on the train for work, I’m lost in thought.

Will I not let myself say those three words because he’s not the right man for me—or is it because I know the sentiment won’t be returned?

It doesn’t matter, either way.

The results are the same no matter what, and our relationship will continue just as it is for the time being. Anything else would be far more than our fake relationship can stand.

* * *

For another exciting romance, read on for your free copy of Royal Beast! Jess Bentley and I also have a brand new romance, A Perfect SEAL. There’s an excerpt right after RB, if you’re into that sort of thing. If not, just search for A Perfect SEAL on Amazon!