Page 152 of The Tower

“Christ, look at you,” he mutters, his hands skimming down my sides to grip my hips. “So fucking perfect.”

I hear his zipper, then feel the heat of him pressed against me from behind. One hand slides around to tease between my legs.

“Always so wet for me,” he says, satisfaction dripping from every word. “Always so ready.”

“Please,” I whisper, already desperate for him.

He enters me in one hard thrust that knocks the breath out of me. The position—hands tied, bent over the table—leaves me completely at his mercy, and we both know it. There’s trust in this, in the way I give up control to him. In the way he takes it.

“Look at you,” he says, setting a rhythm that borders on punishing. “Like you were made for this. For me.”

His words and the relentless pounding push me toward the edge fast. I’m almost there when suddenly he stops.

“Not yet,” he says, voice strained with his own control. “Not until I say so.”

He pulls out, and I whimper in protest. Then his hands are on me, turning me, lifting me. He carries me to the bedroom and lays me on the bed, my hands still tied behind my back.

“I want to see your face when you come. When you fall apart for me.”

This time when he enters me, it’s with maddening slowness—a deliberate tease that has me arching against the restraints, my eyes locked on his. “Liam, please …”

“Please what, Princess?” His thumb finds my clit, circling with just enough pressure to make me crazy but not enough to push me over.

“Please let me come,” I beg, beyond caring how desperate I sound.

He flashes a predatory smile. “Since you asked so nicely.”

His rhythm picks up, his thumb matching his thrusts, and this time when I approach the edge, he doesn’t stop me. The orgasm crashes through me like a tidal wave, tearing his name from my throat. He follows right after, his body tensing over mine, my name a rough prayer on his lips.

After, he carefully unties my wrists, pressing gentle kisses to the faint marks left by the tight knot of silk. It’s this contrast that gets me every time—the fierce, possessive lover and the tender, careful man. The darkness and the light, perfectly balanced in one complicated package.

I curl into him as he wraps his arms around me, both of us sweaty and spent.

“I love you,” he murmurs into my hair. “More than I ever thought possible.”

“I love you too,” I tell him, tracing patterns on his chest. “All of you.”

We lie like that for a while, wrapped up in each other and the aftermath of something that felt too big for words. Eventually, we drag ourselves into the shower and get dressed for the drive back to Connecticut.

I curl against Liam as the car pulls away from the Celestial, heading north toward home. We spend most of our time there now, only coming into the city when we have to. I watch the Manhattan skyline shrinking behind us, remembering how I used to be terrified of open spaces. How just the thought of leaving the tower would send me into a spiral of panic.

Now I crave space—the woods surrounding our house, the lake we swim in on hot days, the endless sky at night so full of stars it makes my throat tight. It’s taken a while, but time, the drugs finally out of my body, and my father’s death took me most of the way. Liam took me the rest, literally opening the world for me.

“I’ve been thinking,” I say as we cross the bridge, leaving the city behind. “About what’s next.”

Liam glances over, curious. “For the company?”

“For us.”

His hand finds mine, our fingers twining together with the easy intimacy that still surprises me sometimes. “I’m listening.”

“I want to sell the Reed Tower penthouse.”

The words hang between us. I’ve been holding onto the place despite barely using it, unable to let go of that last connection to my childhood. Not to my mother—I have Lydia Cosmetics for that—but to the few happy memories that have come back to me. My mother singing me to sleep, teaching me to draw, chasing me around the tower in a silly game of tag. But those memories are of my mother, not the tower. And now that I have them back, I know she will always be with me.

“You sure?” he asks after I tell him all that. “You spent seven years there with her.”

“I did. But even though I have so many good memories back, it’s still the place where she died.” I turn to face him. “The truth is, it’s not home. It hasn’t been for a long, long time. But you are, Liam. Wherever you are—that’s home to me now.”