Because of His Future (For His Pleasure, Book 26) (2 page)

“I got smashed in the mouth by Easton the
empty suit, and that did wonders for me,” Liam smiled.
 
“So maybe I’ll quit drinking and let him
beat on me instead from now on.”

“I’m serious,” she told him.
 
“No more.”

The car started moving, and Liam nodded
at her with his eyes closed.
 
“No
more drinking.
 
Got it.”
 
He snapped his fingers a few times.
 
“Got it.
 
Got it.”

She sighed.
 
“Oh, Liam.”
 

They were in traffic, moving slowly, but
moving just the same.

Liam’s eyes fluttered open again as he
reclined further back on the seat, staring upwards.
 
“I killed her,” he said softly.
 

“You didn’t kill anyone.
 
Stop saying that.”

He lifted his head slightly and his gaze
suddenly locked on hers, and she saw that he wasn’t nearly as out of it as
she’d thought.
 
Those eyes were
burning with an intense rage, an intense pain that he’d covered up with a thin
layer of alcohol.
 

“She died driving her car and she was
only doing that so she could change the will, Grace.
 
All because of me and that stupid phone
call where I said those horrible things to her.”

“Why not blame me while you’re at it?”
Grace asked.
 

“You didn’t say those things to her on
the phone.
 
I’m the one who argued
with her.”

“But if it wasn’t for
our
relationship, if it wasn’t for
me
—you never would have had that
conversation with your mother.
 
So
you could just as easily blame me.”
 

Liam shook his head.
 
“Don’t try and talk me out of this, Grace.
 
I know what I know.”

“You want to beat yourself up.
 
You want to make yourself responsible
instead of admitting that it was an accident and nothing more.
 
She could’ve been driving anywhere when
it happened.”

As if provoked by this idea, Liam sat up.
 
“But she wasn’t driving just anywhere,
was she?
 
She was driving to that
lawyer’s office to cut me out of the will.
 
When she died, she was hurt and sad and angry, thinking that I hated
her.
 
Thinking that we might never
speak again.
 
And now we won’t ever
speak again, Grace, because she’s gone.”

“You can’t know what her state of mind
was,” Grace said, but Liam’s certainty was somehow disconcerting.
 

And knowing his mother, Grace was having
trouble completely dismissing Liam’s narrative.
 
Maybe she really had been that
vindictive, angry and wounded.
 
Maybe she died angry.
 

Perhaps it was all because of that
fateful last conversation that Liam’s mother was no longer alive.

“Regardless,” Grace said, “You couldn’t
have possibly known that your mother would choose to respond that way.”
 

“Are you sure about that?” Liam
asked.
 
“Because I know my mother
and what she’s capable of…what she
was
capable
of.”

“It’s not your fault that she was so
impulsive as to have immediately acted out to punish you for a simple argument.”

Liam sighed.
 
“Nothing’s going to change the facts,
Grace.
 
My last conversation with
her was a terrible argument.
 
It was
bad enough that she immediately had me cut out of the will, and then she died
driving to the lawyer to make it official.”

“No, nothing’s going to change the
facts.”
 
Grace looked evenly at
him.
 
“And only you can judge
yourself guilty and decide that all of those things mean you deserve to have a
horrible life.”

“I do find myself to be guilty,” Liam
said.
 

“So are you going to keep finding people
to beat you up?
 
Is that the
solution?” Grace asked.
 
“Because I
hate to tell you, but that’s not going to make you feel any better.
 
It’s not going to change a damn thing
about how your mother died.”

Liam touched his jaw and squinted.
 
“He didn’t beat me up.
 
It was a lucky punch.”

“You acted like an idiot.
 
And that’s got nothing to do with what
happened to your mother.
 
That’s
you, right now, being irresponsible and reckless.”

Liam laughed a little.
 
“You see, this is why I need you with
me, Grace.”
 
He smiled at her and
his eyes had softened.
 
“I need
someone who will tell me the truth no matter what.”

They pulled up in front of the hotel, and
they got out of the limousine.
 
As
they were about to walk into the lobby, they were unexpectedly surrounded by
paparazzi and journalists, snapping pictures and asking questions.

“Liam, what’s going on with your
family?
 
Is it true that your
father’s in town to set things straight?”

“Tell us your reaction to this horrible
tragedy—“

“Do you know if your mother was drinking
when she had her accident?”

“They say she was speeding, Liam.
 
Any reaction?”

Grace blinked as they crowded in around
her.
 
Liam grabbed her hand and
looked around at the hungry media faces.
 

“Please, everyone, just calm down,” he
said, sounding more sober now.
 
“I
know you’re all quite excited to have a new story to pick apart.
 
But this is my life.
 
This is my family.
 
And my mother, a wonderful, strong
woman—is gone far before her time.”

The photographers and reporters fell
silent at his modest rebuke.

“You have a bruise on your cheek.
 
How did you get it?”

Liam shook his head.
 
“Sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking
about.
 
I’m often training mixed
martial arts in the gym.
 
All the
bruises blend together by now.”

“Liam, could you at least tell us the
name of your friend?” an older female reporter asked.

Liam smiled and nodded, squeezing Grace’s
hand as he spoke.
 
“This is my
girlfriend, Grace Knowles.
 
She’s
been my rock throughout all of this.”

Grace felt her face flush and she looked
down.

More questions started cascading, as if
the reporters were a bunch of sharks that had just gotten chum thrown in the
water near to them.

“Grace, how long have you two been seeing
one another?”

“Are you two serious?
 
Are you in love with him?”

“Is marriage part of the equation, and
what’s your relationship with the rest of Liam’s family?”

She shook her head.
 
“I—I don’t…”

Liam waved them off.
 
“That’s enough.
 
Please, I would ask that you give us
some privacy and respect that this is a very difficult time for my family.”
 
He tugged lightly on Grace’s arm as he
turned and made his way into the hotel.

She made sure to keep close to him, and
then they were inside the hotel lobby, striding towards the elevators.

“What just happened?” she asked him,
feeling slightly stunned.

They got to the elevators and the doors
opened for them.
 
Once inside, they
were alone and the doors shut.
 
Liam
watched her.
 
“What happened is that
the media storm’s beginning.
 
They’re all over this story.
 
A dynasty in turmoil.”

“But you just told them—“

“I know what I did,” he told her.
 

“Are you trying to antagonize your brother
and sister the way you antagonized Easton?”

“Are you trying to insult me?” he asked
her.
 

She frowned, pulling away from him and
folding her arms.
 
“It’s not an
insult.
 
I just don’t know why
you’re doing some of these things.
 
Telling reporters about me when your brother and sister are so angry
about our relationship.”

He ran a hand through his hair.
 
“I thought you’d like the fact that I
stood up for you—for us.”

She shrugged.
 
As the doors opened to the penthouse
suite, she spoke again.
 
“Maybe I’m
just not sure it’s a good idea anymore.”

He walked out of the elevator, but stopped
walking as her words registered.
 
She watched the tilt of his head, as he was turned away from her.
 
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
 
His voice quavered slightly.

“Liam—“

He spun around and faced her.
 
“I’m putting my ass on the line for us,
and you have
nothing
to lose.
 
Yet you’re the one trying to back out.”

“I’m not saying it for me, I’m saying it
for you.
 
For your family.
 
Why should you risk so much for someone
you hardly know?”

“I’ve never loved anyone in my life, and
I love you,” he said.
 
“That’s
reason enough for me.”

She swallowed, trembling beneath his intense
gaze.
 
His eyes were so haunted, but
also full of desire, need, intense longing.
 

“I love you too,” she whispered.

“Then why are you cutting me off at the
knees?” he replied, his voice desperate.
 

“Everything’s gotten worse and worse
since we became an item.
 
All I’ve
done is create problems for you.
 
Is
this how you want your life to be from now on?”

“If I get to be with you, then yes.
 
Absolutely.”

 
Grace couldn’t believe that Liam was so
confident about his feelings, especially not after the things his brother and
sister had said to him.
 
After all
of the threats and the terrible things that their relationship had caused to
happen, he was still somehow in love with her.
 

He still wanted to be with her.

“I don’t know what to say,” she murmured.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he told
her, coming closer.
 
“Just be with
me.”
 
And then Liam was kissing
her.
 

As usual, she was unable to think clearly
once Liam Houston kissed her.
 
His
hands held her face as he kissed her intensely, and his tongue slid deeply into
her mouth.

Images flashed through Grace’s mind.

That first day together at Easton’s
wedding.
 
Liam, so confident,
cocky—infuriatingly so.
 
But
even then, his cherry lips had intoxicated her beyond rational thought.
 
And that’s how she’d ended up in his
room in the first place.

It was always his lips.

And his hands, roaming over her
body.
 
She wanted him to have access
to every part of her, and she didn’t want to hold back anymore.

If Liam was willing to sacrifice his
fortune, his family, his reputation—then at the very least, Grace could
sacrifice her need for control.

She felt herself giving it over to him,
and her body opened up, as Liam’s deft hands undressed her.

Before Grace knew what had even happened,
she was nude, and Liam was standing there, his shirt hanging open.

And then Liam was kneeling down in front
of her, and his face was between her legs as she stood in the middle of the
room, shuddering in anticipation of his mouth on her quivering flesh.

First he just grazed her folds, and she
moaned.
 
Everything he did to her
was what she wanted, and she’d finally stopped trying to anticipate what it all
meant.

He
loves me.
 
I love him.

He
can have me.

And Liam was having her, that much was
very clear, as his tongue flicked across the wet skin of her shaved pussy.

His hands slid around and grabbed her
butt cheeks, grabbed them hard, as he suddenly sucked her pussy lips.

Grace cried out, while his tongue
penetrated her slit, and then stroked her clit forcefully.
 
His tongue felt soft yet rough all at
once as it brushed and stroked her swollen, sensitive mound.