Because of His Fortune (For His Pleasure, Book 25) (2 page)

Closing the door and sitting on her bed,
she drowned her sorrows in cookies and milk and then eventually she dozed off,
the box lying on her chest, crumbs on her lips, and a deep, impenetrable sorrow
in her heart.

Her dreams were dark and grim.

Liam was standing very far away from her,
across a wide river that was flooded by a raging torrent of white water
rapids.
 
She yelled at him, trying
to get his attention.
 
She wanted to
know how to get across, or to find out if he was going to try and swim to
her.
 

But Liam just turned his back and didn’t
respond.

In the next dream, Anne Houston was
teaching a class on business ethics.
 
She was younger than Grace remembered, and wearing a very sexy black
dress that revealed plenty of thigh and a low neckline.

“Do you know about ethics in the
workplace, young lady?” Anne Houston asked, her tone aggressive as she pointed
a long finger at Grace.

“I think so,” Grace said.
 
It seemed as though she was sitting in a
small chair that confined her movement, while Anne towered over her from the
front of the classroom.

“I dare say you don’t,” the older woman
exclaimed.
 
“You fucked my eldest
son on your boss’s desk.
 
That
sounds like a trollop’s behavior—and someone with a disreputable
reputation has no place in my son’s life.”

The class began laughing and laughing.

Grace turned around, trying to see who
was laughing so she could scream at them.
 
“Who do you think you are to judge me?” she cried out, but it just made
the laughter around her that much louder.

And besides, the classroom was empty but
for her and the teacher.

“Look at me, you dumb bitch!” Anne
Houston screamed.

When Grace turned around to face her,
Anne was hanging from the rafters, her face bloated and purple and rotting.

Grace shrieked and shrieked until she
startled awake.

She was out of breath, knocking the
Oreo’s off her chest and onto the floor as she fought to sit up.

It
wasn’t real
, she told
herself.
 
It’s okay, it was just a dream.

Her cell phone was buzzing and
buzzing.
 
Was that what had woken
her up, or had it been the awful nightmare?

Blinking, Grace did her best to forget
the horrible, vivid imagery of Liam’s deceased mother hanging in that empty
classroom.

She reached over and grabbed her cell
phone and looked at it.
 

LIAM

He was calling.
 
Her heartbeat immediately sped up and
the cobwebs were cleared as she answered.
 
“Hello?
 
Liam?”

“I’m outside,” he said.
 
“Let me in.”

“You’re outside my apartment right now?”
she said, getting out of bed and checking the window.

Sure enough, she could see him standing
on the sidewalk in front of her building, wearing a dark blazer and jeans.
 
When Grace put the phone to her ear
again to ask him what he was doing there, she realized Liam had hung up on her.

“Damn it,” she said, frustrated but also
relieved to see him.
 
She quickly
left her room and ran downstairs and to the front door, opening it, as Liam
walked briskly inside.

She could smell the alcohol on him from
the second he passed through the doorway.
 
“Hey, doll,” he said, grinning as he ambled by her and towards the
stairs.

“What are you doing, Liam?” she asked,
not moving from where she stood near the front door.

He smiled goofily at her.
 
“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“I have no idea,” she said.

“I want to see you,” he said.
 
“So I’m here.”

“Okay…”
 
She waited for a better explanation.

“Come on,” Liam said, waving her to
follow, as if it was his home and not hers.
 
He continued up the stairs and Grace
went after him, wondering just what the hell was going on.

“I missed this place,” Liam called out loudly
as he strode down the hall past her roommates’ rooms.

“Quiet,” Grace said.
 
“It’s late, you know.”

“Is it?
 
I didn’t notice.”
 
He weaved a little, finally reaching her
room and throwing the bedroom door open.
 
“Beautiful,” he said.
 
“Just
as I remembered.
 
Oh, and I see you
were having a snack before I arrived.”

Grace rolled her eyes, walking into the
room behind him and picking up the box of Oreo’s, placing it on her desk
nearby.
 
“Liam, I was sleeping.
 
You woke me up—which is fine, of
course,” she said, remembering what he’d been through that day.

He lurched towards the bed,
laughing.
 
“I think Exley’s turning
into an alcoholic,” he said.
 
“Ex
and Vera and I went out drinking after the hospital, and my little bro drank me
nearly under the table.”

“Not nearly,” Grace informed him.

He spun and grabbed her by the hand,
pulling her towards the bed with him.
 
“I missed you today,” he said, dragging her against his body and falling
into bed with her.

“Liam,” she whispered, as he kissed her
neck and drew in a deep breath, as if inhaling her scent.

“God, you’ve no idea how badly I want
you,” he murmured.
 
His lips kissed
her neck, her collarbone, and she found herself responding to his attentions.

Her nipples stiffened beneath the light
fabric of her t-shirt, and as Liam pressed his hips into her, she felt herself
moistening, heat radiating out from her center.

His hands slid down to her buttocks,
squeezing her ass through her sweatpants, as he continued pushing his warm body
into hers.

“You never responded to my texts today,”
she said, as he continued to kiss her neck, his tongue licking her skin, making
her shiver.

“I don’t want to think about today,” he
replied, his voice sounding thick and almost drowsy.
 
“All I want to do is taste you, Grace.”

She wanted that too—at least, her
body did, desperately.
 
But she
couldn’t help the feeling of being ambushed.
 
He’d walked away from her in the
hospital and then shown up hours and hours later, drunk, at her
apartment—with no warning or explanation.

“Is this a booty call?” she asked, as
Liam’s hands rubbed her breasts over her shirt.

He stopped momentarily and looked her in
the eye.
 
“Grace,” he laughed, his
eyes bloodshot.
 

“What?”

“Please,” he told her.
 
“I need you right now.”

And that did her in, because she wanted
so badly to be there for him in whatever way possible.
 
She knew he had to be in tremendous pain
and turmoil, and anything she could do to soothe that was an obligation, as far
as Grace was concerned.

He’d argued with his now-deceased mother
because of their relationship.

The least she could do was show him some
love and tenderness now.

And besides—she wanted this too.

She wanted him and his touch, his body,
the feel of him inside her, touching her, stroking her, sucking her.
 
She wanted him.

Grace closed her eyes and allowed Liam to
kiss her lips, and when she opened her mouth, receptive now and open to his
ministrations—she could smell and taste the alcohol on his breath.

It didn’t bother her.
 
Liam still tasted like Liam—hot,
amazing, sensual, good.

But she did notice it, and she knew that
he was being different with her because of his inebriation.
 
His hands were slightly more daring,
more insistent in a way that was almost rough, primitive.

His lust was turning her on even as a
part of her wondered if this was really best.

Was fucking him to soothe his fears and
sadness really a healthy thing to do?

Grace had no idea.

She just knew that her concern about his
drunkenness wasn’t enough to stop her from opening to the feel of him, and his
skin against hers, as he peeled her t-shirt off and began sucking at her
sensitive nipples.

She watched as he licked and sucked, and
her nipples glistened, wet and pink and stiff, as his tongue continued to
stimulate them to even more erect status.

Grace moaned, biting her lower lip and
arching her back, as Liam’s rough hands grasped both breasts and then he sucked
even more intensely.
 
“You taste so
sweet,” he growled, before sucking again.

She thrust her hips upwards, wanting more.

Liam slid her sweatpants down until they
were at her ankles, and then he began rubbing her slit with his one hand while
the other grabbed her left breast and squeezed.

“You’re so fucking wet and tight,” he
told her, kissing her mouth as he rubbed her swollen clit.

She grabbed at his crotch, began
frantically unzipping his pants.
 
His cock was unleashed, large and stiff and perfect.
 
Grace moaned, stroking his curved shaft
as his hips flexed and he fucked her hand, while he continued inserting his
fingers into her soaking pussy.

Everything was proceeding according to
plan, until she tried to look into his eyes.
 
He wasn’t staring at her, but above her,
through her.

She caressed his cheek and he grabbed her
wrist.
 
“No,” he muttered.

Grace pulled away from him and then slid
her sweatpants back up her legs and over her hips, as Liam sat on the bed, his
face taking on a pinched, petulant quality.

“This doesn’t feel right,” she whispered,
grabbing her t-shirt and putting it back on also.

“Grace,” Liam mumbled.
 
His eyes were glazed and distant.
 
“What’s the problem?”

“I can’t do this with you, not
tonight.
 
Not after the way you
treated me today, Liam.”
 
She shook
her head.
 
“You can hardly look at
me.
 
You’re just using me to
forget…”

He stood up, zipping his pants.
 
“I don’t need this shit, Grace.
 
Not now.
 
Justify myself to you?”

“You’re drunk and you’re not even making
sense, Liam.”

He glared at her, standing in the center
of the room, looking ruffled and beaten, at least as badly hurt as when he’d
been in that terrible fight.
 
But
this was a different kind of beating that he’d taken—and it was in his
soul.

“I’m making perfect sense, Grace.
 
And you and I both know what I mean.”

“No,” she said.
 
“Actually, I have no idea what you
mean.
 
The only thing I know is that
one second you told me you really cared about me—“

Actually,
you said you loved me…

“Oh, and you think I was lying about
that?” Liam said.
 
His eyes focused
and he seemed momentarily sober.
 
“My mother died, Grace.
 
I
went down to the morgue and had to identify my mother’s mangled fucking
corpse.
 
Her face looked like
someone had put it through a meat grinder.
 
Is that what you want me to say?”

She felt the breath knocked out of her,
and a wave of sheer terror invaded her body.
 
“Liam…” she gasped.

His hands curled into fists and his pale
face turned red.
 
“And I have to
live with the fact that my mother died thinking I didn’t care about her.
 
I never got to say I loved her,
nothing.
 
My last memory will always
be that argument we had, Grace.
 
That
and the way her broken body looked…” he choked and then his eyes closed and he
put his hands in his face.

“Oh, God!” he screamed, but it was
muffled, as he sank to his knees and began sobbing.

Grace jumped out of bed and ran to him,
sinking to the floor with him, her arms wrapping around his muscular torso,
holding him the best she could.

“Shh…” she whispered.
 
She tried to rock him, as she kissed his
hair.

He was silently crying, his entire body
shaking and shuddering, and all Grace knew to do was to continue loving him.

She felt like they were besieged, like
bombs were exploding all around them, and they just had to huddle together and
try not to be destroyed.