Page 32 of Liam

I look him defiantly in the eye, wondering if this is when he says he can’t be with a woman who can handle herself. How wrong I was, though.

Once he is sure his brothers are walking away, he walks up to me, wrapping his arms around me, his mouth hard and hungry on mine as he walks me back until my back hits the wall, his cock hard against my belly. Oh, it definitely doesn’t bother him, it seems. Quite the opposite. Not that I was going to complain because the man could kiss.

Finally, we had no choice but to come up for air, gasping as I rip my mouth away from his.

“Fuck,mo chroí,never stop being you. Do you know how hot it was watching you? It’s one of the things I love most about you. You don’t need me to take care of you, but you don’t mind when I do. Fucking perfect for me,” Liam mutters in a guttural moan as he presses a kiss to my throat.

We are so into each other that I don’t realise we have an audience until JoJo says, “That’s hot; I think I need a Liam.”

“I’m more interested in the fact that he’s just told her he loves her and she’s so hot and bothered she’s not realised,” Evie chortles.

My brain comes back online at those words, and I open my eyes and look over Liam’s shoulder to see my friends lined up watching us. Liam’s shoulders are shaking, and I realise he is laughing, his head buried in my neck.

Ignoring my friends, I cup his face with my hands. Pushing his face away from my neck, I softly say, “You love me?”

Liam’s eyes soften as they look into mine, “I do,mo chroí,very much.”

“Aw fuck, I think I might cry,” Ange mutters.

Ignoring the peanut gallery, I smile wide, happiness lighting me from the inside out. I don’t know what I did to deserve him, but I wasn’t going to look for excuses as to why this wasn’t a good idea.

“I love you too,” I smile at him. This beautiful man who had, from the start, made me feel special in ways I didn’t even know I needed. It had taken me a while, and I’d had to move to the other end of the country from where I’d grown up, but I’d finally found my home. Mum was right; home wasn’t a place—it was a person or the people you surrounded yourself with.

CHAPTER 14

LIAM

The anger that coursed through me at fucking Danny even thinking he could touch Sera had me seeing red. I had very few triggers, but anyone threatening Sera was one of them. It didn’t matter to me that she was more than capable of looking after herself and was probably more deadly than me. Anyone meaning her harm had me behaving in ways that I hadn’t done since I’d protected Rhett.

I can’t say that I’d enjoyed the last few weeks of violence. It reminded me too much of our past, and I’d worked hard to get us away from that. But we’d got the job done, and word got out that just because we were retired didn’t mean that we were going to put up with shit in our territory.

We’d all been working overtime in getting everyone who had thought they could encroach on our territory without consequences removed. Unfortunately, there were more than any of us had realised.

After two weeks of blood, violence, and knocking heads together, we’d removed everyone who shouldn’t be in our territory. The situation was now back under control, and not only because we had made it clear that they weren’t welcome, but JoJo had stepped in and made it known that we had the full backing of the Wise organisation. Who’d have thought that we’d ever have an ally like JoJo Wise?

I’d spoken to her brothers-in-law, who were admittedly a little concerned for her. They’d offered to send her protection, but she’d put them off, telling them that she had more than enough protection already and that me, my brothers, our crew, and Sera’s girls’ squad were more than capable of handling whatever came up. She wasn’t wrong; we were. What we were dealing with were those low on the totem pole, they were more annoying than anything, but I also knew if they weren’t stomped on now, it would get worse. So, we’d done what we did best and stomped on them and made them bleed.

And now this turd-burgling worm had decided to put his hands on Sera. Fuck that!

I shouldn’t have worried, though; my woman was a queen, just like I’d known she’d be. The way she handled him had me rock hard, and I’d not been able to hold back telling her I loved her. Some might think that me telling her those words while she had blood on her shirt from stabbing someone that I’d physically threatened wasn’t romantic, and it may not have been for most, but it was perfect for us.

I’d been hard-pressed not to strip her down and fuck her against the wall; it was only the peanut gallery and the fact that we were in broad daylight that stopped me. I’d never let anyone but me see her come apart like she did. Dragging my mouth from hers, I looked into her eyes, which crinkled slightly at the corners with how wide she was smiling, and her words settled something in me—something that I hadn’t even realised was missing. As soon as her‘I love you too’left her lips, it was like a huge boulder lifted from me, and I could breathe easy.

Ignoring her girls’ squad, my brothers, and the phone call I still had to make, I took her lips in another hard kiss before pulling back slightly to whisper in her ear, “Marry me, become my queenfor real, have babies with me that we can teach to not only be artists but also to kick arse when needed.”

“I’d love to,” she smiles at me, “but first we need to kick my brother’s arse and get whoever this Big Roy is to back off.”

Snorting out a laugh, I tell her, “Trust me, Big Roy isn’t going to be a problem. And as for your brother, he’s a big boy; he can take his punishments as they see fit. I don’t really care. He lost his right to your sympathy the day he took your company, but I understand he’s your brother, so if you want me to talk Big Roy down, I will, and we can make a plan to pay back whatever he owes.”

I hadn’t finished talking and Sera was already shaking her head, “No, like you said, he’s a big boy; he made his bed, he can lie in it. The only thing I do ask is that they don’t kill him. They can make him hurt, though; maybe he’ll learn a lesson that way.”

“Okay,a stór, you go into the office for me. The boys and I’ll sort this, but tonight you’re mine. Best you tell your girls that.”

“I will,” she grins up at me, pressing a kiss to my cheek before slipping out from between me and the wall I’d had her pressed up against, walking towards where her girls were waiting with a swing in her step that had her hips rolling in the sexiest way.

Biting my lip, I groan and adjust myself, not caring if Adam and Johnny see; they both had shit-eating grins on their faces at my predicament. Johnny held out the phone as soon as he got to me, his eyes turning a little serious, “It’s Big Roy.”

“Roy,” I growl as the haze of anger returns now that Sera wasn’t near me and grounding me.

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