Two for Alex

The burning anger was better than the helpless terror she’d endured while in his clutches. She’d been in awe of Liam when he grabbed the phone and told the guy where to go. The steel in his voice left no mistake he meant what he said. It felt good to have Liam Rutherford in her corner, even if all they could ever be was friends.

In her search for love, she’d nearly risked her life. Never again would she allow herself to be placed in such a vulnerable position. She’d learned her lesson. Oh boy, had she.

Feeling better from the shower and her new sense of resolve, Alex pulled on a sundress and hurried out to make sure Liam hadn’t been a figment of her imagination.

He was still there, standing by her bookshelf with a book in his hand. He held it out. “Heart Thief by A. H. Stewart. Very impressive.”

Alex grinned despite herself. “You knew I was an author.”

“Yes. But it’s one thing to know, quite another to hold the book in your hands. I was leafing through it. It looks very good. I’ll have to read it.”

The idea of Liam reading her romance novel made Alex laugh. Daniel, maybe. But Liam? No way. His idea of light reading was a history of the Roman Empire. “I can’t quite see you as the romance reading type.”

Liam flipped the book open and began to read aloud. “When he pulled down her panties, her legs seemed to fall open of their own accord. His tongue was hot and silky against her. She sighed with pleasure, forgetting all pretense of resistance.”

Embarrassed, Alex tried to grab the book from his hand. Liam laughed and held it behind his back, his voice teasing. “This is good stuff. Maybe we’ll have you read it aloud to us one night after dinner.”

Alex’s heart caught at the implication that they had a future left to share, but she said nothing.

They left the apartment in search of breakfast. Once they were settled in a booth at Leo’s Diner, coffee in front of them and food ordered, she dared, “Why now, Liam? What made you drive all the way here?”

Why you and not Daniel?

“We want you to come home.”

Whoa.

“I’m sorry. What?”

She couldn’t have heard him right. They were better off without her. They didn’t need some third wheel screwing up their lives.

“Having you take off like that was really hard on Daniel—”

“On Daniel,” she couldn’t help but repeat, aware of the bitterness in her tone but unable to control it. That’s right. Liam was the one who’d said she should leave.

“On me too, Alex.” Liam’s voice was sincere.

She looked up at him. He was gazing at her with those soft brown eyes, so different from Anthony’s fiery, penetrating stare. She shook her head, shaking the other man’s image from her mind.

“I’m not going to lie to you and say there were no issues,” he continued. “You know there were, because you were right in the middle of them. One thing I’ve learned through painful trial and error is that if you don’t communicate—if you can’t share from the heart what’s going on inside your head—your relationship is not going to move forward. If it gets bad enough, the whole thing just crumbles. The sad thing is, half the time people don’t even know why. ‘It just wasn’t meant to be,’ they might say. Then they go on to make the same mistakes in the next relationship and wonder why they can never connect.”

The waitress arrived and set a platter of pancakes with fresh sliced bananas and blueberries in front of Alex. Liam, who said he’d already eaten, only sipped at a cup of coffee. Alex poured syrup until the cakes were soaked with it and grabbed her fork. She took a huge bite, moaning with pleasure as she chewed, her eyes fluttering shut in ecstasy.

Liam laughed. “I’m glad to see your appetite is intact, at any rate.”

Alex laughed too. “I’m starving,” she said, loading another big bite onto her folk. “Want some? There’s enough here for both of us plus that family over there.”

“Not at the rate you’re going, there isn’t,” Liam teased. “Seriously, though. You eat, I’ll talk. I haven’t done enough talking. That’s part of the problem. Maybe if I’d been a better Dom, you wouldn’t have felt compelled to run away.

He leaned forward, pain in his dark eyes. “We excluded you from too much. We expected you to submit to us, to give us your obedience and your service. But we didn’t take into account what was going on in your head. What it must have felt like to be sent to your room at night after we were done with you.”

Alex’s eyes filled with tears and she looked down. She blinked away the tears and focused on her pancakes. She was done with crying.