Trouble: (A Bad Boy Mafia Romance) (Made & Broken Book 3) Page 14

  But if I did that, I would have to explain about my Family. What we were. What I was.

  “I can’t,” I said softly before I reached for her cheek with my free hand and brushed a stray lock of hair away.

  She smiled up at me, a sad little tilt of her lips, and pressed her cheek against my hand, like a cat looking for affection. “Whenever you’re ready, I’m here.”

  I finally got it, then. What Liam saw in her.

  It wasn’t her beauty, or even the ridiculously addictive sex. It was this… this thing inside of her that lit up like a fucking sun and called out to me with more power than a siren’s song. It was gentle and beautiful and warm, and it was everything I’d needed since the day my mother died. That place inside of me where the feeling of safety and home had been ripped away. I thought it’d been destroyed for good, but it wasn’t. It’d been here, with her, all along.

  She was supposed to be mine. Not Liam’s.

  Mine.

  The city seemed to fade away into nothingness as I stared down at the short woman who held the key to everything I’d never known I needed. Some part of me must have known all along, I realized with faint amusement. Why else would I have taken her up here, to a place I only ever came alone? It hadn’t been pure physical attraction that had me aching for her the moment our lips touched that first time I went by her flat.

  She was the one.

  “Liam…” Her voice was hoarse and raw, and from the look of shock and desperate yearning on her delicate features, I knew she could see the emotion playing across my face as clear as day.

  “I love you, Audrey,” I said. It was ridiculous, of course. I’d only known her for a few days. It didn’t matter, though, because it was true. I loved her, and there was nothing I could do to change that.

  She made a small noise in response, like a wounded bird’s broken cry, and then her face cracked with a sob that seemed to come from all the way down the depths of her soul.

  “I love you too,” she gasped.

  I don’t know who moved first, but the next second, she was in my arms. She felt so perfectly solid, so completely real. I bent my head to kiss her lips, and she parted hers in eager response. She tasted saltier than she had before, and I realized she was crying as she clung to me. I pulled her closer to me, moaning with the desperate need rising inside me like a phoenix from the ashes of everything I’d thought I was. This was it. She was it.

  Audrey’s hands on my drawstring waistband and her urgent mewls turned the swell of emotions inside of me carnal with the suddenness of a shifting forest fire. I groaned into her mouth and reached for her sex. The harness made it more awkward to get her pants pulled far enough down her thighs to allow access, and I had to spin her around to lean against the balustrade to manage.

  She whimpered and arched her back once I finally got her harness off and dropped her leggings to knee-height, pushing that deliciously full arse back against me to display her needy little cunt.

  I growled at the sight of it, of her. She was such a fucking goddess, and I needed to be inside her more than I needed air to breathe. With a few desperate snags of the nylon harness around my own hips, I managed to get it shifted enough to pull out my already hard and aching cock. I slipped a hand between her legs, rubbing her sex until she slicked up enough to allow entry, and then I spread her lips and thrust.

  “Yes!” The note of pain in her broken cry hinted that her pussy could have used a bit more foreplay, but the way she pressed herself back against me, swallowing me to the root despite my roughness, told me she’d needed this as fervently as I did.

  Fuck, she felt so goddamn good around me. She was hot and tight, her muscles fluttering against my hard length in tight little spasms as her pussy adjusted to me. I could spill my very soul inside of her.

  I fucked her with all the desperation and all the bone-deep intensity roaring inside me, fucked her with my hands on her hips, pulling her back against me so she was forced to take me to the hilt again and again, and all the while she begged me for more, more, more!

  We were meant to be together, meant to be one, and as I took the woman I loved with everything I had and everything I was as London’s lights gleamed around us, I felt more alive than I ever had before. No adrenaline kick would ever compare to the tight, wet heat between Audrey’s thighs, no music to her gasped moans of pleasure, and no alcohol to the roar of blood rushing in my ears as I pumped her full of cock. She went wild beneath me, scratched her fingers bloody on the stony banister, and screamed her agonized pleasure out across London’s rooftops.

  When my climax came, it came with hers.

  Her pussy’s hard, milking spasms and her sweet cries of ecstasy made me lose the last remnants of control. I roared as my balls released and I came like I’d never come before. I clutched at her hips while white-hot pleasure crackled through every nerve in my body, blinding me to everything but the city’s lights below and around us.

  I rocked blindly against her, filling her with the last spurts of my seed and relished in her soft moans as she, too, came down from her high. Finally, my vision returned and I stilled, pressed up tightly against her backside. I slipped my arms around her waist and hugged her close to my chest, wanting that moment to last forever. This perfect point in time where everything was as it was supposed to be. Her and me, and this endless well of bliss of our bodies releasing to each other.

  “I love you,” she whispered into the empty air in front of her.

  I nuzzled my face against the back of her neck and kissed her cheek when she turned her head. “I love you too.”

  “It feels so odd to hear you say that,” she confessed. “I never thought…”

  “That I’d wake the fuck up and realize?” I sighed, burying my nose in her hair. “I’m sorry I’m such an idiot. If I’d been any kind of smart, I would have realized the moment I first saw you.”

  “I don’t think I’d have been particularly receptive,” she said with a small giggle. “I was so stressed out, I wouldn’t have noticed if the Prime Minister came dancing through that park wearing a tutu and clown shoes.”

  A jab of something sharp and unpleasant dug into my blissful haze, and I frowned against the side of her cheek. I vaguely recalled Liam mentioning he’d met her in a park when he first saw her. That’s what she was referencing—the first time she met Liam. Not me.

  I pushed down the sting of absurd jealousy and buried my nose in her hair to breathe in her scent. She smelled like fresh air and sex and me, and right now that was all that mattered. I knew at some point I’d have to come back down to Earth and figure out a way to get us through this clusterfuck I’d unwittingly created. I couldn’t pretend like I was Liam forever, nor could I risk her safety like Liam had by being careless and getting caught coming out of her building too many times.

  And then there was the whole issue with my twin.

  An ugly twinge of guilt made me breathe deeper to let Audrey’s calming scent drown out the reality that waited for me once I allowed myself to start thinking again.

  He cared for her, that much was obvious. Might even be in love with her. I didn’t dare think about what kind of consequences my betrayal would have for our relationship. Because it was a betrayal now, I knew that without a shadow of a doubt, and if I thought too much about it, sick fear threatened to spill in over my wall of contentment.

  “Can we sit down for a bit? My legs are like jelly, and I’ll need to be able to climb back down soon.” Audrey’s voice drew my attention back to her, and I smiled, grateful for the distraction.

  “Sure. If you’re that much of a wuss,” I teased. I eased my mostly softened cock out of her swollen pussy and fixed my pants, covering myself.

  “Easy for you to mock—it’s not you who’ve just been screwed silly by something the size of a damn water bottle while trying to not fall over the railing to your death,” she grumbled. She tried to pull her leggings up, but got caught in the tangle of the harness.

  I smirked at her ir
ritated huff and reached down to help her, twisting the harness out of her way and was able to sneak a quick tickle over her clit in the process. She smacked my teasing hand away, but managed to pull her pants up to cover herself and snap the harness back into place. With a small sigh she then slid down on the stone floor of the balcony encircling the dome and leaned back against the banister. “Why is sex with you always so exhausting?”

  “Is that a complaint?” I asked, arching a teasing eyebrow at her as I sat down next to her so I could pluck her off the floor and slide her onto my lap, sparing her backside from the cold stone.

  She grinned, her teeth gleaming white in the darkness. “Hardly.”

  “That’s what I thought.” I wrapped my arms tighter around her and leaned back against the railing with a contented sigh. She wasn’t the only one who was knackered, but I wasn’t surprised. Sex with Audrey drew every flicker of tension from my muscles and mind more effectively than any massage could have—not to mention the sheer force of it all. So far, I seemed incapable of fucking her with anything less than my full strength. It was a good thing she was built well, or I’d have been afraid to break her in half every time I bedded her.

  “Liam?”

  “Hmm?” I hummed, obligingly braiding my fingers with hers when she lifted my hand.

  “Do you want to come to a work thing with me next Friday?”

  “Don’t think there’s much I wouldn’t want to do with you,” I said honestly. “What is it?”

  “Oh, that dumb party I’ve been moaning about a few times. You know, with my nightmare client. It’s a black tie event.”

  “Sure,” I agreed. Not gonna lie, the memory of how she’d looked in that black dress she’d opened the door in earlier this evening flickered through my mind. I could stand to suit up if I got to see her in something like that again. Besides, it’d be nice to take her out, even if it was just for her work. It wasn’t exactly something I could do around any of my own places before my father had been dealt with—or I’d talked to Liam.

  As if she could sense where my thoughts were going, Audrey said, “Liam?”

  “Hmm?” I grunted, wishing she’d not used his name just then.

  “What happened to your scar?”

  I frowned and glanced at her. Her brows were knotted in a confused frown as she stared at my hand. “What scar?”

  She touched my thumb. “The one you had right there. I know it’s the right hand, too.”

  I looked at my hand. It had a few scuffs and calluses from the climb and general work, but there wasn’t any scars. Never had been. But before I could ask her what on Earth she was on about, I remembered.

  Liam.

  Liam had a scar there, from some fucker who’d managed to catch him with a broken bottle in a bar fight several years ago.

  22

  Louis

  I’d lost count of how many birds I’d shared with Liam without them ever knowing we’d swapped along the way. No one had ever had the slightest idea they were seeing two different people instead of just one. No one apart from our mum had ever noticed any of the few minuscule differences between us, not even our father or any of our brothers. When we’d been younger we’d often pretended to be each other, just for the hell of it or to get out of trouble, and did it occasionally to this day even if it wasn’t for the thrill of fucking a girl who thought she was with someone else.

  Even our tattoos were absolutely identical.

  And yet somehow, Audrey had noticed a tiny scar vividly enough to know that something wasn’t quite right.

  Shit.

  “It… sometimes disappears into the skin when I’m a bit chilly,” I lied, fighting back the sudden urge to hide my hand from her.

  “That doesn’t sound like any scar I’ve ever heard of,” she said, her frown deepening as she studied my thumb. “And your hands are pretty warm. They always are.”

  “Well, then it’s obviously magic,” I said, managing a smile as I tipped her chin up to break her study of my skin. “I’m a wizard, love.”

  She giggled and made a face at me, and I bent to kiss her, hoping to break her interest in my missing scar. It worked, thankfully, and I felt a wave of relief when she flicked her tongue against my lips, obviously well and truly distracted.

  “If I fuck you again while we’re up here, I’m not sure I’ll be able to climb down again before dawn,” I mumbled against her mouth when her hands began to search for my crotch.

  She broke off with a small laugh. “Okay, good point. But can we stay for just a little longer? I don’t want this evening to end yet.”

  I nodded, bathing myself in the love from her eyes. As far as I was concerned, I could have stayed up there for the rest of eternity.

  “I can’t go to Perkinson’s thing tomorrow.”

  It was the first thing I’d said to my twin since he slammed the door on me more than a week ago, partly because he’d ignored me since then and partly because I’d felt guilty as fuck since…

  Since I’d betrayed him.

  The irony that I’d been scared of Audrey coming between us because he was falling for her, and now knowing that I was the one to let her split our unbreakable bond, wasn’t lost on me, but I wasn’t ready to dwell on it. Not yet, when there was so much at stake. No, I might as well enjoy the constant sensation of bliss in my chest whenever I thought about her for a little while longer—the stars should know she was the only ray of light these days.

  Liam looked over his shoulder at me from the mug of coffee he was brewing. The dark, haunted look in his usually so silvery eyes cut me like a knife.

  “He’s expecting us to show up,” he said. Even his voice was off, though I doubted anyone but I would ever notice. “There’ll be a few key players who need to see his Steel connection.”

  Fuck, was this still about Audrey? Or was it everything else getting to him? Brian had asked us for quite a few favors since that first hit, and we’d both been working hard to make absolutely sure it stayed below the radar. There was only so much pull we could wield without our dad finding out. He wouldn’t mind us “bettering connections” with an old, wayward ally, which was what we’d write our presence at Perkinson’s party tomorrow off as, but the second he found out we were siphoning any sort of resources… We’d suffer the same fate as Jeremy had.

  “He’ll be happy enough as long as just one of us shows. I’ve promised to show up to this thing, but…” I bit the inside of my cheek as I looked into my twin’s eyes. He was hurting, bad. As much as I didn’t want to stand Audrey up, I couldn’t turn my back on him, either. “But I can cancel, if you need me there.”

  “Nah, it’s fine.” Liam turned his back on me once more and finished making his coffee. “I got this.”

  “You sure?” I asked as he turned to leave the kitchen, mug in hand.

  “Yeah.” He left without another word. The sound of the door to his room closing behind him was the last I heard of him for the rest of the night.

  23

  Audrey

  “Well, well, Miss Waits. I had my doubts about you, but this isn’t looking too shabby.”

  I managed a stiff smile in acknowledgement of Gregory Perkinson’s praising tone as he took in the venue for his much-anticipated vodka launch. I say “much anticipated” mainly because I was anticipating the hell out of getting it over with and hopefully never having to work with him ever again.

  “I’m glad you are pleased so far,” I said as two poker dealers with only tassels covering their nipples walked by on their way to the casino section of the warehouse I’d managed to transform into a suitable party venue. Finding twenty-five staffers willing to work in their undies had almost been a breeze in comparison to getting the concrete-and-steel building turned glamorous enough to not get me fired.

  “People should start arriving in twenty minutes or so, and we’ll pull the curtains from the stage for the grand reveal of your vodka,” I began, wanting to make sure my difficult client wasn’t going to mess up my care
fully made schedule.

  “With the Playboy girls?” he interrupted me.

  “Yes, with Lianne and Suzette.” I was pretty sure my stiff smile was slipping into a pained look, but he was too busy eying the two poker dealers as they set up behind their tables at the other end of the large space to pay my facial expressions any mind. “You’ll let everyone know the casino’s open and we’ll let people mingle and play. The caterer will serve everyone canapés and vodka throughout the night, and the… the dancers will be performing on the five platforms you can see spread throughout the room.” I nodded to indicate the nearest platform adorned with a pole. “And the jazz band is just setting up now. Is your security team ready?” He’d insisted he’d hire his own security for the launch. I was pretty sure he was having delusions of grandeur about his vodka debut, the way he’d been so insistent that he “needed to trust the men on the door with his life, so he’d take care of it,” but with the kind of money he was pouring into my company, my bosses had told me in no uncertain terms to give him whatever he wanted.

  That was also the explanation for the rehearsals I’d sat through to find sufficiently “classy strippers” while my lucky colleagues had enjoyed their business reports and meetings back at the office.

  Not that I was bitter, no siree. Just because I’d spent years of blood, sweat and tears, first in school and then working my way up in Caslik Consulting, only to find myself relegated to errand girl for an overgrown teenager who wanted the “best strippers in town” for his stupid vodka party. Which businesswoman didn’t dream of finding herself surrounded by pasties in order to advance her career?