Chapter 17

If I hadn’t knownabout Annie’s mum, I would have wondered why such a magnificent man would ever doubt how sexy and loveable he was. But I did know. I saw how she broke him. I saw how he reacted to it, how hurt he had been, and how long it had taken him to piece himself back together again after it. As if the pain she had inflicted on her own child wasn’t bad enough, she had wounded him too. He had been her partner, and she had thanked him by leaving him for another woman.

She hadn’t given him a second thought, and she certainly hadn’t considered the life he might have wanted for himself beyond her. She was selfish, cruel, and had abandoned both him and my best friend.

My best friend. Dear God, what would she think about all of this? Would she hate me? Worse still, would it damage the relationship she had with the only parent she still had a connection with? My heart was heavy. I couldn’t give him up. I had never felt like this about anyone else in my entire life. But Annie was like the sister I never had. Was Rich really a good enough reason to risk losing that? I didn’t even need to think about my answer. Yes. Yes, he was, and I knew that, eventually, Annie would come around. It was all I could hope for.

Rich’s arms wrapped around me and my sullen thoughts were forgotten.

“Morning, handsome,” he whispered against my neck, and I could hear the beam of satisfaction in his voice. I had stayed over. Not for the first time in this house, but most definitely for the first time after admitting our feelings for each other, in Rich’s bed with him pressed against me, his morning erection nestled firmly at my arse.

“Morning, you.” I grinned back at him over my shoulder. “Someone’s happy I’m here.” I chuckled, and he rolled his hips against me to illustrate just how happy he was.

“Mmmm, I might have something for you.”

“And I might need to take it.” I twisted against him slightly, my leg hooking over his hip, my torso turned towards him more. Catching his lips with mine, I kissed him hard. Rich’s hand caressed me. Starting at my face, he held me to him and slowly slid his hand over my neck to my pecs. His fingertips teased my nipples into hard little points, causing me to moan against his mouth. His hands traced a path down over my skin, sending sparks through every nerve in my body, causing my breath to hitch.

His fingers quickly reached their desired destination and traced the length of my erection, wrapping his fingers around me, slowly stroking me, sending me crazy with a need for so much more.

Rich’s mouth moved to my shoulder, leaving my mouth free for whatever noises he was pulling from me as he played my body expertly.

“Rich,” I pleaded. I felt his smile against my shoulder.

“What is it, Liam?”

“Please!” I begged.

“Tell me what you want.”

“You.”

“Me?” He was grinning and enjoying torturing me a little bit too damn much.

I looked over my shoulder and was greeted with the sexiest smirk I’d ever seen. I smirked back; he was infuriating. “Get your dick inside me.”

Rich’s eyes darkened, and his cock throbbed against my buttocks. His hand slid from my cock and reached for his own instead. He spat into his hand and rubbed it over my arsehole, guiding his dick to where we both needed it to be. I felt him at my arse and bit my lip, waiting for him to give me what I had asked him for.

“Well, why didn’t you just say so?” In one movement, Rich sank his cock deep inside me. My eyes rolled back in my head at the sensation of him filling me, and I moaned at the delicious ecstasy that was the pressure of my asshole stretching out to accommodate Rich so completely from that angle.

Rich lazily pumped himself in and out of my arse. This was leisurely, just-woken-up fucking. It was perfection. His mouth adored mine, his hands caressed every inch of me he could reach, and his cock filled me, slowly teasing me to orgasm with every roll of his hips.

Rich’s hips started to buck, and I knew he was close. His hand found my thigh over his, and he grabbed it, using it to slam himself a little bit deeper and harder inside me as his climax washed over him, and he emptied himself deep inside me.

“Mmmm,” he moaned against my shoulder. “That’s the best way to start the day I’ve ever experienced.” He pulled me tight against him, his arm around my waist, his softening cock still inside me. We dozed off in that position, sated and in our own little bubble.