A Dom is Forever (Masters and Mercenaries #3)(93)

Alone.

“Why am I over here?” she asked. “Can’t I just go to bed and get the files in the morning and then I never have to see any of you people again?”

“You people?” Adam asked with a grimace. He turned to Liam. “Wow. You f*cked this up.”

Jake walked in and tossed Liam a beer with the ease of long friendship. “Catch, man.”

“Thanks. Fuck, I need this.” Liam had the top off and was downing it in a heartbeat. “I didn’t f*ck up. I wanted her to know. I had to tell her because I have zero intention of letting her walk into this blind. I won’t let her get hurt.”

He said all the right things, but then he’d said them before, too. “Since we’re here and it seems like the only place I can speak my mind without getting caught on tape, I have a few questions for you, and I want honesty for once.”

Liam sobered, his eyes wrinkling into a serious expression. “I won’t lie to you again, love. I promise.”

“Did you come up with all that ‘sex is serious’ crap before or after you met me?” She wanted to know if he ran that line on everyone or if she’d gotten special treatment from the jerk who had apparently made a sex tape. Ian’s recitation of Liam’s sexual history had done nothing to help his case.

“After I met you,” he said, his eyes on her.

“Trust me, I’ve known him for years, and he’s never once taken sex seriously,” Adam said. Liam growled his way. “Until now, of course.”

Liam didn’t even flush, but then a man who’d slept with that many women probably had very little that embarrassed him. “My relationships before you have been brief and mostly about getting off, if you know what I mean.”

“Whereas this one was about getting off while you worked. The perks of your job are lovely,” Avery shot back.

His eyes narrowed. “I deserve that, love, but I want you to remember that I’m the one who came clean, and I did it for your sake.”

When he put it like that she almost wanted to give in, but she fully intended to get to the bottom of everything. “Am I your type?”

He stilled, the beer that had been just about to meet his lips stopping in midair before he brought it down and placed it on the table.

“Do any of us really have a type?” Adam asked.

“Go away. Both of you,” Liam said, his eyes steady on her.

The last thing Avery wanted was to be alone with Liam. “I’d rather have them here. After all, they’ve been listening in, too, haven’t they?”

Adam’s silence was answer enough.

They had listened in while she’d made a fool of herself. “So it doesn’t matter if they go. They’ll still hear everything. Am I your type, Liam O’Donnell?”

A stubborn look came over his features. “You’re female, so yes, you’re me type.”

He wasn’t going to make this easy on her. She rephrased the question. “Did you take one look at me and decide you wanted to sleep with me?”

“No,” he replied shortly.

“What did you think of me?”

The beer bottle slammed against the bar as he set it down. “Avery, this doesn’t matter. All that should matter is what I think now. Why does it matter that I looked at a complete stranger and didn’t necessarily want to f*ck her? I want to f*ck you now. I want to f*ck you all day, twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. I’ll bloody well prove it to you if you’ll just let me take you to bed. I can prove how much I want you.”

And she would fall right into his trap. “That would solve so many of your problems, wouldn’t it? If I was still the sweet submissive, you could just tell me what to do.”

“You didn’t exactly follow all of me orders before, darlin’. I don’t know if you’ve been noticing, but you’re not exactly submissive outside the bedroom anymore. You’ve been standing up for yourself more and more this week.”

That wasn’t the part of the week she wanted to focus on. “Is the BDSM stuff all crap? Because it occurs to me that it’s a really good way to get a woman to do what you want.”

“It wasn’t serious for me until I met you.” Liam stood and towered over her, his hands on her shoulders. “I played around with it, but now it feels really bloody serious. I promised I wouldn’t lie, and I won’t. I wasn’t attracted to you at first.”

She let a nasty little smile curl her lips up. “You thought I was plain and a little fat, didn’t you?”

His eyes closed briefly and those hands on her shoulders tightened as though he was afraid of letting her go. “Why does it matter? I think you’re gorgeous now.”

“Answer the question, Liam.” She really was a masochist, but she had to hear it come from his mouth.

“Fine, I thought you were a little overweight and uninteresting, but that was my problem. That was coming from a man who barely got a woman’s name before he screwed her and walked out the door and started looking for the next warm body that didn’t matter. Adam, how many girlfriends have I had in the whole time you’ve known me?”

“It depends of your definition of the term ‘girlfriend,’” Adam began.

“He hasn’t had anyone, Avery.” Jacob Dean sighed and drank his beer. “He’s been utterly alone the whole time I’ve known him.”