Playing Pretend by Cassie-Ann L. Miller
Fifty-Eight
Eliza
Sweaty palmson the window pane. Frantic moans filling the air. The Sin Valley Strip glittering up at us.
“I’ve always wanted to fuck you like this,” Liam growls into my ear as he thrusts into me against the bedroom window of his penthouse suite.
God, I love this kinky bastard.
“You can have me anyway you want me, Hubby. Any time.” I moan. “I’m always ready for you.”
My words seem to goad him on. His fingers massage my clit as he pounds me with reckless abandon. I feel his body tighten.
“Eliza…” When my walls clamp down on him, he groans my name. “I need you to come for me, baby. Right this minute.”
I am so into it when he bosses me around like that.
At his command, I’m falling apart against the window. The orgasm hits me hard. Then, he’s emptying into me with a guttural moan.
Liam scoops my limp body into his arms and collapses onto the bed. “We’re gonna need to do that a few more times before I officially give up this suite.” He laughs, pulling a comforter around us.
I roll around, getting tangled with him in the sheets. “Well, if we keep at it, we’ll never get done packing up your stuff tonight.”
Liam has decided to move his belongings out of the penthouse and make the place available for rent to the hotel’s guests.
He’s moving his stuff to the house. All of it. No more nights shut away in his lonely tower. From here on out, it’s us together in his bed—our bed, in our home.
This is where our happy ever after begins.
After everything we’ve been through, we fucking deserve this.
“You don’t have to give this place up if you don’t want to,” I tell him, sweeping my fingertips over the ridges of his chest.
“Are you kidding me? Why do I need a bachelor pad when I can have a fairytale home with you?”
He’s so romantic when he wants to be. He makes me swoon. I climb atop his naked body and we dissolve into a kiss. Then we lie there, limbs and hearts and dreams intertwined.
I’m drifting off when Liam’s phone rings on the bedside table.
“Who the hell is calling so late?” He grumbles, his voice sexy with sleep. When he glances at the caller ID, his face grows more alert. “Cannon?” he speaks into the receiver.
I roll my body off of his, allowing him to sit up and take the call. I recognize the name. Cannon Kingston. One of Liam’s mega-rich gambling buddies.
“If you’re calling me this late, it better be to say that one of our asshole poker buddies needs bail money or help cooking up a prison break or something,” Liam says, half-threatening, half-joking. He puts the call on speaker.
A second voice with a European accent comes through. “Please—I don’t know about the rest of you assholes, but I’m a king.” The man laughs. “I’ve got diplomatic immunity over here.”
A group of voices cackle over the line.
“Fuck—you’re all on the call?” Liam smirks. “Now I’m reallyworried.”
The guys continue to bullshit for a while and I smile at the familiarity and camaraderie between them. They may be a bunch of billionaires but listening to them is like eavesdropping on a group of regular guys hanging at the Cathedral Pub on a Saturday night.
“Okay, okay. Serious now,” the first voice—Cannon—says. “Kline, the reason we’re calling you, we heard you backed out of the Varner deal a few weeks ago?”
Liam’s jaw tightens in an instant. “Yeah. Lucky for me, I got a sudden flash of clarity right as I was about to start the project. It would have been a huge mistake for me. I’m just glad I realized it before it was too late.”
I squeeze his thigh when he says that and we share a quiet smile. Liam and I have discussed his last minute decision to stop the hotel resort project. I’m so proud of him for choosing the values of this very special community over his choice to attach his reputation to a project that would have forever sullied his family’s name.
“You did the right thing,” one of his friends tell him. “You don’t want to be associated with scum like Varner.”
Another billionaire interjects. “And besides, we have a much better proposal for you instead.”
“We want to go into business with you,” one of the guys says.
“What?” Liam scrunches his brow at the phone.
Cannon speaks again. “My family’s realty company started with a bed and breakfast and over the years we’ve expanded into multiple small town real estate projects. But it’s time to take Kingston Realties to the next level.”
“Yes, Barre Investments is ready to branch out too.” Another voice says. “And with Silver’s expertise and international connections—”
“And my pretty face,” the European guy interjects.
“I think you mean, despite your ‘pretty’ face,” someone jokes and I stifle a giggle.
“If we pool all of our resources together, we’ll make Varner’s budget look like a second-grader’s lunch money.” The men all laugh in unison.
“We want to bring our project to Sin Valley,” Cannon announces. “What do you say?”
Liam tries to act like his stoic self, but I know him all too well. I see his excitement. “I’m willing to consider it…”
“Fuck you, Kline.” Cannon laughs. “Say yes, man!”
Liam bellow. “Yes, you fuckers! Yes!”
The men discuss the details some more before agreeing to meet next week in person to get the ball rolling. When the call ends, I squeal with excitement and throw myself into my husband’s arms. “I can’t believe this is happening. You’re going to have everything you’ve ever wanted. An empire. A real empire.” I laugh. “Emperor Liam Kline—I like the sound of that.”
He holds my face in his hands. “Ours. It’ll be our empire. Our legacy.” He kisses me. “Tell me you’ll be my empress.” His fingertips tickle my sides.
“I’ll be your empress.” I choke on my laughter. “I’ll be anything you want.”
He kisses me. Then a boyish smile slips over his lips. “Tell me you love me.”
I look into his eyes and I couldn’t deny it if I wanted to. “I love you. I…I just love you so fucking much.”
He stares right back at me, straight into my soul. There’s so much reverence on his face. He covers my mouth with his. “I love you, too, Eliza. Forever. And there’s nothing pretend about that.”