“You can afford it.”
Nevertheless, she grabbed her jacket, which had been left on the bed. Once she was in it, she glanced at Liam, embarrassed, and began her head-down walk of shame to the front of the club.
It wasn’t until she was outside in the cold air, flagging down the ride-share Liam ordered her, that anger warmed her cheeks and made her sit in the backseat of a sedan with a massive huff.
She was still horny, damnit. They'd better have some good explanations for their behavior!
Chapter 14
Liam
Chapter 14
Liam
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He put his head back down over his drink when he saw Liam gunning for the stool next to his. “Go away.”
Liam clapped him on the back before sitting down and ordering a drink from the bartender. Unlike Benson, who gunned to get a little drunk before going home, Liam intentionally brought an insufferable air oflet’s talk like real men.Probably the absolute last thing Benson wanted. “Come on, Ben,” Liam said, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft.”
Benson grunted, not even bothering to look at him. “Not in the mood.”
“Still the same old Ben, though, huh?” Liam prodded, a smirk on the rim of his glass. “Always trying to orchestrate the perfectscene. Always wanting to put on a show. Did you even get to the good part before I showed up?”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is, some things never change.” Liam took a sip of his drink, his eyes never leaving Benson’s profile. “You still like to watch, don’t you? You still get off on the idea of another man wanting what’s yours. You just dress it up in fancy terms like ‘sharing.’”
Benson finally turned to him, tired. “And what about you? You still like to crash the party? Like to share what actually belongs to somebody else?”
Liam’s smile faded. “She wasn’t yours. Not entirely.”
A heavy silence settled between them. A truce.
“Fair enough,” Benson conceded, turning to his drink. “Eden’s something else, huh?”
“Yeah,” Liam agreed. “Even when I knew her as Brim.”
Something grumbled in Benson’s throat. “We always did have the same taste.”
“The best,” Liam said, raising his glass in a silent toast.
They sat in silence for a long moment, the weight of their shared history and their present predicament hanging between them. They were rivals, yes, but in that moment, they were also two men who had been brought to their knees by the same woman.We share more than Eden could ever know.What kind of cosmic coincidence was this? That they had been to La Mariposa without seeing each other… that they had fallen for the same Butterfly… that they both reconnected here in the city, making hertheirs.
“I mean,” Liam continued, “if I had to pick someone to be the other guy, it would’ve been you.” He lifted his glass to Benson before drinking again.
“Oh, fuck off.”
“You knew about another guy, right? That’s what she told me.”
“Hmph.”
“And that he was the other bloke she fucked at the resort?”
“…Ugh.”
“You liked it.” Liam jabbed him in the arm. “Every damn second of it. You and me, tag-teaming that pussy just like the good ol’ days. Iknewit had the right cadence of old familiarity.” Liam leaned closer. “Admit it. For a second, it felt like old times. Just like with Chloe. Or that redhead... what was her name?"
“Anna,” Benson grunted, his knuckles white around his glass.