Page 64 of The Tower (Billionaire Brothers Grimm #1)
Forty-Four
Surrender
L iam watched her from across the café table, cataloging every micro-expression that crossed her face.
The slight tension around her eyes had eased over the past weeks, the wariness in her gaze less pronounced each time they met.
She was still guarded—he’d earned that—but the wall between them was crumbling, brick by painful brick.
The weeks following Victor’s death had been the darkest of his life. Not from guilt—he’d never regret eliminating that bastard—but from the cold emptiness of her absence. He’d become accustomed to her presence, her warmth, her sharp intelligence cutting through his defenses.
Without her, the Connecticut house felt like a mausoleum, echoing with ghosts of what might have been.
“The rebranding is going well,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. A nervous gesture, one she wasn’t aware of making. “The board has finally approved the name change to Lydia Cosmetics.”
“Your mother would be proud.” So was he. She was so much stronger than she knew. A woman who’d suffered no end of abuse and had essentially raised herself. A daughter determined to honor her mother’s legacy, refusing to be defined by her father’s shadow.
Her eyes lit briefly, and the flash of pleasure at his words was like a physical blow to his chest. He’d become addicted to her rare, genuine smiles, hoarding them like precious gems in the vault of his memory.
“There’s still resistance to some of the changes I want to implement,” she continued, then outlined her vision—diverse models, ethical sourcing, and technologies that would revolutionize the industry. Her hands animated her words, her passion evident in every syllable.
Liam absorbed every detail, not just her plans but the way her whole face brightened when she spoke of the future, the curve of her throat as she leaned forward, the pulse beating steadily at her temple. He’d always been observant, but with Sasha, the observation became reverence.
Their meetings grew more frequent as the weeks passed.
Coffee evolved into lunch, lunch into dinner, and dinner into long walks through Central Park as twilight settled over the city.
Never touching, always with that careful distance maintained between them, a boundary he wouldn’t cross without explicit invitation. No matter how much he wanted to.
It was a strange purgatory for a man accustomed to taking what he wanted. Waiting. Hoping.
Liam Grimm, brought to his knees by the mere possibility of her forgiveness.
“I miss you,” he admitted one evening as they stood watching the sunset paint the skyline in crimson and gold. Three simple words that cost him more than million-dollar deals or security empires ever had.
She turned to him, her face cast in light and shadow. “I miss you, too,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “But I’m still …”
“I know.” He cut her off, sparing her the need to articulate what they both understood. “We have time.”
Something softened in her expression, a surrender so subtle most would have missed it. But he’d made a study of her face, knew every micro-expression, every fleeting emotion. She was beginning to trust him again.
He hoped she’d decide that he’d earned it.
He knew he’d move heaven and earth to deserve it.
That night, he dreamed of her in the Connecticut house. She stood on the terrace, morning light turning her hair to molten gold. When she turned to him, her smile held no reservations, no shadows. Just Sasha, fully present, fully his.
He woke with her name on his lips and a decision crystallized in his mind. Before he could second-guess himself, he texted her. Simple. Direct. Come back to Connecticut with me this weekend?
Her response came faster than he’d dared hope: Yes.
As far as Liam was concerned, the weekend couldn’t get there soon enough.
The next day, she asked him to meet her in her suite at Reed Tower. As the elevator ascended, he remembered the photo shoot on the roof of this building, a day that had set so many wheels in motion. Then, she’d been his bludgeon to use against Victor.
Now, she was his everything.
She was waiting when he arrived, composed but with tension evident in the set of her shoulders, the slight tremor in her hands as she motioned him to an overstuffed chair. He obeyed, though every instinct screamed to close the distance between them, to touch her, to claim her again.
“I’ve been thinking,” she began, her voice steady despite the nervous rhythm of her fingers against her thigh. “About us. About where we go from here.”
He remained silent, granting her the space to find her way through this conversation, even though he was terrified she’d shift in a direction he didn’t want to go. Cancel the trip to the Connecticut house. Or worse, cut him loose altogether.
But he held his tongue, determined to let her get the first word in. And the last, if she wanted.
“What you did was wrong,” she began, settling on the sofa, her hands twisting together in her lap. “Not just killing my father but making that decision without me. Taking away my choice in how to handle my own father, my own life.”
“I know,” he said, the inadequacy of the words bitter on his tongue. “It was unforgivable.”
“No,” she countered, and the word sent a jolt through him more powerful than any electric shock. “Not unforgivable. Just … difficult to forgive. But I think … I think I’m ready to try.”
Hope crashed over him with such violence that for a moment he couldn’t speak. “Sasha?—”
She held up a hand to silence him “It’s not because what you did was right.
It wasn’t. It was a hundred kinds of wrong.
But these last few weeks, our coffees, our talks …
” She trailed off with a shrug and a smile.
“I see you, Liam. I see who you are, and who you want to be. I even see who we can be together, if we both keep trying.” Her smile was quick and tentative. “I mean, if that’s something you want.”
“God, yes,” the distance between them became unbearable, and he moved from his chair to kneel before her, taking her hands in his.
“I don’t deserve you,” he said, his voice rough with emotion.
“Probably not.” A tiny smile danced over her lips. “But it looks like you’re stuck with me.”
The kiss started out soft and tentative, but that shattered in seconds, giving way to a wild intensity that surged between them like a living thing, as if every lost moment of their time apart was demanding its turn.
His hands moved over her with the ferocity of ownership—tangling in her hair, clutching her hips, teasing her ass. And her explorations were just as wild, ripping his jacket off his shoulder, yanking his shirt open so that buttons popped, sliding her hands along his rock-hard abs.
“Fuck the bedroom.” She whispered against his mouth, then pulled him up onto the sofa with her. “Here. Now.”
Liam groaned his approval, straddling her thighs as she lay back on the cushions. He hiked her skirt up around her waist, his fingers teasing along the edge of her panties. “I’ve been dreaming about being inside you again.”
“Then it’s time to make a dream come true.”
The tease in her voice only made him harder, and he yanked her panties aside, too desperate for the feel of her to waste time on niceties.
He thrust two fingers inside her, then groaned when he found her already slick and ready.
“Christ, Princess,” he growled, curling his fingers to hit that naughty little spot that made her cry out and buck against him. “Are you wet for me?”
“Only you.” She wrapped her hand around his cock, stroking him with just the right pressure to make his hips buck. “Only ever for you.”
He withdrew his fingers and positioned himself at her entrance, bracing his weight on one forearm while his other hand gripped her hip. They locked eyes, a moment of raw connection before he buried himself inside herin one powerful stroke.
The sensation was electric, even more so because of their time apart.
Then Sasha rolled her hips, shattering his fragile restraint.
He fucked her hard, each thrust driving deeper than the last, claiming her more thoroughly, his hold on her hip tight enough to bruise.
To mark her as his. Because, dammit, he’d never let her go again.
She clawed at his back, her head thrown back to expose her throat to his hungry mouth.
“God, I missed this.” He nipped at her skin, sucking and teasing, leaving a mark high on her neck where anyone could see it. “I missed the way you feel. The sounds you make when I’m deep inside you.”
As if to prove his point, he shifted the angle, hitting her in a way that pulled a broken moan from her throat. “Oh, yes. Right there,” she gasped, one hand fisting in his hair, pulling almost painfully. “Don’t stop.”
“Never,” he promised, increasing his pace, driving into her with enough force to make the sofa frame creak beneath them. “Come for me, baby. I need to feel you come on my cock.”
The crude words paired with the relentless rhythm of his thrusts pushed her over the edge. She shattered around him, her inner walls clamping down with enough force to draw a curse from his lips. He fucked her through it, prolonging her pleasure until she was trembling and incoherent beneath him.
Without warning, he wrapped his arms around her and rolled, reversing their positions so she was on top, straddling him, still joined. The change in position drove him impossibly deeper, pulling a gasp from both of them.
“I need to see you,” he said as his hands clutched at her hips, guiding her movements. “I want to watch your sweet little cunt take all of me.”
“Yes.” She braced her hands on his chest, rising and falling on his length with increasing urgency. His hands slid under her half-unbuttoned blouse to cup her breasts, thumbs teasing her nipples through the lace of her bra.
“Take it off,” he commanded, tugging at the fabric.