did love him. He had a very definitive line drawn between love and respect, never once thinking that the two could overlap. But as he had told Liam before, Kade didn't think he had come across any woman as in love with her husband as Olivia was with hers. And that was something Liam refused to see, his past blinding him to it.
“I'm not sharing your wife with you, Stone,” he growled, throwing an uppercut Liam's way, then blocking a round-body kick as Liam retaliated. They sparred until their bodies gleamed: jabs, hooks, knee strikes, but through it all Kade's frustration gained momentum, and he wanted Liam to fight back, not be on the defense.
Liam didn't answer. Instead, he grinned, then issued an unexpected volley of jabs at Kade. Liam was taunting him, playing with him, and that only made him madder.
“Fuck, are you listening to me?” Kade roared, going in for a rear-leg push kick that threw Liam off-balance. In other circumstances he would box all and every emotion and concentrate only what was in front of him. Getting the hit done, completing his assignment, reporting back to his superiors. He didn't think about the man before him, only his crime which dictated he die. Nothing else mattered.
But the man before him? His crime was wanting Kade to fuck his wife.
And Kade's fucking goddamn emotions were running a son-of-a-bitch riot through his blood. He couldn't get Olivia out of his mind. She wrecked his brain, exhausted his thoughts. When she had walked into Liam's study and found him there, Kade had taken in everything about her in a heartbeat.
Her full pink lips, her hazy gray eyes, her luscious body. The pulse that beat at her throat, the one he wanted to touch with his lips, then press down on until she closed her eyes and begged him to breathe while she dripped onto his hand. His cock had swelled uncomfortably at the nakedness beneath her dress, even though the dress she had worn had been so sparse already. She seemed to have that effect on him, that no matter what she wore, he still imagined her utterly naked.
He wanted to find her heat, and swipe his fingers through it, his mouth, his fucking cock. She kept him awake every single night since he knew she existed. But she was Liam's wife, and he couldn't cross that boundary. Fuck, how could he when he knew where Liam was coming from.
“Do you know what you're asking me to do?” He was furious now. Liam had to know that Olivia would not be like any of the women they shared in their past. Kade had already touched Olivia, and he knew he would not be able to stop if it happened again, and he didn't think Liam understood that entirely.
He had known that when he had spanked her for being rude to him. He had been so weak for her, he tied her legs together with her panties, so he wouldn’t be tempted to touch her, so her scent could be concealed, but fuck those soft pleas she gave Liam. He heard them too as if she were saying them to him as well. When Liam forced his hand, forced him to touch her, Kade had exercised the kind of control he had never needed in his whole life when she came on his fingers, he was surprised he didn't strip her there and then and fuck her the same way Liam would.
He believed he was stronger than that, had wanted to prove he could be around her and not want to impale her with his cock until she cried real tears for both of them.
“Do you know what you're asking me to do?” he asked again, going at Liam with all power now. It was not a friendly sparring match anymore.
“I do,” Liam said, calm as ever. And his answer just made Kade more furious. But when Liam stopped fighting, when he just stood there and didn't defend himself, Kade howled with rage. Given Liam's past he couldn't trust him to be making the right decision. And there was no way Kade was going to stop once he touched her again even if Liam asked him to. Did he not realize Olivia had the ability to destroy them?
“Fight,” he roared, and still Liam didn't engage even after Kade had knocked his knee from under him. He just stood back up again.
“I know what I'm asking you to do, Kade,” he said