“I hope so, I...” The memory of me and Luke kneeling near the bushes, while I watched my mother argue with the man by the black sedan, comes to me. I straighten with the impact of what I’ve seen. Luke. I need to talk to Luke.
“Amy?” Liam asks, sounding concerned.
I blink him into view, eager to share what I’ve remembered. “There was a boy who lived next door to me in Texas, named Luke Miller. He was with me one night when my brother and father were out of town. It was midnight and we were standing on the porch when this black sedan pulled into the driveway and then to the side of the house. My mother raced out the door and down the steps. She never saw us. We hid at the side of the house and listened as she argued with the driver.”
“What were they arguing about?” Derek asks.
“I’m going to give my standard answer. I don’t know. Their voices were too muffled.” I inhale and force myself to admit what I don’t want to be real. “But based on their body language and the emotional context of the exchange, I’m pretty sure there was something personal between them.”
Liam arches a brow. “An affair?”
I nod. I can’t manage anything else.
Derek clears his throat. “At the risk of sounding insensitive, Amy, I feel like I need to say this. Statistically my cousin would tell you to look close to home and in the bedroom when a murder takes place. I think this man is a good lead.”
“I’m not in denial that you could be right,” I assure him, “But I’m also convinced there was something going on with my father and brother. And before you ask me how I know, I have nothing to go on but a vague warning from my brother to me and a warning I overhead from my father to my mother about protecting us.”
“Listen to your instincts, baby,” Liam reminds me softly. “They haven’t failed you.”
“My instincts say I need to talk to Luke and find out what he saw that night, but I’m not sure how I do that when I’m supposed to be dead.”
“I can do it,” Tellar offers. “I’ll come up with some masterful story like being a reporter writing a story on your famous father. But what is it that you think he might know that you don’t know?”
“I didn’t see the man’s face. Luke snuck around the drive to leave and it’s possible he did.”
“You never talked about it later?” Liam asks.
“He was home on a college break and we pretty much parted ways that night.”
“Miller,” Derek repeats absently. “Miller. I remember that name.” He opens a folder, scans down what appears to be a list and I watch his expression tighten, his discomfort palpable. “I have his information.”
Dread washes over me in an instant and Liam’s tone is cautious as he asks, “What does that mean? You have the information? What information?”
Derek shows Liam a piece of paper. Liam gives the document a slow inspection, his expression unreadable. Abruptly, he stands up. “Let’s go upstairs and talk, Amy.”
My world spins and I’m on my feet in an instant, holding onto the table for stability. “He’s dead, isn’t he? He’s dead because of me in some way.”
Liam's expression is still as unreadable as a blank page, his reply non-existent and I can’t take his silence, demanding, “Just tell me. Is Luke dead?”
He gives a sharp nod. “He’s dead.”
“When and how?”
“Six months after your house fire he was killed in a car accident.”
“We both know it wasn’t an accident.” My voice trembles on the words, the audience of men I didn’t want in the first place is suffocating. I cut around the table and rush through the kitchen, darting to the foyer stairs and upward in a charge toward the bedroom. Darkness greets me at the top level and I pause, a chill slithering down my spine.
Clutching the railing, I glance down the dark, windowless tunnel of a hallway that makes it look like nighttime, leading to parts of the house that I haven’t explored but wish I had. The unknown is not my friend. It’s proven that to me over and over with the force of a sharp whip. I glance over my shoulder and will my normally overwhelming man to appear. My man. I think of Liam as my man. I shake off the complicated ball of emotions that holds me captive a moment and refocus my attention forward, searching for the light switch I don’t find. Giving up, I dart to my right and into the dark bedroom, relieved as the massive windows and late afternoon sun cast the room in a warm glow.
Heart racing, I lean against the wall, almost expecting some stranger to come flying through the doorway in my wake. I shove fingers through my hair. I’m being paranoid, I tell myself. The house is safe. It’s Luke who is not. Luke, who, like everyone who steps inside my path, is gone. He’s dead and it doesn’t matter I haven’t talked to him for years or that he pretty much wasn’t a nice person. He was young and never got the chance to become more and I can’t help but feel responsible. At the time, hiding from danger had seemed the smart thing to do. Now though, with the PI and Luke dead, and who knows who else, and while I have no idea how I would have fought this battle at the young age of eighteen with no resources, at least it would have been my life, not theirs, on the line.
My hand settles on my belly, on the life I am responsible for, and, as much as I am certain that charging back to Texas would trigger my memories, returning no longer seems like an option. I could end up dead and my unborn child with me. Liam could end up dead with me. Footsteps sound on the stairs, and I am shocked to be completely certain it’s Liam despite the jumpiness of my nerves. That is how completely I am linked to this man. In all his dominating good and bad, he matters to me. He is my heart.
“Liam,” I whisper as he enters the room, stepping toward him.
Almost instantly, his hands settle at my waist, the impact of his touch slamming into me far harder than the wall that ends up at my back. It is frightening how easily I could let him get off with nothing more than his silent apology in the kitchen, when his earlier behavior is too big to just let slide. “We have to talk, Liam.”
“I was a complete asshole,” he replies, cutting right to the point. “I know. But after everything you learned in that kitchen the past hour, you have to see that Texas is a death wish.”
I blanch. “Are you seriously justifying being an asshole?” So much for the silent kitchen apology after all.
“I’m not apologizing at all. I’m telling you how it is. You will not go get yourself and my baby killed.”
“Your baby? Our baby. Our baby, Liam. Just like “we” and “together” does not equal you treating me like property. You can call me yours when you learn the difference.”
He shackles my legs, trapping my lower body with his, then shoves my hands over my head, his eyes blazing. “You’re mine. No matter what name you use or where you run, you are mine.”
His words whip through me, far sharper than the unknowns of my life, and they affect me, he affects me on every possible level. “I thought you weren’t going there, Liam? I thought you said this wasn’t what I needed right now.”
“Even your neighbor is dead, baby. That opened my eyes. You’re mine and that to me means to protect” —he slides his hand around my backside and molds my hips to his— “and make you scream my name as often and in as many creative ways as I can.”
My thighs all but vibrate with his words. “Saying I’m yours doesn’t make it so.”
“No?” he challenges, his lips, his breath, teasing my cheek and mouth, his hand brushing over my chest, my nipple, and settling at the knot at my waist that he unties. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes,” I manage, despite the way his fingers find the skin beneath my shirt, teasing the skin there, reminding me I am braless, exposed.
His eyes glint with a cool arrogance that both makes me want to kick him and lick him before he says, “I’m not convinced,” and proceeds to caress a path up my ribcage to my breasts.
I dig my fingers into his shoulders, barely fighting a moan of pure submission when his fingers find my nipples and tease,
then tug, the touch as rough and erotic as his words when he’d declared me his.
He leans closer, the wicked male scent of him teasing my nostrils, his sensual mouth brushing my ear, teeth teasing the delicate lobe. “I told you once you weren’t alone and vowed to make sure you didn’t forget that. Now, I’ll rephrase. You aren’t alone and you’re mine. If you don’t know those things, I haven’t been clear enough but I will. Right here. Right now.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to think of a reply, but his lips, those damn, perfect lips of his, distract me, caressing my neck, sending waves of sensation through me and leaving a trail of goose bumps in their wake. They find my mouth, brush it with a featherlight touch that has me balling my fingers in his shirt as he whispers, “Mine,” and then drags the t-shirt I’m wearing upward. I let him pull it over my head and toss it away before I can process what is even happening.
His hands go back to mine and he shackles my wrists, shoving them against the wall above me. “Leave them there until I tell you that you can move them.”
“Why would I do that?” I ask, all too aware that I am bare above the waist, my breasts thrust in the air, and it is both daunting and arousing to know that I am exposed in ways I think he understands more than I do.
His expression is dark, his tone absolute. “It’s your choice. It’s always your choice.”
“You said we were doing everything your way. That’s not a choice.”
“I said that I won’t let you get yourself killed. You’re right. That isn’t a choice.” He shocks me by abruptly turning me to face the wall, forcing me to hold my hands braced on the solid surface to support myself. Almost instantly he shoves my pants down, and I gasp with the shock of the cool air on my backside, then nearly sigh at the blessed relief it delivers to my heated skin. He slides my sweats down my hips and goes with them, squatting at my feet, and I don’t even try to stop him from removing my tennis shoes. And when the job is done, when I have I let him strip me bare, leaving him completely dressed, in control, he pushes to his feet again and he arches around me, flattening his hands over mine and moving them back where he’d wanted them before. Over my head and I have no option but to keep them there or crash into the wall. I want to crash into him. There is no denying it, and while there are many things I want to escape, he is not one of them.
The feel of his big body wrapped around me, the thick pulse of his erection resting against my backside, is too much and not enough. He skims down my arms, reaching around my body and over my naked breasts, his fingers ruthlessly tugging and twisting my nipples until my thighs are damp and my sex aching. Finally, his hand moves lower, palms flattening erotically on my backside, and he leans into me. “I think I might just tie you up in my bed and keep you there, just like I threatened. You’d be mine for sure then. I could lick you, kiss you...punish you for denying you’re mine, maybe even spank your pretty little ass.”
Chapter Eleven
Spank me? I gasp and try to turn, my heart exploding in my chest, but he holds me easily, his fingers wrapping my wrists. One of his hands goes to my breast, cupping it, holding my back to his chest. “Easy baby,” he murmurs. “I won’t spank you unless you ask me to.”
The rough, deep quality of his voice is frighteningly arousing considering the topic. “That’s never going to happen.”
“It’s not about pain, baby. It’s erotic pleasure and the kind of complete escape that leaves nothing but the moment. And the trust you give me because you’re mine. It leaves no room for anything but you and me and the moment. You need that. We need that.”
Any fear of the threat of a spanking evaporates. Yes, I whisper in my mind. I need that. Take me. Make me yours. I squeeze my eyes shut and he surprises me by turning me to face him, so I snap them back open. His eyes meet mine, hold me spellbound, the air thickening around us. He presses his fists into the wall by my head and tenderness settles over his face as he adds, “But what we need more than anything, Amy, is each other. I need you, baby. I need you alive and well and in my bed and my life. The idea of losing you is torture and it affects me but I know you aren’t my property. You’re the woman who changed me in ways I don’t even fully understand.”
Suddenly, I realize I might be bared to him when he is fully dressed, but we are both naked, exposed in ways I do not believe we have ever been with anyone else. The raw honesty in his eyes, the torment and fear, the vulnerability I sense and feel in him, speak to my soul. He speaks to my soul. And suddenly I get the sex games, and his need to control something when everything seems to be spinning and cracking.
I wrap my arms around his neck. “You’re right. We do need each other. I need you, but Liam--”
“No buts.” He slides his fingers around my neck, dragging my mouth to his. “Say it again. I want to hear you say it again.”
My heart squeezes with the vulnerability and need beneath the sandpaper rough command. His need for me. Mine for him. “I need you, Liam.”
“And that is everything to me, Amy. You are everything.” He kisses me, his tongue parting my lips, and when mine reaches for his, when that first sensual connection happens, it is as if a band of tension snaps between us. This is not a kiss, but an unleashing of wild heat. We are suddenly clinging to each other, touching each other, my arms wrapping his neck, my legs around his waist.
In an instant it seems, I am sandwiched between him and the wall, and his pants are to his knees, his shaft pushing into the slickness of my sex. He drives into me, stretching me, filling me, burying himself deeply, completely. I pant with the feel of him inside me, our foreheads settling together, another little thing that has become familiar, a sweet bond in the middle of absolute passion.
“You aren’t even undressed,” I whisper.
“We’ll do it in reverse next time,” he promises, and I laugh at the idea of such a purposeful transition, but he lifts me off of the wall, taking all of my weight, angling my hips and his cock for a deep, hard push, that has me moaning instead.
Clinging to his neck, I have a fleeting moment of worry about how he is holding my full weight, but it is gone with another pump of his cock, lost to his sexy, guttural groans. Curling into him, burying my face in his neck, I forget everything but the way he moves, the way he grinds into me. Time stands still for the push and pull of our bodies that lands me on my back on the mattress, legs over his shoulders, and yes, oh yes, his cock is deeper inside me, and he is driving harder and harder, faster and faster.
Tension returns to me in the form of a tight knot of muscles in my sex, burning with the promise of something sweet and wonderful. “Liam...I...I...” He leans in and kisses me, somehow still managing to move, to seduce me with the thick pump of his cock. All too easily, he chooses when to push me to the edge and over into a waterfall of sensations so intense the pleasure borders on pain. Reaching over my head, I grab the blankets beneath me, grasping for anything to hold onto, trying to stay in the moment, willing it to last but it escapes me, leaves me panting, drugged with the impact.
It is gone, but Liam is not. I come back to the world with another deep thrust of his shaft that has him shuddering from head to toe, and the intensity on his face, the primal beast that he is in that moment, is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. He collapses on top of me, completely drained, but I feel the way he is careful not to crush me, how aware of me he is even in his own escape.
Seconds pass and he doesn’t speak and neither do I, but we don’t need to. It is good and right between us. When finally he moves, rather than pull out of me, Liam adjusts his pants enough to stand. I wrap myself around him without questioning his intentions.
We enter the bathroom to the flicker of automatic lights as he sets me on the counter and grabs a towel, pressing it between my legs as he pulls out of me.
His hand goes to the back of my head and he does that now familiar thing he does and rests his forehead against mine. I nestle my fingers in the soft, springy hair of his broad chest and I breathe with him, a
deeper intimacy blooming between us.
“About earlier tonight,” he begins.
“It’s okay--”
“No. It’s my turn to say it’s not okay.” He eases back to look at me and those sharks he claims swim around his feet are swimming in his eyes. “I was an asshole.”
“You’re worried and you’d just been handed the VIP invitation to fatherhood you hadn’t planned for.”
“A VIP invitation to be a better man than my father, Amy.”
I suck in air at the unexpected answer. “Oh Liam--”
“Hear me out, baby.” His gaze flickers over my bare chest and he grabs a navy blue cotton robe from a latch behind the door and slides it over my shoulders. “It’s hard to think, let alone say what I have to say, when you’re naked.”
Cheeks burning, I stick my arms through the huge sleeves while he tugs the robe shut and ties it, his hands lingering on the knot at my waist. He lets out a heavy breath. “Okay.” He hesitates, then seems to push himself to confess, “When I was a kid my father got drunk and beat my mother.”
My eyes go wide and I open my mouth to issue words of sympathy, but I read the way he seems to wait for the bullets they would represent, and instead ask, “Did he hit you?”
“Oddly no, but for years I was the small child hiding in the closet while he played monster. I would shout and try to hit him but my mother begged me to stop. I was little, only eight, and she was sure I’d be hurt. Thankfully, the SOB disappeared. Him leaving was the best thing that ever happened to my mother. Then when I was thirteen, he came back for a night and my mother let him in her bed to wake up to a beating.” His expression turns all dark lines and haunted shadows. “At already six feet tall, I had listened to one too many brutal attacks, and I’d had enough. I put my fist into my father’s nose.”
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