“Me too,” I whisper.
“This feels right, doesn’t it?” Liam asks me. “You and me?”
I sigh and murmur against his mouth. “Yes. Definitely.”
“Soon,” he says quietly, pressing his lips against my cheek and then my earlobe. “Once we get past this doctor-patient stuff, I’ll make you mine. And I’ll keep you for good.”
“I’m impatient,” I say, tugging on his tie again. “I want to be yours now.”
“But Winter...”
“Stop talking and kiss me,” I command him.
He does not hesitate to comply. He slips his hand behind my head, letting his fingers get tangled up in my hair as he kisses me soundly. He lets his other hand trail over my collarbone and underneath the neckline of my blouse. I feel his fingers exploring downward to trace the edge of my bra. The sensitive, warm skin there responds to the cold and gentle touch of his fingers, and I arch my back to encourage him. He tenderly cups my breast in his hand and begins to massage my flesh. A small moan escapes my lips, and I am about to give him permission and beg him for more when I am startled by the noise of a door slamming. Liam rips his hands away from my body, and straightens himself.
For a moment, I am worried that it’s my dad. I feel like a teenager terrified that my father has caught me fooling around in the car with my boyfriend. Then, I recall the greater threat. I am too stunned, being brutally yanked out of my bliss, to properly register the danger.
“Get the fuck away from her!” Grayson shouts as he moves toward us.
I feel like ice has been poured into my spine. I am suddenly frozen and unable to move.
“Relax, man!” Liam says. “Just relax. Helen is an adult, and she can do whatever she wants.”
“I said to get the fuck away from her!” Grayson yells again, his voice rising to a fanatical screech.
My stomach contorts with nausea at the loathsome sound of his voice.
“Get in the car,” Liam whispers to me, opening the door and swiftly guiding me inside. “Duck down below the glass.”
When he shuts the car door, I follow his instructions and lean forward, lowering my head and torso. Only after I am crouching below the protection of the metal panel do I realize why he has asked me to do this. Grayson’s gun. Just as I realize what’s happening, the deafening sound of a shot being fired causes me to jump. I no longer care about my own safety, and I grab the handle of the car door and try to swing it open.
“Liam!” I scream in horror.
“Stay down!” he yells at me, shoving the car door closed again. “I’m fine!”
Another earsplitting shot is fired, and I flinch as I feel the glass window above me shatter. My heart sinks as I imagine Liam shot and bleeding to death a few feet away, outside the car.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Grayson shouts. “Keeping her out all night and treating her like your little whore?”
Another shot is fired, but this time I hear Grayson grunting in pain. There seems to be some sort of struggle, and the sound of a metal item clattering to the floor. There is a loud thump followed by Grayson howling bloody murder.
Another gunshot.
Everything goes quiet.
“Liam?” I whisper fearfully. With a shaking hand I reach for the handle and push open the car door. I swing my legs out, causing pieces of the shattered glass window to fall from my lap and clatter to the ground. I move forward in a daze, afraid of what I’ll discover. I take a few more tentative steps before my toes collide with a motionless body. I stand completely still, staring down in shock. I wish I could see the scene before me so I didn’t have to crouch down on my hands and knees and try to identify the lifeless man on the ground.
This can’t be happening. Liam was laughing with me and kissing me just a moment before. I have only just found him, and the thought of losing him like this rips my heart in half.
I can’t lose him before I have ever had the chance to really call him mine.
Please, God. Don’t let him be gone.
“Liam?” I say softly again, into the emptiness of the night. I can feel my frosty breath tickle my lips. I wait. Nothing. No response. Tears spring to my eyes. The panic in my chest builds to a feverish scream as my voice bursts out of my chest like one of the gunshots echoing into the distance. “Liam!”
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Clarity 2 Page 11