by Sam Mariano
Liam doesn’t stop. My muscles ache with the effort of pushing away from the headboard, but he’s pounding some magical spot and it’s all I can concentrate on.
“Liam,” I cry out senselessly, just needing to make noise.
He angles his hips just slightly, and all of a sudden I can’t breathe again. The friction is too much. I feel like I’m going to lose my mind. I’m so close, so close, I can’t think or speak or breathe.
And then pleasure erupts within me, but it’s not like before—it’s better. I’m a mindless, pleasure-seeking animal as I slither down the bed, pushing back against him with every last ounce of strength in my body. Oh, my god.
Liam groans, thrusting deep. I know he’s coming so I try to move with him, clenching him and moving until he’s ridden out his own orgasm.
Then I collapse.
I almost can’t believe we both survived that.
I’m exhausted and sweaty, and oh my God, what a wonderful appendage.
“Holy fucking hell,” I murmur against the sheets.
Liam snorts, pulling my limp body over against him.
I fling an arm across his torso and snuggle up, more satisfied and content than I’ve ever been in my life.
I’m never letting this man go.
Never.
Annabelle
“Annabelle.”
My eyes flutter open and I lift my arm above my head to stretch, knocking Liam in the jaw.
“Oh, God!” I immediately drop my arm, looking at him, worried. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
Rubbing his jaw with a faint smirk on his face, he tells me, “I’ve had worse.”
I’m still a little lazy from sleep, but just looking at him makes me all happy. That post-orgasm fondness doesn’t seem to have dissipated yet. I want to curl up with him and kiss his beautiful, chiseled face.
“I can see that you’re comfy, but you need to get up. I have to get going, and I still have to show you a few things.”
My face promptly falls.
Somehow, in the rush of my newly won freedom, the glow of our passionate sexy time, and my sudden, all-consuming fondness for this man….
Well, I forgot he had to leave.
“No, not yet,” I balk, my gaze jumping to the window. My stomach sinks when I see it’s dark outside. “Why’d you let me sleep?”
“It’s been a long day,” he tells me.
Only then do I realize he’s completely dressed, and his skin is cool and a little red like he’s been outside.
“I can sleep when you leave—literally all I have to do is sleep.”
There’s no point arguing about it, so he doesn’t, even though I want to, like that will rewind time and give me those precious hours back that I completely wasted.
Liam pats the stack of my discarded clothing he’s folded and left on his side of the bed. “Get dressed.”
I pout, but drag my lazy ass out of bed and grudgingly pull my clothes on.
It feels like he’s going to be gone forever. And I’m going to be alone out here in some remote forest. And it took like three hours to get here, so even when he’s on his way back to me, it’s going to take a long time.
Goddammit.
I want this job to be over so he doesn’t have to leave me anymore. Then we can….
I freeze, one leg in my jeans.
Then we can what?
I don’t know what happens when the job ends. I have no idea.
This is why I need more time! I need answers to questions like these. Do I have more time? Do we have more time? His words from earlier come back to me and I don’t know what they mean. He wants more time with me, in general, because it’s nearly over? Or he just wanted more time before he had to leave for work?
Oh, God.
What if I just found him and I’m about to lose him already?
I don’t know what kind of life he has when he isn’t doing this. I don’t know what he has to go back to.
I don’t know if he ever planned on taking me.
He was already going against orders to save me, but what if it was just that? He couldn’t stomach killing me, so he didn’t, but now we go our separate ways? I don’t want separate ways. I want more time.
The cabin feels smaller, colder than it did before. I’m scared, and it embarrasses me to admit that, even if only to myself.
His back is to me. I clear my throat to get his attention, and he glances at me over his shoulder.
“You have to leave right now?”
“In a few minutes,” he tells me.
Dread. A steady stream of it, seeping through every part of my body.
“What are you going back to?”
Liam doesn’t say anything for a minute, and that scares me even more. Finally he moves, stepping forward and opening what I guess is a closet. He kneels down, prying up the floor boards inside.
“What are you doing?” I ask tentatively.
He brings a black duffel bag up out of the floorboard and holds it up for me to see. “This is a go bag. You know what that is?”
I shake my head no.
“In case everything goes to shit and you need to get the hell out of here, take this. There’s cash, supplies, a phone, and a phone number in it. Remember I told you I don’t trust many people?”
I nod as he unzips the bag and holds up a folded piece of paper.
“I trust him. Anything happens to me and I don’t come back for you, you take this and you run.”
“I run?” My mind is racing, trying to process everything. “Run where? If what happens to you? Why wouldn’t you come back for me? I’ll never find my way out of these woods. If you don’t come back for me, I’ll die here.”
Liam stands, walking over to me and placing a steadying hand on each shoulder. “Listen, I understand this is scary shit and I’m sorry I can’t hold your hand through it right now, but I can’t. I have to leave. And I have to leave here knowing that if anything happens to me, you know what to do.”
I shake my head in denial, but he ignores me.
“If anything happens and I don’t come back, call this number. Tell him what happened and who you are. He might not believe you. This isn’t really my style. In that case, tell him…” He pauses, thinking. “Ask him how the ladies like the scar I gave him,” he decides with a faint smile.
“That sounds like a good story. See, or you could scrap this whole work thing and stay here and tell me the story.” Nodding enthusiastically, I say, “I vote that.”
Tenderly caressing my jaw with his thumb, he tells me, “When I come back for you I’ll tell you the story.”
But what if you don’t? It’s right on the tip of my tongue, but I’m terrified speaking the words will invite the possibility into the universe.
“Please don’t go,” I say instead.
He drops his hand and I miss the contact instantly.
Turning away from me, he retrieves the bag. “There’s a compass in here. You can keep heading east and you’ll make it out of the woods eventually. If you have to call Ryder, tell him that I want you to have the sunset house and you need him to help you get there. Whatever’s left that’s mine, you can have. There’s a go-bag there, too, under the floor in a closet, but you shouldn’t need one. It’s safe and secure and really nice there. It’s on the beach. You’ll like it.”
“Don’t talk about it like I’m going there. I don’t want to go to any beach house unless you’re going with me.”
He ignores me again. “I have an account, a bank account. Ryder’s on it. Tell him to give half to you.”
I don’t want to listen to anymore of this.
“Why do you have to go back?” I demand. “Who cares if you don’t? Let’s go to the beach house now. We can tell each other all the stories we want and have sex and eat food that isn’t canned, or is canned, I don’t care. Just don’t go. If there’s even a chance I’d have to use a go-bag and run away without you, it isn’t worth it. Stay with me.”
“I can’
t. I have to finish this.”
“Says who?”
He shakes his head, remorseful but resolved. “Now that I’ve done this, saved you like this, crossed your family… I need to do this now more than ever.”
“What are you doing?”
I feel dread just asking, like I don’t really want the answer. But more than that I want to be armed with the same information he has, so I can talk him out of his own thought process.
“I won’t tell you that. You’ll figure it out after, but… You’re not going to change my mind and I don’t want you to look at me differently, so let’s just leave it at that.”
“I won’t.”
“Just… Annabelle, I have to leave. I don’t have time to argue with you.”
“I know you’re going to kill someone,” I continue. “Just tell me who. Is it Pietro? It has to be Pietro, right? You were afraid I was going to report back to him.”
Instead of answering, he kisses me. I expect it to be a short, just to shut me up kind of kiss, but he lingers, and I’m already scared, so that scares me more. I hold onto him as he deepens the kiss, moan as he backs me up against the wall, and take him eagerly, greedily when he drops his jeans and pushes inside me.
I want to fight or fuck or do whatever it takes to keep him from leaving.
But it doesn’t.
After he finishes, he remains inside me, pressed against the wall for a couple of minutes with his head on my shoulder. I hold on tight, full of terror and frustration and something that feels alarmingly like love. I’ll call it fondness, that makes more sense. Fondness. Yeah.
Then he pulls out, and pulls back, and I can tell by the set of his features and his shoulders there’s no point fighting. He’s prepared for me to fight, his face a stoic mask, like he doesn’t care, but I don’t believe that anymore.
I don’t fight. I’m seasoned at hedging my bets, and I know I won’t win this one. I don’t want to stress him out even more, so I follow him out the door to the little footbridge over the creek. There’s a well of sadness inside me, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to burst open the moment he leaves.
But God, how I don’t want this to be the moment he leaves.
“There’s wood for the fire inside. I brought some in while you were asleep. Keep it going if you can, it gets cold out here.”
I feel cold, but it’s not because of the weather.
“I’ve been alone for too much of my life,” I tell him. “Don’t make me be alone again.”
“I promise I will do everything in my power to make sure you aren’t,” he tells me. “I’m a murderer, not a martyr; if I know I’m in too deep and I can’t win, I will cut my losses and come back and we’ll just run. I just don’t want to do that. The loose ends need to be cleaned up. Then we don’t have to run.”
That does nothing to cheer me up, and I continue to look like he just ran over my favorite pet.
“And hey, if I don’t come back, maybe you can tame Ryder,” he tells me, lightly.
A thunderous scowl and a smack in the belly later, he is aware I don’t find that funny.
“Nah, he’s a dog anyway,” he adds.
“I’m very stubborn, if you haven’t noticed. I’m not interested in any other scoundrel. I only want you.”
“I have noticed that,” he said with a nod. “It’s not always smart, you know.”
I cross my arms stubbornly.
He smiles, a little smile. We’re both too worried over what’s waiting for him for either of us to exude much joy.
“Will you call me when your shift is over, before you go to sleep, just so I know everything’s okay?” I ask him.
He hesitates, but eventually nods. “I’ll try.”
I don’t really want an “I’ll try” but I guess it will have to do. My formerly soaring heart is so heavy in my chest as he gives me one last kiss on the forehead and then makes his way across the foot bridge.
It’s dark, so he disappears from my sight only a moment later.
The lump in my throat is big and real, and all I want to do is cry. I want to sit down on the forest floor and sob until I drop.
But it’s cold, and he’s coming back, so I don’t want to get sick. I head back into the cabin, lug one more heavy log over to throw on the fire, and sit down on the ugly plaid couch.
Despair creeps up over me, but it’s not the same kind I’m used to. It feels so much less fair. A cloud of despair over an already miserable existence is one thing, but on the heels of such a high, of such all-consuming happiness?
It’s unbearable.
I break down in sobs on the ugly plaid couch, and eventually cry myself to sleep.
Alone.
Liam
Leaving her was a lot harder than I anticipated.
I didn’t expect it to be hard at all. I knew what had to happen; I expected it to be easier now that she’s safe and I’m free to go about my business, no longer distracted.
But I’m still distracted.
I'm also trying not to come off as paranoid. I shouldn't even know Annabelle has gone missing, and there's no guarantee Raj knows. I hope he doesn't, because if he does, that must mean they've canceled that party, and that's the last thing any of us wants. I've thought it over so much that cancelling the party seems almost crazy, but that's the outcome I want, so I'm not exactly unbiased.
I hate that I think about how she'll feel afterward, about my part in all this, about me. She says she's okay with it, but is she really? Would she be, if she realized the extent of it?
It has to be done though. Then Raj will have no reason to bother me and Annabelle won't have to fear her family. Realizing the way they'd been poisoning her with meds made me want to do this job even more. I have no remorse for what I'll help do to them.
I hear footsteps coming from inside the gate so I round the corner to see who it is. Lance. He has his gun and comes over to the other side of the gate, manning his post.
"Raj wants to see you."
I nod, abandoning my post but bringing the gun with me.
When I make it to his office, Raj has a map open, a smile on his face, a twinkle in his dark eyes. His mustache quirks up when he sees me, and I decide he hasn’t heard about Annabelle.
"I need you tonight."
"Tonight?"
"Another opportunity has come up. Another boost."
I shift my weight, rubbing the back of my neck. "I still have an hour left before I can even go get some sleep. Are you sure you want to take that risk this close to the party?"
Nodding with enthusiasm, he says, "It'll be worth it."
"Another boost isn't included in my fee," I point out.
He smiles, unbothered. "Yes, yes. I'll make sure you get a bonus."
I don't like it. I'll steal if I have to, but I'm not a thief and this isn't my wheelhouse. I'm also uncomfortable with a change in the plan, knowing what I do about Annabelle. I've considered maybe no one will care that she's disappeared since she is an adult, but if she was lucid enough to run, or I ‘stole’ her out from under his nose, Pietro's pride won't be able to tolerate that.
Plus her stupid cow mother will play up her concern.
"Lance is here now, so you can go on home and get some sleep. Be back here at 7."
Given I was supposed to check on Annabelle tonight, this fucks everything up. Can't really say no, though. Don't want to raise any alarms this late in the game.
I'll just go to her now. I'm exhausted and didn't want to waste our time together sleeping, but I'll have to. Just a couple more days like this, then I'll be free to do as I please. With Annabelle.
I take Raj up on his offer to leave early. I swing by the store and grab Annabelle some bread, jelly, juice, a box of cereal, and a whole rotisserie chicken for good measure.
It's cold by the time I get there, of course.
Then I remember I left Annabelle my only key. Doesn't matter though, since apparently she didn't bother to lock the damn door.
I know there
's very little chance the place was compromised, but I'm still uneasy as I walk through the cold cabin. She let the fire die, so I drop the food on the counter, grab a log and go over to get it going again. It doesn't look like she's eaten.
Anticipation moves through me as I head back to the bedroom, and there she is, bundled up in bed in the thick blankets.
It was worth the drive, I decide. Nearly falling asleep at the wheel and dragging myself through the forest. Climbing in bed next to her is all I wanna do, so I strip off my shirt, kick off my shoes, and do just that.
She stirs when I slide in next to her, then I wrap my cool arms around her warm body. It feels so good to have her in my arms.
Jumping, she turns to face me. Pleasure spreads all over her face when she sees me and causes my stomach to sink a little. Annabelle throws her arms around my neck and squeezes me.
"You came back."
"I told you I would," I tell her lightly, like it couldn't have gone any other way.
"What time is it?"
"Early. Go back to sleep."
"No, I don't wanna waste the time..."
"I've gotta get some sleep, too. I work again tonight."
Her mouth curves downward, but she curls up against my body, tucking her head under my chin, and in a couple minutes, Annabelle is asleep.
I wake up to the smell of something burning.
I jolt upward and jump out of bed, running out into the living room.
Annabelle is hunched over the pot over the fire, swearing at it. I don't do much to hide my amusement, and she glares at me over her shoulder.