The air is dense and moist, flavored with tropical flowers. In my ears is a chorus of birdsong and the soft harmonies of wind playing through leaves. Even the sunlight feels different. Liquid. Penetrating and restorative as it seeps into my pores.
Our two-bedroom bungalow is pristine, modern, and secluded. I know it’s costing Liam a small fortune to rent, but I’ve decided not to care. After having the best sleep of my life last night, a run on the beach this morning, and fresh fish and salad for lunch, I’m simply, amazingly content.
“Care for a swim?”
I turn as Liam steps onto the deck. My breath stutters out of me. He’s shirtless, in low-slung swim trunks, with a smile teasing his lips and a glimmer in eyes that have the same hue as the lagoon. But that’s not what gets me. Of all things, it’s his hair, grown over the last months to the length it was when we met.
And almost… almost… I can imagine a different past. One wherein we never parted but grew ever closer. Wherein his only declaration of love hadn’t been offered out of pain and guilt for what had happened to me.
“Eden?”
Soft and hesitant. Hopeful.
I clear my throat. “Did you scout the bank?”
Eyes shuttering, he nods. “I also secured a few contacts who will keep an eye out. They have photos of Alexis, Christopher, and Maddoc.”
“How much did that cost?”
“A ridiculous amount,” he says unconcernedly, then nods at the pool. “I’m going to cool off.”
I nod, not moving. I should move. I should go inside. Take a nap. Eat some papaya. Prepare for three days from now, Monday morning, when I’ll walk into a local bank and transfer a staggering balance into a new, Swiss account. But I can’t unglue my eyes from Liam.
Watching him move is one of the things I missed most during those six long years. The grace and power in every step, the song his body sings for me.
He strides down the stairs in the middle of the deck and to the edge of the pool. Brief stretch of his arms above his head, then a fluid dive into the water. Perfect, even strokes carry him to the other side. An effortless flip beneath the surface. Legs kicking, arms slicing and mastering the element.
God, how I want him.
I want his sweat. His heat. The stroke of his tongue. His fingers. The rhythm of his hips. The pressure of his teeth. I don’t want to control him or be controlled. I want spontaneity. Chaos. Him. I just want him.
I can’t wait anymore.
My shirt and shorts are off in moments. My bra and underwear follow. My skin feels two sizes too small, overheated and over-sensitized. As I walk, the pressure between my legs grows, its beat racing to match my thudding heart.
I slip into the cool water as he executes a turn at the other end of the pool. One stroke at a time, he nears. He doesn’t see me, sense me.
Then he does.
He stops short, some two feet away, and stands. Water mists from his mouth and nostrils, slides off his shoulders and chest. He blinks, looking beneath the water. Seeing me naked, his head whips up. Predatory instinct and confusion swirl together in his eyes.
I swallow hard, lift my chin. “You promised to serve.”
Liam drags a hand down his face. After a pregnant moment, he releases a shuddering breath. “Fuck. Tell me this isn’t a dream.”
I reach through the water, curling my fingers around him. His cock twitches and swells. My heart beats so fast, so hard that my words come out breathless.
“Does this feel like a dream?”
He nods. “Yes. Very much yes.”
I squeeze him. “What about now?”
His eyes flutter closed, then snap open. He takes a step forward, his hand covering mine, guiding it smoothly up and down his shaft.
“What do you need from me, siren?”
Emotion bucks and swirls inside me. The old instinct to submit to him battles the instinct to be in control, to never feel powerless again. But no matter how I wish this was a simple choice—a man and woman unencumbered—it isn’t. And it’s then I know what I need.
“Vanilla,” I whisper.
I don’t say more. Nothing else is required. Liam nods, his free hand moving to cup my face as he steps forward and brings our bodies together. The contact lifts a moan to my lips.
His mouth takes mine. So softly. So gently. Warmth and wetness and slow, deep breaths. He lifts me up, out of the water, and I wrap my arms and legs around him. Our gazes locked, he carries me confidently out of the pool, across the patio and onto the deck. Then into the bungalow and down a hall to a bedroom. My bedroom. The floor-to-ceiling doors are open, allowing warm breezes to dry our wet skin.
He lays me reverently on the white sheets. Looks down at me like I’m a siren in truth—irresistible and otherworldly.
As though we have all the time in the world, Liam leisurely explores my body with his lips and tongue. Every mark of my ordeal receives his attention, from scars to newly earned muscle. I can do little more than gasp, clutching at his shoulders or head, as he tastes and savors my legs, arms, breasts, belly, and hips.
When he hovers at last over the only place he’s bypassed, I tense. He stills and looks up. Whatever he sees on my face changes his course. He moves over me, hovers above me. And there he waits, eyes on mine. Accepting. Patient. Dark with need.
Obeying the command of my body, I spread my legs and wrap them around his hips. With a sigh, he lowers against me. His hips rock forward, sliding his cock over my clit and stomach. My breath pants out, not in fear but in anticipation.
“Are you ready?” he whispers.
Swallowing my heartbeat, I nod. “Don’t kiss me—not in general, I just… I need to see you when, you know…” I bite my lips, feeling my cheeks warm.
He smiles softly. “I promise. One word and I’ll stop, okay?”
Clover.
My eyes burn as I blink back tears. “Yes, okay. Please, Liam. I need you.”
“As my lady commands,” he murmurs, “so I will obey.”
When he’s positioned at my entrance, he once more takes his time. Teasing me with penetration, rubbing circles on my clit with the pad of his thumb. He takes so much time, in fact, that I wiggle my hips up in attempt to speed the process.
“Greedy,” he whispers, eyes twinkling down at me.
“For you, always.”
His eyes close briefly, expression twisting like the words pain him. When he opens them again, a tear drops onto my chest. I gasp, my chest squeezing, my own tears gathering, as he rolls his hips, again and again, until he’s fully seated inside me.
And I feel no darkness.
Only light.
I clutch his waist, arching beneath him. “I’ve missed you inside me. So much.”
“And I’ve missed you,” he whispers. “More than you’ll ever know.”
He pulls out and thrusts again. Slowly, then faster and deeper. But still gentle. So damned gentle. And like he promised, his eyes never leave mine. Not when I cry out and buck beneath him. Not when he finds his own release.
Still joined, he gazes down at me, chest heaving and eyes surreal blue as his tears continue to fall onto my heart. And with every drop, he falls, too.
Back into my heart.
65
Saturday afternoon, dark clouds billow on the horizon as Liam and I play gin rummy with a battered deck of cards we found in a closet. I’m about to win for the first time when his phone buzzes. Removing it from his pocket, he frowns at the number, then answers.
“Yes?”
As the person on the other end speaks, Liam rises and walks onto the deck. I absorb the impact of his tall form highlighted against a backdrop of the approaching storm, listening to his half of the conversation.
“When?”
“Where?”
“You’re sure?”
“All right. Thank you.”
He hangs up, types something on his phone, then turns. The rising darkness at his back reflects in his eyes. Chills erupt on my arms. The glow
of yesterday’s lovemaking dims as grim reality surfaces.
“They’re here, aren’t they?” I ask.
Liam nods and walks back inside. He offers me a hand, and I allow him to draw me from my chair into his arms.
Holding me tightly, his warm breath skates along my earlobe and jaw. “That was my contact at the airport. Six men and two women arrived an hour ago. One of the women was Alexis. The other was described as short, thin, and dark-haired. She was limping, and her face was badly bruised.”
Everyone breaks.
I bury my face in his shoulder. “Oh God, what are we going to do?”
Liam draws back, lifting my chin with his fingers. “What do you want to do?”
I shake my head helplessly. “There’s no way they’ll let us get to the bank. Six men?”
He knows what I’m asking. “Maddoc and Christopher are here.” I have no time to process that tidbit before he continues, “The other four are soldiers—thugs. And you’re right—they won’t let us reach the bank alive.”
I can’t repress a shudder of pure terror. I feel it in my lungs, my gut, my tingling legs. The thought of facing Chris again…
Trembling, I look at Liam. “Should we go? Run? Let them have the money and leave Elizabeth to die? You know as well as I do that whatever piece of information is keeping her alive, they’ll get it. And then she’ll have outlived her usefulness.”
He strokes my jaw. “I think you just answered your own question, love.”
I don’t want him to be right, but he is. However much Elizabeth is responsible for all that’s happened to me, I can’t simply walk away. I can’t let her die if there’s a way to save her. It’s not love that motivates me, or obligation as in the case of Alexis, but something much more simple.
I’m the daughter of Margaret and Ben Sumner. Good, loving people who taught me the difference between right and wrong. The importance of standing up to bullies, of courage, and perseverance, and hard work.
But most of all, they taught me that the smallest decisions in life are often the most significant ones. That it’s not our thoughts that define us, but the choices we make. How we live each day until the last day.
Taking Liam’s face in my hands, I look him in the eye. And I make the choice to live as I would die. Honestly.
“I love you, Liam Rourke. I’ve never stopped. Whatever happens, I want you to know that.”
He covers my hands with his. “I do know. My love for you and yours for me is the only thing that makes sense in this world. I also know that this isn’t the end. Our end is being old and gray, spinning tales for our grandchildren.”
I laugh. “Grandchildren, huh?”
His eyes twinkle. “And great-grandchildren.”
My smile slowly fades. “If you ask me to run with you right now, I will.”
“I won’t ask you, love.”
Surprised, I blurt, “Why not?”
“Because to open a new book, you must first close the old one.” His expression hardens, his hands falling. “Even if you ask me not to, if you never forgive me, I still have to close the book. I cannot allow him to live.”
Christopher.
The thought of him isn’t as visceral as it once was, but the wound still festers, its poison slow to reverse. And the echoes of its devastation will always remain. The nightmares. The flashbacks. And the worst memories of all—the last ones, before my would-be end. When I’d glimpsed the man beneath the monster.
She isn’t worth this.
But he’d done all of it anyway.
Maybe someday the miracle of forgiveness will occur. Perhaps when I’m old and gray and telling stories to my children’s children. If that day comes.
I gaze out over the deck to see the winds picking up, tossing slender Palms back and forth. Then I turn back to Liam. My magnificent, powerful, brave, strong, funny, cunning, charismatic love.
“I’ll still love you,” I tell him, “but I’m still going to ask. Don’t kill him.”
He’s silent for a long minute, then smiles slowly. The devil lives in his eyes. My devil.
“Very well, siren. Seems I’ve overestimated my ability to resist you. I won’t kill him. In fact, that would be too easy. I can think of at least ten different ways to end a man without taking his life.”
I grimace, but nod. “So, how are we going to get Elizabeth?”
His brows lift. “Don’t you mean, how am I going to get Elizabeth?”
My eyes narrow. “Are you seriously pulling the chauvinist card on me? I will break your fucking face.”
He laughs.
And laughs.
And then we plan.
66
What’s left of the Donnelly crime family—as far as we know—is ensconced in a home on the other side of the small island. Liam’s contacts have been invaluable. When I tell him his new nickname is Spymaster, he scoffs. But it’s nevertheless the closest I’ve come to pinning down what makes him so damned dangerous. People bend over backwards to accommodate him. To obey him.
Maybe it’s his blood—the Rourke legacy—but all I know is that Irish charm is a brand of magic in a league of its own.
Saturday night, Liam does reconnaissance of the property in question. I spend the hours he’s gone in a knot of worry, powerless over my thoughts. They caught him. They’re coming for me. An entire hour passes with me hiding in a closet with a knife.
When I finally hear a key in the front door and peek to confirm it’s him, I drop the knife and run. The second the door closes, I’m on him, tearing at his shirt and belt in desperation.
Our lovemaking skirts the boundaries of our former proclivities. But we are both savages tonight, claiming each other with violent fervor. I’m above him when my pleasure overflows, my wrists locked by his hands behind my back. My ragged cry is swallowed by a peal of thunder. His body bucks beneath me, riding my pleasure to his own release.
Spent, I collapse on his chest. He gives me aftercare, carrying me to the shower and washing me, then bundling me in a towel and lying next to me on the bed. He strokes my hair until I’m almost asleep, then kisses me until I’m awake again.
“Tell me,” I whisper.
“She’s being held in plain view in the main living area. No doubt bait. Handcuffed at wrists and feet and blindfolded. The house is single-level, built around the living room. A kitchen and dining room on one side and three bedrooms on the other. Right on the ocean. No pool, but a deck that leads into the house. Both the deck and front entrance are guarded. Windows are all closed and locked in favor of air-conditioning and security.”
“Then how do we get in?”
His thumb grazes my lower lip. “The better question is when. According to my source, a reservation was made for dinner for three tomorrow evening at an oceanfront restaurant.”
“It’s a trap,” I guess.
He nods. “Undoubtedly. But it also means they will all be at the house.”
The windows rattle with the force of the wind. A few raindrops hit the glass, then more and more, until water slides in a distorting sheet down the surface.
Liam gives me a soft kiss. “Tomorrow we’ll go over a map of the surrounding area and decide entry and exit points. We’ll go in together, but out separately.”
“What? No!”
“Yes. You’re going to get Elizabeth out, and I’m going to deal with everything else. We’ll set a rendezvous place and time for the following morning. Then we’ll stash Elizabeth somewhere safe, you’ll go to the bank and transfer the money, and we’ll be on a plane by lunchtime.”
I take a shallow breath past my racing heart. “I can’t leave you there, Liam. There’s seven of them.” At his unperturbed expression, I groan. “You’re going to blow up the house, aren’t you? Like some action-movie hero on a vengeful mission?”
He chuckles. “No. There wasn’t room in my duffel for the C4.”
“Was there room for a bulletproof vest?” I ask, only half-joking.
“I won’t nee
d it.”
His preternatural calm is starting to piss me off. I shove at his chest until he scoots back. I need the space to think, to breathe.
“You might die,” I whisper. “Don’t be so blasé about this. I’m scared for you.”
He drags my hand to his mouth for a kiss. “Eden, look at me.” I lift my gaze from the sheets between us. “I need you to trust me. And I’m not talking about a little bit of trust, like knowing I’ll turn the oven off before I leave the house. I’m asking you to trust me with our lives. Can you do that?”
I think about it long enough that worry blooms in his eyes. When I’ve weighed the past against the present and future, searched my mind and heart, I find the answer easily.
But I let him sweat a little.
Only after a few, tense minutes do I put him out of his misery. “Of course I trust you.”
Liam releases a pent-up breath, then notices the mirth I’m trying to hide. A second later, I’m pinned to the bed and staring at his sharp smile.
“Oh, you little hoyden. You had me for a moment there.”
“I always have you.”
His eyes warm and crinkle. “Aye, you do. I don’t know what luck led to you choosing me, but thank fucking God. You own my heart.”
“And you own mine.”
God, let it be enough.
I don’t sleep much that night. When I do, I dream I’m being chased by a shadowy, malevolent force. I run and run, growing ever more tired and hopeless, and finally turn to confront it—to fight—but what’s chasing me is myself.
The final time I jerk awake, I don’t bother trying to sleep again. The sky is lightening, washed with pastel-pink clouds. One storm has passed. Another type of storm is beginning.
I don’t doubt Liam. I don’t. If he says he’ll handle the soldiers, my father, Chris, and Alexis, then he will. But I’m terrified that he’ll sacrifice everything—including himself—to do so.
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