Текст книги "Infinite Possibilities"
Автор книги: Lisa Renee Jones
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 14 страниц)
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.”
Pride wells inside me at the bravery of a young boy who’d been through too much, too soon in life. “What happened?” I whisper, reading his tone as a resolution, not a nightmare to follow.
“He left. The end. And that’s where I was at today when I said it was my way. I knew standing up to my father was right, and I know hiding you and hiding you well is the answer now. The only thing my father ever taught me worth learning was that I can’t do nothing, Amy, and I can’t ignore my own instincts.”
“Nothing is exactly what I’ve done for the past six years, Liam.”
“No. You survived and that says a lot.”
“That’s not enough. We’ve had this discussion.”
“You survived until you got here, with me. Now, you can lean on me.”
I shake my head. “No. I can’t just let you take care of me, and even if I was willing, I’m the one with the link to all of this. I’m the problem and the solution.”
His jaw sets hard. “We can’t go to Texas.”
“I know.” My whispered acceptance is etched in the pain of loss no longer hidden deep in my soul. I clear my throat and add, “But we can’t do this your way either and raise a child in hiding and looking around every corner.”
“I didn’t say hide forever, but in the past twenty-four hours a lot has become clear, like the willingness of whoever this is to kill anyone they see as a threat. And the fact that for every resource I have, they appear to have their own.”
“You mean they have money.”
“Yes. They have money, which means we need to get underground until we figure out a fight plan.”
“That’s not how you made it sound earlier.”
“I’m still going to want to leave you locked away and safe.”
“And–”
He kisses me. “I know. I know you can’t spend your life that way. We’ll figure it out.”
Relief and appreciation for this man who has become so much to me expands in my chest. “Where does that leave us now? What is our plan?”
“Moving just to move is dangerous. It means more people to see you and more chances to be found, and that’s a dangerous proposition when there’s a ransom on your head as we’ve already seen. We stay here a few days, get our ducks in a row, and then we move.”
“And we go where?”
“Asia. I have connections there and those connections with my money will be hard to penetrate.”
Asia. My head is spinning. “What about a new passport? I can’t travel as Amy Bensen after the private investigator ended up dead. Whoever is after me, has to know this identity.”
“I’ll charter a plane and handle whatever paperwork that needs to dealt with.” He grabs the lapels of the robe. “We’ll end this. You have my word.”
“We, Liam. If I’m going to another country with you, I need you to mean that this time.”
“I meant it every time I said it, but baby, I have my own Godzillas here and there. I can’t promise–”
“Not to be an asshole?”
“With good intentions. Always with good intentions.”
“Hmmmm.” I slide my hands under his shirt. “Well...I think good intentions gone bad always come with a price. I think you need to be spanked.”
His eyes light with mischief, and I watch what’s left of the darkness in his eyes fade. “You are going to spank me?”
“That’s right. But you have on too many clothes.”
“Well, never let it be said that I resisted my punishment.” His lips curve and he tugs his shirt over his head. “Better?”
“Getting there.”
He gives me a nod and steps away from me, and it’s the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes as he begins to remove his shoes that warns me I’m the one who’s about to get spanked. I should be worried about that warning, but my earlier fear is gone. Hungrily, my gaze travels his naked, ripped torso, to land on the tattoo peeking from his unzipped pants and suddenly, it means so much more to me than ever before. It has become a symbol of the little boy who had a monster for a father and lost his mother too young but who didn’t quit.
Affection fills me and I slide off the sink and wrap my arms around him. “You had so many reasons to fail in life and yet you became such an amazing person. I’m going to fight like you did. For me and for us.” I sink down to my knees in front of him. “I am,” I say, spreading my hand over his tattoo, “infinitely yours, Liam Stone.”
He reaches for me and pulls me to my feet, molding me close. “Say it again,” he orders, his voice a raspy command.
I smile at this repeating theme. “I am infinitely yours, Liam Stone.” I curl my fingers on his jaw. “Now you say it.”
“You are infinitely mine.”
I glower at him and he gives me a devastating smile. “Baby, I have been yours from the moment I laid eyes on you.” He unties the robe. “Shall I show you? Or are you eager to continue with the punishment?”
“Yours, not mine. As in, no spanking.”
His lips hint at a curve. “We'll see about that.” He reaches for his pants and slides them down his legs, and there is no question, he’s risen to the challenge of “showing me”.
“No,” I say, pulling the robe shut. “We won’t.” But I am not afraid. I am never afraid with Liam.
He steps up to me, his expression all dark promise and smoky sensuality. “Like I said, we’ll see about that.” He shoves the robe down my shoulders.
I catch it at my elbows. “I’m pregnant.”
He arches a brow. “And that means what?”
“I’m pregnant,” I repeat.
“We could ask Dr. Murphy if– ”
“We are not asking her any such thing.”
He laughs, a deep rumble of pure sex that I feel in every part of me. “Then I guess we’ll just have to figure it out for ourselves, won’t we?”
My sex clenches and I am horrified to realize how aroused this is making me. “Not now.”
“I’m in no rush.” He wraps his fingers around my neck and pulls my mouth to his. “In fact, I’m all about savoring you now that you’re mine. Nice and slow, baby.”
He kisses me and proceeds to convince me that his kind of slow is really, really good.
* * *
The next morning I stand in a massive closet, freshly showered and dressed in a pink silk robe, and thanks to the new products Derek’s sister had purchased for me along with the robe, my floral scented hair is blow-dried and shiny. All around me are bags filled with more items and while I’m incredibly grateful for the gifts, what really makes me smile is thinking about the way Liam had declared half the closet mine before heading to the kitchen to arrange grocery delivery from the corner store.
Thanks to his convincing me to stay in bed with him the previous evening with a Lord of the Rings marathon he’d claimed was rich in fictional history, I feel rested for the first time in months. Of course, me loving history, and keeping him naked and in his bed, had made my agreement fairly easy, but I’d known I was physically and emotionally at my limit, too. As a perk, the pizza we ordered to eat in bed like we’d done back in Denver, was not only yummy but didn’t make me sick. I almost think the sickness was more about stress and exhaustion than the pregnancy.
Done arranging my new things, I dress in a black velvet Victoria Secret sweatsuit with stylish wedge-heeled tennis shoes. Soon I suspect they will be all that will fit of this slim-fitted outfit and I’m looking forward to a visit from Dr. Murphy on Monday to talk about my due date and general care.
Looking oh so casual and sexy in a pair of gray sweats and a red t-shirt with the “pi” sign on it, Liam appears in the bedroom entryway about the time I’m about to seek him out.
His eyes light on me, and I feel his genuine pleasure at having me here which warms me to the core. “Let’s go get you comfortable with your new home, why don’t we?”
My stomach knots with his words as he leads me along with him, the real world I’ve spent hours hiding from striking its angry sword at me, reminding me of what I’ve pretended didn’t exist. I’m hungry for stability, for home, but I’m on the run and once I leave here, I may never be back.
All the more reason to drink in every second of the here and now, I remind myself, aware in deep, gut-wrenching ways how easily tomorrow might not exist. We travel the hallway that had been intimidatingly dark and is now a path to several elegantly decorated bedrooms, a library filled with architecture books and models of buildings Alex created. We spend a good hour talking about those, and then finally we enter The Dagger Room. The Dagger Room.
I step inside what is a long, rectangular-shaped room the size of two giant master bedrooms. It is all windows. At least a dozen glass cases are framed in gray wood with club foot legs etched in intricate designs, holding Alex’s dagger collection.
Liam waves me forward and I eagerly move to the first case as he explains, “You’ll find them divided by region and time period. And as I mentioned, you’ll find the collection heavily influenced by Alex’s Asian interests.”
My eyes go wide as a jade-handled dagger with remnants of dirt and age on the ivory blade comes into view, and I read, Shang Dynasty ca. 1046 BCE. Stunned, I look at Liam. “This is museum-worthy.”
“And now you know why I say I have a state of the art security system.”
“Yes. Yes, I do.” I glance around at some of the other pieces and add, “I hope it’s really as good as you say it is.”
“I wouldn’t have brought you here if it weren’t. We’re wired like Fort Knox, baby, don’t you worry. Alex put a lifetime into this collection and I want to keep them safe, but I’m not sure I enjoy them the way they should be enjoyed. I need to find a museum to donate them to.”
Surprised, I study him, and I don’t miss the sadness in the depths of his eyes. “Are you sure you want to let them go?”
“Am I sure?” He laughs without humor. “There is the question. No, I’m not sure but it’s what Alex wanted. I just haven’t been able to bring myself to do it.”
I wrap my arms around him, tilting my chin up to study him. “If I had anything that was my father’s, I don’t know if I could let it go either.”
“Have you visited any of his public displays?”
I shake my head. “I was afraid it would bring attention to me so I didn’t dare, and honestly, I had to try to block the past out. It’s how I got up every day.”
“The blackouts say that came with a price.”
“Isn’t there always a price?”
“Sometimes there’s happiness, Amy, and you deserve to experience that. I’m going to get you something of your father’s.”
“I just want the chance to say goodbye properly.”
“We’ll get you that, too.” He motions to our right. “The only Egyptian display in the room.”
In that moment, when I completely understand his desire to give me any connection to my family he can, I know that I am devastatingly, completely in love with him and while we have not spoken the words, they sweep silently through the air, a current waiting to be charged.
I press to my toes and touch my lips to his, letting them linger a moment, and he flattens his hand on my back, holding me to him, breathing with me. With me. His presence in my life is like the lighthouse in stormy waters to a ship lost at sea.
Dragging my fingers over his goatee, I ease back and our eyes meet, triggering a mutual smile. He leads me to the display he’d indicated. “All but one are replicas, unfortunately,” he warns as we bring the five daggers laying on black silk into view, “but they are all antiques.”
I’m immediately drawn to a dagger carved in ebony with copper trim that is meant to represent the mid-BCE. My hand flattens on the glass, flashes of a memory teasing my mind, transporting me back to a dig site. I’d been fourteen and on the last trip I’d ever take with my family.
“What is it?” I ask eagerly, tossing my braided hair over my shoulder, and dropping to the desert ground next to Chad where he was digging fiercely.
“I don’t know. Some sort of limestone. Maybe a tool. Why aren’t you at lunch with the others?”
“I finished early.”
“Then make yourself useful. Go get help. Dad’s going to want to see this.”
I drop to my knees and start digging. Chad grabs my arm and grimaces, dirt smudging his handsome, tanned face. “You know better. We need a team and proper equipment. Go get help.”
“Father!”I shout at the top of my lungs. “Father!”
“I said go get help, not shout for help. I could have done that myself.”
“But you didn’t, so good thing you have me to think of the obvious, right?”
“Happy memory for once?” Liam asks, snapping me back to the present.
I tilt my head, “What?”
“You’re smiling.”
“Oh. Yes. It was a happy memory.” I give him a quick peck on the cheek.
“What’s that for?”
“For helping me honor them with good memories.”
The doorbell rings.
“That’ll be Tellar and Derek with lunch and the files for us to review.”
“Lunch sounds wonderful,” I say, linking my arm with his. “Rest has done my appetite wonders.”
I am in good spirits as I sit down at the table with Liam, Tellar, and Derek, another memory without a blackout expanding my optimism over recovering my past. Eager to get lunch done to learn about their research, I’m about to take a bite of my ham and cheese sandwich as splintering pain slices through my scalp.
I see the same dig site I’d been on with my brother. And I see him.
Oh God. I see him.
