"We shouldn't," he said. I could tell he was fighting something. His whole body felt tense and hard.
"I know," I said.
I was fighting the same thing: pure, unfiltered need.
His hands gripped my hips one more time, and then he let go. "I'll see you in the morning."
"Yeah, okay."
He gave me a look I couldn't read and left the room, closing the door behind him. I sighed, staring at the space he occupied seconds ago as the fear began to flood me again. I shook my head and walked back over to the bed, shoving the unused clothes to the floor. I climbed into the bed, slipped under the sheets, and closed my eyes. Excitement and exhaustion warred inside me, my body still ringing for Liam but my eyes heavy from the taxing day.
Sooner than I could have guessed, exhaustion won out, and I slipped into sleep.
Chapter Fifteen: Liam
I woke up, my head pounding and my mouth muggy and dry. I groaned, cursing, as I rolled over on the stiff couch. There was a half empty whisky bottle and an empty glass sitting on the coffee table, and the television was still on, playing an early morning news program.
I sat up, clutching my head. What a stupid fucking idea. Getting drunk was not the way I should deal with my issues. I stood up unsteadily and walked into the kitchen. I put on a pot of coffee and looked around. Ellie wasn't up yet; I wondered how late a kindergarten teacher could sleep. Actually, I wondered how long a traumatized kindergarten teacher could sleep. Pretty long, I decided.
That fucking kiss, though. It had come out of nowhere. Well, no, not nowhere. I had gotten a pretty good view of her perfect tits. I couldn't decide what had gotten me harder: the way she didn't seem to care that I was staring at her body, or the way she pressed herself against me and ran her fingers through my hair. I'd been with plenty of girls that threw themselves at me, but none were like her, not a single one of them. She was the first one I wanted more of, not in the sense of fucking again, but in a hungry kind of way. I wanted every inch of her, every position of her, every moment and moan and more.
But it was a bad fucking idea to get involved. I was the only person standing between her and the Mob, and I couldn't afford to be distracted, not even by her sweet lips biting mine.
I sighed as the coffee finished brewing. I poured myself a mug and let its deep, bitter taste help wake me up. I stretched and checked the oven's clock for the first time: almost ten-thirty. I narrowed my eyes. How long could a kindergarten teacher really sleep?
I took another sip of coffee, her full breasts running through my mind again. With a soft grunt at the pain throbbing in my skull, I walked out into the living room and stood at the bottom of the steps. I didn't hear anything upstairs, no water running for the shower or anything. Softly, I climbed the steps, trying to be quiet. I didn't want her to think I was being a creep, but I also had to make sure that she was okay.
My heart began to hammer when I noticed that her door was left open a crack. I distinctly remembered shutting it after I left her, and I was pretty sure she went right to sleep. Adrenaline mounting, I softly pushed her door open.
The clothes I had gotten her were thrown on the floor, and the sheets were wrinkled and tossed around. It looked like someone had torn through the room, tossing things around at random. I blinked as the realization hit me hard: she wasn't there.
I moved quickly into the space. "Ellie?" I called out.
The clothes she was wearing were on the bed but there wasn't anything else to mark whether or not she had gone. Adrenaline flooded through me and I tensed my fists. Had Colm found me so easily? How had they gotten her out right under my nose?
Or, worse, had she run away?
"Ellie?" I called again, louder.
I heard a door down the hall open, and I braced myself.
"Yeah?" she responded, poking her head into the hallway.
I felt myself deflate as relief rushed in to replace my fear. She blinked at me, clearly surprised at the wild look in my eyes.
"Is everything okay?" I asked her, walking out into the hall.
She looked at me sideways. "Yeah, I'm just using the bathroom."
"Okay, okay, good. I thought . . ." I trailed off, not sure what I thought.
"What, that someone abducted me in the night?"
I shrugged and didn't answer.
She snorted and laughed. "My hero."
I gave her a look. "Coffee is on downstairs. Want breakfast?"
"If you made me those eggs again, I think I could die happy."
I grinned. "Not funny."
"Very funny. Be down soon." She moved back into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.
The throb in my head returned as I moved back downstairs. I felt stupid and awkward, but I was glad she was still there. I couldn't stop myself from turning the worse-case scenario over and over in my skull, letting the gory details of that ending penetrate my waking life, and I hated it, hated myself for wallowing in weakness and guilt and anger instead of getting out on the street and fixing things. I wasn't the kind of man who obsessed, not normally at least; I was the sort who acted, who took action, who did things to fix or save or whatever I was trying to do. But she had done something to me.
Overreaction done with for the morning, I got to work cooking her eggs.
"Where did you learn that, anyway?" she asked, walking into the kitchen.
I looked up from the pot, pulled out of my thoughts. "My mom."
"She taught you how to cook?"
I shrugged. I wasn't exactly proud of it, but I was a momma's boy when I was younger. I decided not to tell her that part.
"My dad wasn't around much when I was a kid, so I spent a lot of time with my mom. Had to, at least. She taught me how to cook, I think just to give me something to do, keep me out of trouble."
She smiled. "Were you getting in trouble a lot?"
"Constantly."
She laughed as I finished cooking her eggs, pouring the creamy yellow goodness out onto a thick piece of toast. I placed the plate in front of her, and then I poured myself a bowl of cereal. We ate in silence for a few minutes, and I wondered what was going through her head. I couldn't imagine what it was like to be her: lost, confused, shoved into a world she knew existed but only in an abstract way. She probably felt like she was living in a fictional world.
I knew I couldn't shake the feeling of waking up from a dream, but the dream was lingering.
"I need to go out today," I said, breaking the silence.
She looked up at me. "And I'm supposed to do what?"
"Stay here. Watch TV. I can get you some books if you want them."
She sighed and didn't answer, finishing off her eggs.
"I know it's boring-"
"You don't know anything," she snapped.
I frowned. "No, I don't."
We were silent again for a moment, and I watched her closely. She seemed to shrink into herself, eyes looking down at the floor. Probably remembering the gun in her face, I thought. The girl had never experienced something like Max, had never even considered that someone would want to end her life. She was right: I didn't know a thing about what she was feeling. I couldn't blame her for being angry. Hell, she was taking it better than I had expected.
"I'm sorry," she said softly.
"For what?"
"You saved my life. I shouldn't be such a bitch."
I stared at her for a second, and then I burst out laughing. I had no clue why, but it seemed so fucking funny. It was completely absurd and insane, the whole situation just so beyond fucked that I couldn't hold it all back. She gave me a confused smile as I rocked back in my chair, laughing loudly.
"What?"
"I don't know," I managed to say through gasps of air.
She shook her head, still smiling. "You're insane."
I pushed away from the table, slowly gathering myself. I grabbed her plate and carried it over to the sink, but she stood and followed me.
"Let me do it. Go run your errands."
I paused. "Are you sure?"
She shrugged. "Might as well get it over with."
I nodded and looked into her eyes, at the worry lines forming around the edges, the stress etched clearly in her skin, and I wanted to reach out, grab her hips again, feel the warmth under her clothes. Instead, I walked out of the room without another word, stopping only to grab my burner phone. I pushed through the front door and walked out into the morning sunshine, cursing as my headache came back with a vengeance. I walked for a while, moving well away from the safe house. I watched the people staring back at me and had the nagging sense that someone was going to pull up in some black SUV and gun me down in the street. I knew that was nuts since I wasn't even in Mob territory, but still.
When I was far enough away, I pulled my phone from my pants. I looked down at it for a second, some cheap plastic thing I got at a pay-as-you-go store, and flipped it open. I sat down in front of an abandoned house and dialed a number.
"Hello?" Luis answered on the third ring.
"Luis, it's me."
"Shit, boss. You okay?"
"I'm fine. Where are you right now?"
There was a pause, and I could hear commotion in the background.
"At the kitchen," he said.
"What did I fucking tell you?"
"I know but-" he paused again.
What did he fucking do? I thought.
"What's up, Luis?"
"Colin talked to me. Said I should stay, keep the place running. He said not to worry about you, that he would protect us, that you were fine."