Infinite Possibilities

Chapter Six

Liam looks between Tellar and Derek, and then at me. “Let’s all sit down and talk.”

I don’t move and neither does Tellar, who is standing directly in front of me, his arms crossed over his broad chest, and he’s not the friendly jokester of earlier. His jaw is as set and hard as his razor sharp features, his eyes sharper, angry. Is he upset with me? That makes no sense, but then not much in my life does.

I shake my head and mimic his position, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “No to sitting,” I say to Liam and then to Tellar, “Tell me what’s going on.” I cut an accusing look at Derek. “And who are you in all of this?”

Derek scrubs his jaw and plants his hands on his lean hips. “Jesus, Amy. I hate that you obviously think I’m some bad guy. I’ve spent weeks picturing you raped and murdered on the side of the road somewhere because of me.” He motions to Liam. “And Liam was losing his mind. Somebody had to keep his damn feet on the ground.”

“Update Amy,” Liam cuts in, redirecting the conversation right where I want it. To answers as he adds, “Tell her what you told us.”

Tellar flicks a surprised look at Liam. “Everything?”

“Yes,” Liam confirms. “Everything.”

“All right, then,” Tellar agrees and while his voice is soft, there is a razor edge to it to match his stare. “A man showed up at the diner looking for you after we left.”

Shocked when I probably should not be, considering what I’d been told earlier, I drop my arms, adrenaline surging through me. “Who was it?” I ask, and please let this be the moment I find out who is looking for me.

“A private eye,” he says.

Not the enlightening answer I hoped for. “Hired by whom?”

His gaze moves from me to Liam who gives him a nod before he continues with, “He never knew who hired him. Sealed envelopes. Untraceable funds. Very James Bond-ish.”

Disappointment fills me. “Do you believe him?”

“Yes,” Tellar confirms. “I believed him, but like most, he had a price. He was willing to do what was necessary to find out if ours was right and thanks to Liam, it was.”

A chill races down my spine and my throat constricts. “Had?” I ask hoarsely. “Was? Why past tense?”

“He was meeting up with my man when--”

“Your man?” I interrupt and turn to Liam. “How many people are involved in this? How many people did you tell about me?”

Liam’s expression tightens. “No one is involved that I don’t trust fully.”

“How many?” I repeat.

“How many isn’t the issue,” Tellar snaps. “What happened when my man went to meet that PI is what is—”

Something in his tone reaches beyond his obvious agitation and a sense of dread I think I intentionally sidestepped fills me all over again. “What happened?”

Liam takes my hand and pulls me close, facing him, my back to the other two men. “Before we go any further, I just want to reiterate that we’re safe here. Even the windows are hurricane-proof which also means bulletproof.”

“Bulletproof?” I choke out. “Why are you telling me they’re bulletproof? What happened?” Liam’s lips thin and his expression tightens. I don’t even wait for an answer. My fist balls at my chest. “Oh God. He’s dead.” I whirl around to face Tellar. “He’s dead?”

“Our man’s alive. The PI, however, is not. Someone killed him, so we have to assume it was to shut him up. Who the hell is after you, Amy and what do they want? Tell us before all of us end up dead.”

“I don’t know,” I rasp out. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You’ve been running and hiding for six years and you don’t even fucking know who you’re running from or why? Who would do that?”

I inhale and try to reel in the dark emotions he’s stirring to life. “You don’t know my story.”

“I know enough.”

“Enough is right, Tellar,” Liam snaps and he reaches for my hand. “Amy--”

I jerk away from Liam. “No,” I hiss, and in this moment I’m that book I’d compared myself to on the plane. Tellar is reading me, judging me, pretending to know what it was like, and it’s too much. It’s all just...too much. My forehead prickles and I see the flames licking at my bedroom door. I hear Chad’s command for me to jump. I hear my mother’s wails of pain.

Liam says something else to me. I don’t know what and I don’t care. I am in my own head and in a wave of Tellar’s wrath that I do not like. “Who are you to judge me, Tellar?” I demand, and with no conscious decision to act, I snap and launch myself at him, grabbing his shirt before he even blinks. “Who are you to judge me?”

“Holy hell, woman,” Tellar growls but he doesn’t touch me. I want him to touch me. I want him to give me a reason to hit him. To lash out even more. I want to hit him and I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone in my entire life.

“Who are you to judge me?” I scream again. “Who are you? Don’t you think I’ve done enough of that myself?”

“Amy,” Liam roars behind me, his strong arm looping around my waist as he pulls me off of Tellar.

I lunge forward, fighting Liam, wanting back at Tellar, but Liam holds me hard against his body. “I listened to my mother scream as she was burning alive,” I hiss at Tellar, “and I couldn’t get to her. What state of mind do you think I was in? What resources did I have?” I jerk against Liam but still he holds me. “Let go, damn it. Let me go!”

“Not a chance,” Liam vows, his arms closing around my upper body like a vise, trapping my hands by my sides.

Tellar goes white as a sheet. “Oh God, Amy. You were in the house?”

My fingers curl into fists and I am shaking so hard my teeth start to chatter. “Yes. Yes, I was in the house, Tellar. I heard every last scream, and there was nothing but fire between them and me and a window...I jumped....” I sob and the tears bleed from my eyes, trailing like blood down my cheeks, over my lips... “I jumped out of the damn window when Chad...”

“Your brother,” he says.

My brother. Just hearing that word does me in. I explode into tears and it’s like my bones melt in my body. My legs just give way and Liam is all that holds me up. “Amy,” he murmurs, turning me into him, holding me close. “I’ve got you.”

Clutching at his shirt, I blink through the tears. Chad’s voice shouts in my ears. Jump. Jump now. “I shouldn’t have jumped. I should never have jumped.”

He frames my face in one hand, one arm wrapped around my waist, still holding me up. “Listen to me. Dying wouldn’t solve anything. You did what you had to do. You survived.”

“I survived and that’s all.”

“We’re going to change that, baby. I promise you. We’re going to change that.” He glances over my shoulder and speaks to Tellar and Derek. “We’re done here.” He tries to pick me up.

I stiffen and shove on his chest. “No. No. I can’t...won’t...I want to talk. I want to find who did this.” I force myself to straighten. “I’m okay.”

“No,” Liam insists. “You are not okay.” He tries to lift me into his arms. “We’re done here.”

“Stop.” I squirm and step away, wobbly but on my feet and getting stronger again. “I don’t want to just be okay and survive anymore. And I don’t want anyone else to die.”

Liam flicks a look toward Tellar and Derek. “Both of you. Get the hell out.”

I growl in frustration and swipe at my eyes. “Don’t make my decisions, Liam. They need to stay. I want answers and they want answers. It’s time to figure this out.”

Tellar and Derek ignore me and walk around us. “Stay here,” I shout after them.

“They aren’t staying, Amy,” Liam insists, like he is the Almighty and we are all at His command.

I level him a scathing stare. “Because you can handle me on your own, right?”

“What?” His brow furrows. “What does that mean?”

The kitchen door opens and closes and we are left alone. “I heard you, Liam. I told you that. I heard it all that night in Denver. Derek was worried about my reaction to the camera and you told him ‘I can handle Amy’. You can handle me? Well, news for you, Liam. Not only did you fail to ‘handle’ me back in Denver, you’re failing now, too. And that comment was what made me run more than anything else.”

He advances on me and backs me against the table, his powerful thighs capturing mine, his arms caging me. Heat washes over me, confuses my senses, and I hold onto the table so I won’t touch him. “I meant I’d make sure you felt safe and didn’t panic.” His voice is a low rasp of sandpaper, no caress of silk to be felt. “But you’re right. I failed and we both lived through hell because I did. You, far more than me, and I won’t let that happen again. I will protect you, Amy, with or without your consent.”

“Like you own me.”

“Call it what you want, but unlike that private detective who’s now dead, you’ll be alive on the other side of this.”

“People are dying and that’s my point which you don’t seem to be getting. So let me repeat what I’ve already asked. Who protects me from you, Liam?”

His head lowers, his breath is hot on my cheek, and there is an instant charge in the air. We are connected, he and I, and I don’t know if that is good or bad. It just...is. “Do you think you need protection from me, Amy?” he demands. “Is that where we still are?”

Somehow, I do what I know will be my undoing. It is always my undoing with this man and proof he is claiming the control I so desperately need. I touch him. My hand goes to his chest, and again I feel the thrum of his rapid heartbeat and it affects me. He affects me. Deeply. Passionately. Completely. “I’m just...I’m confused.”

“That’s not the answer I want.”

“It’s the only one I have.”

“I know. I do and I can’t even say I blame you but that doesn’t mean I like it.” He shoves off the table, steps away from me, no longer touching me, leaving me cold. “We’ll talk tomorrow. We’re both tired. Take my bedroom. It’s directly above the foyer on the second floor. There are stairs you can’t miss. I can’t take you there. Not...now. Not tonight. I’ll be in the spare bedroom directly opposite the kitchen down here if you need me.” He starts to turn.

Desperation rises inside me. I can’t be without him. I don’t want to even try. I grab his arm, heat dashing up mine, our eyes colliding, torment burning in the depth of his. “Don’t go,” I whisper. Don’t leave me alone. I will him to touch me, to reach for me, but he doesn’t.

Arms tightly by his side, he curls his fingers into his palms. “I meant what I said. I’ll force my protection on you, but I won’t force me, or us, on you. And I can’t be with you and not touch you.”

Us. The word does funny things to my chest. “I didn’t tell you not to touch me. I’m just...” Raw and honest... “scared.”

“I know and it kills me to think you’re afraid of me.”

“That’s just it. I’m not afraid of you, Liam, and maybe I should be. Probably I should be. but I don’t trust myself. Not when I think about everything I could have done differently pretty much my entire life.”

“So if I feel right, I must be wrong.” It’s not a question.

“No. That’s not it. I mean...” I take a step toward him.

He steps backwards. “I can’t touch you, Amy.”

“I want you to touch me. I need you to touch me right now, Liam.”

“I won’t just touch you. I’ll do anything and everything in my power to make you remember us.

To make you believe your trust in us is as real and right as I know it is.”

“And that’s bad, why?”

“You aren’t hearing me, Amy. I’ve spent weeks of sleepless nights worried over you and now that you’re here, I won’t ask for what I want. I’ll demand.”

No one worries about me. No one knows I’m even alive anymore. No one I love even exists anymore. But him. He worries for me and I’ve run from him. I think I love this man but I can’t even trust that. I’m so sick of not trusting. Emotion wells in my chest and I squeeze my eyes shut. “Please, Liam. Please demand.” I step forward and I grab his shirt before he can stop me this time, as desperate, or more, than when I’d done the same with Tellar. “Don’t you get it, Liam? I want you to make the doubt go away. I want you to force away the fears. But damn it, I want you to deserve it, too. I want it to be real. I need something in this world that feels real even if it isn’t.”

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t so much as blink. He just stares at me with heat radiating from his eyes, and I don’t know what that means. What does it mean? “Or don’t,” I whisper, releasing his shirt. “Just don’t. Just let me go, then.” I rotate around and I don’t even know where I intend to go. The stupid table is right behind me and I run right into it.

Liam’s hand comes down on my arm and he turns me to face him. “I’m not letting you go. Never again. I told you that.” And suddenly, I am being thrown over his shoulder and his hand has flattened erotically, possessively, on my backside.

We are through the kitchen to the living room, and charging up a set of stucco stairs before I can fully process that he’s gone caveman on me. I can’t see what is before us, only what is behind us, but I feel him shove open a door, see the dim lights flicker on. Smell the wickedly spicy scent of him everywhere around me. We are in his room and I have only a glimpse of a giant space with more floor-to-ceiling windows before I’m on top of some sort of massive four poster black wooden bed.

I lift to my elbows, and Liam is on one knee, one fist planted in the mattress by my hip, his thigh pressed to mine. Heat radiates from his impossibly hooded stare and he reaches down and strokes my hair. “You want to force away the fear?”

“Yes.”

“Then you have to be willing to feel it.”

I swallow hard. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing goes away because you pretend it doesn’t exist.”

“You think I haven’t figured that out?”

“I’ve been where you are and you aren’t where you need to be yet. Not with me and not with life. But you’re getting there.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Baby steps. You will.”

“I’m tired of baby steps.”

He strokes his thumb over my bottom lip, his eyes holding mine. “Then face your fears.”

I make a frustrated sound. “I am. I’m trying. I want to. You have no idea how much I want to.”

He stands up and pulls me to my feet, turning me and pressing my back against one of the posts. “Do you?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

He studies me, seeming to weigh my words, perhaps my conviction, and I wonder what he sees in me that I do not. “Lace your hands behind the post,” he says, his voice a gentle command.

It is not like he has never tied me up before, but there is a crackle of energy around him I have never felt. But when I look into his eyes I feel that connection I always do, see a promise I don’t have to understand. I simply want whatever it is that he offers. I lace my fingers as he’s instructed. He leans a hand on the wooden surface above my head, touching me nowhere, leaving me aching for him everywhere.

“Remember what I told you before,” he murmurs. “Choosing to give away control is frightening, but it’s power. It’s facing a fear and overcoming it. We start here tonight. We’ll work toward the rest.”

I don’t ask what the rest is. I know. It’s me. Discovering the rest of me I’ve rejected or lost. The parts of me that hurt in a way no one should hurt. I nod. “Yes.” I want this and him.

“Good. I may seem in control, but you’re in control. No matter what I say or do, any time you say ‘no’, it’s no. That is what you have to remember. When you make the choice, you have the power.”

“Am I going to want to say no?”

“You will think you should.”

“But I shouldn’t?”

“You say no if you feel no and I’ll stop. You have my word.”

I am both terrified and aroused. “You’re confusing me.”

“I’m willing to bet I’m about to make things crystal clear. Keep your hands where they are. Don’t move.”

I nod. “Yes. Okay.”

His finger touches my cheek, then caresses slowly downward to my neck, and I feel the barely there touch everywhere, inside and out. Goose bumps lift on my skin, and I all but moan when he drags his finger over my breast and nipple. He drops his hand and I shiver with the delicate teasing sensations that linger where he’s touched, where he has not touched. He leans in closer, careful not to press his body to mine when that is exactly what I burn for, then lightly, so very lightly, brushes his lips over mine. A breath later, he is gone, leaving me gasping as he disappears behind me and it is all I can do not to turn to watch him.

My head dips as I inhale, trying to calm my raging hormones, and I can see only the finely woven rug overlapping the gorgeous dark wood beneath my feet. The room is silent but for a clock ticking somewhere nearby and the rasp of what I begin to realize is my breathing. I cannot hear Liam or see him and I can’t take it. I need to know where he is.

My gaze lifts and then shifts to land hard on the oval mirror that sits directly in front of me on top of a massive black wood dresser. I suck in a breath at the drenched rat in the cheap pink waitress dress staring back at me, and I do not like how she is not me and yet she is so me, or how the image pulls me from the escape I crave and throws me back into reality. A drawer opens behind me, soft and somehow thundering and loud in the near silence. I welcome the way it shifts my focus back to anticipation, away from the reality in the mirror.

Liam’s reflection appears in the mirror with me and I can see what I would not otherwise. Him. His chest is bare, his clothes gone, but I am the one who is naked, stripped of my many emotional walls by this man who moves me so deeply. The same man who tells me to invite fear, so I do. I invite whatever it is he is to me and I am to him. He reaches around me and flattens his hands on my stomach, a silk sash dangling from his hand, his eyes meeting mine in the reflection. “I’m going to tie you up now, Amy.”

I wait for the fear I’m supposed to invite, but there is none. There is just anticipation, and the ache between my thighs, the heaviness of my breasts. For a moment, I study the finely carved lines of his handsome face, and I think about what he said to me. About what I need from him. What he needs from me. “You like tying me up.”

His eyes meet mine in the mirror. “I like what it represents.”

“Which is what?” I ask.

He ties my hands, wrapping them gently but firmly, then walks around me, framing my body with his, one hand on my waist, the other dragging through my hair and tilting my mouth to his. “Which is what, Amy?” he asks, expecting me to answer my own question.

“Trust,” I whisper, wishing his mouth on mine.

“That’s right,” he says, his breath whispering over my cheek, my lips, teasing me with a kiss yet to happen. “Trust.”

And when I think he will finally kiss me, he does not. He steps back and walks toward the dresser, giving me his back. I know then that he’s planned the direction I am standing, the placement of the mirror. Everything Liam does is calculated. Controlled. I think this quality in him is a drug for me. It is everything I wish I could be and cannot. I envy it in him, admire it. Find it sexy.

I forget my hands are tied and tug on the silk. If I’m supposed to be afraid, it’s not working. I’m wondering why I have my clothes on. I really want the ugly pink uniform off my body and him next to me.

He steps to the center of the dresser, directly in front of the mirror, and I expect him to look at me, but he does not. His head lowers, the dark thick waves of hair blocking my view of his expression. I can almost hear him thinking, debating, and I want to know what and why. I watch the mirror, wait with a hitched breath for his eyes to lift. When his eyes lift and collide with mine, the connection sizzles through me. Any hesitation he’d had is gone. I see the determination, the control, in his eyes, and I wonder if those things had been there only moments before.

He reaches down and pulls out a drawer. I can’t see what is inside. I’m not supposed to see. I know that. The not knowing is part of his control. Part of the anticipation and the tease I know he intends. Seconds tick by and I can barely stand the waiting until finally, he turns and faces me. My gaze drops, seeking that delicious ‘pi’ tattoo I have always found so very alluring, taking it in, and the thick jut of his erection, before it hits me that he is holding something. My gaze shoots back to what is in his hands and shock rolls through me, my breath lodging in my throat at what I see.

He is holding a gold dagger.