Unbroken Read online

  “But Meg told me they have him,” I remind him. “As if it’s public knowledge.”

  “Unless Meg shouldn’t know,” Tellar points out.

  “Translation,” Liam says. “The CIA has a leak.”

  “Exactly,” Tellar agrees. “In which case they’ll want her even more, to find out who it is. If we can confirm they have Jared and hand Meg over to them, this is all good news for us. All of our obvious loose ends are tied up.”

  Liam settles his hands on his hips under his jacket, shaking his head in frustration. “We wouldn’t be dealing with this if Chad had conferred with us on this plan to ‘kill himself’ before he did it. We needed the layers Josh and Dante represent between us and problems before we were thrust back into the spotlight.”

  “Isn’t that the damn truth,” Tellar says. “We need to lock Dante down as our man at the party tonight.”

  “No party,” Liam announces. “We don’t have time to facilitate an informal meet-and-greet. We need to get down to business. I told Josh to get him here this afternoon.”

  My brow furrows. “Why didn’t we do that in the first place?”

  “Dante likes to assess people in a public setting before he talks business,” Liam explains. “Apparently he gets gut feelings about people, and that’s how he decides whether to allow an official business meeting.”

  “Who the heck is this guy?” I ask, thinking this Dante person is taking arrogant to a whole new level.

  “A former personal assistant to several presidents,” Liam replies. “The kind who was never on the record books. He’s not only good at what he does, he’s discreet, and he doesn’t get emotional about his decisions.”

  “I’m sold with those credentials,” I say immediately.

  “But can Josh really convince Dante to bypass his screening process?” Tellar asks.

  “Dante trusts Josh, and I’ve worked with him once before through Josh.” His cell phone buzzes with a message and he digs it from his pocket and glances at it, his expression tightening. “Dante’s in the air and won’t land until right before the party.” He looks at Tellar. “Looks like I’m going to the party. I’ll make it worth his while to meet us at the safe house to formalize things.”

  “Liam—” I begin, ready to fight, but he cuts me off.

  “We’re going to the safe house, Amy, and you’re staying here tonight with Tellar.”

  “Tellar just said Meg and Jared are all but nonissues at this point.”

  “Meg is not a nonissue,” he warns me. “She’s desperately avoiding jail time, and desperate people are dangerous. Which is why I’m hiring Dante to deal with her. Until then, we’re going back to the safe house.”

  The doorbell rings and Tellar stands, pulling out some device from his pocket and glancing at it. “I left the gates open for the delivery people and thanks to the mobile security feed I had installed on my phone, I can tell you that’s Saks with Amy’s dresses.” He heads for the doors and Liam’s cell phone rings.

  Frustrated and needing space from the man I love and want to throttle right now, I follow Tellar to the door, overwhelmed by how many bags the—not one, but three—delivery people have in tow. I help him accept the bags, and together we make several trips to the bedroom.

  He places the last bag on a rack in the walk-in closet and I try to decide which one to open first. “If I’d known which one had the wedding dress,” I comment, “I’d have sent the other bags back since apparently I’m not going to the party.”

  Tellar levels a stare at me, a preface to a lecture, I am certain. “Amy—”

  I hold up a hand. “I know everything you’re about to say.”

  He gives me a long look, seeming to weigh his words. “Derek’s eager to see you. Why don’t I invite him over while Liam’s gone? It’ll keep your mind off the party.”

  “I’m not feeling social, and I don’t want to drag him into this.”

  He inhales and lets it out. “You and me it is, then. How about pizza?”

  I try to smile. “Yes. Pizza.”

  “It’s a date,” he says, giving my chin a tiny knock before leaving me alone in the closet.

  I glance around the enormous space, eying Liam’s line of suit jackets and pressed shirts, the full-sized mirror along the back wall, and the long leather bench in front of it. It’s a beautiful space that until now, I’ve really not taken the time to enjoy. My space. Liam’s space. Our space. I don’t want to leave.

  Fighting an onslaught of emotion I’d thought I was done with at the funeral, I walk over to a zipped heavy plastic bag and open it. Staring back at me is the most gorgeous pale pink lace dress I’ve ever seen. The top is strapless, the cut body hugging, and I pull it fully from the bag, delighted at the way it flares delicately at the bottom. It’s a Cinderella dress, fit for a fairy-tale wedding, when nothing about my life is a fairy tale.

  Suddenly I have the urge to try it on and I quickly undress. I’m down to my bra and panties, my back to the door, when my skin prickles with that warm awareness that always washes over me when Liam enters the room. I whirl around to find him standing in the doorway, his jacket gone. His hair is rumpled as if he lost his ironclad control and ran his hand through it. He’s power. He’s masculinity. He’s leaning on the frame, his broad shoulders consuming the entryway, his presence consuming me.

  And despite my anger at him, when his lashes lower, his gaze sweeping hotly up and down my body, a wave of tingly sensation washes over me.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Liam Stone,” I scold. “I’m angry with you and we are not having sex.”

  He arches one of those dark, arrogant brows. “Is that a challenge?”

  “I’m angry at you.”

  “I know.”

  “Is that all you can say?” I demand.

  “No, I—”

  “Do you see this dress?” I all but growl at him, yanking the pink skirt in front of me. “This dress is what someone living a fairy tale wears, to marry the man she loves. And you know what? Earlier today, I could have convinced myself that was what I was about to do. But now we’re running again, after you told me not to run.”

  I’ve barely finished my words before I’m pressed against the wall, his big body trapping me all over again. “Don’t bully me, Liam,” I order, shoving at the wall of his chest. “Don’t use your size to make me listen to you. It won’t work. I need control right now—you can’t have it.”

  “Amy, listen to me.”

  “Let go, and I will.”

  He stares at me for several heavy seconds, seeming to weigh my seriousness. I tilt my chin up, letting him test my will with his own intense stare, but I do not waver. He notices, his body lifting from mine, his hands pressing against the wall on either side of me. I’m so out of my mind right now I want to pull him back. I know I’m lucky to have someone who loves me enough to want to protect me, but I’m angry with him. I’m hurt. I grab his shirt.

  “We have no reason to believe we’re in danger. Not yet. So we’re staying until we do. We’re starting our life. End of story. Meg was a part of taking my brother from me. She’s not ruining my holiday or my wedding. I won’t let her.”

  His expression softens. “Amy, baby.”

  “Don’t ‘Amy baby’ me right now,” I warn.

  “You wanted to leave after your nightmare.”

  “And you convinced me to stay,” I remind him. “It worked.”

  “We’ll do the holiday and our wedding, no matter where we are.”

  “I need it to be here. I need a home I share with you. You can’t tell me I finally have the freedom I’ve craved for six years, and then take it away.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Then don’t. We have no solid evidence of danger. I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

  He pushes off the wall and covers my hands with his, settling them between us, the shadows of his past etched in his eyes and fighting this battle for him. “Amy—”

  “I need to stay,�
�� I repeat. “And so do you. You aren’t even working, Liam. When was the last time you picked up a pencil to design?”

  “I’ll design again when you’re safe.”

  “I managed fine for six years. I’m not with you for protection. I’m with you because I love you.”

  The shadows in his eyes deepen. They’re the kind of shadows created by heartache, loss, and something else I know all too well. “I can’t lose you, Amy.”

  His voice is pure anguish, and any hint of anger left inside me vanishes instantly. “You can’t defeat fear without facing it,” I whisper, repeating what he’d once told me.

  I watch his face harden, darkness swimming in his eyes, and this time, it’s him that snaps. His fingers tunnel into my hair, his mouth closing down on mine, his tongue caressing mine with hot demand. The taste of him is pure darkness and torment, and his need to drive it away is downright primal. His body presses into me. I melt into him and one of his hands splays on my back, molding me closer. In an instant, my bra is unhooked, his hands cupping my breasts and teasing my nipples. I feel the energy between us, the shift in Liam, and even in myself. We’ve solved nothing about going or staying in the city, but there is a wall falling from between us, a part of Liam he fights, which he’s unleashed for me to see, feel, and experience.

  He tears his mouth from mine, staring down at me with a vow. “I won’t lose you.”

  In the next second he’s turned me to face the wall and my hands flatten on the hard surface to right myself. He steps to me, leaning close, his hips anchoring mine. “Losing you is my fear,” he confesses, his voice roughened by emotion.

  “You won’t lose me,” I pant, my sex clenching as one of his hands slides into my panties and strokes my clit.

  “You’re right,” he assures me. “I won’t. I won’t let someone else take you from me.” He moves my hands up the wall. “Don’t move them.”

  He’s gone then, and I’m cold where he’s no longer touching me, hot where I want him to touch me. I can feel him, though. Everywhere, in every part of me, and my skin tingles from the heat of his stare, my nerves prickle with the sound of him undressing. And I realize, too, that I know this man. I understand his need to take me, to control me now, because he feels he has none. He’s afraid he can’t protect me. He’s tormented by the idea that the nightmare I brought to him will never truly be over, no matter how much he’s willed it to be gone. And I get it. Oh how I get it. This is my world he’s living in now. The one where control is hard to come by and we take what we can, where we can. Like he’s doing now.

  The air shifts and I know he’s closing in on me even before he kneels on the floor at my right hip, one of his hands flattening on the small of my back. The connection scorches me, sending heat waves up over my skin. He doesn’t move; seconds tick by and he lets me wallow in the anticipation building inside me. Already my sex is tight, wet, and I am desperate to feel him inside me. No matter how much I need or want control, I also need the way he owns me in moments like these. The way he demands I give him everything and leaves room for nothing but pleasure. Desire. Him.

  His fingers curl around the silk string of my panties, his hot breath fanning my hip, his teeth scraping the delicate skin beneath the fabric. “My woman,” he murmurs, and as much as that one word defies my need to rule my life once and for all, it’s erotic and right in a way I can’t begin to examine right here and now. “My wife soon. Not soon enough.”

  Wife. The word does funny things to my stomach. “Yes,” I whisper.

  He nips my skin again, and I yelp. His tongue does a lavish swirl over the sting I swear I feel in my sex, in my nipples. I fight the urge to reach for him and my fingers curl on the wall. His hand flattens on my belly and I tremble with the promise of where he will go now. Where he will take me next. Slowly, his fingers walk downward, slipping under the tiny slit of black lace there. I hold my breath, waiting for the onslaught of sensations I know will follow. His fingers tease my clit, lightly caressing, and my legs wobble uncontrollably, leaving me no option but to plant my palms near my head to hold myself up.

  His mouth finds my hip again, his tongue flickering erotically, his fingers straying lower, playing in the slick heat between my thighs. And then he’s in a sweet spot, so very sweet, and I squeeze my thighs together, silently pleading for him to stay there, but he doesn’t let my satisfaction win that fast. Suddenly, he moves his hand, shackling my hips and turning me to face him, leaning me against the wall.

  “Hands back over your head,” he orders, his hands falling from my body, promising he won’t touch me again until I comply.

  I do as he wishes, crossing my wrists above my head, staring down at him, and he is naked and beautiful, the kind of man who can make a woman beg. This woman. Because I hurt in all the places he’s still not touching me. “Please, Liam,” I whisper.

  Satisfaction flickers in his gaze, as if my plea is what he’d been waiting for. He tangles his fingers into my panties, holding my stare as he oh so slowly drags them downward. They fall to my ankles and he presses his mouth to my belly, one palm on my upper thigh, his thumb flicking ever so gently on my clit. I try to suck in air but fail as over and over that thumb teases me, the delicate friction driving me insane, enough to make me burn, but not enough to let me breathe.

  “Liam,” I gasp, and again, it seems to be another plea he seeks as it has barely left my lips when his fingers slip into the wet, swollen flesh of my core and enter me. And his mouth, his gifted, amazing mouth, replaces his thumb and closes down on my now throbbing nub. The wait is over as he suckles and licks, and when my knees tremble, his hand is on my hip, holding me steady, the way he has from the moment we first met.

  Somehow I keep my arms over my head, when what I want is to reach down and touch Liam. Oh how I burn to touch him. A burn that radiates through my sex and suddenly I am on the edge of the sweet, blissful place that is release. I suck in a breath that lodges in my chest, my body tensing, and then I’m there, so very there, tumbling into a place that can only be called perfection. I lose everything. Worry. Time. Pain. And when I come back to the world, Liam is holding my hips, keeping me from falling.

  He kisses my belly again but this time he lingers there, his cheek settling where his lips were seconds before, as if he’s holding on to me, making his claim that he won’t lose me real. There is vulnerability in the act, the kind that he shows no one else.

  No one but me. He shows me. He trusts me the way I do him. And I have never felt so loved and complete as I do in this moment.

  He’s different now, the edge that was there moments before shifting to something equally dark, but free of sharp corners. My heart squeezes with the impact of what he feels, and the way he dissolves the loneliness of my past. I reach for him, my fingers slipping into the thick, dark strands of his hair. He lifts his head to fix me in a deep, dark stare, cupping both my hands in his to bring them to his lips. I sink to my knees in front of him, my hand flattening over his heart.

  “I love you,” I whisper.

  He cups my face. “I love you, too, but baby, I won’t apologize for protecting you.”

  There are a million things I could say in that moment but he is already kissing me, deeply, passionately, the moment of tenderness transforming into something hungrier, hotter. Suddenly, we are clinging to each other, trying to get closer, hands all over each other as we tumble to the ground, lying side by side. Still kissing, still trying to get more of each other, he shifts our bodies, his thick erection pressing between my legs into the slick heat he’s created.

  His mouth leaves mine but our foreheads are pressed together, and we do what we’ve said we will do. We breathe together, and it’s intense and wonderful and I swear I can feel him everywhere, in every part of me.

  He pushes inside me, driving deep, and his hand slides up my back, molding my breasts to his chest. “This is where you belong. With me. That’s what matters.”

  “Yes,” I whisper. “With you.”

&n
bsp; He brushes his lips over mine, nipping my bottom lip, and the instant his tongue finds mine we are kissing again, crazy hot kissing, wild all over again. He cups my backside, anchoring me and pulling me against him, moving inside me. The carpet grinds on my leg and hip but I do not care. I just want this, I want him, but then Liam shifts me so that I am almost on top of him, my skin barely touching the floor. And I know why. He will always protect me. The way I need to protect him. The idea has me diving my fingers into his hair and arching into him. He responds, caressing my back with his palm, holding me, taking me, marrying me in a way that is beyond a piece of paper. Until we are both burying our faces in each other’s necks, panting with where we are going, where we want to be. And the way he’s grinding against my clit, thrusting inside me, I’m there again, shattering into oblivion.

  I come back to the world at his low, guttural moan followed by a final thrust, and he, too, finds release. His body shakes, his fingers flexing into my flesh, and I lean into him, holding him the way he always holds me. When finally he calms, we cling to one another, letting time pass, neither of us eager to part.

  “We’ll stay tonight,” he finally says, leaning back to look at me. “On one condition.”

  “What condition?”

  “We reassess tomorrow, after I meet Dante and we evaluate Meg and Jared as potential threats. If there’s a valid reason to worry, we leave.”

  “And I go to the party with you tonight,” I counter.

  “Amy—”

  I silence him with a press of my lips to his, lingering there a moment. “I’m safer with you. I want to be with you.”

  “Let’s talk to Tellar and Josh and decide from there.”

  “I can live with that,” I agree, deciding it’s enough, considering my man is as stubborn as they come and I’ve already won a major battle by staying in the city tonight.

  He brushes the hair from my eyes and kisses me on my forehead. “Let’s get dressed and I’ll finally feed you.”

  My stomach seems to growl on cue and we both laugh. “I think that’s a good idea.”

  He pulls out of me and helps me sit, before he stands up and walks toward the connected bathroom in all his naked glory, proving once again that my husband-to-be has a really sexy butt. He’s gone a few seconds, returning to toss me a towel that I snatch up while he reaches for his pants.