Page 87 of Perfect Liar
I nodded.
“Yes, but I can’t think like this. Put me down.”
He allowed me to slide down his front, and I ducked beneath his arm to get across the room by the sunny windows. He watched me touch my swollen lips.
God, I wanted more of his brutal kisses.
Will stared at me for a minute before sitting on the sofa with his stack of newspapers.
“You’ll do as you’re told if you go to London with me,” he said.
His sharp tone had resolve layered in it. So he was giving in, even though he didn’t like it.
My head still spun a little from his kiss, but I was pleasantly surprised.
And annoyed.
He would read that on my face, so I looked out the window at the landscape, hoping to see my favorite little doe.
A newspaper thumped as it hit the table, and his scent creeped up behind me.
“Elle, you must agree.”
I faced him then, and he edged closer.
“Well, maybe first you could define ‘do as you’re told’ for me.”
“Of course. When I tell you to do something, obey me.”
“Oh, I see. I think what you really mean is, trust your direction if we’re in danger.”
His brows furrowed.
“The threat is substantial, though you still want to deny it.”
But I wasn’t in denial, not after all that had happened.
“No, I don’t,” I whispered.
We stood there, not moving at all, with our stares locked into an even match, and allowed our eyes to beat into each other. In moments like those, words meant nothing to us. They didn’t exist.
In my eyes, beneath the cover of his fear and mine, he found something neither of us could live with. Someone killing me, killing us both, terrified us, but beneath that lurked something else that could also hurt us…
Being locked away would alter me.
It would make me suffer a slow, emotional death, leaving me like an empty shell. And we knew in our souls that we couldn’t make it through that as a couple. Together, without words, we found an understanding about something we couldn’t reconcile as individuals...
Being alive was more than just keeping our hearts beating.
We had to find a way for me to live freely. We knew what we were up against. We knew the risk of future encounters with assassins existed. Still, we chose to fucking live.
Will broke our silence.
“All right, baby. I’ll do whatever it takes to give you more freedom.”
His ability to decode the messages hidden on my heart’s pages, that he could reach me where no one ever had, was a true gift. It made me vulnerable to him. And it made me fall harder for him.
I wrapped my arms around his neck. Words and tears choked me up. I buried my face in his shirt, and he protected me and my bared soul with his strong arms, waiting with me, whispering to me.