11
Ty
After everything Liam had shared, I figured sleep wasn’t really an option. Too much to think about, to sort through. However, as soon as my head hit the pillow, it was like the weight of it all fell upon me in an instant.
I’d assumed from our previous conversations that he had something in his past—something that helped make sense of the enigmatic man I was fascinated with. But all this sure as fuck hadn’t been a guess.
A secret government agency?
Tracking and finding terrible people?
Even though he’d assured me his work had nothing to do with actual monsters or aliens, I couldn’t help but imagine him in an episode ofThe X-Files, working with Mulder and Scully to uncover some supernatural mystery.
It was apparent that what he’d shared was just the tip of the iceberg, but it had been like opening a dam and being knocked to the ground and carried away into a fantasy world.
Panicked as I was, I was relieved too.
I’d been trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle. I had the frame, or major pieces of it, but no picture to go off of. Just guesswork, and suddenly I’d discovered a pile of pieces I’d been missing that would help me with my work.
Answers, fucking answers—thank God—but they just generated more questions.
I tried to compile all the questions I needed to ask him. I envisioned him whispering in dark alleys in Paris and wearing all-black as he tried to navigate laser security beams in museums—anything, really, that I’d picked up throughout my life in comics, movies, and TV shows. I wondered if this sort of fantasizing was helping me process everything and focus on something other than the danger I was in, which as Liam had pointed out, was very real.
As was my awareness that from that moment forward, my life would never be the same.
* * *
I approached the kitchen,the fragrance of sausage and eggs nearly knocking me back. It had lured me downstairs—the pleasant scent that had almost tricked my brain into believing that everything, even the cabin I was in, wasn’t so far removed from my everyday world. Surely it was some vacation Liam and I had agreed to share, and I’d simply forgotten about that and dreamed the rest.
Yes, there had to be some rational explanation for it all, but the throbbing pain in my face assured me of one clear reality—that guy had hit me with an impressive amount of strength.
I entered the kitchen, and there stood Liam in that black tank from the night before and a pair of jeans, both fitting him like everything in his fucking closet, clinging to him as much as I wished to be clinging to him. Without glancing my direction, he said, “Sausage and omelette okay with you? I can put on some coffee too. Cream and sugar? Kind of bothers me that I don’t already know the answer to that.” His gaze finally met mine, and he smirked.
“Yes, cream and sugar. Just a little, though.”
He turned off the burner and approached me. He put his hand to my face and assessed my injury. As his thumb moved across the tender spots, I stayed silent, because even though it smarted, I enjoyed the sensation so long as he was touching me.
“Doesn’t look as bad as I thought it might.”
“Really? Looked pretty bad to me,” I said, recalling the black-and-blue splotches I’d seen in the mirror just minutes earlier.
“Could’ve been worse. Much worse.” And I knew he meant we could have been dead. “Did you sleep okay?” he added, as though trying to distract us from the other thought.
“Can we defineokay?”
He grinned but seemed to be holding back—couldn’t let go and appreciate my joke the way he normally might have.
“I’ll finish making your breakfast. Just sit down and relax.”
“Feels like I’ve had enough relaxing.”
As he returned to the stove, I walked around the kitchen, checking out the windows that revealed the woods outside.
He plated the omelette and added some sausage from another pan before taking the plate to the table.
“At least this place has good room service,” I teased. Judging by his expression, another joke fail. I bit my bottom lip. “Sorry. Guess I should be taking all this more seriously.”
He shook his head. “What? Oh, no. I was just remembering that I need more silverware—knives and spoons. Trying to make a mental list of things we need from the store.” He studied my expression. “Ty, I enjoy your sense of humor. It’s one of my favorite things about you.”
