ONE
Liam
“Let me in!” I bang on the door, desperate to be let inside. The lock is holding tight and the metal door barely budges when I beat against it. I need in. I desperately need to get inside before it’s too late.
I hear footsteps on the stairs. They’re coming.
It’s already too late for me.
Fuck. No. It can’t end this way. I refuse to let it end this way.
“Let me in. Let me in, dammit.”
“There’s no one in there to help you.”
I spin and press my back against the door. My fingers twitch, hoping for something to grab onto. Something that can save me from this hell.
“Just… just walk away. Turn around and walk away, and I’ll let you go,” I promise, but what kind of threat is that? He has nothing to lose. I smack my hand against the door one more time before he descends upon me. He grabs me by the front of my shirt and shakes me while he laughs.
“What iswrongwith you?” Gabriel asks. “You are so freaking dramaticandridiculous.”
I look at the man I swore my heart to and question how he could laugh during my moment of distress. “You find this funny?”
“Hilarious, actually.”
“You find my agonyhilarious?” I question disbelievingly. I thought this man loved me and now he just laughs at my pain?
Gabriel’s perfect eyebrow arches. Honestly, everything about the man is perfect. His perfectly messy dark hair. His perfect brown eyes. His perfect smile. His perfect face. His perfect— “You find everyone else’s agony hilarious, so why can’t I find yours?” he asks, interrupting my thoughts about his perfect body that I want to kiss all over. Nowthatsounds like something I’d rather be doing with my time.
“I sure do. But I’m allowed to. No one is allowed to cause me agony,” I explain.
Gabriel grins as he runs a hand down my chest. “Not even me?”
How dare this man use himself against me? He knows that he’s the only human I have no power to say no to. He’d use that smile on me and go, “Let’s jump out of this plane,” and I’d jump without hesitation, even though I find skydiving the most ridiculous of hobbies… unless I was skydiving with my next victim and happened to forget to give him a parachute.
Gabriel smiles at me, drawing me out of my thoughts. Has such a magical man ever existed? I’m sure that would be a significant no.
I jab a thumb behind me. “That finger can peruse bare skin if you find a way to open this door. There are even beds for us to frolic on. I will lay you down on the finest of beds where I will suck your?—”
“That’s the fucking medical examiner’s office! And those aren’tbeds,Liam! How morbid can you get?”
I laugh, pleased by his expression. Really, any expression is best when Gabriel wears it. “I tease. I tease. But I’m not kidding that I could lock myself inside and no one would find me.”
“Doing stuff with your coworkers won’t kill you,” Gabriel promises me.
“Are you sure? I’ve seen the way Matthew has been looking at me. Don’t get me started on Donna. She has it out for me.”
“No one has it out for you. You’re pretty much the only one who has it out for anyone else.”
I wrap an arm around his waist and pull him in before delivering a soft kiss to his lips. “Do you want to know something we could be doing right now?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the team-building session that we’re scheduled to join in two minutes?”
“I can last much longer than two minutes,” I assure him.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
I take his hand and lift it up to kiss the tips of his fingers, but he doesn’t seem to have any intention of letting me win this. How can he be so magically stubborn?
