God no, I don’t want him near me. I step back.
“Not quite an invitation if it takes your last breath... Maybe more like a suicide party.” I chuckle sarcastically.
“Don’t you think you’ve already made enough of a mess by taking my brother’s last breath?”
The words slice through me, a clean, cruel cut and I can feel my eyes sting. My pulse pounding in my chest, I swear he can hear it. An overwhelming urge to scream, to plead for him to stop and leave me alone, claws at my throat and tangles with something darker.
“Something is seriously wrong with you.” My voice is heavy with accusation, but he doesn’t flinch. I feel weak and ensnared by his person as he motions closer with each step back I take.Until my ankle twists painfully on a jagged cobblestone, sending a shock through me, causing me to stumble, and before I can catch myself, his strong tattooed arm snakes around my waist.
Effortless for him, dreadful for me.His eyes darken, a violent storm looking into me, intending to swallow me whole, but there is so little left of me.
“And who killed him, Sara?” His question is a knife I don’t know how to block.
He’s too close. His breath brushes my cheek, and I can count every thick lash framing those frozen blue eyes. He is mercilessly beautiful. Sharp cheekbones catching light like the edge of a blade, a mouth sculpted for sin but pressed into a line of restraint, a face you’d want to memorize right before it ruins you.
My voice wavers, but it doesn’t break. “If you’re trying to find guilt in my eyes, it’s not there. I won’t let you.”
“I can see that. I'm going to change what I see in your eyes.” His reply is a growl, fingers tightening into my side until a small sound of pain escapes me.
“What are you going to do to me, Liam?” The words leave me before I can stop them, hushed under the shadow of his six-foot-four frame.
His hand slides into my ponytail, wrapping the strands around his fist, and tugs my head back until my chin tilts toward him. The pull is sharp enough to make me gasp. His lips hover near my ear.
“Own you.” He grunts, and it detonates something shameful inside me, something similar to a spark that feels dangerously close to pleasure.
He tsk’s under his breath, then releases me with a shove of disgust that makes me stumble back.
“At least pretend you miss him.” He snaps.
“You have no fucking idea how I feel about anything. Now get out of my way.”
He steps aside, with a mocking little bow. “Go ahead, sweetheart. Be my guest.”
I brush past him, but the heat of his presence clings to me, static on my skin. I hate him.God help me, I hate him with a passion.
The street is quieter than it should be for early evening. Shops are closing down one by one as I’m shutting the store Soleil after Mimi left before me. I was happy to stay in the store; irrational at best, but it’s something. I’ve always known the village is small, tiny even, but it’s downright close to suffocating when it’s as easy as it is to walk into a wolf’s jaw.
They say curiosity killed the cat, but no one warned me about the wolves.
My boots click against the narrow cobblestones, the sound sharp enough to make me hyperaware of each step. Somewhere behind me, there’s another rhythm, it's offbeat, uneven. I convince myself it’s just someone else heading home, but the air turns tight in my lungs, and something doesn’t feel right.
I pass the post office, which is resting in the center of a roundabout surrounded by stores and the VIP Room club. It’s dark, everything’s shut down. I can see my surroundings easily, but a crawling sensation comes over me.The feeling of being watched.
I pause, looking around, breathing slowly, feeling like open prey. Anticipation is now boiling anxiety in the pit of my stomach, and I spot a reflection in the glass, too tall to be mine, too still to be coincidence, igniting nothing else but the sensation of something dangerous. My heart flips and I whip around.
Nothing.
Just the empty curve of the street and a parked car.
I keep walking. Faster. My pulse has found my throat now, a steady pounding.
The sound comes again, closer this time.
“Get a grip,” I say under my breath.
By the time I reach the turn toward my street, the feeling spikes even more. Every hair on my arms lifts, and I glance sideways, pretending to adjust my bag, and for the smallest second, I finally catch it.
A shape at the bottom of the street, not moving and just watching… Me?
