“Fuck, Sara. I’ve fucking craved you.”
His grip is unforgiving, and I’m climbing, surging into guilt, pulling Liam’s hair as he laps at my pussy. I moan so loudly, I’ve detached my sins from my skin, just for them to attach themselves right back.
And then I come. A pulsing pleasure so blinding, my head falls back and I can’t catch my breath.
Liam’s drunken sight of what he just made me feel seizes my lungs. He looks possessed, feral, his icy blue eyes seeing right through me, his lips and chin slick with me. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand without breaking eye contact, and oh my god, the deliberateness of it, the shamelessness… It sends a fresh pulse of heat straight to my core.
He gathers my legs and pulls me closer, and his lips are on mine, his tongue possessing every secret begging to be told. Everything about him is hard to stay away from, even though I know I should, and a sinking feeling washes over me.
How am I ever going to forgive myself and never ask for more?
I break our kiss, holding his stare, one where we both seem to be plagued by the knowledge that we shouldn’t have let this go this far.
“I…” I straighten up to gather myself and nuzzle him away to sneak off the bed, putting my shorts back on.
“Sara, wait.” He sits up, still breathless, brushing his hair away from his face as his expression looks pained. His clothes are still on, and I want to remove all of them, touch every inch of muscle, every inch of him, but I’ll sink too deep.
“It’s okay. Really, it is. I just need to think.” I convince both of us as tears threaten to pool in my eyes, and before they do, I walk away, and it feels like ripping myself from a warm coat in a blizzard.
“Sleep next to me?” he asks as I look over my shoulder, but my answer comes with the silence of the door closing behind me.
Each step to Joe’s room tears something vital from my chest, which for each blinding moment I have with Liam, Joe’s ghost vanishes completely.
Now guilt slices through me because I’ve betrayed the dead, and worse, I’d wish for it again.
Twenty-Five
Liam
Damien came over this afternoon to the house and is hovering over my shoulder in my office, breathing down my neck as I scroll through the flash drive I got from Artemis's grandfather. The constant crunching of chips right by my ear is driving me insane. One more loud chew and I might jam that entire bag somewhere that would require medical intervention to remove.
My temples throb, and it's only partly from staring at this damn file. I'm not a killer by nature, I've crossed that line when necessary, but I've never enjoyed it. Even when they hadit coming. I don't care to call it divine intervention or cosmic balance but I became the answer to desperate prayers, the last resort for those women and parents brought to their knees by monsters. For them, I’ll pull the trigger without hesitation.
But right now? I’m murderous for a different reason: Sara didn't sleep in my bed after eating her out last night, and that left me... unsettled. I force myself to breathe, to think. This situation of her absence is temporary, and I will rectify it, immediately. We may both feel the guilt of betraying Joe, dancing around a truth that is eating us alive, but she is mine, and I do not seek redemption any longer.
As of right now, I have to focus on the information in front of me, and nothing quite stands out like I hoped it would; Names scroll past. Flags of convenience. Ownership transfers that loop back on themselves. Paperwork written to exhaust anyone dumb enough to chase it.
Then one entry stops me cold.
The first registered owner is a shell company under Lakemore Chica, purchased almost ten years ago.
I lean closer.
The name… That has to be a coincidence.
My jaw tightens…
Damien notices my pause. “You recognize it?”
“It's odd that the name is—”
The sound of the house’s front door hinges cuts me off mid-sentence. I'm on my feet in an instant, the chair scraping against the hardwood.
I look at Damien, still chewing on those damn chips. “I'll be right back.”
I stride down the hallway, passing those damn family photos that never fail to punch me in the gut. My boots echo against the polished floor as I yank open the front door, but nothing but Sara’s scent lingers.
“Fuck.” The word escapes me through clenched teeth. She slipped out of my bed last night, only to vanish.
