He allowed my hands on his body, to roam, to kiss, to touch. His face was pulled tight like my hands and mouth would hurt him, his hands dug into his thighs the entire time.
He’s so broken, so unsure. Though now, now as I lay next to him on the floor of my living room with my hand on his chest, my leg draped over his, he isn’t tightly wound, he’s relaxed. And he’s looking at me, with such expression, more than I have ever seen on his face. I give his beard a pull, and he smirks at me and pulls me tighter to him.
As I lay there after multiple orgasms, in complete bliss, I think of what a bad person I am. I was just with Robbie, I thought I could go to the next stage of our relationship with him, but I couldn’t. As I kissed him, I just kept thinking that this isn’t right. There was nothing there, not in the way Liam makes me feel. Even if he doesn’t know it yet, what we have is real. So unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
I touch my lips, his fingers there not long ago. Wiping the lipstick away, removing the other man. Then he made me forget him when his lips touched mine and devoured me.
“How do you love someone? Is it a feeling? Is it knowing?” he surprises me with his question. It takes me awhile to answer him, to gather the words I need. For him.
“It feels like when you’re not with that person that something is missing. It feels like something inside you is crying. It feels like more than words can describe. You don’t know when you love someone, love is just a word. You feel it, you feel it like something is ripped into you, taken over, and holds something in you that no other can replace.” I turn to look at him. His eyes are shut and his expression soft, like the words I just described etched themselves onto him.
“Is she as beautiful as you?” he asks, looking around at the toys scattered in the room.
“She’s better,” I say, smiling.
“I don’t believe it. Possibly the same,” is his retort.
“You think I’m beautiful?” I nudge him.
“I think you’re bewitching.” I turn to face him, but his eyes are closed.
“Bewitching?”
“Yes, you bewitch me. And I can’t seem to make it stop. Make it stop…” he pleads with me. His eyes are still closed tightly.
“Can I have you?”
“You already own me,” he says on a broken whisper.
I wake to a knock on my door, and it doesn’t stop. The banging becomes louder and louder. I turn to see Liam asleep in my bed. He carried me in last night when I fell asleep on the floor with him. He kissed me awake when we reached the bedroom, and he made love to me. It was different than the last time. His eyes watched mine, intensity staring back at me. My hands held his hips, holding him to me. He kissed me until we both came, then sleep took us away with him tucked in next to me, making the world feel right.
I sneak from the bed, trying not to wake him. When I open the door, Isabelle is standing there with tears running down her face. I look around for her father and don’t see him anywhere. She runs into my arms and almost knocks me over. I pick her up and cuddle her to me tightly.
“Baby, what’s wrong? Where’s your father?” She hiccups a few times before she finally answers me.
“I ran away, mommy, I want to live with you.” I hug her tight, my heart breaking and never wanting to let her go. Her school is only a few houses away, we walk her from my house on the days I have her. She must have memorized it. I take her to the kitchen and start to cook some pancakes. She sits on the bench and watches me, licking the batter from the whisk. Her tears are now dried up and there is a smile on her face.
Liam walks out, dressed in only boxer briefs, and stops when he sees me. Then he looks to Isabelle. He smiles at her, and I think it’s the first real smile I’ve ever seen. She looks to him, then to me, then she smiles at him. He’s consuming, most people see him as a threat. Would run from him, but I want to run to him. Never let go, and hope like hell that he never lets me go, but would he catch me if I fall.
“Hi, mister,” she says, waving the whisk around.
“Hi,” he says, scratching his jaw. I smile. He seems nervous.
“Isabelle, this is Liam.” He looks to me then, his face scrunches at my use of his name. He doesn’t like using that name and soon I will find out why.
“Black,” he says.
“No, Liam,” she corrects, and I want to laugh.
“Isabelle ran away from home today. And I explained to her it’s not a good thing to do that. Bad things could happen. Aren’t I right?”
“Yeah… um… bad things.” He shrugs his shoulders and turns to go back to the bedroom. Isabelle hops down and follows him.
“You my mommy’s boyfriend?” she questions. I can hear shuffling. He’s trying to get dressed.
“I don’t know, kid.”
“I think you are. She hasn’t let me meet any of her boyfriends before.”
“How many has your mom had?”
“I don’t know, but I haven’t met any.”
I’m about to laugh when my door is kicked in. The noise so shatteringly loud Liam runs from the room with Isabelle tucked under one arm. He looks at my shocked face, then passes her to me. He’s now fully dressed. He pockets something, it looks like a gun, as my heart rate picks up.
A gun, around my child.
“Where is she?” a voice screams. I place my hand on Liam’s arm and shake my head. I hand Isabelle back to him, and she tucks her head in the crook of his shoulders. Crying. He looks to me, then to the door.
“Don’t go out there.”
“I have to talk to him, please just calm her down.” I kiss her cheek and he looks at her sideways. I grab his hand and show him how to pat her back. He shakes his head and I walk out.
Roger is standing there, his whole body tense, his fists clenched, his breathing is hissing through his nose. “You think you can take her from me? You think you can do that?”
“I didn’t take her, Roger, she came to my house this morning. I was about to call you.”
“Bullshit! You are nothing but a fucking whore. Spreading your legs for drugs to get my fucking child.” Liam steps out then, Isabelle tucked right into him. His hand is still patting her, and his face is the scariest thing I’ve seen. And it must be for Roger too, because he shuts up immediately, his face going white.
“What did you just say?” The venom in his voice is spilling out. His hand is still patting her, calming her.
“Black,” he says, looking at me then back to Liam.
How does he know him?
“What she said is true, we woke up to her this morning. And if I ever hear you say that again to the mother of your child, you will wish I hadn’t.” Roger’s head nods up and down, and I stand there stunned. My head is flying back and forth, wondering what’s happening. Roger has never shown fear to anyone, but fear is written all over him as he looks at Liam.
I take Isabelle from Liam and kiss her and hand her to Roger. She apologizes and he accepts. She runs to the car outside, stopping to wave to Liam with a smile.
“How do you know each other?” Liam’s head swings to mine and Roger smirks.
“She doesn’t know?” he states, the devil shining straight through him.
“Know what?”
“Leave,” Liam barks at him. He moves straight away walking out and leaving the house. Liam goes to fix the door, totally ignoring my question.
“Liam, how do you know him?”
“You don’t want to know, Rose.”
“I do, I really fucking do, Liam.”
“Let me fix this door first. Go and change, then wait for me.”
I do as he says as if I’m on autopilot. I change my clothes, make the bed, then clean the kitchen. He comes out when I hear the door close, and sits away from me on the opposite couch.
“Are you going to talk?” I ask him. He’s watching me but not speaking.
“I’m contemplating if it’s worth you knowing… if it’s worth losing you.”
“Why would you lose me, Liam, when have I not been yours?” It’s true, even after all these years his kiss has never left my lips from the time I was sixteen years old. He shakes his head, his hands pulling down on his beard.
“Tell me, Liam!”
“I traded you.”
I don’t know what to make of that. What does he mean?
“Huh?” I question him.
“Your husband sold you as a debt to be paid and I traded you for information.” My hands cling to the couch, my eyes open wide in shock.
“Sold me?” I barely breathe.
“Yes, I did a job for him. He couldn’t pay me, so he sold you… to me. I traded you.”
“You didn’t want me?” I don’t know why that’s the only thing I ask, that’s all that seems to escape my lips.
“Yes, I didn’t know, didn’t know it was you.” His head shakes, and he runs his hands through his dark hair, pulling it to the side and styling it and not even knowing it.
“Explain it to me, Liam, explain it all right now.” My hands are shaking, I don’t understand what he’s talking about.
“I kill people for a living, Rose. It’s my job. Roger hired me. I’m the most expensive and the best at what I do…” he pauses to look at me, his hands holding each other in front of him, and he’s bent over watching me.
“I knew what you did was bad, but killing? I didn’t think it was that. How can you do that? How can you live with yourself after taking someone else’s life?” I thought I knew who he was. I was so wrong.
“I live day by day, Rose. I don’t let anyone in. I don’t let anyone touch me. I lock myself from the world. No feelings are necessary.”
“That’s why I can’t touch you? You don’t want to feel?” His nods
“It’s real when someone touches you. When someone cares for you.”
“Tell me the rest.”
“As I said, you were payment. I had that payment collected, then sold. And before you ask, I didn’t know it was you. Full payment was made when I sold you.”
He sold me? How did I not know this? My mind wondering why I can’t remember, then it slams into me.