Sonata (North Security 3)

I move my other hand to her back, tucking her close.

After a moment, she melts into me.

She tastes like sunshine and melancholy and a sweet endless guilt that I never want to relinquish. I sip on her sigh of pleasure, drunk with it.

Samantha

It’s the first time he’s touched me in passion since the shooting. The first time I’ve touched him back for the pleasure of it. There’s something darker about this pleasure. An undercurrent of anger that tightens his muscles. It isn’t only lust that moves us now. It’s something more primal.

The same thing that makes my finger move beneath the sheets at night.

How did he know that? Why did he say it? For the same reason I poured that alcohol on him. To hurt him. To heal him. The two purposes tangle together, opposite and equal.

“You don’t get to punish me anymore, Liam.”

“Don’t I?” He’s talking about more than a guardian. He’s talking about the way a man can punish the woman who loves him—the way he’s held me at arm’s length has hurt me more than a spanking.

“Will you never forgive me for giving up the violin?”

“I’ll forgive you when you pick it up again.”

My eyes narrow. “It’s wrong of you to force me this way. It should be my choice.”

His hand lifts mine in a courtly manner, almost as if he’s going to kiss it. Then he examines my hand. Green eyes weigh their worth. My stomach churns. He dips his head. His lips press to the pad of my thumb. Not a smooth surface of skin. I have calluses from playing for hours. I’ve bled for my instrument. It still feels like I’m bleeding.

“I can’t make you play again.” He presses a kiss to my forefinger. “And you can’t make me heal. So we arrive at this impasse, little prodigy. How will it end?”

“You could end it.”

That earns me a grim smile. It kisses the point of my middle finger, where the calluses are the hardest. The raised skin should be too hardened to feel his lips, his breath. His tongue. “Why would I want to do that? Maybe I enjoy being in this prison with you.”

“Enjoy it? You don’t even touch me. You don’t kiss me.” My voice breaks at the end, and I can no longer pretend it doesn’t make my heart shatter every time he looks at me in that remote way.

His lips press against my index finger. “I’m kissing you now.”

“That’s not—” He sucks my pinky finger into his mouth, his tongue moving over the tip in a way that’s more explicit than if our bodies were naked. A shudder runs through me. The air shimmers with long-suppressed desire. “That’s not what I meant.”

“No?” He bites down on the plump of my palm, his teeth scraping against my skin, the sharp contact sensual in a base, animalistic way. I want his mouth in other places. I want him everywhere.

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to force down the turmoil far enough so I can think. What did he ask me? How will it end? “Josh is looking for the people who f

unded my father.”

A nip on my wrist. The pain makes my eyes fly open. Liam shakes his head slowly, almost sadly. “He’s not going to find them. You’re the only one who can do that.”

Shock leaves me breathless. Or maybe that’s the way his mouth skims my forearm. “How am I supposed to do that? By being your bait? That means more people shooting at us?”

“Are you worried I won’t protect you this time?”

“You can’t make me go!” Except the words don’t feel sure, not when he’s looming over me, not when my back’s against the wall. He’s the physical manifestation of power. He’s the bow against the strings; I’m the music he makes. “You aren’t even healed yet. You aren’t—”

“We’re going to Paris.”

Paris. The city of love. We aren’t going there for anything so romantic. It’s also the city of light. If we’re in hiding here by the sea, that will be our stage. “She thinks you’re my father. Madame Tissot. She thinks I’m your daughter.”

He doesn’t flinch. He’s too solid for that, but I feel the flicker in his soul. The guilt a man like him should never be allowed to have. The Achilles heel. Me. “You’ll play the violin again. You’ll play for me, Samantha. As long as I want. Forever. Understand?”

Something in me trembles at the word. Forever. “No.”