Under His Watchful Eye

It doesn’t matter how pissed I am. Liam shirtless is always enough to make my thoughts scatter. As he sits down though, I can’t help noticing the changes in him. The are sleep circles around his eyes making him look tired, and what looks like the beginning of a beard on his jaw and chin. His hair is missed up so badly that it is standing in all direction on his head.

My heart clenches for him and I feel the venom in me drain away.

“I am not pregnant.” I hold up the pregnancy kit in a ziplock bag to the screen to show him the single line. The smile he gives me is small though and it doesn’t reach his eyes. He rubs the palm of his hand over his face looking so impossibly tired.

“I can see that Anna.” There is a stretch of silence before he talks again. His voice is flat and so unlike the Liam I am used to. This Liam looks unsure and lost and my heart is bleeding for him.

“Why did you run?”

Isn’t it obvious?”I didn’t want to go to jail.”

“Why didn’t you come to me? You chose to run away from me instead.”

“Would you have believed me if I told you I hadn’t done anything wrong?”

There is no hesitation when he answers, “Yes. I would have believed you.

When I don’t say anything to that, he goes on, “We were a team Anna and I thought we maybe had built a bit of trust between us. Shock on me when you run instead of trying to tell me what happened so that we can solve this.”

Liam looks so hurt and heartbreakingly lost that I just want to hold him and take away all of the hurt. In that moment, I realize he never hid things from me. All of the phone calls he took were in front of me, he never hid any documents, and he left me in the office alone sometimes with his computer turned on. How could I have been so stupid?

A man like Liam doesn’t trust quickly because of how quick it can be turned against him. But while he didn’t tell me about the investigation, he never once showed me mistrust while I seem to have shown him all the mistrust in the world.

“I am sorry Liam.” I tell him my head hanging low.

His head is shaking before I even finished, “It isn’t your apology I want right now Anna. What I want is you here so that we can figure things out.”

He comes closer to the screen and I can see clearly how torturous this is for him.”Please come home to me.”

A tear I had no idea I was holding falls down my cheek.”I will be there tomorrow.”

Before I can end the call and analyse what I am feeling though, he mutters in a lonely voice, “I love you Anna Mallon.”

He loves me?

He loves me.

“I love you too Liam Thorne.”

And I mean every word of it.

I go to sleep feeling giddy inside and I dream of future possibilities with a brown eyed man I absolutely love.

Chapter Nine

Liam

She looks like a fucking angel as she drifts into the focus of the front door video camera. I press the button opening the front gates and rush to the front door to wait for her. When I do see her walking up the house, I release a breath I had no idea I was holding.

Last night when we talked, I had every attention of slowly wooing her back with soft words and persuading language. However, I couldn’t stop the hurt from pouring out because how could I hold it in? She left me feeling like a fish out of water and I never want to feel that way again. Now that she is here, I have every intention of persuading her to stay.

When she walks up to me, I offer to take her bag trying to be a gentleman, but she doesn’t let me. Instead, she lets it drop to the ground, slides her fingers into my hair, and presses her lips to mine. I really want to be gentle with her when I break the kiss, but instead she tells me words I never thought to hear from her.

“Take me upstairs and make love to me.”

I hold her to my chest crashing my lips against hers hard enough to bruise. She moans into my mouth like it is the best feeling in the world. When I carry her upstairs, she twines her arms around me and lets me.

The way she fits me is like she is meant for me. She is my match wit to wit, personality to personality and appetite to appetite. We explore each other for what feels like hours stripping each other as we go. We kiss each other in a frenzy of lips, tongues and teeth.