Shoving the weapons under his belt buckle at the small of his back, he kneels down, removes the rifle from my grip, and tosses it aside. Then he wordlessly picks me up in his arms.
I stare at his handsome profile as he strides toward another SUV, one of the ones in his entourage. It’s undamaged, idling with the driver’s door open several yards away.
“Is it over?”
“Aye,” he says, his voice low. “For now.”
Off in the distance, sirens wail. I look over his shoulder to the street behind us. It’s littered with bodies.
I close my eyes and swallow, banishing the image from my mind.
I’ve got too many similar ones stored in my memory banks already.
We drive.
Away from the massacre into the darkness, city streets flying by at warp speed. Liam is silent, but I sense his attention as he expertly navigates the roads, every so often glancing at me from the corner of his eye.
He’s wondering why I’m so calm. Why I’m not screaming. Crying. Reacting with hysteria to having a gun pointed at my face and violence erupting all around me, like a normal person would.
If he asks, I’ll tell him it’s shock. The truth is too dark and far too dangerous.
He can never know who I really am.
We enter the downtown district. When we pull into the parking garage of a modern black glass building so tall it disappears into the clouds, I realize where we must be. My calm erodes around the edges.
Because he seems to notice everything, he notices that, too.
“You’re in no danger from me,” he murmurs.
“But you’re taking me to your home.”
“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
I moisten my dry lips, feeling my heart pound, wishing it wouldn’t. “I can’t…I don’t want to have to—”
“I know, lass. I’ll be on my best behavior.”
What would that be, I wonder? For a man whose daily agenda includes murder, extortion, racketeering, and god only knows what else, what would good behavior look like?
Kicking his cat instead of skinning it?
He says, “What was that snort for?”
“You don’t own a cat by any chance, do you?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering.”
Liam pulls the car to a stop in front of a bank of elevators flanked by a group of hulking men in dark suits. He hops out of the car, leaving it running. I unbuckle my seatbelt, but before I can open my door, he’s there, opening it for me. He pulls me out, his big hand curled possessively around my upper arm.
He keeps me right next to him as we walk to the elevators.
One of his men has already hit the call button, so the doors slide open as we approach.
Liam gives a sharp command in Gaelic. The men snap to attention, bristling like they’re about to go to war.
Which, I suspect, they are.
The doors close behind us. The elevator hums as it lifts.
Then I find myself flattened against the back wall staring up into a pair of blistering dark eyes. His heat and bulk close in on me until our bodies are only inches apart. One big hand slides around my throat.
When I make a small sound of panic, he murmurs, “Easy.”
“You keep saying that. I don’t think you understand the definition of the word.”
“Just breathe.”
“I am.”
“You’re hyperventilating.”
“It’s a normal response to abnormal situations.”
“You weren’t hyperventilating on the street. Bullets flying all around, and there you were, Sarah Connor gripping an AR-15, calmly lying in wait to blow off the Terminator’s head. The picture of composure. All you were missing was a cigarette dangling idly from your lips.”
He waits for a response, gazing at me with unblinking eyes, his thumb moving gently back and forth over the throbbing pulse in my neck.
I almost—almost—say my unnatural calm during the gunfire was shock, as I’d planned, but something stops me.
I hope it isn’t the fact that I promised him I wouldn’t lie to him, because that would be downright pathetic.
Looking up at him, I say quietly, “Can I ask a favor?”
He replies without hesitation. “Anything.”
“I’d like to have the option of not answering every question, if that’s okay.”
When he’s silent too long, examining my expression, I add, “Since we’re only supposed to be truth telling. And, um, I’m not really comfortable talking about myself.”
The corners of his mouth lift in a wry smile. “I didn’t ask a question.”
“Don’t be an ass. It was implied.”
Back and forth that gentle thumb sweeps over my skin as he gazes at me thoughtfully, most likely fully aware that