Page 16 of Romancing the Reaper

He spins me, pushing me partially up onto the counter and holding my gaze and stealing my breath.

“Touch a nerve, did I?” Kieran says, his gaze dropping to my lips.

For a moment, I forget to fight him. I forget that I’m supposed to be fighting him with everything that I have and trying my damned hardest to get away from him. He’s the enemy. I certainly shouldn’t be feeling likethis.I feel overly warm, like the room is shrinking down to only exist in the small, overly heated space that he and I are standing. What the hell is it about him that makes me feel like this? I can’t keep my thoughts in order.

His hand shifts, his fingers curling under my face and his thumb resting on my chin. He tilts my head up to say something, and the doorbell rings.

Like icy cold water dumped over our heads, he moves away from me and his grip loosens.

I can’t tear my eyes away from him. There’s something heavy and expectant in his gaze but neither of us seem to be able to find the words that we need.

I feel the tension between us snap, replaced by a whole other kind of anxiety.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Kieran

Fuck.

I almost just made a huge fucking mistake. I can’t allow her to get under my fucking skin like that. I turn away from Ada’s still frozen frame and head for the front door. She’s not stupid enough to attempt to make a run for it in the current circumstances. I scrub my hands down my face and through my short hair to try to collect myself.

She fit into my arms like she had been built for me and me alone.

I need to focus.

I pull open the door, knowing full well who is waiting for me on the other side. Liam isn’t exactly the face that I want to see right now, but he is a welcome distraction from whatever the hell thatwas about to build into. I have to keep myself in check so I don’t rush things.

“Thought that you were going to make me wait there all evening!” Liam says with a mischievous grin. He presses a bottle of whiskey into my hands because he never comes empty handed. He slips off his shoes and then pulls a pair of slippers from inside of his coat to change into for wearing inside of my house.

With a knowing wink he finally spots Ada, who is attempting to pull the shirt she’s wearing like a dress down lower to cover more of her slender frame. Liam whistles low and turns to me with a knowing look. “Oh, I was interrupting your work. You’ll have to excuse me for cock blocking, cousin.”

His grin only widens when I elbow him in the ribs. Hard.

Rubbing at the spot on his side that will absolutely have a bruise on it tomorrow, he walks further into the place like he lives here. He’s always been only too happy to make himself at home wherever he is. He moves to my leftover steak and starts eating right off of my plate while watching Ada, seeing what she will do. No doubt he wants to unsettle her just a little bit.

“Don’t feel like you have to stop on my account. Just pretend that I’m not here.” Liam says with a cheeky grin. Normally, his comments roll right off of me because I know that he doesn’t mean anything by it. But, today, for whatever reason, I don’t like it. Maybe because my blood is still running so hot. I feel the urge to snap at him.

I can see the same sort of fury boiling on Ada’s face as she grinds her teeth.

“What? Did I say something wrong? I’m just calling it how I see it.” Liam shrugs with faux innocence. “Unless… oh, poor dear… was it not good for you?”

That I do punch him for. Square in the arm hard enough to make him flinch.

“How we spend our evening is none of your business. If you’re quite done stealing my food, we really should get going.” I glance down at my watch. I didn’t realize how much time had passed. We do have rather important business to attend to.

“You’re leaving?” Ada asks. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn that it was something akin to worry on her face.

“You should try to get some sleep while I’m out.” I grab my black leather jacket from the back of the couch and shrug it onto my body.

I catch Ada’s eye as she struggles with the torrent of objections she clearly has. But I can see that she also doesn’t trust Liam and doesn’t like feeling outnumbered. I don’t have time to try to decipher her bundle of emotions, either of our emotions.

I would much rather stay here and continue fighting through things with her than going to the meeting that I’ve beensummoned with Patrick Doyle, Liam’s father and my current boss.

I don’t dare turn back to look over my shoulder as I leave Ada locked inside of the house, and accompany Liam down to his car.

My uncle isn’t the sort of man that I would everchooseto spend time with.

Despite the fact that Liam and I get along fairly well and that we have enough in common to carry a conversation, my uncle is very different. He’s a fierce man, stubborn as a mule. He and my father almost never saw eye to eye. Patrick is the one who decided to split the family in half when he disagreed with my father’s call. He never did like that my father was the oldest and therefore inherited most of the legacy.

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