Page 159 of Somebody's Watching Me
Arms.
Legs.
His entire body wrapped around her.
“You know, that was the fourth time I’ve drawn my gun where I had the full intention of using it,” he whispered into her hair. “The first time was in the graveyard.”
Another time was when he assisted in a raid on a training house for trafficked children. Boys and girls ranging in age from seven to twelve. Liam had come upon a man and two girls during the room sweeps. He later admitted that if another agent hadn’t been near, he would have killed the man outright.
“I couldn’t take the shot. Evie wasn’t in the clear, and when she was, I fucking hesitated. My brain overanalyzed the whole thing.” His eyes squeezed shut. “How would Evie react to hearing a gunshot? Could she handle seeing this woman’s brain splattered all over the place? Would it remind her of Laura Jean? Of Livy? Of all the shit she’s already lived through?”
“Liam, you can’t blam—”
“Yes, I can blame myself. Today could have gone so wrong, so fast.”
“But it didn’t.”
“Only because she took her own life.”
When he got in his head like this, it would take forever to get him out. The incident with the raid had sat with him for years. “You wouldn’t have let anything happen to Evie.”
Tormented. Those endless brown eyes of his gazed at her with absolute torment shining in them. “He called you.”
“But, why?” Even after having time to sit and think, she still couldn’t figure out Michael’s motive for the call. “Why warn us?”
“He sent a text to Samuel,” Liam said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Find your wife. Trust no one.”
That explained why her brother had appeared so quickly in the hall. “And then Samuel goes home and boots his entire security team.”
“I don’t know what to think anymore.” Inching his head to the side, his eyes connected with a painting of her mother’s hanging on the far wall. “But he’s listening. Everywhere. All the time.”
“What do we do?”
“Ready to wiggle?”
She couldn’t believe he was asking her to be bait yet again. But trusting him, she nodded. “How?”
“Tomorrow. We’re going to test a theory.” He kept his eyes trained on the painting. “And I’m going to get some answers.”
Chapter 33
“What you’re asking ties all of us to the Fairweathers permanently.”
Rowan kicked his feet up onto the footrest in Annabeth’s room. Sitting at the desk in the corner, he watched her sleep as he talked with his brother. “Annabeth isn’t a Fairweather.”
“She might as well be, and that’s beside the point.”
“What would you do if it were your wife?” Rowan asked, keeping his voice low.
“I just want to make sure we’re not playing a game of fuck around and find out because you’ve finally banged the woman you’ve been after for years.”
“I’m in love with her.”
Annabeth stirred as the rough timbre in his voice penetrated her dreams. The sun would be up soon, and she hadn’t slept much. Worried over Evie, he’d found her agitated and pacing when he came upstairs. Knowing she needed to blow off some steam, he had taken her down the hall to the room that functioned as a small gym and allowed her to beat the shit out of him on the sparring mat. It did the trick, and they went to bed.
Not to sleep—which he very much needed—but to bed where he let her do whatever she wanted to him. To use him however she needed. He now had a thorough education on all the toys in her nightstand, and a new appreciation for a woman taking control.
They were going to have a great life.
