Chapter 4 #2
I can feel it on my face—not the polished mask I wear for the town, but something rawer. Hungrier.
"There she is." My voice comes out low and rough, scraped over gravel. "There's my soldier."
"I am not your anything." Her hand is trembling, her chest heaving beneath the thin white cotton.
"You're everything." I catch her wrist before she can hit me again.
Her pulse is racing beneath my thumb—I can feel it pounding, frantic, alive, and the sensation shoots straight to my cock.
"You're everything, Liberty. You have been since the moment I saw you.
And I've spent eight years making sure that when you finally came home, there'd be nowhere left to run. "
"Let go of me."
"No."
She tries to wrench free.
I hold fast, my fingers tightening around her wrist, feeling the delicate bones shift beneath her skin.
She's strong—soldier strong—but I'm stronger.
And I've been dreaming about this moment for years.
"I will scream," she hisses, and her breath is hot against my face. "I will go down there and tell every single person what you've done—"
"And they won't believe you." I stroke my thumb across her pulse point, feel it jump and stutter beneath my touch.
She shivers. Tries to hide it. Fails. "I'm the town's golden boy.
I'm the one who saved the library and funded the fire department and paid for little Timmy Gentry's college education after his father died in the explosion.
Do you really think they'll take the word of a woman they haven't seen in eight years over mine? "
She knows I'm right.
I can see it in the way her face crumbles, the way hope dies in her eyes, the way her body sags against the railing behind her.
It should make me feel guilty.
It makes me feel powerful.
"Why?" Her voice breaks on the word, and the sound of it—small, wounded—does something to my chest. Cracks something open. "Why do all this? Why go to these lengths? You could have anyone. Why me?"
"Because you're the only one who ever saw me.
" I release her wrist, cup her face in my hands instead.
Her skin is silk beneath my palms, warm and soft, and touching her feels like pressing my hand to a live wire.
"Everyone else sees the mask. The performance.
You saw through it from the beginning. You saw the monster, and you didn't look away. "
She's trembling now. I can feel it against my palms, feel the war raging inside her—the part of her that wants to run and the part of her that wants to stay. The part of her that hates me and the part of her that wants me anyway.
I know that war. I've been fighting it for eight years.
"I hate you," she whispers.
"I know."
"I will never forgive you for this."
"I know that too."
"I will find a way out of this cage. I will tear you apart. I will—"
The first firework explodes overhead, showering the sky with red and gold.
She flinches. Instinct. Combat reflexes.
I use the moment.
I step into her, press my body against hers, trap her between my chest and the cold stone railing.
I can feel every inch of her now—the softness of her breasts crushed against me, the rapid rise and fall of her breath, the heat of her bleeding through our clothes.
She fits against me like she was made to be here.
"You can fight," I murmur against her ear, letting my lips brush the shell of it, feeling her shudder at the contact. "I'd enjoy it. I've been looking forward to it. But we both know how this ends."
She's rigid against me. Every muscle locked, every breath controlled.
But she's not pushing me away.
And I can feel her heart pounding against my chest, matching the rhythm of my own.
"How?" Her voice is barely audible over the booming fireworks. "How does this end?"
I pull back enough to meet her eyes.
They're blazing with fury and fear and need—desire she's trying so desperately to hide, that I've seen in a thousand photographs but never up close, never this close, never close enough to taste.
"With you," I tell her, "exactly where you belong."
Another firework explodes. Blue this time, cascading across the sky.
She shoves me. Hard.
I let her go.
Every cell in my body screams at me to hold on, to pull her back, to pin her against that railing and kiss her until she stops fighting.
I let her go anyway.
She stumbles back, chest heaving, eyes wild.
For a moment I think she might hit me again—and God, I hope she does—but instead she stares at me with something that looks almost like grief.
"This isn't over," she says.
"No." I straighten my shirt, touch my fingers to my cheek where she slapped me. The skin is hot and swollen. I'll wear the bruise for days.
I'll treasure every second of it.
"It's only beginning."
She walks away. Doesn't run—too proud for that—but she walks fast, her white dress disappearing down the stairs and into the crowd below.
I let her go.
I could chase her. Could press my advantage, corner her somewhere private, make her admit what we both know is true.
But the taste of her skin is still on my lips from that brief brush against her ear.
The feel of her body is still burning against mine. The echo of her pulse still throbs beneath my thumb.
I can wait a little longer.
She'll come to me.
When she's exhausted every other option, when she's beaten herself bloody against the bars of the cage I built, when she finally accepts that there's no way out that doesn't lead through me.
She'll come.
And when she does, when she finally stops fighting and surrenders to what's been burning between us since she was sixteen years old—it will be worth every second of the wait.
I turn back to the fireworks and watch them paint the sky in colors of fire.
Happy Independence Day, Liberty.
Enjoy it while you can.