11. Eleven
Eleven
Sara
The morning smells like sea air and wet pavement as I’m strolling out on Rue des Amoureux after mom begged me to walk our dogs. Cheyenne is a Jack Russel with more attitude than a chick in a girl band, and Daisy has claimed me as her person and can’t stand anyone else.
I get it, girl, I get it.
As I walk, listening to “The Fever” by Foreign Figures in my AirPods, my phone vibrates in the pocket of my Mickey Mouse sweatshirt, with a pair of tight black leggings I threw on when I got home.
Tyler: When can I see you again?
I thumb the phone off and let the screen go black over my reflection. The idea of answering feels like chewing glass.
I was craving a distraction, but Tyler’s touch only magnified the gaping absence of Joe.
I miss him so much that breathing burns my lungs.
The dogs drag me past the first sharp bend, and I love this quiet part of my village.
They pull at their leashes, eager, tails swishing like they’ve got somewhere urgent to be.
We’re rounding the corner when a blur shoots past us with white fur and black ears flapping, paws skidding toward the street. A puppy!
“Hey!” My voice cracks. I’m running before I can think, heart hammering if it runs through traffic. He’s seconds away from the road when I dive, fishing one of my dogs’ treats from my pocket.
“Come here, baby.” It freezes, sniffing, and I scoop it into my arms as footsteps running towards us like thunder.
Liam.
He fills the passage like a threat, all shoulders and scowl, tattoos dark against his forearms, a cigarette smoldering between two blunt fingers.
His hair is wet as if he had just taken a shower, and I can smell his fresh ash and wood scent.
He looks past me and the dogs, then down at the puppy cradled in my arms, then back at me.
His defined chest rising under a black T-shirt, his eyes flickering icy blue.
He steps closer, ignoring the growl Daisy makes in the back of her throat.
“Do you make it a habit to collect innocents?” His question is absurd, just like he is.
I meet his smoldering gaze head-on. “This creature actually yours?”
He leans closer into my personal space, causing my breath to hitch.
The heat emanating from him makes my pulse race.
He stretches out his hand, long, powerful fingers reaching out.
His fingertips graze against mine as he takes the squirming puppy from me.
The almost indiscernible touch sends a shockwave of mortifying electricity.
“Yeah,” he breathes with a firm tone.
A beat of silence passes. The gulls overhead scream, and his gaze stays locked on me like he’s trying to read something I’m not giving him.
“I thought you didn’t smoke?” I ask.
“I guess grief is a bitch sometimes.” He gives a lazy smile, mirroring sorrow and something that requires a restraining order.
I glance at the wriggling bundle of joy in his arms, a complete contradiction in the powerful arms of a sociopath.
“Since when do you have a dog?” I prompt.
He smirks faintly, charming for a second and deadly the next. “Since someone gave me one.”
“That’s vague, who?” I challenge, I don’t even know why I’m asking about a dog when I should ask what is wrong with him. But for a second, the feeling that it’s a gift from another woman is oddly uncomfortable.
His eyes flick to mine, drawing a thumb to his lip. “Does it matter? You’re asking a lot of questions today.”
“You don’t exactly scream puppy owner, that’s all.” I stare at him, feeling strange and confused. I can’t tell if it is because I am imagining him caring for a dog in his charge or because I despise his very presence.
He looks down at the pup, scratching behind its ear as if he’s trying not to smile.
“Maybe I wanted something that doesn’t talk back.”
“Charming.” I breathe, ready to turn back from where I came, but the corner of his mouth twitches up, and his gaze sharpens again, shifting gears. His almost black hair, black shirt, and black pants matching his soul is tantalizingly haunting.
“He’s not the only one running loose lately.”
I blink. “Meaning?”
“Meaning…” He takes a step closer, his shadow cutting across mine.
“That guy you were with last night—Tyler, is it? Did he touch you?”
The question lands heavily and takes me by surprise.
“Excuse me?” I scoff.
“Just answer me, Sara,” he demands with a disapproving glare.
My chin lifts, my gaze searching his striking, threatening demeanor.
“It’s none of your business. You’re out of your mind.”
“Answer my question, Sara.” His tone rips through me.
“Yes. He touched me. And? Should I go confess to the dead for that too?” My words are seemingly unappetizing to him by the way he shifts closer.
“Where?” He bites out.
“Wh—? What?” I’m completely taken aback. If confusion was a bomb, the blast would be blowing straight through my frontal cortex.
“You heard me. Show me.”
“Here.” I place a hand on my breast and, “here—” as I descend my hand between my legs, his gaze follows lazily, and his eyes lock back with mine in a magnetic pull.
Before I can finish my sentence, my back slams against a cold iron gate. His arm bars me in place, his leg stepping over my dogs’ leash as it slips from my hand.
His firm tattooed hand rests at my throat. Not choking, but holding me there, measuring my pulse that I can’t control. Simultaneously holding the pup gently in his other arm. The shock of his presence comes over me, and if he presses harder, he could take my breath away. Literally.
His voice drops, low and dangerous, annihilating my space. “You shouldn’t have let him.”
“And you think you get to decide that?” I push between stolen breaths.
He prowls closer, close enough for me to feel the brush of his breath on my cheek. “I think there are lines you don’t cross. And you’re standing right on one.”
“Why?” I breathe. “Because it bothers you?”
“That’s your mistake, Sara. Thinking this is about bothering me.” He lets out a small, low laugh, downright terrifying.
Put him in the looney box.
I don’t answer. Just let the silence fall as my eyes don’t drop from his, waiting for his next move as he’s completely devoid of emotions, and I’m trembling inside at the thought of what this little chess game is turning into.
I can feel my head spin and I’m soon to beg for air in my lungs.
His eyes flicker as if he’s enjoying my struggle. Fucking psycho.
“Wh-why Liam are y-ou doing this?”
The puppy whines softly between us, finally breaking the spell, and I take my first hungry breath, convinced I need to take his threats seriously.
He steps back, leaving an emptiness that is unthinkable and unhealthy to even consider, shattering the charge in the air without diffusing it.
I feel something.
Hell clawing at my bones.
I bend down to grab the leash, but his foot doesn’t move.
“Can you move your foot!” I groan, pulling on it.
His eyes darken. “On your knees.”
My eyes widen.
“And beg me,” he says slowly.
I straighten up. “You’ll be the proud owner of two other dogs before I get down on my knees and beg you, Liam.”
“No, I won’t.”
Three words drowned in hostility are apparently all I need, because I lower to my knees, and his gaze sharpens into something idiotically cruel.
“Say, please.”
“Please, Liam, your fucking highness, give me my dogs back.” I grit my teeth.
He laughs and removes his foot from the leash as his finger brushes my chin. “Good girl.”
“Stay out of trouble, Sara,” he hisses, and turns to walk away down the street, the puppy tucked tight and silent, but it sounds less like advice and more like a dare. I stand there, shaking, the scent of cigarette and fresh rain hanging in the morning air.
The sun hasn’t even cleared the roofs yet, but I already feel like the day is over. I know he hates me, I know he wants to blame me for Joe crashing his bike, but the humiliation is clawing at my bones… and hatred doesn’t explain the way he looks at me.
The bell above the boutique door chimes in that obnoxiously cheerful way it always does, and Mimi groans as if it offends her.
“Please tell me you brought coffee, or I will straight-up fake my death to get out of here.”
“You called me in, and at the sound of your voice. Here —” I push a coffee to her lips I was hiding at my back. She squirms with happiness as I place my purse under the counter.
“I thought you were dying.”
“I am dying,” she says, flipping a rack of overpriced linen skirts with enough aggression to wrinkle all of them. “From boredom. There’s a difference. Death-by-lack-of-drama is an under-reported epidemic. But now you’re here!” She throws her arms around my neck and almost makes me lose balance.
I laugh. “And I’m your entertainment?”
“Yes!” she confirms, rearranging a stack of silk camisoles with way too much force.
“I was dangerously close to having to talk to Mrs. Boudreaux about her dog’s gluten intolerance again. That woman’s Yorkie eats better than I do.”
“That Yorkie eats better than any of us.” I laugh and she nods, shoving a pile of scarves into my arms. “Fold these before Mrs. Leclerc comes back in here pretending she’s not about to drop four grand on a purse her husband is absolutely going to notice.”
Her gaze softens. “By the way, are you okay? I know it’s been hard for you with Joe…”
“I… I miss Joe so much and… Liam has been acting…”
She cuts me off. “He’s scary as hell, has he talked to you at all?”
“Not really, can’t call it talking,” I scoff. “He’s … grieving. People need someone to blame, right? He wants me to feel like Joe’s death is my fault, that Joe got on that bike because of me.”
Mimi leans forward, eyes sharp. “No, babe. Just no. That’s heavy and not true. At all. You know that, right? Don’t let him do that to you.”
“I don’t know, Mimi, the guilt is eating me alive. If I hadn’t let Joe walk away, he’d still be here. Liam is right.” I breathe heavily, feeling a panic attack on the verge of happening.