KAT

The red rivers pool around my toes for longer than I expect.

Whose blood is it? Mine? Sam’s? Liam’s?

Days worth of laying on concrete, steeped in cold and despair, is finally washing away with the hot water. It pounds against my skin like a thousand tiny massueses, and I close my eyes, letting everything else disappear.

Being safe again isn’t something I take for granted. I touch the shampoo bottle and the body wash, trailing my fingers over the items to ground myself in reality. Liam’s shower might be small and weathered, but I’m free and it’s not to be taken for granted. 

Liam uses the shower after me, not seeming to care that the water is only lukewarm after I’ve stood under it for so long. I sit on the closed toilet seat towel drying my hair and watching Liam wash. A soft smil turns his lips when he noties me noticing him. 

‘Wanna picture?’ he asks, leaning one hand against the wall and looking at me from beneath his arm. Despite my sorry state, I can’t help but get flutters. Between the water running down his face and chest, to the mix of tattoos and scars, I’m a smitten kitten.

‘Yes, please. Photo. Video. Painting. I’ll take them all please.’

‘Good to see that dropping a guy in a well hasn’t fazed you too much.’

I pull on one of his clean t-shirts ans shrug. ‘I wish he hadn’t had to die. But it was him or us. And I’ll always choose us.’

Liam looks up at me. ‘Always?’

‘Always.’

I continue to top up my wank-bank by watching him until his flicks water at me and sends me to grab some beer. 

Reggie pads over, meowing until I sit criss-cross on the floor and love on him. Feeding him was the first thing we’d done when we got home. Before washing. Before talking. 

‘You wee hooligan,’ I saw as he makes biscuits against my thigh, digging his nails into flesh. ‘Only one man’s allowed to scratch me up, and thats not you.’

Reggie bumps his orange face against my knee and tells me all about his complaints in a series of mews and chitters. 

‘I know, but it’s not our fault. I promise I’ll make sure Ellie comes to check on you when Liam and I go on… well, our adventures. And if ever we don’t come home – I’ll will you to her. She’s a good egg.’

Reggie purrs like a small tractor, and I bury my face into his fur. 

Within two minutes, he climbs into my lap and snuggles in to snore. His fat, warm body unravels the tension I’m still holding, allowing me to finally relax.

Liam comes out with his a towel wrapped dangerously low around his waist. ‘I see you’ve been detained, I’ll get the beer.’

‘Thank you,’ I say. 

Beneath the abs and the tattoos, Liam looks like hell actually. Bruises bloom purple and yellow spreading over his jaw and ribcage. 

‘Room for one more?’ he asks.

‘Possibly. Reggie’s a big boy.’ 

‘C’mon, let’s get comfy. I don’t think I can deal with the hard floor yet.’ Liam reaches down and scoops Reggie into his arms. The cat looks mildly pissed, but allows himself to be deposited on the end of the bed. I carry the beers over and dump them on the rickety bedside table. 

Liam lets out a groan as he lowers himself beside me. Reggie gives him the stink eyes before hopping off and trotting to his own bed by the boiler, his chunky backside wiggling as he goes. 

Laim pulls me down onto the bed, tugging me to face him. His towel falls open, but he doesn’t seem to care. I throw a leg over his waist and snuggle in close enough to hear his heartbeat. 

‘I’m so glad you’re safe,’ I whisper against his chest. 

‘Don’t worry, darling. I’m never leaving you.’

My eyes are so heavy, his warmth surrounding me. 

I’m home. 

***

It’s dark when we stir back to life, and I’ve no idea whether it’s only been a few hours since we fell asleep together, or a whole day. 

I don’t care, either. I want nothing more than to curl up against Liam’s chest indefinitely. 

We eat toast because neither of us can stomach much more. I burn it, but Liam doesn’t care, slathering it with butter and eating it without complaint, making sure to take the most blackened pieces for himself. 

‘Do you think Ellie will be mad,’ I say. ‘When she’s actually thought about this?’

‘She’ll be mad that Sam’s disappeared, but I think she’ll be happy for us. She loves you and wants you to be happy,’ Liam says. 

‘She loves you,too,’ I add. His gaze drops to the table. ‘I mean it. Your her brother through and through.’

He passes me the last of the toast without looking at me.

‘She’ll be your sister,’ he says. ‘When we get married.’

My stomach does a flip-flop, and I stare up at him. 

‘Not now. But one day. I’ll marry you in that stream, the water running over our feet and your dress tucked into your underpants.’

‘Can we invite the frogs? Show them how it’s done?’ 

Liam laughs, and seeing him happy lights up my soul. That’s what I want. Forever. 

Then his laughter wanes and he studies me for a moment. 

‘You didn’t say no…’

‘Other than killing the fuckers who hurt you, there’s nothing else I desire more.’

The corner of his mouth moves.

‘You’ll be my wife?’

‘Of course I will. We’ve been endgame since the say you gave me this rock.’ I skim my fingers over my necklace and smile. 

Later, we are back in bed, this time both of us naked and pressed together, like the heat of each others skin is what we need to thrive. Who says skin to skin is just for babies? I’d happily lie there against Liam, listening to his soft breathes, for eternity. 

‘I keep thinking about what he said,’ I admit. ‘About it being our fault. About us leaving him there.’

Liam sighs. ‘I know.’

‘We were only eight.’

Blame doesn’t always land where it should. He was just a kid, too.’

‘I still feel guilty.’

His fingers thread into the hair at the nape of my neck, his thumb grazing my jaw.

‘We’ll make the real culprits pay.’

I close my eyes and inhale, his heady scent wrapping me. 

Outside, the city carries on in its hum of students shouting while drunk, distant sirens and traffic passing. Laughter and shouts. The neighbours screwing. Everyone unaware of what’s happened over the past few days. 

We’ll have to make the list of names and build a lattice of lies to cover out tracks. To try to evade capture long enough to kill every last one of the child hurting cunts. 

But not tonight.

Tonight it’s just Liam’s arms and Reggie’s snore. The gentle lamplight, and his skin pressed against mine. 

My fingers find the bruise yellowing his jaw, touching it as gently as I can. 

Liam meets my eyes, his dark and filled with a need he hasn’t spoken. 

‘I thought we were going to die in there,’ I whisper. 

‘Me too.’

‘We’ve only just found each other.I was so scared that’s all the time we’d get. That I’d only just found you and would lose you all over again.’

‘Kat…’

‘I need—’ My breath shakes. ‘I need you to make me feel like this is ours again after what he made us do.’

The lamplight catches the line of his jaw and the tired shadows under his eyes. He’s even more beautiful in his fragility. 

‘Come here,’ he says, and pulls me in, whispering against my lips. ‘He didn’t take anything from us. Only we can decide what affect it has on us. I spent years dissasociating from the pain and the shame. I don’t want that for you.’

‘Make me forget,’ I plead, my lips stealing from his. 

The kiss starts soft, filling with questions that don’t have answers. Our intimac has always been driven by lust, but this is something deeper. Each tender swipe of his tongue washes away the performance we were forced to enact. 

His fingers tighten against my waist, holding me against him and he deepens the kiss, taking more and more. 

He rolls me beneath him, bracing on his veined forearms. The way he looks at me with those dark eyes has me whimpering. 

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, his voice low. ‘What he made us do—’

‘You made it survivable. You kept me grounded.’ I can’t finish the sentence but his eyes tell me he hears it. ‘Love me, Liam, I need you.’

The sound he makes is not quite a groan. He drops his forehead to mine, his breath ragged.

‘I can do that,’ he says. ‘I can absolutely fucking do that.’

He traces the bruises on my wrists with his tongue and lips. The tenderness after such pain brings tears to my eyes, and then he’s kissing my throat. His stubble scratches at my skin, leaving a trail of sensation wherever his mouth goes. 

‘God,’ I breathe.

‘I’ve got you, darling.’

My fingers trace the shape of him. The scars and the tattoos, the bruises and the scratches. The tears flow down my cheeks. 

‘Don’t stop,’ I beg.

‘Never.’ His hair grazes my chest as he sucks a nipple into his mouth, pleasure twisting. 

‘I’m so angry he got to see us, to take this from us.’ My voice cracks.

‘He didn’t take anything,’ he growls. ‘What’s mine is mine. Every sound you made, every whimper. It’s all mine.’

The tears spill harder. Liam kisses them off my cheeks without a word, and then his hand slides between my thighs, and my grief and my need collide so violently I gasp.

‘Liam!’

His fingers moving in slow, devastating circles as I arch my hips. ‘Tell me what you need.’

‘You.’ My hips chase his hand shamelessly. ‘Just you. Please, Liam.’

He strokes me to the edge and keeps me there, his mouth on mine, swallowing every whimper and moan. I’m a frantic, desperate mess below him, tears and want all mixed up together.

‘I love you,’ I whisper, half-sob and half-moan. 

‘I thought I was going to lose you,’ he groans.

Then he fills me with his cock in one lingeringly slow stroke.

He holds us there, forehead to forehead, his hands cradling my face, planting kisses on my wet cheeks. Then he finally moves, it’s deep and terribly slow, and I wrap my legs around him, clinging on. 

‘I’ve got you,’ he murmurs into my hair. ‘Always.’

Each thrust is a reclamation. A claim. Rewriting the past few days. 

He pulls out to the tip before taking me again with deliberate tenderness. When I lock my legs and pull him deeper he groans against my neck.

‘More,’ I demand.

And he gives me more, his hips scooping harder, and I tip my head back and let pleasure drown the last three days out.

‘I’m so in love with you,’ he whimpers. ‘I don’t have the words for how much.’

The orgasm hits me like tidal wave, crushing everything with devastating pulses, and I bury my face in his neck and cry through it.

He comes hard, my name in his mouth like a chant, his whole body shuddering.

My cheeks are still wet and when I finally open my eyes, his are too. It’s like a purge. 

‘You cried,’ I whisper.

‘Sorry,’ he says. 

‘Never. You never need to hide anything from me. I like that you can let me see this side of you.’

‘I’ve spent a lot of years making sure no one saw that.’

‘I know.’

‘You’re different.’

I press my lips to his, our salty tears tainting it. ‘Everything is different with me. Get used to it, buddy.’

I fall asleep later to the sound of his heartbeat.

Steady and sound.

And all mine.

♥

Liam & Kat’s story continues in

DEATH KISS

The Lovesick Duet, Book Two