Man of Mystery: A BBW Romantic Suspense (9 page)

At least one of us is perfect…

He looks at me with fiery eyes, like he could devour me right now, no matter what or who stands in his way.

“I missed you so much; I thought I was going to go crazy waiting a week to see you,” I whisper.

“Good thing we ended up seeing each other today then,” he growls, just before diving down into my cleavage for further kisses.

“Yeah. Perhaps I should get kidnapped more often,” I joke.

He pauses for a moment and leans up, looking me right in the eye again. “Don’t say that. Something could have happened to you today.”

“But it didn’t, thanks to you.”

“Right, but what if I’d been late? What if something had gone wrong? I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I let something happen to you.”

I press my lips together tightly. I don’t want to consider what might have happened, only what’s happening right this moment. He looks so sad, so conflicted. Here I am, on my back, half naked at his hand, and yet he seems more vulnerable than me.

“I can’t explain it. I really can’t.” He sighs, and looks down at my lips, tracing their outline with his fingertip. “Tess, there’s something truly special about you. Like you make the world a better place just with your existence. I’ve seen a lot of things most people don’t get to see. Terrible, dark things. In you, I see only light. Does that make sense?”

I consider his words, the honesty in his emerald eyes. “It does. I feel the same.”

He smiles briefly, there’s something bittersweet in his expression. I wrap my arms around him and pull him down against me, desperate to shake the gloomy subtext in his words. Now I understand why he gets weird sometimes. He’s got baggage. How could he not with a risky, dangerous job such as his? That’s fine. I’ve got my own.

Tonight none of that matters; all that matters is how our bodies fit together, complement each other, how our minds find the beauty in one another. How I can make him forget about all the horrors in his world, and he can make me forget about the drudgery in mine.

He fumbles with his zipper, and I quickly wiggle out of my panties and struggle to unhook my bra, worried he’ll tear that off too. Then he spreads me wide and enters me with an urgency I’ve never seen or felt before.

We’re in a rush to give ourselves completely to each other. Like anything could happen; the world could suddenly come to an end, and we would be left wanting. Like life is too short, too precious to waste.

I run my hands over his back, feeling the scarred ridges I’d found during our first time together. Maybe one day he’ll tell me what happened to him, or maybe not.

He thrusts into me repeatedly, each stroke sweeter than the last. His hands roam my curves; his lips taste my soft flesh. Everything about him, about us, is perfect right now. Tomorrow, we may not be so lucky.

As little droplets of sweat start to collect on his brow, so do they accumulate on my forehead. But it doesn’t matter, we’re comfortable with who and what we are right now. I guide his lips towards mine for further, deeper kisses.

Sometimes the first time is the best, because the expectations created by that initial flurry of hormonal emotions cannot be met again. With us, the second time is even better, because we know each other more now. I hope this trend continues with the third, fourth and I-don’t-know-how-many-eth.

I buck upwards to meet his feverish rhythm, my hips joining his in their quest towards relief.

They say violence and sex go hand in hand. I’d never thought about it before, but now I know that they do. As scared as I was earlier, and as horrified when I saw the body of the guy who orchestrated my kidnapping, all those negative emotions have vanished and made way for passion unlike I’ve ever felt before.

A similar thing had happened last time. We ended up sleeping together even though one might think all the terrible stuff that happened at the airport would have killed the mood. The opposite had been true.

As Liam speeds up towards the final crescendo, heightening my own pleasure with every move, I dig my fingernails into his back. He closes his eyes, as do I, just focusing on the in-and-out, the fluid and regular movement of our bodies as we fight towards a common goal: release.

He freezes first, his body turning rigid in my embrace. I shudder upwards against him one last time, letting my body take me over the edge and down into the abyss of pleasure.

His forehead rests against mine; his rapid, strained breaths tickle my lips. The corners of my eyes burn, and almost straight away I feel the heat of tears streaming down my cheeks. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t do a thing about it.

He lifts himself up slightly, running his finger over my wet cheek.

“Did I hurt you?” he whispers.

The concern in his voice makes me cry even more, but they’re not tears of sorrow at all.

“No,” I say. “They’re happy tears.”

He smiles at me and gives me a peck on my forehead and lifts himself up and off me.

“Sorry about this, but I’ve got to call in what happened. Before they get panicky back at the office.”

I nod, then lie back to enjoy the remainder of the post-orgasmic fog I find myself in.

Before he gets the chance to get his phone out of his jean pocket on the floor, a loud crash rips through the quiet of my apartment, and the rays of flashlights light up the half-dark interior. I let out a loud shriek, but it’s soon drowned out by another voice.

“Anti-terrorist squad! We are authorized to use deadly force. Surrender now, and no one will be harmed!” A man so loud he has got to be using a megaphone barks.

I instinctively pull my blanket over myself, while Liam just straightens himself and lifts his hands above his head. He doesn’t even seem to care that he’s naked, neither do the half dozen or so armed men entering my bedroom, led by the guy I remember Liam referring to as
Clark
last week at the airport.

“Clear!” Clark shouts, “Everson. Fancy seeing you here.”

“Clark. What a lovely surprise.” Liam leans to the side, nodding at the scary redhead who has also entered the room. “Ma’am.”

“Agent Everson. Care to explain what happened today? Or should I arrest you for treason right now?” the woman asks.

“I’m sorry for this, Tess. I’m sure they’ll repair your front door…” Liam says while Clark puts a pair of handcuffs on him.

I’m lost for words. Why the hell are they arresting him? Isn’t he one of them? And he actually took down the guy who abducted me too, which is a good thing, right?

“I apologize for the intrusion,” the red-haired woman in charge says to me, as Liam is led out of my room, and then my house by Clark and the other men. “And I’m sorry he’s involved you at all.”

I look at her, then at the men who are leaving, and at her again.

“Liam rescued me,” I mumble. “Why is he in trouble for that?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.” The redhead gestures at the last man, standing just behind her like a bodyguard, and they both turn on their heels, heading straight for the door. “Have a nice evening, Ms. Aldershot.”

All night I’ve been a nervous wreck. Is Liam OK? Surely it was all a misunderstanding, right?

My calls to his number were met with a
switched off
message. By five am, I am too exhausted to stay awake and too frazzled to get to sleep. Maggie will have just reached home after her shift, so I call her instead.

“Hey, Tess, what’s going on?” Maggie sounds alert concerned, obviously, why would I call her at this ungodly hour unless something was wrong?

“I don’t know! I’m freaking out.”

“Calm down; tell me everything,” Maggie says.

I take a deep breath, then tell her everything that happened yesterday from start to finish. Ordinarily I would have embellished details or omitted things that may reflect badly on Liam, but by now, I don’t have the mental capacity or patience for any of that. Maggie is going to get the whole story, warts and all.

Once I’m done rambling, she remains silent for a moment.

“You still there?” I ask, worried that perhaps the line has gone dead, and I’ll have to tell the whole story all over again.

“Yeah, just… thinking.”

“I’m just so scared. What if they don’t believe him? What if they keep him locked up?”

“Just so that I’m certain I’ve understood… These are
his own people
, who barged into your apartment, invaded your bedroom while you guys were in the middle of some hanky-panky, and then they cuffed him and took him away.” Although her recap is worded like a question, her tone sounds more like she’s just making a statement.

“Right.”

“And his phone is switched off.”

“Right.”

“Well… I don’t see how there’s anything else you can do. You have no way of contacting these people. You don’t know where they’re based. If they want to hear your side to clear things up, they’ll have to be the ones to get in touch with you.”

Maggie makes sense, as she often does. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s what I want to hear right now.

“He saved my life twice, Mags.”

“You wouldn’t have needed saving if he hadn’t got you involved in God knows what.”

I sigh. And that’s exactly why I tend to filter the stuff I tell her.

“Either way, it’s five-thirty in the morning. You’ve got a job to go to in a few hours. Afterward, we’ll hang out and talk some more. Oh, and I hope you don’t mind, but Alec may drop in at some point. I thought it would be nice if you two could meet, finally.”

“Sure,” I answer absentmindedly.

We say our goodbyes, and I’m alone again. She’s right. I can’t do anything. I put the phone down and fall back into my pillows. When my alarm goes off, it feels like only a minute has passed, not two hours.

“Bye, Tess!” Karen’s cheerful voice grates at me as she leaves for the day.

Meanwhile, my eyes are burning due to lack of sleep, and I’ve got the lucky job of staying behind and finishing what should have been
her
work. Stupid reports. Stupid people. Stupid life.

I continue to grumble to myself while selecting various cells full of meaningless numbers in the stupid spreadsheet I’ve been working on for the better part of the afternoon. Just when I’m ready to throw in the towel and give up on it all, my phone buzzes once. A message.

My heart starts to race. Could it be?

Dear Tess, I apologize for last night. Ever since we identified a mole in our unit last week, everyone’s been quite paranoid. That said, last night taught me that our lives are and always will be incompatible. I am sorry. L

I’m not sure what to do, fling the phone at the wall and watch it break into a million pieces or scream until my vocal cords rip themselves apart. All day I’ve been waiting for some sign - any sign - to let me know that Liam is OK. And now this?!

What if someone else messaged on his behalf? What if it’s a ruse? I take a deep breath and hit the little ‘call’ icon beside his name.

It rings once, twice, thrice, and then finally there’s an answer.

“Hello?” A voice answers. It sounds like Liam, but then, I’ve never spoken to him on the phone so how would I know?

“Tell me you didn’t mean that?”

The silence that follows is painful.

Finally, Liam takes a deep breath on the other end, before responding. “Twice, I’ve endangered your life. They’re right. In our line of work, we can’t afford relationships. It gives the bad guys leverage they shouldn’t have.”

“But…” Wait, who was right? Don’t tell me the bitchy redhead is giving him relationship advice now.

“What if I hadn’t reached you in time yesterday? What if they’d hurt you, or worse, killed you? I couldn’t live with myself.”

“Wait…”

“That’s how people end up dead, Tess. You said it yourself. Whenever we’re together, people die. I’m not about to wait around until one day you’re the one who’s killed.”

Click.

Tears are prickling in my already sore eyes, and I feel empty as empty can be. Like my guts have been ripped out and dumped on the floor in front of me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
No way. This is fucking unbelievable!