I narrow my eyes, “Who in their right mind would like being driven nuts?” I ask him, my voice growing higher.
His lip turns up, just the side with that damn dimple, and I harden my gaze. All that earns me is the other side curling up until he is giving me the full force of that smile. Thank God I’m sitting or I would melt in a pile of goo. He smiles at me for a few more seconds before his face grows serious. My chest starts to rise and fall with each breath as he sits there and just looks at me. His dark eyes seemingly see right through me. I curl my arms around my chest and wait. It isn’t until he opens his mouth that I lose every ounce of air in my lungs.
“You like it because it makes you feel, Megan.”
I gasp.
How? How can he know? How can he have a clue that I, for the first time in three years, felt something other than my love for Molly and I only did that because of him?
“You’re getting it. I’m a patient man, Megan. I’ve waited for you. Waiting for that person that would make me feel and, baby, I’m ready. You aren’t, but you will be. I just have to make you remember how good feeling is.”
“You don’t know me,” I evade, ignoring his all too accurate nail on the head.
“I know you, Megan. You’ve been around this group for over a year now. A year of you being in a fog while everyone around you was living. You’ve forgotten what it’s like to live and I’m going to remind you. And while I’m reminding you, all you have to do is feel. Then you’ll get it.”
“Get what,” I say softly.
“Everything.”
I open my mouth but close it when he shakes his head.
“It’s sudden. You don’t get this now, but you will, what feels sudden to you, feels just right to me. I’m not going away, Megan.” He pushes off the loveseat and walks over to where I’m sitting in shock, and kneels in front of me. “You were going to be mine long before you tripped into my arms at the reception, Megan. You moaned my name as your body greedily sucked my cock dry and I knew you would be mine. And you became mine last night as I held you trembling in my arms. I’ve got all the time in the world to make sure that happens. Sleep tight, I’ll see you in the morning.” He lifts up, gives me a long look until he sees whatever he’s looking for and before he’s completely standing gives me a kiss on my forehead. “Lock up behind me.”
And with that, Liam walks out the front door.
I rush forward when the door closes and turn both the locks before I turn my back to the door and slide down until my ass hits the floor. Looking across the entryway, my eyes take in the pictures that are sitting on a small table across from the door. Right there is a picture of Jack holding a newborn Molly. I look into his handsome face, his bright blue eyes and black hair shaved close to his head, and let the sob that had threatened earlier bubble up.
It’s time, Megs.
I close my eyes tight when I hear his voice filter through my mind. Shaking my head back and forth as the tears fall rapidly.
He’s right. You need to feel again, Megs.
My eyes clamp tighter.
I miss him. My Jack. My best friend.
It’s time, Megs.
The voice repeats.
I pull my legs up and wrap my arms around them.
It feels wrong, after everything that Jack had done for me, to feel this way for Liam. It shouldn’t feel like guilt, but it does. I’m still here when Jack is gone. I’m still breathing when he gave his life for me.
He’s right. It’s time. I need to take this final step and open myself up to live again.
I stayed on the floor until my face was stiff with dried tears. My bottom was asleep and my chest hurt with the force of my sobs. But I finally got up. Instead of going to my bed though, I went to my daughter’s room and pulled her into my arms.
My daughter who looks everything like her father even though I wish she looked like Jack.
LAST NIGHT I STOOD AT the other side of her door and fought every instinct I have in my body to not break that door down while I listened to her sob. I waited until I heard her tears stop. Then I waited even longer while the lights through her house turned off one by one. It wasn’t until I could uncoil my body from its position outside her front door that I was able to leave. Pulling each of the palms that I had resting against the wood of her front door to stand up straight and force my legs to take me to my truck.
Even then it was another ten or so minutes before I was able to turn the key and pull out of her drive. Leaving her tonight, knowing she was in pain, is even harder than it was to walk away from her in the club owner’s private bathroom.
I make a mental note before pulling out of her drive that her grass is about a week past the point of really needing to be cut.
When I turn out of her neighborhood I press the button on my steering wheel that will allow me to make a phone call. Wincing slightly when I see it’s almost past ten.
“Call Dani home,” I say into the silence around me.
“Calling Dani home,” I hear before the sound of ringing comes from the speakers.