I leaned my head back until I could see Liner’s face.
“Did my brother look all right?” I asked, trying to tone down the riot of emotions that were rolling through me at an alarming rate.
I wanted him.
Again.
I wanted him badly, too.
“He was okay,” Liner admitted, letting go of one of my hips so that he could tuck a piece of my hair behind my head.
The door down the hall opened, and both of us looked over our shoulders at the woman that hurried toward the kitchen. She didn’t see us in the shadows, but if she had, she would’ve had some questions. Not that she would’ve asked us those questions.
“I like her,” I admitted softly. “The fact that she cared about Linnie and Linnie only, definitely showed today.”
Liner sighed and tugged lightly on my hand, pulling me into his room.
He didn’t shut the door all the way due to Linnie being down the hall, but he did close it the majority of the way so that we wouldn’t be overheard.
“Castiel’s a good man,” Liner admitted. “But he’s a cop, first and foremost. It’s hard for him to see past the ‘evidence’ so to speak.”
“He looked me up?” she guessed.
I nodded. “I’m sure he did that the moment that he could do it without alerting people that you were alive.”
I sighed. “I don’t like that people don’t like me.”
Liner pulled me into his chest as he said, “What other people think about you is irrelevant. What matters most is what I think about you.” He paused. “And soon, even that won’t matter since you’re going to be gone, starting a new life where none of us—of this—matters anymore.”
I looked around the room at where his wide sweep of his arm indicated and felt my heart clench.
I didn’t want to leave him.
But he was right.
Tomorrow, it was time to think about the big picture—about how my family could very well make Linnie’s life a living hell just like they did mine.
Honestly, I was lucky that they hadn’t seen a use for her until now.
Linnie was five years old. Right now all she should’ve been worrying about was how much television she was watching, what time school started in the morning, and whether or not she was needing to go to bed early or not.
Instead, before she’d fallen asleep, she was worrying about why my eyes were so sad, and why Liner looked like he was readying for a war when he locked down the house for the night.
I really should go back, but I couldn’t pull myself out of his arms.
Not knowing that tomorrow night, I wouldn’t have this for the rest of my life.
“You should go back to your room,” Liner said, echoing my thoughts.
I should.
“I don’t want to,” I whispered. “I want to be in your arms for a little bit longer.”
The brutal honesty didn’t hurt to admit.
And the tightening of his arms around me felt like a whisper, a declaration, that he felt the same.
Not that he admitted it or anything.
He didn’t really need to, though.
I could read between the lines just like he could.
I skimmed my hands down the length of his sides, loving the way he was so hot and warm, hard all over, as I explored.
He allowed me to, running his hands up and down the length of my back.
We both knew where this was going.
Or, at least, I did.
I knew, and I wanted it badly.
Though, saying that, I knew that we shouldn’t.
What it was going to do was remind me of what I wouldn’t have for the rest of my life.
Sure, another man would come along—at least that was what Turner said this morning when she’d heard the whole sordid tale from me. But that man wouldn’t be Josiah ‘Liner’ Paldecki.
He’d be another man. One that didn’t know anything at all about me.
One that didn’t know my struggles.
One that didn’t know anything other than the fake me.
One that didn’t like me despite those things.
Because that was what Liner showed me as he suddenly picked me up and carried me to his bed.
That, despite everything he knew about me, and who my family was, he liked me anyway.
I felt emotion start to rise as it filled my chest and I lost the ability to speak.
Instead, I ran one hand up Liner’s chest and snaked it around his neck, pulling him down so that he’d kiss me and hopefully take away all my pain.
Pain at the thought of losing him.
At the thought of never having his hands run up and down my sides again like he was doing to me now.
“Take my shirt off,” I urged, loving the sensations of his hands sliding up over my cotton pants and my t-shirt, but knowing that the sensation of his hands against my bare skin would feel so much better.