“You will not be taking her anywhere,” I snapped.
He grinned at me. “Sorry, Claw will be absolutely heartbroken when he wakes up and she’s gone. He may even cry. I’m definitely taking her somewhere.”
He walked away, presumably to get dressed, or to untie whatever girl he likely had tied and naked in his room. I knew this because he left his door open often.
I directed my glare to Emily. “You cannot leave, you were shot last night,” I hissed.
She sighed. “It was a flesh wound, Caroline. I have meetings today that I only would’ve been able to cancel had I been paralyzed. Even then, I would’ve at least been expected to be on video call.”
I blinked at her. “You can’t be serious.”
She nodded. “It was in my schedule to come here for one night, make sure you were mentally sound, punch Liam and then leave on the ten a.m. flight. I’ve accomplished everything I needed to. And I’m not going to let something stupid like a little cut disrupt my schedule.”
“It’s a bullet wound!” I screamed. I was not usually this hysterical. The cool, calm and collected reporter was getting further and further away, the longer I stayed here. The longer I let myself really care about people.
Emily moved her gaze from me to something behind me. I knew it was Liam, because he didn’t hesitate in moving to yank my back to his front. Not because I was in tune to his presence or I could ‘feel’ his stare—that was bullshit. We were getting back to that thing from before. That thing whenever I was in touching distance, he touched me. And when I wasn’t within touching distance, he moved to make sure I was. Last night was obviously an exception to that rule.
“You need to take her back into that room and give her a good fucking,” Emily informed Liam.
Liam didn’t miss a beat. “What if I’ve already done that?”
And to be fair, he had done that. Very good. And very bad.
“Well, you haven’t done it good enough because she’s getting all hysterical and dramatic,” she shot back.
Liam chuckled into my neck. It was a sound I hadn’t heard before. It was beautiful. Warm.
But I wasn’t feeling beautiful or warm right now.
“It’s not dramatic to not want my best friend to get on a flight hours after she was fucking shot,” I hissed. “Tell her, Liam.”
I waited for my…whatever he was, to have my back.
Silence.
I craned my head to glare at him. “Tell her,” I said through gritted teeth.
He sighed. “Can’t do that, babe.”
I yanked myself from his grip. “And why the fuck not?”
“Because it’s safest for her to be back in New York, you know, where she’s not getting shot,” he replied, voice tight. Something moved behind his voice. I was too pissed, at both of them, to inspect it.
“For the record, I’m not going because I think I’m going to get shot again, if I had it on the schedule, I’d stay,” Emily cut in. “I had fun.”
Of course she did.
I looked between the both of them. “Fuck.” I pointed to Swiss, who emerged from the hall with a woman who had red welts on her wrists and a dreamy smile on her face. “Do not leave without me,” I demanded. I looked to Emily. “I’m coming with you to the airport.
She nodded. “I’ll allow it.”
I didn’t look at Liam as I stomped back into our room to snatch a pair of jeans and a tee.
He followed me.
“I’m not talking to you,” I snapped, yanking off my leggings and putting on my jeans.
He watched me dress with hungry eyes and a hard jaw. “Maybe you should think about going with her,” he said once I’d gotten my tee on.
“I am,” I replied, slipping on my sneakers, thinking wistfully of my collection at my apartment.
“No, not to the airport. To New York.”
I froze. Looked up. “You want me to leave?”
He moved to grab my hips. “No, I don’t fucking want that. But I don’t want you to stay in the middle of all of this.”
I tried to jerk out of his grip. He wouldn’t let me.
“You want me to run. Leave you,” I accused.
He let me go to pace the room. “You were fucking shot at last night, Caroline!” he yelled. “You know what I’d have done if one of those bullets had hit you?” He stopped pacing to look at me, cold and calculated. “I would’ve eaten one myself.”
My blood turned to acid. “Don’t you dare say that,” I hissed, my voice was shaking, either from fury or fear. “Don’t you dare use that as a weapon against me. That’s low, Liam. Even for you.”
He realized what he’d done too late. “Peaches.”
“No, Liam,” I said, turning from him and striding out, forgetting promises we’d made about walking away from each other. Breaking promises was kind of our thing now. I’m sure there would be a lot more to break before this was all over.