Liberty Begins (The Liberty Series) (11 page)

‘Mommy, I love you. I’m so sorry,’ I said, sobbing. I laid down with her then, and I held her until the sun came up.

I heard Ray a few hours later. I went out with my baseball bat. ‘She’s dead,’ I said to him flatly. He was standing there, naked in the middle of my living room, and it just seemed so ridiculous to me. Here was this man, with ugly, cloudy eyes, a skinny body and small, saggy dick. And he’d ruined us. He’d taken everything. ‘Get out,’ I’d said, but before he did, I stole a bunch of cash from him. I hadn’t made a plan yet but I knew I had to get away.

And that was the last time I saw Ray.”

I sat, looking at them, and I felt nothing but
relief
. Yes, this is what happened to me. I was lucky, I knew. I was so lucky that it hadn’t been worse.

John just sat there, rocking back and forth, his head in his hands.

“Okay,” said Matthew, clapping his hands together, trying to break the tension, “quitting time.” He and Ethan got up and quickly left the room.

I poured the rest of the wine into my glass and John’s. We both stood in silence and drank them.
See?
I thought.
Now you know. Now you know why I’m broken.

“Liberty, you are an incredibly brave woman,” John said, sounding awed. “I don’t know how you had the strength to do what you did, after all you’ve been through…. You are an incredible person. And you’ve done it all on your own.” He looked up at me, worshipfully.

“Thank you,” I said, drinking more wine.
But
I wish I was a clean slate for you, John.

“Let’s go for a walk,” I said, when we’d both emptied our glasses. I needed some air.

On our way out I stuck my head into the living room. John’s dad was curled up on the couch, snoring lightly. I grabbed the throw on the couch and gently covered him up.

“Should we move him?”

“No,” John said softly, looking at his father and shaking his head. “He sleeps down here sometimes since my mother died.” He turned off the television, grabbed my hand and led me outside.

It was dusk. We walked, hand in hand, down past the pool and onto the rocky beach. The cornflower blue sky stretched overhead, darker blue to the east, with streaks of cotton candy pink clouds to the west. There was a sprinkling of stars visible, brilliant and unobstructed by light pollution. It was so beautiful, I might never go back inside.

I had liked living in Eugene even though it rained a lot. I’d liked Vegas for a different reason; the desert was stark and exotic, and I felt like the dry heat had finally sucked all the dampness of Oregon from me. But even though I’d only been here for over a week, New England now had my heart. It smelled clean, like you could sense the fresh oxygen being produced by the leaves on the trees. The lush green grass, the tall pine trees, the freezing ocean; it was
as if
an artist had created it for you to enjoy. You could stand and stare, mouth agape, at all the color contrasts and different textures, all of them amazingly and painfully beautiful.

John squeezed my hand and broke my reverie. I looked at his handsome face and I had a sudden flash of him being alone, sleeping on his couch, like his father.
Not on my watch,
I thought. I reached out and brushed his shaggy hair out of his face.

“Is your dad lonely?” I asked. He’d seemed very alone just now, curled up on the couch.

“He misses Mom, of course. We both do. She passed away about five years ago — cancer.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, and stopped to hug him. He held me tightly.

“
I’m
so sorry. About what we had you talk about tonight. That it happened to you, and to your mother,” John said. We found a big rock to sit on and John pulled me onto his lap.

“I told you not to be sorry for me,” I said, shrugging. “He didn’t hurt me as bad as he could have. I’m lucky. There are so many people out there who have it so much worse.”

“I’m still going to kill him,” John said, and smiled at me without a trace of humor in his eyes. I heard some iron in his voice that I’d never heard before.
Of course,
I reasoned,
there has to be this part of him. In order to do what he does.

So I knew how I was broken; and I think I knew how to fix it...by being with John, and letting myself trust in the love I had for him. But this side of John was what worried me...this lethalness, this ability to crush others...this was how
he
was broken. And I was worried that he was broken in a way I couldn’t fix.

I sat there a moment, gathering the courage to ask him something I’d been wanting to know since we met. I hesitated, not sure I really wanted to hear the answer. But I had told him about Ray, about my mother, and I was almost out of secrets. I needed to know his.

“Have you?” I asked, looking out at the darkening waves. “Killed someone?” It came out like a whisper.

He stroked my face and sighed. “I hope this doesn’t change things between us, but yes, I have. I’ve killed people.”

I didn’t say anything. Deep down, I’d known. “And Darius?” I asked, still staring out at the water.

“Darius is alive, but he’s refusing to cooperate. So we’re moving on to the next stage of asset management.” He grimaced and looked away from me.

“...And that means?”

“It means we are attempting to extricate information from him by means of force,” he said, turning back and looking at me levelly. “It means we're torturing him. Water-boarding him, if you want to know the specifics.”

I shuddered. I didn’t know what water-boarding was, but it sounded horrible.
Oh, John.
I just couldn’t reconcile the man in front of me, who was filled with so much warmth and humor, with a man who could torture someone else.
He had to be so messed up from what happened with Catherine. Maybe he thought about whoever had taken her every time he hurt someone
.

“How can you do it?” I asked. I hated Ray. I knew he was bad,
through
and through. But could I let someone torture him, with my knowledge? Would I approve? I couldn’t picture it.
Then again, I had tried to bash his brains in with a baseball bat.
I shuddered again.

“Liberty, there is a reason for what I’m doing. Darius has connections to some bad people, brutal people, and he has information about what they’re going to do next. It affects Cruz’s family and business in Brazil. If we don’t stop them, there will be serious consequences for innocent people.” He looked at me imploringly. “He was at your club to kill Cruz. I’m not harming an innocent person, Liberty.”

“Oh, John. I know. I could never think that about you,” I said, and I looked at him fully, so he could see I wasn’t hiding anything from him. “It’s just a lot to take in, to put together. You’re so kind and generous, it’s just hard for me to imagine you like that.”

I traced his lips with my fingers. Then he kissed me, a deep, lingering kiss that left me breathless.

“I don’t like to think about it,” John said, “but I’ve made peace with my decisions. I know I’ve helped more people than I’ve hurt. I don’t forgive myself for what I’ve done, but I can accept it for what it is.” He paused for a second. “Do you think that you’d be able to do that?”

“What?” I asked. “Accept you for the bounty hunter you are?”

He laughed a little and pulled me closer to him, so that my head was nestled against his broad shoulder. “Can you accept me for who I am, and what I’ve done?” He held me tightly as he waited on the answer; he didn’t seem to be breathing.

“I think so,” I said in a rush, looking up and kissing him, holding him to me. “I want to.” It was true. It didn’t matter what I learned from now on; I knew who he was, and that he’d done some questionable things, but I felt — in my very bones I felt it, I was so sure — that he was a good man. I knew his heart was good. But he
was
broken, and his pain drove him to lengths I couldn’t understand.

I wasn’t sure that I could handle being a part of that. I couldn’t see my life, my future, being around violence and torture. Being afraid for him. Worrying about what he was doing, if he was hurting anyone — and if anyone was hurting him.
But that’s a discussion for another day,
I reasoned.
Today’s been filled with enough revelation.

He exhaled in relief, kissing me again, forcefully, crushing his lips to mine. I ran my hands down his chest and shivered deliciously.
Mmmm
, I thought,
this was more like it
. I brought my body up so I could straddle him, and I could feel him, suddenly enormous and erect, springing to life underneath me.

He pulled back from me. “Are you okay with this?” he asked. “Being close to me? After everything we talked about tonight?”

I looked up at him and nodded. “I’ve been waiting for you,” I said, softly. “For a long, long time. You make it okay. You make
everything
okay.”

A huge smile broke out over his face, brilliant like the sun. He kissed me then, tenderly, and I felt a tear stream down my face. I wiped it away.
I was safe now, finally. Nothing was going to hurt me anymore, unless I let it.

He kept kissing me, and my body went wild in response. I pressed against him, riding him, trying to get as close as humanly possible to him through our clothes. The need to have him inside me was so intense, I really felt like something in me might burst.

I stopped rubbing up against him.
“Don’t don’t don’t,”
he whispered out, all in a rush, rubbing his face against mine, licking the outline of my lips with his delicious tongue.

I put my hands on his chest and pushed back from him, just a little, but enough to elicit a frustrated moan from him.
I know, I know,
my inner voice lamented.

“Speaking of acceptance,” I said, looking down at my hands and trying not to look at his broad, heaving chest, “I have one more skeleton I need to let out of the closet.”

“Are we doing a backlist? Because this could take a while,” John said, running his fingers up my side. He cupped my left breast through my tee shirt and a wave of electricity
split
through me like lightning. “And I don’t have a while,” he said, beginning to methodically knead it.

My breath was coming out ragged and sharp. “John, please,” I said, and I forced his hand down to my lap. “What I have to tell you is relevant to now.”

He looked at me expectantly. “When I was younger, my mother was so sick...I was always taking care of her. I never had time to make my own friends. I never ... I never had a
boyfriend.
” I looked at him meaningfully; his face remained impassive. “After Ray, I just couldn’t let myself get close to anyone. I never wanted to. Until now.”

John was looking at me, smiling, with what appeared to be an extremely pleased look on his face.

“Well,
you
should know, that after Catherine’s mother and I parted ways, I never really had another girlfriend,” John said.

“For, like, twenty years?” I asked, incredulous. He was way too hot to have been alone for that long.

“Well, there were a few models in between,” he said, shrugging, “but no one special. Until now.”

He looked at me, beaming, but I just shook my head. “
Models?
Like, six-foot tall poreless freaks with immaculate hair?
For real?
I’m about to lose my virginity to you and you tell me the last people you slept with were a couple of
models?
” I stopped and clapped my hand over my mouth. I hadn’t meant to let my skeleton out quite like that.

John was shaking his head, laughing. “I can’t believe that you, who are so young and beautiful and completely perfect, could be upset about two models from a decade ago. Trust me, what I had with them was nothing,
nothing
compared to how I feel about you. In fact,” he said, wrapping his arms around me, and still beaming at me with what appeared to be perfect happiness, “I’ve never felt this way about
anyone
before. I’m happy every time I see you. All I do is think about you when you’re away from me.

“What is it,” he said taking my face in his hands, “about you that makes this so easy? Even though there’s trouble all around us,
I can’t wait to wake up every morning, to see your face.”

I felt like my heart was going to burst.
I felt exactly the same way. Was that possible? Was this for real?

“Did you catch the part where I said I was still a virgin?” I asked meekly, utterly humbled by what he’d just said.

“I’d guessed as much,” John said, kissing my face tenderly. “I’ll be very gentle.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE RIGHT PATH

Finally,
my inner voice was thinking. John was leading me back to my room.
Our room
. He’d slept with me every single perfect, glorious night since we’d been here. I squeezed his big, strong hand; he squeezed back and something deep inside me clenched. Delicious shivers of anticipation shot through me. He pushed me up against the wall outside the room and kissed me ferociously, pressing against me, hard, so that I could feel all of him, every throbbing inch.
Now,
I thought,
oh please, now.
I was shaking, I needed him so badly.

He pulled back and opened the door with my key. Then he came for me, picked me up and threw me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, bringing me into the room, slamming the door behind us. He grabbed my behind and squeezed it, sliding me down over his shoulder, slowly, so that I could feel every rigid muscle in his shoulders, chest and in his arms. Then he gently laid me on the bed. I was panting.
Please.

“John, please,” I said, begging him. He hovered over me, straddling me, pressing his hardness into that hot place between my legs that was pulsing, aching. He pressed himself into me there again and again, making me moan, making me writhe. Finally I sat up. I kissed him, hard, and let my tongue shoot into his mouth. It connected with his and I heard him moan in pleasure. His pleasure made me bold. Still kissing him, I got up onto my knees and took off my shirt and my bra, grabbing his hands and putting them on me. He moaned again, and then kissed me, fiercely. He began to stroke and rub my breasts. While he did that he rhythmically pressed up against me, making me crazy.
I needed him inside me
.

I pulled his tee shirt off over his head and looked at his glorious body; having no girlfriends to distract him and years of obsessively working out had been so, so good to him. I leaned down, my tongue tracing every crevice underneath his enormous pectoral muscles; he shivered in pleasure.

It was my turn. I grabbed his hands and pushed him down onto the bed. I pulled off his sweats, and then his underwear, and there he was, springing to full attention in his nakedness.
Finally.
He was intimidating, but absolutely glorious. I might not know exactly what to do but my biology, my instinct took over. My kisses trailed down from his chest to his lower abdomen; I was delighted that with every kiss and bite I placed on him, he shivered visibly.
Mine. He was mine.
I kissed lower, reaching his pubic hair, finally coming to the base of his shaft. I licked it. He threw back his head and cried out. Emboldened, I ran my tongue up the length of him, to the tip, where I noticed there was wetness. I licked it off. He cried out again, louder.
Mmmmm.
I liked how it felt, all of it, but especially the feeling that he was responding to me, that I was giving him pleasure, and it had so overtaken him that he was unselfconsciously moaning beneath me, just like I did for him.

I sat up on my knees and tentatively took him in my mouth. His hips flexed automatically in response, forcing himself a little deeper.
Mmmm.
I pulled my mouth back across his length, he cried out; I grabbed his hand and put it around my hair so he could hold it to the side, so it wouldn’t interfere.
I also wanted him to know it was okay to touch me, that I was okay
.
Then I took him in my mouth as far as I could, almost all the way down to the base of him; he moaned deeply and his body stiffened. I slowly released him, little by little, watching, fascinated, as the muscles in his chest and stomach rippled and clenched in response as I moved.

“Stop,” he whispered, and pulled me by my hair up to him at eye level. He kissed me, tenderly and needfully, as I tried not to feel crestfallen.
I probably wasn't doing that right,
based on my limited experience.

He pulled back and looked at my face and put his finger to my lips as if to shush me. “Stop,” he commanded, and now he was talking about something else. “That was completely fucking
amazing.
It felt
incredible.
But that’s not what we’re doing tonight.

“Now,” he said, “it’s
my
turn.”
As he laid me beneath him, he swiftly pulled off my pants and underwear. When we were finally both naked, he rested his hardness right in between my legs, right at the opening, with his tip just inside.

“
Mmmmm,”
I said, I moaned; now it was my turn to throw my head back. I grabbed his backside and tried to inch him inside of me.
Now,
I thought.

Finally
, my inner voice whispered, crossing her fingers, holding her breath in anticipation.

“Are you ready?” John asked, looking at me searchingly.

I nodded.

“I have to tell you something,” John said.

“No,” I moaned, grabbing his backside and trying to move him further up into me. “No more skeletons! I don’t care.”

He kissed me then, hard, and he moved up what felt like another inch. I arched my back.
Almost. Oh, my goodness, so close.

“Liberty, I love you,” John said and kissed me. “I just wanted you to know.” Then he flexed his hips and slid all the way into me.

“Ah!”
I cried, in astonishment, pain and in pleasure. It was too much all at once, but it was everything I wanted.
Oh my god, oh my god. I love you, too.
He moved inside me, gently, and then I grabbed his behind, forcing him into me deeper, harder. He kissed my neck as I started to buck against him, wild. He was going further, deeper into that place that had been aching for him for so long.
For forever.

All of a sudden, he pulled out.

“No!”
I cried, but he just laughed and put his finger to my lips.

“We need to use protection,” he said, and he quickly grabbed a foil wrapper from the floor, near his shorts.

I looked at his suspiciously. “Isn’t that going to...interfere?” I asked, as I watched him roll it onto himself.

“A little,” he said. “We’ll get you on the pill. Tomorrow,” he said, grunting, thrusting himself back into me.

I frowned. I didn’t like the condom; it didn’t feel the same.
But I bet it feels better than being a single, broke, pregnant 21-year old stripper,
my inner voice offered, and that gave me a fresh perspective. I leaned my head back and relaxed. John started kissing one of
my nipples, licking it, circling it, and then he clamped his teeth over it and sucked. A jolt of electricity shot through me and I bucked against him. He put himself fully into me and thrust, again and again, until I almost couldn’t take it anymore. But I didn’t want him to stop.

He grabbed my hands and held them up over my head while he continued sucking on my nipple and thrusting into me, filling me. “Ugh,” I heard myself grunt, and if I had been capable of it, I would have been embarrassed. Instead, I threw my head back and let him ride me. “Fuck me!” I heard myself cry, and John did. Harder and harder until I thought my insides would come out.

“JOHN!”
I heard myself scream, as he fucked me through my orgasm. My spasms shook the bed.

“I. Fucking. Love. You,”
John said and he came, his body becoming rigid and then wracking with spasms.

“I love you, too,” I whispered, out loud, cradling him to me when he’d finished, loving every cell of him, amazed at how far we’d travelled in such a short span of time.

* * *

I woke up the next morning with an enormous, ridiculous smile on my face. I stretched luxuriously, opening my eyes and seeing the sun stream through my window. I had never felt this happy and relaxed in my whole life. I heard John in the bathroom, singing and probably shaving, and I suddenly had an absurd vision of us ten years from now.
Me on our big, beautiful bed, with two little boys with tousled hair sprawled out and playing, and a baby girl kicking her chubby legs happily. John in the master bathroom, just a few feet away, singing in the shower. A wedding ring on my finger.

Tears sprang to my eyes.

I’d never given my future much thought; I was always just surviving the day, the week, the month. This image, of a beautiful, happy family, with John there … John, to love me and protect me forever ... me, safe, our children, safe ... with regular things, like a yard, a home, a swing set, barbecues, movie nights ... and no bed bugs ... it made me ache in a way I’d never felt before. It twisted my insides.

I was dizzy; sat up and put my head between my knees.
Liberty, you need to get a grip. Enjoy the happiness that you have right now; there is
no
chance of you having a future like that. Get it out of your mind, fast. Before you get even more hurt than you’re already gonna get.

I exhaled, sharply. It was true. I came from nothing — from less than nothing — and I had nothing to offer John. There was no reason for him to want me the same way that I wanted him. I had no family, no connections, no education, no sophistication. John had everything: money, looks, family, life experience, wisdom. I’d known from the start that he was out of my league. I just hadn’t realized until now, until I’d had the best night of my life, how fully I really wanted him.
Forever.

But I knew better. I didn't believe in fairytales; I never had.
This was just for now. Now was all I was ever going to get.

Now the tears slid down my face.

“Hello, darling,” John said, coming out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and a huge grin on his face. “How are you? Wait, why are you
crying
?” he asked, rushing over to kneel next to me.

“I’m just happy,” I sniffled, and I reached out to hug him.
I’m just happy, and I love you, but we’re from two different worlds. You’re broken, I’m damaged goods, and I don’t believe in happily ever afters.

“I’m happy, too,” he said, tenderly stroking my hair. “I’m just so glad that fate brought us together. I can’t imagine my world without you, now.” He tilted my chin upwards and kissed away my tears. “I love you very, very much.”

“I love you, too,” I whispered, and then I gave myself over to the wave of desire that washed over me.

* * *

Somehow I snapped myself out of my sad mood and pretended to be okay enough to get through the day. The morning sex definitely helped; but even while I was with John, having a mind-blowing physical experience, my lust was battling with my sense of impending doom.

The blues were soon the least of my worries. John, who all day seemed as ridiculously happy as I’d been when I woke up, still managed to wallop us with another extreme workout.

“Eight miles,” Matthew called out from behind me. “Woo hoo! One more to go!”

I only had the energy to limply raise my middle finger at him as I huffed along. He laughed, and then I even laughed a little.

I was sore.
Everywhere.
“You might bleed a little today,” John had said. Apparently he was some sort of expert.
Maybe some of the models were virgins,
I thought, huffily, but I was still glad I’d worn a pantyliner with my running shorts. I had other things to worry about, like running eight miles in the heat and humidity and a hideous core workout.
Better safe than sorry.

I really needed to take that advice to heart.

On top of everything else, I couldn’t get Darius out of my mind. His eyes had only ever looked at me with hate. I believed John and Matthew when they said that he was a bad guy, through and through. Still. He was being tortured somewhere nearby. At this point, he had to be helpless. He was completely at their mercy. Some part of me, the Good Samaritan part, the maternal part, felt like I should try to do something to help him. Find the right way to reason with John. I pushed this thought to the back of my mind and let it nag me from there.

I had other things to attend to. John had said we were going to have a group briefing this afternoon, and then start target practice. Both of these agenda items frightened me. John had assured me that the rest of the team didn’t need to know the specifics of my situation with Ray. We were just going to discuss his location, his habits, his friends and family. My confession was over; the information I provided could be useful, though, when we were trying to figure out his current location. Maybe he’d found another woman to take advantage of, to dope up and take over.
That’s probably exactly what he was doing.
The thought made my blood boil.

Then there was target practice. I’d never shot a gun. I’d never wanted to shoot a gun. I
didn’t
want to shoot a gun, but I would be doing it shortly. Good thing I was having such a hard time running that I couldn’t focus too much on all the other stuff going on in my head.