*Liam*FEW HOURS AGO “What do you mean Vivienne went missing?” I thundered as I stormed into the underground room. Julian stood to his feet on sighting me and dug his fingers into his hair, a deep sigh escaping his lips. “The GPS tracker and her phone simultaneously went off at the same time,” he explained. “And we are unable to get a hold on Eric too.”I walked past him and looked at the screens. “Where was their last location?” I asked him.“An alley located in a street downtown,” he answered.An alley?I braced my hands on the table, my fingers bunching into fists. Who could have taken her and why? My mind raced with different possible people that could have done this. Oliver? His question about Vivienne crossed my mind and I shot up straight, my brows furrowing. “Can I see the route that Oliver took before coming over to the charity run?” I asked, turning to Julian. He nodded and swung into action, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he pulled up a special mapping app.
*Vivienne*He is angry with me. He looks like he is angry with me. Pressing my lips into a thin line, I sneaked a quick glance at him seated across from me, his gaze focused outside the car window. My eyes fell to the hard set of his jaw and yup… looks quite angry if you ask me. I adjusted in my seat and cleared my throat. “Have you heard anything from the hospital that Eric and his sister were taken to?” I started, trying everything to get rid of the awkward air between us. His head swiveled in my direction, his eyes locking with mine. “Yes, they underwent surgery an hour ago,” he answered and returned his gaze back to the window. “I will pay for the surgery,” I offered with a sense of guilt. “You don't have to,” he retorted, his tone clipped. “The bill has already been paid for.”I clamped my mouth shut, my teeth digging into my lower lip. “I just wanted to pay for the damages that I have caused,” I mumbled to myself, my fingers tightly knotted together. I don't think I have
*Vivienne*He went completely rigid when I kissed him and alarm bells went off in my head. God damnit, Vivi! What was I thinking?With embarrassment consuming my inner self, I pulled away and firmly pressed my lips together. “I'm so sorry about that,” I apologized. “I just wanted to…”The words were snatched out of my mouth when Liam just cradled my face and pulled me back into the kiss. This time around, I moaned without restraint as he molded his soft mouth to mine, exploring the sensual contours of my lips. He snaked his hand around my waist and used it to pull me onto his lap. I leaned into him, my arms sliding up his chest to wrap around his neck as I gently rocked my hips against his pelvis. Liam groaned deep in his throat and slowly sank his fingers into the thick mass of my hair while his other free hand found its way to my throat. He opened his mouth over mine, urging my lips to part and the moment they did, he plunged his tongue inside my mouth. A broken moan escaped my
*Vivienne*As I slowly surfaced from the depths of sleep, the soft rustling of fabric was what gradually pulled me from my dreams. My senses stirred, and I blinked against the gentle morning light flooding the room.A small smile pulled at my lips as delicious memories from last night drifted lazily through my mind. I recalled waiting for Liam but later ended up falling asleep before he could get back. He must have carried me to his room because I was currently lying in his bed. I turned to his side of the bed and then frowned when I noticed it was empty. I reached out and touched his pillow which was now cold. He must have either gone out early or he didn't sleep here at all. I sighed and sat up, the blanket slowly slid down to my exposed cleavage which only made me aware that I was still naked. “Good morning,” an unfamiliar voice said. I yelped and jolted upright, my heart racing. My eyes widened as they landed on an older woman moving about the room. Her silver hair was neatly
*Vivienne*My heart is racing, each thud reverberating in my chest, drowning out the ambient sounds of the medical machines and the soft murmur of conversations playing out around me. It has been a long time since I last heard from this stalker. It had been almost as if he had forgotten about me. But I guess not. He was there at the guesthouse. He had seen me. Just then, an insistent vibration in my pocket jolted me back to the present. I took out my phone and stared at the anonymous number flashing on my screen. My breath quickened, shallow and rapid, as if the very act of inhaling could pull me deeper into this nightmare. I blinked repeatedly as I tried to focus on the faces around me, but their expressions kept blurring into a wash of confusion and concern. I felt detached, as if I was watching from a distance, a ghost in my own life.A hand touched my shoulder and I jumped, a small squeak escaping my lips. Nick flinched away from me and threw his hands up in the air. “Hey, i
*Liam*“What's the occasion, you seem happy today,” Ryder started.My head swiveled towards him, my upper lip curled up in blatant astonishment. “What do you mean today? I've always been happy.”Ryder gazed at me and shook his head. “No, something feels different about you. You have this air around you that says something good happened.”Hiding a smile, I stuck my hands into my pocket and just shrugged. “I don't understand what you are trying to say, Ryder.”From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed him narrowing his eyes at me. “Something sure does feel different, I just know it,” he affirmed firmly, his voice filled with suspicion. I looked down at the floor of the elevator and smirked. Of course, I feel different. Last night had been a deal breaker for me and Vivienne, it was just like we had taken another step forward in our relationship. A positive one. I brushed a thumb across my lower lip, reminiscing about the way she tasted in my mouth. Her scent, her taste…everything was lite
*Liam*“I killed her… just like I killed the others,” she uttered. I went closer to her, my heart sinking at her words. “No, Angel eyes, it’s not your fault,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, but the words seemed to dissolve in the air. She shook her head, her breath hitching as fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. “No, Liam. I did kill them,” she choked out tearfully. “I should have been there for them. I— I could have done something.”My heart ached for her. I knelt in front of her, my hands trembling as I reached out to touch her shoulder. “Angel eyes—”She jerked away from me and stood up. “You don't get it, Liam!” she yelled, more tears streaming down her face. “I, Vivienne Reynolds, killed my family because I wasn't even there when they needed me the most!” she added, hitting her chest with so much vigor.“My father? He committed suicide because he couldn't bear the social backlash from the scandal that I caused. My younger brother was bullied in school because of me
*Vivienne*Four days had passed since the death of my mother but everything still felt like a dream. Time and time again, I would constantly murmur to myself that it was just a bad dream. One that would go away if I would just wake up. But when I eventually wake up the next morning, the reality of everything that has happened dawns on me. I was now all alone in this world. I remembered crying so hard the night that Liam found me in my apartment but after that night, I seemed to have locked up my feelings. I went numb.I didn't want to feel anything. I was numb even when my mother's corpse was later found among the debris from the fire. And when I had gone to see the body in order to identify it, I was unable to form any word or reaction. It was as if everything inside me had dried up. I just stood there, the sight of her mutilated form etching itself into my mind, a haunting contrast to the beautiful, cheerful woman I had always known even when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer
*Vivienne*“No,” he said, cutting me off. “You are actually the first woman I'm doing this for.”I felt a squeeze in my heart at his words and I slowly threw my head to the side, unable to look him in the eye. The cleaning movement at my lower body subsided and then stopped altogether. I felt him reaching for my face even before his cold hands grasped my chin and turned my head back to him. “Why? You don't believe me?” he asked softly as stared into my eyes. Fuck! Those eyes look like they are piercing into my soul. I quickly ran my tongue over my dry lips. “No, I—” I paused and counted to five in my head. “No, I do believe you,” I added. Liam's gaze remained rooted on my face and then he chuckled. “You are really a bad liar, Angel eyes,” he said, his voice light with humor. He brushed his thumb across my left eyebrow. “Your left eye twitches like crazy whenever you're lying. I've told you before, right?”How did he even manage to pick up on that?Embarrassed at being caught at m
*Vivienne*Remember when I said we were far from being done tonight? Yup… turns out I couldn't have been more right. Cause tell me why almost an hour later, we are still going at it like some dog in heat. And hey, it's not that I'm complaining or anything but if this man doesn't stop pounding my pussy any minute from now, I might actually pass out from excessive stimulation and pleasure. It was as if he was determined to make sure that I indeed pass out. “F—fuck, Liam,” I moaned as I felt his cock leaving my pussy. The bedsheets were clenched tightly in my hands, my teeth digging into my lower lip and almost drawing blood. I could feel him everywhere— my breasts, stomach, between my thighs and deep in my pussy. His taste was in my mouth. His scent was in my nostrils. His breathing, as rough and ragged as mine, resonated in my ears. I was so intimately aware of him. He thrusts back into my pussy at his languid pace and I could feel myself combusting at his fingertips. The smell
*Vivienne*Everything had happened at the speed of light that it almost gave me whiplash. From trying to push Liam away, to bickering away like some lovers and then it somehow wants to end with me naked and writhing underneath him. Everything had been going so well, Liam sure does know his way around a woman's body. He knows exactly what to do or touch to make you come undone. At least that was until he brushed his fingers across my scar and I had tensed. It's actually kind of crazy how I had almost forgotten that it was there in the first place. “Just pretend it's not there,” I blurted out, feeling desperate to take his attention away from there. I knew that Liam had seen me undressed before and he had also seen the ugly looking scar but it still doesn't erase the fact that I was afraid that he might find it upsetting or off-putting.The scar wasn't exactly what you would call a neat work. Back then, I was too busy trying to cut down on money that the hospital meant nothing to m
*Liam*Wanting to take my time and savor her this time, I molded my mouth to hers, exploring the soft, sensual curves of her lips. She trembled beneath me in response. Scooping an arm around her waist, I drew her even more closer and relished the melting warmth that rushed between us. I groaned deeply in my throat, my hand sliding up the side of her face before it latched onto her throat while my other other hand found its way to her lush butt. I grabbed a cheek, my fingertips digging into the lush softness. God, this ass was going to be my weakness. It was shapely and was just enough for me to dig my fingers into… just the way I like 'em.She let out a low moan of pleasure as I parted her lips with my tongue and delved inside, ravishing her mouth and staking my claim. Passion and need fused as one and created a sharp, splintering ache in his loins, making my cock harden. I traced my tongue over her lips and licked the inner seam, she shivered, mindlessly rocking her hips against
*Liam*“Do you want me to? Do you really want me to leave you alone, Angel eyes?” I asked her, my eyes darting across her face in search of the answer. Vivienne stared at me, a certain look of sadness creeping into her eyes before it disappeared. She averted her eyes and quickly stood up making me take a step back. “Yes,” she muttered. My fists clenched by my sides. “Look at me in the eyes and say it, Angel eyes,” I demanded as I breached the gap between us, getting into her personal space. I was done having her push me away for no reason. As I stared down at her, I could see her pulse beating wildly in the small hollow of her neck but yet she refused looking at me. In desperation, I grabbed her arm and drew her even closer to my body. “Answer me, Angel eyes.”She twisted her arm in my hold. “Get your hands off me, Liam,” she muttered. I tightened them instead. “Answer me, Angel eyes,” I said. Huffing out one deep breath, she finally yanked out her arm and fell a step back. She
*Liam*“Yoo, Pryce! Where the fuck are you?” Ryder's voice thundered, the car speakers resounding with his voice. “I told you where I was going, didn't I?” I answered with my eyes fixed on the road before me. I then pressed a button on the steering wheel to reduce the volume of the speakers. “No! I don't actually mean where,” he said, backtracking a little bit. “Why the fuck did you take the car without the driver?”With a small turn of my wrists on the steering wheel, I navigated a curve and turned onto the highway. “He was wasting my time, man,” I muttered. There was a brief moment of silence where Ryder breathed in deeply and that was when I knew that his tolerance range for me today was perhaps not that high. “But. That. Doesn't. Mean. You. Had. Drive. By. Yourself,” he gritted out, punctuating each word. I lifted my shoulders in a slight shrug even though he couldn't see me. “I think I can manage driving to the hotel without fainting.”“And that's the fucking point!” he expl
*Liam*I am standing in front of the windows in my office, overlooking the city below. It has been three days since I returned to Los Angeles and a week since I had seen her. My heart began to ache again as it has always done for the past few days whenever I think of her. Sighing deeply, I rubbed a hand over the spot but it continued to throb even more persistently.It almost felt like we have been separated for a lifetime and not just some few days. Each breath I took was laced with the memory of her laughter— the ones I'd shared with her. More than once in a day, I would recall the way her eyes genuinely sparked when she was happy, or the way the tip of her nose wrinkled when she was honestly annoyed with me or even how her left eye twitches whenever she was lying. It even reached a point where every corner of the house held fragments of her presence so much that I had to relocate to another room.And just when I thought it wouldn't get any worse, she proceeded to hunt me in my
*Vivienne*My heart plummeted. The world around me faded into a blur; the lazy conversation of both my employees and the customers , the distant hum of traffic down the street—all drowned out by the pounding of my pulse in my ears.“No… no, do…don't tell me,” I stammered, my voice trembling. “Oh yes, I did,” he replied, the glee in his tone sending chills down my spine. “It wasn't an easy feat by the way, I had to spend tons of hours drafting my plan. But then, after that, everything else was just easy peasy.”A wave of nausea washed over me, making me feel light headed. I felt myself going weak at the knees which then prompted me to lean against the table, my hands found its way up my neck as it closed up making it hard for me to breath. “Should I tell you what happened?” he continued, his voice thick and low with amusement. “Of course I should, it's your mother we are talking about here.”He was enjoying this. That sick bastard was enjoying this.“Like I said earlier, it wasn't a
*Vivienne*My brows met together in a deep frown. “What?”Mrs. Pryce glanced at me. “He didn't tell you, did he?” he whispered in a small voice. “Typical.”What the hell was this woman saying?Clause?Relationship?I shook my head. “No, I mean, why are you so sure that Liam and I are in a relationship?”Sure, we have indulged in a hardcore foreplay and make out session but that doesn't mean we were in a relationship… right?Mrs. Pryce glanced at me, amusement glinting in her eyes. “You are so naive, Ms. Reynolds, and it's not even a cute look on you,” she said. “Relationships don't usually entail that you have to put a label on whatever you guys are doing. The tabloids and newspapers are living proof that you guys are living together and possibly fucking each other's brains out. That's the only conviction that the board of directors and shareholders would see and hold.”I frowned, my mind snagging on one thing she's said. “Tabloids and newspapers? I don't remember any articles—”“That