Free Liberty Begins (The Liberty Series) by Leigh James Page B

But I had to know.
     
    I slid off his lap and the warmth I had felt evaporated. I saw his face fall at my distance. He put his arms loosely around my waist and turned me towards him, so we were facing each other. Oh, I could kiss those lips now. Pink, full, slightly chapped. I felt like I was pulled to him without a choice, like I was a magnet and he was a suit of armor. Even though I was worried he was about to duct tape me, I wanted him.
     
    “Who hired you to take me?” I whispered.
     
    “I can’t tell you,” he said, and brushed the curls out of my eyes. “It’s confidential, for now. But you do need to know something: there is an asset in your case, but it isn’t you. I need your help. We’re going to work on this together.”
     
    I looked at him doubtfully. He either had the wrong stripper or maybe he was lying. This didn’t make sense. I had a limited skill set, and I couldn’t picture myself being any help to John. I certainly didn’t know anyone who had enough money to hire a crew of suited-up vigilantes.
     
    “Who is the asset?” I asked, skeptically. If I racked my brain, I could certainly think of some people I’d known who’d broken the law and gotten away with it. And one person in particular who had done very bad things, who had a black soul. But no one cared about Ray. Not the police, not my landlord, not even my mother, eventually, even though a lot of what he did wrong involved her directly.
     
    “I think maybe you grabbed the wrong girl,” I said. He must have. Surely one of the other girls had rich relatives and an exciting, dark past.
     
    “I know I have the right girl,” he said, and stroked my hair. He pulled me back onto his lap and I felt flooded with warmth again, with relief.
     
    “How do you know?” I whispered into his neck. I let myself sit there, mesmerized by his proximity and his scent. I let myself relax and feel safe. This was uncharted territory for me, all of it. I knew I was way out of my league, and that I would pay for it later, but I couldn’t stop myself.
     
    “Because,” he said, and his voice was firm.
     
    “Because? You’re gonna have to do better than that, John,” I said, letting him cradle me in spite of myself.
     
    “Because I told you...everything happens for a reason, and I finally have mine,” he said, and bent down to whisper into my ear. “You are my reason, Liberty.”
     
    I looked up at him with wide eyes. “Your reason for what?” I asked. I could barely hear myself above the thudding of my heart.
     
    “For all of it,” John said, and kissed the side of my face. “For the long road that brought me here.”
     
    My heart twisted, like he was squeezing it, and I felt a ringing in my ears. I had to make a choice. He could be feeling what I’m feeling — this crazy attraction, this crazy pull.
     
    I could believe what he was saying to me, believe what I was feeling, and take a leap of faith. He was right here in front of me. The rest of it, the desert, the club, my memories of the past ... they were with me, they always would be. But what if John was for real?
     
    The odds were stacked against it. If I had learned anything, it was that you should never lose control. We saw it in Vegas all the time: even if you’ve won something more than what you had, you could lose that — and more — in an instant. The regret was so much more miserable then. Even though you were losing something that wasn’t really yours, it had the illusion of belonging to you, briefly. So not only were you losing the thing itself, you were losing the possibility of it, the hope of it. It would be worse for me to think that I had something with John and then lose it. As it was I had nothing, so I had nothing to lose.
     
    He was asking me to take a chance. My heart, which had been so bruised and silent in my chest for so long, ached for me to take it. I didn’t know who, or what, to trust.
     
    I closed my eyes and pulled him to me.

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