The Glass Man Read online

  After opening up two doors in the yellow hallway—one room sat empty, and the other was a linen closet—I found Liam’s room at the end.

  Small room for a big guy, he’d painted the peaked ceiling blue. The sparse decor included a double bed under the sole window, a night stand and two dressers. An old rumpled quilt lay half on and half off the mattress, and one corner of the white fitted sheet had sprung up. Neat and tidy on the outside, messy on the inside. That described me most of the time.

  The glossy white dresser on the right side of the bed had a jewelry box and a few packages of panty hose on top—must have belonged to the hair dresser.The peeling blue one on the far side held an armload of guy’s underwear.

  I went to the white one and pulled the top drawer open. The left side of the drawer held more lace than I’d ever seen. On the right, a fold of pink tissue covered a bundle of bras and panties—still sporting a little lace but not a frightening amount—with the tags still on. Perfect. After ripping the tag off a black pair, I slipped them on and added a blue one to my pack.

  Before I shut the drawer, I hesitated, grabbed a red pair with a matching bra and stuffed them in too. I found two pairs of jeans in the next drawer down and a few t-shirts in the bottom.

  The closet door sat halfway open, revealing mostly women’s clothes inside. Hanger after hanger of dresses hung in a row. Everything from little black ones, to sun dresses, to beach cover-ups. A bunch of sweaters were piled on the top shelf. I grabbed a black hoody and a red cable-knit and stuffed them in my pack.

  The floor squeaked behind me.

  “Take anything you like.” Liam said. “I’m sure one of them dresses would look real pretty on you.”

  I cinched the towel around me, eyes cast to the floor. “I—I’m sorry. It’s just—winter’s coming. I wasn’t thinking.” I paused, remembering he probably had questions. “You don’t need to be afraid of me.”

  Liam held up his hand as he walked farther into the room. “I don’t know how you did what you did, but I’m not afraid of you. And you have nothing to be sorry for. I’d give you more if you’d take it.”

  “So you saw? I kind of hoped you were out the whole time.”

  He looked away. “I saw how you put it to Clancy the way you did, and I know you healed me.”

  My chest seized, and my stomach filled with bees. I nodded. “He’s tied up in the shed now, so you can do whatever you want with him. I’ll get changed, and I’ll leave.” I started past him, but he moved to block the door.

  “No! I mean, I don’t mean to shout, it’s just—”

  “I would never hurt you.” I stared into his bare chest, still beaded with water where he’d cleaned himself up. Nothing could have made me raise my eyes. “I don’t hurt anyone unless they leave me no choice.”

  “I know.”

  I didn’t believe him. How could he not be afraid of me? Doesn’t matter. “Where are the rest of the guys? Why didn’t they come to help you?”

  “I told ’em if they ever heard shots to run into the woods. Never know when one of them gangs of raiders’ll show up. I’m sure the boys’ll be back by nightfall.” He raised his hand to my face and hesitated for a moment before his fingertips slid along my jaw and into my hair. “Stay here with me.”

  “I need to go.” I struggled to free myself from him, but I couldn’t find the strength to get it done. He tipped my face up to his, and the world narrowed down to those intense brown eyes and the electricity flowing between us.

  “Why is my heart beating so fast?” My breaths stumbled in and out faster.

  “I don’t know.”

  Liam put his hand flat on my chest above my breast, took my hand and put it on his bare chest. His heart throbbed faster than it should, but nothing like mine. As we stared at one another, the rhythms synchronized until they beat in unison. The air pulsed around us, and the trees outside the window hissed, speaking to one another in their wooden song.

  “What’s happening?” I raised my other hand to trace the muscular ridges of his arm. Why do I want to touch him so badly?

  Liam put fingers over my mouth and pressed his lips to my cheek in a chaste kiss. “Stay with me tonight.” He took his fingers away and kissed me, lightly at first. Breathless, he crushed his mouth against mine, slipping his tongue between my lips. I stiffened for a moment before some instinct, long dormant in me, awakened and took over. Primal sounds came from us as we ate at each other’s mouth, hands exploring. Everywhere he touched seemed to be connected to a throbbing nerve that led to lower places.

  Liam came up for air, chuckling. My legs wobbled beneath me. The sky outside rolled with clouds, and the wind pushed against the window.

  “I need to go.” I edged closer to him.

  “Why?”

  I thought long and hard. “I don’t remember. Something bad. Something bad is coming.” I should have been gone already, not sucking face with a stranger. So why couldn’t I go? Why did I linger, waiting for him to cure my ache?

  “No.” He laid kisses along my jaw. “Let me keep you safe tonight.”

  “But—”

  He kissed me again.

  I closed my eyes, gave myself over to the urgency in my body. The ache for him became unbearable.

  When I opened my eyes again, the towel lay on the floor at my feet. I stood in nothing but the black underwear. He sat on the bed in front of me, his eyes rolled up to me—hungry, dark, predatory.

  I shivered under his touch as he kissed the underside of my wrist, savoring the pulsing current flowing through me.

  “I can’t get close enough to you.” His voice was thick with need.

  I pulled my hand away from him and backed up until I bumped into the door. A desire so thick I couldn’t think past it flooded my body. “I’m confused, I—”

  Vibrations sang through the floor as if the whole world moved to watch us, anticipation trembling their feet.

  He stood from the bed, his hands shaking, fear shining in his eyes. “I know this shouldn’t be happening, and I shouldn’t do this, but …” Humming filled the room as he reached for me, voices speaking a language I didn’t understand. A harmony resonated through my soul. “So much trouble.” He pulled me back to the bed. “But the pull—the need—feel high …” He breathed me in, shook his head. “Can’t fight it.”

  The room filled with light when he kissed me and pressed his bare chest against my breasts. Our hearts still beat in perfect unison. Heat traveled over my skin and sank deeper, took the tremors from the house and the resonance from the voices and poured them into my body.

  I cried out when Liam tore my lace panties off and looked down at me like a king before a feast. We fell back on the bed, breathing hard and fast. His hands slid along my legs, over my hips, up my waist. Everywhere he touched tingled, and the little hairs on my body rose to meet him.

  When his mouth found my breast, I writhed beneath him, moaning. He took turns playing his tongue over each nipple, biting playfully and sucking before returning to my mouth, searching deep. My hands explored the landscape of his back, bringing excited sounds from him. Delicious, throbbing fire raged through my flesh.

  “Please,” I whispered, giving in to the need and the giddy intoxication in my head. “Please, please, please.”

  “Yes. She wants us to. She’s given her blessing.”

  Blessing? Why do we need someone’s blessing? My body froze, but his languid touches removed the thought from my mind.

  I wanted to drink in the tight lines of his body and the wilderness in his eyes, to rub myself all over him, and to explore every inch of his tender lips. Something close to desperation gripped me as if I’d burst if he didn’t shut up and give me what I wanted.

  He scrambled off the bed, shimmied out of his shorts, picked me up at the waist and shoved me farther up on the pillows. He hooked his hands under my knees and lowered himself down on me again. His fingers found me first, playing just out of reach. He kissed me while I squirmed and moved against hi
m, slick and swollen against his touch. When he had mercy on me and slid over the right spot, I cried out, my back bowing.

  “No teasing,” I said. The air pulsed and pressed against us, drawing us closer together, urging us to finish. The wind, the hissing of the trees, and the voices penetrated my body as if I’d come apart, burst into nothing but glowing energy—a sun gone nova.

  Liam ate my scream with a kiss as he pushed his way into me. A sensory overload of pleasure settled upon me.

  “So eager.” He guided our rhythm. I moved with him in perfect synch with his body.

  The intensity in his eyes made me close mine, but he shouted, “No! Don’t look away. Don’t hide from me. Not now.”

  I opened them again and fell into his dark brown seas while he coaxed pleasure into every part of me. Within seconds, the pressure in my abdomen built to something that would soon burst free of my skin.

  All sounds came in crisp and clear. The beating of Liam’s heart. The sound of his labored breathing. The energy flowing through our bodies with the crackling of static electricity. The room brightened. Lines of brilliant indigo light rose up along our skin in a network of veins. I had only a moment of fear before I went over the edge. I screamed my release as the world disappeared in golden streamers of light, and wave after wave of unimaginable pleasure smashed into me.

  Something opened between us. Sweet freedom. My spirit burst out of me and permeated Liam, stretched into him like an animal that had been kept in too small a cage and had found somewhere to run.

  A moment later, Liam’s rhythm faltered, and he collapsed down on me, crying out with his lips pressed against my shoulder. Light exploded into the room with the intensity of a thousand suns as he spilled himself inside me, both seed and spirit.

  I covered my eyes and fell.

  8

  “Where am I?” I blinked awake.

  Two small blue lamps pitched wedges of light up to the ceiling in the otherwise dark room. I rolled over and found Liam sitting on the edge of the bed facing the door with his elbows on his knees. He wore dark dress pants and a light blue collared shirt. Without turning, he held out a sports drink. His stash of groceries in the basement must have been bigger than he’d let on. I grabbed it and gulped it down.

  Memories of his touch flooded my thoughts. An echo of pleasure drew a sigh to my lips. I sat up. “Why are you wearing that?” My brow crinkled up as I thought of the light and voices. Did I imagine that? A dream, maybe?

  “You need to get dressed.” He stared at the door, his posture rigid. “There isn’t much time.”

  A black sickness filled my stomach. I bolted out of bed, dragging the quilt with me. “What’s going on? Where are my clothes?” I looked out the window. Darkness had fallen. Alarms went off in my head. “What time is it?”

  “You’ve been asleep for a day and a half.” He pointed to the white dresser. “Your clothes are there.”

  Liam stood and went to the door.

  “Wait—what happened to your accent?” It came out as a whisper.

  He didn’t answer.

  The room swayed as the realization hit home. “You tell me what’s going on, Liam Conner, or I swear I will bring this house down around you!”

  “No you won’t … Lila.”

  I gasped. He knew it all along.

  Liam turned to look at me with eyes like mine—sapphire blue, with yellow swirling around the pupil. “I’ve blocked your energy. Now put on the dress, or I’ll put it on you.”

  “No!” I stumbled back until I slammed into the wall. “The whole time—you’ve been trying to keep me here.” I turned and kicked the wall so hard the drywall crumpled. Pain surged through my bare foot. How could I have been so stupid? So many signs. The energy. His ability to sneak up on me so easily. The creeps in the shed. They had to be in on it, too. I overlooked it all, but why? I don’t have time for this!

  I closed my eyes and searched for that well of energy I’d found not long after I hit puberty. It was there, but an invisible barrier kept me from reaching it. The more I pushed against it, the more resistance I met, like leaning against a coiled spring.

  “What did you do to me?” I searched the room for another way out but only found the window. I didn’t have time to heal a broken leg from a two-story drop. “Tell me you aren’t working for the Glass Man.”

  Liam closed his eyes, and a veil lifted between my mind and the earth. Sound and sensation overwhelmed my senses, staggering me. The crickets screamed in the distance, and wolves howled outside the window. My body seized up when the Glass Man’s presence squeezed my mind, covered my thoughts in shadow.

  “I’m sorry,” Liam said.

  Numbness swept through me. I scrambled across the bed to the dresser and yanked a few drawers open but found them all empty. The closet too. I pulled on the racy red panties and a matching bra he’d laid out, then pulled the low cut blue dress over my head. When I bent forward, I noticed my hair had gone back to blonde. Without my energy, I couldn’t change my appearance.

  With my fists curled, I stopped in front of Liam, panting through the rage. “You lousy, lying shit! God! Who are you?”

  “I had no choice.” He wouldn’t look at me.

  “There’s always a choice.”

  “You can’t tell him what we did, or about the voices and the light. If you do—he’ll kill us all tonight.”

  So that did happen. “What did we do? I felt your mind from the inside.”

  He shook his head, grimacing as if he’d swallowed something sharp.

  “And that whole charade with Clancy in the shed, and then outside. You let him shoot you on purpose?”

  “I wanted you to feel safe so we wouldn’t have to hurt you. My master told me what you’re like. That’s why Garret’s here, because I knew you’d want to protect him. If the men were afraid of you …” He turned away. “And yeah, I just let him shoot me.”

  “How did you know I could heal?” I grabbed the light from the night stand and hurled it into the wall beside his head. He ducked as it shattered and fell in a jagged mess around him. “I should have let you die.”

  “We were supposed to find out how powerful you were. I could have healed it anyway. The bullets were gold.”

  What do gold bullets have to do with anything? “What are you? What does the Glass Man want with me?”

  “Don’t you understand?” Liam threw a fist into the doorframe, splintering the wood. Blood trickled down his knuckles. “I don’t know what he wants. Even if I did, I couldn’t tell you. If I tell you anything … he’ll kill them.” His face twisted with anger, or maybe grief—I didn’t look closely enough to find out.

  “No, it’s you who doesn’t understand. Whoever they are, he’ll kill them anyway because that’s what he does. He’ll kill them, and he’ll dance in their blood just to see the look on your face.”

  His eyes grew wide.

  “Reality’s a bitch. Get used to it.” I bolted past him and took the stairs three at a time in my bare feet. No footsteps followed behind me. If Liam wasn’t following me—shit. The Glass Man must have been closer than I thought. My heart pounded, and the colors in the stairway grew pale. I’d been so careful, and in one moment, a single good looking man undid everything I’d accomplished over the years. On top of it all, I’d lost the music box.

  I would not let him win. I was the last of the Grays, the last of my family, and I would not let that bastard get what he wanted.

  When I arrived in the kitchen, I slid to a stop. Four men lined up in front of the door, hands clasped in front, shiny shoe-clad feet in wide stances. They wore identical black suits and white button-down shirts.

  “Good evening,” pudgy faced Clancy said with a smile. Instead of his poof of curly hair, it fell straight in a blunt cut around his shoulders. Deep ocean blue replaced the mousy brown. “Lovely evening, don’t you think?”

  “Fucking bastards.” I shook my head, my energy swelling beneath the barrier. “You’re really good; I’ll
give you that. Especially you, Clancy, if that’s even your name. What kind of psycho piece of work are you?”

  The other three looked to Sebastian. He roared with laughter and the rest followed, all but Garret who frowned at the floor. The boy gathered his arms close to his chest. If he made himself any smaller, he’d disappear from sight. I’d found the leader of the goon squad. I’d also found the chink in the armor. Maybe if I could turn them against one another, it would give me a window to get out.

  “Get out of my way, Sebastian.” I scanned the room for my pack and black sneakers but found neither. Great. I found a few other objects that might be of some use. I edged toward the nearest kitchen chair.

  “Or what?” Sebastian fingered a silver handgun in a shoulder holster under his jacket. “You’ll talk us to death? Without your power, you’re just a harmless princess.” Long hair replaced his brush cut, and instead of grey, it was the red of fresh blood. All the wrinkles on his face had smoothed into younger skin.

  Rourke and Clancy shared an amused look.

  “Garret doesn’t seem too happy about what’s going on here,” I said.

  The other three stared at the young blond, who hunched further in on himself.

  “Was anything you said true?” I asked the kid. “All that talk about losing your mother, was that just another load of horse shit?”

  Garret stood a little straighter and opened his mouth.

  “Shut your goddamn hole,” Sebastian snapped.

  “What’s the matter Sebastian?” I put out my best mocking sneer. “Afraid he’s going to spoil the Glass Man’s little surprise party?” I looked at Garret, prancing where he stood, his eyes wide. “After all, he is just a kid. He probably doesn’t know any better.”

  “It wasn’t horse shit!” Garret blurted.

  Sebastian back-handed him across the face while the other two snickered. Garret stumbled, but he didn’t go down. My respect for him grew a little. “Get outside before I give you a few extra holes to breathe out of.”

  Garret turned his eyes up to Sebastian like a dog expecting to be beaten for peeing on the carpet. Sebastian yanked the door open and pushed the younger man through.