DISCLAIMER:I do not own iZombie
Liv pulled her knees up, tucking her pale, elfin chin between them. Outside of those doors Seattle was changing, becoming the Zombie Homeland of the world, and Liv was going to sit here, in the morgue, on the metal gurney she most favored, until the madness passed.
Her cerulean eyes trailed around the room, briefly settling on the metal tools she knew as well as forks and knives, the wall of drawers and the various occupants within, and the door to the office, where half of a hibachi grilled sous chef brain waited for her.
Her life had shifted drastically once before, she told herself, and she handled that better than she could ever have imagined. Going from an engaged woman with an internship and a straight line into Cardiology to a brain-eating monster who worked in a morgue and helped solve murder cases? Who could have predicted that little shift?
Certainly not Olivia Moore.
She lowered her head, that pointed chin sinking further down, her forehead resting on her kneecaps. A particularly loud smatter of gunfire hammered into the back door, and she clenched her eyes shut.
The world wasn't safe for anyone anymore, not Zombies, even ones who acquired their brains through peaceful methods. Not for Humans, at least by their estimation.
Fillmore-Graves, the Zombie-run corporation with their own private military and contracts around the world, was running the show now, and had been for two days. They patrolled the streets, trying to keep hostile Humans and Zombies alike from causing too much trouble. Still, there were losses on both sides. It wasn't easy for anyone out there.
Promotional videos with popular Human television and film stars had already begun flooding airwaves, asking people to donate their organs—especially their delicious brains!—to the cause. Peace would be tenuous for a while, but it seemed to Liv that just maybe peace could be maintained. If it was ever really established, she amended.
There was hope for a brighter future, she tried to convince herself. After all, Peyton was working at the side of the city's first Mayor Zombie, his Human cabinet advisor. Token Human, you know the stereotype. Liv snorted out a strangled giggle.
It seemed that the chef had a taste for irony, and it affected Liv right now like a drug impairing rational Liv-pattern thoughts. There was also the petulant urge to challenge things, the desire to blame people for the situation at hand. That was easier to resist, maybe because she had already run through the very long list of people who were responsible for this scenario.
Carey Gold for forcing Discovery Day by unleashing a deadly virus on the Human population of Seattle, making flu vaccinations mandatory, and then instructing her Zombie insurgents to contaminate the vaccine with their own blood.
The Fillmore-Graves company for their escalation of events by setting up the promo advertisement telling anyone with a television that not only were Zombies real, but they were all going to just hang out in Seattle. Until they didn't get enough brain donations, that is. Everyone around the world would remember where they were when they found out Zombies were real, that was for certain.
The creators of Max Rager, though death by massive Zombie stampede and killing spree had already visited karma on all of them.
Creators and dealers of Utopium, the drug that had started all of this in the first place? Was that too far to stretch the blame? Liv didn't think so. Or at least Marsha Holden, the brain of the young chef who was probably murdered by her sister-in-law, didn't think so.
The back door slammed open, then shut again, and Liv's head darted up to see who had come in. They had gotten a code box for that door recently, but there were still plenty of people who knew what it was. Another staccato beat of gunfire was heard from that selfsame region, and a muffled 'boom!' before there was quiet again. With his back resting along the sterile white wall, Blaine smiled that crooked half-grin he probably thought was attractive.
He scanned the room as he always did, as she always did. It was a habit formed by people who often needed to know who was in the room, and where all of the exits were located. Even though this particular intruder had been in this room a hundred times.
There was a pallor to his fair skin that had been missing for weeks, and Liv raised a blonde eyebrow in interest before she could stifle it. Someone had rejoined the undead, it seemed, even after he had been cured completely only weeks before. Selfish asshole, tossing away the Humanity Liv had been waiting so long for.
He cleared his throat, tugging unnecessarily at the collar of his slate grey sweater, something designer and stupidly overpriced for what it was. His white-blonde hair was tousled deliberately, gelled lightly to hold the unkempt image. She doubted anything Blaine did was genuine, especially not after everything that had happened recently with Peyton.
Lying about being Human and maintaining a platonic relationship? Liv knew all about that. But being Human and lying about permanent amnesia to escape a life of lying and murdering and drugs and probably worse? Well that seemed a stretch somehow.
This brain was judgmental, but Liv was feeling accommodating when it came to Blaine-bashing. She had watched him sleaze all over her apartment recently, after all, arms around Peyton, pretending to be something a little less evil than he really was.
"What are you doing here, Blaine?"
"Whoa why so hostile? We seemed to get along fine last time I came to your door." His cavalier attitude didn't sit well with Liv, especially not when he hoisted himself up on the other end of the metal table she was occupying, facing the opposite wall, legs dangling off the edge.
"You needed another Zombie to go rescue Ravi and Don-E." Stating the facts as they both knew them, Liv scowled at him, ignoring the amusement in his grey eyes. "I went to help Ravi, not to help you." The burn from the cigarette lighter had only recently healed completely, she added mentally, peevish. Zombies healed so much faster than Humans, but still it took time.
"To-may-to to-mah-to." His dismissal irked her, the way he reached over and took a piece of her leftover chef was the straw that broke the camel's back.
"I asked you what you were doing here. Major told us you have a new place downtown, so what are you doing here, in my morgue, eating my sous chef?" Her voice had escalated, and she felt the first urges to give in to full Zombie mode. Her eyes bled slightly red, then faded back, the irises untouched still.
"I was in the neighborhood when some disgruntled former-Human Zombies decided they wanted to take a bite out of me."
It was no shock to Liv that Humans, Zombies, and recently-turned-Zombie-ex-Humans seemed to hate Blaine.
"Really not high up on the 'friends' ladder, are we?" Her tone was snappish, and Blaine let out an 'ahhhh' sound, indicating understanding.
"So, this one another teenage girl? Saw the video Major posted a month ago on teenage ice-skater brain." Setting the perfectly seasoned slice of brain matter back onto Liv's plate, he closed his arms behind his head in an exaggerated stretch.
"Snappish sous chef."
"Good one Dr. Seuss."
Silence filled the room, then a distant scream and another chorus of explosions filled the air.
"How long have you been hiding in here, Liv?" He sounded tired, something she hadn't heard from Blaine. It was almost genuine, and she didn't need that right now. He was in the mental box labelled 'Evil Monster, do not open.'
"I'm not hiding, I'm snacking." She straightened her legs, facing the office. To look into his face she turned her head to the left, as his was turned to the right. He didn't just sound tired, he looked tired. "I think your friends are gone, you should be clear to leave." Liv moved to jump off the table, and a firm, pale hand closed over her forearm.
"Liv, I wanted to talk to you." Both of their eyes shot down to that point of connection, his long-fingered hand wrapped loosely around her arm. It seemed wrong. It should have been a firmer hold.
"I don't want to talk to you."
"Just… How's she been?"
They didn't need to discuss who he meant. Peyton had been almost euphoric in the two weeks that she and Blaine had been together, and in the doldrums since. Liv would sooner die—like really die—before she said as much to Blaine.
"Does it really matter to you, Blaine? You lied to her and you used her to feel Human again. Even Human, you're a Monster." That hand tightened in warning. It only drove her further, sickly excited by the promise of it. "It can't matter anyway. You're a Zombie again. And she's Human. And we all know someone like you can't control themselves."
A growl worked its way up his throat, and that hand tightened further before releasing her entirely. Blaine pushed himself up and away, turning to face her. Liv hopped off her end and squared up opposite him, about three-and-a-half feet separating them.
"You don't know me Liv, you don't know the first thing about me, and I'll thank you to stop pretending you do." He wasn't wide, or highly muscular. He had a swimmer's body, really, so how did he seem so much larger in times like this? It was like he gave off a cold aura of menace. Instead of deterring her, it drew her in.
"Let's see what I do know, shall we?" She rocked back, counting things off on fingertips like a genuine list. "You were a horrible excuse for a Human, selling drugs and hitting on everything you saw." One finger ticked. "You were a worse Zombie, murdering homeless children and teenagers to supply your blackmail and brains business." Another finger ticked. "You've killed people without a thought over and over again, including—" Her voice choked a moment, and she cleared her throat. Lowell, her ex-boyfriend, deceased, was not fodder for this conversation.
"Enough, Liv."
"No, not enough! After all of that, you had to hurt Peyton! Of all the good and decent women in the world, you had to choose the one who was the best, the most decent. One who would want to see the best in you, even when there's nothing left to save!"
He didn't move around the heavy table. He didn't climb across it. Instead he pushed the massive thing four feet to one side and crossed the empty space like an element of nature. He stood so close that her chest brushed against his when she breathed in. His eyes were still normal, not even red yet. No veins bulged beneath his skin, and he seemed entirely in control. It irked Miss Marsha Holden, and Olivia Moore didn't like it either.
"I told you once, you don't know anything about me."
"Really? I don't know about your Daddy issues? I don't know about your sad little dreams about a nice house somewhere with a wrap-around porch and a piano in the sunroom?" Her words were wrong, vitriolic and bitchy in a way Liv never would be. Certainly not while spilling secrets Peyton had shared after drinking too much one night immediately after she kicked him out of her bedroom and her life.
There it is, Liv thought, smiling manically. The veins emerging, just slightly, but still. The whites of his eyes were bleeding red.
"Is that the way it is? Share and share alike? How about this then. 'Oh, Major, let's have one last night together in case you can't remember me!'" His imitation of her took Liv back to the night she thought she was going to lose the Major she had known and loved for good to the amnesia of the cure. The only reason she thought that at all was because of the monster standing so close still, glaring down at her. "But that's not the end of that story, is it? Major goes Human again, and then you start sleeping with his Zombie friend from Fillmore-Graves. A little soon, don't you think Liv? Real sensitive."
"Leave Justin out of this." His face as he turned on her, revealing her presence to the other Zombies the day she discovered they were contaminating the vaccine would haunt her forever.
"Did you ever think that instead of blaming me for all of your problems, you should look at yourself?" His tone was cruel, and coarse in a new way, one she hadn't heard before. Almost gravelly as opposed to cool and controlled, as it normally was. "Major wouldn't have had any trouble with me and mine at Meat Cute if you had told him to begin with."
Maybe, she acknowledged, but telling your Human ex-fiance that you were a Zombie and that there were more around the city probably was a bit harder than he made it sound.
"And the musician ex-boyfriend? If you hadn't involved him he wouldn't have been killed. You should have faced your problems yourself, Liv. If I was your villain, you should have come after me."
"Shut up!" Throwing her shoulder forward, Liv pushed into him, sending him backwards a few feet. When she straightened up, her eyes were red, the veins in her face standing out slightly. Aggression fueled the rage in her, and she knew that she wanted him to suffer.
"Can't handle the truth, Liv?" She launched herself at him, and landed atop him, slamming his into the ground even with her smaller frame. She lifted his shoulders and slammed his head into the ground, once, then felt resistance as he held his head up against her strength, and when they crossed gazes, his face showed that he had dropped into full Zombie mode too.
Instead of tossing her and returning the violent tone she had set, Blaine locked his hands around her elbows and thrust upwards against the heat of her as she sat over him, her center of mass over his hips. It tore an unwilling groan from her throat.
Like a trapped rabbit Liv thrashed, only serving to writhe against him. "Let go!" Her demand was feral, and still breathy.
"And you know what, Princess?" The endearment was mocking, and it galled her that he was in so control of the situation in HER morgue, lying beneath her. "It's really all your fault that any of this happened. All of it."
She levered her weight to one side, then threw it to the other, causing them to roll to the left. Instead of freeing herself, Blaine used the motion to pin her weight down, tugging her arms up over her head. Liv snarled up at him, and he laughed, openly laughed with pleasure.
"Get. The. Fuck. Off." Her words were succinct, even though her hips thrust up as his had done. She didn't know whether it was the brain any more, or herself that thrilled at the idea of his strength, his dominance.
"All right Liv, sure." He stood, then stepped back, dropping into a ready stance should she throw herself at him again.
She scrambled to her feet, then cracked her knuckles uncharacteristically. A vision stole over her, and Blaine watched as she stilled, eyes distant. Her ready stance slackened and she straightened without conscious thought. He sighed, adrenaline fading, realizing what he almost told her. The one thing he knew would destroy her. He shook his head, completely distracted, when she threw herself at him.
"Not fair!" His voice rang out before his weight hit the wall of body drawers, a handle jamming into his ribs and his head simultaneously. He let out a grunt of anger and felt himself slipping again.
The vision had been of the fight and subsequent murder. It seemed that Miss Marsha was a hothead who picked fights whenever she could. She should have chosen a profession where there were less knives around.
Coming out of it left Liv riled, her blood still hot and her adrenaline still high. She pulled away from him and threw a punch before he had recovered, a quick right hook to the mouth. When his eyes snapped up to hers, he was as aggravated as she was. She wanted him to hit her, to tackle her, to hurt her. He reached out and she thought 'Yes!' only a moment too soon. His hands captured her shoulders and drew her in, his mouth slanting firmly over hers.
She growled into his mouth, and his teeth settled into her bottom lip. She tasted blood, but the sting of her mouth made her wonder at whether it was his or hers.
There had always been this tension between them, something she knew and avoided. It was like a big red warning sign flashing in her mind, and she waved at it as she barreled past. She was in too deep, the stress of the past few days combined with the ridiculous and unexplainable chemistry.
She pulled away, and he growled low in his throat, a sound of frustration. His voice was a command more than a plea. "No. More." He didn't dive in and take as she expected, but rather waited, only a second, it was all it took before she moved in herself for the second kiss, deeper and longer than the first. The taste of him was unexpected, something cool like menthol and the flavor of a habanero. The sensation of it tingled, spreading along undead nerve endings.
Blaine lifted her weight easily, and she wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her over to the metal table he had relocated earlier that evening. They battled for control of the kiss, teeth and tongues aggressive and somehow still sensual, like the caress of silk and velvet. Olivia Moore, medical examiner, Zombie crime-fighter, was completely consumed.
She was just Liv, and she was on fire. How could she be so hot, from just the connection of mouths? It made no logical sense. Neither did the fact that she was letting Blaine of all creatures lay her back on the metal table she had disinfected earlier that day and begin a slow sweep of his palm over her neck and shoulder.
He lifted his mouth from hers, kissing his way across her jaw and down the slope of her neck. Just below her ear he paused, and bit down. Liv groaned and rocked herself against him where her pelvis pressed against his lower stomach. She was already achy, and the sensation of him as she ground their bodies together was sweet. She buried one hand in his soft, thick hair and arched her back, offering herself to him.
One of his hands settle over her breast, above the cotton of her shirtdress. Her tight nipples pressed upwards, and Blaine rumbled a sound of approval against her neck as his lips moved lower still. Skilled musician's hands, she thought as he plucked at the peak of one breast before palming its full weight. His teeth bit none-too-gently into her prominent collarbone, and she groaned out loud.
He began slipping free the line of buttons at her collar, revealing swathes of pale skin to his eyes, and then his hands. No bra, as he suspected, marred his first view of her.
"Please. Now." She arched against him again, and her message was clear. She wanted something so much more than just her own hands, her vivid imagination, and the hum of plastic. She wanted Blaine.
His left hand captured both of hers, pinning her wrists above her head. Then he let his right-hand caress the smooth warmth of her stomach, when by all rights it ought to be cold. They had both been with enough Zombie lovers to know it as a fact. Zombie skin was cold, or at least cool to the touch.
He let his lips run over her skin, down her collar, and then the soft expanse of her breast, finally settling above her pink, pebbled nipple. He blew a stream of air over it, and she keened out a wail, a sound that was equal parts need and aggravation. It made him smile, and he pressed those smiling lips over her skin. He rewarded that sound, and the mewl afterwards, with the rasp of his tongue across her.
She jerked her wrists upwards, desperate to touch him. Needing to encourage the swirl of his tongue, needing to tear that stupid sweater off. She wanted to see and taste and tear the skin under it.
"I need…" Her demands were being ignored, and she would have been irritated if she wasn't drowning in the feel of his mouth and the press of his hands. "Blaine!"
He lifted his head, and she realized that he wasn't in aggressive attack Zombie mode. He was in complete control of himself, and she was thinking so acutely for a change that she probably wasn't either. It was hard for her to accept that this was a choice she was making, a choice that wasn't going to be explained away as beyond her control tomorrow.
His name from her mouth, spoken just that way, had broken the spell. His hand, the one that wasn't pinning hers up, was poised just above her leggings, his intent obvious. His lip, slightly swollen, was just as flushed with blood as her nipple, still moist and glistening from his attentions.
"What do you need, Liv?" It was that sound again from earlier, the coarse sound that was more real and earthy than the cultured one she knew so much better. He wasn't just asking what she needed, Liv knew, but what they were doing. If they were going to do anything at all. Blaine was a monster, but she knew in that moment that if she shook her head or tugged at her wrists, he would let her up, let her go.
"I need this." He loosened his hold on her wrists, and she sat up slowly, eyes on his. Her hands came down, running lightly over his shoulders, then down over his chest. His eyes slipped down to her mouth, then to her breasts. She reached the hem of his sweater, and she gave a mischievous smirk before tearing the thing in two up the stomach. He shook his head with begrudging amusement, lifting the remains of his sweater up and over his head. She lifted the bottom of his shirt as well, indicating he better take it off too.
When it was gone, Liv ran her hands over his skin, admiring both the smooth play of skin and the rough ridges of scar tissue. Blaine was an enigma, pieces of warrior and demon knit together and bearing the lines to prove it.
He leaned down to kiss her again, and this time it was something completely different. Lips gently caressed before opening slowly, a natural progression without the biting and clawing of earlier. This was a lover's kiss, and it was no less potent for its delivery. It was something so much more and less than their first kiss that Liv tilted her head away, lowering her eyes and focusing on the mass of gnarled tissue on his left shoulder. He took the hint.
The hand that hand been poised so patiently before pressed with deliberation against her center with precision, and the feeling of her wet panties pressing into her hot skin made Liv whimper and bite her bottom lip.
"No, that's my job." His words were cocky, arrogant, but they were spoken in fact, distractedly. Blaine's grey eyes were focused on her dainty pink lips. He swept in, and this time he eased her down gently, head resting against the table like a feather bed. His kiss wasn't gentle this time, perhaps sensing she couldn't deal with that right now, not from him. It was firm, and persuasive, and languid, and it told her that he knew this land was his to plunder at his leisure. He could take his time.
He sank a hand into her hair, and tilted her head just so. His other hand pressed down more firmly, the heel of his hand rotating in a half-circle. She turned her head to the side and gasped a deep breath of air in.
"So sensitive, Miss Moore." His tease was punctuated with a chuckle, and cut short as her small hand found him through his jeans. She gave his erection a firm downward press before a scramble ensued, she for the ties of her half-undone dress, him for the button of his jeans. He was finished before she was, and he took the initiative to pull her leggings the rest of the way off before latching himself to the breast his lips hadn't yet mapped.
Liv sank her hands into his hair, ignoring that his offhand was tugging at the black satin of her panties. His fingers were wet when he finally drew the fabric down and away. The realization pulled a groan out of him.
"Say my name, Liv. Tell me you want me." His command should have snapped her out of it, should have made her think about what she was doing. Instead it sent a thrilled jolt of anticipation to the bundle of nerves his right hand was pressed against.
She closed her eyes tight, and he lifted the pressure he had been supplying. Despair like sludge oozed into the emptiness he left for only a moment, and she opened her eyes to see him still watching her.
"I want this." The confession cost her, but not as dearly as he wanted. She hoped that it would suffice.
"Almost Liv, almost right." His hand eased down again, this time just the pads of two fingers, unerring in their aim. They circled her clit once, then twice, then ever so slightly delved into the inner folds of her heat where she felt almost Human to him. Almost alive in her need. The slick wetness there coated his skin, and he dragged it up to lubricate that so-sensitive gathering of nerve endings.
"Let's try it again. Tell me you want me." His voice was hypnotic, controlled but only just so. He saw her eyes change, the dilation of her pupils in passion, the flush of desire in her alabaster cheekbones. She was beautiful in the throes of lust, and he was a connoisseur of beautiful things.
She snapped those eyes shut, as though she couldn't bear to see him when she spoke. "I want you." Her hips lifted almost of their own volition, like part of her, at least, wasn't fighting against him.
"So…" He allowed his fingers to sweep directly across her swollen clit upwards. "Very…" Then downwards again. "Close." And then he drew his hand away entirely.
Unable to stand the teasing any more, Liv grasped the length of his in her palm, closing as much of his girth in her hand as she could, stroking him up and down, determined that he feel as aroused and vulnerable as she did. She opened her eyes but wouldn't meet his, instead focusing on the flushed part of his body that literally pulsed under her hand. He made a sound that was part groan, part growl, and she smiled, swirling her palm along his shaft, then coming up to stroke the head of him, and just below it, that area she knew many men found sensitive. The droplet of fluid her actions produced spurred her onwards.
She captured that drop on a fingertip, then popped it in her mouth. Strangely, he wasn't as salty as she had expected. He made another noise, breaking the stillness he had adopted while she touched him. Without removing the finger from her lips, she looked up into his face to see his expression. Another jolt of desire raced straight to her core, the image would be one she would struggle to forget later.
His brow was drawn down in focus, his eyes were bright in lust, and fixated on her lips again. "It's not hard." He raised moody grey eyes to meet her own, his tone desperate and sincere. Either he was being entirely genuine, or he was the best liar in the world. "I want you, Liv." He swept away the finger in her mouth with the hand not supporting his weight over her, then captured her lips with his again.
She was going to give in, already she could feel the pull between them. Some people lived their whole lives without this drive, this irresistible chemistry. His mouth was commanding, his tongue laying claim with sweeping pulls, and her own tentatively caressed it in reply. He settled more of his weight into his legs, which meant pressing his erection against her where she most wanted it, but still not quite exactly right.
Wrapping both of her legs around his hips, Liv lined them up perfectly, hoping that he would drop the mind-fuck and just make them both feel good. She knew he wouldn't, though, and she was resigned to it. He tugged on her lip again, with more teeth, and when he released it he growled his demand in her ear. "Say it, and we can both feel so good." The feel of warm breath on her skin made her shudder, pressing her intimately against him again.
This time Blaine took initiative and decided to drive her insane. He thrust himself against her from top to bottom, and the friction made her arch her back and groan.
"Please… please! Dammit. Damn you…" She threw her head back, making the metal table ring out when it met the back of her skull. It didn't hurt, it only fueled her frustrated desire. "I want you!" She locked her eyes on his, her words a challenge, a dare. "I want you, Blaine."
"Finally." Satisfaction blossomed across his face, almost more relieved than arrogant. Almost before the sound of his voice had died in the air, he adjusted his hips, and slid into her in one steady thrust. It was like fitting a key into the perfect lock.
Liv realized almost instantly that this was another death, and she might not recover from this one. Liv from a week ago would never be under this monster, clawing at his back as he surged in and out of her, tearing pleasure from her in an almost violent way. She could only hold on and arch to meet him as a whirlwind of sensation assaulted her nerves.
He whispered worship into her skin one second, then bit down roughly enough to hurt the next. Liv responded by wrapped her legs around him tighter and clawing his back as she refused to lie back and be taken.
She pushed her shoulders up off the table, and caught his earlobe in her teeth. He hissed, and lowered one hand to run just above where they were joined. The very first contact sent Liv off in spirals, and she screamed her pleasure almost silently, with no air in her lungs to expel.
Still he moved, even as the lightheaded tingles faded from her extremities. A fine sheen of sweat had started on his forehead, and seeing her come back to herself, he hooked her thighs in his elbows, pulling her legs higher, filling her even more completely.
Bent nearly in double, Liv reached down and cupped his balls as they slapped against her, hoping he liked the motion. He stuttered a moment in his movements, then shook his head. "Not like that, Liv. Not this time."
She allowed him to guide her, to roll her over to all fours, and then to lay her breasts flat and arch her bottom up to him in offering. His first smack made her nervous, but the second was less of a shock, and brought her pleasure. As heat tracked across the expanse of one buttock, she felt anticipation. She wiggled her butt at him, not sure what he was doing, but eager to see where it would go. After all, he had promised to make them both feel good. So far he was only half-right.
His hand connected again, this time on the other cheek, and she moaned and wriggled. She felt the weight of him settle over her, and his head pressing again for entrance. Still wet from her own climax, he eased into her even at this new angle. With every thrust he connected with that place inside her that made her pulse heat and taste stars. He could feel it too, murmuring encouragement in her shoulder with every forward thrust.
She could tell he was getting closer, his thrusts were becoming more erratic, and the length of him was pulsing inside her. When he finally came he brought her with him, a hand under her toying with that place he had been so familiar with earlier in the evening.
They were still pressed together when they rolled to the side, completely wrung out. In her ear, she could hear the soft sound of suppressed amusement Blaine made before inching away.
She rolled over and sat up, eyes narrowed and ready to come up with a scathing retort, should one be necessary. When she turned to face him he was already tugging back on his jeans.
"Well, that was unexpected." The simple statement spurred Liv into action. Gathering her clothes and using them almost as a shield, she darted into the office and slammed the door behind her.
Modesty reclaimed was much harder than modesty lost, and things admitted when he was pressed against her couldn't be so easily forgotten. She could tell him she had been lying, but he would know. He would see that as much as she hated him—and she honestly, truly did hate him—Liv wanted him again, already.
When she emerged, fully dressed, he was waiting, buttoning the cuffs on his black top and ankles crossed.
"So, is she okay, then? She looked a little lost on the news yesterday." The way he resumed the conversation, a conversation about Peyton, pushed the wrong button.
"She's fine. Much better." The implied 'without you' hung in the air like a firework.
"Of course she is, a woman like her could handle anything." He straightened, uncrossing his ankles and skimming the room again. "Hey Liv, one more question?"
He crossed to the door, hovering just inside of the threshold.
"Sure, why not." She leaned against the wall, feeling a bit foolish and deflated. Her adrenaline was still high, even though he was slinking out of the morgue like a lovesick fool.
"Do you know that on the boat that night I didn't have a single drink? Dealer's rule, never mix highs while working. I took the U, but I never had any Max Rager. Peyton said that was how it got started?"
That made no sense. He had to have had some Max Rager that night, he was a Zombie on the boat, and he had been the one to scratch her, for goodness sake. Blaine's mind games were wearing on her nerves, and snappish chef escaped again. "Oh really? Then how did you get Max Rager in your system Blaine?"
Opening the door, Blaine skimmed her over from head to foot before replying. "This frigid bitch threw her drink in my face while I was talking to her. Must have been Max Rager. Go figure, right? It's okay, she'll never know it. We don't talk very much. Have a good night, Liv."
The sound of the door shutting could have been the sound of a bullet fired for its intensity.
Blaine DeBeers could never break Olivia Moore. He could ruin her future by making her a Zombie. He could kill people she cared about. He could sleep with her best friend. He could make her beg and plead. But Blaine could never break her. No. But he could tell her the truth.
And the truth broke her pretty easily.