Tom was getting suspicious.

Lanoir could feel the suspicion flowing through the phone, in that one "hmm" of his- that "hmm" which basically meant, as Lanoir had learned, 'I can smell something fishy but I am not going to tell you I can, only indicate so you get nervous and tell me.' It was reverse psychology at its best and she didn't know how Sara was ever going to get away from that "hmm" of her father.

Right then though, as Lanoir sat back on the comfortable bad, with Jaxs  head burrowed in her stomach and planting soft kisses over her ribs, so soft they were tickling her, she swallowed and shoved his head away, giving him a glare and silently telling him to get his mouth and his irresistible face away from her. His lips twitched at her fierce expression and he raised his hands in surrender, getting down from the bed and heading towards the shower, whipping his t-shirt over his head on the way.

Lanoir throat dried as she looked at his back, not surprised by the scars or the muscles, but fascinated by them and she tucked her feet under her.

"So, how long are you staying away on this trip with your mother?"

Tom Chen was nobody's fool, certainly not a pathetic liar's, like her.

"A few more days," she said, trying to make her voice sweeter, and apparently overdoing it because Jaxs paused mid-step, turning to give her a dry look with raised eyebrows.

"Look," the silence on the other end made her antsy, and she started speaking, tired of the lies. "I'm not out on a  trip to my mother's, okay?"

"Didn't think you were," she heard Tom's dry tone and sighed. What was it with men and dryness?

"I know you, and I know you wouldn't want to spend this much time with your unemotional mother." he said. Tom was a close friend and he knew how her mother wasn't very affectionate with her and she never would be.

She gulped. "I've been sort of seeing someone for the last two months," she began, feeling like a ten year old telling her big brother she had kissed a guy. "And we are keeping it private for now."

"Is he married?" he asked disapproval clear in his voice.

Lanoir narrowed her eyes at the question. "No. He happens to be very much a bachelor. And I am not giving you any more details."

"Trust me, I don't want any except for his name, Lanoir what if something goes wrong? How am I supposed to tell the police , hmm." Tom asked

And that she couldn't give. Pinching her nose, she spoke. "We are taking some time to figure some things out. This is a trip for us. So, I don't want you to get worried okay?" She responded choosing to ignore his question about his name.

Tom stayed silent, and then she heard him sigh, his warm voice coming through. "Just stay careful, alright? I'm just a call away."

Her heart melted, and she knew she would have taken a big warm Tom hug right then had he been there. She smiled. "I know. I'll be back in a few days."

"Have fun," the smirk in his voice made her flush as the call cut.

Her eyes lingering over the muscles a few feet from her. Oh, she was so ready to have fun. So much fun, in so many ways. Lanoir never felt so sexually deprived in her life. And that was saying something since she had never had sex. But that didn't mean she didn't try other self pleasing methods.

The House. It was different from the previous one although it was kind of empty  too. The living room was large and nicely decorated, with a black leather love seat and a huge couch and a large flat screen television. The walls and decorations were done in cream and brown overtones, and it parted into a corridor, that led to the kitchen on one end and the spacious bedroom that they were occupying at the moment.

Lanoir had seen him kill, seen the way he killed, seen the precision, the skill. She had seen his eyes when he killed, cold, vacant, brutal. He had been brought up to be a killer, nurtured in blood and metal and earth, molded by cuts and bruises and scars.

All of it, sometimes when she thought about it, overwhelmed her. And then she remembered the other things she had seen. The side that only he allowed her to see. The real him.

She had seen the way he had panicked just at the thought of hurting her, seen the way he had withdrawn into himself when he had, seen the remorse in his eyes that were haunted by demons she would probably never understand, seen the softness, the gentleness, with which he looked at her everyday.

Over the last week, she had seen something else too, something she hadn't even known he had hidden in his arsenal, his smile.

He had smiled more in the last week, with soft twitches of his lips and wide grins that showed his even teeth, than he had in the entire time she had known him. His smiles, at first, had been a little hesitant, as though he had feared that putting them out in the world would invite something bad, and Lanoir heart had ached every time at his shyness. Lanoir always smiled back at him, every single time because she found so much pleasure in seeing the happiness in his eyes.

Yes, they were on the run. Yes, they were hiding. Yes, they were taking things slow with each other and fighting and making up.

But every time she saw that one curve of his lips, that light in his eyes, for that one thing, it all seemed worth it. After so many years of pain, he deserved that happiness. And Lanoir believed that she was the one to give it to him. And even if he sometimes doubted that he could give her happiness he did.