Lie to Me (19 page)

He doesn’t ask; he doesn’t speak. He just picks me up off that table with a grunt while he’s still inside me and starts walking.

I kind of laugh, a shocked giggle, because if I were to think about it, I know I wouldn’t believe that this is really happening. I know where he’s taking me. He’s taking me upstairs to my bed.

We’ve never had sex in my bed.

It never worked out. I was in foster care, and my aunt lived here. It was always at his house. And then he left.

My legs are wrapped around him tight, but I can still feel him inside me, heavy and thick and moving slightly with every step. He fits me perfectly, so that the head of his cock presses up against this spot inside me that drives me wild. I’d forgotten about that. Maybe at the time I didn’t know enough about my own body to know that that’s what it was. I just knew Marcus felt amazing inside of me.

He still does.

I bury my face in his neck, because I need to scent him. I need to be completely covered in him. I don’t even remember my reasons for this, how I got here, but having Marcus inside me puts me in a place beyond reasons, or sense, or any of that. There’s just him and me.

And now he’s lowering me onto my bed.

He pulls out of me and I whimper, not thinking much beyond the immediate. But then I see him strip his clothes off and I have to agree: This is better.

Oh God, this is better.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him fully naked like this before. Erect. Huge. Just standing in front of me, his erection still slick from my juices, his chest heaving in big, deep breaths. We’re not two teenagers figuring each other out anymore. This is different.

“Lie back and let me see you,” he orders. His voice is different, too. Deep, rough.

I don’t even question it. I just do it. Even the thought brings me back to the edge.

“Spread,” he says, putting one massive hand around that beautiful cock.

My breath comes in tentative little gasps as I spread my legs for him. I watch him, watching me. I can feel his gaze on my body, can feel him linger, can feel his arousal. He pumps his erect cock once, twice, and his eyes are back on mine, and holy hell, I’ve never seen anything like it. I am on fire for him.

“Nothing will ever be as beautiful as you, like this,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper.

And then he’s on me, almost in one breath, pinning me to the bed, kissing me deeply, desperately, his mouth hungry and hot against mine. I try to run my hands along his body, to guide that magnificent erection inside me, but he takes my hands and pins them up above my head. Instead he kisses me senseless and stupid, his lips roving over mine, his tongue licking, probing, tasting. He sucks my bottom lip and I moan against his mouth, and I know this won’t be the same. This won’t be like downstairs.

This will be…

I don’t have time to get scared, because Marcus is kissing me again. He’s kissing me like he’s dying, like he’s been lost at sea and now by some miracle he’s been found. He’s kissing me like he might never get to do it again. He kisses away every last defense I have, until I am truly naked underneath him, raw and vulnerable and delirious with need.

“Please,” I manage when he lets me breathe, but he just shakes his head, his mouth returning to my neck. He licks me, lets his tongue roam over my collarbone and down to my nipples. He takes my nipple in his hot, wet mouth and I shudder, my hips arching up to him, silently begging him. How can he stand it?

He sucks on one nipple, then the other, his hands moving up and down my legs, exploring every inch of me. This is torture.

This is worse than torture. This is tender.

“Marcus,” I say, but it comes out a choked moan.

He kisses his way down my stomach like he wants to savor every part of me, dipping his tongue into my bellybutton, rubbing the scruff of his jaw against my soft skin. I know where he’s going.

“Oh God,” I say. “Marcus…”

But I can’t tell him to stop, because I don’t want him to stop. His mouth finds my inner thigh and his hands slip under my buttocks, lifting me ever so slightly. And maybe in the next second I might have found the strength to stop this before it becomes too intimate, before I’m truly lost, but I don’t. His tongue enters me and I am undone.

He licks me from my entrance up to my clit, and I feel his fingers push into me again, and I lose it. This time my orgasm feels long and lingering, spreading slowly, making me feel light and airy. Making me see stars. Making me forget myself.

He’s done it. As Marcus kisses his way back up my body, he must know. He must know he’s worn me down, and now it’s just me, stripped, exposed, true. Feeling safe in the world with him.

He kisses me, I taste myself on him, and I know.

His hands find my center again, and gently circle my clit, dragging me back to the point of arousal, and now I know my body really is his. I’ve never had three so quickly before, not in a row, and I don’t know how my body can do it, not after what he’s done to it already.

He positions the head of his cock at my entrance again, makes sure I can see it. I mewl at the sight, suddenly consumed all over again with desire for him. Then he pins me with those eyes, enters me briefly, and pulls out.

“Say it,” he says. “Say you’re mine, Lo.”

I groan and thread my fingers into his thick black hair, trying to draw him to me, but he is immovable.

“No, baby,” he says, and he nips at my neck, kissing me gently all the way up to my jaw, hovering just above my face. “Say it.”

He is relentless.

He is gentle.

And he sees. Right. Through me.

Something about his eyes and this remembered, tender touch unlocks something inside me. I feel my own eyes water, and I know it’s a lost cause. I know. Now I know. I am his. Not just my body. All of me. I have always been his. I will always be his.

No matter how badly it may hurt. No matter if I ever see him again.

“I’m yours,” I whisper. And I know that it’s true, and I’m helpless but to let Marcus Roma make love to me.

Marcus slides into me slowly, inch by delicious inch, letting me feel the full, thick weight of him, letting me feel him pulse inside me until we’re feeling each beat together, breathing together, being together. He hasn’t looked away. His eyes are locked with mine. This is closer than I’ve ever been to anyone in years, more than I’ve ever let anyone see. This is all of me. A soft noise escapes my throat and Marcus matches it, a ragged, rough cry as he begins to move inside me, but he doesn’t look away. He holds my eyes with his the whole time, even when tears spill down to my temples, even as we both start to pant, even as I clench my teeth and arch my back with another glimpse of oblivion. When the contractions start deep within me I feel him shudder, I feel his cock twitch, and I feel him spill warmth deep, deep inside me.

And, God help me, it feels right.

And it continues to feel right, for a long time. While Marcus lies on top of me, his sweat cooling in the night air. While I listen to the last of the rain splutter against my window. It takes a while for the doubts, for the hurt, for the memories to claw their way back inside me, but they do. There was never any doubt that they would. Because those wounds never healed. Because being around Marcus, reminding myself of what we are, it hasn’t fixed what’s broken inside me. It’s only strained it further.

Because now I have an answer. No, I won’t ever be over him. There will always be this. There will always be Marcus Roma.

And he will always have broken my heart.

“Marcus,” I say, my fingers tracing delicate patterns on his back while he lies across me.

“Yeah?” he says, turning his head. It’s the first thing he’s said since he made me admit I belonged to him.

“Lie to me. Tell me I won’t have to love you for the rest of my life.”

Marcus pushes himself up above me, but I can’t see his expression anymore.

“Tell me I won’t have to feel like this forever,” I say.

“No,” he says, and I feel his fingers on my face.

I close my eyes. Of course he won’t. How could he? I wish more than anything I could stop loving him. I wish I could stop wanting him. I wish, most of all, that I could stop needing him.

Wishes don't really come true.

“I need to be alone,” I say.

The saddest part is that when he does finally leave, I curl up with my sheets wrapped around me, searching for his scent on my bed so that I can fall asleep.

chapter 12

MARCUS

Yeah, I did not sleep, let me tell you. That couch went from comfortable to painful real quick. I wasn’t going to sleep on Dill’s bed. I wasn’t going to even talk about the fact that it didn’t look like she’d opened the door to her parents’ bedroom in ages. It was definitely the couch for me.

Because Harlow really did need to be alone. The last thing I wanted to do was leave her, but I knew, looking at her face, that she needed me to leave. It killed me.

I lay awake for hours, going back and forth between replaying it all in my head, feeling the kind of joy I didn’t think I’d ever get to feel again, and then thinking about how badly I must have fucked it up, and feeling like I deserved far worse than the pain of knowing I might lose Harlow forever.

Had it hurt her, what we did? She’d said she’d needed it. And she’d meant it—I could see it in her face. I kept telling myself I had to be sure that it wouldn’t do even worse emotional damage than I’d already done, I had to be sure, but in the end, was I? Or did I just finally lose control and give in to what I wanted, what I’ve always wanted? And, in the process, did I screw this up beyond all repair?

I’m not used to questioning myself like this, and I don’t fucking like it. Most things are simple. Harlow isn’t.

I’m still lying here, trying to figure it out. It’s morning now. Gray, still, the storm on its last legs. It’s soggy and wet outside, and I couldn’t give a damn. All I’m thinking about is Harlow.

The sight of her naked body.Jesus, the sight of her. The way her eyes get even bigger as she comes. The way she moves for me. The way I can feel it when she’s about to lose control.

The way she tastes.

I said once before that I am not the strong one. I guess I proved that last night. And Harlow knew it. She knew what she was doing, knew I wouldn’t be able to hold out forever. She’d already taken me, body and soul, and she made damn sure that I took her physically. And I don’t regret a thing I said or did, because it was all true. Because she is mine, just like I’m hers.

But after that? Upstairs?

That was different.

I know that was different.

That might have been further than we should have gone. Because she let me make love to her, and she made love back, and I don’t think either of us were entirely prepared for that. Even though I’d dreamed of exactly that, for five long years. In a million different ways. And it was better than anything I could have imagined.

I think I always knew this, even way back then, but now? Harlow Chase is the only one for me. As a man, I begin and end with her. I have become who I am because of her. She is everything.

Maybe it’s a curse to meet the person who’s meant for you when you're young, when you’re stupid and reckless and think you know everything. Because look how badly I messed it up, even trying my best. And thinking about that makes me think about the pain I saw on Harlow’s face when she asked me to leave. Not right afterward we made love, when she was happy, when I knew it was right, when I loved her as best as I knew how. Later. When she got to thinking, when she started to remember, when she realized she still had no reason to trust me.

I saw that look on her face, and I felt it. Just like I did before, I felt that aching, bloody hole open up in my chest, that place where I keep Harlow’s pain like it was my own. Only this time it was poisoned, because I knew I had caused it all.

Yeah, so. No sleep for me. Since the sun came up I’ve been trying to make use of my time, trying to think of how I can make this up to her, make it better, at least until this development deal goes through and I can finally tell her the truth. And unfortunately there’s approximately jack and shit that I can actually prove to her about about how I checked up on her and looked out for her all those years, until the private investigator that I hired to do it, Winslow, comes back into town with those files. And I know she’ll need me to prove it, because I know better than anyone that my credibility is shot with her. Because I knew better than anyone how much it would hurt her when I left, and I did it anyway.

Anyway. Just like me to hire the one crazy dude who doesn’t believe in Dropbox. I suppose I should cut him some slack, thinking everyone is spying on him all the time, since he’s normally the guy doing the spying. But right now, with a possibly hurt and sad Harlow upstairs, I have no slack left in the line.

I’m thinking about what else I could do to help build her trust in me, to make her whole, to make us both whole—I could just tell her about some of that stuff, I guess, maybe about what I did for Dill’s school, a few other things, even though all of that kind of makes me look like a crazed stalker—when I hear her start to move around up there.

I’m up like a damn rocket. All of me is up like a damn rocket. I’m cursing myself for getting hard just because I hear that Harlow continues to exist, especially under the circumstances, but it is what it is. I move to the bottom of the stairs, ready to go and help her down, when I see she’s already there on the landing.

She just looks at me.

When she comes downstairs, walking so carefully on that ankle, I see that she’s carrying the bag that the concierge brought me from the hotel.

Oh shit. Oh no.

“Lie to me,” I say. My voice is hoarse. I can’t even finish it.

Harlow just shakes her head, those beautiful lips pulled into a grim line, and brushes past me, walking toward the door. Fuck. No. I follow her, keeping calm, telling myself this is not the end. None of this is final.

Harlow opens the door, the watery sunlight streaming in from some damn ironic crack in the clouds, hitting her hair like a halo. She looks at me, puts out her hand. Hands me the bag.