Two is a Lie Read online

  His bog-brown eyes scan my face. Not prying. Just looking. Taking in my features like the first day we met.

  It’s always the visual connection that sparks first between us. The silent greeting of eye contact. The instant physical attraction. It creates a crackling glow that wraps around us until the rest of the world fades into the void it was without him. We float in a luminous bubble, staring and gravitating closer together and smiling foolishly.

  The helmet left his brown hair in spikes of sexy defiance. Dimples dent his cheeks, and a black t-shirt stretches across his wide shoulders. Black slacks and a gun holster on his hip complete the security uniform. It’s uninspiring as far as uniforms go, but my God, he knows how to work it. I bet he turned every female head in the stadium tonight.

  “Do you know how to use that?” I point at the gun on his hip, assuming his prior job required expertise in all manner of firearms.

  He arches a brow and huffs. “We’ll go to the shooting range, and I’ll show you how to use it.”

  “Sure.” I shrug. My interest is solely in watching him handle a gun. “How do you like the new job?”

  “It’s just a job.”

  I circle his wide stance, taking in the delicious fit of his clothes. Sitting low on his trim waist, the cargo pants highlight the powerful muscles in his legs and the firm shape of his ass. He’s covered head-to-toe in black, like a formidable shadow, except for the white lettering on his back that reads Security.

  He went from a high-speed operative with a top-secret clearance to the sheriff of Nothingham with an iron-on decal on his back.

  “You hate it, don’t you?” I return to his front and study his dark gaze.

  “I hate being in this house without you here.”

  My shoulders slump. “I know this is hard—”

  “Hey.” He lifts my chin with a knuckle and glides his hand beneath my hair to hold the back of my neck. “I didn’t say that to make you feel bad. The job gives me something to do while you’re working. That’s all it is to me.”

  “And a paycheck.”

  “I don’t need much beyond what’s standing right here.” He folds his arms around me and holds me tight to his chest. “This… This is everything to me.”

  I clutch his waist, balling his shirt in my hands and sinking into his molten eyes. His beautiful lips are right there, a breath away. The need to kiss him is so deep-rooted and intrinsic I’ve never had to think about it before.

  But I don’t want to turn this into a passionate make-out session that ends in frustration. And it will, because we never go halfway on anything. When we met, we fell instantly. When we kiss, we go wild. A feral, uncontrollable kind of wild that always leads to sex.

  I shift back, putting a sliver of space between us. “Are you tired?”

  He shakes his head, eyes warm and hooded.

  “Want to have a picnic on your futon and watch movies?” I ask.

  “You mean, watch one movie? The only movie?”

  “You remember.” I grin.

  “Are you kidding? I watched Dirty Dancing countless times over the past four years, just so I could come home and recite it with you.”

  “You know the words?”

  “All of them.”

  I bounce on my toes, unable to contain my excitement. “I’ll get the snacks.”

  “I’ll take a quick shower and meet you downstairs.”

  Later, with my belly stuffed with cheese, crackers, and beer, I lie face-down on the futon, with his pillow scrunched beneath my chin. He mirrors my position beside me, wearing lounge pants and a white t-shirt. With our legs angled toward the top of the bed and our heads at the foot, we’re glued to the TV on the wall a few feet away.

  There’s only a couple scenes left in the movie, and he’s proven that he does, in fact, know all the words. Midway through, we fell into our own speaking parts, with him reciting Johnny Castle’s lines while I perform Baby’s. It’s turned Dirty Dancing into a whole new viewing experience, and I can’t stop laughing.

  He shifts to his side, facing me, as he reels off his next line. His eyes glitter, and his mouth sensually forms each word, delivering the dialog with passion and drama.

  I squint at his intense facial expressions. “Are you making fun of this movie, Cole Hartman?”

  “Never.” He inches closer and trails a hand down the back of my t-shirt.

  While he showered, I slipped into pajamas, opting for the most coverage. The shirt is tight but longer than most, gathering around my hips. And the flannel pants have a double-knotted drawstring at the waist.

  He turns his attention back to the TV and continues his speaking parts. But that hand is still moving, roving lower on my back, rubbing, and exploring. I soften beneath the affection, mesmerized by his presence. So much so the movie fades into the background.

  Under the guise of massaging my tailbone, he works open a gap between my shirt and waistband. When his fingertips find my skin, goosebumps skitter up my spine.

  He rests his cheek on the pillow, watching me intently. His deep brown eyes are magnetic, beguiling in their focus, baiting me to tip closer, peer deeper, and fall in.

  Closing the distance, he presses his hips against mine and seizes my mouth with warm, soft lips.

  His fingers stretch beneath my shirt and splay across my back as his other hand cups my head. With his arms around me, he pulls me flush against his body, chest to chest, mouths fastened, and tongues plunging.

  Our legs twine together, rubbing, sliding, my fingers tangling in his hair and my nails scratching his scalp. Holding my head, he adjusts the angle and deepens the kiss. Groaning, breaths quickening, he dips his other hand beneath the waistband of my pants and palms the curve of my butt.

  I tense, knowing we’re headed toward a landslide that won’t quiet. Not until we’re both moaning with release.

  “Don’t get stiff on me. I just want to feel you,” he breathes against my lips. “This ass…” He squeezes a handful of flesh. “Fuck, I missed this goddamn ass. The round, toned shape, this tight little hole…”

  He sinks his fingers between my clenching cheeks and strokes the rim of my back opening.

  I whimper. “Cole—”

  “Let me touch you, baby. I won’t push for more. I just…need…” His brow rests heavily against my temple as his entire body vibrates and rocks closer. “Christ, Danni, it’s been so fucking long.”

  So long since he’s touched me. Since he’s been with a woman. Since we’ve let ourselves come together in the spontaneous, unrestricted, explosive way we both want.

  If I let him fuck me, I’ll have to tell Trace, and it’ll shatter him. Or I don’t tell him, and the guilt will eat away my insides until I’m sick with it.

  Or I do the smart thing and resist Cole’s advances.

  “No.” I clutch his wrist and try to remove his hand from my pants. “We can’t.”

  He fights me for a moment, his fingers tightening against my backside. Then he snaps his hand away and rolls to his back.

  “Goddammit.” His guttural whisper breaks something inside me.

  “I’m sor—”

  “Go upstairs, Danni.” He closes his eyes and rests his forearm across his brow, shutting me out.

  My shoulders curl forward, and an ache swells in the back of my throat. I feel bruised, rejected, which is stupid since I’m the one who rejected him.

  He continues to lie there, with his cock standing like a flagpole in his lounge pants. He holds that arm over his eyes and fists his other hand in the bedding, waiting for me to leave.

  Because he wants me out of his sight.

  He can’t even look at me.

  My chin quivers as I climb off the futon. My bones feel heavy and wounded, and I can’t stop the hurt from rising up my throat and choking past my lips.

  I make it halfway to the stairs before the futon creaks beneath his weight.

  “Are you crying?” Concern roughens his timbre.

  I’m always crying
, because I’m not strong enough for this. Hell knows what he sees in me. A wise man wouldn’t waste his time with me. I’m fucking pathetic.

  The tears slip free and course down my face. I keep walking, taking the steps two at a time as his footfalls give chase. He catches me at the top and swings me around in the doorway.

  “Fuck.” He swipes his thumbs across my damp cheeks and drops his hands to my waist, pulling me against him. “I’m a prick.”

  Thick shadows encase the stairway, snagging and snaring every crevice and crack without mercy. He stands one stair beneath mine, putting us at eye-level, his gaze somber and inklike in the phantom darkness.

  I sense his unease, his creeping sadness. I recognize it, because it’s coming from me, too.

  The last four years changed us, and now everything hangs in the balance. Our hopes and dreams are on pause, and I’m terrified to press play. I don’t want to know the ending.

  As my tears continue to fall, he kisses them away, whispering between the brushes of his lips. “I sent you upstairs because I don’t trust myself. I don’t want to fuck this up, and when I’m with you… Dammit, Danni, I want all of you, in every possible way.”

  “I’m making it worse.” I grasp his tense neck, holding our foreheads together. “I’m not good at saying no, especially when I’m dying to say yes. I’m failing—”

  “No, baby. The person failing here is me. I’m impatient and selfish and demanding. I make mistakes and lose my temper.”

  “You’re passionate and impulsive and yeah, sometimes you get out of control. But if I can’t handle your worst moments, I don’t deserve your best ones.”

  “Jesus. I must’ve done something right to have been given a chance with you.” His voice rasps, deep and throaty. “You have such a beautiful mind. You’re incredibly understanding and gracious. And those qualities are shaped into a stunning flesh-and-bone work of art. I only have to look at you to know I have something special and rare.” He releases a breath. “Sometimes you feel like an unattainable dream.”

  “I’m just a girl, Cole. And I’m right here.”

  “You’re everything, and I want more.” He palms my backside, fitting our hips tightly together as he speaks against my lips. “I want you to belong to me. I want my ring on your finger, my babies growing inside you, and your future welded to mine. I want to watch you teach our kids how to dance and see you swing on that pole when you’re ninety years old—”

  “Gross.”

  “Never. You’ll always be beautiful.” He kisses the corner of my mouth. “I had my grave marker removed from the cemetery yesterday.”

  “You did?”

  “I’m going to buy a larger plot. When you die, I want you buried beside me.”

  The air whooshes from my lungs. “That’s kind of morbid…in a really romantic way. Now I feel all glowy and mushy.” I grin a soggy, hot mess of a grin. “Is that weird?”

  “No.” He trails kisses over my face, tingling an electric thrill through my body. “Not at all.”

  “I’ve felt this before, right outside, when a sexy hunk of a man rolled up on his motorcycle.”

  “I was right there with you, baby.” He touches his smile against mine. “But now I feel it more.”

  He’s right. There’s a powerful charge in the air, like the stirring of energized matter, seeking and fusing into a cocoon of untamed chemistry that only Cole and I can create. It’s an unexplainable connection between us, one that bridges the gap between lust and love. I can’t see it or hear it, but I feel it, feeding light into a flickering moment, making it shine brighter than all the hours that haunted me in the dark.

  In the sheath of glowing heat that envelops us, I anticipate a hard fall into a feral kiss. His hands bite into my backside, and his hungry breaths spin around mine. But he doesn’t attack my mouth, seemingly fighting an internal war. A war that eventually ends with him backing me out of the stairwell and leading me to my bedroom.

  My pulse kicks up, and my legs wobble. Is he going to fuck me against the wall? Bend me over the bed? Take me on top of the dresser?

  He does none of those things as he tucks me beneath the covers. He digs for the sheet beneath the blanket, which has been kicked to the foot of the bed. I help him, but it gives me pause. The bedspread is so tangled up… This isn’t how I left it two days ago.

  “You slept in my bed.” I stare at the sheets, glad they’ve been washed since last time Trace slept here.

  “It used to be our bed.”

  “But I wasn’t here.”

  “Your scent is.” He pats the pillow and pulls the bedding over me. “It’s one of the countless layers that will always be a part of you. When we’re wrinkled and toothless and fucking like arthritic animals, you’ll still smell like you.”

  I burst into laughter and sink onto the mattress, clinging to the thread that connects us. “I never stopped missing you.”

  “I’ll never stop loving you.” Switching off the light, he leans down and gives me a lingering kiss. “Sleep well, my beautiful girl.”

  When he slips out of my room, I’m not sure I’ll sleep at all. It hurts to watch him walk away, and he’s only going downstairs.

  There’s no way I could watch him walk away forever.

  The next morning, I wake with the sunlight from the window warming my face. My muscles feel rejuvenated, and my mind is clear. By some miracle, I conked out quickly last night and slept straight through.

  I climb out of bed and head to the bathroom, cringing at the raucous noise thumping from the basement. Cole’s already hard at work, lifting weights and blaring his punk rock music. A grin lifts my cheeks as I picture him lip syncing and banging his head with belligerent intensity.

  After emptying my bladder and brushing my teeth, I find freshly-brewed coffee waiting for me in the kitchen. I prepare a cup, sipping and sighing and feeling sweetly spoiled.

  To return the favor, I blend up a protein shake for him and carry the chocolaty, foamy concoction to the basement. The loud, insistent music leads the way, contaminating my ears with violent lyrics.

  My blood heats in anticipation of watching his ripped physique flex through his workout. With the music drowning out my footsteps, maybe I can spy on him for a while, observe him in all his unguarded, sweat-dripping, muscle-shredding glory.

  I step off the last step, round the corner, and stumble to a gasping stop.

  On the far side of the basement, he grips the edge of his workbench, an arm braced on the edge to support the weight of his upper body. His other hand isn’t pumping iron. The dumbbells lie at his feet, forgotten, as he pumps the hard, swollen jut of his erection instead.

  My hand flies to my mouth, muffling my squeak, and the protein shake starts to slip from my fingers. I tighten my grip, saving it from crashing to the floor.

  I should go. Turn around and sneak upstairs before he sees me. But the erotic sight paralyzes me in place, tingling my skin and accelerating my breaths.

  The thrashing music swallows his noises, but I know he’s grunting. His mouth is open, and the ridges in his glistening torso contract and bunch with the rapid pace of his stroking hand. The upper curve of his ass flexes above the workout shorts, which hang precariously around his thighs.

  And his cock… Holy hell, it looks longer, thicker than I remember, jerking in the fist of his hand. My mouth waters with the need to wrap my lips around him, to lap at the salty glans, and devour him whole.

  He hasn’t noticed me, his head turned slightly away, as he focuses on the framed photo on the workbench.

  I unlock my legs and take a few steps closer, squinting at the object of his attention.

  It’s a picture of me in the dance studio, stretching during one of my warm-ups. He’s jacking off to that?

  My chest clamps and swells as conflicting emotions barrel through me. Guilt pinches the hardest. He’s thinking only of me while my heart is torn in two. But I also feel relief and gratefulness and…arousal.

  There isn�
�t a warm-blooded woman on the planet who wouldn’t be turned on by this. He’s so damn virile and beautifully built, from the right-angled outline of his mitered shoulders to the V-cut contour of his abs and hips. His physique is a chiseled masterpiece of sexuality and manhood.

  Desire throbs between my legs, dampening my flesh. I wet my lips and inch forward another step.

  “Danni.” The profile of his mouth forms the word, his voice inaudible beneath the roaring music.

  I freeze, suddenly nervous and a little ashamed for spying on him. He doesn’t look at me, but he knows I’m here, ogling him like a pervert.

  The hand on his cock slows, stopping to cup the tight sac beneath. Then he slowly moves his head and meets my eyes.

  He doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t have to. It’s all there in the taut muscles of his face—longing, frustration, and a hunger so potent it turns his jawline to stone.

  I should head out and leave him to it, but everything inside me rages against that idea. I want to give him a hand, maybe two, and bring him over the edge, panting, shaking, and blissfully replete.

  His eyes harden, and he lifts his chin toward the stereo that sits against the wall. I move toward it and power it off, blanketing the basement in silence.

  When I pivot back to him, his shorts are pulled into place, his palms flat against the surface of the workbench as he leans into his arms.

  “I didn’t mean to…” I shift my weight, tongue-tied and flushed. “I brought you a protein shake.” I set it beside the stereo.

  He nods and closes his eyes, breathing heavily through his nose.

  The damp basement air thrashes with awkwardness. This isn’t us. We fight, yell, bitch, and call each other out on our fuck-ups. But we’re never awkward together.

  My attention falls to the bottle of lube on the workbench beside his hand. My no sex rule exists for a reason, but that doesn’t mean I can’t give a little. Without over-analyzing it, I stride toward him, snatch the lube, and climb onto the futon, kneeling at the center.

  “Come here,” I say to his back.

  “Not a good idea, baby.”

  “I trust you.”