Liar, Liar

by T. L. Martin

  The turmoil must be written on my face. Easton’s brows slant, and, slowly, he stands. I breathe a little harder.

  “What do you like?” he asks gruffly, walking closer, closer.

  “I . . .” I shake my head, and my arms fall to my sides. “I don’t know,” I admit, feeling the redness creep up my neck.

  He reaches my bed and studies me with a softness that stretches the redness to my cheeks. I don’t know why I’m so nervous. When he lowers to his knees beside me, I try not to shiver.

  He leans close, his face hovering above my lower stomach. Then, his lips part, and he exhales. Hot breath fans my bare skin, just below my belly button, and heat jolts through me. My fingers curl around the comforter. He’s not even touching me, but the contact is so real, so sensual, it feels like rough palms and sinful promises.

  He watches my expression closely. “Touch yourself, Eva.” Then he blows on me again, so softly a tremor rolls down my spine.

  With a swallow, I dip my fingers beneath my panties. He angles his head, and this time, when he blows, the warm puff of air lands between my thighs. I gasp, roll my fingers.

  My body sinks against the mattress as the tension eases out of me, my core tingling and throbbing with each rough exhale. Finally, I dip my fingers inside.

  “Do you know how long I’ve fantasized about you?” His rapid breath is in sync with my own.

  My heavy-lidded gaze locks onto his. Easton fantasizes about me?

  “Those little outfits you wear. The teasing, sexy-as-hell looks you give me. Every stubborn, ballsy word from that pouty mouth.” One hand comes up as if to touch me, but he stops less than an inch above my thigh. Never connecting with my skin, he follows an invisible trail across my body, and the heat radiating from his palm raises goose bumps on my thighs. His throat moves up and down, a tormented look contorts his expression, and he stares at me as if I’m precious. Too precious to have. “It’s fucking torture, Eva. Years of watching, waiting, wanting.”

  I can’t breathe. “But you never said anything. You never even talked to me.”

  “Keep touching yourself,” he instructs softly.

  I’m so stunned by his words, I didn’t realize I stopped. I slip my fingers beneath my panties again, but I falter when Easton shifts. Leaning partly over the bed, he lifts the narrow strip of fabric between my thighs, his fingers unsteady, and he looks like he’s in physical pain as he carefully avoids touching me. Then, he lets out a harsh exhale over the most sensitive part of me. A sigh escapes, and my parted legs spread open further for him. His face is close between my legs, so close the dark strands of his hair tickle the insides of my thighs. Every time he shifts and breathes, my lungs constrict, deep flutters whispering through me.

  He rolls up his crisp white sleeve, watching as I slip two fingers inside and start fingering myself. “I remember the first night I saw you,” he says. Another exhale, another sigh. His eyes shut, and his lips brush the sensitive skin by my panty line so softly I might have imagined it. “And every night you came back. You were unbreakable. The most stunning thing I’ve ever seen.”

  My fingers move a little faster, matching the quick, broken rhythm of my rising and falling chest, but at the same time, emotion wells behind my eyes until they burn.

  Stunning.

  Unbreakable.

  Two words I never thought would be associated with me, and yet he says them with such conviction I almost . . . I almost want to believe him.

  “Will you touch me?” I whisper, plead, beg. “Please touch me, Easton.”

  His eyes snap up to mine, and they burn violently with everything I heard in his voice. Longing, torment, worship. If someone told me a person could worship you with a single look, I’d never believe them. But I believe it now.

  His finger traces the edge of my panties, and my breath stops. He hooks his thumb underneath the fabric. I lift my hips, allowing him to pull the material past, and he tugs them down, down, down. Then he prowls back toward me. My heart skips a beat at the wild, untamed spark in his eyes. I hate myself for tensing up, but just when I think he’s going to pounce, to take whatever parts of me he wants for himself, he places his hand gently on top of mine and guides it back between my thighs. A breath I didn’t know I’d been holding pours out of me.

  “Do you trust me?”

  I nod without hesitation. I’ve never trusted anyone the way I do Easton.

  His lips tip up, and then he guides my fingers, our fingers, where I need them. We move together over my clit in a circular pattern, and currents of heat and tingles erupt from my core. His gaze darkens as he watches my hips roll for more friction. Through half-lidded eyes, I’m mesmerized by the way the veins in his forearm twitch with restraint. To see the raw strength in him but to feel his tender, controlled touch—the combination makes me hotter, wetter, and desperate for more.

  I didn’t know guys could have this kind of self-control, especially not while there’s this much longing and need oozing off them.

  When a delicious spasm makes me shudder, I know I’m getting close. I untuck my hand and place it on top of his. I gasp at how hot the touch of his palm burns. My eyes roll to the ceiling before they flutter shut.

  “Eva . . .” His voice is almost pleading. He starts to pull away, but I grip his wrist, urging him to stay.

  I grind against him, and a groan rumbles up his chest.

  For the first time in years, I feel more than numbness with someone else’s hand on me. I feel like my head has broken free of the water holding me under. I feel, and that in itself is enough to push the sting in the backs of my eyes to the forefront. Finally, I force my eyes open, and I look at him. We stare at each other for a second, both of us breathing hard, his gaze absorbing my expression. I don’t say a word, but whatever he sees is enough.

  With my fingers still curled around his wrist, he slowly rubs his palm against me. I arch into his touch, and he presses on my clit. I cup his hand, and we move together the same way we did before. Except, this time, his movements are stronger, quicker, bolder. Spasms shoot up my core. My hips lift off the bed, but he places his free hand on my stomach and flattens me to the comforter.

  Two fingers sink inside me, making me clench tight, while his palm keeps working my clit. My nails dig into him, probably tearing skin. The pressure is so much, too much, and noises spill from my tongue that I don’t recognize.

  “Easton . . .”

  He shifts on the bed, continuing to pump and work me up, up, up, until my toes curl. And then his lips are at my ear, hot, ragged breath on my neck. “Say it again.”

  My eyes squeeze shut. “Easton.”

  He groans against my throat at the same moment the knots in my core burst into pieces, shooting electric waves up my spine and down my legs. I cry out, and his free hand covers my mouth to silence me.

  “Shhh . . .” His nose grazes the curve of my neck, and he nips tenderly below my ear.

  The orgasm rips through me so intensely my trembling thighs lock around his hand. I don’t know how long it takes for the tremors to stop, but once I come down from the high and open my eyes, I’m lost in the most languid, peaceful daze I’ve ever felt.

  A door slams down the hall, and Easton’s head whips toward my locked door. Something shatters against a wall. I should probably care about what’s happening out there, but I can’t muster up the energy.

  When he turns back to me, our eyes lock. The deep, intense spark swirling behind whiskey stops my breath. He doesn’t look at me like he’s owed anything. He looks at me like I’ve already given him everything.

  I swallow, my throat thick. The vulnerability that floods me burns hot and cold, alien and terrifying.

  “How’d it feel to be on your knees for me?” I hate myself the instant the words escape. They stretch in the room, mocking me, mocking him, but the spark in his eyes never wavers.

  “Don’t kid yourself, Eva,” he says softly, still struggling to control his breathing. “I’ve been on my knees for you
since the day you told me your name.”

  His hand disappears from between my thighs. Gentle fingers graze my stomach, my cheek.

  Then, he leaves. And he takes my breath with him.

  Easton

  Muffled voices, bitter and hushed, slip beneath my parents’ closed door. Seeing the hall is empty, I swallow hard, shoulders constricting with each harsh breath, and rest my forehead against Eva’s closed door. My hand is still curled around the knob.

  I broke the rules. My mom’s rule. I crossed another line I should have never crossed. And yet now, even as my cock still strains against my jeans, I can’t find an ounce of guilt or regret.

  At first, when I overheard my dad’s words, I couldn’t understand the sharp crack that shattered in my chest. Most of the time, he pretends I don’t exist. So how does his rejection still feel like a noose around my neck? It constricted, choked, and burned when I was alone in my room. Because for the first time ever, I realized his rejection is justified.

  I’m not his.

  Then I looked up, and there was Eva. Eva who showed up for me despite everything my mom said about her. Eva who was all honest eyes and soft words.

  For what it’s worth, not all of it is bullshit. Not to me.

  At that moment, it was worth my goddamn sanity.

  I knew what I wanted when I followed her to her room. I told myself it was an act of rebellion. An act I deserved. But then, I was in her space, having locked the door, and I saw her. I saw the vulnerability in her brown eyes. I saw the tremble in her grasp as she reached for her zipper.

  Seconds. A few seconds was all it took for her to strip me raw, and like a puff of smoke, all the bullshit had gone. I was no longer following her in an act of rebellion. I followed because I need her, because I need something real from her, and somehow, she knew. Somehow, she offered herself to me. She gave me a piece of herself I never thought I’d get. A piece of her I can’t stop replaying: eyes locked on mine, hips grinding against my hand, my broken name on her lips—

  “Easton?”

  I jerk away from Eva’s door. Isaac’s fiance, Thomas, stands at the top of the stairs.

  “Isaac’s been looking for you. Wanted to make sure you’re okay. He tried your room, but . . .” He glances at the door beside me, not knowing it’s Eva’s. “Guess he missed you. Anyway, we gotta take off, but he’s still downstairs if you have a minute.”

  “Uh, yeah. Be right down.”

  Thomas nods, and I wait until he heads back down the stairs before adjusting myself. Shit. I’m still hard as fuck. I follow after him, stepping over a broken picture frame at the same moment my parents’ door opens.

  My feet freeze, eyes lock with my dad’s.

  His hand slips from the doorknob, and he takes a hesitant step forward. My chest hammers. I’m not sure if he’s coming toward me or making a break for the stairs, and by the uncertainty in his expression—a look I see so rarely I hardly recognize it—neither is he.

  He swipes a hand through his sandy brown hair, flicks his gaze toward the stairs, and then he looks at me. “Easton . . .” A swallow. “I . . .”

  I cock a brow, but with each ticking second of silence, something inside me withers away. You, what? Hate me? Wish I wasn’t here?

  “I . . . can’t do this right now,” he finishes.

  Pulling on his tie, he makes up his mind and walks to the stairs. I watch, unable to move, until he disappears. My throat is tight, the collar of my button-down choking me even though its undone. When I eventually follow after his shadow, descend the stairs behind him, I can’t help realizing I’m always going to be chasing him. Forever in his shadow.

  The house is dead other than some caterers packing up and Maria zipping from one room to the next filling up a trash bag.

  Isaac and Thomas are chatting in the foyer when I spot them, Isaac pulling his guitar strap over his shoulder. I roll down my sleeve, shove my hands into my pockets, and try to let the emotions roll off my shoulders. My dad makes it look so damn easy not to care. But I can’t fucking do it, and I guess that’s just proof I’m not my father’s son.

  “Hey,” Isaac says when I approach them. He looks at Thomas, who glances away, shuffles his feet, and checks his phone.

  “Oh, yeah, gotta take this,” Thomas says, raising his phone with a black screen before putting it to his ear. “Ah, hello . . . ?”

  Isaac’s lips quirk as Thomas walks away carrying on with his imaginary conversation, then he returns his focus to me. “So. How are you holding up?”

  “Could be better.”

  “Look . . . about what Dad said, we all know he can be a real asshole. Just . . .” He presses his lips together, grips his guitar strap. “Give it time, you know? He handles things his own way. Remember when we were kids?”

  My jaw ticks, discomfort flaring in my gut at the reminder my dad wasn’t always this way. That he loved me once.

  “Remember when we knocked down his entire fucking guitar collection in the garage? Remember how fucking furious he was?” Isaac laughs. I don’t. “He was an asshole for weeks.”

  “Months.”

  “We thought for sure he’d whoop our asses or disinherit us, but then, after he got some space, he got over it. He always gets over it.”

  “Yeah, well.” I rub the back of my neck, glance toward the stairs. I wonder what Eva’s doing. If she’s sleeping or lying in bed awake. Whether she’d open her door for me if I came back. “Turns out he’s had years to get over it this time. If it hasn’t happened by now, pretty sure it’s not going to.”

  Isaac shuts his eyes, releases a breath, then pulls me in for a hug. He pats my back twice. “Well, if he doesn’t, it’s his loss.” He steps back, meeting Thomas’s gaze and giving a nod. “And anyway, look at the bright side. At least you’ll always have Mom.”

  My lips twitch dryly, and he laughs as Thomas returns to his side.

  “Okay, no, but seriously. Call me if you need to talk. I’d stay if I could, but you know . . . I don’t discriminate; professors are assholes too.” He takes Thomas’s hand. “And Eva . . . she acts all tough, but it’s always the tough ones who are the softest . . . Do me a favor and take care of her.”

  I clear my throat, nod once. “Yup.” Pretty sure what I just did with her is a far cry from what he means by that.

  Once he and Thomas leave and I’m left standing alone in the empty foyer, I allow myself to feel like shit. The sensation lingers, coils around me like tar, while I trudge up the stairs. Each step weighs me down a little more, and by the time I’m halfway up the staircase, Isaac’s words ring in my head.

  Take care of her.

  If he only knew.

  By the time I reach the top of the stairs, I’m so lost in thoughts of Eva that I almost miss it—the sobs coming from behind my parents’ cracked door. Brows furrowing, I narrow my eyes, peer inside. The room looks empty at first, but then I spot the top of my mom’s head. She sits on the floor, her back to me as she leans against the bed. Her hair is a mess, shoulders heaving. And she cries.

  She cries for so long I almost forget how different we are.

  Eva

  I fumble blindly through the stack of textbooks in my locker, my attention fixed down the hall.

  Easton is outside the boys’ locker room, surrounded by his teammates. Partially hidden by my locker door, I watch as he lazily tosses the football to Zach and laughs at something one of the guys says. His hair is messier than usual, like he’s been running his fingers through it all morning, and his eyes are so drained I doubt he slept at all last night.

  By the time I went downstairs this morning, he was already gone. The house might as well have been a Wild West ghost town while I crammed in some extra study time then got ready for school. Maria was the only one present, but even she was oddly quiet, not a single reprimand about my crop top and so-tight-they-look-painted-on jeans. I have no idea what happened between Bridget and Vincent after the party, but the broken picture frame of their wedding I spott
ed in the hallway tells me it was probably not good.

  I force myself to turn back to my materials. No matter how sated my body was last night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept picturing Easton, alone in his room, and imagining what he must have been feeling. I should have gone to him. I should have made sure he was okay. I could have easily done something to make him feel better, the way he did for me. I bite down on my lip.

  I still feel the heat of his hand between my thighs, his breath on my neck. His rough whisper in my ear, full of grit, honesty, and words I never knew could exist for me. Somehow, last night’s intimacy carved a bottomless void in my stomach. A void that’s aching and starving for more, and I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do about it.

  Gritting my teeth, I hug my books to my chest and shut my locker. I need to talk to him. I won’t be able to focus on anything else until I do.

  Before I can talk myself out of it, I whirl around. My books crash to the floor as pure shock crushes my throat.

  Black hair.

  I can’t—

  Snake eyes.

  I can’t breathe.

  Slow, thin smile.

  It’s him.

  It can’t be.

  He found me.

  The shard of porcelain burns my hip bone, and the feeling kicks my feet into action. Three lockers whiz by before the row ends, and I duck around them, concealing myself behind the corner.

  Vaguely noticing the looks students shoot my way, I squeeze my eyes shut. My nails dig into the wall behind me, and the distant sting of pain grounds me. I try to breathe, but the oxygen hits a barrier at the base of my throat. All I can manage are small, pathetic pulls of air.

  Don’t panic, Eva.

  Bracing myself, I shut my brain off long enough to open my eyes and peek around the corner. I scan the littered hall—students, students, more students.

  There’s no sign of him.

  But . . . I saw him. Didn’t I? Panic crawls over my skin like tiny talons. He looked so fucking real.