by Ana Huang
Max moved so fast I didn’t get a chance to blink before his hand closed around my wrist in a crushing grip. A small cry fell out at the pain lancing up my arm.
“You fucking bitch—” He only got half his sentence out before tattooed hands yanked him off me and tossed him aside like he was nothing more than a rag doll.
Kage.
Somehow, he’d entered the room without either of us noticing.
“Hands off the lady,” Kage growled.
Max sputtered in shock as he took in the other man’s bulky, six-foot-two frame. “Who the fuck are you?”
Kage crossed his arms over his chest. He didn’t answer.
“The painting, Max.” My wrist still throbbed from where he’d grabbed me, but I ignored it. “Where is it?”
His jaw flexed with anger, but he wasn’t dumb enough to test Kage’s capability for violence. “The closet,” he ground out. “In the portfolio bag.”
I glanced at Kage, who nodded. He kept an eye on Max while I retrieved the bag from the closet and unzipped it. The painting was nestled inside the black material, safe and sound and hideous as ever.
Thank God.
“This isn’t over,” Max said as I walked to the door. He’d wrestled his outward fury under control, but his eyes shone with anger and panic. I assumed his “friends” wouldn’t be too happy about him losing the painting. “You think you solved all your problems just because you got rid of the tape and took back the painting? You’re still a liar and a whore. Eventually, your boyfriend will figure it out and toss you aside the way everyone does. The way I’d planned to do before you snuck off in the middle of the night like a coward.”
I stopped in the doorway. Max was pushing every button he could find. Some of it I brushed off; others peeled the scabs off healing wounds until they bled again.
Sweat dampened my palms at the prospect of Josh finding out what happened.
“Maybe I’ll nudge the process along. Give the good doctor a heads up on who, exactly, broke into his house. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the truth.” The poison from Max’s words dripped into my veins.
Kage’s low growl rumbled through the air. He stepped toward the other man, but I held out my arm to stop him.
This wasn’t his fight.
“Actually, Max it is over.” The bag strap slipped against my palms. “You don’t have the tape. You don’t have evidence of anything that happened in Ohio. If you did, you would’ve used it already. And you can try to tell Josh, but he’s not going to believe you over me. You have nothing.”
Max paled. He curled his hands into fists, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths.
Without the armor of blackmail, he looked small. Weak, like the Wizard of Oz after the curtain was pulled back.
A strange, unexpected seed of sympathy sprouted in my stomach. For all the terrible things he’d done, Max had saved me when my mom kicked me out. Granted, he’d pulled me into a life I was less than proud of, but without him, I might’ve ended up homeless.
I would still cut his balls off if I had the chance, but he was right. I did owe him. Not money or my body, but some acknowledgment of our shared history that would allow me to walk away for good with a clear conscience.
“I’m sorry you spent all those years in jail,” I said. “Seven years is a long time, and I understand why you’re angry. But you’re out now, and it’s a chance for a fresh start. Don’t get sucked into your old life any more than you already have.” I swallowed hard. “It’s easy to get caught up in old habits and hurts, but you’ll never be happy chasing things that no longer exist. It’s time to move on from the past. I did.”
I walked out, leaving Max red-faced and alone in his hotel room.
My mind tumbled with a thousand thoughts as Kage and I rode the elevator down to the lobby.
It’s time to move on from the past. I did.
Except I hadn’t, not really.
I’d planned to plant the stolen items back in Josh’s house and leave him to figure out why the burglar would do such a thing. But if I did that, my lies would always be an albatross around my neck. Even if Josh never found out what happened, I would know. Every time he kissed me, every time he smiled at me, I would know I was keeping something from him, and it would eat me, and eventually us, alive.
How could you build a relationship on a foundation of lies?
The answer: you couldn’t.
The elevator doors opened. I walked through the lobby, barely noticing the ugly orange carpet and threadbare sofas.
Moving on from the past didn’t mean burying it beneath a new foundation and hoping no one found it; it meant exposing the ugliness to the light and taking responsibility.
You couldn’t heal from something if you didn’t acknowledge it.
As Kage and I stepped out of the hotel, my thoughts crystallized into clarity.
I knew what I had to do.
I had to tell Josh the truth.
46
JOSH
“You’re in a remarkably good mood.” Clara cocked an amused eyebrow as I signed out from my shift. “Does the reason begin with a J and rhyme with rules?”
“Cannot confirm or deny,” I said, practically whistling.
Last week’s burglary aside, I’d had a damn good week. I’d put Michael behind me, Alex and I were on our way to being real friends again, and work had been relatively easy. For the ER, that meant no patient deaths and no mass casualty incidents, though there had been a nasty case involving an idiot with a blowtorch.
Plus, Jules’s bar exam was next week, which meant we could finally go on real dates again soon.
I already had our first post-bar date planned: a weekend trip to New York to see a special limited-time revival of Legally Blonde: The Musical, sandwiched between lots of good food and even more sex.
I’d have to trade shifts again to make the weekend happen, and it was expensive as hell on a resident’s salary, but Jules deserved it. Getting through the bar was a big deal.
“Fine. Don’t tell me, but I can guess.” Clara rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “One of these days, you’ll have to confirm your relationship, or the other nurses won’t stop hounding you about dating.”
“I’ll confirm after you admit your relationship with Tinsley is serious.” I smiled at her scowl. She’d been dating Tinsley for months and still refused to make it official. And people said I had commitment problems. “That’s what I thought.”
“Goodbye, Dr. Chen,” she said pointedly.
I laughed and waved before I left.
I’d scheduled drinks with Alex for tonight, but that wasn’t for another four hours. I had time for a shower and a quick nap, maybe a bit of New York research. I read about a dessert place there that reportedly served incredible salted caramel ice cream.
I typed in the security code when I arrived at my house and pushed the door open. One of the first things I did after the break-in was install a home security system. Alex recommended it, so I assumed it was good.
Well, it was the tenth one he recommended. The first nine were expensive as shit, but at least this one cracked his top ten.
I was already half asleep by the time I finished my shower, but the sound of the doorbell jolted me awake.
I threw on a pair of sweatpants and answered the door. Pleasant surprise filtered through me when I saw Jules standing on the front step.
“Hey, Red.” I greeted her with a cocky grin. “Can’t stay away from me, huh? Don’t blame you.” I gestured at myself. “Look at all this.”
I was still shirtless from the shower, and I didn’t want to brag or anything, but my abs were a fucking work of art.
“If I knew you had company, I would’ve waited,” she said dryly. She was carrying a large portfolio bag, which was strange, since she didn’t draw. Maybe she went shopping earlier. “Wouldn’t want to interrupt your weekly lovefest with your ego.”
“Daily,” I corrected. “Self-love is critical to maintaining one’s self
-esteem. But you’re hot, so you’re allowed to interrupt.” I drew her inside and kicked the door closed behind us before planting a kiss on her lips. “Here for a study break?”
“Um, sort of.” Jules tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, looking unusually nervous.
“Well, don’t take too long of a break. As happy as I am to see you, I want you to kick ass on this exam.” Anticipation zipped down my spine. “I have a surprise for you after it’s over.”
“Can’t wait.”
I frowned at her subdued response. Normally, she’d be hounding me about what the surprise was until I caved. “You okay?”
“Yes. No. I mean, I have something to tell you.” She drew in a long breath without meeting my eyes. “It’s about the painting the burglar stole.”
“Okay...” I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not making me buy that painting we saw online the other day, are you? The one of the dogs playing poker? Because it’s cool and all, but there must be a thousand other people who own it.”
“No.” Her laugh sounded forced. “Actually, it’s a funny story. I have the painting. The one you’re missing.”
Confusion drew my brows together. “You found a print of it?”
“No.” Jules fiddled with her bag. “The real thing. The one stolen from your room.”
My smile slipped, and foreboding settled over my skin like a layer of frost. How the fuck did she get the painting when the police couldn’t even find a lead?
“What are you talking about?”
Instead of answering, Jules slowly unzipped the portfolio bag and withdrew the painting.
I stared at it blankly.
There it was, in all its brown and green glory. I’d never realized how condescending it was. The painting smirked at me, its taunt a singsong voice in my head.
I know something you don’t. And you’re not going to like it when you find out...
“That’s not all.” Jules’s voice shook so violently she sounded like a distorted version of herself.
My foreboding hardened into icy disbelief when she reached into her purse and retrieved three additional items.
My watch. My iPad. My rolled-up wad of emergency cash.
No.
She set them on the coffee table, the tremble in her hands matching the one in her voice.
No, no, no.
“Tell me you hunted down the thief and recovered those items.” I barely heard myself over the roar in my ears. “Tell me the burglar had a crisis of conscience and dropped those items on my porch when I was in the shower and you found them. Dammit, Jules, tell me something!”
Something other than the suspicion winding its way around my throat and choking off my air.
“I stole the items.” Jules’s confession hit me like a bullet in the chest. Pain pierced my flesh, making me flinch. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to do it. He was blackmailing me, and I didn’t know what else to do except go along with it, and I…”
Her rambled explanation faded as the roar grew louder. Her words ran together into a murky stream that painted the world in ugly grays and vicious reds.
She was the artist, and I was trapped in a surrealist nightmare of her making.
“Who?” I latched onto the last thing I remembered hearing.
My brain was sluggish, and it took more effort than usual to get the word out.
Jules wrapped her arms around her waist. “Max.”
Max. The guy I met at Hyacinth.
Liquid dark rage seeped through my veins and into my voice at the mention of that smug-faced fucker. “Start from the beginning.”
I listened, numb, as Jules explained everything more clearly this time—the jobs she pulled in Ohio, her relationship with Max, her sex tape, his blackmail, how she broke into my house and how she finally got rid of the video and recovered the painting.
When she finished, the ensuing silence was loud enough to deafen me.
“I’m sorry.” Jules swallowed. “I should’ve told you all this earlier, but I didn’t want to ruin what we had when we were just starting to get along. I wasn’t sure how you would react, and I thought…”
“You thought?”
“That if I told you about my past, it would confirm everything horrible you’d ever thought about me.” Her voice grew smaller with each word, like she was realizing how fucking stupid they were.
My rage pulsed harder. It leaked from my veins and spread into my chest, hollowing it out until nothing else remained.
Half of it was directed at Max for what he did to Jules.
The other half…
Breathe.
“I see.” No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t summon an ounce of warmth. My blood had iced into one solid, painful pool, and I was afraid any movement would crack it. Splinter it into a thousand icicles that would shred me open from the inside out. “So why are you telling me now?”
“I didn’t want to lie to you anymore. I never wanted to lie to you, but I...” Jules took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. “I wanted us to have a fresh start. No more secrets or lies.”
“I see,” I repeated. The cold in my chest intensified. “I forgive you.”
She faltered, her face twisting with confusion at the contrast between my words and my chilly tone. “You do?”
“Yes.” I smiled. The movement felt strange, like I was contorting my mouth into a position it was no longer capable of. “Come here, Red.”
The nickname tasted bitter on my tongue.
After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped toward me.
Even with ashen skin and dark circles shadowing her eyes, she was the most beautiful, treacherous thing I’d ever seen.
I curled my hand around the back of her neck and rubbed a gentle thumb over her skin before I yanked her toward me and kissed her hard enough to draw a whimper of pain.
“That hurt?”
Jules shook her head, her muscles taut beneath my touch.
“Good.” I softened the kiss, soothing her lips with my tongue. “You shouldn’t have lied, Red,” I whispered. “You know I hate liars.”
I detected a soft tremble in her shoulders. “I know.”
“But you…” I dragged my mouth over the line of her jaw and down her neck. “You are so beautiful. So sweet beneath that prickly armor you wear. You know things about me no one else ever will.” I sank my teeth into the curve between her neck and shoulder. “How can I stay mad at you?”
Jules let out another whimper when my hand inched beneath her skirt and brushed over her pussy. For once, she wasn’t wet for me.
But we would change that.
I slipped my hand inside her underwear and caressed her until she flooded my fingers and her body melted into mine.
My movements were cold. Mechanical. I’d done them a million times, and I watched her mouth part in little moaning gasps with apathy.
My cock strained against my zipper, hard and angry. It was a physical reaction more than anything else, but it was the only part of me that still felt alive.
Jules was teetering on the edge of orgasm when I yanked my hand away.
“Get on your fucking knees.”
She jerked at my harsh tone, but after a second’s hesitation, she slowly sank to her knees without argument.
“Do you want this?” I tilted her chin up, forcing her eyes to meet mine. “Tell me if you don’t, Red. This is your last chance.”
Jules’s throat bobbed with a swallow. “I want this.”
I released her chin and tugged her head back with one hand while freeing my cock with the other. “Tap my thigh if you want me to stop.”
That was the only warning I gave her before I shoved myself down her throat. She gagged at the brutal invasion, her eyes welling with tears, but her hands remained planted in her lap.
I gripped her hair with both hands and fucked her mouth, deeper and deeper until the obscene sound of my balls slapping against her chin mixed with her choked gurgling.
My jaw clenched
as I stared down at her. The sight of her kneeling before me, tears and mascara running down her cheeks while she choked on my cock, sent an irrational wave of fury through me.
I closed my eyes and tipped my head back. That turned out to be a mistake, because the minute I did, unwanted memories banged through my brain.
Vermont. The clinic. Hyacinth. The picnic. Ohio.
Every puzzle piece that shaped our relationship into what it was now, tainted.
It wasn’t about the size of Jules’s lies. I didn’t give two fucks about a stupid painting and some gadgets. It was about trust.
All I’d ever wanted was honesty, and all I’d ever gotten was deception.
Tension knifed through my gut.
I opened my eyes and yanked my cock out of Jules’s mouth. Sweat coated my skin, and my heart drummed a painful rhythm in my chest.
She was a mess—hair tousled, mouth swollen, cheeks streaked with tears. She stared up at me, those huge hazel eyes saying words I didn’t want to hear.
“Get on all fours.”
I couldn’t bring myself to look at her, but even when I fucked her from behind, images of her seared through my brain.
The glint of her hair in the sunlight. The fire that sparked in her eyes when she insulted me. The softness of her palm against mine and the way her mouth tilted up just a fraction higher on the right when she smiled.
Pressure suffocated my chest.
Jules was close to coming. I could hear it in the way she breathed and feel it in the way she squeezed around me.
It was funny how sometimes, I was attuned to her every movement, and other times, I didn’t know her at all.
I leaned down until my mouth hovered next to her ear. “Remember when I said I forgive you?” I reached around to pinch her clit. “I lied.”
Jules’s orgasm hit her at the same time my words did. She gasped out a half sob, half moan while I came right after her.
The empty release did nothing to ease the pressure behind my ribcage.
I disentangled myself from her and stood. She slumped forward on the ground, her dress bunched around her waist, her shoulders shaking with soft cries.