Love & Lies

by Julie Johnson

  At this angle I couldn’t see much except the granite wall of the building across the alley. My startled eyes rounded like saucers when I saw a small projectile fly through the air and bounce off the glass like a tiny stone boomerang. A pebble.

  A freaking pebble.

  Thrown against my windowpane like I was some princess in a 16th century castle.

  Before I could stop myself, I was climbing onto the narrow window seat, pressing my hands flat against the glass, and staring down into the dark alleyway, looking for a figure in the shadows. When I spotted a familiar leather jacket, I hurried to slide open the window.

  “Wes?” I whisper-yelled down to the street, my eyes straining to meet his in the black night. “It’s three in the morning. What the hell are you doing down there?”

  I saw a flash of white teeth in the darkness as he grinned. “I had to tell you something.”

  “Who do you think you are, Romeo?” I rolled my eyes. “A text would’ve sufficed.”

  “Cut me some slack, I’m trying to be romantic.” His words floated up to my ears, and I could hear the amusement in his tone.

  “I told you I’m not a princess. This is definitely crossing the line into fairy-tale territory.”

  “You’re right. You’re not a princess — you’re Little Red. And I’m the Big Bad Wolf.”

  “Still a fairy tale,” I contested.

  “Not if you read the original version,” he countered.

  “True enough.”

  “Are you going to let me in, or were you planning to leave me hanging out here like an asshole all night?”

  “Hmm.” I pretended to think about it for a moment.

  “Red,” he growled.

  I laughed, slid the window shut, and ran —yes, ran — to the front door, pulling it wide so he could come inside.

  He stepped over the threshold and opened his mouth to say something, but I threw out a finger and pressed it to his lips, silencing him before he could make a sound.

  “Margot,” I mouthed, gesturing toward the bedroom door only feet away, behind which my roommate was sleeping soundly.

  Wes’ mouth curled into a smile beneath my fingertip, but he nodded and allowed me to tug him from the doorway without another word.

  When we reached my bedroom, there was an awkward moment when I realized there was nowhere for us to sit except my rumpled bed.

  You already married the guy, my subconscious reminded me. I’m pretty sure you can sit on a bed with him for a few minutes without spontaneously combusting.

  We settled in with a few feet of distance between us. I sat with my back to the headboard and my knees bent up to my chest; he sprawled out on the end of the mattress like a king, owning the space.

  I swallowed hard when he leaned back against the blankets and his t-shirt rode up, revealing a slice of taut, tanned abdominal muscles. I could happily sit here drooling at him all night, but I had a feeling that wasn’t my best look — I was already contending with bed-head and weird middle-of-the-night eye gunk.

  “So,” I said abruptly, after a few minutes had passed in silence. “You wanted to tell me something…”

  He turned his head in my direction and I saw his eyes were remote, his mind far away.

  “Is this the part where I comment on how big certain parts of your anatomy are, Mr. Wolf?” I asked, reverting to our Little Red Riding Hood joke to bring him back to me.

  His eyebrows went up and a corner of his mouth lifted sardonically. “Depends which parts we’re talking about, Red.”

  I felt my face flame. “Do you have to make everything dirty?”

  “I don’t have to.” He grinned. “But I like watching that blush make your face match your name.”

  I glared at him.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, sitting up and sliding closer to me on the bed. “I didn’t come here to tease you.”

  “Why did you come?” I asked, my voice snarky.

  He reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a tiny red drawstring bag. I felt my breath catch in my throat when he passed it to me. “Here,” he said softly, pressing it into my hand.

  Full of curiosity, I opened the small bag and watched, stunned, as the gorgeous handmade black bracelet I’d spent hours admiring at the festival earlier tumbled into the palm of my hand. With one finger, I traced the delicate beading and intricate horsehair weaving. It was even more beautiful now than I’d remembered it.

  I lifted watery eyes to glance at Wes. “How’d you know?”

  He stared at me with an intent look. “I know you, Red.”

  My stomach clenched as I stared back at him, feeling the air around us begin to crackle with everything that short sentence implied — and everything else we’d still left unsaid. With his words wrapped warm around me like an invisible blanket, I suddenly stopped worrying about my mussed hair and my messy bedroom. I didn’t care that it was the middle of the night and nothing was perfect. This wasn’t a fairytale — it was my life. And it was about time I started living it.

  I uncurled my knees and inched closer to Wes on the bed, until our sides were pressed tight together — like we were one, singular being.

  Any amount of space between us felt too far.

  “Put it on for me?” I whispered, handing him the jewelry and holding out my left arm. I watched as his hand lifted to take the woven bracelet, entranced as his fingers hooked the tiny clasp against the pounding pulse point in my naked wrist. Wes’ hands were gentle, barely even skimming my flesh as he turned my hand back over. With a single fingertip, he began to trace length of my fingers one-by-one in an achingly slow exploration.

  Thumb.

  Index.

  Middle.

  I tried not to squirm, unwilling to reveal how much he affected me. How the simple act of touching my hand was enough to set every atom in my body on fire.

  When Wes reached my ring finger, his progression halted. Instead of moving on, he stroked the thin cord that resided there so delicately, so reverently, it nearly reduced me to tears. He made a kind of choked sound I couldn’t put words to, and when I looked up to meet his eyes, I saw plainly in his gaze the confusion, lust, conflict, and love that were warring for space in his head. I easily recognized his struggle for control — inside, I was battling those same feelings.

  Neither of us spoke as the silence dragged on and the air grew thick with tension. I opened my mouth to say something, then shut it again; Wes swallowed hard and seemed to be gathering his thoughts, but none of them escaped his tight-pressed lips.

  The night was made for spilling secrets. But, sometimes, there aren’t any words.

  Only actions.

  The joining of two bodies in the darkness. The melding of two lost souls in the night.

  My hands dropped to the hem of Wes’ shirt. He turned to face me, lifting a finger to toy with the thin strap of my tank top. Our eyes locked. Held. Burned.

  And then, we were kissing.

  Violently, suddenly.

  A kiss that blasted open the floodgates — so powerful it was just as terrifying as it was beautiful. And like a lightning strike sparks an unstoppable wildfire in the heart of a vast forest, the mere brush of his mouth against mine set off a consuming fire within our interlocked bodies, that no amount of reason or restraint could douse.

  His lips slammed down on mine — imposing, possessing, demanding, domineering. His kiss was a coup d'état. He seized every one of my senses, invaded every part of me, took control over my entire body with a few strokes of his tongue, a few nips of his teeth.

  It was no hostile takeover. I surrendered to him willingly, with open arms and a white flag.

  But Wes’ walls were higher than mine — harder to scale and fortified with dynamite. This was a man who’d never known love. I knew he wouldn’t yield to me so easily. So while his overthrow was overt, mine was the Trojan horse. A mission of stealth. I didn’t wait for his permission — I didn’t demand it. Instead, I snuck past his borders while he
was distracted obliterating mine. I slipped inside his walls, inside his soul, and planted my flag in the flesh of his heart.

  If he was claiming me, I was claiming him right back.

  For once, we didn’t joke or tease or push away everything that made us a little bit vulnerable. We stripped each other bare — not only our clothes, but every barrier we used to keep a safe amount of distance between us. My tank top hit the floor and with it all the willpower I’d been trying to utilize. Wes’ hands worked the shorts from my legs and I felt all my self-doubt and carefully constructed denial peel away as well.

  I am in love with this man.

  The realization crippled me. I began to tear at his clothes, determined to remove the last obstacles separating us. Needing to get to that place where it was just him and me — two bare bodies, wearing nothing but the white cords around our fingers, entwined so tightly nothing could ever separate us again.

  I moved around behind him as I pulled his t-shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor alongside mine. My fingers traced the whirls of ink spanning his broad back and shoulders. I’d been dying to look at his tattoo for weeks, since I first spotted the twin tendrils peeking out of his collar on that rainy afternoon in the café. I saw now that it was a work of art — an infinite twisting design of spirals and interlocked rings, thorns and coils of ebony ink.

  A pang of surprise and sadness jolted through me when I saw the pattern was etched over a multitude of scars, each a different shape and size. It was like nothing I’d ever seen – the bumpy skin from countless old wounds, camouflaged by a labyrinth of inky beauty. I didn’t allow myself to ask where the marks had come from – I simply explored the maze with my fingers and lips, working my way from the outermost swirls to the elaborate inner markings and reveling in the feeling of Wes’ muscles contracting and heaving beneath my touch.

  I heard his breath grow labored as I kissed my way to the spot directly between his shoulder blades. His back was taut with tension, each muscle pulled tight as he tried to keep himself in check. I knew he was losing the battle for control when I reached the center of the inky design and felt his spine go rigid.

  He spun around and pinned me beneath him so fast I had no time to react, and I felt my own breaths turn to choppy pants of desire. Wes’ eyes burned into mine as he settled on top of me and I felt every hard line of his body pressed tight against my curves. His desire was a visceral, tangible creature swimming in the air around us — clawing, consuming, caressing me.

  No more walls stood between us — we’d obliterated them. There was nothing left here but skin and unspoken promises. Undeclared dreams and unquenched desires. And for a moment we just gazed at each other, his face hovering centimeters above mine, and the look in his eyes told me everything I ever needed to know about love.

  He stared into my soul, his dark eyes brimming with something like wonderment, and inched inside me so slowly, so achingly, I thought I might fly apart in a million pieces, so full of emotion my body couldn’t possibly contain it all. And, for the first time in my life, I knew exactly who I was, what I was.

  I was complete.

  We moved together — eyes locked, souls aligned.

  I was spiraling, reeling. Spinning, feeling.

  It was too slow, too fast.

  Too much, not enough.

  Everything, all at once.

  And as our lips met and parted, as our hands caressed and explored, as our mutual pleasure mounted and grew to a breaking point… I knew I would happily stay here, in this moment, with him for the rest of my life. I didn’t need air or water or sustenance — all I needed was Wes, and this slow, delicious torture he was inflicting with each powerful thrust of his hips. Every time he moved, he pushed me higher, until the earth disappeared and I was floating among the clouds. I never wanted it to end, never wanted to return to the ground.

  He rolled so I was on top of him, staring down into his eyes, and when I saw the mixture of astonishment and longing swirling in their depths it nearly shattered me. He felt it too — the connection between us. The love.

  I’ll never let this go, I thought. I’ll never let him go.

  But I didn’t say it.

  He was a wild creature — untamed, unloved. Not meant for a cage.

  I’d never keep him. I’d never bind him to me.

  I knew that all too well.

  But maybe, I thought as he thrust into me one last time and triggered an explosion of ecstasy that shook me to my core, Maybe he’ll let me run wild by his side.

  Chapter 29

  Weston

  A CONTRADICTION

  * * *

  I’d fucked women.

  Banged them.

  Screwed them.

  Nailed them.

  I’d never made love to one, though. Not till Faith.

  I didn’t deserve her, certainly hadn’t earned her. But I’d damn well try to be what she needed. Faith Morrissey deserved everything I could give and far, far more.

  She was a girl composed entirely of truths. The fabric of her essence was weaved with threads of honesty and candor.

  I was a man comprised completely of lies. My blackened soul was built of falsehoods and fabrications.

  Together, we were a contradiction. It shouldn’t have worked. But somehow, all our opposites balanced — two halves of the same whole.

  My sharp angles were mellowed against her soft curves. My disappointment in the world was curbed by her enthusiasm for it. My darkness was eased by her light.

  I held her above me as we moved together and watched her slowly unravel.

  Head thrown back, eyes half closed, lush lips parted.

  Her hair fell around her face like a curtain and I pushed it behind her shoulders, needing to see her. Absorbing her in fragments and flashes.

  White skin glowing like silk in the moonlight.

  Smooth limbs tangled with mine.

  Heartbeat pulsing heavily in the hollow of her throat.

  She was so fucking beautiful it made my entire body ache like I’d taken a heavy beating. Looking at her hurt like a physical blow — one I’d accept happily. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

  The need to possess her, to claim her rough and hard, like I’d wanted to since I first laid eyes on her, was so strong it nearly killed me. My body was screaming for release, wanting nothing more than to drive into her with so much force she’d never forget this moment, as long as she lived. But I held off, because the sweetness of this — strange and unfamiliar as it was — was also the best thing I’d ever felt. She wasn’t a cheap, meaningless fuck or a quick, dirty screw.

  She was Faith.

  So, for the first time, I allowed myself to be tender. I touched her gently, coaxed the pleasure from her body with lazy, languorous strokes.

  And, in turn, she made things I’d only ever dreamed of come alive — even as she killed me. With every muscle she moved, every touch of her hands, every brush of her body against mine, I felt myself sink further into her depths.

  I drowned under the graze of her fingertips. The clench of her hips. The press of her lips.

  And as she came undone around me, crying out my name and collapsing against my chest, I saw the love there in her eyes and I knew I’d never, ever be the same.

  I am in love with this girl.

  Chapter 30

  Faith

  ALWAYS

  * * *

  We fell asleep, limbs tangled like vines. My head resting on his chest, I listened to the hollow thumping of his heartbeat and let it dull the edges of my wakeful mind, as a child does a bedtime story. I hovered on the border of consciousness, barely able to keep my eyelids from slipping closed, and I felt Wes’ lips skim my forehead so lightly, I couldn’t be sure if it was real or simply part of a dream. I thought I heard him whisper something against my hair, but I was too far gone to hear whatever it was.

  In the arms of the man I loved against all reason, I slipped into the most content sleep I’d ever had.


  * * *

  The sheets were cold when I woke.

  I reached out for Wes, but my hand encountered nothing but blankets and air as it slid across the bed. He wasn’t here — and hadn’t been for a while, if the lack of body-heat warming my bed was any indication. My eyes flew open and I sat straight up, clutching the sheet to my bare chest like a shield even as my gaze swept the room.

  He hadn’t gone far.

  He was sitting at the end of my bed with his back to me and his head bowed in what appeared to be deep contemplation. One hand pinched the bridge of his nose and I could see, even from this angle, that his eyes were pressed firmly closed. His expression was pained. I couldn’t help but notice that he’d gotten dressed at some point between falling asleep naked with me last night and right now.

  “Wes?” Though I spoke in the softest whisper, he flinched at the sound of my voice.

  His head turned fractionally and he glanced over his shoulder at me, his hand dropping into his lap like dead weight.

  “Good, you’re awake. I wanted to wait to say goodbye, but I couldn’t wake you. You looked so peaceful.”

  There was a careful distance in his tone that set me instantly on edge. He was being friendly.

  But we weren’t just friends. Never had been.

  I swallowed hard and tried not to overreact prematurely. “You’re leaving?”

  He turned fully to face me but couldn’t quite meet my eyes. “I have work.”

  It was Saturday.

  I felt myself begin to vibrate with anger as I watched him rise to his feet and grab his leather jacket from the end of the bed. He edged around the side of the mattress, kissed my forehead, and whispered something about having a good day in my ear. I don’t know what his exact words were — all of my cognitive processes were tied up as I tried to convince myself that it was a bad idea to walk into the kitchen, grab a large blade, and slice off his man-parts.

  Because, as thoroughly as I enjoyed those man-parts, I was in the midst of a rage blackout. Self-restraint had left the building and all bets were off.