Dangerous Exes (Liars, Inc. Book 2)

by Rachel Van Dyken

  I gulped and tried not to squirm as my body got hotter and hotter. How dare he turn me on then stare at me! “No, nothing, I’m . . . fantastic.”

  My blood roared Liar as I tried to even my breathing.

  “Hmm.” He still didn’t move his hands, just stared at my breasts, licked his lips like he could still taste me on them, and then met my gaze. “That’s nice.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I should go get ready.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  He shook his head. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “I’m not?” It came out breathless, my body felt heavy with need the longer he stared at me with that half-lidded gaze, licking his lips like he was going to feast on me again.

  His lips twitched. “You drugged me.”

  I glared. What was he getting at? “You drugged yourself, genius.”

  “What the hell were you doing with sex tea?”

  “Sex tea?” I rolled my eyes. “I don’t know, Jessie! Maybe I was going to steam some, put it in your oatmeal, then trap you in a sauna!”

  His eyes widened. “What sort of psychopath would do that?”

  “I was kidding!”

  “I orgasmed in my sleep.” He bit down on his lower lip and then reached out and flicked my nipple. “To a vision of this.”

  I sucked in a breath as his hands moved to my hips and gripped them, pressing me harder against him, making my body downright tremble.

  “I woke up hard at least a dozen times last night to find you sleeping.” His knuckles grazed my chin. “Painful doesn’t even begin to describe the last few hours wanting you so damn much.”

  I gulped.

  “So”—he grinned—“your punishment for the drugging, and don’t worry, we’ll get back to the reasons you had that tea in the first place . . .” He sighed, and then put his hands behind his head again.

  “My punishment?” I repeated. “You never said.”

  “I’m more of an action sort of guy,” he said before positioning himself and thrusting into me without any sort of warning, just his hard length pressing inside me like I’d been wanting for the last ten minutes.

  And if I was honest.

  The minute we finished last night.

  More.

  I’d wanted more.

  He pulled out, my eyes snapped open. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” He slid back in.

  I gasped as he flipped me onto my back and then retreated again just as I was about to scream his name and tell him how amazing he was.

  “Jessie.” I said his name like a curse.

  “Yes?” He braced his body over mine, his smile smug, his intentions clearly bad.

  “Stop stopping!”

  “Is this what you want?” He filled me so hard and fast I saw stars. I gripped his biceps and tried to focus on his face as he leaned down and parted my lips with his tongue. “I want to punish you, but it seems punishing you”—he slowed his movements—“means I’m punishing myself.” I couldn’t get enough of that man’s tongue as it coaxed more and more moans out of me. “You feel perfect.”

  It was sweet.

  He was being sweet.

  I almost wished he had said something dirty.

  Something about how I was ready for him. How good it felt to be inside me.

  Instead, he said I was perfect.

  Me.

  Tears filled my eyes before I could tell my emotions to stop reacting, and when he locked eyes with me, it wasn’t with punishment or teasing, it was with admiration and a little bit of respect.

  He looked at me the way every woman wants to be looked at.

  With awe.

  Then he kissed me.

  Breaking eye contact as his thrusts increased, he braced my head with his hands, controlling the kiss, controlling the pace, taking the control from my hands in a way that wasn’t controlling at all.

  But to a girl like me? Complete surrender.

  I let myself get lost in his kiss, in his movements, in the way he filled me up completely.

  His hands moved to mine.

  They tangled.

  Our palms pressed against each other as his forehead touched mine. We locked eyes again, no words were said.

  I didn’t want to look away.

  I was afraid if I did, the moment would shatter.

  His lips brushed my forehead as he slid a hand between our bodies, touching me, releasing me, beckoning more surrender, taking more control.

  I moaned his name, then saw two of him for a few brief seconds as our bodies moved in perfect sync, as my mouth sought his.

  I kissed him deep, hard.

  He growled against my mouth, lips parted, breathing the same air.

  “Don’t want to stop,” he said.

  “Then don’t.” I would beg on my hands and knees.

  He chuckled against my mouth. “I can’t last forever.”

  “I thought athletes were known for their virility?”

  “Isla?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Shut up.” He kissed me harder, digging his hands into my hair, twisting it around his fingers like he wanted to hold on. He tugged the pieces hard with one last thrust, sending me over the edge as he gripped the headboard and filled me harder.

  My body arched up off the bed as I screamed his name.

  I didn’t even realize I was closing my eyes until I opened them to see him staring at me with that same look on his face, and then he was kissing me again, his mouth never leaving mine.

  And I wondered if that’s what the other half of the world felt like.

  The happy ones.

  The ones in relationships.

  Because I’d never experienced sex in that way before.

  With a man who once promised to destroy me.

  But in that same voice, he cried out my name like it was the only word he ever wanted to pass his lips.

  I wrapped my legs around his waist, my arms around his neck as he slowly sat up and took me with him. “I’ve never wanted to call in sick so much my entire life.”

  “Call in sick?” I laughed. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, I’m a PI now. I have an ex to catch and an ex to beat the shit out of. Tell me he was bad in bed, tell me he didn’t touch you like I did—”

  “He was selfish. Enough said.”

  “I was selfish last night,” Jessie admitted.

  “Right, but you were also drugged.”

  Jessie pulled me in for another kiss. “I didn’t need drugs to convince me that you would be perfect—I just needed them as an excuse to strip you down.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Isla?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Today . . . wear red.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  JESSIE

  The elevator was quiet.

  I couldn’t stop touching her.

  The tea had completely worn off. I could tell because I wasn’t walking around the hotel trying to hide the baseball bat in my pants. Then again, it’s not like I wasn’t still sporting something.

  My hands grazed her arm so many times she had to know it was on purpose.

  She wore red.

  Red.

  A color that would normally make my eyes burn was doing something else entirely. The dress hugged every curve, it was simple, elegant.

  It was Isla.

  She’d even curled her straight dark hair just enough to make me want to reach out and touch it. We were already running late to meet Colin and Blaire, so it was near impossible to grab her.

  To run my hands down her ass.

  To blurt out that I wanted her again.

  I had no excuses this time, though.

  No tea to lean back on.

  And for once in my life I was curious where I stood with a woman, and maybe a bit anxious. Was I just a quick screw for her? Or was it more? Did I still want to destroy her? The anger that I’d always put front and center was now more of a lazy, simmering irr
itation with a heavy, sickening dose of fear.

  Fear that I was jumping into something too soon.

  Fear that she saw me the way my ex did.

  My thoughts were causing another headache, and this time I couldn’t drug myself with some weird Chinese medicine.

  Which is the only admission I got from Isla when I asked again this morning.

  I cleared my throat to say something to her, to tell her that I wanted to hit the button to our floor and hide away in the room. To tell her to screw it, that I didn’t even care anymore about Vanessa.

  But the truth was.

  I still cared.

  People don’t change overnight.

  But I wanted to know how.

  I was out of control last night.

  And it felt good.

  She was wearing red.

  And I couldn’t stop staring.

  Maybe change wasn’t so bad?

  “Hey!” Blaire and Colin were waiting near the elevators. Blaire pulled Isla in for a quick hug while Colin gave me a once-over. It took him less than three seconds to smirk.

  It took me less than two to flip him off without the girls seeing.

  “Good morning, Jessie,” he said in a cheerful voice. “Sleep well? In your bed? Upstairs? In the room you’re sharing with Isla?”

  Blaire looked between us.

  Isla’s cheeks heated. “We did, thanks, too bad Jessie wasn’t feeling so well.”

  “You got sick?” Blaire sounded skeptical.

  “It was hard”—Isla just had to say hard—“on him.”

  I looked toward the ceiling and mumbled a curse.

  “I hate it when things are hard.” Colin nodded solemnly. “Maybe next time you’re dealing with a situation of hardness”—oh God, someone shut him the hell up!—“which you clearly were last evening, you just get a little help from . . . a friend.” He looked to Isla.

  “Colin,” I said in a warning tone.

  “After all”—he just wouldn’t stop!—“I get by with a little help from my friends.”

  Blaire covered her laugh with a cough and then hit Colin on the chest.

  He winked. “Alright, so now that you’re all . . . better, and by better I mean you’ve gotten laid and aren’t as cranky as you’ve been the past few weeks, let’s get started.”

  Isla turned about ten shades of red.

  “Are we doing this?” I rubbed my hands together and tried to deflect from my sex life and my best friend’s ability to read my smug expression, and the fact that I couldn’t stop stealing glances at Isla.

  “Absolutely.” Blaire pulled out her phone and frowned. “Hold on a sec, Isla, did you answer Danica’s email?”

  Isla stiffened next to me. “Yeah, I even called her, something seems off about her situation. Abby said everything was clean except for some weird cash transfer into their joint account for a large sum of money.”

  “How large?”

  “Shouldn’t we be focusing on Vanessa?” I interrupted, as a sick feeling washed over me. Shit. Shit. Shit. I sent myself a reminder text while Isla and Blaire kept talking.

  “Ten grand.” Isla sighed. “Large enough that it’s suspicious.”

  “Is that typical?” Colin just had to ask.

  Fuck me.

  “Sometimes,” Blaire answered before Isla could. “If they’re trying to move money around or pin something on the other person. It just feels strange, especially since it was wired the day she called for a consult.”

  I started breaking out in a sweat.

  “Huh.” Colin eyed me and then the girls. “Alright, we can save the world another day, let’s focus on getting Vanessa’s confession before Jessie gets too horny again.”

  I groaned. “I accidentally drank tea, alright?”

  “Boner tea?” Colin laughed. “Is that what it was?”

  I glared at Isla. “Tell them.”

  “He had a headache.” She snickered behind her hand. “And my Goo-Poh is a bit”—her eyes glazed over, and I hoped to God it was because she was thinking about what happened after the tea, what was still happening every time we touched—“helpful in the area of tonics and teas. She thinks of herself as a doctor.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That lady would be a menace in a hospital, mislabeling every damn thing,” I grumbled, still thinking about the way the tea made me slur my words and how my body felt on fire next to Isla’s. The thing is, though, after the tea wore off, I still felt it, the pull to her. The need to touch her was so intense I had to look away and at Colin instead.

  “Other than asking what the hell a Goo-Poh is, I guess the lingering question is . . .” Colin grinned as we started walking toward the pool. “Why’d you have that kind of tea on hand, Isla?”

  “Exactly my point,” I said.

  We stopped walking and stared at her.

  She gulped and looked to Blaire. But Blaire held her hands up. “Oh no, I’m not covering your ass, I wanna hear why you had the tea too.”

  “I, um . . .” Isla’s face matched her dress. “My Goo-Poh is insane, alright, guys? Jessie’s met her, she grabbed his ass! She heard me complaining about cohabitating with this charming thing over here”—she shoved a finger into my chest—“and said murder was too messy.”

  “Smart woman,” Colin muttered.

  “So”—Isla nervously licked her lips—“she told me to seduce him instead, said to, er, accept his blessing.”

  My jaw nearly dropped.

  Colin’s expression matched mine.

  “And just to be clear, when you say blessing,” I said with the air quotes she hated, “you mean my”—I looked downward—“blessing.”

  “Praise.” Colin lifted a hand in the air while Isla covered her face. “I think we should invite this Goo-Poh to Thanksgiving.”

  “No!” Isla and I said simultaneously.

  “Hey, she’s nice!” Isla reprimanded me.

  “She sells illegal drugs masquerading as tea leaves!” I yelled, gaining a few odd stares from hotel guests. “Okay, let’s just drop it, I drank the tea, I lived—”

  “Through a very hard time.” Colin was dead to me.

  “Yes,” I said through clenched teeth. “So let’s focus on psycho Vanessa, not the blessings.”

  “Of your package,” Colin added with a thumbs-up.

  “Sometimes I wonder why we’re friends,” I muttered while Colin wrapped an arm around Blaire and kept walking.

  Isla hung back with me, her face still red.

  I tried joking. “Would it be too much to ask you to say something like God bless us, every one next time we—”

  “Finish that sentence and I’m asking Goo-Poh for tea that makes your blessing go soft.”

  “Ouch.” I winced.

  “And we wouldn’t want it to be permanent.”

  “You wouldn’t . . .” I added with a cocky grin.

  She rolled her eyes but I didn’t miss the small smile on her lips. It was enough to hope that maybe it wasn’t over, whatever this thing was between us.

  A gust of hot air hit me square in the face as I followed everyone outside to the pool area. Vanessa was perched at the corner in a white bathing suit that I used to think looked sexy as hell on her.

  Because I’d loved white.

  Now I thought it looked cheap, like she was trying too hard to get noticed.

  She sipped on a mimosa while Wayne chewed a cigar next to her.

  They looked like snobs.

  I almost gagged.

  “And there she is,” Blaire said under her breath as we found a table and sat. “Let’s order some breakfast and see if we can bait her to come over here, I’ve already been recording our conversation—”

  “Thank God!” Colin burst out laughing. “So I can replay all the blessed parts?”

  Isla groaned.

  Blaire winked at him. “Yes, so if she says anything incriminating we’ll get it on tape. But she has to be angry enough to react, you know?”

  “Got it.” I reac
hed for a glass of water as the waiter approached. We ordered, I glanced at my phone. I couldn’t just text and fix my other problem.

  I needed to call it off.

  I just couldn’t do it in front of Isla. What the hell had I been thinking?

  My anger had blinded everything.

  And now, now I was stuck wondering where I stood with the one woman I wasn’t supposed to actually fall for.

  But was.

  While the one that I wanted out of my life forever continued to dig her claws into me any way she could.

  Life wasn’t fair.

  And was getting worse by the second as a shadowed figure approached and said in that perfectly breathless voice, “Hey, Jessie.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  ISLA

  I wasn’t a violent person.

  I was calm.

  Controlled.

  Serene.

  I was going to pull every hair extension from her head and set it on fire.

  I accidentally dug my nails into Jessie’s arm, causing him to wince. Either that or that was his “Vanessa smile.”

  I hated it.

  I hated her.

  I hated that she’d touched him.

  I hated that she’d wrecked him.

  I hated that a part of him would always be hers.

  I hated so damn much.

  And I didn’t know what to do with the hate, because it was such a foreign feeling. The last time I felt this angry was when Wayne cheated on me, then admitted it and asked if we could get back together.

  Yeah, because that sounded like the perfect life plan! He even had the nerve to say this was expected with men in his position and that I shouldn’t berate him for being attracted to multiple women.

  At.

  A.

  Time.

  God, he was such an asshole.

  Vanessa flicked her eyes in my direction, then glanced back at Jessie. “It feels like you’re stalking me.”

  Jessie smirked. “The world doesn’t revolve around you. I know how disappointing that may be, but I’m actually here with my friends.”

  She glared at Blaire first, then raised her eyebrows at her brother. “Ah, the traitor.”

  Colin’s nostrils flared. “I see you’re spending the trust fund with accelerated speed.”

  She rolled her eyes and touched her lips—ah, she’d just gotten them done, and by done I mean overdone. I was no stranger to Botox or getting a little help in the lip area, but she looked like you could toss her against a window and she’d stick. “I don’t need it anymore. I have Wayne.”