Beautiful Lies (The Beautiful Series Book 2)

by Emery Rose

  “Connor,” I whispered when he sat down again.

  A ghost of a smile flitted across his face before he bent his head and got back to work.

  I closed my eyes and listened to the music. Lana’s sultry voice, and lyrics that could have been written for us, made my heart ache. Made me long for something I’d lost but wasn’t sure what it was or how to find it again.

  When the song ended, another Lana Del Rey song came on. I wondered if he made this playlist just for me. I thought maybe he had. As the tattoo machine buzzed, and the music swirled around us, I remembered so many of the things I loved about Connor. The way he listened when I talked, like everything I said was important to him. The way he’d taken care of me when I got the flu in my freshman year of college. He’d ladled soup into my mouth. Warmed me with his body heat when I had the chills. Bathed me with a washcloth when the fever broke. He’d read to me because my head had hurt too much to watch movies. Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. In my foggy brain, I had recognized Connor in that story. That mad quest to live, to burn bright, to seek out adventure.

  We used to talk about hitting the open road, crisscrossing the country on Connor’s Harley. Staying at cheap motels. Eating at diners and dives. Being wild and free. On desert highways where we wouldn’t see another car for miles and miles. We would feel like the only two people in the world. We’d watch the sun rise over the Pacific Ocean. Make love under the stars. Dance in the light of a moon that was hung just for us.

  I opened my eyes as Connor lifted his head. I looked into his blue eyes and saw the boy I once loved so fiercely that I believed nothing, and nobody, could ever keep us apart. “Were you dreaming about California?” he asked.

  “How did you know?”

  “Sometimes, I can still read your mind.”

  “I was thinking about our road trip. It was never about the destination, was it?”

  “No. It was about the journey.”

  “I thought you would have taken it on your own…”

  He let out a breath and shook his head. “It wouldn’t have been the same.” He leaned back on his stool and peeled off his gloves, rolling out his shoulders. “All done.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. He chuckled. “Might be easier to see with your eyes open.”

  The moment of truth. Cracking one eye open and then the other, I looked down at my upper arm and my breath caught. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Connor pulled me out of the chair and led me over to the wall mirror for a better view.

  A dark pink lotus flower and a multi-colored dragonfly—turquoise, green, cobalt blue—covered my upper arm. “No bluebirds,” I said.

  “Disappointed?”

  “No. It’s gorgeous. How did you do this?”

  “Magic.”

  I smiled. He had magic in his hands. I already knew that. The colors were so saturated, so vibrant, that I couldn’t see any remnants of the bluebirds and barbed wire. “I can’t even see the old design.”

  “It’s still there,” Connor said, catching my eye in the mirror.

  He bandaged my arm and refused to take the money I offered. I’d come back and pay Claudia tomorrow, I decided.

  “Thank you. It’s perfect.”

  He gave me a soft smile, his eyes flitting over my face. The air between us was charged with electricity. In a bold move, I ran my hands up his chest and looped my arms around his neck.

  His hands caressed my sides, sending tremors throughout my body and I closed my eyes. Right now, in this moment, we were the only two people in the world. He slid a hand through my hair and his other arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer. Our bodies melded together, slotting into place like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. It felt like forever since he’d touched me like this. Held me close enough to breathe him in.

  My hands explored his hard planes and the ridges of his muscles under his T-shirt like it was uncharted territory. I used to know his body as well as I knew my own, but now it felt different. More filled-out. Harder. Like I was holding onto something solid. Something that wouldn’t disappear in a puff of smoke if I held on too tightly.

  I lifted my face to his and he lowered his head, his lips soft and warm, the stubble on his jaw rough against my skin. He tasted like the cinnamon gum he’d been chewing earlier. Our tongues swirled together, caught up in a crazy dance and I ground my body against his feeling his erection pressing against my pelvis. We kept kissing, our hands groping, wanting to touch everywhere at once.

  My hands ventured down his chest and over his flat stomach. He sucked in his breath as I fumbled with his belt buckle and undid the top button of his jeans. He captured my hands in his to stop me.

  “If we do this, are you going to regret it?”

  “I don’t want to live in the past anymore. I won’t regret it.”

  His eyes flitted over my face, trying to gauge my mood. Trying to figure out if I meant what I said. “Promise?”

  “Promise. I want you. Right here. Right now.”

  “Tonight, you’re staying with me. In my bed,” he said, crossing the room to switch off the lights while I undressed quickly, tossing boots and clothes in a heap on the floor.

  I’d already made up my mind, so he didn’t need to worry that I’d run away or regret it tomorrow morning. I knew I wouldn’t.

  “Are you sure?” he asked one more time as I stood in front of him stark naked, his eyes darkening as he stared at my breasts then lifted to my eyes, the neon glow of the sign bathing the room in red.

  “I’m sure,” I said confidently, meeting his eyes as my fingers fumbled with the buttons of his jeans and I took him in my hand - oh god, he was so hard - and circled the barbell piercing with the pad of my thumb. “Commando, huh?”

  He grinned and pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it on the floor. His hands cupped my breasts and he stared at them a moment before he lowered his head and lifted my breast into the heat of his mouth, his hand sliding between my thighs, rubbing between the slick folds. My grip tightened on him and I squeezed his dick, feeling it twitch in my hand.

  “What do you want?” he asked, his voice husky.

  “Fuck me. Hard,” I said brazenly. We had all night for foreplay. I was ready for him now.

  His hands slid down my ass and to the backs of my thighs and I was in the air, my legs cinched around his waist, my back pressed against the wall.

  “Condom?”

  He wasn’t asking if I was still on the pill. He was asking if I’d ever slept with anyone else without a condom. I’d sworn that I never would. “Nobody but you.”

  “Same.” His mouth crashed against mine and he drove his tongue into my mouth as he used his hand to position himself at my entrance. My fingernails dug into his shoulders, clawed his bare back as he fucked me. Hard. Our sex was raw, wild, and relentless. We left our marks on each other, his fingers digging into my ass, my teeth marks on his neck. When I came, I screamed his name. I’d always been loud with him during sex, just like when I rode the roller coaster. The orgasm ripped through my body, my muscles clenching around him, my body shaking as I rode it out. It was almost too much to handle. It was too much of everything. I felt it when he came, his mouth seeking mine, his body shuddering in my arms, a gasp escaping his lips.

  He pulled away to look at my face before he set me down and I let him see that this had not been a mistake. My lips curved into a smile and he gave me a soft kiss on the lips. “Missed you. So much,” he said as my bare feet touched the floor.

  I darted into the restroom to clean up, thinking that it was probably the first time in years that Connor had had sex when he was sober. When I turned from the sink, he was standing in the doorway, my clothes in his arms. “Hi,” I said, giving him a little wave.

  Connor laughed. “Hi. Hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  “Sushi?”

  My smile grew wide. “We can go to our little place.” It was a tiny hole in the wall, but the sushi was amazing. When Connor first started workin
g here, we used to go all the time and sit at the counter, watching the sushi chefs prepare our food. I got dressed while Connor cleaned his station.

  Connor slung an arm around my shoulder as we walked to the sushi place, only three blocks from here. I couldn’t wipe the stupid-ass grin off my face. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. My phone was ringing, and I dug it out of my bag, checking the screen. I groaned when I saw it was my mother. “It’s like she knows I’m with you,” I said without thinking. “I mean…” Shit.

  He squeezed my shoulder. “It’s okay. Just answer.”

  I tossed my phone back in my bag. I was still pissed off at her after her confession at the hair salon. How dare she?

  By the time we’d reached the sushi place, my mom had called twice already, and my phone rang again. I sighed and pressed the answer button, holding up one finger to Connor to indicate that I only needed a minute. He nodded, and we stopped outside the restaurant before going in. “Hey Mom, I’m busy right now. I’ll call you back tom—”

  “Honey…it’s your father.”

  16

  Connor

  Lars Christensen was a decent man. Humble. Quiet. Hardworking. He works as a plasterer. The summer I was eighteen, apprenticing for Jared, he gave me a few painting jobs to help me earn extra cash. I thought it would earn me some points with Ava’s mother. Turned out Lars had never told her about it. One day he forgot his lunch and she turned up on the job. I was working for him that day and he never called me for another job again. I didn’t bother asking why. I knew Ava’s mom called the shots in their relationship. I also knew she hated me. She’d never made a secret of it. She hated me for “corrupting” her daughter. She hated me for “disrespecting” my father. She didn’t like my tattoos or my surly attitude, my bad manners, my motorcycle, my prospects for the future which in her eyes, were a big fat zero. In short, she didn’t like anything about me, and she didn’t want me anywhere near her daughter.

  Yet, here I was, escorting Ava into the hospital, my arm around her shoulder, her arm around my waist. She needed my support and I needed to be here for her. I needed to make up for all the times I hadn’t been there for her in the past. The night Jake Masters came into Trinity Bar and made her feel like she was fourteen again. Helpless and vulnerable. My twentieth birthday. She’d baked cupcakes for me. Wrapped the presents she bought for me and wrote me a card. When I showed up at her dorm the next day, she threw the cupcakes and presents out the window.

  “Sometimes I wish I’d never met you,” she said.

  I promised her up and down that it would never happen again. I promised her I’d give up drugs. Promises, promises, promises, all of them empty. She slammed the door in my face, and I rescued the presents, unwrapping them later when I got home—Copic markers and a new St. Jude medal to replace the one I’d lost. When you lose a medal of the patron saint of lost causes, you know you’re screwed.

  Her mom was sitting in the waiting area, her handbag on her lap, her head in her hands. She looked small and fragile, nothing like the powerhouse who had screamed at me and threatened me to stay away from Ava.

  “Mom?” Ava said.

  I released Ava and she knelt in front of her mom, taking her hands in hers. “Mom…”

  Her mom raised her head and caressed Ava’s face with her hand. She loved her daughter, I didn’t doubt that for a minute, but her love wasn’t unconditional. “If anything happens to him, I don’t know how I’d go on,” her mom said.

  Her words hit me in the gut. They’d been married longer than I’d been on this Earth, and even though they were very different, and they shouldn’t work, they had built a life together, raised two children together. Supported each other through good times and bad. Would Ava and I ever have a love like that?

  “Is he … how is he?” Ava asked. “What happened?”

  Her mom let out a ragged breath. “He was complaining of muscle aches. And you know your father … he’s so stoic. He never complains. I told him he was working too hard and to stretch out on the sofa and relax. A little while later, I went to check on him and he was … clutching his chest. I could tell he was in pain. I called 911. The paramedics got there just in time. They hooked him up to all the machines and the IV and…” She stopped and took a deep breath. “They rushed him in for an angioplasty … and now we have to wait—”

  “Mom,” Lana called. I looked over my shoulder. Lana’s eyes were streaming with tears as she rushed to her mom’s side. Her mom let go of Ava and leaned into Lana. “I’m here now. Everything is going to be okay.”

  “Such a good girl,” her mom said, patting Lana’s hand. “You’ve never given me a day of trouble.”

  Ava stood, her shoulders sagging. It was always like this. Lana was manipulative and cunning. She had always fought for her mother’s affections like it was a contest to be won. When Ava stopped being the perfect daughter, Lana was quick to judge and point the finger. And Ava’s mom, even in a crisis, felt the need to remind Ava just how much she’d failed as a daughter.

  I moved closer to Ava and took her hand in mine, giving it a little squeeze. She looked up at me with her big gray eyes and I wished I could take away the hurt. Make everything better for her. The best I could do was be here for her, let her know I was on her side.

  Her mom looked up, noticing me for the first time. Her eyes narrowed into slits before her gaze swung to Ava. “What is he doing here?” she asked, her voice cold and hard.

  “He drove me to the hospital.”

  Her mom pressed her lips in a flat line and crossed her arms, her chin held high. “Ask him to leave.”

  “Mom,” Ava said, horrified. “No. I want him to stay—”

  “You need to be with your family at a time like this. He has no right to be here. That boy is trouble. I don’t know why you would even speak to him, let alone bring him to the hospital when your father…” She stopped and shook her head.

  “But Mom…”

  I gave Ava’s hand another squeeze to let her know it was okay. “I hope Lars gets better soon,” I said.

  Her mom nodded curtly but didn’t respond or even look at me.

  Lana lifted her chin, mimicking her mom’s pose. If it had been any other time, I would tell her to go to hell. But this wasn’t the time or the place. Ava walked me to the door and stepped outside with me.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I want you to stay, but…”

  I cupped her chin in my hand and tilted her face up to mine. “It’s better for you if I go. You don’t need any extra stress.”

  She wrapped her arms around me, and I held onto her, wishing I could. I wanted to be the one to give her strength, to sit by her side and hold her hand. To help her through this. Ava let out a shuddered breath and released me, taking a step back.

  “He’ll be okay,” I said, hoping like hell it was true.

  “I know.”

  “Call if you need me. For anything.”

  “Thank you. For the tattoo. And for…” She took a deep breath and let it out. “When you were holding me just now, it made me feel like everything will be okay. It reminded me of how I used to feel. Like you could fix things. Like you could hold me together when everything was falling apart.”

  I stroked her hair and pressed a soft kiss on the top of her head. How it used to be, not how it was now. That hurt, but I gave her a little smile. “Go be with your family.”

  She gave me a final look before she turned and walked back into the waiting room.

  I finished stapling the canvas to the plywood and hung it on the bolts I’d drilled into the wall. Floodlights were trained on the empty canvas, my cans of spray paint lined up in a row. I pulled on Latex gloves, strapped on my mask, and plugged myself into my music. Eminem rapped in my ears, the volume so high the music reverberated in my body.

  Ava’s mother had looked at me like I was trash. No wonder she liked my father so much. They had a lot in common.
r />   Bomb a wall. Make your peace.

  My arm and wrist moved across the canvas, the spray paint seeping into the fabric. I willed my hand to paint what I envisioned—Ava’s pale hair glowing in the spotlights, the multi-colored silk ties suspending her in the air. She was a blur of motion, her face hidden behind a black mask trimmed in purple feathers. I moved in close for the fine lines, the bars of music swirling across the canvas. On cue, “Undisclosed Desires” pumped into my ears. If this piece had a name, that would be it.

  I stepped back and studied my work. Was it any good? Hell, if I knew. If I’d just bombed a wall, I’d pack up my shit and leave before the cops caught me defacing public property. I wouldn’t have time to wonder if it was my best work. That was the beauty of graffiti. Under the cover of darkness and anonymity, I got in and I got out. My pieces rarely got covered by other artists, a sign of respect for my work, and that had always been enough for me. With my tattoos, I worked with the clients and when they were happy with my designs, they gave me the okay to ink their skin.

  But to have people in a gallery studying my work up close and personal … I would be judged on my technique, my use of color, my lines and command of a spray paint can. I would be judged. Fuck.

  My phone rang, interrupting the music and my thoughts. I pressed the answer button on the screen and Ava’s voice filled my ears.

  “He’s going to be okay. He needs to stay in the hospital a couple days, but the doctor said … he’ll be okay.” She let out a breath of relief.

  “That’s good news.”

  “Yeah, it is.” She paused a moment, and in the background, I heard a siren wailing. “Connor, I’m sorry. I don’t know why she acts like that with you. I thought it would be different … with my dad in the hospital.”

  We both knew why her mom acted that way with me, and in some ways, she had every right to think the worst of me. But she had hated me from the start before I’d ever touched drugs. I tipped my head back and looked up at the inky blue sky. No stars. No moon. “Where are you?”