Liar Liar

by Donna Alam

  ‘This is pretty.’ Pleasure spirals through me as he toys with the edge of my robe, the woman reflected back a dark, desirous thing.

  A woman half undressed, half falling apart.

  ‘It was a gift. From you.’ My answer is no more than a whisper as his hand moves across my bare breast to the other. His forefinger and thumb pinch the hardened bud over the silk.

  ‘I know. I wanted to bring a little brightness into your life.’ His eyes rise to mine, his thumbnail circling. ‘Who knew it would be the other way around. That you would be my brightness.’ His gaze dips once again. ‘So, so, lovely,’ he whispers in the space between his kisses. ‘But not as lovely as you.’

  His hands glide around my waist, loosening the knot of the belt. The silk flutters against my legs as he slides it from my shoulders, his mouth following his touch in a shiver-inducing caress.

  ‘Do you have any idea what you do to me? What I want to do to you?’

  ‘Please, I need you, Remy.’

  He stills. His hands on my body, his lips on my skin. ‘Tell me again.’

  ‘I need you,’ I whisper, pressing back against him.

  ‘Now I know I’m no longer dreaming.’

  His touch slips down my body, pausing to make a slow circle around my navel, two fingers sliding to where I know I’m already wet. He pushes them inside and I writhe against him, desperate to be filled.

  ‘I want to fuck you with my tongue. Fill you.’

  My answer is in the way my legs almost buckle from under me as he begins to create some kind of magic against the swollen bud between my legs. I whimper, bucking up into his hand, unable to get close enough. I feel wired yet hollow all at the same time

  ‘You are so wet, ma Rose. Just for me.’ With those whispered words, Remy pulls away, rubbing my arousal between his fingertips, the moisture glistening in the light. My eyes reflect back in the mirror, dark and wanton as he brings those digits to my lips, painting me with my own arousal.

  38

  Remy

  ‘What are you waiting for?’

  The tip of her tongue darts out to taste, a graze of her teeth following, her arousal still sticky and sweet between my fingertips.

  What did I do to deserve her? To deserve this?

  The answer that echoes through my head is that I don’t. But it doesn’t stop me from taking her. From tasting her. From sampling the very essence of her from her own delectably kiss-swollen lips. The warm air in the bathroom swirls around us as I feed my fingers into her mouth, her tongue flicking, her lips devouring.

  I turn her as she whispers my name, but I can’t stop kissing her, the sound like honey on her tongue. Or maybe that’s the taste of her. ‘Take me to bed, Remy. Make love to me.’

  As she takes my hand, I know I’d follow her anywhere.

  Moonlight spills across the floor of the darkened bedroom, slicing across the room and highlighting the hypnotic sway of her hips and a heart-shaped ass just begging to be squeezed. The cicada song filters through the window; a bird calls, another answers as I turn at the edge of the mattress, tipping her chin. My hand falls oh-so naturally to the curve of her hips as I close the distance between us, bringing my mouth to hers.

  ‘You are so, so very beautiful,’ I whisper as my thumb brushes the curve of her waist. A press of lips, a glide of my tongue, a whispered word, as I work my way down the side of her neck until she melts.

  I lower myself to the bed, pulling her into the space between my splayed knees. Kiss her collarbone and the rise and fall of her breasts before taking them in my hands to lavish them with attention. The brush of my thumbs, a soft pinch. The caress from the tip of my tongue and she’s leaning towards me like a flower seeking the sun.

  ‘Please, don’t stop.’

  I couldn’t, not even if I wanted to. Not as her hands clasp my shoulders, her eyes glistening yet unfocussed as her sweet breath brushes my cheek.

  We would make such beautiful babies. The thought comes unbidden as my hand sweeps over her stomach. Everything stills—the thought, my hand as it slips between her legs—as I attempt to process this.

  I find it’s . . . not wholly unwelcome.

  Filling her. Fucking her. Her body ripe with our child.

  Something primal washes over me, a surge of need as old as time. I wrap my hands around her thighs, bringing her heat over me, above me, causing her to suck in a sharp breath.

  ‘Is this okay?’ Though I ask, I know the answer anyway. It’s in that gasp and the way her body tilts to meet me as we work together to centre ourselves on the bed. My hands at her hips, my cock is poised at her entrance, swollen and thick. ‘I’m yours, Rose. Yours to love.’

  Her reaction is in the visceral. Her tremble, the languid vowel sound she makes as she rises above me on her knees. My chest tightens, pleasure spiralling in the instant our bodies meet as she rocks against me, pressing her wetness along my length. The sensation is so sublime, this slow, teasing ride of delight, trapped between her pussy and her hand. It’s the kind of torture that depletes brain cells as a volley of nonsensical words burst from my chest.

  ‘You and your sexy French mouth,’ she whispers, dipping to press her mouth to mine as the tight buds of her nipples brush my chest. ‘Your mouth does things to me.’

  ‘My mouth would like to do things to you,’ I counter, propping myself up against the mattress on my elbows. ‘Why don’t you come sit on my face, and I’ll show you exactly what kinds of things.’ It takes her a moment for my words to sink in. I know the exact instant they do because I feel her desire and her indecision fluttering around me. ‘Tue es délicieux. You’re delicious. And I’ll take you however I can get you.’ I buck up into her, gently and first, then much less so, her resultant moan a little ragged around the edges. ‘Jouis sur mon visage, Rose,’ I purr, tapping my forefinger to my chin.

  ‘I’m not asking you to translate.’ I hear the husky sound of her response, her wilful denial. Before I can translate, before I can invite her to come on my face, the image of Venus rises above me, hands sliding into her hair.

  I forget everything.

  The flare of her hips is an enchantment.

  The sway of her breasts a bewitchment.

  ‘I need you inside me, Remy.’ Pleasure swirls as she wraps my base, my eyes almost glued to her body accepting mine. To where she takes my cock inch by slow inch as our joint moans sound in the air. She’s so hot and tight. The angle so much more this way. And the view . . .

  If I last more than a few minutes, it will be a miracle.

  ‘Tu me prends si bien,’ I whisper again and again. ‘You take me so well.’ Her hands fall to my shoulders, our pace punctuated by long, slow kisses. Moonlight slides through the shutters, dappling her with light and shade like the perfect symbol for my love for her. Moans layer, her tight breaths over my tortured rasps, our eyes watching, our fingers touching, our hearts brimming full.

  With a groan, I coax her body upwards, my hands on her hips, my hiss a counterpoint to her cry as I bring her down hard. As our bodies collide, need floods my veins, heady and sweet. My hands cup her ass, rolling her beneath me, the movement as easy as the rolling tides.

  Is the feeling in my chest relief? Whatever it is, I’m greedy for it as I kiss her again and again, my cock still seated deep within, our soft sighs and moans an expression of hard need. As I withdraw, we both give a taut moan at the sensation, her thighs pressing my hips as though to hang on to it. But I’m not going anywhere as I anchor myself to her, our fingers twisting, hands pressed into the bed.

  ‘Je t'adore. Je suis amoureuse de to.’ I begin to build a slow, easy rhythm, lost to the tide of her body pulling me in.

  ‘Tell me,’ whispers my soft-eyed supplicant.

  ‘I adore you. I’m in love with you.’ I fuck my promises into her, this thing between us building into something wild and frenetic. My need to possess her is overwhelming. She cries out as I go deep and whimpers when I deliver shallow thrusts, hungry for it all, ra
ising her hips as she meets me thrust for thrust.

  My cock throbs with need, her cries reaching a crescendo as I begin to pump and flex, fucking her harder and harder as though I could make her feel my love this way.

  In one crystalline, brilliant moment, my mind empties. This moment, the feeling of her around me will be forever burned into my memory and my skin. I’m lost to all but the pound of my heart, the throb of my release, and the latent pulse of hers.

  Tu me manques, I type into my new phone, the old now sitting at the bottom of the marina, I suppose. I miss you.

  I miss you, too, comes her almost immediate response.

  Then you should be here with me. Looking after me. Tending to my fevered brow.

  You don’t have a fever.

  That’s besides the point.

  Or else you’d be back in the hospital. Probably with pneumonia. And a chest drain.

  Rose, come home. I can’t help but smile as my thumbs slide over the phone. Home. Come home to me.

  I’ve got to work. You know that.

  You work for me. Your time would be better spent here with me. For the good of the man you love. For the good of the company.

  Bossy AF. Her reply is accompanied by an angry faced emoji.

  Tu me manques more properly means you are missing from me. When you’re not with me, it’s like a piece of me is missing.

  Sickened by my own neediness, I throw my phone across the sofa, the message unsent. This is the first day since my accident I’ve been left to my own devices. Left to myself. Left to my own thoughts since Rose went to work.

  C’est ridicule—it is ridiculous that I’m effectively paying her not to be here with me. But I promised I wouldn’t interfere, and as she so solemnly pointed out this morning, I’m not currently a resident of Wolf Tower . . .

  ‘Aren’t I?’

  ‘Nope,’ she’d said, stepping from the circle of my arms to finished getting dressed for work. ‘You’ve got to live there to benefit from the services.’

  ‘But I am the owner.’

  ‘Stop looking at my ass,’ came her reply as she caught me doing just that.

  ‘If I’m no longer a resident there, what is my residency status here? Am I your guest? Your housemate? Vivre en amoureux?’

  ‘What was that last one?’

  ‘Your live-in lover.’

  She’d turned as I’d answered, her feet now secured. She’d walked back to the side of the bed, clad in only her panties and heels, and wrapped her arms around my neck.

  ‘Do you always get dressed so tangentially?’

  Her lips had quivered as she tried to restrain her smile. ‘I was trying to distract you from the fact that I have to go to work.’

  But we both knew she was going nowhere for quite some time as I’d rolled her between my body and the mattress.

  ‘Nice to see you’ve got a smile on your face.’

  Rhett pulls me from my daydream, my smile slipping not as a result of his interrupting my reverie but rather because I realise I was daydreaming.

  Imbécile.

  ‘Are you camped out at this place indefinitely now?’

  ‘Until she asks me to leave,’ I reply, realising she hadn’t truly answered my question about my status here.

  ‘Who asks you to leave? Have you given the house back to your mother?’ Dropping the paperwork Paulette requires signatures for, his hands grip the back of the sectional sofa as he frowns down at me.

  ‘No, I gave the house to Rose.’

  ‘Jesus, can I not leave you alone for five minutes?’

  My ribs ache as he drops to the opposite end of the sectional sofa, jostling me, my aches exacerbated by the rigours of sex. Something I have no intention of telling Rose.

  ‘You might not have fractured your skull, but you must’ve broken your fucking head,’ he grumbles, frowning across at me. ‘So, you gave her a house. Not just any house, but your grandparents’ chateau. Hasn’t it been in the family for years?’

  ‘It was. Until Emile sold it before I was born.’

  ‘But you bought it back last year, right?’

  Because I could.

  ‘It’s just real estate. Bricks and mortar.’ And a place we’ll make beautiful memories, I hope. Because since my balls had decided Rose and I would make beautiful small humans, I haven’t been able to shake away the thoughts of her swollen with our child. I’ve no idea what to do with these thoughts, except dwell on them some more.

  ‘I suppose you can always take the cost out of her inheritance.’ His gaze flicks around the space, the action casual. I won’t hold my breath for the punchline though I know it’s coming. ‘Because you must’ve told her about that by now. Right? And that you don’t exactly know how she comes to be in your life.’

  ‘I no longer care why. I’m just grateful that she is.’

  ‘Near-death experiences will turn a man a little philosophical, so I’ve heard. You’ll get over it.’ I imagine his words are supposed to sting like an insult. But he should have learned long before now that I really don’t care for the opinions of others. Rose being a recent exception to this fact.

  ‘I had an email from the investigator. He says he’s had a couple of breakthroughs. He wants to know if you want to meet face-to-face or if he should just courier the intel over.’

  ‘Neither. Pay him his fee but tell him I no longer have need of his services.’

  ‘You don’t really mean that.’

  ‘Bring me these breakthroughs, and I’ll burn the envelope without looking.’

  ‘No worries. We have this magical transportation of image and text these days. It’s called email.’

  ‘Even easier to delete.’

  ‘You just don’t want to know the truth, in case it proves to be inconvenient.’

  ‘Don’t take me for a fool. I don’t need proof of Rose’s innocence in any of this, so if you came here to goad me, you’re wasting both of our time.’ She even thinks the money she went travelling with came from the death of a distant relative—she offered up the information without the slightest concern, without an ounce of artifice. She’s guilty of nothing but naiveté.

  ‘I came to see how you’re doing, arsehole.’ He inhales and spreads his fingers wide on his thighs. ‘I also came to tell you the CCTV footage came back from the marina.’

  My head twists, and is followed by another painful twinge. ‘Did it show anything?’

  ‘Not much. People milling around. A few drunks. The sight of you making your way to Le Loup, but the angle isn’t right to show you boarding.’

  ‘What aren’t you telling me?’ I’ve known Rhett too long for him to begin hiding things from me now.

  ‘There was a figure. A man. Walking in the direction of the yacht before you arrived. He had something in his hand that we think might’ve been a crowbar.’

  ‘Or perhaps an umbrella.’

  ‘It would be an odd thing to be carrying around in the middle of summer, and at that time of night. Plus, the footage shows him leaving around the same time you were found in the water. He wasn’t carrying anything at that point.’

  I still for a moment, my mind processing the implications before I realise I’ve raised my hand, my fingers hovering above the wound on the back of my head. I lower it again, noting Rhett’s curious look. I have no intention of telling him that I still suffer from headaches, or that my concentration is poor. I’m told the symptoms will last another week. Or perhaps much longer. I push away the residual negativity caused by my doctor’s earlier visit. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that sheer will gets a man much farther than most people recognise.

  ‘It could be someone taking a tool to their boat, then leaving without it.’

  ‘Possible,’ he agrees. ‘But not probable. Not that time of night.’

  ‘And the passerelle?’ I know he will have arranged divers to search for it.

  ‘No outward signs of tampering to the sunken railing. No signs of an abandoned crowbar, either,’ he adds wi
th an unhappy huff. ‘But then, if I was going to crown you one, I wouldn’t drop the weapon into the same body of water afterwards.’

  ‘If you wanted to commit murder, you mean.’

  ‘And make it look like an accident.’

  We both fall silent, retreating into our individual thoughts. Though one of us not recently suffering an attempt on their life has less to think about, evidently.

  ‘Benny boy called with a million questions.’

  ‘He’s been to the house.’ I resist the urge to shrug. ‘You know he likes to think he knows all. Sees all. Everything has an angle with him.’

  ‘Yeah, and they’re all obtuse,’ he comments dryly. ‘I told him fuck all. What about you?’

  ‘I spoke to him through the gate intercom. I told him I wasn’t well enough for visitors.’

  ‘Good call. I bet he loved that.’

  ‘Ben didn’t hit me with a crowbar,’ I assert, knowing Rhett’s mind as I do.

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past him,’ he mutters. Then he adds, ‘Your bike was found.’

  ‘What?’ I wince, a pain splitting my head as I turn it too quickly, pressing my fingers to my temples. I’d much rather talk about my motorcycle than my cousin. ‘The Ducati? From March?’

  ‘Unless you’ve lost another motorbike I don’t know about.’

  ‘Where was it found?’

  ‘In the same state at the back of a chop shop. It seems someone decided the Ducati was a little too pretty to break up. It had been resprayed, a pretty good job, by all accounts.

  ‘I’m delighted,’ I answer deadpan, expecting him to get quicker to the pertinent points.

  ‘The plates have been swapped, and it’s ready to go.’

  ‘Ready to go where?’

  ‘Wherever they offload it, I suppose.’

  ‘You mean to say it’s been found but not recovered?’

  ‘I know it was your favourite toy for all of five minutes, but you got the insurance money for it, right?’

  ‘That’s not the point.’ And, yes, it was a new toy and one I liked a lot. But that’s not what this is about. ‘I’m not in the habit of letting people steal from me.’ It’s usually the other way around. Not that I’m a common thief. More an uncommon one. In fact, a chop-shop is an apt analogy for how I do business.