More Than Lies (More Than #1)(125)

I can feel you from the outside in.

From my beating heart, down to my toes.

You’re an ache I can’t shake.



You love me like no one else ever has.

You’re the only one that can reach inside and break down my walls.



I can feel you from the outside in.

From my beating heart, down to my toes.

You’re an ache I can’t shake.



Believe me when I tell you

You are my forever

Because baby, no one can break through the way you do.

You’re an ache I can’t shake.





“Is this about me?” His smile was infectious. And cocky too.

“Aren’t they all about you?” I smiled up without shame. He was the only one that got to see my affectionate side. With him, I wasn’t guarded. I was free. I didn’t trust many people. At seventeen, I’d been burned too many times by my parents—mainly my wretched mother.

“And people say you aren’t sweet.” I rolled my eyes at his dig.

“I’m not trying to be sweet.” I rose up onto my elbows. “I’m trying to get this useless chatter in my head to stop.”

His smile left his face at rapid speed, and then I watched as his eyes turned darker. The green faded to allow the blue to burn into my violet iris’s. This stare made me want to cower and look away, but I didn’t. I wasn’t weak, and I’d never show weakness to anyone, not even to the boy above me.

Shane tossed the notebook where I heard it land on the floor, then he lowered his head, bringing it down only inches from my own.

“Nothing inside your head is useless. Your mind is as beautiful as your angelic voice. It ticks me off when you say shit like that.”

“Ohh. He cusses,” I mocked. It was rare to hear a bad word come out of Shane’s mouth. That wasn’t a bad thing because I said enough of them to cover us both.

I had a potty mouth.

My parents didn’t like Shane or any of my friends for that matter. They didn’t know him either. If they did, they would’ve loved him like I did. He was impossible not to love.

A few years ago, my parents met Eve, back when she and Chance still lived here in Mississippi. They took one look at her and immediately judged her as ‘bad news.’ She didn’t even have tattoo’s back then. After she had moved away, I heard she finally let Chance convince her to let him ink her skin. From what she has told me when we talk on the phone, she’s addicted. I missed my friend so much. But we were graduating high school in a few weeks, and both of them were going to come home for a few days.

“Just because I don’t see the need for excessive cussing, doesn’t mean I don’t, Whitney.” He lowered his head further, making me slide my arms down the bed so that my head could fall to the mattress.

“Your little brother cusses more than you do, and he’s a kid.” I grinned, trying to get a rise out of him. One thing I knew how to do well was to get under this boy’s skin.

“Shawn’s an immature little prick.” His palms slide slowly up the mattress about a foot away from my head on both sides.

“He’s cute. Get off his ass. Besides, he’s only that way when Trent’s little sister is around.” Which was a lot. Trent took overly protected brother duties to a whole new level when it came to that girl.

“Why are we talking about Shawn and Taralynn?” His lips were inches away from mine, and all I wanted him to do was press them against me. Okay, I wanted him to do a lot more, but we had to start somewhere.

“No idea. Kiss me.” His eyes glanced down to my mouth, a smirk forming on his lips seconds before he planted a swift kiss on my nose.

He was rewarded with a glare.

So not what I wanted, and he knew that.

“Kiss me properly, dammit.” I lifted my head an inch or two off the bed, trying to line my lips up with his. All he had to do was meet me halfway.

He didn’t. Instead, he moved to my left where he pressed his lips to my cheek, then slowly made his way to the shell of my ear.

“What do you really want, Love?” he whispered, tickling my ear. “My lips or something more?” He pressed his hardening cock against my center, making my head spin, and my body shiver with anticipation.

“I want everything.” And that’s exactly what he gave me.

Whoever thought premarital sex was a sin hadn’t been with Shane Braden. There was nothing about him that was sinful. He was everything right in my life. Those blue-green, ocean-like eyes were where I saw purpose, love, and happiness. I didn’t get lost when I looked into them. No, I saw everything clear as a cloudless day. Shane was my now and my future. He was my calm. Well . . . unless he was making my heart race like it was doing right then.

The second his tongue met mine was the moment the ending of the song played out in my mind.

You’re the one I can’t shake.

You are the one.

My foreverly after.





CHAPTER ONE

— SHANE —





10 years later





Pain.

For me, that word is a double-edged sword. I seek it. I chase it just to make it stop. And that method was working just fine until one year ago today. Or so I thought. That’s when I saw her. That was when I saw the source of my agony staring back at me from the screen of my cell phone. Her beautiful face shattered every brick I thought I had carefully crafted around myself all these years.