Black Lies(48)

God. I knew. So many things wrong with this picture. But God, it felt so good. I stared into his eyes, listened to him whisper my name, and enjoyed every second of the ride. For those minutes, I forgot about Brant, about Tennis Barbie, about anything but him and me and that moment of time.

I was his rebound.

He was my sidepiece.

And both of us wanted more.

At least I did. Maybe anything else was a lie I was telling myself.





Chapter 36


Jillian

It’s safe to say I never liked Layana. There is something about a woman, when you look into her eyes and see calculation that I don’t like. I prefer the open books, the countless women who pass through this office full of smiles and sunshine and optimism. I don’t look in their eyes and wonder what they are thinking. I don’t listen to them speak and search for hidden meanings. I don’t wonder, when they leave, where they are going. But that, from day one, is how it has been with Layana. I had hoped she would pass on. Hoped that another woman would catch Brant’s fancy, that he wouldn’t go for her long legs and mess of curls. But, alas, he did. She stayed. And now, here we are. Two women battling over this man. I only want to protect him. She loves him. We have differing views on what loving him entails. I don’t want to think about what she does to keep him. Whatever it is, it’s working. The man won’t take his eyes off her.

I’m sure there are things I could do. To poison their relationship. Expose her lies, put a quiver of death into the perfect existence that he thinks they live. The problem is that she knows the secret. The one that I hug, with the tight grip of a mother bear, to my chest. The one that I have spent years protecting, blood, sweat and tears seeping through the iron bars I have built to keep it in. Destroying their relationship? His trust in her? The secret would burn to the ground along with their love. Be exposed in the open air for whoever wanted to grab its papery truth and run wild. In that secret lies nothing but destruction. And so I sit here. Continue paying the men who keep tabs on Brant at all times. Smile when she enters. Help to hide her lies. Pretend to love her with the same vigor that I love him. And hope that one day she fades out of his life.

I can take care of him. She can only—will only—break him in two.

Excerpt, The Journal of Jillian Sharp.





Chapter 37


“Stay.” I watched his hands slow, the rub of the towel through his hair coming to a stop. He lowered his hands, wiping his face before dropping the towel on the floor and stepping over it, a second towel wrapped around his lower half as he strolled over to his jeans.

“I can’t. Stay too long in this place, I’ll start thinking I belong here.”

“It’s one night.” One night I desperately needed. How different would a night with Lee be? Would he stay the whole night or leave me in the dead of night as Brant so often did? Would he wrap me in his arms or would he sprawl out on the other side of the bed?

He dropped the towel, my eyes plummeting. Watching the careless movement as he pulled on his pants, uncaring of my eyes, his mouth curving into a confident grin as he tugged them over his hips.

“I have clothes here. If you want fresh ones.”

He scowled. “Brant’s?”

I had so many answers for that but went with the simplest. “Yes.”

He moved over to the bed, pulled at the sheet until it was clean of the bed and my nakedness was fully exposed. “I f*ck his woman, I don’t want his life.” He reached a rough hand out, rubbing a palm over my right breast, the nipple hardening under his touch, the dark look in his eyes turning into a gleam of satisfaction. I sighed, reaching my own hand out and laying it on his cock, the cut of his open jeans leaving it out, stuck out, at perfect eye level from my spot on the bed. It was hot, his skin heated by the spray of the shower and his hand moved from its place on my breast to my hair, gathering the long strands of my hair and pulling me upright, pushing me in the direction of his cock.

“Tell me,” he breathed, my mouth reaching his skin, my tongue soft as I licked up its shaft, the organ responding beneath my tongue. “Tell me which you prefer.”

I looked up at him. Opened my mouth and took him in. Watched his eyes close, his head drop back as he groaned, his grip on my hair pulling himself deeper into my mouth. Then he yanked painfully, pulling away as he pulled me off his cock and tilted my head up. Dropped his chin and stared into my eyes. The needy look of a man who didn’t really want me. “Tell me,” he ground out.