Sweet Liar (Dirty Sweet, #1)(3)

“You can’t rain on my parade,” she proclaimed with a smile, as though she were Barbara Streisand herself. “I am firm in my faith.” She swiveled a little more in her seat, angling herself so that her body was pointing in my direction. “Are you quite sure that you’re firm in your disbelief?”

Heat traveled down my spine, liquid and molten. That’s what this tension was, then—not of a disgruntled nature, but of the sexual. I’d been attracted to her, yes. I hadn’t allowed myself to believe it might be mutual.

I studied her face. She had light almond eyes that were deep set in a pear-shaped face, her pallor flawless. Not a single line marred her skin. She was lovely. Delicious, I imagined. Fresh, like a peach. Her bee-stung lips, turned up on both sides below her apple cheeks, portrayed her as innocent.

I liked believing she was that innocent. It made it more fun to imagine what those lips could be taught. What they could be introduced to.

I’d sworn off love years ago, but not sex. Never sex. And Audrey Lind was all sorts of temptation, the kind I knew better to stay away from. She was too romantic. She was too American. She was too young. Much too young. I was definitely old enough to be her father. Probably.

Definitely.

I didn’t want to think about that.

She was also the sister of a subordinate, which felt highly inappropriate, especially since I was only in town for the week. Donovan might have gotten involved with the staff, but at least he’d seemed serious about it. A fling was another thing altogether, not as polite.

And none of that mattered since she was so very young.

“You’re hesitating,” she said, her smile broadening as though she’d won some sort of trophy. “Are you unsure of your answer?”

I had to remind myself of the question. “No. My commitment to refute love and relationships in all forms remains unwavering.” My eyes flickered to her plump lips. The delectable mouth.

“I wonder if you’re lying.” Before I could offer a protest she went on. “Which isn’t why I was quiet. I was thinking about Weston’s situation. Not the current one, but how he was before he met Elizabeth. I’m normally not into players, but he’s reformed. And his past has advantages.”

Her words were a fishhook. If I were a smart little fishy I would swim away as fast as I could.

I was a smart fishy. I was.

But I liked to swim as close to the bait as possible. Just to see what it was.

“What exact benefits does Weston King have in being a former playboy who now thinks he’s head over heels for a woman he’s fake-engaged to? The first woman he’s ever spent more than a weekend with, might I add.” It was one of the messiest messes I had ever imagined.

“Well. Um.” Her eyes fluttered downward and her cheeks darkened a bit. “Weston figured out what he was doing before he fell for Elizabeth. So when they were together, it was...you know.” She rubbed her lips together—believe me, I was watching everything she did with that mouth. “In the bedroom, I mean.”

“Are you saying that you are not…? That you haven’t…?” I cleared my throat, floundering a bit with how I was asking this near-stranger about her virginity. It was like the opening of a poorly written porno.

Holy mother of God, I was going to be fantasizing about this for quite some time.

“Oh, no,” she said in a rush.

And to my relief. I couldn’t handle the weight of knowing that and later having to get out of the car to see her to the door of her apartment building.

“I’m not that innocent,” she went on. “I’ve had boyfriends. Two serious. Long-term, each of them. Very committed, very in love with both of them. And, maybe, even, either one of them could have been the guy. You know, The Guy? The Forever Guy?”

The fairy tale. Yes, I knew that story.

She was in a car now with me though. Not with me, but she wasn’t with anyone else either, from what I’d gathered during the night. So those fairy tales had obviously ended. The way that every fairy tale eventually does and life returns back to reality.

“So what happened?” I asked, guessing she was about to reveal the flaw in her religion.

“Our sex life happened. Or didn’t happen. My friends used to tell me about all these filthy, hot, dirty things they were doing with their boyfriends. Really sexy, adventurous things. You know the way girls share everything. And my guys? Missionary. Every time. I swear to God. Once the boredom in the bedroom became obvious, it seeped elsewhere in our relationships. No matter how much I hinted or pushed to explore new things, my guys were always as ignorant as I am.”

My trousers were suddenly much too tight. Oh, the things I could show her. The ways I could be with her. If every man had only ever been on top of her, rutting around inside like some horny little teenager—had she ever even had an orgasm? My body pulsed with the want to show her the sweetness of expertise.

But that couldn’t happen. For all the reasons I’d gone through before. Whatever those reasons were. They had left my mind at the moment, but there had been many. Good reasons.

Yet, even as I knew where this little car ride couldn’t go, it seemed we were suddenly closer to each other. Audrey had unbuckled her seatbelt and smoothly slid across the bench toward me, and I hadn’t even noticed.

I swallowed.

“I think your story of two men who could’ve been the one but ended up not, proves your theory of there being a one at all as flawed.” My voice was still surprisingly steady. Fortunately. It didn’t belie the pounding of my heart, the tingling of my skin. The rock hard state of my cock.