Sweet Liar (Dirty Sweet, #1)(8)

What a goddamned shrew.

I was energized with rage, my heart racing with the power of it.

But underneath my temper was a dangerous longing. A yearning for a different time. A time when I could afford the innocent enthusiasm for human connection. Before I knew how cruel people could be. Before I understood the downfalls of being vulnerable.

What a rose-colored world it had been—a prettier, more tolerable world—when I’d believed wholeheartedly in commitments and forever. When lust and love were two sides of the same coin. Sex, an expression of feelings rather than just a pleasurable release.

I longed to be free of the reality that I wore like chains around my neck.

And then! Then I could ask a girl back to my hotel room without caring about age differences or impropriety or what state my suite had been left in. I could get lost in the breathlessness of her kiss, not worrying about anyone’s feelings or what might inevitably happen if I put my trust in her embrace. I could imagine it so vividly, what it would be like to be that kind of a man again, what it would be like to kiss a girl like Audrey, undress her, teach her. Make love to her.

My trousers were bulging again with the fantasy. I was throbbing and thick. I couldn’t make it to the shower if I tried.

I shoved down my trousers and pulled out my cock, fisting it with my right hand as I sat down on the chair. With my eyes closed, I remembered vividly the weight of Audrey on my lap, remembered the pleasurable burn of her rubbing up and down along the imprisoned length of my hard-on. Remembered the press of her breasts against my chest, her nipples so taut they spiked through the layers of clothing between us. Remembered her mouth as it gave in to my wicked desire, my tongue caressing and schooling her at once. My lips memorizing her and debauching her.

My palm stroked angrily across the inflamed skin of my cock, faster and faster, punishing myself even as the pleasure built and built and built, like static on a balloon when rubbed against a headful of hair. Like stockinged feet, trudged across the carpet. Like too many plugs jammed into a wall socket, my orgasm surged through me with electrical shock. Cum spilled out over my fist as I tugged and tugged, past the point of comfort, until everything inside me had fallen in thick ropes across my bare stomach, dirty and filthy and obscene.

I sat for several minutes, staring at the mess I’d made, my hands shaking from the release as, little by little, the delirious flash of bliss dissolved into cold, hard reality.

I was alone. I would always be alone.

I’d learned the hard way that alone was the most sensible way to live.

There was no benefit of vulnerability. There was no “making love.” There was no reason to trust. Hearts were for pumping oxygen through the body. They didn’t break. They beat on.

Audrey had called me a liar when she’d suggested that I secretly believed in her religion of romance, but she was wrong.

I wasn’t a liar. I was a man who could no longer believe in the lie.





Four





Audrey





“He kissed you?”

Of course I told my sister.

I told her as soon as she walked through the door. Mostly, because I wanted to be sure it wouldn’t be a surprise if Dylan said anything to her, but also because I shared everything with Sabrina.

Well, almost everything. I never actually talked about sex with her, but that was because she had a barrier like a thirteen inch cement wall surrounding her when it came to the subject. Talking about sex made her tense and agitated. I’d decided that meant she was either asexual or into some weird stuff in the bedroom. Not that I’d knock her either way.

“More like I kissed him,” I said, since I’d initiated the whole thing. I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea about the situation. Because there had been absolutely nothing wrong about that kiss at all—except that it had been too short.

Just remembering the way Dylan’s mouth fit so perfectly against mine brought a swarm of butterflies to my tummy.

“You kissed my boss?” Sabrina seemed to be having a hard time wrapping her head around the fact. Obviously she was stuck on her own relationship with the man.

But I’d already thought about that.

I kicked off my shoes and pulled my knees underneath me on the couch. “Dylan is not actually your boss. He’s more like your boss’s equal, if you want to be technical.” And, to be fair, she herself was sleeping with a different man who was her boss’s equal. If there wasn’t an issue there, why would there be an issue with me?

She dropped her coat and purse on the back of the sofa and put a stern fist on her hip—one of the postures she took when she was assuming a motherly role with me. “If you want to be technical, he’s old enough to be your father.”

I rolled my eyes. “He is not. He’s just experienced and wise.” To be honest, I wasn’t actually sure of Dylan’s age.

“He’s twenty years older than you.”

Huh. I’d guessed more like fifteen. “Maybe I have a thing for dads.” I didn’t, I didn’t think, but I could. Could I? Was that the comfort I’d been unable to replicate with my previous boyfriends? “Don’t knock my kink. I don’t knock yours.” I was possibly more defensive than I needed to be.

Sabrina’s jaw slammed shut, and she got that tense, agitated way she did when sex conversations turned a spotlight on her.