The Lies We Lived (Red Snake Investigations #1)

Prologue

Hayes

No.

No.

I shook, trembling with her body pressed against mine.

“Hayes,” she moaned, breathless.

“We can’t,” I whispered, putting my hands on her arms.

She was close. Too close.

She froze in my hold, her spine straightening.

I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t have the strength to look into her jade eyes, knowing they’d be searching for something I could never give her.

Not now. Not in the moonlight. I wouldn’t be able to survive it.

I felt her hands come to my bare chest then, her touch unlike anything I’ve ever known.

I kept my gaze on the window, ignoring how “at home” her bed felt, the subtle scent of jasmine and rum lingering in the air.

Her voice was small then. “You told me you needed me.”

“I’ll fail you, baby. I’ll fail you. Whether it’s now, tomorrow, or a few years down the road, it’s inevitable. I’ll fail you and I can’t have that. You don’t deserve that,” I pushed out.

Before I could stop it, she pushed me to my back.

I let her—but fuck, I let her. She straddled me, hands on my chest, her black hair hanging down around her like curtains, her skin pale and covered in ink.

Her body was a work of art. She was a walking mural of determination and strength.

“Then why come here?” she murmured, practically purring. “Why come to me?”

“I—”

From the west, I heard the sound of an explosion, followed by painful cries of horror—my crew. They were all around me now, screaming and begging for mercy as her fingers wove into my chest hair, covering my racing heart. I was covered in sweat then, drenched and panting.

“I need to get you out of here,” I rasped, my heart drumming in my ears. I looked over to the right, seeing my copilot extend his hand out to me. It was on fire, the orange and yellow flames devouring his skin, charring it right down to the bone.

“Mitchell, help me!”

I blinked, chest heaving now, the smell of burning flesh filling my nose.

No, it couldn’t be. He wasn’t here. This wasn’t real.

“Hayes?”

I closed my eyes, holding them shut for three seconds.

One.

Two.

Three.

That’s all it took. Three seconds for the ghosts who haunted my past to go away. Three seconds to adjust my hold on my sanity. Three little seconds.

One.

Two.

Three.

“Hayes, look at me,” she begged, her voice shaking. “Focus on me.”

It took all my strength, but when I managed to turn my head away from the burning man who plagued my nightmares, my world was filled with green. Not just any green. Her green. Jade, everlasting, and beautiful. Breathtaking.

Everything about this woman was breathtaking.

Her soft hand was against my cheek then, caressing me. My jaw jumped under her palm as she leaned down, an easy smile stretching her pink lips. “Let go with me, Hayes,” she whispered, kissing me gently.

Cherry. Tart and addicting. Like her.

My hands shot up, gripping her hair as I crushed her mouth to mine.

As my tongue stroked her lips, she whimpered, opening for me.

I was overwhelmed with her taste, her body on top of mine.

I pulled my hands from her silky hair, banding them around her waist as I sat up, taking her with me.

Her hand shifted, going into my hair, gripping it as her hips began to move, grinding against me in a heated frenzy.

“Yes,” she hissed as I yanked her head to the side, dragging my tongue up the column of her neck.

“Taste like beauty, Temper.”

“Get lost with me,” she rasped, her nails at the back of my neck now.

Our bodies moved together as if we were made for one another, and that’s when I knew this was all a dream. She was too perfect for me, too good. Eventually, my body covered hers, desperate to be in control, our breaths colliding with each thrust of my hips, her thighs shaking at my sides.

“Hayes! God, yes!”

I looked down at her, my hands on either side of her head on the pillow.

She was drowning in moonlight, the butterfly tattoo on her neck stretching as her neck arched, her body giving in to me.

I said nothing, lost in her, just like she wanted.

My hips picked up speed, moving faster—harder.

Her iron headboard started to rock, and I was surrounded by everything her.

I was ready to drown in this place, never to come up for air again.

It was just her and me.

As it should be.

Another explosion sounded from all around me.

I dropped, shielding her, my movements ceasing.

“Hayes?”

Gunshots fired off all around us.

More yelling.

More pleas for mercy.

More blood.

Heat.

All I felt was heat.

I lifted my head and twisted my neck, looking back. My eyes widened.

We were no longer in her room.

We were on the ground, and my plane was burning in the distance, engulfed in flames, black smoke rising into the sky, signaling death.

“Hayes! Hayes, help me!”

I looked down, and she was gone, ripped away from me.

I rose, frantically looking around, smoke burning my lungs.

My hands shot into my hair as I shouted her name, the war zone—the devastation around me—closing in.

I cried out for her again. Then I heard it, the fear in her voice shooting through the air like a bullet.

She was in the flames.

I watched her figure fall to the ground, the fire consuming her as she tried to call for me, the plane I’d crashed behind her.

She’d been on the plane.

I’d failed her.

I fell to my knees, watching her burn alive, gravity pinning me to the desert floor, forcing me to watch the result of my failure…

I shot up, gasping for hair.

The present world slowly came into view as the sounds of my nightmare faded into the night. As I took in my surroundings, blinking a few times, I realized something devastating.

I wasn’t in my apartment.

A whimper came from beside me. I stiffened, staring straight ahead at the thrifted Journey poster on the wall hanging behind a small television. The scent of jasmine flooded me then, and my gut twisted. I dropped my head, knowing exactly where I was and who I was with.

Slowly, I turned, my eyes falling to the woman beside me. Her back was to me, her purple sheets stopping just above the curve of her ass, and she had her arms wrapped around her pillow, her raven hair scattered across it. Just like it had been in my nightmare.

My jaw tightened, a lump growing in my throat as I stared at the tattooed Phoenix on her back.

The watercolor style of the ink reminded me of the flames I should’ve died in years ago.

My eyes trailed up the curve of her spine, pausing at her shoulder.

I waited, watching it rise and fall with each breath she took.

I looked down, finding my own chest bare, and if I squinted, I could make out the indentions her nails left on my biceps.

I looked back to the woman, unsure of what to do.

That was a lie.

I knew what I wanted to do.

I wanted to wrap my arms around her, pull her close, fall back asleep. And when we woke up in the morning, I wanted to cook her breakfast.

I wanted to take care of her.

I’d wanted that since the day she was kidnapped and held hostage at the docks. It had been a year since that day, and to my knowledge, she avoided the docks at all costs. I lifted my hand, ready to brush her thick hair off her shoulder and replace it with my lips.

“Gordon.”

My blood turned to ice, my hand suspended in the air, my heart lurching.

She shifted, rolling to her back and moaned, “Gordon, please.”

“Pretend with me,” she whispered, her lips against mine as I pushed her against the door.

“That what you want, Temper?” I growled, pushing my hips against hers, the alcohol surging through me.

I blinked and ran my hand through my short hair, inhaling a deep breath. I closed my eyes and tipped my head back.

Pretend.

That’s all this was to her.

A lie.

Maybe, that’s all it should be, Mitchell.

I didn’t even look at her again as I quietly pulled the sheet back. It took me two minutes to find my clothes and thirty seconds after that to get dressed.

Then I was gone, leaving Margo to dream about a man who wasn’t me.