36. Chapter 36
I burst into Ray's bedroom as my heart beat a storm in my chest. Shame washed through me like a wave, and I shivered under the cold dump of it over my head. I ran my hand through my hair and perched on the bed.
The room smelled of Ray, elegant and masculine.
Midnight plucked navy silk sheets and dark walls.
He had a framed photo on his bedside table of an older couple and a young woman.
The ambient light pulsed amber. He had a floor-to-ceiling mirror, and I pictured him flexing and fussing with his hair.
The phantom touch of his hand on my cock made it twitch.
I'd come so hard it stole my breath. Was I bi? I shook my head. Ray had always set me on edge. I thought it was anger, but as we'd become closer, I knew what it was. A crush. His charm was impossible to resist.
Unbidden, thoughts of my stepdad came back.
Even when I was ten years old, I knew the way he looked at me was wrong. My mom never listened when I told her how he wanted me to sit on his lap, and how he rested his hand on my ass. She was in love, and he was the most stable partner she'd had.
The night I woke up to him standing over me, with his hands down his pants, was enough to make me run. Not before I punched him first. Oily emotion tangled in the lingering pleasure. It wasn't the same. I wanted Ray to touch me, but I couldn't help where my mind went.
Lara could relate. She had a tumultuous childhood. Something niggled at my brain. I paid attention to the flare. Lara said she only had her mom, an addict. I pulled out my phone, accessed the database, and opened her background check.
Lara Miller: parents alive and married for thirty years.
My veins were ribbons of flame, scorching every tender piece of flesh.
Lara had lied. I tasted the acid fizzing in my gut on my tongue.
My childhood gave me a superpower. The ability to know when things didn't fit.
I usually watched everything with methodical interest. But Lara blinded me, didn't she? Numbness crept through my cells.
I scrambled and pulled out the cameras. One from the warehouse, and the other from her apartment.
They were identical. Hadn't I found Lara outside the warehouse, having a panic attack?
She didn't like small spaces. Betrayal scorched me, inside and out.
My thoughts were charred footnotes on the lies she'd written all around us.
She lied.
She lied.
Little Liar.
The title thumped in my head like a dumbbell. Had Beck been warning us about her this whole time?
I thought back to when Adelaide first met her. Lara had been a shadow, seemingly unwitting, and Adelaide had adopted Lara with brief hesitation. Lara was like so many people who gravitated to Greenich Bay for the beaches. I had never thought Lara was anything but innocent.
I'd feared for her. A snort blistered out of me.
Had any of it been real? I cradled my head in my hands, choking on a hot, tangled breath. Every memory unraveled as I sifted through to find any glimmers of her duplicity.
The ease with which she'd slotted into Adelaide's life and accepted her crime connections. She knew so much more than she should because she made it so easy.
The way she had kept Ray and me at arm's length. In the sauna, she let us see behind her massive walls, the ones she'd erected. Not to protect her heart like I'd thought.
It was all a ploy to distract us from the cameras.
Blood coated my tongue as I chewed on my inner cheek. There were a thousand questions I wanted to ask Lara, but I needed the element of surprise. She was one of the best liars I had ever known, and I would've never known unless she had slipped up about her parents.
Beck knew who she was.
I'd thought it was chemistry, but the way they moved in sync should have been obvious. They had known each other for a long time. Had they enjoyed tricking us? Had she ever really cared at all? Another false trick to deepen her position in Greenich Bay.
There was no calming my fury. Every second I stewed it multiplied.
The first woman I'd ever loved, and she was a liar.
Every thought was tangled and tainted with a ferocity that heated the air in my lungs.
They stung with each inhale. Burned with each exhale.
Concrete betrayal encased me, and time paused as I sank into it.
My view warped and blistered until the burning faded. Not forgotten, not forgiven. But a burning coal that nursed the desire for revenge. I let it take root in my chest. My fingers tingled as movement returned to me.
Antoni Orazio taught me how to compartmentalize my emotions, just like he did his daughter, Adelaide. I'd witnessed how well she could switch her emotions off in the moment. To become a machine.
I did the same. Stuffed all the throbbing, wrenching ache at Lara's duplicity in a dark corner. Boarded up with rusted nails and forgotten. If my throat still had a knot in it, that would fade.
I intended to unpeel Lara, slice by slice until I revealed all her secrets.
The doorknob turned, and Lara poked her head in, wrapped in a towel.
She had her clothes in her arms and laid them aside.
Her cheeks were flushed pink. I wanted to bleed it off her face.
Ray followed, a low-slung towel wrapped carelessly around his waist. His languid smile widened as he saw me, and I had to clamp my tongue between my teeth.
I was about to obliterate his post-nut haze.
A sharp needle thrust itself between my ribs, grazing my bruised heart.
He looked so damn happy.
The chip on his shoulder had softened with Lara's declaration. I didn't want to hurt him. He'd become one of my closest friends, and I respected him more than I wanted to admit. He deserved happiness, but we couldn't exist in this tangled web of lies any longer.
"There you are, big guy." He closed the door behind him.
"Are you alright with what happened?" Lara asked, having the gall to be soft with understanding.
She didn't deserve to feel anything except pain. But I had to bide my time. Ray scratched his wide chest, and I followed the movement, unable to meet Lara's gaze.
"It was the heat of the moment. Let's be honest, if this becomes a thing, we'll probably touch each other more than once in the future."
The vision of tangled muscles and sinewy, soft flesh distracted me from my simmering rage. We could have had something beautiful, but it was nothing but an illusion. How far would Lara go to maintain her facade? She fucked us all, figuratively and literally.
A cruel smile tilted my lips, and I widened my legs, a silent invitation. The wariness melted, and Lara stepped into the hollow I created.
"I overreacted." I managed a tight smile.
Ray tossed himself down on the bed, throwing an arm behind his head.
"I hope Beck isn't opening more of my rare whiskey."
Beck. Another cog in this figment of our imaginations. He knew Lara was keeping dangerous secrets, but how much of this was he involved in? What was the end goal? I couldn't focus on it too much, because it became like a cyclone. Swirling chaos when I needed to be cold.
Lara's fingers danced over my shoulders, and I fought the urge to dash them off.
How could someone fake the emotion floating on the surface of her beautiful eyes?
I wanted to believe the hitch of her breath as I reached up and cupped her face.
She melted her cheek into my hold. Her skin was unbelievably soft, and it took everything in me not to mark it.
The touch, the smile, the way she brushed her fingers through the hair at the base of my neck.
All lies.
I clenched my teeth and held my breath until the choking rage eased.
I'd fucked my hand plenty of times, imagining unwrapping Lara like she was right now.
Every orgasm I'd had to her image felt like I was building a staircase to heaven.
Eventually, I would have her in my arms. The anticipation had been sweet on my tongue, but now it tasted like ash.
I'd been unwittingly building a staircase to hell.
Lara wouldn't get sweetness from me. She wouldn't get my time, my devotion or the stupid thump of my heart that I'd foolishly given to her. I flexed my fingers on her silk skin and traced the line of her smile. Noted the spark glittering in her eyes. So real it horrified me.
"I want you," I whispered.
I want you dead.
How far would she go to keep me in her thrall?
I pressed until her legs hung over the mattress. There was no hint of hesitation. She was so bold in her lies. My chest was so tight I couldn't breathe.
"Are you going to make love to me?"
I smothered a hollow laugh. How long had I wanted her?
Even threaded with betrayal, my blood rushed.
I hooked my finger in her towel, unraveling and baring her for my perusal.
Lara had an athletic body, honed muscles with sinewy definition and the shadow of abs.
Pilates and running. That's what I believed built this body.
I ran my fingers down her side, weak even in my anger. How blind I'd been.
"Our girl is so pretty, isn't she?" Ray bit his fist.
Our girl is a liar.
I leaned down and pressed a kiss to the swell of her breast. High and small, her nipples hardened under my questing touch.
Freckles scattered across her body, one nestled under her collarbone.
I looked my fill now as frustrated anger rolled into lust, my body wanting hers despite my mind's protests.
"So fucking pretty."
I sucked her nipple until I felt myself slide.
This wasn't two people giving in to what their hearts wanted.
It wasn't the fantasy I'd played over in my mind.
This was a practiced liar and her jester.
I sank my teeth into the hardened nub, and she cried out.
I lifted my head, hoping she would see the devil she'd awakened.
My stomach turned at the role she'd forced me into.
I didn't want to hurt her. But she'd flayed open my soul. Now I had to return the favor.