Page 95 of Loving the Liar

“Where are you, Chris?”

“Out.”

“I could strangle you when you talk to me like that. You better be home by the time breakfast is ready. And don’t ever do this to me again. Know your fucking place.”

My eyes widen, a fear I don’t understand thickening my blood, making my heart work twice as hard to pump energy through my body.

He hangs up, his empty eyes still on me. He looks pale, and he’s fisting his phone so tightly I wonder if it’ll snap in half under his strength.

“Are you…” I hesitate. “Okay?” Fuck. Why do I care?

Slowly stepping toward me, he leans down and drops a soft kiss on my forehead. “I’ll see you soon, Sweets. Who knows, maybe at the temple, where I can have you all to myself and no one can bother me.”

The split second of understanding for his current situation runs out, and I feel my face harden. “I’m not the same girl from high school, and we’re not dating. You have my body. That’s it.”

He cocks an eyebrow, not believing the words that spurt out of my mouth. “Excuse me?”

I square my shoulders and tighten the robe again around my body. “You said it yourself, I’m an Aphrodite. You get to use me whenever you want. Sure.” I narrow my eyes at him. “But you will never have me the way you did back then. I don’t know this man you’ve become. And I don’t want him in my life, least of all to give him my heart.”

A statue of a mythological god has more life than Chris at this moment. His body stills, his face so frozen I wonder if it might crack into a state of fury.

He doesn’t move, and his words are a low threat as he answers.

“I will make you regret every single word you dared put in that sentence, Ella. I don’t want to escalate this to a level you can’t take. But you know I will if I have to.” He doesn’t even touch me, only staying a hair’s breadth away from me.

“You might want to pretend you’ve moved on, but I know what I want, Sweets. I want you. I want us. Megan?” He chuckles like he doesn’t have a problem in the world. “She’s just one little battle in the war I’m waging to get back to you. And the best things are worth fighting for.”

“And my brother?” I rasp. “And the Circle? And my opinion? You want something I’m not willing to give.”

He drops another light kiss on my cheek. The kind that makes me shiver. That makes me want to press harder against him. Drop to my knees. Worship him.

“One step at a time. But trust me, the least of my worries is what you’re willing to give. I’ll just take.” Tilting his head so he can talk in my ear, he adds, “You will go to bed one night, and it will be me you sleep next to. You will wake up, and it’ll be my cock deep inside you. You will live, because I’m the one who allows oxygen into your lungs.”

He shifts, grazing my lips with his, and I don’t dare move an inch. I’m incapable of taking a step back.

“And my hand will be so far inside your chest, your heart won’t beat without feeling my grip around it.”

I love you

You built a world without me and left me with no choice but to destroy it. We’ll build another one.

I promise.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ella

Pacify Her - Melanie Martinez

Rain has officially replaced the chilly yet beautiful early September days. October is here, and SFU is turning gorgeous shades of brown, maroon, and deep green from the evergreens at the edge of the campus. I prefer spring, when everything grows again. The start of something new. But fall matches my mood.

I shiver under my trench coat, tightening my grip around my umbrella as I come out of the woods. Alex and Peach both started earlier than me, and I didn’t want to hang out where everyone else is this morning. Pretending to be perfect when everyone thinks you are is doable. Pretending to be unaffected when everyone knows you’re a fraud is soul breaking. We’ll have lunch together, I’ll go to my classes, and I’ll go home.

Someone bumps into my shoulder the second I walk inside the castle. Apart from the main double-gated entrance, all the other ways to get in are tight, old wooden doors that creak whenever someone opens them, and there are a group of men on the other side who don’t seem to understand they’ll only fit one at a time.

I push through, trying to get past them, when the one who hit my shoulder speaks.

“Oh, shit, I accidentally hit Ella Baker.”

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