Page 131 of Cruel Lies

I could feel the blush working its way up my face, and I refused to meet her gaze as I debated between pulling back or just leaving altogether, letting her do this herself. Shehadinsisted she could handle it, after all.

"Who’s throwing themselves at whonow?"

The audacity of this bitch.

She saw a thin opening in the shell I’d managed to hide myself inside of, and slid in with her sass and her slick wit, and fuck all if I wasn’t harder than a damn rock as her lips moved against the shell of my ear, teasing me with the little strength she had left.

What would it hurt to just give in this once?

Her nipple brushed against the side of my nose as she turned in place, and like a fucking senseless teenage boy in a rut, I let the demons in my mind take over just this once.

I tilted my head and let it brush against my lips instead, relishing her soft gasp as she jolted from the connection.

That gasp was all I needed to restore sense to my damn self.

"Stop playing games," I growled, knowing damn well I’d been an equal player in this one. She leaned back, as did I, and I returned to washing her like nothing had happened. "I have more important things to do than clean you up after you did something I told you not to do." I gestured to her torso again, plainly pointing out the still-bleeding wound. "He used you and abused you and then threw you away for me to deal with. Selfish prick."

I could see it in the way she refused to meet my gaze or come back at my words with a rebuttal. She thought just because he wasn’t emotional with her yet, that he never would be. That this was all she could have with him.

Nash would come around. I knew it as well as I knew my own name. Mybirthname. He was just afraid of his feelings, and hers. She loved deeply, intensely, like a raging fire, and until now, Nash had been his own inferno. Anytime something became uncomfortable, he just blazed it away and moved on. But when you threw two fires at each other, they warred for dominance.

That was why Nash refused to let her in. Not because hedidn’t want to, but because he couldn’t. If he did, he risked burning himself out to stoke her flames.

He was scared to lose himself in that fractured mind of his.

And then there were the scars. They certainly didn’t help.

"Nash will work through this shit, Harper. But you can’t push him and expect him to give all the ground immediately. He’s stubborn." My eyes skimmed over her breasts as I worked my way up to her face, my soapy hands moving to her shoulders. "Like someone else I know."

The smile she gave me was hesitant but contagious, and I couldn’t help but grin back just a little. I let the corner of my mouth twitch up and then promptly yanked it back down, refusing to let her see I was warming to her.

I didn’t want to care for her. And yet, I couldn’t stop. The part of me I’d buried years ago had never truly been gone. It just manifested in new ways. But I didn’t have to like that.

"You know, it’s weird that you’re the bottle blonde now, and I’m the one with black hair. Feels kinda weird. Like we’ve flipped sides since high school."

Small talk felt too impersonal to my ears. Like we were strangers.

Didn’t you want to pull away?

The voice inside my head had grown pretty annoying over these last few weeks. I wanted to strangle it with my bare hands.

"High school feels like a decade ago," I sighed wistfully, wishing I could rewind to those carefree days and tell my younger self things.Don’t try beer. Don’t let Pansy Rockmoor give me my first blowjob under the bleachers after drama club. Don’t fall in love with the girl you can’t have.

But past me was lightyears away, and even with the knowledge I had today, I wasn’t sure I’d do anything different.

Don’t fall in love with the girl you can’t have.

My hands skimmed over her arms again, and then, sucking in a breath, I ran them over her tits as she hung onto myshoulders, neither one of us able to meet the other’s eyes. The only indication that she was as affected by this as me was the way her fingers tightened in the wet fabric of my shirt when my fingers skimmed her nipples, and the way her body arched into my touch unconsciously.

I realized belatedly I was still between her legs, and with what little opportunity and willpower I had left, I slid my hand down her abs, skimming around the edges of her open wound as I slipped between her thighs and brushed over her mound.

The moan that left her mouth had me twitching between my legs, and against my better judgment, I let two fingers slip between her pussy lips, grazing her clit under the guise of cleaning her up.

But we both knew what this was.

"Angel," she whispered, but I raised my free hand and slapped it over her mouth, refusing to hear her pretty words and flowery emotions. I didn’t want to hear how much she wanted me. I didn’t want to know what emotions lurked just beneath the surface of her skin.

But gods, how I wanted to touch her and mean it.

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