Page 157 of The Liar's Reckoning

“I—” I shake my head, dizzy with his scent, drowning in a thousand memories. I want him. As much as I ever did. More than I want anything. I know I can’t have him, but it doesn’t stop how much wanting there is. This close to him, it consumes me.

“You what?” he snaps.

I realize how easily I could cry. My tears are always so close to the surface lately. Since the disaster at The Pierre last weekend, I haven’t gone a day without losing the battle to crying at least once, but it’s usually at night in bed. Or right when I wake up. “I know what I did was terrible.”

“Not terrible,” he says, his dark eyes unblinking. “Unforgivable.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Unforgivable means your apologies don’t mean shit.” His voice shakes, but I can’t tell whether it’s from emotion or restraint. His right hand is balled into a fist and his left looks ready to push me back if I get too close.

His gaze rakes my body, taking me in from head to toe and back. “You’re so pathetic,” he says. “All that power and influence, and you still can’t stand up to Daddy. You know what that makes you, Graham?”

I don’t answer because he’s stepped closer. We’re an inch away from being chest to chest. His gaze is on my mouth, and I’ve stopped breathing.

“A coward.”

I nod. “I know.”

“I lost two jobs because of you. What did you lose?”

“Besides you?”

A noise almost like a growl rumbles from his throat. “You didn’t lose me, you fucking asshole. You threw me away.”

“I didn’t have a choi?—”

“Bullshit. Just say it, Graham. Your job was more important. It’s the only thing you give a shit about. You’ll lie for it, you’ll do anything to keep it. You’ll break someone in half for it.”

“Silas…” The tears spill, and not because of what he’s saying because I can’t argue with any of it, but because of the way he sounds. Broken. I did this to him. He was perfect before I met him, and now he’sthis.

He scoffs at the sight of me.

Using both hands I try to stem the flow, pressing the heels of my palms to my eyes and taking a deep breath. “I didn’t know what else to do.” That’s the only truth I have left. Hindsight is amazing, but at the time, I felt backed into a corner.

“I told you what you could do. You didn’t want to listen.”

“I didn’t knowhow, Silas.” I know he’s right, but I’ve never been at a lower point in my life. I couldn’t see my way through it. My father was the only person giving me a plan I understood how to execute. “I couldn’t loseeverything.”

It was the wrong thing to say, judging by the layer of ice that seems to glaze his features and harden his gaze. “You didn’t seem to mind if I did.”

“That’s not true?—”

“I don’t believe you,” he says.

I swallow hard. “I don’t expect you to.”

“Then why are you here, Senator? Are you all out of dirty secrets to keep? You need one more for the road?”

Heat takes over my face, but worse—far worse—a throb in my groin incapable of going where it wants to rattles my core. It’s painful and intense—like a kick to the balls. I whimper and shut my eyes in shame.

I nearly leap out of my skin when he palms my crotch—not expecting it and purely horrified at what I know he’s feeling.

He gives me a nasty smirk as his fingertips outline the cage through the fabric of my slacks. “What’s this?”

I shudder. His touch is like sandpaper, and still, I want more. My balls fill behind the cock ring, and I jerk when he cups them. “Still one dirty secret, then.” He squeezes my swollen sac causing me to grunt in agony. “Let me guess…you don’t have the key.”

Exhaling harshly, I shake my head, incapable of forming words.

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