Page 32 of Beautiful Liar

I felt the subtle shake of his head, warring with himself.

I grazed my lips against his jaw, trailing a path to his throat, inhaling him. My own cock painfully pressed behind my zipper. “Don’t lie to yourself. This is what you want, what you need.”

“You have no idea what I want, what I need.”

“Tell me, then. What is it you want from me?” My body unfurled with desire at the play. My dick hardened, pushed against my pants. The hairs at the back of my neck, my arms, stood on end at the contact. “You have no fucking clue what you want.”

“I wantyou, asshole. You’re all I ever wanted.”

I searched his face trying to find the lie. I didn’t.

“I love you,” he said.

Those words seemed to hit some sort of stop button in me. I couldn’t even fucking move.“I’m sorry for loving you.”The words he’d said last night after we fucked still fresh in my mind. “You don’t.”

My words were the final slap. He shoved me away hard. “Fuck you.” His voice cracked and I hated the way it made me feel. “You have no clue what it means to want someone despite their faults, despite theirlies. You don’t know what it feels liketo give a part of your soul to someone who’d still bury you with their own hands. Someone who you should be afraid of but can’t bring yourself to fear. Someone you should hate but justcan’t.” He clenched his fists. “You don’t know how it feels to love someone who hurts you every fucking day because he can’t love you back. And the worst part is, you’ll still give him whatever he wants from you.” A fat tear hung onto his thick lashes until he blinked, and it trailed down his face. “If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”

Chapter Thirteen

Kieran

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the single tear he didn’t bother to wipe away, the pain and affection in his expression.

Tomás loved me.

Being a killer didn’t mean I didn’t feel. It meant I had to feeleverything. I had to learn the nuances of emotion, of expression, of body language. I had to gauge a threat not by their verbal constructs, but what drove their actions and reactions. I couldn’t do that and ignore the depths of human nature, the dark and the light inherent in our species. And the spectrum of emotions that drove behavior. Anger, pain, shame, hatred, desire, lust, want. I learned to read it, to adapt with it in order to survive. It’d always been something outside my own reality. A construct I built, impervious to my own disposition. It’d always been me looking in, making assumptions based on what I saw and knew to be the truth at that narrow point in time. It bordered on precognition. And it kept me alive. Ahead of my enemies. Able to react accordingly.

But Tomás wasn’t a threat. Which left my perusal raw and unfiltered. Which left me aching in a deeper part of myself that I had relegated as unnecessary. And for some fucking reason, that part of me, the empty void I had ignored for the past ten years, woke up with a vengeance. I breathed and it pulsed. I willed myself to back the fuck away, but it clamped it’s hold around my chest and squeezed.

And I knew I could never let Tomás go. He was part of the air I breathed into my lungs. The life I drew into my soul. Tomás washere, willing to give me what I needed.

Him.

I fisted his hoodie and pulled him against me, swallowing his gasp as I ravaged his mouth. Pushing my tongue through hispliant lips, I devoured him. He tasted of forbidden pleasures, and I intended to take it all. His hands found my belt loop and he tore open my pants and shoved his hands inside, pulling my cock free. A contented breath left his lips as he stroked me.

“Kieran, I just…”

I knew what he needed.

Control.

“Take it,” I said, against his mouth. “My cock belongs to you. My ass. My mouth. Just take what you need.”

He let out a little whimper, grazing his tongue against my throat, lavishing my Adam’s apple, before sucking against my skin just under my ear. I groaned.

We were alone. I didn’t have to be quiet.

“Kieran,” Tomás breathed my name.

The overwhelming need to taste him fueled my impulses. I sucked his lower lip while undoing his pants only pulling away when he reached behind himself and pulled up his hoodie. I helped him untangle from the garment and tossed it on the floor. The tattoo of La Santa Muerte inked onto his left pectoral held a powerful story. One of life and death. I ran my fingers over the design. His tanned skin pebbled under my touch and his nipple hardened. “So beautiful,” I said. The ink and the body used as a canvas for the design were so fucking beautiful. I trailed my fingers over his hard nipples as he toed off his shoes. The silent, still moment between us more intimate than the sharing of our bodily desires. I loved the fire in his eyes when we fought, but this, this slow devotion filled the void inside of me that belonged only to him.

I cupped his neck and loved how he always leaned into my touch. A small movement that touched every part of me. I ran my thumb back and forth along his pulse. The life underneath belonged to me only because he gave it to me. For me, that was a monumental realization. While he belonged to me, I belongedto him. At that moment, love seemed like a trivial word. It wasn’t enough to explain my feelings for him.

“Kieran,” he whispered, drawing my eyes to his. They were blown with lust, but so soft and pleading.

“What do you want from me, baby?” I asked, because I’d give him anything.

“Everything,” he responded on a soft exhale.

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