Page 1 of Beautiful Liar

Chapter One

Tomás

Three months ago

Sunlight burned through my eyelids. I grunted and reached for the blankets until I remembered we’d tossed them onto the floor. Instead, I pulled the pillow over my head to block the sun and took a deep inhale of Kieran’s scent. Some expensive body lotion, woodsy with a hint of cinnamon. And although he totally wrecked my world every night since we came back from New York, I still woke up to an empty bed. An empty and sticky bed. Fucker didn’t want to ruinhisbedsheets, so we’d always used my room. With the amount of laundry I did, our roommates probably thought I’d been doing overtime with my hand. River’s and Wren’s rooms were on the other side of the house, while Fox’s room was on the main floor. The third-floor loft was Henry’s space. They were all far enough not to hear Kieran’s loud ass moans whenever I got him there. Which was every time he came back from the city.

My phone started to chime. Grunting, I turned it off and rolled out of bed. Shuffling to the bathroom with my eyes half lidded, I stepped on something clingy and icky, and it got stuckbetween my toes. A used condom.

Motherfucker.

I hopped on one leg to pull the shit out, but my other foot got tangled in the sheet and before I could correct myself, I started to tumble. My elbow caught the side of the bedframe on my way down to the floor.

Motherfucker!

Kieran walked inside just in time to see me planted on the floor. He looked as if he’d just stepped off a magazine cover. Wearing a Tom Ford suit complete with tie and Berlutis. Yeah, I may have caught sight of the labels on his clothes as I tore them off his body a time or two. His pale green eyes roamed over my state of being. Naked on the floor, cupping my elbow with a condom stuck between my toes and he started to laugh. Despite my prickly mood, his laugh made me warm inside. It lightened my world. Yeah, I’d been turned into a fool in love. In my defense, laughing wasn’t something he did often so it meant the world to me.

I stuck my foot up, offering him the condom still stuck between my toes. “You left this.”

His cheeks blushed and his green eyes held a touch of mirth that made him so damn beautiful. I wanted to be mad at him for leaving me every morning, but I couldn’t. I told him I’d be patient and wait until he was ready to come out, but patience and I had a war brewing. Kieran was so far inside the closet I’m sure he’d one day come out wearing bell bottoms and platform shoes with fishes inside. I saw a movie once.

“Uh,” he said, eyeballing the condom dangling from my toes. “That’s not mine.” Technically, he was not wrong. I was the condom user. He winked at me and walked over me to get to the bathroom. “I left my case in here.” I heard him rummaging in the bathroom as I yanked the condom from between my toes and tossed it in the trash beside my bed.

“You really do need to clean this place up,” he said as if half the shit weren’t his.

I leaned against the doorframe and crossed my arms over my chest. Kieran stood a few inches shorter than me but had a larger build. He was all ripped muscle under the expensive suits he wore. Today, he wore a three-piece charcoal suit with a spotted tie. It fit him perfectly and made him look older than his twenty years. His dark hair was styled back from his chiseled features. His jaw smooth. He’d never been able to grow in a shadow on his face. I preferred smooth anyway. I preferred anything he’d give me. And that was the damn problem. Kieran and I had met during the fall. We’d become instant enemies, then something between enemies and fuck buddies, then something more. We were each other’s first gay hook-up. I still wasn’t sure why he’d chosen me.

Kieran Brennan could have whoever he wanted. The thought made me want to lock him up in my room until we grew mold on the bed. He glanced at me in the mirror as if he sensed where my mind was heading. I liked the way his eyes trailed my very naked body. I wasn’t as ripped as him. Tall and gangly was how Dad had used to describe me. Too hyper, my metabolism too fast. I could eat a whole pizza for a week and still not gain weight. But I was too lazy to attempt to define my body. Muscle mass was heavy, and I was used to running from bullets.

Kieran’s eyes slowly dragged back up to my face with a smirk, then he shook his head. We had no time for a quick fuck though the thought had my cock pulsing. He cut contact with me and plucked his med case from underhishairbrush.

The semester was over, and we were in winter break now. Most of the students here didn’t have anywhere to go. Like me. Those that did were used by the family they belonged to and did jobs. I couldn’t help but worry what job Tristan would put Kieran on. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d even come back.He was legitimate now. He could go anywhere to school and not Arcadia University. Arcadia’s student body consisted of bastards born into the criminal elite who discarded them. Me included.

Or he didn’t have to go to school at all. I didn’t think there was a degree he could get in how to run a mafia family. It seemed something you’d have to learn hands on.

“Stay.” I sounded pathetic even to me.

He briefly met my eyes in the mirror. I couldn’t read Kieran when he didn’t want me to. I couldn’t read him now. “Tomás, we went over this.”

We had. He wanted me to go with him, but I didn’t want to see my half-brother. Maddox had killed my dad and my brother. As second in command to the Brennan family, Maddox saw me as an inconvenience and kept me hidden. His real family didn’t know about me. When Kieran had asked me to go with him, I had kissed him to avoid answering and the sex blurred everything else.

I glared at him. “Well, it’s your mess. You should clean it up before you leave.” I said, reverting back to the present issue ofhismess.

He tried to pass but I blocked the doorway. He stopped, dead in his tracks. “Do you mind?” He sounded prickly.

I knew he was mad about my wanting him to stay. I should be a more supportive … what? I wasn’t even a boyfriend. I should’ve been a more supportive lover. It seemed as if that was all we were. “The mess on the bed is yours.Iwore a condom.”

He glanced behind me at the rumpled bedsheets then at me. Then the fucker cupped the back of my head and slammed his mouth on mine. My dick perked up. I moaned into his mouth. And before I realized what he’d done, he’d spun me out of the way, and pulled out of my arms as fast as he instigated the kiss, leaving me chasing his lips.

“Fucker,” I said to his back because he was alwaysleaving, and it broke my heart every fucking time. A pathetic part of me feared that he’d find something better out there. I wasn’t good enough for him. I’d never be good enough for him.

He reached the door. For a breathless second, I had this heart shattering feeling that he wasn’t coming back. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t force him to stay. I was slowly losing him, and I couldn’t do anything to keep him.

Then he turned around, knowing. He just knew me so well. He narrowed the gap between us in two easy strides and had his mouth on mine in two seconds flat. I fucking melted into his touch. Unlike our first kisses, this one was slow, deep, as if he were making a promise he couldn’t yet say out loud. I took it. I always took what he had to give like a drowning man, and he was my life vest.

Slowly, he pulled away. His long deft fingers still under my hair, massaging the back of my scalp reassuring me in the way he always did before he left to live the mafia life. “Casera added my number to your contact list on your school issued phone. You can contact me on that. I’ll be back for your performance. I promise.”

Before I could say he’d broken the previous two promises, he led my eyes to the dresser. A small gift box rested on top wrapped in Christmas themed paper with snowflakes and a bow on top.

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