Page 72 of Lies Like Love

His size. His piercings. Reaching the deepest corners and marking them. I can barely breathe between his kisses and my screams.

And I melt into the rhythm. My body in tune with every pump of his hips. My chest finds room for his air. My heart finds pieces I forgot existed.

I’m compelled to pull back just enough to do the most dangerous thing I can do in the arms of a man like him—look him in the eyes. I search the opal pits for the pieces of his soul he tries to hide.

I bring my hands to his face, and he wraps his through my hair, slowing his pace while rotating his hips so he’s everywhere. My top hangs open where it’s sliced down the front, and my nipples rub against his bare chest. Hearts hammering with every breath.

The cool gems on my dress rake where his hips grind against my bare legs.

“Jude.”

He circles his hips, and I lose my breath on his name.

“I’ve got you, Fel.” He tightens his grip around me. “Always have. Always will.”

The one promise he’s never broken. Even if it hurts. Even if he leaves. He’ll always have me. And that’s a problem I can’t dwell on right now.

“I hate that you hurt me,” I confess, as he slows even more.

We’re melting like the room around us. My heart begs him to take care, but I don’t know if he’s capable of it.

Jude tips his forehead to mine. “I don’t try to.”

Words I feel walking the line between honesty and a lie. But I let them dance there because it doesn’t matter when there’s already no escape.

“I just can’t help myself.” His eyes pinch like the admission hurts him.

It hurts me too. But for once, he’s not lying. He’s looking deep into my eyes with the burning truth, and I’m putty in his hands.

“I know,” I whisper.

He holds me tighter and hits me so deep I see the flames closing in on us. They burn like a torch against my skin. Jude stretches me to my limits and breaks me with every rough thrust of him.

“I know,” I repeat as I unravel.

I shake, shiver, explode. I take every hard thrust as his jaw clenches, and he comes inside me. As he marks me like no one else can. A high with such a quick drop that blood rushes to my brain.

But he doesn’t let go. He holds me. His hands run slow circles over my back and in my hair. A gentleness he rarely offers, so I can’t help but soak in it.

“There’s no coming back from this, Red.” Jude grazes his lips over mine, back and forth, and I wonder if he’s enjoying that I’m out of breath and wants to feel it.

“I understand.”

“No, you don’t.” He shakes his head, skating his lips over mine, before finding my jaw and peppering kisses on every inch of skin he can reach with me tight in his arms. “You don’t understand. Because if you did, you’d have turned around the moment you walked into my shop and never looked back.”

“What are you doing?” I cross my arms over my chest and smirk as I watch Jude try to sneak out of our parents’ bedroom.

His face drains of color, as my eyes fall on what he’s holding in his hands.

“Why do you have that?”

“Don’t worry about it.” He clenches his jaw and straightens up taller, using his height against me, like I should be intimidated.

He shakes his head and tries to barrel past me, but I don’t let him.

“Jude, stop.”

If he thinks that just because I’m a year younger than him, I’m oblivious to whatever’s going on in this house, he’s delusional. The four of us have been walking a tightrope between a cold war and a nuclear explosion.

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