Page 49 of Lies Like Love

I shouldn’t look at my stepbrother the way I’m sure I am, but I can’t help it. My gaze runs the full length of him, as my tongue swells.

He’s the only man to ever really see me. To protect me in the best and worst ways. And after spending years thinking I’d never see him again, here he is.

“You really shouldn’t look at me like that.” Jude rubs a towel over his hair as he walks into the room.

“I’m not.” I tip my chin up.

But he just smirks, shaking his head.

I run my hands over the comforter and his eyes drop to the bed. “Do you mind? You said I can’t go home. But I could sleep on the couch if you prefer your space.”

“It’s fine.”

Jude tosses the towel into a laundry basket and turns to face me, leaning against the dresser. And even if he says it’s fine I’m in his bed, he doesn’t climb in next to me. Instead, he watches me from a distance.

Controlling the situation.

Or himself?

But I’m no longer a teenage girl willing to wait patiently for him. I want to break him just to prove I can. No matter how level-headed he thinks he is, I’m not the only one affected by the gravity of us.

“Are you tired?” I ask, stretching my arms out.

He shakes his head while watching my every move.

Under his gaze, I can’t help but stretch out more. Pushing the comforter down with my feet and putting my bare legs on display. Every bad thought that will send me to hell races through my blood. Excitement fueled with adrenaline.

Forbidden or not, I need the man who was willing to draw blood for me. Who would have killed for me if I let him. I need all the things I’ve denied myself and more.

The way Jude swallows hard as his gaze skims my bare legs is intoxicating.

“That’s two fights you’ve won for me now.” I stretch my legs out along the bed. “And you still haven’t claimed your prize.”

Jude’s eyes snap back up to mine, dark and dilated. I don’t usually say things to taunt him because I understand him well enough to know it’s a dangerous game to play with a man who has no limits. But as I push his buttons, I’m fueled by the sight of his expression darkening.

I can’t handle this tension, and I’m going to break him if he doesn’t break me first.

“You can’t handle being my prize, Red. No matter how far you’ve fallen.”

I don’t acknowledge that he’s trying to make me feel inexperienced just to maintain control. Instead, I meet him where he’s at and push back. I’m not the teenage girl he remembers, and I can’t help but feel the need to remind him of that fact.

“I’m not a virgin.” I run a foot up the sheet and his eyes follow its path. “You might have walked away, but it doesn’t mean I never got any experience.”

Jude’s jaw tightens, as I walk a tightrope that’s on the verge of snapping. I’m taunting him for a reaction when I should know better. But I’m still irrationally stewing over the condoms under his sink, and I can’t help but keep going.

“Does that bother you, Jude?” I run my hands down my sides and up onto my thighs, appreciating how it makes his body tense. “Does it bother you that someone touched your stepsister? Dirtied her? That you were all talk and no action, and someone took that right away from you?”

At that, he lifts off the dresser, walking to the bed with primal rage brewing in his eyes. I knew my comments would draw this reaction, which is why I said them. But as always, I can’t anticipate what he’ll do in response.

Jude reaches onto the bed and grabs my ankle, pulling me down so I’m no longer sitting. He climbs over me and plants one knee between my legs, with the other on the outside of my thigh as he hovers.

“It’s cute you’re trying to piss me off, Fel.” He leans in and runs his nose up my bare neck, breathing me in, before lifting to look at me again. “But you’re no longer my stepsister, so if you think continuing to remind me of that part of our past will stop me, you’re wrong.”

He’s so close I can’t blink or breathe because I worry I’m at risk of him devouring me at the slightest slip of my defenses.

“As far as your little taunt about other men…” He looks down my body, pausing where his T-shirt rides so high up my thighs I’m almost exposed to him. “I don’t care about your virginity. As I told you back then, it’s not something I think a person should cherish. Besides, when I fuck you, I guarantee it will be so hard and deep I’ll hit places no man has come close to reaching.”

“When?”

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