Page 61 of Lies Like Love

Heartsaren’tbornbroken.They’re carved in the hands of those who aren’t careful with fragile things. And Jude is an expert at ripping holes in mine.

He’s ruthless.

Brutal.

He’s the stepbrother I wasn’t allowed to love in the ways my heart wanted, and over time, it made me sick.

My twisted obsession. To the point where I sometimes wondered if I only wanted him because he was forbidden.

His lips crash to mine. Painfully harsh. The hooks he planted a decade ago grip deeper.

He’s wrong for me.

He’s bad in the worst ways.

I want him to be mine.

Jude’s fingers grip my cheeks, and I lose all sense of wrong and right. My darkest desires bloom knowing he’s the only one who can handle them. The only one who can meet me there.

If we’re falling, it’s together—into what this never should have been.

I wrap my arms around his shoulders, and he drops his hands to my hips. His fingers drag over my diamond-covered dress and under my thighs as he picks me up and slams my back against the closed door. Hard enough to force the air from my lungs.

But he doesn’t pull back. He takes my breaths like they belong to him, not caring what I’m left with when he’s done. And even worse, I want him to drain me for all I’m worth.

In this darkness, doing forbidden things, Jude searches for a part of himself in me. And these walls would judge us if they had eyes.

His hard body presses against mine, and I clench my fingers on his suit jacket to pull our bodies flush. His teeth drag over my bottom lip before he takes my mouth fully again. And when I dare to trace his lip with my tongue, he nips at mine in return.

Bites it.

Drags the bubbles of a scream to my throat with the pain he inflicts, and I’m pulsing between my legs.

“Swallow your screams, Red.” He runs his tongue over the spot he bit, his piercing dragging over it, before brushing his lips from my mouth to my jaw, over my throat. Goosebumps follow the path until his breath is by my ear. “As much as I want to hear them, you aren’t ready for them to see just how far their angel has fallen.”

He drives his hips against me with his words, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to swallow the sounds that want to echo a chorus for him. Even if he told me to keep quiet, he rocks his hips like he wants to see if he can break me. Back and forth, putting pressure where I needed him last night. And I’m not sure why the wrong things have to feel so good.

But with every pulse of pressure, my body begs me to submit.

It should be a warning. Nothing good comes from this. Everything Jude gives he makes me regret.

So why can’t I stop?

“Why—” I’m cut off by him sinking his teeth into the base of my neck. “Why are you here?”

And I mean everywhere—at this gala, in this room, in my life.

No matter how far either of us runs, or how good either of us hides, there’s no escaping.

“I can’t stay away from you.”

“You did for a decade.” A growl rumbles in his throat at my comment. “I’m just saying, what is this? A game because you like the chase? Or are you just trying to claim your prize like last night, just so you can walk away?”

The words hurt my throat on the way out. They hurt my heart. I don’t want them to be true, but Jude is a fighter—a survivor—and those instincts will always win over what he feels for me.

Jude pauses his movements, and it’s a warning to stop before I push us both over the ledge. I can’t help but continue because I’ve already been too honest. And while I’ve put myself on the line in every way, he’s been silently using my body’s desire for him as a distraction.

“Or…” I trail off as he pulls back to chastise me with his stare. “Did you already get your prize earlier from one of the girls at your fight? And this is just to prove another point.”

---