Lacy hunches her shoulders, tensing up. “I think I’m going to be sick,” she says, getting up, and hustling toward the railing of the ship.
I wiggle my eyes at Lance. “Better run after her,” I say.
He pinches his expression, then scurries off.
I want to run after her, too.
At least part of me does.
But after this shit she’s pulling right now, I need to set the record straight once and for all.
20
Lacy
When I wake up the next morning, the yacht is docked, and I’m passed out in my clothes on a bed in one of the private rooms with Lance, Joseph, and Davina.
My head throbs.
Not surprising, considering the amount of alcohol I drank last night. And the emotional drain from refreshing my memory about Carter and me, and where we went wrong.
Though it did feel good to get out of my system, I must admit.
Drunken story therapy. I’ll have to ask Joseph if there is any research to support that as a practice.
Suddenly I flash to a weird dream I had where Carter and I were hooking up.
I breathe a huge sigh of relief about how impossible that is, and step into the bathroom, leaning in to look in the mirror.
What’s that mark on my neck?
I squint to see, looking a little closer.
Is that . . . teeth?
I greedily suck down as much water as I can handle.
Advil. Where is it? I’m going to need it.
Lance slowly saunters into the bathroom.
“Good morning you sexy bitch,” he says, drawing out every word in an extremely groggy voice.
“Morning Sunshine,” I echo, my voice similarly dreary, and definitely not sunshiney.
“I feel like I got run over by a train,” he sighs.
I giggle. “Probably because you and Joseph sneaked off for a little while.”
“We did?”
I shrug. “Honestly, I’m not sure. I guess I’m assuming. Also, why is Davina in our bed?!”
“Beats me,” Lance shrugs, peering through the open bathroom door.
I run my hand over my hickeys again. “And I have these! We didn’t make out, did we?”
Lance furrows his brow. “How drunk were you?”
“On a scale of one to ten?”
“Sure.”
“I’d say like a twenty-four.”
Lance puts his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll take the blame. I was the one who said we should do those extra shots at the end of the night.”
“It’s okay. I just—I don’t usually have dreams when I’m drunk. But I had this weird dream last night that I hooked up with—get this—Carter! Can you believe that?!”
Lance spins my body toward his. “Honey. You did hook up with Carter. At least you told me you did. And I could see the soft glow of your skin in the moonlight.”
My eyes widen, and I put my hands on my hips. “Liar.”
“You seriously don’t remember last night? How you and Carter sneaked away!? And then you tried to play a trick on everyone so he still thought you were. Which seemed to be going fine, until Carter destroyed all the fun.”
My eyes widen to the size of walnuts, and a rush of adrenaline flows through me as the night comes flooding back to me.
I lean against the sink to keep my balance. Lance holds onto my hips.
“Oh my gosh. I did hook up with Carter.”
The night comes flooding back to me all at once, heat flushing through me as I remember all the things we said and did. How his hands were everywhere on me. How hot it was, and how he dominated me.
How badly I wanted more.
“He just shoulder-tapped you and swooped you away. I don’t think anyone would have predicted that move. He’s a wild, wild man.”
I swallow, feeling my face reddening. “Yeah. And an asshole. An asshole who made me come harder than anyone I’ve ever been with. Oh. Shoot. Did I just say that out loud?”
Lance nods. “It’s okay. I assumed he fucked you better than I did.”
I muster the slightest giggle. My stomach quivers.
“I think I’m going to get out of here, take an Uber home from the dock, and get some actual, non-drunk sleep.”
“I’m no doctor, but if I were, I think that’s exactly what I’d prescribe you,” Lance says.
* * *
Back at home, I collapse on the bed, barely making it out of my clothes and washing my makeup off. I fall into a deep slumber.
I wake up to the sound of singing in my shower.
Carter’s voice, singing along to what sounds like some old Beastie Boys song.
My blood curdles just picturing him.
Singing. In the shower. Being frivolous. He’s crawled into me like some kind of virus who I can’t get rid of.
I shut my eyes as hard as I can and pretend he’s not there.
Carter’s not singing in the shower.
Last night didn’t happen.
Those hickeys on my neck don’t exist.
Part of me wants to believe those things, because my life would be a whole lot less complicated without them.
Carter belts another note of the song. I pull my pillow over my eyes and ears, hoping to blot out reality.
What am I going to do, go after him right now and have another naked shower confrontation? I sit up in bed, put on my headphones, and listen to my own music, Maroon 5, A Girl Like You, for a few minutes until I hear the water stop. Once I hear footsteps on the ground heading back to his room, and his door shut, I grab my towel and head to the shower.
The hot water feels amazing on my body. I wash my hair, and then just enjoy the feeling of the stream of water hitting my skin for a few minutes.
I get out, wrapping my hair with a towel and another one around my body.
As soon as I step into the hallway, I see Carter.
He’s staring at me while he eats peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon.
“Hey,” he says in a low voice, tipping his forehead. “Oh. You’re not decent. Never mind.”
I squint at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t have any clothes on. Put some clothes on, and then I would like to talk to you.”
“We have nothing to talk about,” I scoff, feeling my heart beating harder than I ever remember.
Except for maybe last night when Carter made me take my clothes off.
“Oh? So we’re just going to walk around like last night didn’t happen.”
“I’m perfectly willing to write off last night if you are. Honestly, I’d prefer it didn’t happen.”
He saunters toward me slowly, smirking a little. I tense up as he brushes his mouth against the towel on my head.
“Really? You want to forget?”
“Yes.”
“So you want to forget about the way your body caved to me. You want me to forget how sweet you tasted. And we especially should forget how much we both loved what we did.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up. “Carter. Stop talking like that.”
He pulls back away from me, and lets his head fall to one side of his shoulder. “Why don’t you make me?”
My blood boils. “Just stop!” I move to push him out of my way, and I do move him, a little.
Like half an inch. Pushing Carter’s lean, athletic frame is like trying to move a wall.
Frustrated, I look him in the eye. “Yes I enjoyed last night with you. Yes you gave me toe-curling orgasms. No, I’ve never been with a man who I’ve been so dirty with—and liked it. And I hate—hate, with all my heart—the fact that it’s you who I happen to have this stupid chemistry with. But I can assure you, that was a one time thing. It’s not going to happen again in a million years. Are you fucking happy now?!”
I feel my body throbbing with heat as the words spew out of me.
Carter’s expression barely alters during my diatribe. He smirks as he pulls out the spoon out of his mouth with a
little less peanut butter on it than when it went into his mouth.
He shrugs. “I appreciate you being mostly honest.”
I arch an eyebrow. “What do you mean, mostly? That was pure, one-hundred percent honesty. Cartwheel.”
“That last part. About it being a one time thing. And not happening in a million years. That’s a big fat lie if I’ve ever heard one.”
“It’s not a lie.” I tip my chin up. “How would you know, anyway?
“Because I know what a one-night stand feels like. And what we have definitely isn’t a one-night attraction.”
“It was a mistake!” I yell back, starting to tremble.
Heat flashes through my body thinking about Carter with other women.
He shakes his head a little, frowning. “Or could it be that you wanted to lie to me? You wanted me to hurt?”
He twists the spoon in his mouth.
I belt out my response with my hands on my hips. “You really think I would hurt you on purpose? If that’s what you believe, I’m done talking to you.”
Turning on my heel, I start to leave.
Carter speaks in a slow, low voice. “Don’t you dare leave this conversation right now. We’re not done,” he growls.
I freeze in place. There isn’t an ounce of joking or sarcasm in his tone.
“W-we’re done,” I stutter, but I try to stay steadfast. “Last night was an outlier.”
“So you didn’t like the way being with me felt last night?”
I freeze up. My legs suddenly feel like Jell-o. “I faked it,” I lie. “I’m not attracted to you in the slightest.”
My mouth moves before I can think, again. I feel a little bad for lying to Carter, but I’ll say whatever I have to so that we don’t hook up again. It’s not about attraction. It’s about self-preservation.
Carter’s reckless, and I can never hand my heart over to him. I have to protect it. I remind myself that as much as I wish he could be the Carter I used to know before he found out his father was alive—he never will be that carefree again.
“You faked it?” He chuckles, his voice low. “Look me in the eye, and say that again.”
I feel frozen to the ground. He takes a step toward me and, brushing his finger across my face, tips my chin up at him.
“I’m not denying that any of what I did was right. It wasn’t. But I’m not going to let you skewer me like some stupid sucker. You were the one who started lying. Not me.”
I swallow, and my heart starts to beat like crazy. “C-Carter. You know I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Oh yeah? You just figured I would find out on my fucking own that my dad wasn’t dead like my mom had told me all those years! You fucking heard your mom and my mom talking about how my dad tried to contact her. Why didn’t you come to me? That was when we were dating, for God’s sake!”
I well up with emotion, and my vision clouds. “Carter. You know that’s not fair. I was sixteen years old at the time! When my mom realized what I had heard, she swore me to secrecy. What else was I supposed to do, Carter? And if I’d told you, you would have gotten mad at me anyway!”
He clenches his jaw and locks his eyes on mine. His tone is serious, his voice gravelly. “You were supposed to fucking tell me the second you found out, that’s what you were supposed to do.”
When he averts his eyes, a tear streams down my cheek.
And it’s not for me.
It’s for him.
Here we are, almost a decade, and he’s still grinding his teeth over the actions of some teenage girl who was torn over who to share which secrets with.
I run one hand along the stubble of his cheek, and press another into his heart.
“Carter,” I whisper.
“Yeah,” he chokes back.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I probably didn’t say it back then—or say it enough—but I truly am.”
I hear him swallow, but he doesn’t say anything. I rest my head on his bare chest. I feel his heart beating as loud as a bass drum. And fast.
He wraps his big, long arm around around me, and I let myself fold into him.
We stand like that for a few minutes in total silence. His breaths get bigger and deeper, until he reaches his hand to my head, pulls the towel on my hair off, and chucks it on the ground.
“I need you right now, Laces,” he growls, as he attacks my lips with his.
He’s broken down my heart’s defenses, and all I can do is eagerly accept his assault.
21
Lacy
“Carter,” I mutter between desperate breaths. The two syllables barely escape my mouth in between his kisses. He’s so tall he has to bend down almost awkwardly to kiss my neck, reclaiming the territory he marked just last night.
Feeling the heat growing between my legs, I try and keep the last bit of resistance up.
If Carter and I hook up one time, we can write that off as an outlier and a mistake.
A drunken mistake on a yacht. Albeit a steamy, hot mistake.
But if we do it again, who knows where it will end.
He lets his fingers fall around my neck, so I feel the weight of his hand. I get an up-close view of the veins in his forearm.
I breathe desperately, like every gasp of air could be my last.
He rips my towel off and lifts me onto the marble kitchen countertop. The feel of the cold surface on my bare skin sends a chill reverberating through my whole body, but that’s quickly offset by feeling Carter’s firm, hot hands all over my ass, hips, and back as we make out ferociously.
It’s a battle of wills as our lips press into one another.
Heat wells through my whole body. All of the pent-up emotions I’ve channelled into Carter over the years run through me.
Last night was one thing, in the dead dark of the night, on the yacht. But this feels totally different. In the middle of the day in Carter’s penthouse, the light streaming from the balcony windows. I can see every rippling muscle in his body. Or I would, if he’d stop kissing me for one second.
Through his mesh shorts I feel his throbbing package against my thigh. I reach a hand down and run it over the outline of his cock.
He pauses for a moment, tipping his chin up and his eyes down. “I fucking need you, Lacy. I don’t want you, I need you. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I mutter against his ear when he brings his cheek back to mine. I add, “I need this too.”
The word ‘you’ escapes me.
I bite my lower lip waiting for his response.
He runs his eyes up and down my body, his gaze landing between my legs for a solid five seconds. I lean back on my palms, watching him with interest.
Focusing his pupils on me again, he brings his hands to my thighs and spreads them open a few more inches.
Carter’s expression of need is like a drug. I’ve never felt so wanted. Yeah, he is a drug. I want to bottle him up and pop a pill of him when I need it.
“Oh, and one more thing,” he says, hesitating before he goes down on me. “You don’t come until I say so. Or there will be consequences. Understand?”
I nod, exhaling a hard breath. “Is that the game you like to play with me now?”
He gives me a look, leans down, and licks from just above my opening all the way up my stomach, between my breasts, up to my neck, until his lips land on mine again. “It is. No more lies, Laces.”
“No more lies,” I groan, echoing him.
An instant later, his tongue lands on my clit. I wriggle and shake as he eats me out like he’s starving, gripping my hips with his hands to hold me in place. I glance through the window, out at the city and the lake. I’m thankful his hands are wrapped around me because if they weren’t, I think I might just float away into the skyscrapers, I’m so high.
Pleasure ratchets through me, and after only a few minutes I feel myself on the brink of orgasm. “Carter . . . gonna come . . . so close. . .”
Quickly, he stands up, running a hand through his hair. �
�Good girl.”
I swallow, not wanting to admit how close I came to coming before telling him. I’m not sure what sort of ‘consequences’ he was referring to, but something tells me I might not be ready for them just yet.
He pulls down his basketball shorts and boxers at the same time, revealing his erection.
The height matches so perfectly, I wonder if he had the island constructed specifically to fit him. Probably, knowing Carter.
Grabbing the base of his cock, he runs the fleshy head of his dick up and down my opening, teasing me.
I flutter my eyes, completely wet with desire. “Carter, just do it already,” I beg.
He smirks and shakes his head a little. “When are you going to learn that ordering me around doesn’t do you any good? Now let’s make some use of that dirty mouth of yours. I want you to lay down across the marble, on your back, so just your head hangs off.”
His tone and his eyes don’t leave room for argument. I obey, positioning my naked body as directed.
The first thing I feel are his hands rubbing me from my breasts, down my stomach. I watch his abs as he leans over me. Then he lifts his hands off my shoulders and I feel the flesh of his hard cock across my face. He doesn’t have to ask me. I know what to do. I open my mouth and stick out my tongue, taking him inside my mouth.
I close my eyes and focus on the sensations. How wide I have to open for him. How the head of his cock feels as he runs it over my tongue, back and forth.
I squirm, rotating my hips around while he fucks my face. I’ve never been this wild with a man. Never allowed it of myself.
But with Carter, I yearn for it.
Desire pools in my stomach in spite of the slight awkwardness of the positioning with my neck hanging off the edge of the island.
A low, throaty growl escapes from Carter, spurring me on.
I’m ravenous for his cock. I try to take in as much of him as I can stand for as long as I can stand it.
Another muffled word from him tells me he loves it. I lock my lips around his cock and run my tongue over his skin as he touches the back of my throat. I gag, and press into his legs with my palms. When he pulls away, I’m left gasping for air like there’s a hole in my lungs. “Carter, please,” I mumble. “I want to feel you inside me so bad.”
The Lying Game Page 12
