Between Now and Always: Forever Trilogy Book 3 Page 21

  I Want To Lie To You.

  CARTER

  I watch Beth sleeping, and hate that I’m going to have to disturb her well-earned sleep.

  She was exhausted when we got back to the hotel. We went to meet her biological father, and was at their house until late last night.

  I’m so proud of her.

  She’s taught me what true courage looks like. It’s not pretending to be fearless, it’s making space for the fear and using it as fuel.

  She’s faced and vanquished all of her demons. And I’ve been such a coward.

  I stare at the necklace as it glints in a spectacular line down the center of her graceful back. I promised her something the day I gave it to her.

  Then, In my panic and determination to keep her and myself safe, I almost ruined everything.

  I have to come clean. If I don’t, one day she’ll find out and any hope I have of regaining her trust, would be gone.

  But worse, If I can’t find the courage to tell her the truth, I don’t deserve her trust. I just hope she can understand the choice I made. Because, that I’m not sorry for.

  I place a light kiss on her sweet lips and stroke the top of her cheekbone where her sable lashes cast a feathery shade.

  Her eyes flutter open and I lose my heart all over again.

  “Morning,” she murmurs with a drowsy smile. She blinks at the small clock by the bed, and her eyes narrow.

  “It’s 6:30. I thought we were going to sleep in.” She comes fully awake and the longer she looks at me, the more wary her expression grows.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I have something to tell you,” I say.

  She sits up and pulls the sheet over her breasts and crosses her arms over her chest. She searches my face intently and then she presses her lips together and nods sharply, signaling that she’s ready. “Go ahead.”

  “Yesterday morning, Duke called Dean Orleans and asked him to pass on a message.”

  Her hand flies to cover her mouth and her eyes widen in horror.

  “What? Why? How?”

  I answer the question I know she’s really asking.”

  “He’d seen the CNN story about us and was threatening to expose us.”

  My fury from that day has fermented into rage in the days since our phone call. The satisfaction in his voice made swallowing my pride really hard. But I did it. And I’d do it again.

  “Expose what?” she asks, impatience sharpens her voice sending it an octave higher and several decibels louder. My nerves shimmer, but I hold them steady.

  She has every right to yell, I remind myself.

  “Expose us as being related. He already had an offer from some publisher wanting to buy the rights to story. That kind of story…it could do real damage. Not just to me and you me. But the band. Our families. ”

  She looks incredulous. “ Let him say whatever he wants. Who would have believed him? And we have proof that its’ a lie.”

  My smile is dark and shallow.

  “No one cares about proof, Beth. They care about what sells. And sure, we could show them a piece of paper. But Obama showed us his birth certificate and the people who wanted to believe that he wasn’t born here, said it was fake. Nothing will convince people, once they think something is true.

  “This is bullshit, why would anyone print something like that when it’s just his word? They would need proof. And he doesn’t have any.” She’s vibrating with anger.

  My stomach roils, I haven’t even gotten to the hard part.

  “He has proof…” I say and let that linger.

  She stiffens and tilts her head the side.

  “What proof? I know my father didn’t give copies of your DNA test.” She eyes me suspiciously.

  “No. He has my copies,” I tell her.

  “What? How?” she demands, her eyes shuttering slightly as her mind, one that moves too fast for her mouth to keep up with, answers the question for her.

  I’m gripped by the compulsion to lie. Not because I want to deceive her. It’s a reflex. Self-preservation. That same thing that makes it impossible for human beings to voluntarily hold their breath until they die, it’s telling me to let open my mouth and take an inhale.

  Why does she need to know the truth? What good would it do for her to know?

  Those are the things I told myself when I decided to hide this from her. But if I lie now, then I’m no better than the men who came before me. And if it costs me a momentary loss of her good regard, I’ll take it. I can grovel my way back from pissing her off.

  “I want to lie to you,” I tell her and she blinks.

  I dive through the window it affords me. “I slept with someone and now she and Duke are blackmailing me.” I blurt. Her mouth slams shut. She swallows like there’s a tennis ball stuck her throat.

  “What?” she croaks.

  I tell her all about Serene. “So, I came back in and she was gone and so was my suitcase. At the time, I thought she stole it for the cash. I was annoyed that I lost those records, but I figured she’d take the cash and trash them. Well, apparently she’s a friend of Duke’s or something. Because he has all of the documents. When she was here, that first time – when I…” I can’t look at her and I can’t finish my sentence.

  “When you fucked her?” Beth says, and I flinch at the acid in her voice.

  “She took pictures…And he has them.”

  She moans, and the pain in it rips me in half. I open my eyes and almost throw up when I see her sitting, arms wrapped around herself, her expression stoic, but haunted.

  “Beth.”

  I stand to approach her, but the look she in her eyes stops me cold.

  I sit again and she looks away from me, her eyes focused on the blank television screen, her teeth chewing at her bottom lip.

  “Just finish telling me,” she says in a toneless voice.

  “So, I paid him double what he asked for.”

  She groans and shakes her head, but doesn’t say anything.

  “We made a business arrangement. We signed a contract, he got the money, and I get my files.”

  “And you did this so people wouldn’t find out that we used to think we were brother and sister?” she asks, and I wince at the accusation in her voice.

  “ Yes, I’m not ashamed, Beth. But I wouldn’t have made it public. It’s not just me who’d have consequences. It would have ruined us all. My bandmates, my family, everything.”

  “I see,” she says and there’s a detachment in her voice that I’ve never heard before.

  “Also, I didn’t want you to see those pictures of me with her…like that.”

  Her shoulders sag and she swipes corners of her eyes.

  “So, you gave him the money for your house in Corsica,” it’s not a question and it’s full of accusation.

  “Yes.”

  She nods.

  “Because you didn’t want me to know that you’d slept with someone else?”

  “Yes.”

  She turns to face me then and the anger in her eyes steals my breath. Wordlessly, she slides off the bed and walks to the dressing room and slams the door.

  I stand there, trying to breathe so I can think and figure out what to do next.

  The door flies open. She strides out, wrapped in her winter jacket and boots and walks up to me.

  Her chin, jutting forward her eyes full of mutiny.

  “You didn’t have the right to make a decision like that without telling me. I understand your band and you wanting to protect them. But I bet you didn’t talk to them either.”

  I didn’t. I didn’t even tell Dean until I needed him to draw up the contract. “I didn’t want to put them in that position.”

  Her nostrils flare.

  “If it had been one of them, coming to you, what would you do?”

  “I would support them, whatever they decided.“

  Her eyes soften and in a blink, her anger is gone. But the heartbreak that replaces it is even harder to see.<
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  “Because you love them, and you want to protect them and you don’t want to disappoint them.”

  She smiles sadly and her eyes fill with tears. “And you didn’t tell me because you thought if I saw you with someone else, I’d leave you?”

  Her words wrap around my heart so tightly that my eyes sting. “That’s not true.” I deny.

  “Then why did you lie to me, instead of just telling me what you knew? It’s not because you thought I’d be hurt. Or mad. You thought I’d walk away, that I’d tell you it was unforgivable.”

  “Yes,” I admit.

  “And you’re only telling me now because of what I said yesterday about all lies coming out.”

  That shakes me out of my penitent posture.“What? No!”

  She raises two disbelieving eyebrows at me. “I remember the look on your face when I said it. I thought I was imagining it,”

  “That is not true.” I shake my head for emphasis.

  “Really? Then what is?” Her lips thin and she raises a skeptical brow, and her eyes shutter even more.

  “I paid that bribe because I don’t want the whole world to know our fucking business. I lied because I didn’t want you to know that I’d been bested by that fucking bastard, Duke. I’m telling you the truth because I’ve seen what a lie can do a family and because I want to always be worthy of you.”

  She looks even more pained and I die a little from the hurt that floods her eyes.

  I pull her into my arms, and she comes willing, and wraps her arms around my waist.

  “He’s already taken so much,” her voice is muffled by my shirt.

  “He took my virginity. He lured my brother to his death. He and my best friend set me up to steal my inheritance, and I had to leave my sister behind to get away from him. No matter how much I’ve been able to achieve, I’m also changed in ways that I wish I wasn’t. I don’t want him to have your dream, too.”

  “Silly woman. You are my dream. That’s just money. I can make more… or not. But there is only one you.” I cup her face and stare in wonder down at her. I can’t believe this beautiful revolutionary, whose secret weapon is forged by equal parts of the ambition, compassion, and imagination, is mine.

  I kiss her, it’s a hard, bruising crush of lips.

  “I can’t make what he’s broken like new again. But I would cut off my own arm before I did anything to hurt you.”

  She pins me with an unflinching stare and draws her line in the sand. “You better fucking mean that, Carter. Or else I’ll kill you.” She grabs my head and presses her lips to mine for a fierce kiss.

  Relief makes me giddy and horny and I grab her ass and grind my hardening dick against her. I wince at the friction from her less than yielding wool jacket. I step away, keeping my hands on her waist, and give her a once over. She’s wearing her boots, her jacket and nothing else.

  “Were you going somewhere?” I ask with a smirk.

  She glares at me, but her cheeks flame. “I was leaving.”

  “Are you wearing anything under that?” I ask.

  "No,"she releases her hold on the front of the jacket and it falls open.

  One of her dark pink nipples catches on a buttonhole and it peeks out pebbled and mouthwatering.

  My greedy gaze follows the slow, circular path of her middle finger over the tightly furled peak, and when it starts to swell, so does my dick.

  Just like that, we make the seamless transition from adversaries to allies in the cause of getting off.

  “Take it off. All the way, now.”

  She lets to the jacket slide off and down her lithe body.

  She stands there, bared to me like an offering and my mind shuts down.

  "I like the way you’re looking at me.” She hold a hand out to me.

  "How am I looking at you?” I ask, closing the gap between us with one step.

  "Like you need me more than you need anything else,” she says and there’s a command in her voice.

  “I do.” I admit.

  “Then take me,” she says and grins as my arm slides around her waist and my hand splays against the small of her back.

  I pull her flush against me, bringing us skin to skin, and our nearly simultaneous sighs of relief say “Yes. Let’s stay just like this, Always.” I wish I didn’t ever have to let her go. Then I’d be sure that nothing could hurt her.

  She rises up on her toes, her greedy eyes on my mouth. Her tongue darts out to wet my lower lip. “Stop thinking and kiss me,” she whispers.

  “I’m getting to it, but first…” I lean forward and nip her top lip. It’s plump and sweet and perfect. The nip becomes a suck, and then she growls, cradles the back of my head in her hands and captures my lower lip between her teeth. Our mouths duel and dance and then surrender to the kiss.

  The kiss has the same alchemy as the conversation that preceded it. Defensive, with something to prove, a claim to stake, life or death. Her tongue slides over and around mine and I let her have me however she wants. Because that’s exactly how I intend to have her.

  She grabs my hips and shoves my sweatpants down.

  I back up until my legs hit the bed. I sit, with her straddling me on her knees. Her head drops on to my shoulders and she presses hot kisses to my collar bone and my neck.

  Her hair falls over us, shrouding me in the heady scent of her. She’s wearing the perfume I bought her that day – and I’ve enjoyed saying I told you so, every time I catch her with her nose pressed to her wrist. It smells the way you’d expect a sun drenched tropical paradise. My feelings for her had reached a crescendo that day and it scared me. I’d been afraid of how big it felt, how unbridled it was – she has so much power over me. But I trust her with it.

  I gather her hair in my hand and use it like a leash to arch her neck. I run teeth my up her throat and graze her chin before I press a kiss to it.

  I tug her hair until we’re face to face, eye to eye, with no space between us.

  “I just escaped the hell where I was learning to live without you. It was fucking painful. I’d do anything to keep you.”

  Her eyes are bottomless, fathomless oceans of emotion. Her hands cup my cheeks, her thumbs stroking my jaw as she presses a soft kiss to my mouth. I taste the salt of her tears on my lips when she pulls away. “I know, Carter. I know.”

  She pulls my mouth back to hers. This time her kiss is hot, supple, and single minded. We’re done talking.

  Her fingers move, kneading my back as she rocks back and forth coating my dick with the warm slick of her soft pussy. I grab her hips, press up so when my head finds her clit, it stays there and applies pressure.

  She breaks our kiss, pulls in a series of sharp, desperate breaths.

  "Uhhh, I'm coming,” she moans.

  I grip my cock and lift her up, and pull her down on to me. She cries out, her neck arched like a warrior in the throes of victory.

  I press hot open-mouthed kisses down her neck, sucking hard until I’m certain I’ve left my mark on her.

  I lean down and pull on one of her plump nipples with my teeth and then take the succulent beauty into my mouth.

  She comes with wail and shakes with tremors that move us both.

  Her hip’s gyration stops, her hands drape over my shoulder and cross loosely behind my neck. I release her nipple with a pop and lean up to take her mouth again, but she pulls back and steps off my dick.

  “What are you doing?”

  She drops to her knees between my spread thighs, her eyes trained on my aching cock, her luscious lips wet and puffy from my kisses.

  She wraps her soft hand around me, fisting my cock. It’s glistening from being side of her and she runs her tongue up in a slow drag that pulls a grunt from me. And then she takes me, all of me into her mouth starts sucking me off, hard and fast.

  The sight of that mass of dark hair cloaking my thighs as she moves up and down on me is too much. My hips start to move and I hear her gag a little when my cock hits the back of her throat. Sh
e pulls back and for a second I'm worried I hurt her, but she only rises on her knees lifting herself up before she lowers her head again, this time pulling me all the way into her throat.

  Her mouth is the most perfect place on earth. Nothing has ever felt so good as she does right now. A fiery current starts in the soles of my feet and streaks up my legs.

  “Beth, I’m close,” I warn.

  But her suction only becomes more intense and I can’t hold back. I grab a fistful of her hair and roar as my release shoots down her throat. She doesn't stop, but her mouth slows down and she milks me, taking everything I have to give.

  * * *

  While Beth sleeps, I watch the steady rise and fall of her back I walk my fingers along the jewel studded gold chain that flows down the shallow valley in the middle of her back. The tiny beads, fashioned from pearls, sapphires, and diamonds, flash in the light cast by the first tender rays of the new day’s sun.

  Her revelation about Duke, and what he did to her, has put a new pallor on things. These men need to pay. They need to be brought so low that the possibility of them ever standing straight again, is nil.

  I grab my phone to send Phil an email.

  I’m ready to face Susan Kendicott.

  This is What Family Does

  CARTER

  One week later.

  “All of this feels a little like overkill. We didn’t need a marching band to send us off to the airport,” I grumble to my mother when I manage to squeeze past the crowd of people in my living room to where she’s holding court in the kitchen.

  My mother glares at me and then returns her focus back to pouring the champagne in to the dozens of crystal flutes she and Nadia hauled up to my apartment.

  “I don’t know how you live with just plastic and paper,” she mutters.

  “Again. Overkill.”

  She tsks her disapproval and puts the bottle down and looks up a patient smile that on anyone else might be called patient. But on Penn Bosh, it means she’s thinking. “I can’t believe your basic ass needs to hear this.”