Sweet Liar Read online

She lifted her delicate face up toward me, blinking her eyes innocently. “I’m pretty sure I can convince you kismet exists too, if you’ll just do one thing.”

  Swim, fishy.

  I didn’t swim. “What’s that?”

  “Kiss me.”

  Two

  Audrey

  “Kiss you?” he asked, and the wariness in his tone almost made me doubt myself.

  Almost.

  Actually, not even almost. More like, I wondered if I should doubt myself.

  But I didn’t. I didn’t doubt myself at all. Why should I, really?

  I’d always been confident. I’d had the good fortune of being raised first by a father who instilled power in me, and then an older sister who made sure I felt my worth. Ironically, Sabrina had often lacked faith in herself, probably because, as the oldest, she had felt the burden of filling the woman-of-the-household role at such an early age, our mother having died young and then our father only a handful of years later.

  And, to be honest, mothering wasn’t Sabrina’s strong suit. It made sense that she struggled with her self-esteem, as she’d been thrown into that role when she’d never asked for it. I loved her grotesquely, exactly the way she was—strong, opinionated, and smart as hell—but she tended to be too strong for much of the traditional world. Too opinionated. Too smart. Weren’t women supposed to be dainty and quiet and demure? Sabrina didn’t buy into that, and I so very much appreciated her paving the way for me to walk behind her with my head held high, no matter what form of femininity I wore.

  So I felt pretty secure with myself for the most part. I knew who I was—talented, but not quite talented enough to pursue a career based on selling my artwork. Smart enough to understand the chemistry and archeology that went into my nearly completed masters of art conservation. Attractive—no one would ever confuse me for a model, but I did turn heads. I certainly wasn’t desperate. I got to choose who I paid attention to, and when I liked someone, I told him. I had no reason to play hard to get.

  But even though I was fun and romantic, I never felt like I wasn’t grounded or that I needed someone else to anchor me. I especially never needed a man for that.

  Yet, I did like having a man in my life. When I had a boyfriend, the world spun around him. I was a love-with-the-whole-heart kind of gal. I didn’t enjoy being alone, and never had. There’s a comfort in knowing someone will always catch you when you fall that Sabrina had never been able to replace. I’d been single now going on five months. That had been purposeful. After the last relationship that had blossomed and thrived everywhere except the bedroom, I’d decided something had to change.

  Finishing school, though, had been the priority, and I hadn’t thought much about how I was going to bring about that change.

  Until tonight.

  Since I was visiting Sabrina in New York for Thanksgiving break, I’d intended to give her all my focus, not expecting that her head would be wrapped up in a guy. Not that I was resentful. She deserved some happiness.

  Just…her preoccupation with Donovan left me free to, well, notice. Notice Sabrina’s boss—the tall, sophisticated, much older Brit with the chiseled jaw and brown wavy hair. Notice the way his eyes melted like chocolate as he got more buzzed on wine. Notice how his gaze lingered on me throughout dinner, despite the two other people present. Notice the crackle and the spark of electricity that traveled between us.

  Notice how he noticed me.

  And, wow, was he fantastic to look at. And listen to. And be noticed by. It made me beam and pulse. A lot like when Mr. Gregori, my favorite art teacher, acknowledged my work in class. That was what Dylan felt like—a professor. A very sexy, very hot professor. The kind of professor who could teach a girl a thing or two. The dirty professor who obviously had naughty thoughts about his young student but was decent enough not to act on it. He let those thoughts simmer and stew instead.

  It wasn’t like any other attraction I’d felt before. There was no pretense. No expectation. Just this raw, primal interest drawing me to lean in, to angle my body toward him. Drawing me to be bold.

  Drawing me to have Ideas.

  “Yes, kiss me,” I repeated, my hand on his thigh. I swear I could feel the temperature of his skin rising through his pants.

  Still, he made no move to grant me my request.

  “Am I supposed to fall in love?” he asked, studying me with an intensity that made my heart beat against my ribs like a caged madman.

  Gosh, he was noble. Wrestling with propriety even as his desire pressed against the wall he’d so firmly built around himself.

  Or perhaps he feared that wall wasn’t as sturdy as he proclaimed.

  “Are you worried about it?” I challenged.

  His eyes never left me. “Of course not.”

  “Then what are you afraid of?”

  His restraint broke, and his mouth swooped down on mine like a wolf descending on its prey. There was no foreplay. No sweet seduction. Just hungry determination as he placed a hand at the back of my head and attacked with fierce ardor. He was firm and aggressive. He was skillful and demanding. He was in charge.

  Silly, stupid, willing lamb that I was, I latched myself to him, throwing my arms around his neck and licking at the greedy plunge of his tongue between my lips. I wanted his taste of wine and smoked bass to be my taste, to be the only taste I could remember. I needed to drink him and devour him the way he seemed to need to drink and devour me.

  We were frenzied and sloppy, our teeth crashing against each other at times, our breath coming in irregular measures. It felt as though the whole of time had been reduced to this moment, the entirety of the universe reduced to the three square inches that belonged to his mouth, and even as existence was shrunk down to this tiny form, there was nothing missing. Everything, everything I could ever want or need or desire was found in the electric field of this kiss.

  Soon, I became aware of more, my attention spreading through my body like heat with the sunrise. My breasts felt heavy and my nipples tight. My belly swirled like a cyclone was tearing across its insides. Lower, between my legs, my core throbbed and ached. I was wet and empty, my thighs vibrating with need.

  Desperate to ease the growing hum, to touch more of him and be touched, I swung my leg over his lap to straddle him and gasped when I landed on the steel ridge bulging from his pants. My hips bucked automatically, pressing my pussy against the outline of his cock. Again, again, needing to feel the exact shape of him, hoping to still the buzz that only seemed to grow louder with each stroke.

  It was humiliating how eager I was. How urgent. How impetuous. How deeply romantic all of those things had suddenly become.

  But then Dylan’s hands were under my skirt, his fingers digging into my ass as he tilted my hips up along the length of him, deepening the notch of his cock, and I realized he was just as eager. Just as urgent. Just as impetuous.

  And he knew what I needed. Knew exactly how to give it to me.

  I felt myself get wetter. Felt him thicken against me. A frantic mewling sounded in my ears, and it took me several seconds to recognize it was coming from me. It was an entirely new and thrilling experience. Our lips stayed locked as we grinded and humped, a tight ball of tension growing deep in my belly. I’d never been so intimate with someone during a first kiss let alone the first night we’d met. Never felt so close to orgasm with all of my clothes still on. Never been on the verge of begging for sex from a near stranger—

  The sound of a throat clearing brought me tumbling out of ecstasy.

  Dylan broke his mouth from mine and peered around me. “Yes?”

  The driver. Oh my God, I’d forgotten about our driver.

  “This is the street,” the forgotten driver said. “There’s snow piled up against the curb. I’ve driven down the entire block, and there isn’t a spot that’s clear.”

  Dylan turned his head to look out the window, verifying the driver’s claim. “Circle around the block, and let her off at the corner then,” he said
.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The rhythmic click-click of the turn signal filled the silence.

  My cheeks felt hot as I forced myself to meet Dylan’s eyes. The need and urgency from only a moment ago still screamed between us, impossible to ignore even as my pulse began to settle.

  Should I invite him up?

  I wanted to.

  But it was my sister’s apartment. And he was my sister’s boss, and there seemed to be a dozen things wrong with that situation.

  Would he invite me to his hotel?

  Also improper for as many reasons, and I saw from his expression that he’d gotten hold of himself enough to understand his obligations.

  I shouldn’t have felt so disappointed. I’d only meant for it to be a kiss. A kiss to find out if what I’d been considering was really something that might work.

  Now I knew it could definitely work.

  “You said I’d believe in kismet after that,” Dylan said. “Was something supposed to happen?”

  I could have smacked him. Trying to play like I’d had zero effect on him when his cock was still as hard as stone underneath me.

  Fortunately, I wasn’t that easily deterred. “Yes. Now you give me your phone number.”

  He only hesitated for a fraction of a second before pulling out his cell phone and unlocking the screen. He handed it to me. “Text yourself.”

  I shivered. How could a person make something so innocent sound so naughty?

  Because he was experienced, that was how. Because he knew things that I didn’t. Because he was The Professor.

  I quickly shot myself a text from his phone then handed it back just as the car came to a stop. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I said, climbing off his lap.

  And maybe because I’d moved too quickly, because I’d surprised him, or because he was curious, or maybe because he was hard and horny and not in his right mind, he didn’t argue about my parting remark.

  Instead he sat somewhat dazed as I slid across the backseat, opened the door, and disappeared into the night. I was dazed too, but I’d never been more confident in myself.

  Three

  Dylan

  I stared after Audrey, dumbfounded, as she walked to her building. My lips still burned from our kiss. My cock still ached and throbbed from her grinding on my lap. And I, like a fool, clung to her final words, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  Fuck, how I wanted her to ring me. Wanted it like a teenage boy waited by his phone for the call from the pretty girl. The idea of it made me nervous and excited and...stupid.

  That’s what I was. Stupid.

  Because even if she did ring me, there was no way I could accept her call, except to tell her that I was sorry for the egregious way I’d acted in the car.

  Yet I wasn’t sorry. Not truly. Not at all.

  “Fantastic,” my driver said dreamily, breaking my stupor.

  I looked forward to find him also staring after Audrey.

  Irritated, I scolded him. “What are you looking at?” He was even older than I was. It was inappropriate for me to be eyeing her. It was disgusting that he was. How I could feel both a fatherly protection and an indecent attraction to the girl, I had no idea.

  That was a therapy session for another day.

  “To the hotel, sir?” he said, moving his eyes back to the road where they belonged.

  I didn’t answer right away, staring at the mobile still in my hand. I’d had no texts from my son. When I’d seen him at lunch, I’d suggested we go out for a late movie tonight. He’d said he’d get back to me. I’d felt the sting of rejection, but he was thirteen now—independent and awkward. Moody, too. Even though I traveled across the ocean to see him, he wavered these days from wanting to see his dad and wanting to spend all his free time with his friends. I remembered this age. Remembered parenting this age. My stepdaughter, Amanda, had been thirteen when I’d married her mother. I’d done this teenager thing before.

  So I understood.

  We were at a delicate phase, Aaron and I, and I knew it. I didn’t want to press, wanted him to reach out to me if he wanted to spend the evening in my presence. I’d known somewhere inside of me that I would be blown off. I wouldn’t have gotten inebriated if I’d expected otherwise.

  Disappointment sounded in my tone nonetheless when I finally replied. “Yes. The hotel.”

  The car signal clicked rhythmically as we waited at a light to turn uptown. I sunk back in my seat, letting myself remember, for a moment, the person I’d been when I’d wed. I’d felt so much older marrying a woman ten years my senior, but I was really such a child then, only twenty-five.

  My, how I’d grown up since.

  And now my thoughts turned back to Audrey, younger than I’d been when I’d married, but just as enthusiastic and charmed with love and life as I’d been.

  I opened my texts and found where she’d sent herself a message.

  Audrey: A million people in the city, and you and I met. That’s kismet.

  I laughed out loud. My driver was spot on—she was fantastic. Fantastic and trusting and young and that was enough reason to delete both her number and the whimsical message from my phone.

  But I saved it instead. Not because she’d hooked me, but because I needed to know it was her when she called. If she called.

  She wouldn’t call.

  She couldn’t have been more than ten years older than Aaron. Why would a girl her age have any interest in me? Our encounter had been one of the moment. It had been dark, and we were alone and tipsy and aroused by good conversation. Nothing else. It would be forgotten by tomorrow.

  Though if she really could forget that kiss...

  I was still thinking about the malleable way her lips fit to mine when I reached my hotel room on the Upper East Side. I’d forgotten and left the Do Not Disturb sign on my suite door when I’d left for the day so the bed was still rumpled and the pot for tea was still sitting on the desk. Sloppy and cluttered weren’t usually my style. An embarrassing space to bring a woman back to, not that there was one with me now. Not that I’d thought about asking Audrey to accompany me to my room.

  If I had, would she have said yes?

  She may have, and I would have devoured her. Would have spent the whole night showing her all the ways a man could please a woman, ways that she yearned for but couldn’t yet imagine.

  Fantasizing about it made my earlier hard-on return. I took off my suit jacket and hung it on the back of the desk chair before I sat in it myself, fumbling with my belt, eager to play this daydream out with my cock in my hand.

  But just as I got my zip down, I stopped, a sickening wave of guilt rolling over me. It felt crass and wrong to beat off to thoughts of this girl who could be my daughter. Even though she’d never know that I’d done it, it was degrading and a violation of sorts.

  I zipped up my trousers and stood. I loosened my tie and then moved to the buttons of my shirt, undressing furiously. I needed a shower. A cold shower, that was what would take care of this.

  Just as I dropped my shirt on the desk chair with my jacket, my mobile rang.

  My heart leapt so high, it was practically in my throat as I scrambled to look at my screen, hoping it was her name that I’d see lighting up on the caller ID.

  The name I saw instead caused me to let out a groan.

  With resignation, I clicked the accept button and answered. “Hello, Ellen.” Ellen Rachel Wallace Starkney Locke. She was just Ellen Wallace again now, having shed both the name I’d given her and the one she’d received in her previous marriage. Eight years had passed now since the paperwork had become final on our divorce, and still, she made my blood boil every time I had contact with her.

  “I haven’t even spoken yet, and you already have a tone,” she greeted me, with a tone of her own. So nasty. So like Ellen.

  Now there was a boner killer.

  “Yes, I think I earned the right, don’t you?” I didn’t need to bring up her past sins against me. She knew th
em.

  “Honestly, Dylan,” she said, letting out an audible sigh. “Move on. I have. It’s time you joined me.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. She was a liar. She hadn’t moved on. She was still stuck underneath the emotional avalanche that had fallen upon her the day Amanda had died ten years ago. Instead of facing her pain, Ellen had buried it, becoming rotten and disconnected as she did.

  If she’d really moved on, if she’d let herself heal, would she and I be apart today?

  I couldn’t imagine it. Didn’t even want to anymore. Because I had moved on—moved on from her and any notion of happily ever after. She’d proven to me that love always died, and I’d accepted it. She was the one in denial.

  I didn’t want to go there with her, though, not tonight. “Why are you calling, Ellen? Anything you have to say could have been said to me tomorrow when I pick up Aaron.”

  “That’s what I’m calling about. Aaron won’t be able to see you until the afternoon. Oh, and then he has Latin lessons at four, so it will be evening, actually, before you can get him.”

  I ran my palm through my hair and clutched a handful tightly in frustration. “Christ, Ellen. He can’t skip Latin one week while his father is in town? I flew from another continent to spend this time with him.”

  “Lessons are paid for in advance. There are no makeups. Latin is a foundational language, and it’s so important these days.”

  No. It wasn’t. Not as important as spending time with his father.

  But there was no rationalizing with the helicopter tiger mother that was Ellen Wallace. “And why is it I can’t see him during the day? I chose this week to visit because he had time off from school.”

  “While he doesn’t have school this week officially, tomorrow the teachers will be in the classrooms available for makeup work and tutoring. I signed Aaron up for the full day.”

  I leaned against the desk, my knuckles curled. Aaron didn’t need tutoring or makeup. He had a three point four grade point average. This was Ellen being spiteful and stubborn.