Page 16 of Truth & Lies

I grip his shoulders, my nails digging into his shirt as I think to push him away but before I can do that, he pulls them loose, laces our fingers together and presses them into the wall above my head. Then he deepens the kiss, devouring my mouth, and setting my entire traitorous body ablaze. With his thigh wedged high between my legs, he pushes harder against me until we have full hip-to-chest contact and all thoughts of escape leave me.

This is in no way a soft or gentle exchange—it’s a physical manifestation of the raw, carnal need that’s been building between us ever since we met. As he holds my body prisoner, he sets out to take everything he wants from my mouth. Unable to stop myself, I surrender, our tongues warring for supremacy.

Something clicks back into place and my anger toward him returns in full force. I dig my teeth into his bottom lip and rip my hands free from his to push him back.

“No, Barrett. Nothing could ever make what you did okay.” Everything he’d done and said to me over the past two days flashes in my mind and I shove him back further. “You lied to me. You used me!”

“And I can’t tell you about it,anyof it.” He sucks in a deep breath before his hands go to his hips and he looks down to the floor with a huge sigh. “I’m sorry, Lys. I just can’t tell you anything even though I want to. I had to see you. Needed to know you were safe and okay.”

I snort disbelievingly. “Yeah right. For someone who found me so easily the first time, you sure took your time tracking me down now.”

“I’ve been waiting. When you didn’t answer my calls, I knew you needed time.”

“How verythoughtfulof you.” I huff out a breath to stop my head from exploding.

His apologetic gaze lifts to lock with mine, and this time when he speaks, his voice is gentle. “The only way to tell you how I feel is to show you.”

A scathing laugh escapes me. “You think I still want tosleepwith you after hearing you say you’re a ‘rent a cock’?”

“I’m not being paid to fuck you, Lys,” he retorts with a growl.

“I wouldn’t know, would I? There must besomethingyou need from me, and Gavin told you to do whatever you had to. That means me, right? Do me, go straight past go, collect whatever the hell he’s paying you.” I throw my arms out wildly in front of my body, my voice full of spite and resentment. I swallow back the hard lump in my throat that is threatening to choke me.Why am I so fucking upset?

“Alyssa,” he groans, running his fingers through his hair and tilting his head to the side, still watching me. “I never meant to hurt you. I wantyou.Just you.” His heated glare pins me to the spot, his deep blue eyes not hiding anything. It’s as if he wants me to see his vulnerability.

I open my mouth but slam it shut again, lost for words. Everything I’d imagined saying to him if I ever saw him again escapes me. My body still thrums with lust having been set alight by the taste of his mouth. Without realizing, I lick my lips and in the blink of an eye, Barrett is moving forward, slowly pressing my back into the wall again. His body is hard against mine when he cups my jaw and traces his tongue along the seam of my lips.

Unable to stop it, my body melts against his as he slams his mouth down on mine, growling loud and rough, the sound vibrating through me. Needing more, and losing all semblance of self-control and common sense, I bend my leg up and push us off the wall, wrenching my hands free from his. He goes for my wrists again but I beat him to the punch, grabbing hold of his shirt before ripping it open and using my two hands on his chest to push him back onto the bed.

Following him down, I move my legs to straddle his hips, my robe falling open and my back arching up as he fists his hand in my hair and tugs me down further. Tilting my head to the side, his mouth trails down my neck, kissing his way roughly down my chest while his free hand runs up my side and cups one breast. He lifts it to his mouth and wraps his lips around the hard peak, drawing deep.

The feel of him is infinitely better than I could ever have imagined, and my head falls back with a moan. “Barrett. . .” He scapes his teeth against my sensitive nipple before releasing his mouth and I cry out again.

“Fucking beautiful,” he groans before giving the other side the same torturous treatment. I look down and watch his face as he worships my breasts, rough yet gentle, hard yet soft. We haven’t even gotten down to business yet and I’m already more turned on than I thought possible.

“Oh god. Please.” His hand tangles in my hair and pulls my mouth down to his, our lips crashing together, teeth clinking before our tongues tangle, his hand snaking between our bodies. I lift up, giving him room to slide his arm between my legs. The guttural groan I get as his fingers trail down my seam to my aching core, his thumb pressing down on my clit before he slowly pushes two fingers inside me.

“So fucking wet, Lys. All for me,” he murmurs as he pushes in and out, adding a third and filling me so tight and full as my moans get longer and more desperate, my hips rocking against him, urging him deeper. He strokes my clit in dizzying circles, teasing me by touching me everywhere.

His mouth finds my nipple again and he sends me higher as his tongue pulses in rhythm with his thrusts inside me. Then he moves his thumb to flick over my clit, and with a scrape of his nail over the sensitive nub, I’m pushed over the edge, screaming his name as my climax tears through me.

I shake violently for a long time afterward as I come back down to earth. Barrett flips me over and instead of slamming his cock into me like I expect—okay, hope--instead, he peppers my chest and neck with soft open-mouthed kisses and slowly strokes me down from the intensity of the experience.

He shocks me when he kisses my forehead and then my nose before placing a soft, closed-mouthed gentle press of his lips to mine before pushing himself up off me and shifting to his feet next to the bed. His shirt is ripped and his pants intact—despite the healthy bulge he’s sporting—and there’s a conflicted expression on his face.

“You deserve better than this.”

“What?” I ask, still dazed.

“There’s nothing more I want than to take you right now. You’re fucking beautiful when you come, Lys. But you need more than justthis,” he said, gesturing to his crotch. “You deserve complete openness and honesty, and I can’t give you that right now.”

I prop myself up on my elbows and stare at him, my brows narrowed. “Barrett, whatever you were paid to do, you’re not going to get it from me. You can have my body and we can finally have the hot fuck we’ve both been wanting for the past twenty-four hours or else you can walk out and never see me again.” I point to the door. “So either come back down here and finish what you started or go. The choice is yours because I’m too damn exhausted with this whole thing to choose myself. So what’s it to be, Barrett?”

Never have I felt a thick wave of anger hit a room so quickly as I do right now. His mouth contorts into a snarl. “You have nofuckingidea what I was paid to do. You have nofuckingidea who the hell I am either. The worst thing to come out of all of this, Lys, is that the moment I saw you, I knew that this was never going to be just another job and you were never—could never—bejustanother target. That’s when I knew I was totally fucked.”

“Just tell me then!” I yell, sitting up and grabbing at the comforter and tightening the robe around me.

“I can’t!” he roars.

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