The Beauty of Lies Read online

  She groans, the sounds hitching as each wave of pleasure rolls through her.

  My own release chases hers. My fingers dig into her hips as I quit fighting it and thrust long and hard. Giving everything of my body in the final seconds of claiming her.

  Mine.

  I thrust a second time, although we’re both spent and it’s a half-hearted stroke to tell her I’d do it again if I had any strength left. She languorously bends to place her head on my shoulder and licks away the salt of my sweat.

  “I’ve never…” she whispers and her lips tickle my collarbone.

  “Never what,” I prompt. My eyes are closed, but I open them to peek down at the top of her head.

  She’s breathing as hard as I am. “That. I’ve never. It’s the first. Orgasm.”

  Harper lifts her hips and pulls away. It’s as if I’ve lost a part of me, a sanctuary I’ve never visited before.

  She relaxes her body and rolls to lie beside me on her belly.

  I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t like hearing it. I want to be better than her former husband. But then, I don’t want to compete with a dead man. There’s no honor in being jealous of a man six feet under.

  “Hey,” I say into her mass of hair. It’s strewn across my chest and sticking to the warm skin of her back. I lift it and blow across her neck.

  “Hmm?” She places her hand on my chest and one finger traces over my nipple.

  “Don’t go anywhere.” I get out of bed, and walk to the bathroom so I can dispose of the condom. My apartment is small and it’s not a stone’s throw from one end to the other.

  I make a quick trip into the kitchen and grab a couple of bottled waters. When I walk back in, she hasn’t moved. “You need to stay hydrated after last night.”

  She lifts her head. “Thanks.”

  I make a nest of pillows against the headboard and drag her to sit with me. Twisting the cap off, I offer a drink of mine. She lifts the bottle to her lips and it’s sinful that I get half-hard just watching her throat work as she drinks. “You’ve ruined me for other women,” I say. “I guess that was your plan.”

  She chokes on her water. I pat her gently on the back.

  “Stop doing that.” Harper laughs at my expression of mock confusion. She pokes me in the ribs. “Stop waiting until I take a drink to say something funny.”

  “You think I’m kidding?” I take the bottle from her and guzzle it.

  “Yeah. I do.”

  I place the water on the nightstand and pull her to lie back in my arms. “No joke. I’ll never find another like you. You don’t take yourself seriously. You like to read as much as I do. You’re absolutely gorgeous. And most of all, you’re real. Real and honest.”

  “Mmm…” she says.

  “And I forgot about your ass. Oh my God, your ass.”

  She giggles and I smile into her hair.

  I like the sound too much, so I continue. “Your ass is the stuff men dream of.”

  “So poetic,” she says.

  “Yeah. Did I tell you I’m a writer?”

  She gives an unladylike snort. “I think so.” She looks at the ceiling and then tilts her head back to make eye contact with me. Her expression is suddenly as somber as a storm cloud. “Do you want to know about my past?”

  “If you want to tell me.” Tori kept too much from me, but Harper would never do that. It’s not in her nature. “Do you mind if I bring up something from last night?”

  “Oh no. What else did I do?” She covers her face with both hands.

  I laugh, trying to keep the conversation light. “No. It’s something from the game. You asked if anyone had ever been in love.”

  “Oh.” Her hands drop. “Did I?”

  “Um hm…” I wait a beat and wait to see if she remembers.

  “I’m really fuzzy about that part of the night. I think I do remember it.”

  “You didn’t drink which means ‘no’. So. I don’t know if that was the drunk part of your brain not keeping up with the game or the honest part of your brain knowing the right answer.”

  “This is embarrassing. I got married when I was eighteen. I ran off with Wesley without my parents’ blessing. Didn’t tell my friends. Just left because I thought I knew him.”

  I stroke her arm. “I doubt you’re the first or last teenager to do that.”

  “I should’ve known better. I was raised better. And I was grown.”

  “How’d you meet him?”

  “I worked at a grocery store the summer after I graduated. Wesley came in one night and he was in line behind this lady and her two kids. She looked dirt poor and the kids were crying. She’s trying to pay and she’s short of the amount. Wesley reaches over and plunks a one hundred dollar bill on the counter and says for her to buy her groceries and keep the change.”

  I nod. “That was a nice thing to do.”

  Her mouth tightens and she smoothes the comforter over her legs. “He was. He was a nice guy. I remember thinking, ‘Wow. He’s one of the good ones.’”

  All my muscles tense. I stare hard at the wall and take a deep breath. Do I really want to go here? Hear the dead man immortalized?

  Something wet drops onto my arm. “Babe. Hey. Oh, please don’t cry.”

  “I’m not,” she lies.

  I turn her toward me and wipe underneath her eyes with my thumbs. “You’re a terrible liar.”

  “I’m a good liar. Just have a little something in my eye.” Her laugh is husky.

  Then her resolve crumbles and fat tears stream down her cheeks. “He was nice when I met him. He was all the things a guy is supposed to be.”

  “People look for what they want to see. It’s the way we’re made. Always searching for that ideal.”

  “There was a baby. I was pregnant. That’s why I ran off with him. I couldn’t face my daddy. I miscarried a week after I married Wesley.”

  “Shh…” I say, rocking her against my chest. I search for the right words to make her understand that it’s all right, but there are none.

  “We moved out to Tacoma. The house was a rental in the middle of nowhere, and I didn’t have a car. He left for weeks at a time to work. He’d return and bring flowers and nice words. I was so confused. I didn’t know if I loved him or hated him. I really didn’t feel anything for a while. I’ve never told anyone that.” Her words are muffled against my chest.

  She’s given me the gift of her trust with something she’s carried around all alone. I’ve had the luxury of Josie when times were rough. As much as she can be a pain in the ass, she’s my rock. Never judgmental. Always a phone call away. Hell, I even have friends who silently carry my secrets from the past.

  Harper’s had no one and that knowledge of her isolation twists inside me like a furious cyclone. Her husband is dead and that should be enough to quiet my anger. I need him out of our bed.

  “He wasn’t who I thought he was,” she says. Harper’s mouth turns up at the corners in a derisive smile. “I was so blind.”

  “Shh…” I don’t want to talk about him in the place where I make love to her. It needs to wait until another time because this bed is a place for her to feel cherished, not relive bad memories. I turn her face toward me. I kiss the end of her nose and her curves melt into me. Our naked bodies are flush to each other and my desire for her stirs, despite the fact that I need to console and comfort.

  I kiss her tenderly. My tongue strokes hers, saying she’s beautiful, desirable, mine.

  She fits against me, her soft places molding to my hard.

  “Do you have anywhere you need to be?” she asks.

  I grin and push my erection against her. “Is that an invitation? I know one specific place.” I suck her bottom lip into my mouth and gently grab it between my teeth.

  When I release her mouth, she sighs. “It’s scary how good this feels.”

  “Yeah. I know.” She’s right. I should be scared. I should be terrified. I’d told myself that I wouldn’t jump into another relationship
so soon after Tori.

  But when feelings this intense slap you in the face, you don’t ignore them.

  12

  Nosy Harper

  Harper

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Dear Isabella,

  I start a new job this week. Thanks for offering money, but I’m really OK. I’m glad that Wesley/Warren’s money will take care of you and Charley.

  Your friend,

  Harper

  * * *

  Leo stands in my doorway with a smile so bright it could light a small city. “I brought you breakfast. First day on a new job and I can’t have you leaving hungry.”

  “How did you have time?” I step aside so he can enter. He smells like soap and happiness.

  “I’m resourceful.” He places the tray of food on the bar. “I ran downstairs. I’m a hunter/gatherer like that.”

  “I left your bed an hour ago. That line had to be out the door at this time of the morning.” I glance at the clock. Eight a.m. is rush hour for the guys in the bakery.

  “A friend of mine was in line. I begged to cut in.”

  If a guy like Leo asks you to dance naked in the streets with him, you consider it. I’m convinced he could charm the last stitch of clothing off a homeless woman. She’d probably pay him for the honor.

  I didn’t mind being naked with him—especially last night in his apartment.

  I am afraid of the charm and I don’t trust my judgment. Wesley had that same way about him in the beginning. The too-easy ability he possessed to make me feel special.

  That charm fell away like a tree shedding its leaves in the fall, until one day, I knew he was different. By that point, it was the full-fledged winter of our relationship.

  Wesley never allowed me to work. He made sure I couldn’t. The house in Tacoma was too far on the outskirts. I didn’t own a car.

  I was stuck.

  Leo’s charm is different. It’s the charm of his honesty. It’s the intensity that glows from his eyes when he listens to you speak. It’s the way he encourages me to do what’s right for me.

  Deep down in that back-of-the-closet spot of my soul, I know that Wesley and Leo are as different as Satan and Gabriel.

  I’m more scared after the weekend with Leo than I’ve ever been in my life. He’s a glittering thing in a world full of rubble. That silver tinsel that attracts a bird foraging for nest materials. He could make a home beautiful.

  And this is what I did with Wesley. Saw the possibilities of us before we’d had a chance to really know each other. My stomach clenches.

  Leo happily offers me the bagel and I take a bite. “Umm…”

  He wipes a corner of my mouth with one finger and sticks it into his own. “Don’t make all those sexy sounds. You won’t get to work on time.”

  “I’m a little excited,” I say.

  “I keep telling you not to say such things to me, you wicked girl.” He winks and takes another bite of the bagel and then offers it to me. Although there are more pastries on the tray, I love sharing with him.

  I grab the orange juice and peel away the cap. “What are you up to today?”

  “Online meeting this morning with an advertiser.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  “It’s not. It’s like listening to Charlie Brown’s teacher talk for an hour. Mwa, mwa-mwa. Mwa-mwa.” He drags me forward and into his arms. “I can’t wait for this day to be over.”

  “Why do you do it then? This thing that you fund with ads…”

  When I say ‘this thing’, I wait for him to give me that tiny nugget of disclosure.

  “Bills. Ambition. Freedom. It’s OK until I get my novels published.” He shrugs. “But you,” he says, changing the subject, “need to go work for the man. I’ll be here when you get back.” He swats me on the behind and heads out the door.

  I know it’s unfair to expect total disclosure about everything in his life, but I need his dirty laundry exposed before I can lay out mine. Then I’ll know how much I need to tone mine down.

  I can make myself sound more misled than plain stupid. Right?

  At Le Frou Frous Pooch Hotel, I meet the manager, Tom, who instructs me on my duties. He’s a young guy, probably younger than I am. He drags his fingers across his too long bangs as he talks to all the dogs like they’re people.

  “Want to go for a walk with Ms. Harper?” he says to a sheepdog name Louis. “All right then. Be easy on her. Don’t pull on the lead.”

  All the tasks are more fun than work and I smile all morning as I walk dogs and generally play harder than I have in years.

  When he gives me an hour for lunch, I leave and head to Dastardly’s, where I’m supposed to meet Josie.

  She’s seated at the bar, so I join her. The place is packed and Dane is serving tables along with his waitstaff.

  “Hi,” I say, positioning myself on the wood stool. She’s already ordered her food and the pasta smells heavenly. I’m starved after all the energy I’ve used with the dogs.

  “Hey yourself.” Josie cocks an eyebrow and grins. She continues to chew a bite of pasta while keeping eye contact.

  “What?”

  “Oh, don’t play coy with me. I’ve talked to my brother.” She bumps her elbow against mine.

  “I’m not,” I say and take the one-sheet paper menu that Dane flicks in my direction.

  “Tell me everything. Well, not everything. Some details would be too weird. But you and Leo? I knew this was going to happen.”

  “Why is that?”

  “You’re his type. I’m so glad for him to be rid of Tori the witch.”

  “You liked her that much, huh?”

  Josie suddenly frowns. “I’m not sure of how much I should say about their thing. I wouldn’t want to share stuff Leo hasn’t told you. But I hate that woman.”

  “I met her.”

  Josie stabs a bite of her pasta and swings her dark hair to one side. She raises her eyebrows. “Oh? How’d that happen? I was hoping she’d moved, since I haven’t run into her in a while.”

  “We went to breakfast on Saturday morning and bumped into her. Then she came by his apartment later.”

  She drops her fork. It clangs onto the concrete floor of Dastardly’s, but she doesn’t bother to retrieve it. “Shit. No way.”

  I nod. “She…um…seemed upset, but Leo said it wasn’t important.” Her reaction unsettles me. “Take my fork,” I say, unwrapping the rolled napkin that someone placed in front of me at some point.

  “Forget about the fork.” Josie looks like she’s about to explode.

  “It’s OK. He was a little upset afterward, but I think he’s fine now.”

  “Do not let that woman near him. Do you hear?” Josie’s mouth tightens. “You have no idea, no idea at all, what a lying, conniving piece of work she is. She almost broke him. I swear I told her I’d run her over in my car if she dared to step foot near his place.” She pushes her plate away.

  And I thought I might need anger management. “What did she do?” I can’t help but ask.

  Josie’s lost in her own world and it’s not a happy place. She’s staring at the bottles of booze lining the wall of the bar as if she’d like target practice on them.

  “Josie?”

  “Oh. Leo needs to tell you. Not me. I know it’s not fair since we’re friends, but he’s my brother. He would kill me if I went around blabbing his history with her.”

  “I understand.”

  “Maybe we can pool our money together and pay a cheap hitman.” She cuts her eyes toward me with a calculated look.

  “You aren’t serious.”

  “No. If I take out a hit, I won’t tell you. It’ll be on the down low with no accomplices. You can rest easy.”

  “Thanks. I’ll remember to never make you mad.”

  Josie looks at the menu I’m holding and points to the waitress behind the bar. The girl moves to stand in front of me.

  “You guys need to hi
re some help,” Josie says to her.

  “What can I get you?” The girl ignores Josie and asks me.

  “Club sandwich and Diet Coke. Thanks.” I smile at the girl and turn to Josie.

  Josie leans in. “I was sort of kidding about the hitman. But don’t put up with Tori hanging around. She’s trouble.”

  Dane comes up behind me and squeezes my shoulder. “Hey sugar.”

  “Hi.” I look back at him.

  “Josie,” he says. “You teaching Harper all your bad habits?”

  “Every single one.” She grins at him.

  “Dane! A little help?” The girl tending bar calls to him.

  He shakes his head. “Always a crisis. Catch you girls later.” Dane hurries away to the kitchen.

  The rest of lunch goes by quickly, with Josie telling me stories of her bookstore customers and talking about a band she wants to see in concert. Even though I attempt to concentrate on the conversation, I can’t help but worry about her reaction to the subject of Tori.

  I can’t understand Leo if I don’t know what he’s been through. The fact that he’s not telling me things is so familiar. Wesley never told me anything—what he liked, didn’t like, where he went. His past.

  * * *

  Leo has a fascinating way of working on his novel. He types frantically for at least five minutes. Then he pauses and sits back for thirty seconds with his hands touching the keys of his laptop. His fingertips move in a caress over the keyboard as he stares straight ahead. Then frantic typing again. It’s like his brain cycles in five-minute runs until he deposits all the words into the computer.

  He rolls his head from side to side and sits back in the chair, then twirls it around to face me. “Is anything wrong?”

  “No. Why?”

  “You’ve been very quiet.”

  “Watching the movie.” I point at the television with a lazy finger and tuck my feet underneath me on the sofa.

  He stands and strolls across the room, eyeing me tiger-like and grinning. “I need a break.”