Inked in Lies (The Fallen Men 5)

He didn’t follow me as I went to the door and pulled it open without checking the peephole.

Like an idiot.

So when the door swung open, I was shocked to see Jake there holding a bouquet of red roses, his suit wrinkled from the drive up from Vancouver.

But he seemed even more shocked to see me, still damp and fragrant from the bath, hair curling half out of my bun, my nipples hard against the fabric of a tee that was clearly not mine.

And then Nova was there, the room gone electric as he entered the living space and swaggered up behind me, no doubt looking smug.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath before Jake dropped the flowers at my feet, turned on his heel, and stormed away.

I made to take after him, but Nova grabbed my arm, halting me to say, “Li, c’mon, he’s never been worth it.”

I wrenched my arm from his grip and snarled, “He’s the only one who’s ever wanted to try to be worth it.”

And then I left Nova and followed after my man.

NOVA

She didn’t speak to me for a week.

Dropped her off at Wet Works every mornin’, picked her up every night ’cause she’d agreed to it, but she didn’t say a fuckin’ word.

Nothin’ like the wrath of a woman wronged.

And yeah, I’d wronged her.

Not by movin’ her in without askin’.

Fuck that.

No, by textin’ Jake that Li was at my place and she needed to talk to him.

I’d heard the fight through the open kitchen window, leanin’ out the black frame to watch as they yelled at each other in the street, smokin’ a cig and enjoyin’ the show. That’s how I knew they’d broken up. That Jake was tired of comin’ second to me and the club. And I’d watched as Lila stared after his car, hand to her empty left ring finger, hair caught like a pennant in the wind. I’d seen the cast of her face, filled with mourning.

Probably not my best move, but there was somethin’ growin’ under my skin lately, somethin’ with roots that went deep and tangled with my gut. Somethin’ I was worried about sproutin’ through the surface of my skin for all to see.

Somethin’ that had to do with Lila and how I felt about her.

‘Cause there was a difference now in the feel of her arms wrapped around my waist, her breasts to my back, groin to my ass pressed up against me on my bike. It wasn’t like any other girl I’d taken for a ride. I felt responsible for her safety, stirred by the stamp of her on my body, and the whirr of her breath over my neck when we stopped at a light.

I liked wakin’ up from my restless sleep knowin’ she was there in the apartment, smellin’ her flowers, feelin’ her mellow, languid presence in the mornin’ as she went about makin’ up her pretty face and tamin’ all that dark, glossy hair.

Hadn’t lived with another bein’ since I was just eighteen at home with my family, but I found Lila in my space thrillin’, like havin’ a new TV or buyin’ a new bike. I was obsessed with bein’ in the apartment if she was gonna be there, eschewin’ the clubhouse and Eugene’s with the brothers every night to climb the steps from my shop to an apartment that suddenly felt like home after fifteen years of livin’ in it.

I felt pussy whipped without even havin’ access to the pussy.

Though, watchin’ that clip of her actin’ as a camgirl, the only one she’d posted, I thought way too much about that too.

How she’d taste if I could put my mouth on her. If I’d get addicted to the scent of her and the feel of those silken folds against my tongue.

I was a man who loved pussy in all forms, but I had a feelin’ if I ever got a shot at Lila’s, it’d rocket from love to pure obsession.

Never came harder in my life, not with threesomes or kink or any level of fuckery than I did in that week, jerkin’ off to that video while Lila herself lay asleep down the hall.

I was a fuckin’ perv, but there was no stoppin’ me.

The sight of her deep, golden-brown skin naked, inked by my hand, slicked with bath water, and sudsy with lingerin’ bubbles as she’d stepped from the tub was the sexiest fuckin’ thing I’d ever seen. My mouth went dry and my cock hardened just thinkin’ about it.

Somethin’ had to give.

But I couldn’t just fuck Lila Meadows.

She was my boy’s sister, and it didn’t matter he was gone ’cause I still couldn’t do that to him.

She was my family’s lone girl, cherished by every single one’a the Booths.

If I fucked her and inevitably fucked up, that was on me, and my family, blood or not, would let me bear the brunt of their anger for it.