Inked in Lies (The Fallen Men 5)

“I don’t have to,” he said, so firm I could feel his words formed in steel thrust like weapons into the heart of our relationship.

We could not do this.

We would never recover.

This I knew elementally because to do this, to kiss Nova when I’d spent years thinking of his bright, supple lips on mine, in front of the man I’d resolved to love the way a vegetarian resolves to change their diet for the better of themselves, their world, would be nothing short of catastrophic.

“Do it,” Jake said to me, eyes lighter than Nova’s, rounder and closer set but still so similar to my foster brother’s. “If he means nothing to you beyond family, it should repulse you, right?”

“Yet you want to force me to kiss someone you think I should view as a brother?” I retorted angrily, cracking my knuckles so hard they refused to crack again. “This is insane.”

“Life’s a crazy bitch,” Nova took the moment to intervene. “Ride her hard or die tryin’, right, Li?”

Live free, die hard. The Fallen MC’s motto, but also Nova’s philosophy on life.

And mine.

I’d quit university because I’d hated the structure. I worked at a bar because I liked the hours, the chaos, the constant revolving door of new people and experiences.

I didn’t want much out of life, not money, not power or prestige.

All I wanted out of the life was the living.

And this was it. A situation so fucked up it made my heart race, so dangerous I was couldn’t breathe right, so edgy I couldn’t think straight.

This was living.

This was what Nova did. What I did.

What we’d once loved doing together.

And in that moment, I knew I’d do it.

I’d fall on the sword Nova held out to me, just because he was selfish enough, horrible enough to want to prove what he’d known now for years.

That I was his to do with as he pleased.

If he needed to prove to himself in some machismo act of bullshit that he could have me if only he wanted me, I’d let him.

Let him feel me, my lips on his, my body on his body, the potential of me in his mouth.

And then I’d rip it away just as violently as he was now ripping away any last vestiges of our friendship.

A friend didn’t sabotage.

And that was what he was doing here.

Sabotaging Jake and me.

Because we wouldn’t survive the fallout.

But Nova didn’t get that I was going to make sure we, him and me, didn’t survive it either.

“This is your choice,” I told Jake, looking him dead in the eye so he could see the gun pointed at my head, the bullet in the chamber ready to end us. “You do this, it will hurt us,” I promised him.

Jake pulled me close and pressed his forehead to mine so his warm, alcohol sweet breath wafted across my face and reminded me of all the nights Ellie crawled into my bed fragrant with drink.

It reminded me of all the bad choices she’d made.

How her possessiveness had destroyed our family just as much as Ignacio’s.

Jake wanted to be mine.

Nova didn’t want me to be his, but he wanted to prove to everyone I could be.

What no one seemed capable of understanding was that I was property of no one.

My heart beat hard once, then slowed and grew weak as I understood the tragedy of the moment.

“I love you,” Jake said, and maybe he did, but he loved himself more in that moment, needing me to prove his masculinity for him. “Nothing will change that.”

Maybe for him, but not for me.

I could already feel the love leaking out of the puncture wound in my heart he’d put there.

I gave him a small, sad smile then turned to Nova who was watching me with hawk-like intensity, a predator zeroed in on his prey.

“This is your choice,” I echoed to him, not even angry anymore, just tired, tired, tired.

His smile was, surprisingly, sad too. Sad, small and tight.

He nodded curtly. “I know.”

Sobriety cut through my intoxication, but not enough to quell the swell of anticipation that rose like a tide in my belly knowing what was going to happen.

Nova was going to kiss me.

I leaned back against the booth casually, as if my heart wasn’t trying to break through the cage of my ribs and leap across the table. Sandwiched between the only two men I’d ever wanted, I couldn’t believe it might be possible to have them both for only a second before I’d be forced to give them both up.

I couldn’t breathe through the riot of emotions blooming in my chest, crawling up my throat like vines.

Nova moved closer, sinuous as a shadow moving over the seat.

The low light of the neon sign above our booth glided his exquisite features in metallic blue, making him seem otherworldly, incandescently glorious.