Inked in Lies (The Fallen Men, #5)

by Giana Darling

I scuffed my bare foot against the asphalt, took a deep breath, and said the truest thing I’d ever had to say, “I dreamed I’d be a Booth.”

“Ways of what?” Her grin was almost evil as it split her pretty face in two. “Ways of being a biker babe. Don’t worry, we’re still kids, so we got lots of time.”

“Oh, yeah,” she agreed. “Nova’s gonna be part of the club now, so we’ll see each other a bunch. There’s not so many kids around, so you and me? We’re basically gonna be best friends.”

And that was it, the moment when I found the words for what that man was to me and what he would always mean to me. I loved him. Unintentionally, but irrevocably.

He was it for me.

And I touched myself while I watched my foster brother fuck another girl.

I’d never been so turned on, which wasn’t surprising given that I was a virgin, waiting against all odds for the man currently fucking another woman with abandon to notice me.

But before I could make a sound, he closed the door. Right in my face. Behind the wood I could hear deep laughter and a high giggle as he rejoined the girl in bed.

He was, in a very real way, my everything. I couldn’t remember a time he’d condescended to me, let alone insulted me. Yet here he was, calling me pathetic.

“You think I’m pathetic for loving you when you’re the best man I know? You think it’s pathetic to want a man like the one who has taken care of me, loved me and protected me since I was five years old? Okay, Jonathon,”

“We’re gonna be fine,” Nova said, an edge to his voice that could’ve been fear. “We’re gonna be just fine, you move on from this stupid crush. You’re still my girl. You’ll always be my Flower Child.”

“I think he’s into you.”

“He’s too far removed to have the same familial blindness the other do.”

“Jake doesn’t want a lotta things you seem to like a helluva lot.”

“Oh, I’m a hard one to hate,” Nova drawled easily. “Aren’t I, mi girasol?” My sunflower.

I jumped slightly, but Nova didn’t relent. Instead, he patted my knee almost condescendingly as if I was a good girl, and I just didn’t know it yet.

How had I forgotten about my fucking fiancé with him sitting right there beside me?

“You want Lila. That’s what’s going on between you. Whether you want to admit it or not, you want her, and you hate that she doesn’t want you.”

“Kiss her.”

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

“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.

“You want her,” Jake said, each word a whip lashed at Nova. “And now you can’t have her. You should have loved her while you had the chance.”

“I’m going to offer myself up for Irina Ventura’s sex trafficking and illegal pornography business.”

“I’d do worse for my family,” I shouted, but what I wanted to scream was ‘I’d do worse for you!’

Before I shut off the lamp, I opened the computer and bookmarked the tab, cum coolin’ on my stomach, shame curlin’ in my gut. I knew in a way I couldn’t shake, I’d watch that goddamn clip again.

“Trust me, if you had a man who made you come until you couldn’t remember your own name, you’d talk about it all the time too.”

“There’s no gettin’ outta this, Lila,” he said softly, silk over steel. “If I gotta tackle you and drag you outta here like a fuckin’ caveman, you are comin’ with me.

I’ll lock up your greenhouse, slash your fuckin’ tires so you rely completely on me. ’Cause you don’t seem to get somethin’ I’ve been tryin’ to teach you all your life. You’re my fuckin’ family. You wanna put yourself in danger ’cause you’re too damn brave and too damn stupid and completely, in-fuckin’-sanely loyal, then you do you. But I’ll be there to protect you from yourself and the pit of vipers you’ve put yourself in bed with. I’ll be there droppin’ you off and pickin’ you up, I’ll be there sleepin’ in the room beside you so if anyone gets any ideas about takin’ ya, they’ll have to get through me to do it.”

You’re mine, they said, you’ll do this because I’ll make you.

How could a girl ever be expected to move on from a man who would do anything to keep her safe?

He planted flowers all over my body, inside the cage of my ribs, in the fertile soil of my heart, yet he never noticed how they bloomed just for him.

“Take care of our girl, honey.” Nova’s body jerked with his nod, then he started to walk us out the door. “’Til the day I fuckin’ die,”

“You cast aside this space you’ve put between us. Hurt you two years ago, and not gonna apologize for doin’ it ’cause, Li, I got my reasons. There’s no part of me worth even an inch of you, and you gotta get that, know it, and forgive me for pointin’ it out to you, yeah? You gotta believe I’ve always got you at my heart, on my mind, thinkin’ about what’s right for you. And me? I’m not it. But fuck me, that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. It’ll never mean that.”

“He’s the only one who’s ever wanted to try to be worth it.”

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.

Nova: Was in the mood for you. Lila: I’m busy. Nova: I’m always in the mood for you, if I’m bein’ fuckin’ honest.

“Never paid for any of a woman’s time or affection, so I don’t know the scale, but…I’d probably shell out more for somethin’ else.”

“Fuck, you’re thick,” she breathed, tippin’ her forehead against mine so she could look down at her ringed hand on the ridge of my shaft. The sight made us both moan. “I’ve never held a cock so big.”

“Send a bottle of tequila to the Velvet Room, tell Maja to turn off the cameras in there, and make sure we aren’t fuckin’ interrupted.”

“You’re so desperate to show me what I’ve been missin’?” I demanded in a low, rough voice I barely fuckin’ recognized. “Fine. Take off your clothes, and attempt to impress me.”

“As a fuckin’ heart attack. You wanna play, Li? We’ll play, but I’m the kinda man that sets the rules and expects them to be followed through. I play rough. I play dirty. And I play hard. You think you can handle all that, be my guest and fuckin’ prove it to me,”

“Lean back, spread your legs, and let me watch you touch that wet cunt,” I told her as I eased even farther back in the booth and used my free hand to spread open my jeans to better her view. “You watch me watchin’ you.”

’Cause I understood more in that moment watchin’ Lila writhe for me than I ever had before that one’a my skills was her. Knowin’ her, readin’ her, fuckin’ lovin’ her even if I’d never done it before like this.

“But I’ll fuck Lila right here, right now in front of all of you if you don’t get outta my sight in the next thirty seconds. You got somethin’ to say about my life choices? You wanna stick your nose in my business? Be my guest and critique my fuckin’ form.”

“Now,” he practically purred, “you’re gonna take off this sexy little top and spread yourself out for me in my chair. I’m gonna spend the next hour tattin’ the sweet curve of your waist knowin’ you’re gettin’ wet just from the feel of my hands on your skin and my breath bein’ close to your pussy. Then, you give me a good answer for why the fuck you left me cold and alone this mornin’ like some piss-off one-night stand, I’m gonna peel off those shorts and tend to you with my tongue.”

“You sayin’ I’ve only ever shown you the worst? Or other women? Women who knew the score ’cause I laid it out for them like I’d lay it out for you if you gave me a goddamn chance to do it!”

“I got my Flower Child layin’ out for me. You’re gorgeous, Lila, no doubt about it, but you also got my art inked into your skin, years of beauty you and me created together, stamped all over your tight, sweet curves. You think that doesn’t do somethin’ powerful to a man, you’re fuckin’ wrong.”

“You answer me, I’m gonna put my mouth on you,”

“Now, answer the damn question so I can put my mouth on your cunt. I’ve been dyin’ to know if you taste as sweet as you smell, like sea salt and flowers.”