Twisted Lies (Twisted, #4)

by Ana Huang

I’d heard it only three times in my life, but that was enough. Like the man who owned it, it was unforgettable.

I didn’t like people touching what was mine.

If my thoughts were chaos, she was my anchor. They always went back to her.

Twin flames of resentment and frustration burned in my chest. I was weak for Stella Alonso, and I hated it.

But like I said, I didn’t like people touching what was mine.

Christian Harper was just a man. Not a king, even if he was richer than one, and not a god, even if he looked like one.

A low laugh caressed my skin like velvet.

“Careful, Stella.” His low warning pulsed between my legs. “I’m not the gentleman you think I am.”

My reply fought its way past my dry throat. “I don’t think you’re a gentleman at all.” A slow, lazy smile tugged at his lips. “Smart girl.”

Green eyes. Green dress. Symbolic of life and nature. Green. Apparently it was my new favorite fucking color.

“Fuck the dress.” It’d cost nearly ten thousand dollars, but I couldn’t summon two shits about what happened to it. If I had my way, I would tear it off her myself.

“Because I don’t want to be jailed for murder if anyone touches a hair on your head.”

Someone who could’ve been something instead of someone who did something.

Some photos were worth a thousand words. This photo said only one. Mine.

She thought her rent at the Mirage was low? That was nothing compared to how she lived rent-free in my fucking head.

Stella may appear sweet and gentle, but she was more dangerous to me than any weapon or rival.

Somewhere within that cocoon of mild manners was a brilliant butterfly yearning to break free.

“Touch her for any reason other than to save her life, and you die.”

That and a world without Stella in it was one that didn’t deserve to exist.

Despite what happened last night, her light still shone through, and she was more resilient than a lot of people, including me, gave her credit for. That’s my girl.

Trying to stay away from her was like the ocean trying to stay away from the shore. Impossible.

Give her a taste of what she could have if she succumbed to the inevitability of us. Everything.

I couldn’t have formed proper words had I tried. I was too unsettled by the knowledge that Christian Harper had been about to kiss me again…and that I’d desperately wanted him to.

“If you saw yourself the way other people see you,” he said quietly, “you’d never doubt again.” Curiosity and something infinitely sweeter and more dangerous fluttered to life in my heart. “How do other people see me?” Christian’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “Like you’re the most beautiful, most remarkable thing they’ve ever seen.”

“It’s because you haven’t looked me in the eye since New York. Because you’re all I can fucking think about no matter where I am or who I’m with, and the thought of you hurt or upset makes me want to raze this city to the ground.” Soft, almost desperate viciousness coated his voice. “I’ve never wanted someone more, and I’ve never hated myself more for it.”

Stella had seared so deep into my consciousness that she was all I could smell. All I could feel. And even when I closed my eyes, all I could see.

Because when I claimed Stella as mine, I would do it so fucking thoroughly there wouldn’t be a shred of doubt in either of our minds as to who she belonged to…or who I belonged to in return.

I’d waited a long time. Eventually, I would catch her, and once I did, I was never letting her go.

I had a strange sense whatever happened in Hawaii would change my life.

infuriatingly sexy with his rumpled shirt and tousled hair. Neither of us looked our best after traveling all day, but his dishevelment only made him hotter, not less. “Like what you see?” he drawled.

But our lives were our own. There would always be people who were better and worse off than us. That didn’t make our feelings any less valid. We could acknowledge how good we had it in some respects while criticizing other parts.

An angel sleeping in the arms of a monster.

But if there was one thing both sides agreed on, it was that she was mine. And now that she was in my life, there was no letting her go.

She looked like Venus emerging from the deep blue sea, only a thousand times more spectacular.

that had nothing to do with her outer beauty. Darkness was always drawn to light, but I wasn’t just drawn to her; I was fucking obsessed. I would throw myself into her flame and let it burn me alive if it meant her warmth was the last thing I felt before I died.

I didn’t believe in paradise, nor did I believe I could reach it even if it existed, but she smelled exactly like how I imagined paradise would smell.

“Drop your arms for me, sweetheart. I want to see you.”

I may not be her first, but I would damn well be her last. Because once I took her, I would never let her go.

A temptation with no escape. An obsession with no end. An addiction with no cure.

Stella Alonso had consumed my world in a way that made it impossible to go back. There was only before her and after her.

“I want to make a few things clear.” Christian’s lips brushed mine with each word. “Touch another man, he dies. Let another man touch you, he dies. Tell me I can’t touch you…” His grip tightened on the back of my neck as his voice dropped. “And I will fucking die.”

I didn’t care much for art, but if I could immortalize her in that moment as a painting, I would.

You will always be my first, last, and only love.