The Good Liar (Infidelity #1)

by C.P. Harris

I knew. To hell with my mind, it was my body that would never forget him.

some privacy.” Privacy was the last thing we needed. Cole and I needed to be supervised at all times.

“Stepbrothers,” I corrected. “And we were never just that, Cole.” We had been more. We had been sinful. And the high voltage of electricity sizzling through my veins warned me we were all those things still. Time and space would never change that.

The truth was, if it wasn’t Daniel getting the scraps of me, it would’ve been someone else, because my heart wasn’t whole. I’d left the other half of it back in Seattle, and now it was here, right in front of me, staring into me as if nothing could keep us apart. Not even my vows.

“You’re priceless, Jasper,”

Leland and I met at a bar shortly after Selene’s death and Jasper’s subsequent vanishing act. He’d served me drinks, listened to my ramblings, and called me on my bullshit all night. He’d had no prior experience as an executive assistant, but he was honest, and he didn’t care about who I was, he just cared. I’d brought him with me when I took over for my father at Nexcom. My moods didn’t intimidate him, and he often pretended he didn’t know I was having one, anyway.

It had taken everything to maintain a neutral expression as Daniel ran his hands over Jasper at the dinner table last night. I’d wanted to clear the dishes away with a sweep of my arm. I had wanted to fuck Jasper right there and make Daniel watch. Wanted to show him how Jasper loved to be touched. How he loved to be taken not asked. School him on what it meant to bring his husband pleasure. And I had wanted him to choke on it.

I loved him, and regardless of the lie I’d readily told him yesterday, I was still in love with him. Madly so.

When we were boys, we’d link our pinkies under the dinner table. I’d had to learn how to eat left-handed. When we were near it had been impossible not to touch, not to hold, not to love.

“No one’s better than you, Jasper. No one.”

“When Daniel makes love to me,” I started, and his face contorted in pain, “he doesn’t ask for anything, and I give him less than nothing, because I have nothing to give. It’s all with you. But when you make love, Cole… You leave a piece of your soul on the table. You can’t help but give so much.” “Trust me,” he breathed. “That only applies to you.”

“You’ve never been touched the way you touch me. You’d never understand.”

“And you’ve never been loved the way you loved me, not even by me. No one is capable of the kind of love you give. So you wouldn’t understand how impossible it would be for me to move on. Or to give an...

In my defense, I didn’t know how to touch him in a nonproprietary way. I didn’t know how to mate with him and not brand him, too. And he’d loved it. Wanted and needed it as much as I had. His body would always betray his denial. But in the light of day and thinking with a lust-free head, he needed to pretend I was the bad guy. He needed someone to share the burden of blame.

“What were you thinking about?” he asked, coming around to rest his back on the bedroom window he’d caught me gazing unseeingly out of. “Whatever it was has got you leaking big-time.” He fingered the pearl-sized bead of precum from my stiff cock before letting it fall into his own coffee. He chanced a gulp of the steaming liquid, his eyes closing as he groaned in ecstasy. “Who knew a pinch of salt made everything better.”

“Tell me the truth you’ve been holding back from me, angel,” he whispered. “Just this once. Just for tonight. And I promise to never use it against you.” His arms became steel bands around me. His heart thrummed fiercely against my skin. “Please.”

“I still love you, Cole. And I can’t make it stop,”

“What hurts the most is that I can’t make things right for you. That my love isn’t enough to make you want to try.

“I don’t regret any of this,” he whispered into my ear. “Yes, I want more than you can give me right now. Yes, it kills me that it isn’t my ring you’re wearing as I make love to you in our bed. But there isn’t anything I can’t love you through, Jasper.”

“One day, you’ll grow tired of being broken. You’ll rightfully give up on holding yourself accountable for the worst thing that ever happened to you. And I’ll be there to pick you up,”

“I’ll forgive every imaginable sin against me that your martyr’s heart will conjure up. I’m telling you this now because I know how your mind works, Jasper. And when our time comes, I don’t want a moment of it wasted on you beating yourself up. There isn’t anything I couldn’t forgive you for. There is nothing to forgive.”

“I’ll be here when you’re ready. Because one of these days you’re going to realize you deserve all the happiness I can give you.”

“There’s no one, at the moment. Metaphorically speaking, I lost my heart, and in many ways I’ve been dead without it. I don’t want that to be a literal reality for anyone, if I can help it.”

“On your hands and knees, angel,” he said, and the way he handled his dick, like it was a weapon, made the order threatening.

“Fuck me like you miss me, Cole,” I whined at the back of my throat, needing him to do his worst. “Mark me, tear my flesh from my goddamn bones.”