The Good Liar (Infidelity #1)

by C.P. Harris

Proper etiquette called for me to at least say hello to Cole, and to offer my sincere thanks to my husband for making my nightmares come true.

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

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.

we were in over our heads by being this close to each other. We needed mountains, oceans, fucking worlds between us.

My head knew better, but my heart had other plans. My heart would destroy us all.

“No one’s called me that before,” I’d said. “It’s mine. If anyone calls you that, you tell them it belongs to me. That you belong to me.”

My skin burned in all the places he’d touched before. I burned everywhere.

I wondered how he could speak with his mouth hard-pressed to Cole’s ass.

I’d continue to swallow my feelings for him, smile and bear the pain of seeing him with someone else, if that was all I could have.

“Alright, you’re starting to look murdery, which means you’ve got visions of sex and violence in your head. That’s my cue to leave.”

If only he were mine for the night. For forever. If only.

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

He was a slut, a virgin, the devil, and an angel rolled into one.

I wanted to break him, and then piece his fractured parts back together again.

I’d do bad things with a clear head to have him. And then I’d do them all over again if it meant I got to have him in the next life, too.

What were we doing now? What were we becoming? And who were we fooling with it?

I needed to choke on my breaths, and die a thousand deaths in his arms, at his hands. I needed to lose control, to have it stolen from me. I needed to be robbed of free will.

I didn’t want to win him like this. I didn’t want him more broken than he already was, because I loved him more than I wanted him.

I wanted to send him to his knees, I wanted to get down on mine, I wanted to kiss every aching part of him right then.

“I hate it when your hands aren’t on me. Always so hu–hungry. Starving for–for your touch, Cole.”

Not touching meant not breathing when we were alone.

“You’re mine. This was inevitable. And I never want his fucking hands on you again.”

“You’ve never been touched the way you—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 anyone even a fraction of what I gave you,” he promised.

He was like an earthquake in the middle of a tsunami. Rattling and drowning me in his intensity at the same time.

I’d always needed to be the source of Cole’s happiness. The sole object of his affection and desire. Even when we were apart. Even when I wouldn’t admit it to myself.

I had Jasper’s heart, but Daniel got to share a life with him out loud, and it was killing me. I’d been a fool to think it wouldn’t.

“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,” he promised,

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.”

“How can he love you when he doesn’t even know you?” Cole had asked once. “He knows me,” I’d shot back at him. “No,” he’d said. “He knows who he wants you to be, but I know how beautiful you already are.”

“She wasn’t perfect, you know. Children often expect parents to be ideal, forgetting we’re human, too. We’re flawed, too.

“Bars are gaudy and send a bad message,” I said, falling into our usual banter. “What? That you’re an alcoholic?” He opened the cabinet as I took up a stool. “No. That I want people to stay long enough to share a drink.”

“Honest men don’t make great lawyers. Good liars do.”

“I love you so much my heart hurts with it,”

“Take me like you always do, angel. Your hole was made for my cock.”

“‘This love is a forever kind of thing, angel,’” I quoted back to him. “‘And I love you so much my heart hurts with it.’”