Page 7 of Professional Liar
Three
Pierce
I clutchedmy aching hard on tighter to gain some control. A stronger man would leave her now. Walk out the door with the taste of her on my tongue and the scrape of my beard on her thighs as punishment. No, a stronger man wouldn’t have let her back in.
She’d broken something irreparably. We’d never again play these games. Cards on the table. All in, or fold.
Husband was a title meant for other men. Not ones like me.
I’d always been disposable for her. She might make me her husband, but she would never count me as an equal. I’d forever be the guy she dragged from the slums. A show piece, a good lay now and then, but never someone to reign beside her.
Never a king to her queen.
“Pierce,” she said, drawing my attention back to her. She held up her hands, asking me what was wrong. More like, why wasn’t my head between her legs anymore.
I kept my face blank. A mask it took ten years to harden. “We have business to handle first.”
She dropped her head back onto the bed. “Helluva time for that, St. James.” My name sounded more like bastard in that tone.
“I’ve been thinking about what you came here for.”
She lifted her head again. “In what, the five minutes you’ve been down there?”
I slapped her outer thigh, as close to her ass as I could reach with her laying splayed on my bed. She gave me a satisfying yelp. “Baby Girl, I can multi-task.”
She shifted her legs closed and rolled to her side, tucking her arm under her head so she could peer up at me easier. “Talk.”
I shook my head. “I’m not the one who will be talking. You came here to get something from me. You need to ask me like a polite human being. Civilize yourself for once.”
She narrowed her eyes and sat up with a frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I haven’t seen you since you snubbed me at your father’s funeral, and you show up here asking for favors. No, miracles. And you didn’t just ask me. You sprung it on me while trying to seduce me. I’ve told you a hundred times, I hate games.”
“For a man who hates games, you sure know how to win.”
I held up my hands in surrender. “I don’t play games. I play you. You’re the only one who makes demands of me. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve come a long way since we met. I don’t take orders anymore, and I sure as shit don’t bow down to another family’s whims.”
She huffed and slapped the bed between us. “This is not a fucking whim. You think I’d come here—to you—on a God-damned whim? There’s not a single whimsical thing about you.”
I rolled my eyes and let out a long sigh, my patience fried and crispy. “I’ll mark that on my grave.”
“What do you want me to say?” she asked, still fire and fury.
Proof right there she’d never back down or give an inch of herself to me. I’d be the one giving, with her always taking, claiming, laying waste.
I stood up and grabbed my pants off the floor.
She scrambled to the end of the bed. “What are you doing?”
“Getting a drink. Don’t worry, Princess, there’s a vibrator in one of the bedside tables. Help yourself and then take a hike.” I kept the pain from my tone, delivering the insults in the deadpan monotone she should be used to by now.
She never cared enough to realize it was where I went to retreat. To hide. And that was all I wanted to do right now. Get the hell away from the taste of her and the smell and the fucking sight of her.
No.I turned my back. “Just go, Kat. I’m not the man for you. This was stupid, of both of us.”
Silence answered me, and after a few long minutes, I turned to find her sitting, still naked, on the edge of my bed. Her hair had begun to dry and coil around her face. “Tell me why. Give me a straight answer. Tell me why you don’t think this will work, and I’ll go without a fight. You’ll never see me again.”
That’s what I wanted, right? To never touch her perfect lips with mine. Never have to fight with her before we can get to the sex.
