Don’t Lie to Me Read online

  But instead of holding my hand, he’d kissed me. My arm grew heavier, but he didn’t lower it. I wasn’t sure what to do with my hand or with myself. I cleared my throat, and found that one word in my limited vocabulary that might make my intentions clear. “Venire.”

  My grip changed in his, and I gave him a tug. He glanced at our joined hands, then his gaze hit mine. A jolt of heat burst from my torso and flooded my extremities.

  Suddenly this wasn’t mischief, but something charged and dangerous.

  I’d told him to “come,” as in with me... I think. I’m pretty sure. Possibly, I might’ve threatened to sell him, but I was mostly sure I’d said come. His expression tightened, so intense. His eyes so focused on mine. He spoke again, the sound just as compelling as before, and oh god, I wished I knew what he’d said.

  I inclined my chin to the doors, and led him across the balcony by the hand. He followed after me, and I couldn’t look back because his hand swallowed mine and all my attention fixed on that grip. If I didn’t watch the floor in front of me, there was a good chance I’d face-plant into it.

  We passed through the bar, went out through the foyer and reached the elevators. I pressed the up arrow. He stepped closer behind me. The front of his thigh brushed my backside, and every muscle in my lower region contracted so hard that if I could just master that kind of force in class, I’d be a Pilates master.

  The warmth of him lured me closer. His belt snagged on the fabric at my hip. He released my hand and his fingers settled on my waist. Every drop of my blood rushed to the heavy area between my hips. The numbers above the elevator flicked down toward our level. God, please let it be empty. An elderly woman came to stand beside us and offered a smile. The elevator dinged. I made a kind of grimace face in return because it’d be frowned upon to shove her out of the way. Especially by me who loved old people, but I needed to get him alone like immediately—

  “I thought we were meeting you at the bar?” My attention snapped to Haithem’s voice.

  Haithem and Angelina exited the lift, and the elderly woman shuffled into the vacant elevator carriage.

  “I never said that...” Dammit, what were they doing here, and why didn’t Angelina explain about my code?

  I looked pointedly at my best friend, and insisted via eyebrow speak that they leave instantly. Her gaze darted from mine to her fiancé’s then back again.

  Haithem stared at my wonderful new man-toy, and his eyebrows joined the conversation, but his expression asked something else entirely. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Chapter Two

  Emma

  I sliced Haithem a lethal glare.

  Yeah, maybe he had grown on me but that wasn’t going to be enough to save him from the homicide I was three seconds away from committing. He’d been happily oozing lust all over my best friend for three freaking weeks, and it was finally my turn. This was not the time to go big-brother-cock-blocker on me.

  “Don’t bother, babe, he doesn’t speak English.” My glare relaxed into something smug. “Not that he’ll be doing much talking tonight.”

  Haithem frowned. I must’ve given him too much credit, totally did not take him for such a prude.

  The fingers tightened on my waist. I patted my new friend’s hand. Didn’t need the poor bloke getting tense when he had so much work cut out for him.

  “Relax, I’ll be ready to leave in the morning. I’m completely sleep optional.” I leaned past them and pressed the arrow to resummon the lift.

  A throat cleared behind me, and all the male goodness prickling my back stepped aside.

  “Avner,” Haithem said, and clasped the hand of the man, the hand that just moments ago had branded my waist.

  “Haithem.” They exchanged a macho embrace, which was mostly gripping of biceps.

  I stared at the two of them, and tried to reject the conclusions forming in my head—I absolutely forbid them to know each other.

  “Why does my bride’s best friend think you don’t speak English?” Haithem said, his grip still clamped on Avner’s shoulder.

  “I took her for Italian—”

  “Emma—” Angelina placed her fingertips on the back of Haithem’s hand. His attention slid to her. “You’ve met Avner, Haithem’s best man?”

  I held my breath and snapped my teeth together.

  No. No. No.

  Everything was ruined. My parade wasn’t just rained on, it was monsooned.

  “Yep. Met him.”

  That sharp jaw turned my way, and even in the unflattering hotel light, those eyes still seemed to shine. My stomach twisted.

  Why’d he have to know them?

  “Join us for a drink then?”

  I lifted the bottle in my left hand. “Got one.”

  “Angelina,” Avner said.

  Angelina glanced at him and smiled. “Hi, Avner.”

  He planted a kiss right over the dimple biting her cheek. “Could you possibly forgive us if we steal a brief moment for business?”

  “Of course, we’ll go back up to the suite. You and Haithem can do your thing while Emma and I hang out.”

  The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. They walked inside.

  “Emma?” Avner said my name for the first time. My skin prickled. I’d never noticed the way those two syllables bounced off a breath so huskily. I’d never wanted to drop to my knees at the sound. I glanced at Angelina. Her face screwed up with a please so visible, it practically rang in my ears.

  I entered the elevator and stood beside Angelina, as far from he-who-just-ruined-my-night as possible. Haithem pressed the button for the top floor, then leaned toward Avner, speaking in Arabic. My mind flicked to when Avner spoke on the phone earlier.

  I should have guessed...

  “It’s the circle, isn’t it?” Angelina whispered.

  “What’s the circle?”

  “The thing you’re so annoyed about?”

  I let out a puff. The problem with the two of us—we knew way too much about each other. “I’m not so annoyed.”

  “You know Avner spends most of his time overseas, you could make an exception—”

  “I can’t.” I shut my eyes. No screwing inside the circle of friendship is the rule most risky to break. It’s what separated a good time from a complicated one. It was the rule keeping names from being shouted that I only appreciated being called in bed.

  A word sliced through the elevator so sharp, even whispered and foreign, we both froze. Avner and Haithem faced each other. Haithem’s jaw pulsed, but Avner’s lifted. Tension choked the air.

  “Never mind.” Angelina leaned against me. “I think Haithem just told Avner to stay away from you.”

  “He what?” My fingers bit into the palm of my hand. That was my call.

  Mine.

  “He can’t—”

  The doors shivered open.

  Haithem took Angelina gently by the elbow and they stepped out. My gaze fixed on Avner. He stared at me, his expression burning with the promise of everything I was about to miss out on. The doors pulsed. He slammed his palm over the opening.

  The doors shuddered back inside the cavity.

  My tongue darted over my lips. He looked at my mouth. Saliva flooded my glands. In a few days I’d never see him again. He wasn’t so much in the circle as straddling it.

  What’s that they say about rules anyway? I smiled, and my eyelids drooped a little. I took in the awesome length of him from the point of his chin, all the way to the shine of his shoes, then slinked past—let the entirety of my right side brush shamelessly against the front of him. “Thanks for holding the door, babe.”

  The apple on his throat vibrated as though he spoke. He let the doors go, then followed Angelina inside the suite.

  I graspe
d Haithem’s wrist before he could follow. “We’ll be a minute.”

  Angelina’s dimple twitched. “Sure.”

  Haithem sighed and shut the door, leaving us alone in the foyer. “Yes, Emma?”

  “Did you tell Avner to stay away from me?”

  “No.” His expression was so set and inflexible, I couldn’t fathom how Angelina did not sometimes smash his stubborn face. “I told him not to sleep with you.”

  “Oh, that’s fine then.” I reached for the door. “Like I said, sleep’s optional.” I pushed the door handle down, but nothing happened.

  Haithem held out a key pass. “I can’t let that happen.”

  I dropped the handle. “It’s really very sweet and brotherly that you think I have honor in need of defending and all that—” I grabbed the other side of the key pass “—but I’m mistress of my own vagina. Have been for a long time.”

  I tugged. His fingers didn’t flex, and the card didn’t budge even a fraction from his grip. “Angelina loves you, which means I do too. So I’ll look out for you whether you listen or not.”

  The disks in my spine clicked. The low tenor of his voice reminded me just how serious Haithem could be.

  “I just told you, I don’t need my honor—”

  He released the key pass. “It’s not your honor I’m looking out for...”

  My hand closed around the flat plastic card. Not my honor? A fist of hurt rose like a punch to my throat. “That’s low, Haithem.” The words burned, almost as much as the heat suffusing my cheeks. I shoved the key pass into his jacket pocket. “Just tell Angelina I went back to my room. Your buddy’s safe from me tonight.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” He took my shoulder, not allowing me to turn away, but the bite of his tone eased. “Avner has spent a lot of time alone, Emma. Alone, or in very different environments than ones you understand. He doesn’t play by the rules you’re used to.”

  I raised my gaze to his. It was impossible not to pay attention when Haithem spoke, and difficult, even for me, to not be compelled by what he said.

  “When he goes after something, he doesn’t give up until it’s completely and totally caught. Understand?” His brows pushed together, and I saw right there in that crease, he wasn’t kidding—he was looking out for me. Or at least thought he was.

  I rubbed the base of my throat. “If you’re warning me the man enjoys a chase, hard-to-get isn’t exactly my game.”

  He released my shoulder. “Maybe you’re not playing in the way you think, but you won’t be prepared for the game you do get. Tonight for the first time, I saw Avner look at a woman like she’s something he intends to catch.”

  I frowned, trying to decipher his nonsense. Haithem opened the door and held it for me. Avner stood across the room with Angelina. This time when he looked at me, I didn’t meet his gaze.

  Whatever Haithem meant, I considered myself warned.

  Avner

  Chanel-scented hell. That’s what this was. She shifted in closer, far too fucking close for a waltz. Close enough her breasts brushed my chest. Her heat washed against me, and like the seductive female smell of her, enticed me to throw her to the ground right there in front of the wedding guests.

  Was this wicked minx trying to kill me? Tension burned through me, a heavy ache that started in my chest and ended in my groin. I glanced down at her, my teeth clamped on edge. She met my gaze. Her lips spread, more to one side with her chin high. Her knowing smile—You want me.

  The smile she’d tormented me with these past three days.

  Her foot landed on mine, the point of her heel slamming my toes. “Whoops, sorry.”

  I hauled her close. Her hips met mine, and I held her right there, stopped among the other dancers celebrating Haithem and Angelina’s wedding.

  I’d offended her, it seemed.

  A smile itched through me. That’s what I’d done. Offended her pride and now she was out for blood.

  My blood.

  Any way she could get it. And she was almost tempting enough to willingly bleed for.

  I leaned to her ear, the perfect little shell exposed by the formal arrangement of her hair. Exposed like the stretch of her smooth white neck begging for the scrape of my teeth. “You could allow me to lead.”

  The night we met she returned to the suite with Haithem without offering me another look. Whatever my friend said to her was enough to quell what we’d started. And hadn’t I behaved? Hadn’t I done the same?

  I’d kept my eyes, my hands, my desire, my cock to myself.

  She’d lasted a day before her lusty little gaze sauntered back to me. One day without me reacting to cause her to prove what I wouldn’t show—yes, I wanted her.

  “I bet you like that, don’t you?” Her throaty feminine tone breezed right back into my own ear, dripping with honeyed seduction. Like she knew exactly what to say and how to say it to bring a man to his knees.

  No guile or coyness.

  Need blasted through me. My fingers tightened on her. Woman. So much woman, her confidence as alluring as it was compelling.

  Confidence that made me want to find out exactly what she was made of.

  “I do.” I released that confession, then stepped forward and moved her across the dance floor. Until now, I’d waited for her to allow me to lead—now I simply did. Directing both of our bodies as one, gliding us around the floor. Her muscles released and she gave in.

  I tipped her. Her back arched over my arm, chest out, head back. My vision blurred with the vision of having her arch like that in my bed.

  That’s exactly where I’d have her soon enough.

  I hauled her back up to me. “But you have no idea how much you’re going to enjoy it.”

  Her eyes flared. I spun us around.

  She held on to me, and laughed.

  Like the first time I’d heard the joyful sound, something buried deep and knotted inside me—memories of a good life—released.

  A hungry, aching lust burned through me.

  I wanted that joy, just a taste of it.

  My gaze traveled over the guests to the villa where Haithem and Angelina had already retired for their wedding night.

  Haithem ordered me not to have her. Perhaps he remembered the Avner from college. The one who’d had girls and toyed with them.

  The one for whom sex was sport.

  The song switched to something slower. I dragged her in, no longer waltzing, succumbing to the sway of a slow dance. I absorbed the last shudder of her laughter as it trailed off. Let it warm and thaw the bleak part of me that had forgotten what happiness felt like.

  That old Avner was gone. Perhaps Haithem knew that.

  Perhaps that’s what had him afraid.

  Because this Avner had not had a woman in years. This Avner had become obsessive. Locked in a lifestyle that stripped the world of warmth.

  Until now.

  She placed her hand on the back of my neck and drew me down. “Come to my room.”

  Need curled tight within me.

  She’s family, Haithem told me. Emma is off limits—not for sport.

  I drew back. Her cheeks flushed. She took a shaky breath, that magnificent confidence of hers seeming to quiver for a moment as she waited for an answer.

  So be it. The choice couldn’t be clearer.

  I had years of self-deprivation to make up for. When I took Emma it wouldn’t be for sport, we’d bask in this feeling.

  The way she looked at me right now, breathless in anticipation—she felt it too.

  There was one thing for it.

  I’d make her mine.

  Chapter Three

  Emma

  Avner followed me through the villa all the way to my room. Right behind me, his footsteps were a deeper,
heavier echo to my own. I hadn’t thought he’d give in so easily. He’d been better at being a good boy than I’d been at being a good girl.

  He’d heeded his friend’s warning. Whatever Haithem told him had Avner behaving nicely, speaking gently, all while touching that full lip of his when he’d look at me.

  Me though, I’d been busy taking off my panties, just in case.

  I reached the door to my suite and jammed the key into the slot. Something had changed the moment I whispered in his ear, because yes, he followed me right to my room, but now he stood quietly behind me, so still, as though he were not even breathing. Yet I sensed him at my back, the way a creature might who’s about to be poached.

  The door clicked open and I strode across the threshold.

  He followed, then the door shut with a whispering click.

  I flicked on a light and set the bouquet on a dresser, then pried the shoes off my screaming feet. His movements rustled behind me, the silken swish of fabric on fabric. Then he reached across me and laid his jacket on the dresser beside the bouquet.

  I stared at the draping fabric, and my insides trembled and shook. That statement alone was one of the boldest I’d ever seen. We didn’t step in here tearing off clothes, and he wasn’t getting busy stripping behind me the way I’d had dozens of men do before. But he’d taken off his jacket, and laid it by my things.

  Told me silently and without boasting that he was about to get to work on me.

  I turned around under his outstretched arm. The size of him seemed to swallow me whole. My heart went berserk in the base of my neck, thumping there like a living thing under my skin.

  He stared at me.

  I stared at that beautiful mouth of his, with lips I wanted to suck. Then met his gaze. My shuddering heart stilled.

  He looked at me, looked me right in my eyes, and for some fucked-up reason it made me believe for an instant that I’d never been seen once before in my life up until then.

  His face descended toward mine, and a crushing weight settled on my chest. I jerked my head back and my hands flew to his chest.

  He pulled back, his eyes squinting and crinkling as he took me in and sized me up. Then his hand moved to my neck, right to the wild beating in my throat.