The Truth About Us (The Truth Duet Book 2) Read online

  “This doesn’t mean anything,” Drew said, propping his shoulder against the doorjamb, but he was anything but relaxed. His gaze was fixed on his friend, a silent conversation happening between them.

  Catalina spun around. “Are you kidding me? In the wee hours of the morning, after my husband finds me for the first time in four years and fails to kill me, a judge signs off to have my father temporarily released from prison? Please tell me you are not stupid enough to think this is a coincidence.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Thomas put Manuel away. Why the hell would he let him out now?”

  “Shit, you are that stupid.” She slanted her head. “How have you made it this far without a brain?”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Good looks and big cock. You?”

  Penn and I watched their conversation like a tennis match. They’d known each other less than a day and it was already safe to say there was no love lost between the two of them.

  “Jesus Christ,” Penn muttered. “Would you two can it for a minute? Catalina, talk.”

  She flipped Drew off before turning to Penn. “Riddle me this. If my body was found fresh and floating in a river, who would the police assume killed me? The shattered district attorney with a golden reputation or my felon father who I testified against and has since killed a guard and escaped custody?” Panic settled in my stomach as she pointedly looked to each one of us. “Any guesses?”

  “He’s the fall guy,” I replied, taking my own weight again. “Holy shit. Not only did he just paint an even bigger target on your back, he somehow took the heat off his own.”

  “Bingo!” Catalina chirped, tapping the end of her nose.

  My heart picked up a marathon pace as all the pieces started snapping together. “Oh. My. God.” I leveled my panic on Catalina. “Do you think—”

  “Yep. Dear old daddy is sixty-five now, but even at sixty-one, he was in shitty health. Arthritis, too many years of drugs he passed on to Dante, too many extra pounds putting pressure on his knees. His mind is sharp, but physically, he’s ninety with one foot in the grave. No way he overpowered a guard and killed him alone.”

  The room went static.

  Penn stood taller.

  Drew shoved off the jamb.

  The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.

  And Catalina stared at me, waiting for me to come to the same conclusion she’d already concluded.

  “They’re working together again,” I breathed. “Thomas and Manuel. The staged escape and murder keep Thomas’s hands clean, but it gets a Guerrero back in play.” Not even Penn’s warmth could block out the chill in my veins. “Oh, God, he knows who you are.” I lurched away from him. “Oh, God, he knows who you both are. We gotta get out of here. We gotta leave—now.” I bolted toward the door, calling, “Get the girls ready!” I made it exactly two steps before a tattooed forearm around my hips yanked me back.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” he snarled.

  With frenzied hands, I pushed at his arm. “I have to get them out of here!” I looked at Catalina. “We need to go get the money out of the storage unit and run.”

  “Agreed,” she replied with a curt nod.

  It was followed by a boomed, “No fucking way!” Penn swung around in front of me. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Move,” I snapped, doing my best to sidestep him with no luck.

  “You’ve lost your goddamn mind if you think I’m going to stand here and watch you leave. I just fucking got you back.”

  Frustration overtook me. “And who said you got me back, Shane?”

  His face got hard as his whole body swelled with anger. “You did. The minute you fell asleep on my chest, your hand clinging to my shirt like you were afraid I was going to disappear, your body inching closer until you were on top of me, and breathing my name—and not fucking Shane, but my real name.”

  “It’s not your real name!”

  “It is because you called me that. I was no one before I walked into your apartment. You made me Penn. And because of that, I’m fucking yours. So don’t you dare tell me you didn’t come back to me. You can be as pissed as you want, as hurt as you want, as bitter as you want, but you felt it, Cora. The same way I did. The same fucking way we have always felt it.”

  He was right. I’d always felt it with him even before I had known what that it was. But feelings didn’t change our circumstances. The truth didn’t make the lies disappear. And as much as I would have given anything to believe otherwise, love didn’t always conquer all.

  “You have made every single decision for me for the last few months, and while some of those turned out great, others did not. I’m sick of letting everyone else dictate my life. Thomas is doing it. Manuel now too. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you join that cast.”

  “I’m not trying to run your life. I’m trying to keep you from running out of mine.” He raked a hand through the top of his hair. “We can figure this out. Manuel is not the be-all and end-all. There’s no need to run anywhere. Not when we’re together.”

  “Whether it’s now or later, it’s going to happen one way or another.”

  “No. It’s not. I won’t let it. I am sorry, okay? I’ve told you that in every way I know how, but let me try it again. I fucked up, Cora. I admit that. But I can’t let you leave now. And that’s not me trying to run your life or make decisions for you. That’s me trying to be your partner.”

  I’d thought about why I was mad at Penn a lot over the last day.

  First, it was because of all the lies. Because… well, duh. That was never cool.

  Then I thought it was because of more lies, specifically the ones where he wasn’t Penn but actually this rich, vigilante guy named Shane.

  But right then, the real reason my heart was broken into a million pieces flew from my lips with the velocity of a nuclear warhead. “Until you leave again!”

  His head jerked back. “What?”

  “Okayyyyy,” Drew drawled. “I think Cat and I are going to give you two some privacy.” He ushered her out, leaning back in to say, “Penn, man, think about the house in Florida.” He tapped the doorframe twice, shot me a wink, and then shut the door.

  Through it all, Penn never tore his irate gaze off me. “What do you mean until I leave again? I’m not going anywhere.”

  I let out a resigned sigh. “Come on. Let’s be real here. Once all of this is said and done, you’re not going to be here.”

  “Oh, really?” he asked. “And where the hell am I going to be?”

  I swung my arms out to my sides, slapping my hands against my thighs as they fell. “I don’t know. Skiing?”

  His eyebrows pinched together. “What is it with you and skiing?”

  “I don’t like skiing. That’s what it is.”

  “You ever been?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  “Because it’s expensive.”

  “So it’s a money thing?”

  “No, it’s a people thing!”

  He scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, okay, I have no idea what we’re talking about right now.”

  I groaned at his inability to follow the oh-so-obvious bouncing ball. “Have you ever seen Pretty Woman?”

  His eyebrows popped so high that they nearly hit his hairline. “Unless this is your way of telling me that you’ve been working the street with the girls over the last few months, that’s not helping clarify anything for me.”

  “I’m not like you, okay? We don’t have the same interests. We don’t even come from the same world. When this is all over, you’re going to realize how different we are.”

  I was on the verge of more tears.

  But Penn… Well, he smirked, dark and sexy. “Jesus, Cora. Now this I can handle.”

  “Oh, fantastic. Handle away.”

  He smiled. “Any chance you’ll come lie down with me so I can properly explain all the ways different can be good without you trying to put space between us li
ke a chastity belt?”

  Per my body: Yes. Absolutely yes.

  Per my mind and thus my mouth: “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  His eyes twinkled with mischief. Taking my hand, he took a few steps back, pulling me with him. “Okay, well, that’s definitely a difference that we have. Because I think it might be the best idea I’ve had in a while.”

  “No offense, Penn. But your last idea was faking your own death. I don’t think there’s a lot of competition in the great-ideas-you’ve-had-recently category.”

  His smirk grew into a smile, and he continued backing up. “So you admit it’s a great idea.”

  “Actually, I’m pretty sure I said the opposite of that.”

  My pulse quickened when his heels hit the mattress.

  His teasing gaze became heated, which sent a rush through my nervous system. God, I’d missed that feeling. It was like stepping out of the shade and into the sun. I’d thought I’d lost it when I lost him.

  But he wasn’t gone.

  He was standing right there in front of me.

  His hand went to the back of his shirt and then he was suddenly standing right in front of me shirtless. “I personally think we need to strip this differences business down to a very basic level.”

  Cora

  My breath caught in my throat when his callused hand went to the hem of my shirt.

  “You can tell me to stop, Cora. And you know I will. But I’m begging you not to.”

  He was so close that I was hopeless to prevent my body from responding. The hum hit me with a deafening force, tingling my skin as though the air between us had become electrified.

  I peered up into hooded, blue eyes. “I don’t think this is going to fix anything, Penn. We have too much stuff to worry about.”

  Okay, not totally true. Jumping him right then and there would have done wonders to fix the ache between my legs, but it wouldn’t have changed who we were.

  Or who we weren’t.

  “That’s because there’s nothing to fix. And stop worrying. I’m right here.” He slid my tank top up a few inches, revealing my stomach. “So I’m going to repeat: You can tell me to stop, Cora. And you know I will. But I’m begging you not to.”

  “I don’t want you to stop, Penn. I’ve never wanted you to stop. Even when you did.”

  His eyes got soft.

  And then I lost sight of them altogether.

  His lips came down, sealing over mine, crumbling the resistance I’d never had.

  He kissed me breathless, even more so than the first time I’d tasted him. His mouth opened, our tongues gliding together, stealing my thoughts—and fears.

  Pressing up onto my toes, I circled my arms around his neck, deepening the kiss until I decided I couldn’t get close enough and started climbing up his body.

  He palmed my ass, lifting me off my feet. My legs curled around his hips, a moan escaping as I found glorious friction against his stomach.

  I waited for him to fall back, take me to our mattress on the floor, and erase the last few weeks of blistering pain with nothing but his body.

  Instead, he murmured a curse and started walking with me held tight in his arms.

  “Where are you going?” I murmured, moving my affections to his neck.

  “I heard Drew snoring through that door last night. I’m not going to be quiet, Cora. And I sure as fuck don’t want you to be, either.”

  I smiled when I realized we were in the bathroom. He kicked the door shut and set me onto my feet. He went straight to the giant jetted tub and flipped the faucet on. My stomach dipped at the idea of riding him with the water sloshing waves around us. However, like a tornado, he spun around the room, hitting the shower—both heads—and the sinks on the double vanity until I wasn’t certain if we were going to have sex or flood the building.

  “What are you doing?” I laughed.

  He put his hand to his ear and then tossed me a wink. “That should be good enough.” Curling a finger at me, he said, “Come here, baby. I want to show you something.”

  My cheeks heated as I sauntered toward him.

  He pecked me on the lips and once again caught the hem of my shirt. “May I?”

  I lifted my arms above my head. “Such a gentleman.”

  “For now.” He smiled, tugging the fabric over my head and tossing it absently across the room. Raking his teeth over his bottom lip, he stared down at his finger as he traced the swells of my breasts.

  Goose bumps pebbled my skin as a chill ricocheted through me. I hissed, my lids fluttering shut, when his callused finger dipped inside the cup of my bra and brushed against my hard nipple, sending sparks straight to my clit.

  “Oh, God,” I breathed.

  He moved to my other breast, repeating the mind-numbing process as he proved he was a multitasker by unhooking my bra at the same time.

  “Show-off,” I murmured, allowing it to fall down my arms to the floor.

  I felt his smirk as he trailed kisses up my neck to my ear, where he rasped, “Give me your hand.” I offered it palm out, and he placed it on his chest before ordering, “Now, give me your other hand.”

  I followed his direction and this one landed on my naked breast.

  He covered my hands with his own, using our connection to kneed and rub. “How does that feel, baby?”

  I arched my back and tried to slide out from under his grip. “Better when you do it.”

  “No. How does it feel? Two chests, but they’re different, right?”

  My eyes popped open and I swallowed hard. “Penn…I—”

  “Shhhh.” He lifted the hands we’d had over his heart to his mouth and kissed each of my fingertips, rubbing the last back and forth over his bottom lip. “What’s this, baby?”

  “Your mouth.”

  He smiled, moved my hand off my breast, and plucked my nipple—rough and intoxicating. “And this?”

  “My nipple,” I replied breathlessly.

  “So we have my mouth and your nipple. Two very different things. Let’s see how this works out between the two of them.”

  My lungs burned with anticipation as he slowly sank down, his blue eyes aimed up at me, and sucked my nipple between his lips.

  “Oh, God.” I used his shoulders for balance as I swayed on boneless legs.

  Lost in sensation, I closed my eyes, but he pulled his attention away all too quickly.

  “No, Cora. I want you to look at me. I want you to see exactly how beautiful different can be.”

  I cried out in the most incredible mixture of pain and pleasure as his teeth raked across my sensitive flesh, which he followed with bold caresses of his tongue swirling and soothing.

  His eyes were locked on mine, beautiful, hypnotic, and powerful, and he greedily switched his focus to my other breast. That first nip ignited a fever across my skin, heating me from head to toe.

  Nipples to clit.

  “Penn,” I begged, his intentions being clear when he thankfully started on the button of my jeans. I worked with him, shimmying them down my thighs as best I could without breaking the connection of his mouth at my breast.

  I’d just stepped out of cumbersome denim when he swept my panties aside and trailed his agile finger over my slit, dipping into the wet without pressing inside.

  “Yes,” I hissed, spreading my legs, silently asking for more.

  It was an offer he accepted with enthusiasm, slipping two fingers inside me.

  “Oh, God, baby, yeah, please, yes,” tumbled from my lips in a string of incoherent ramblings.

  “My fingers and your heat, Cora,” he murmured against my breast. “You feel that?”

  “Yes.”

  He curled his fingers, stroking and coaxing my release to the surface. “Does different feel good, baby?”

  “Yes,” I replied wantonly, only capable of single syllables.

  “Different feels good, huh?”

  I moved my hand to the back of his head, urging him to take more of my breast. His
mouth opened wider, and he sucked me deep. His approving groan vibrated my nipple, sending a sinful charge roaring through my already blazing body.

  “Very,” I answered.

  I silently lamented answering him when he suddenly rose to his feet and stepped away.

  His smoldering gaze raked over me, an arrogant smirk pulling at his lips. “She fucking looks like this and is freaking out like I’m the prize.”

  My cheeks heated under his praise.

  “And she’s cute.” He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts and shoved them down, his long and thick erection popping free. “Mmmm,” he hummed, drawing my attention back to his smiling face. “And she looks at me like that. Jesus, woman. You’re going to kill me.”

  “Well, technically—”

  “You make any kind of joke right now about me already being dead and I’m putting my shorts back on.”

  I flashed him my own arrogant smirk and shrugged. “Well, Penn is already dead, sooo…”

  He shook his head and mumbled, “And she calls my bluff.”

  I laughed as, all at once, he scooped me off my feet and carried me into the shower. It was so big that there wasn’t a door or a curtain. There was a head on each end, raining water down from the ceiling. But I was eyeballing the long bench that ran the length of the wall.

  He set me onto my feet under the spray and grabbed a bottle of body wash off the stone shelf in the corner. “I need a shower. And to fuck you something fierce, but first, we need to finish out the discussion about us being different.”

  My stomach dipped, and my nipples peaked. “I think I like your differences game more than Truth or Lie.”

  “Me fucking too,” he replied, doing a quick scrub-a-dub-dub routine before turning his soapy hands on me.

  I smiled, giving him my back, but his hands went right back to my breasts.

  “I’ve missed showering with you. I’m always so much cleaner when you do it,” I said.

  His chest hit my back and the whiskers on his chin tickled as he peppered kisses up my neck. “I don’t know about how clean I’ll get the rest of you, but these”—he rolled my nipple between his thumb and his forefinger—“will be spotless.”