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

  “Mmm,” I moaned, leaning my head back and closing my eyes. The water poured down over us, rinsing the soap away as the pressure between my thighs swelled like a wave ready to crash.

  “Give me your hand, Cor.”

  I obeyed immediately, eager for where this one was going to land. He shifted to my opposite side and guided my fingers between my legs. The air tore from my lungs as I found my clit, the gripping sensation building in my stomach.

  “What do you feel?” he whispered, nipping at my ear.

  “Me,” I replied, lulling my head to the side to rest on his shoulder.

  His fingers joined mine, teasing and playing before entering me slowly, stretching with deliberate intent.

  My hand stilled as I folded forward, gasping for air—and release.

  “Don’t stop,” he demanded.

  I was panting, close but so far away from any kind of release, when he guided my free hand to his length, wrapping my palm around his shaft and folding his on top.

  The sexiest hiss sailed from his lips as I slid him through my fist. The muscles in his chest strained against my arm as we worked his length together.

  “What do you feel?” he asked in a husky voice.

  “You,” I replied, tilting my head back, asking for a kiss.

  His lips came to mine, but not for a kiss. He thrust his finger deep inside me, inciting an explosion of pleasure that shook the Earth. Releasing his length, he snaked his arm around me to keep me on my feet and whispered into my open mouth, “Different can be beautiful. We came from different worlds—I will give you that. But I lived in yours, and now, you’re going to live in mine. Because we belong together.”

  “Penn!” I cried, my orgasm rearing up.

  His finger pumped inside me, twisting and turning as he drove me to the edge. He nipped at my bottom lip. “We earned this. You and me. We earned this feeling, right here, right now. And we earned it in the hardest fucking way possible. It wasn’t easy and I don’t suspect it ever will be, but dammit, we’re gonna be together.”

  I swallowed every one of his words.

  They tasted like hope—my greatest enemy of all.

  “Please, Penn,” I begged, the curling ache of need pulsing to the point of insanity. I needed him. I needed him in so many ways. The void only he could fill within me wasn’t just sexual.

  It was in my heart.

  It was in my soul.

  It was in my being as a whole.

  It was just him.

  That’s all it had ever been since the day we’d met.

  Shane. Penn. I didn’t care. It was just him.

  He continued, emotion overtaking him, filling not only his words but his movements with a desperate urgency. “We were the only truth that mattered in any of this. We earned this. I won’t lose that. I won’t lose you.”

  “No!” I cried when he suddenly withdrew his fingers as I was teetering on the edge of orgasm. But I had no time to complain because, in one fluid movement, he spun, sank onto the bench, pulled me down into his lap, his front to my back, and impaled me in the most erotic experience of my life.

  “Penn,” I choked out as the orgasm tore from my body like it had been ripped from my soul.

  He roughly closed my legs, holding them shut with his thighs. Then, circling his arms around my waist, he used his upper-body strength to fuck me from the bottom with the hard and fast rhythm of determination. My clit rolled between my clenched thighs, sending me higher and higher through the volatile peaks and valleys of ecstasy.

  “I love you,” he growled, his fingertips biting into my hips as he drove into me. “I love you so goddamn much. I will not give up on us again. Promise me you won’t, either. Promise me, Cora.”

  I was coming down from one orgasm and could feel him swelling impossibly harder as he started his own climb to the top. The last thing I wanted was for his desperation to linger when he got there.

  I felt beautiful with him.

  I felt safe with him.

  I felt loved with him.

  I always had.

  And the blood hummed in my veins in a way that I knew it would never disappear.

  Not with him.

  “Stop,” I breathed and it was like I’d flipped a switch.

  His legs opened, his arms fell away, and he leaned back so not even his chest was touching me.

  God. This man.

  This sweet, sweet broken and beautiful man.

  The one who loved me and had only been trying to take care of me—albeit a little misguided sometimes. And yeah, so what—he was loaded and liked skiing. I liked money, and while I’d probably break my face on a slope, I’d be more than happy to drink hot chocolate and watch him.

  There was no denying that we came from different worlds. But he’d never judged me or made me feel bad or dirty about where I’d come from. And I had a sneaking suspicion that it didn’t matter whose world we settled in as long as we were together.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as I climbed out of his lap, the steam from the shower causing my skin to pebble.

  I turned around, finding his strong and handsome face filled with apology.

  “Are you—”

  “I’m fine.” I smiled, putting a knee on either side of him and then climbing back into his lap.

  He brushed my wet hair off my neck and then traced it up to cup my cheek. “Jesus Christ, you scared me.”

  I leaned down to peck his lips, where I murmured, “Come back inside me, baby. I just wanted to have this conversation face-to-face.”

  His eyes darkened, and he didn’t delay in guiding his length into my opening. Holding his gaze, I sank down, slow and steady.

  He bit out a curse as I took him completely—base to tip.

  “Fuck, Cor,” he murmured, leaning forward for a kiss I denied him.

  “Promise you’ll never lie to me again.”

  He stared back at me, hope filling his eyes. “I swear.”

  That one was easy. I feared that the next one might be where we ran into issues. “And promise me you won’t kill Thomas.”

  His whole body jerked. “Cora, I—”

  “I can’t chance losing you again. I just can’t.” Tears welled in my eyes. “You promised you wouldn’t lie to me. So if this is what you’re planning—”

  “Hey, hey, hey. Shhh… Relax. I’m not going after Thomas again. It’s not worth it. He’s not worth it. But we are, okay? We’ll figure it out. As long as he can’t touch you, I’ll learn to accept whatever happens to him.”

  It was my turn to jerk. “That easy?”

  He scoffed. “No. There was nothing easy about this decision. But living without you for the last few weeks, then getting you back… Well, it’s put some serious shit in perspective for me.”

  “Was I the serious shit or the perspective?”

  His lips twitched. “Both, smartass.”

  I smiled and it forced a tear from each of my eyes.

  He groaned and brought his hand up to clear my face. “Any chance you can stop crying and talking about Thomas while my cock is inside you? There is a solid chance I’m about to go limp.”

  Laughing, I leaned forward and kissed him, deep and reverent.

  “And one more thing,” I murmured.

  He rolled his hips, proving that there was nothing limp about him. “Make it fast, baby.”

  “When this is all over and you buy us a completely ostentatious house, I want a shower like this one. And—okay, so two more things—you have to promise that River can paint stars on the ceiling in her room.”

  Penn was rugged and handsome—the picture of pure masculinity. But, right then, a huge boyish grin lit his face. “You moving in with me?”

  I shrugged. “You kinda burned my apartment down.”

  “I did,” he said proudly. “I so fucking did.”

  I lost his length as he stood up, but I gained so much more as Shane Pennington—my Penn—laid me down on the tile floor of his shower, the warm water flowing over us
and washing the lies down the drain, and made love to me for the very first time.

  Penn

  “Relax. I’m not driving you off a cliff. I’m not sure if anyone’s told you this, but there is humankind outside of Chicago,” I told Cora as we pulled out of the parking garage.

  Unconvinced, she nodded, anchored her hand to my thigh, and went to work worrying her necklace like she had a vendetta against it.

  Twenty hours later, while the gate slid open, revealing the tall, three-story house I’d shared with Lisa, she was offering me reassurance.

  “Relax. I’m right here.”

  We left Chicago the very same day as the news broke about Manuel.

  He was still on the loose. But, regardless of how small the world felt sometimes, it was actually a very large place. So, rather than sitting around and waiting for Thomas to make his move, we’d decided to take the girls and get the hell out of Dodge. If Thomas wanted to find us, he would. Same with Manuel. But I sure as hell was going to make him bring it to my turf—a state where he had little to no connections.

  Nothing like thirteen hundred miles to level the playing field.

  Going down to Florida had actually been Drew’s idea. Initially, I’d balked at the thought of going back there. I wasn’t real eager to bring Cora to the house I’d shared with Lisa. But it was big enough for all of us, furnished, and far enough away to give us time to figure out our next move.

  He hadn’t said it yet, but I knew Drew well enough to see that he had no intention of staying in Florida. While Cora and the promise of a future together had rearranged my personal priorities, Drew still had his heart set on vengeance. I had not a single doubt that, one day, we were all going to wake up to find him gone. This meant, if I was going to try to talk him out of going after Thomas alone, I had to act fast.

  We weren’t sure what to do with Catalina’s information yet. If Manuel was out there, gathering the troops, our taking Thomas down in the eyes of the law was only going to put a bigger spotlight on Catalina. The media would have had a field day with that story.

  Our best bet was to lie low for a few days, maybe a week, and see if the cops could do their damn jobs for once. If we could get Manuel out of the picture again, I was willing to do whatever I had to—including knocking his ass out—to keep Drew from going after Thomas before Catalina had the shot.

  Drew wasn’t my brother according to DNA, but he was my family all the same. I couldn’t stand the idea of losing him. That was part of the reason why all those years ago, when we’d first decided to find Lisa’s murderer, I’d declared that I was the man who was going to kill him.

  Yes, I absolutely, with my whole heart, wanted that asshole dead.

  But I didn’t want Drew going down for it.

  I shot Cora an appreciative smile, lifted our joined hands to my lips, and kissed her knuckle.

  She was actually there.

  A few days earlier, having her at my side again was more than I’d ever hoped for.

  Though I’d never once considered bringing her to this house. Much less bringing all of them.

  “Holy crap,” River breathed from the back seat.

  Which was followed by Savannah saying, “Daddy, I’m going to need a bathing suit. Stat.”

  Isabel giggled, but much like during the entire trip down, she didn’t say anything. The kid was quiet. Eerily so. But then again, when you had to compete for oxygen with the likes of River and Savannah, it was a wonder she could find the air to giggle.

  Drew suddenly appeared at my window, making the universal roll-down-your-window cranking motion. He and Catalina had followed us down in my Audi. I’d assumed only one of them would make it through the trip alive, but I caught sight of Catalina folding out too.

  “What?” I snapped when I got the window down.

  “We gonna camp out here or are you planning to actually drive inside?”

  I glanced back at the house. I hadn’t been there in years. The day I’d left, I’d sworn I’d never return. There were too many ghosts.

  Lisa and I had been married for a few years when we’d renovated that house. We’d bought it as a foreclosure when the market tanked and then gutted it. We’d customized every inch of those six thousand square feet, from windows to walls, including a massive home theater over the garage. There was no way for me to walk back through those doors without seeing Lisa everywhere.

  But, thanks to Cora, that part was manageable. After so many years of not even being able to utter her name, I’d smiled more than once when Cora had told a story about her old friend Lexy.

  The ghosts waiting for me inside those four walls were the memories of me on my knees in our bedroom, watching her take her final breath on the screen of my phone. I remembered those twenty-nine minutes all too clearly. Lisa hadn’t been in that house when she died. But I had. And I hated it because it was all I could think about after I’d lost her.

  Those memories had ruined any happiness I’d felt in that house. Like how she’d decorate the whole damn thing, top to bottom, every nook and cranny, at Christmas each year. Or how, at Easter, she would force me to stay up with her all night long, stuffing a million plastic eggs with candy to hide up and down the beach for the tourists and locals alike.

  No, those weren’t the memories that had hit my stomach the minute that house had come into view.

  Blood.

  Carpet.

  Screaming.

  I hadn’t been able to sell it though. It was all that was left of her.

  But I also couldn’t live there. I had caretakers who made sure it stayed clean and repairs got done on time. I’d called and given them a heads-up that we were coming into town. I think they were just as shocked by that phone call as I was.

  But there I was. Cora at my side. My heart was in my throat as I sat in the driveway, unable to drive through the gate.

  I looked at Drew. “Honestly, I’m not sure yet.”

  “Okay, well, you mind if we go inside? Cat needs to use the bathroom. I’ve been listening to her complain about it for the last hour.”

  “Oh, me too!” Savannah said, tapping on my seat. “Let me out.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Cora said, climbing out to open the back door. “All of you, go with Drew. Penn and I will be up in a few.”

  “Can we go down to the beach?” River asked excitedly.

  None of them had ever seen the ocean. It was the only part about that trip I wasn’t dreading. I got damn near giddy each time I thought about Cora’s face when I took her out to the water. The girls’ too.

  “Wait on me for that,” I answered. “There’s a pool out back that you can hit up while you wait.” I reached back and caught Savannah’s arm before she had the chance to slide out. “Wear shorts and a tank top until we get you a bathing suit—none of that panty-and-bra shit.”

  She grinned, her green eyes sparkling with trouble. “Make it two bathing suits and you got a deal.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “One bathing suit of my choosing. No panty and bra shit. And twenty-four hours with no television.”

  Her mouth fell open. “That’s not a better deal!”

  “Then maybe you should stop trying to make deals with me and do what I say.”

  “Penn, a bathing suit of your choosing is going to be a bathrobe.”

  “Right? Just imagine how fly you’ll look on the beach this summer.”

  She curled her lip. “Did you say fly? Nobody says fly anymore.”

  My mouth twitched as I suppressed an unlikely smile. I loved that kid. She was a pain in my ass every minute of every day. If she wasn’t arguing with me or pushing my buttons, she wasn’t living at all. But she was a good kid. With a good heart, and I was going to make damn sure she had a good future.

  “They will when they see you in your bathrobe.”

  “Cora,” she whined, begging for backup.

  “Okay, okay, you two. Simmer down,” Cora said, wading in. “I’ll take you bathing suit shopping.”


  “Who says you’re not going to be wearing a bathrobe too?” I asked her, my chest filling with warmth.

  I loved that crazy woman too. On the drive down, we’d played a seven-hour-long game of Truth or Lie. Which for us was really a game of Truth. We swapped stories, strategically trying to stay away from the heavy stuff.

  When Cora had eventually fallen asleep, River took over for her mom.

  Before we’d left, Cora had made the tough decision for us to tell River about Lisa being Lexy. I’d have given anything to spare that little girl from more pain. But since we were heading to the beach house, where pictures of her were still hanging on the walls, there was no way to hide it. River had taken the news in stride, putting on a brave face and saying that she understood.

  But the minute we were semi alone in that truck while everyone else slept, she laid into me with an interrogation. It was obvious she’d cared about Lisa more than I’d realized because most of her questions were disguised statements blaming me for what had happened to her. But there was no amount of blame in the world River could pin on me that I hadn’t already taken on myself.

  So I told her, “River, what you have to understand is I didn’t let Lisa do anything. I was her husband. It wasn’t up to me to decide how she lived her life. The only thing that role guaranteed me was the chance to live mine at her side. She knew exactly how I felt about her doing that kind of investigative work. And guess what? She did it anyway because that was important to her. You walk into a marriage thinking you can change the other person, I can promise you the only thing that is going to change is your divorce record. She was who she was. There are a lot of things that I beat myself up for on a daily basis. But how I let her chase her dreams is not one of them. That was never up to me.”

  She got quiet for a while after that, until she softly asked, “Are you going to let Cora chase her dreams too?”

  I glanced at Cora while she was peacefully snoozing with her head propped against the door and replied, “No. Your mom has done enough chasing to last a lifetime. From here on out, whatever she dreams about, I’m gonna figure out a way to give it to her.”

  “My dad gave her the stars,” River replied.