Dirty Little Lies (Dirty Little #2)
Read Dirty Little Lies (Dirty Little #2) Online
Authors: Cassie Cross
Currently available titles by Cassie Cross:
Stand alone titles:
Series:
The Billionaire’s Desire:
The Billionaire’s Desire: The Complete Series
The Billionaire’s Desire: The Billionaire’s Christmas (A Companion Novella)
Dirty Little Series:
Dirty Little Lies
Quickies:
Quickies Series Volume One: Three Billionaire Romances
Dirty Little Lies
Text copyright © 2015 Cassie Cross
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, weather electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Cassie Cross.
Dirty Little Lies
By Cassie Cross
* * *
This book is part of
Dirty Little Series
. Reading
Dirty Little Secrets
prior to reading this book is recommended, but not required. It’ll definitely help you understand the relationships better.
I hope you enjoy
Dirty Little Lies
!
-Cassie
Ben Williams is the mistake I will always regret, but will never stop making.
He and I have a long and storied history. We were the kind of tumultuous romance that makes for one hell of a cautionary tale. Together, we had a cyclical thing, and the cycle always begins something like this:
When I’m emotionally vulnerable, Ben shows up looking like sex on a stick, acting like I always hoped that he would. Caring, like he actually gives a shit about what’s going on in my life. Loving, like he wants the two of us to be happy this time around.
I’m at a low point right now, so of course he knocks on my door out of the blue. This is the way things work between us. Or, it’s the way things
worked
between us. I haven’t seen Ben in nearly five years.
When I see him standing on the front porch of my brownstone, the surprise is overtaken by a quick wave of familiar desire. He’s dressed casually, like he came over here on a whim. Low-slung jeans, a dark shirt, his hair tousled and messy, like he’s been running his fingers through it all day. God, he looks good, and that is absolutely terrible news for me and my willpower.
Ever since Ben and I met, I’ve been attracted to him on a
cellular
level. I’m fine as long as we’re apart, but the second we’re in the same vicinity, every fiber of my being is drawn to him. Even now—even though we haven’t spoken since I broke up with him for the last, devastating time—I feel the pull.
It’s that pull that makes me open the door, even though I know I shouldn’t.
I can’t resist him. I’ve tried - it’s impossible.
“Marisa,” he breathes on an inhale, looking at me like he’s surprised I’m standing right in front of him. Like I might not be real, like maybe he dreamed me up. “How are you?” His blue eyes are dark, and he speaks so softly, like he’s worried he’s going to scare me away. I haven’t been a part of a gentle, kind conversation in a long time. It’s that gentleness in his voice that makes me want to cry, and I’ve done such a good job of avoiding that lately. I’m certainly not going to allow myself to do it around him.
I’ve managed to keep it together for the most part since my family fell apart in the most scandalous, public way possible. We’re tabloid fodder; papers with our names and faces on them are everywhere. The destruction and downfall of the Blake dynasty is impossible to miss in this city. Some people are delighting in it, and I don’t blame them.
Turns out that my mother and father—the illustrious Gloria and James—aren’t the people that my sister and I thought they were. They’re exactly who the Feds thought they were, though, given the incredibly damning case they’ve built up against Mom and Dad, details of which are all over the evening news these days.
That’s why Ben is here, I’m sure of it. This is what he does: he shows up when I’m feeling low, and somehow manages to leave me feeling even lower. Still, he’s one of a very few friends—past or present—who has contacted me since this scandal broke, so I’m reluctant to send him away.
Plus, that whole can’t-resist-him thing is still in play here.
So, Ben wants to know how I’m doing? “Not well,” I tell him.
He holds out a bottle of my favorite wine and says, “I was going to wait until the Murphy benefit to talk to you, but I read something this morning that made me think that I shouldn’t wait.”
I let out a short little sigh of relief, glad that he decided not to rehash whatever terrible thing he read about my family this morning that made him think that he needed to check in on me. The very last thing I want to hear about tonight is my parents. At this point, I feel like I could do without hearing about them ever again.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Ben asks.
I shake my head. I don’t want to talk about it, especially not with him. Besides, talking? That’s not what Ben and I do. We fuck, and then I try to turn that into some kind of a relationship. I give it my all, but he inevitably cheats on me, and breaks my heart. Then he begs me for forgiveness, and asks for another chance. Like a fool, I always give him one.
Always
gave
him one.
I’ve learned my lesson, and now I’m smart enough to know that I can only rely on Ben for mind-blowing orgasms. He’s amazing in bed. Out of it? Not so much. Whenever I expect or hope for anything more from him, I get my heart broken, and I can’t handle any more heartbreak right now. His body was the only thing that he ever freely gave to me, and sex with him had been almost…
transcendent
. Ben always used sex to make me feel better, so there’s no doubt in my mind that’s what he’s here for tonight. There’s no use in trying for anything more when that only ever ends badly for me.
So, I decide to take the few hours of bliss that Ben is offering to me, and leave it at that.
I invite him inside, push myself up onto my tiptoes, and kiss him.
We melt into each other, like always. Like it’s been hours since we were together like this, not years.
Ben lets me get lost in the warmth of his body against mine, his lips on my lips, and his tongue, wet and warm in my mouth. He trails messy kisses along the column of my neck as he tears off my blouse. He cups my breasts, pinching my nipples the way that I like, the way only he can do it.
He drops to his knees and rucks up my skirt, bunching the fabric between his fingers. He presses short, sweet kisses along the inside of my thighs, then he slides my panties to the side and puts his tongue right where I want it. He licks and sucks and touches me, like making me come with his mouth is his life’s ambition. I twist my fingers in his hair as I writhe with pleasure, his name falling from my lips.
With my hands curled around Ben’s collar, I pull him up, kissing myself off of him. I take off his shirt first, then his pants. I already know all the places I need to touch, to kiss, to lick to get him going, so my hands and mouth explore every inch of him, until he’s begging me for more.
I guide Ben to my bedroom and we tumble onto the bed, naked and wanting, as I climb on top of his body. With my knees planted on either side of his hips, I sink down onto him. For the first time in weeks, it feels like I can actually breathe again.
Ben fucks me like there aren’t five years and countless breakups between us, and for a few hours, he makes me forget that my world is falling apart.
After, he lies naked atop my rumpled Egyptian cotton sheets, tenderly pushing a strand of hair behind my ear. He looks happy, like everything is as it should be. Like he knows he’s opened a door with me, and he’s ready to step back inside.
Years ago, I would let him in. I would be so desperate for him that I’d overlook the cheating, and the carelessness, and I would fool myself into believing that it would be different this time. That I could love him enough to make him different, that there was something about me that would make him want to change, that he’d love me enough to actually do it.
I could cry for the naive, hopeful, lovesick idiot that I used to be with him. This? Tonight? It was just sex. That’s all I ever was to Ben, and that’s all he is to me tonight.
“I’ve missed you,” he tells me.
I can’t say it back, so I press my lips together to keep myself from doing something completely stupid. I could tell him that I’ve missed this—the intimacy that we shared, the physicality between us—but I don’t. I could tell him that I’m glad he stopped by, but then he would think that was an invitation for him to do it again. I can’t let myself travel back down that road, so the less I see of him, the better off I’ll be. In fact, the best thing he could do for me right now is to walk out my front door and never come back.
Somehow, I know that won’t happen, though. He’ll come back, and I’ll deal with that when it happens.
“Do you want me to stay?” he asks.
It would be tempting to let myself spend the night in his arms, to fall asleep wrapped in the warmth of his embrace, especially since I’ve been feeling so lonely these past few weeks. Instead, I tell him a half lie, half truth.
“No. I don’t.”
“Are you sure?”
God, he’s so beautiful up close like this. I had forgotten how beautiful Ben is. I had
made
myself forget it.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
He sighs, and hesitates, but he doesn’t argue with me like he would have years ago. He just slides out of my bed, giving me one last moment to appreciate his gorgeous ass before he pulls his pants back on. Once he’s dressed, he walks over to my side of the bed, leans over and gives me a kiss.
In the end, he leaves just like he always does.
With us, nothing ever changes.
“Miss Blake! Miss Blake!”
A sea of reporters is lying in wait for me outside of my lawyer’s office. They’re swarming around the door to the building, holding up microphones and tape recorders, shoving cameras in my face.
I’ve been preparing myself for this all morning, ever since I looked out the window during a break in our meeting, and saw them all gathering outside. Till now, apart from the few reporters who have managed to find me at home, or on my walk to and from the coffee shop in the morning, I’ve managed to avoid this.
The questions, the hounding.
Before we stepped out of the elevator, my lawyer, Nancy, took my hands in hers. She asked me if I was ready for this. I told her I was, but it was a lie. I was nowhere near ready for this.
The flashes are blinding, even in the broad daylight, and the sheer number of people calling my name makes it difficult not to try to look everywhere at once. I’m sure I look like a deer caught in headlights in the pictures they’re snapping. Thousands of them, if the never-ending shutter clicks are any indication.