Lie to Me

  "Mum, Dad!" Kent shouts as we let ourselves into the house.

  "Everyone's out back!" Brooke shouts from the kitchen.

  "Hi," I say to her as we head into the room.

  "Savannah, hey." Brooke gives me a hug. "What are you drinking? I've made mojitos."

  "Sounds perfect to me."

  "Oh, hi, Brooke," Kent says sarcastically, dumping Heidi's presents on the table.

  Brooke rolls her eyes. "Hi, Kent."

  He heads out the back, running his hand over my butt as he goes past. I bite my lip. Every touch from him ignites my nerve endings.

  Why did I hate him at first again? I can't imagine it now. I mean, I know he was a dick, but that seems like a different person.

  "How are things?" Brooke asks, bringing me back. She pours me a glass of mojito from a massive jug.

  "Thanks. Things are good. How's the wedding planning?"

  "I swear, I'm never doing it again."

  "That's the plan, right?"

  She looks up. "Well, yeah. But you know what I mean. Whenever you get married, elope. It'll be much less stressful."

  "Is there anything you need help with? Not sure how good I'd be at anything wedding-y, but I can try."

  "Sure, I need a table plan sorted."

  "Why don't you just let people sit wherever?"

  She scrunches her nose. "Like a school canteen?"

  I shrug, not knowing if that's the right thing to do or not. "Er, I don't know. Be easier for you though."

  She frowns, weighing up the stigma I didn't know existed of having no plan with the irritation of having to do one. Surely, people are able to sit themselves down without being told where.

  "Clearly, I'm no help," I say, taking a sip of my drink.

  "No, you've given me something to consider. I'll see what Freddy thinks."

  "Will he care?"

  She laughs. "No, probably not, but I need him to tell me no plan is fine."

  "That's cute."

  "He helps me to stop second-guessing myself. It's stupid."

  "It's not stupid." I needed to hear Kent say he wanted me because, if I'd let actions do the talking, I would have worried that he hadn't said anything, so he would have walked away.

  There's a certain amount of reassurance we all need at times.

  She smiles. "Thanks. Don't tell Heidi about this conversation. She's all about the strong, independent woman."

  "Wanting Freddy's opinion or reassurance doesn't make you weak, Brooke."

  "You know that, and I know that, but ..."

  Dipping my head, I reply, "Right. Well, my lips are sealed."

  I take my phone out of my bag and check my messages while Kent is out of the way. There's one from Simon.

  Simon: Let me know when you're free. We need to talk.

  That'll be never.

  Deleting his text, I chuck my phone back in the bag and smile at Brooke. "Shall we join everyone else?"

  "Let's do it," she replies, raising her glass and clinking it against mine. "Has my idiot brother been behaving?"

  I blink at her question, my mind switching into overdrive. Does she know something? I can't see how she would know. We've been together for a couple of hours, and Kent hasn't been on his phone since. If she can sense it, she's a witch.

  "He's been behaving," I confirm.

  So not true. He behaved very badly in the shower.

  I can't keep the grin from my lips.

  18

  Kent

  When Savannah walks outside with Brooke a few minutes after me, I can't take my eyes off her. She's carrying the cocktail Brooke made in her hand, and she's laughing at whatever my sister just said.

  The way Brooke smirks over at me has my interest. She's probably ripping me. I never used to care what anyone said about me, whether it was joking or not, but I don't want my sister putting Savannah off. I'm sure she'll realise she can do a fuckload better soon enough anyway.

  No, shut up. She won't. We're perfect together.

  I'm going to try my damn hardest not to screw this up, but I'm not confident. All I know is that I really like her, and I'm not going to give up without a fight.

  I don't have the energy to focus on what they're saying and think of some witty retort because my mind is still very much back at her place. Particularly her bathroom. Watching water cascade down her body while I was on my knees was incredible. I can still picture her fingers, white-tipped and practically digging into tiles. It must have hurt her fractured arm, but she was too lost to feel pain.

  "Savannah," Mum says, getting up from the chair beside me where she was just talking to me.

  I guess we're done now that Savannah is here. Mum fucking loves her, and hopefully now, I'll be able to keep her around permanently. She fits right in with my family.

  "Hi, Judy." Savannah puts her drink down on the table and returns the hug Mum is going for. When she lets go, Heidi is right there. Savannah wraps her arms around my sister. "Happy birthday, Heidi!"

  "Thank you. Those are to die for. I'm already on my third," she says to Savannah, pointing to the cocktail.

  "I have some catching up to do."

  She'd better not get drunk. We can't do anything if she's drunk, and I really want my blow job on the drive home.

  I can still feel her soft and wet skin under my hands.

  "Absolutely, girl. Today, we're getting drunk!"

  "Don't get drunk, Savannah." The words slip from my mouth before I can stop them.

  Wide grey eyes slide to me.

  "You can't tell her not to get drunk," Mum says, frowning at me. "I raised you to respect women, not--"

  "Calm down, Mum. I just don't want puke in my car."

  Savannah takes a long sip of her drink. "I won't puke in your car."

  She knows exactly what I mean when I told her not to get drunk. She also knows that nothing naked will be happening while I'm sober, and she's not.

  "I hope not."

  With a private, knowing smile, she turns back to my sister. "One night, I'm taking you out to that new cocktail bar near my street."

  "You're on," Heidi replies.

  "Brooke, you in?" Savannah asks.

  "Absolutely. We'll arrange something."

  Great, a girls' night out, getting drunk. If she's trying to drive me crazy, it's working. Men will probably try it on with her, and I won't be there to tell them to fuck off. Not that she can't do that for herself, but the thought of another guy touching her makes me angry as hell.

  I slam my bottle down, and beer erupts from the opening, spilling over the top and running down the neck. "Shit," I mutter.

  Mum gasps and grabs a pile of napkins.

  Savannah shakes her head at me, grinning behind her cocktail glass.

  Shit. She might win this.

  "I've got it, Mum," I say, taking the napkins and chucking them on the spilled beer.

  "Are you all right, love?" she asks. Her hands land on the table, and she leans in. "You seem a bit on edge. Has something happened?"

  A lot has happened. I've let someone in, and I'm equal measures scared and excited.

  "I'm fine. Just wasn't looking at what I was doing."

  "Hmm," she replies, lifting an eyebrow.

  Mum is naturally suspicious. While we were growing up, she accused us of way more than what we had actually done.

  I look away from her because she'll probably guess if I hold her gaze for much longer. Goddamn woman knows almost everything.

  "I think I know the problem," Brooke says. Savannah and I both freeze. "He's not had a lady friend round to play in a while."

  Mum throws her hands up. "I'm not listening to this. I'm going in to help your dad."

  Laughing, Heidi, Savannah, and Brooke take a seat around the table.

  Freddy, sitting at the end, finally puts his phone down and pipes up, "What's the longest you've gone again? Was it three days?"

  "Fuck off. I'm not that bad."

  This really isn't a conversation I want t
o be having in front of Savannah.

  Brooke points. "I think about a week. You're out every weekend with Toby and Max, and I bet you don't go home alone every Friday and Saturday."

  Savannah's eyes are trained on me, but I don't dare look at her yet. She knows I've been with quite a few women, but I don't think either of us planned to discuss the details. I have no desire to work out how many it's been, let alone tell my girl. There are certain things that don't need to be shared.

  "When did you break up with your girlfriend?" Savannah asks.

  She knows when.

  Heidi puts her drink down. "I get where you're going with this. He was nineteen, but the whoring didn't start until he was twenty. He's now almost twenty-six." She shakes her head. "Kent, that's a lot of women."

  "There hasn't been one a week!" I snap.

  My sisters laugh, but Savannah doesn't. She's very quiet.

  I catch her eyes and hold her gaze. I only want you. Please believe that.

  She is all I want. It's happened so suddenly and completely out of the blue; I never got a second to think or breathe. But she makes my pulse race and my body heat. I want to spend every possible second with her. I want to know everything that makes her the incredible person she is. And I want to protect her from whatever pain she keeps deep inside of her.

  My heart stops until she smiles and wraps her hand around her drink. She got it. She knows there isn't anyone else I want to stick my dick in. I need her to understand that I'm all in. It might be terrifying, handing myself over to someone and trusting her when I've been burned in the past, but she makes me want to give her the fucking world.

  I'm ready for a relationship. I want to be with her.

  She turns her attention back to me and smirks. "There was a girl at the club."

  "She wasn't my type. I prefer the girl from today."

  Brooke mutters a distasteful sound. "Really? Before you came to your family home?"

  "I had a shower, Brooke," I tell her.

  Savannah presses her lips together, slumping a little lower in her seat. If she doesn't want this thing to be obvious, she's going to have to learn not to react.

  Not that I dislike the way she reacts.

  "You're disgusting," Heidi huffs.

  Her eyes go to Savannah, like she's trying to figure out what she's thinking. I am, too, since her face is blank.

  "Can we stop talking about how gross I am now, please?" I ask. This is a bad conversation to have while no one knows I'm with Savannah.

  "That would be good," Heidi replies. Her jaw is tight as she looks away from me.

  What the hell have I done to her?

  Savannah's hand lands down on my knee. I hold my breath, gripping my beer. God, I love how bold she's becoming. Is it bad that I really want her to reciprocate what happened in the restaurant right now? I mean, my fucking sisters are only ten feet away, but I don't care about any of that right now.

  I want her hands all over me, I want her mouth on mine, and I want her tight pussy wrapped around my cock.

  "You okay?" she asks as Brooke strikes up a conversation with Freddy and Heidi.

  "Uh-huh," I mutter through gritted teeth. "Fine."

  "You seem jumpy." Her voice is light and flirty, but the innocence in her words isn't fooling me.

  Plus, there's the fact that her hand is slowly working its way closer to my aching erection. I would give anything to have her right now.

  I narrow my eyes at the little tease, which only makes her smile.

  Fuck me, you're beautiful.

  Her hand slips higher. I grit my teeth as her fingers grip my cock. My God, I want to unzip my jeans and give her full access. I feel like I'm going to come out of my skin. My chest tightens.

  The command to unzip is on the tip of my tongue, but her hand moves. I snap my head to her, and she looks up at me through her lashes. There are too many people around to say what I want to her.

  She doesn't speak, but she doesn't need to. I can see how smug she is and how much she's enjoying getting me all worked up and leaving me hanging.

  "You're evil," I growl under my breath.

  Her smile grows, and I can't say that I hate it. I've seen Savannah's smile, but it's never seemed so easy and genuine before.

  She works hard to keep up appearances and hold people at arm's length, so I love being the one to break through all that bullshit. Under the armour is a woman who could easily bring me to my knees.

  Savannah turns her head, joining the conversation with my sisters, not caring that I'm sitting here with a raging hard-on and the desperate need to come. I take a swig of beer and force myself to focus.

  My mum comes back out and sits down.

  "How many single people are coming to the wedding?" Heidi asks Brooke.

  "Yes, darling, we need to find Heidi a nice man."

  "And a dozen women for Kent to work his way around," Brooke adds, distaste dripping from her words.

  Okay, fuck this. "That won't be necessary. That's all done with, no more one-night stands."

  Mum gasps. "Why is that? Have you met someone? Who is she?"

  Heidi instantly looks at Savannah and then back to me. She sits up taller. "Are you serious?" she squeals.

  Everyone else looks at Heidi like she's lost it because they haven't figured it out yet.

  "Serious about what?" Brooke asks.

  "Savannah!" Mum replies, the ball finally dropping for her, too. She reaches in front of Heidi to wrap her arm around Savannah.

  "Shut up!" Heidi says, squished back in her seat. "How did you manage that, bro?"

  Mum moves back, and all eyes are on me.

  "I'm charming."

  Savannah laughs, not caring that I've told my family when we decided not to. "Yeah, you're a real gentleman."

  "Worked on you, didn't it?"

  "Why didn't you say anything?" Mum asks, cutting off my conversation with Savannah. "You've been here ages. When did it happen? How?"

  Oh, she does not want me to say how.

  "We were spending more time together and texting, and I guess I realised he's not actually that bad."

  "Wow, that was so heartfelt," I tell her, clutching my chest.

  She deadpans. "That's exactly what happened."

  I lift an eyebrow. "Exactly?"

  "Yes." Her reply is a warning.

  I haven't even told Max or Toby what's happened between us, so I'm certainly not going to tell my family.

  Heidi pours more of Brooke's homemade cocktail into her glass and then tops up Savannah's. "Well, have you been on a date? Did he ask you out?"

  "Not yet," I reply.

  "Kent! That's not how you woo a woman," Mum says, folding her arms.

  "Woo?" I repeat, smirking.

  "Don't get smart with me."

  "Mum, we just got together," I tell her.

  Mum looks back at Savannah. "This is your first time out as a couple? Kent, you should have taken her somewhere special."

  "How is my birthday not special?" Heidi interjects.

  "You know what I mean, darling." Mum puts her hand over Heidi's.

  Savannah is grinning, amused that I'm getting shit from my mum.

  "Anytime you want to jump in here and tell my mother that I'm not a totally shit boyfriend, that would be great." I realise what I said the second I finish.

  We've only been together for a couple of hours, and I've dropped the boyfriend bomb. That's what I am though. We're together. No one else is in the mix--or they'd better not fucking be.

  Savannah purses her lips, a light blush tickling her cheeks. "He's not totally shit," she says, not taking her eyes off me. The way she's watching me has my chest tightening. "Besides, there's plenty of time for dates. I was so not missing Heidi's birthday."

  "Well, at least someone cares about my birthday," Heidi says, smirking at Mum.

  "Stop being dramatic," Mum tells her. The attention is back on me seconds later. Mum isn't going to get bored of me and Savannah for a while. "Where ar
e you going to take her on a date?"

  Don't say, In the back of my car.

  Grinning to myself, I steal a look at Savannah. She cautiously eyes me.

  "I don't know, Mum," I reply.

  "What do you mean? You need to think about these things, Kent," Dad says, coming up and showing that he's firmly on Mum's team here.

  "Fine. McDonald's and bowling," I joke.

  Mum gasps, but before she can yell at me, Savannah says, "I prefer KFC."

  "You two might just be made for each other," Mum says, shaking her head, discouraged by the both of us.

  The more time I spend with Savannah, the more I know we were made for each other. She makes me forget my past. I have a clean slate with her. And I think I'm good for her, too. She's certainly not taking any shit from me anymore.

  We lock eyes again, and she smiles.

  I can't believe there was a time when I didn't want to be around her. Now, I can't get enough. When I text her, I stand still and wait for a reply. When I'm trying to focus, my mind flicks back to her. She's constantly on my mind, in every thought. It feels incredible.

  For the rest of the evening, Mum is super fucking annoying. She's determined to make sure I treat Savannah right. I have no plans to mess around on her. I don't want to screw this up. There is nothing any other woman on this planet could do to make me stray.

  At ten p.m., we're finally on our way to her apartment. Although Savannah had quite a few cocktails, she did eat a lot--because you have to at my parents'--and switched to water and coffee an hour ago.

  She's not drunk, and I'm hard as fuck, waiting to see if she goes through with the blow-job thing. I don't want to say anything, almost as if I could jinx it. But she might still be up for it, just forgotten.

  What the hell do I do?

  Savannah rolls her head on the headrest, looking at me. "You look like you're deep in thought."

  How do I get you to blow me?

  "Just concentrating on the road," I tell her.

  "No, you're not."

  "How do you know that?"

  "I'm not blind, Kent. I can see."

  Huh?

  I'm about to ask her what she means, but then I feel myself straining against my jeans. She knows I'm thinking about her.

  "I can't help it."

  "I like it," she confesses. "It's been a long time since I've caused this." Reaching out, she rubs my erection.

  I hiss through my teeth, hands tightening on the steering wheel.

  "Savannah, men have gotten hard over you; they just haven't told you."

  She shrugs off my comment, and it makes me start to wonder why she doesn't think she's desirable. Of course, she knows I want her--that's been very clear--but does she somehow assume I'm a one-off?