Liars Like Us (Morally Gray Book 1)

Something shifts between us that night.

I don’t recognize it at the time, but later I’ll look back and remember the feeling of yielding I experience. The softening that started before in my chest works in sinuous waves throughout my whole body as he fucks me, manhandling me in the most delicious ways, turning me as pliant as warmed putty in his hands.

If my mind still holds doubts about the man I married, my body trusts him instinctively.

He forces his hard cock past my lips as if it’s his birthright. He grips my head with absolute dominance as he thrusts into my mouth. Grunting in pleasure, he holds me down and drives into my pussy as I cry out his name. He bites me and spanks me and pulls my head back using fistfuls of my hair. He comes inside me, licks it out as I sob, then fucks my ass and comes inside me again, the entire time calling me wife and baby and his perfect, beautiful pet.

I never knew sex could feel so transformative. That something so dirty could also be so pure. It’s like we invented our own religion, a new way of worship involving not only heart and soul, but skin and breath, moans and sweat, frantic bodies and tangled sheets and complete surrender to something bigger than us both that’s driven us from the moment we met.

It isn’t love. I know that.

But it is divine.

No sermon ever preached could move my spirit more.

In the morning, I wake in his arms, feeling like I’m right where I’m supposed to be. Smiling and snuggling closer to his warmth, I whisper, “Hi there.”

“Hi yourself.”

“How did you sleep?”

“Like the dead. You milked every last drop of cum out of my dick. I’m completely dehydrated.”

I press my face against his chest and laugh, ridiculously pleased with myself. “Are you complaining?”

“Hell no. You can drain me dry anytime, baby.”

“God, it’s sick that I found that statement romantic. How was your trip?”

In his pause, I sense turmoil. His voice comes low and tight.

“Aggravating.”

I want to pry. I want to poke him in the ribs and demand he give me more than that. But I also understand that he’d tell me if he wanted me to know, so I console myself with the memory of him saying he misses me when he’s gone and leave it at that.

“Well, I’m glad you’re home anyway.”

He pauses again, but this feels different. His attention sharpens, homing in on me like a laser beam.

Nervous, I peek up at his face. “What?”

He strokes a hand gently over my hair and murmurs, “You said home.”

“So?”

“You could’ve said ‘you’re back.’ Or ‘you’re here.’ But instead you said you were glad I’m home.”

I realize what he means by the emphasis he put on the word home. Slightly flustered by that, I backtrack. “Don’t get all excited. It was a random choice.”

He rolls me over onto my back, settles his weight on top of me, and stares down into my face, his eyes fierce with emotion.

“No, it wasn’t random. You feel like this is your home. Admit it.”

I already know that when he gets started with his demands, it’s only a matter of time before I crack under the pressure, so I don’t bother to put up a fight. I sigh and nod my head.

He’s thrilled by the admission. I can taste it in his kiss, which is rough and passionate.

When we come up for air, I laugh. “You know, for a man who’s only married to keep his money, you seem strangely invested in what I think about our situation.”

He studies me in pensive silence for a moment. “Maybe you’re growing on me.”

“Ah. Like blight.”

He makes a face, scrunching up his nose and curling his upper lip. “Blight?”

“Yeah. You know. Plant mildew. Soggy leaf rot.”

“Who says that?”

“Someone who sells books for a living. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of blight.”

“Of course I’ve heard of it. I’ve just never heard of anyone who’d refer to themselves as plant mildew when they’re naked in bed with their new husband.”

My grin is so big, it’s probably blinding him. “You bring out the best in me, darling.”

He rolls off me, chuckling.

Arlo walks in without knocking, wheeling a linen-covered cart. “Good morning!”

Horrified, I yank the covers over my head. “Arlo! What the hell do you have against announcing yourself before you barge into a room?”

“I brought breakfast,” he says, as if that’s a reasonable explanation.

He must be getting to know me well, because he starts to tick off a list of goodies that makes my anger dissipate and my mouth water.

“We’ve got bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, chocolate croissants, fresh fruit with cream, yogurt parfait, and coffee. I’ll set everything up for you.”

Callum lifts the sheet and grins down at me hiding beneath. “I told him we’d be hungry.”

I mutter, “I bet you did.”

“You’re cute when you’re mortified.”

“And you’re insufferable when you’re smug.”

“It’s not as if he hasn’t seen a pair of breasts before.”

“So you’d like me to start parading around stark naked in front of him and the chef?”

His smug smile disappears, replaced by a scowl.

“That’s what I thought.” Folding the sheet down to my chin, I peer at Arlo setting up our breakfast on the coffee table in the sitting area across from the bed. He catches me looking and smiles at me.

“Can we please make an agreement that you’ll at least try to learn how to knock?”

“Of course. I beg your pardon.”

I can tell by the way his smile deepened as he looked away that he’ll do no such thing.

When he’s finished setting up the table and leaves the room, Callum strips the covers off us both, stands, and swaggers naked over to the table.

Which is when I notice his huge new tattoo.

Spanning the width of his muscular back from shoulder to shoulder and accented with a twining vine adorned with thorns, roses, snakes, and skulls, my first name is spelled out in thick black Gothic style lettering at least five inches high.

I sit up and stare at him in shock, my heart pounding.

He plucks a strawberry from the tray on the table, then turns and gazes at me, smiling.

“Would you like a piece of fruit, darling?”

“Don’t talk to me about fruit. Talk to me about that thing on your back.”

He pops the strawberry into his mouth, chews it leisurely, and swallows. “That thing is my wife’s name. Croissant?”

“Hold on a second, please. The tattoo? Hello?”

He selects a croissant from the tray and strolls back to the bed. Standing over me, he tears off a piece and holds it out.

“Open your mouth.”

“Callum, please tell—”

He slides the piece of torn croissant between my lips, cutting me off.

I consider spitting it back onto his hand, but chew and swallow instead.

No argument is worth wasting pastries over.

He tears off another piece and holds it to my closed lips. Gazing up at him, I shake my head. It makes him smirk.

“So stubborn. I guess you don’t want to hear about my tattoo after all.”

I close my eyes, count to ten, then open my eyes and my mouth at the same time.

“Good girl,” he murmurs, eyes alight. “Fuck, how I love it when you’re obedient.”

He feeds me another piece, sliding his thumb over my lips as I chew.

“You have such a gorgeous mouth, wife.”

I can’t be sure, but think he’s testing my patience. He expects me to make a smart remark so he can pivot to another subject, but he was right about me being stubborn. I want to hear what the hell he was thinking by getting that ink on his back, and if I have to sit here and let him hand feed me an entire bag of croissants, so be it.

Besides, it’s a win-win.

“You look like a cat that can’t decide if it’s going to purr or claw me to shreds.”

I accept another bite from his fingers, batting my lashes coyly. As I chew, he reaches down and fondles my bare breast, thumbing over my nipple until it hardens.

“Such a responsive little kitty,” he whispers.

Hanging long and thick against his thigh, his cock stiffens.

Setting the croissant on the nightstand, he draws me to my feet, leads me over to the sofa, and settles me on it, pushing me back so I’m reclining against the arm with my legs stretched out. Kneeling on the floor between the sofa and coffee table, he turns back to the tray of food. Pursing his lips, he looks over the assortment of items, smiling when his gaze alights on the dish of fresh berries.

“Berries and cream,” he murmurs, slanting me a hot look. “Sounds yummy.”

His gaze travels slowly down my body. When it settles between my thighs, he licks his lips and plucks a plump strawberry from the dish.

“Spread your legs.”

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing with that berry, you can forget it.”

Holding my gaze, he deliberately places the strawberry into the V between my closed thighs.

“Callum. I’m serious. I don’t want fruit stored in my vadge. It’s not Tupperware.”

Ignoring me completely, he turns back to the berry dish and picks out a selection of blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries, then arranges them around the strawberry between my legs, carefully placing them as if he’s setting up a still life drawing until there’s a lovely little mound of blues and reds covering my mons.

Sitting back on his heels to admire his handiwork, he says softly, “The tattoo is the first of many I’ll get with your name all over my body.”

My breath catches. I study his profile as my pulse begins to race. “But…why?”

His expression contemplative now, he reaches for the small silver cream server on the tray. “Because I’m yours. You’ve tattooed your name on everything inside me. The least I can do is make the outside match.”

His words blast through me like a hurricane, stealing my breath and knocking me senseless.

He tips the silver server, pouring a thin stream of cream over the berries between my legs. Then he moves it up my body, baptizing my belly, ribs, and breasts, his eyes hungry and his concentration acute.

The sensation of the cool cream sliding over my bare skin makes me shiver. The adoration in his gaze makes my heart ache.

I whisper, “I don’t understand. We barely know each other. How can you say that?”

Setting the silver server aside, he turns back and gazes deeply into my eyes.

“You wear my ring. You sleep in my bed. You made a promise in front of witnesses to have and to hold me for the rest of your life. You chose me, Emery. And because you chose me, you own me, now and forever, come what may.”

I feel as if somebody pushed me out of an airplane and I’m pinwheeling through space, tumbling over and around with no sense of direction, my pulse screaming through my veins and my entire life flashing through my eyes as I hurtle toward the ground at a thousand miles per hour with no chance of rescue or survival.

I don’t know how we got here so suddenly. I don’t understand what it all means. All I know is that he’s electrocuted me with his words. My blood is lightning and wildfire. My heart pumps nuclear power through my veins.

He dips his head and licks cream from one nipple, lapping it up with gentle strokes of his tongue until the nub is taut and flushed.

Struggling to control my breathing, fraught with emotion, I watch him and try not to cry.

He moves to my other breast, licks it clean, then makes his way down my belly, tenderly kissing my flesh, cleaning it of the cream, sweeping his tongue over every hill and valley until he reaches the V between my legs.

Grasping my hips, he closes his eyes, nuzzles his face into the mound of berries, and starts to feast on it, making his way through the fruit to my skin as I lie there in a stunned sort of bliss, speechless and panting.

When his tongue strokes lazily over my clit, I moan helplessly.

He squeezes my hips and keeps eating.

The sounds he makes. The husky little chest-deep grunts. The way he’s holding me. The feel of his tongue, hot and wet, of his hands, rough and strong, of his beard scratching my sensitive skin and the silken sofa cushions beneath my back and the heat blooming all over my body. I’m overwhelmed by sensation, caught in a rising tide of emotion that’s beginning to swell like the crest of a wave.

Elation battles with panic for dominance. Battered by too many sensations at once, I close my eyes and let it all wash over me. I let go and allow myself to be swept away.

A deep sigh of release shudders past my lips.

Callum parts my thighs and shoves his tongue inside me.

My soft cry is lost under the sound of his heavy breathing. He grips my hips so hard, I know I’ll be bruised. I sink my hands into the thick mess of his hair and arch into his mouth, rocking my hips eagerly as he makes a meal of me.

He slides a finger inside me and sucks hard on my throbbing clit, rubbing his tongue back and forth over it until I orgasm.

When I do, it’s his name I scream. It tears from my throat and into the stillness of the room, echoing back into my ears like a hymn chanted over and over in church.

Callum.

Callum.

Callum.

Hallowed be thy name.

He sits on the sofa and drags me on top of him, spreading my legs over his hips and guiding his engorged cock into me as I grip his shoulders for balance. He shoves inside my pussy with a possessive growl.

“Ride me, wife. I need to hear you scream my name again.”

Frantic with pleasure, I bounce up and down on his erection as he sucks on my nipples, roughly squeezing my breasts, his cheeks hollowed and his eyes closed.

I drop my head back and give myself over to another orgasm, stronger than the first.

He slaps my ass as I sob my way through it, grunting his approval against my skin.

Then he puts his mouth next to my ear and closes his arms hard around me.

Crushing me against his chest, he says gruffly, “I know you think we should’ve gone slow. But I know nothing of slowness. I dove into you like the ocean, headfirst, not caring if I’d drown.”

He jerks, groaning. Then he kisses me passionately as he spills himself inside me, claiming me body and soul.