Little Lies Read online

  I AM DARKNESS.

  I AM SIN.

  I AM YOURS.

  * * *

  A truth imprinted onto my skin—its sharp vines digging into my flesh as our bond strengthens with each shallow intake of breath my love takes. Her life is intertwined with the devil, a man who hungers for depravity and death, and yet, I bend my knee for her.

  * * *

  Only her. Always her.

  * * *

  She is mine, and I will kill to protect. Kill to own her.

  * * *

  Gabriella Moore will never leave me. Not by choice or circumstance.

  LITTLE LIES was written by Elena M. Reyes

  Copyright 2021 ©Elena M. Reyes

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  This work is copyrighted. All rights are reserved. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the author.

  * * *

  Cover Design: T.E. Black

  * * *

  Editor: Marti Lynch

  * * *

  Publication Date: May 13th, 2021

  Genre: FICTION/Dark Romance/Erotica Suspense/Thriller

  Copyright © 2021 Elena M. Reyes

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  PLAYLIST

  1. King

  2. Gabriella

  3. Gabriella

  4. Gabriella

  5. Theodore

  6. Gabriella

  7. Gabriella

  8. Gabriella

  9. Theodore

  10. Gabriella

  11. Gabriella

  12. Gabriella

  13. King

  14. Gabriella

  15. Gabriella

  16. Theodore

  17. Theodore

  18. Gabriella

  19. Theodore

  20. King

  21. Gabriella

  22. Gabriella

  23. Theodore

  24. Gabriella

  25. Gabriella

  26. King

  27. Gabriella

  28. Theodore

  29. Gabriella

  30. Gabriella

  31. King

  32. Gabriella

  33. Gabriella

  34. Theodore Astor

  35. Gabriella

  36. Theodore Astor

  37. Gabriella

  38. Theodore Astor

  39. Theodore Astor

  40. Gabriella

  41. Epilogue

  42. Outtake

  43. BOOK NEWS:

  44. RISQUE (BEAUTIFUL SINNER #5)

  About the Author

  BEAUTIFUL SINNER SERIES

  ALSO, BY ELENA M. REYES

  Acknowledgments

  This one’s for the girls that love their books dark, crazy AF, and the heroes a little dirty.

  HAPPY READING, MY BEAUTIFUL BABES!!!

  * * *

  Also, a huge THANK YOU to my team. Seriously, I couldn’t do this without you.

  * * *

  Michelle Myers, Ana Rita, K.I. Lynn, C.M. Steele, Marti Lynch, & Mary B. Moore; you guys keep me going when I lose track of my goals. You push me to be better, to not second guess myself when I think I lost my flow. This book was finished because each of you never let me quit or let my fears of entering a new genre stop me.

  * * *

  I love you all so much and I’m thankful to have you in my life.

  * * *

  XOXO

  PLAYLIST

  Papercut - Linkin Park

  Given Up - Linkin Park

  Broken - Seether, Amy Lee

  Killing Strangers - Marilyn Manson

  Sex On Fire - Kings of Leon

  It’s Been Awhile - Staind

  Hail to the King - Avenged Sevenfold

  Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene - Hozier

  Demons - Imagine Dragons

  Otherside - Red Hot Chili Peppers

  18th Floor Balcony - Blue October

  Iris - The Goo Goo Dolls

  Heathens - Twenty One Pilots

  Gasoline - Halsey

  Valentine’s Day - Linkin Park

  The Scientist - Coldplay

  Don’t Cry - Guns N’ Roses

  Here’s To The Heartache - Nothing More

  Still In Love - Nothing More

  Through Glass - Stone Sour

  Wicked Games - Stone Sour

  A Beautiful Mess - Jason Mraz

  Earned It - The Weeknd

  Can I Be Him - James Arthur

  Better Love - Hozier

  Machu Picchu - Camilo, Evaluna

  * * *

  Click the link to listen:

  https://spoti.fi/3exo4YM

  1

  King

  The act of sleeping has always been special to me. The naivete that even the vilest creatures adapt while their bodies succumb to exhaustion is an intriguing thing.

  You have no choice. You’re not aware of your surroundings or the danger that lurks around each corner, and it’s at that time of day when even the strongest become prey. Weak. Where vulnerability and fear rule as king while those without a moral compass, who thirst for blood more than they do breathing, roam freely and without remorse.

  Because at night, there are no rules or societal demands for complacency. No masks to hide behind as I slice a throat clear across from one side to the other and watch my victims bleed. Moreover, in that moment, they see me. All of me—the evil that most ignore while walking down a sidewalk and cross my path—it’s all clear to them then, and their expressions always make me smile.

  Confusion.

  Terror.

  Acceptance.

  I yearn for those moments. To hear that last gurgle of blood as it rises and escapes the wound, tempting me to cut deeper, to prolong the inevitable fate for those dumb enough to believe good looks and an affluential status in a city as large as Seattle only belong to those who are honest and hardworking.

  I’m not a good man. Will never claim to be.

  I watch. I hunt. I take.

  And right now, I’m reveling at the thrashing sight before me. She’s my obsession.

  Has always been mine.

  Perspiration beads across Gabriella’s temples and down her neck, pooling at the base while a whimper passes through full, berry lips. She’s the sweetest there. So tempting. So pure for now.

  “Blood. So much blood,” the little beauty whispers in her sleep, her tiny fingers gripping the carelessly thrown sheet across her abdomen and hip, exposing the lovely pair of purple bikini panties covering her mound.

  It showcases just enough to tease and taunt as the tight fabric molds over her clit and labia. She’ll fit perfectly in my palm. Her warmth will soothe the beast residing within who needs a queen.

  I push off from my perch against the painting she skillfully made of my home down to the smallest detail and stop beside her bed. With each step closer, my cock throbs. It’s hard for her. I’m near the point of praying at her temple for a taste, but not yet.

  Today is about her. About celebrating what drew me in the day she crossed my dark path.

  With the tips of two fingers, I caress her left leg with gentle sweeps up and down until reaching her knee. She’s soft, and her flesh so pliant beneath my touch. It’s a heady feeling knowing that I could break her without exerting much force, but it’s just as humbling to know that I’ll never ha
rm her physically.

  Mentally, though, I’ll revel as she crumbles into madness. A broken doll.

  Because this pretty girl knows me. Our paths have crossed more than once, but where she has failed to remember me, forgetting her is impossible. Will never happen no matter what life we’re reincarnated to.

  The day Gabriella Moore stepped foot inside my home, asking for help, I found my angel. My perfect prey.

  I trace her kneecap and then farther up, pausing where the heat between her thighs kisses my flesh. Even without cupping her pussy, with the tips of my digits just a few inches to the left, it burns me. This need is near maddening and so is the rise of goose bumps across her flesh, showing me without words how much she will always enjoy my touch.

  A hard shiver runs through her frame, and I lower my face so our lips hover, not touching as I breathe her in. Tasting her sweetness in the air around us. Pushing myself past rationality, my will is stronger because I know the reward is worth the brief denial.

  “Always cherries with a hint of vanilla.” Her nose twitches at my words, but she doesn’t wake up. If anything, she settles and sighs. Such a lovely sound.

  For a few minutes we remain this way, my hand on her skin and her breathing even beneath me while I watch and re-memorize every freckle and luscious red curl on her head. A true ginger, the tone is luminous and one of the first things I noticed about her, the second being her delicate height at only five-foot-one; she’s short with an indecent amount of curves for someone so petite.

  Soon, I mouth and move down, stopping at the area just above her clit. There, I inhale deeply, and my mouth waters at the heady scent she emits from between her thighs.

  It’d be so easy to taste her. To force her will to become one with mine.

  “Not motherfucking yet,” I hiss out from between clenched teeth and get off the bed, retracing my steps until I’m once again beside the painting. I’ve tempted her fate enough for one night and need to leave before the fragile tether holding my desires hostage snaps and I bloody her bed.

  I survey the room a final time before pausing at her door where a soft scratching sound catches my attention. It’s low and the whine accompanying it pulls a low chuckle from me.

  That dog hates me, while I find its loyalty admirable.

  He’s of use to me. I know his weakness, and he will submit.

  Looking at her a final time, I bite my lip. “Goodbye for now, pretty girl.” And when I walk to the door and open it slowly, revealing myself to her pet, the way he lowers his head and averts his eyes gets a nod of approval from me. I step out, and he shivers. I close the door and he knows his place, following behind me without another sound as I make my way to her studio.

  My little artist.

  Canvas after canvas fills every inch of wall space, pictures full of color and celebrating life while others depict death and a morbid curiosity. The latter are my favorite.

  Blacks and reds and the emotion of grief reach across the finished pieces, and I finger one in particular of a man in shadow. No face can be seen and he’s tall, his build muscular as his exposed torso is the focal point.

  Not the blood dripping from his hand.

  Not the small body on the ground or the other three strewn about in different sections of the dilapidated road where he stands staring at the destruction left behind.

  I want this one.

  I know how to get it.

  “I’ll see you soon.”

  2

  Gabriella

  “Goodbye for now, pretty girl.”

  I awake with a start.

  Chest heaving. Palms sweaty. With this all-consuming feeling—fear—gripping me in its stinging bonds while refusing to let go.

  Because all I see is red. Red everywhere.

  Everything.

  It’s all one shade, and yet depending on the lighting, the tone changes its hue to an eerie reminiscence of blood. This blasphemous and disturbing tint that slides down each corner and object I see, destroying any hint of purity within the four walls my mind is trapped within—where breathing is a struggle and my chest aches from the terrifying memory that feels real.

  “Pretty girl.”

  Inside that room—the same cursed room—and the voice that I’ve dreamed of every night for the past year as if my mind refuses to escape its dreariness while demanding that I remember each detail vividly. To catalog the representation of death. To embrace its mockery of my sanity.

  And I do. Even while lying in bed, fully awake, I’m held inside my mind in an inescapable trap.

  With each shaky inhale, I still see the antique furniture with intricate carvings in a black mahogany wood that shouldn’t be seen unless under direct sunlight, and yet, in the dead of night as I visit this room, the symbols glare at me. They dare me to ignore the circular carvings with a hidden meaning that I’ve yet to uncover.

  You’re awake. Focus, Gabriella. And yet, I can’t.

  No matter what books I look into while awake. No matter what internet searches I perform, dating back to a time where each house held a crest that symbolized their status, I fail.

  No amount of searching or digging provides answers to the questions destroying my mind like a horror-filled movie reel. No matter the days lost behind a screen or sitting cross-legged between shelves in the back corner of a library, stacks of books burying me within their information; I’ve done it all, but still come up blank.

  “Pretty girl.”

  Taking in another deep breath, I focus on the rise and fall of my chest while ignoring the male voice. I’m begging my lungs to cooperate and my mind to fight this suffocating hold those words have on me when spoken by the rich and gravelly tone. In and out. Slowly, Gabriella. However, my body feels as though a heavy weight sits atop my chest, slowly suffocating me.

  I’m scared, but curious. Idiotically so.

  “I am safe.” Christ, those three words are hard to say. Each one tastes of lies, and it’s a feeling I’m unable to shake.

  Glancing at my bedside alarm, I grimace at the glaring numbers blaring across its screen: 3:15 a.m. Tonight I slept longer than the last five days, but there’s no relief for my tired form.

  Months reliving this same dream.

  Months fighting to shake off this gripping unease that makes no sense, and yet, I know my response holds merit. Something is wrong.

  Another deep breath. Another twitch of my fingers as a soft breeze infiltrates the room, and I’m almost grateful for the distraction. Almost. Because next to the flowy white curtains moving over my half-opened window is a painting I’ve come to loathe even though I’m its creator.

  However, today it snaps me back to the present with an invisible snap so hard I gasp.

  It’s across the bed from me. The first thing I see each day when I open my eyes.

  With each stroke of my brush, I added every last detail down to the shade of red split in half with a contrast portraying day and night. Moreover, the opulent decor is full of teasing mockery that pulls me in.

  I study it each day after waking up. Cling to this obsession.

  Because that’s what this is.

  An obsession. A need. A compulsion I can’t control.

  “Why are you haunting me?” No answer, not that I expect one. Instead, I let my eyes skim across the painting, and I do my customary intake of items, placements, and lastly the haunting shade. Yet this time, I don’t finish as I pause on a white piece of paper taped to the right bottom corner.

  It’s small and folded, and my anxiety rises with its presence. The choppy breaths I’ve fought hard to calm are now a choking sound as air fails to enter my airways and a seductive scent makes its presence known.

  It’s manly. Earthy. Nothing of mine smells like this, and I’m once again confused. “Am I still dreaming?”

  Then there’s the note, and it’s never appeared in my nightly visits. Which leaves me asking myself how; it wasn’t there when I fell asleep after popping an over-the-counter sleeping aid. Furthe
rmore, it causes my heart to palpitate with a speed that frightens me.

  I’m shaking slightly, and the air in the room seems to have dropped to near freezing.

  The blood in my veins turns to ice.

  The sight in front of me shifts in and out of focus, only coming back to attention when glass breaks in the hallway outside my bedroom door.

  From one extreme to the other, I’m suddenly pushed into a manic fight or flight. I become a spectator—watching—while within a disconnected state of mind I scramble off the bed and open the bedside drawer to my left. My gun is there, loaded, and I don’t hesitate to pick it up and remove the safety.

  The audible click seems loud inside the room, but the harsh breaths escaping my chest drown it out. “It’s nothing. Probably Mr. Pickles wandering around.”