Page 37 of Ly to Me

“Do you feel powerful knowing you can tell me to do whatever you want?” I went lower, meeting my soaking core right as his hand grasped his cock under his boxers.

“Lyra,” he warned, slowing his strokes. “Tell me—”

“Is that what you want from me, Carver?”

“Ly—”

“Am I the submissive wife you dreamed of? Someone that you can fuck however and whenever you please?” His hand stopped moving as his jaw clenched. I pulled my hand free and rolled onto my stomach. “Let me make this clear,Car. I may have signed papers that grant you freedoms I would’ve never allowed to happen again between us. But make no mistake, what I feel for you is nothing like what it was ten years ago.” His fist curled in along the arm of the chair. I fixated there, unable to meet hiseyes again as the next words broke free from my chest. “I hate you, Carver Roland.”

The chair slammed back against the wall as he stood. I shuffled back on the bed as his erratic breaths filled the space between us. He lifted a finger toward me, then bared his teeth as he closed that finger in a tight fist and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

Days went by, and the only pieces of evidence that Carver hadn’t left were his untouched truck, the smell of weed mixed with oak and leather that lingered from the spare room, and the takeout containers left out on the counter, never exceeding one at a time and always in the same spot. Even my roommate from a few towns over, who was a female, wasn’t as clean as Carver was. I figured his parents had a hand in maintaining his bedroom when we were teens, but now…

Now I could see I’d been completely wrong.

The first time he left food on the counter was the morning after I told him I hated him. I thought he just didn’t bother cleaning up after himself, but then that meal was gone and a new one was in its place by the time I’d gotten dressed in more of his clothes. I spent the rest of that day searching inside the house for cameras like he had out in the woods, but found nothing. Either he was watching me and avoiding me intentionally, or I was missing his meticulous schedule that had yet to shift over the course of five days.

I went out to the porch and leaned forward on the wooden railing. As I opened my nearly empty pack of cigarettes, my focusshifted between the treeline and my car. If he saw me get in it, as if I was going somewhere, then I’d finally find out why he was so hard to run into lately. My thighs pressed together as I raised the flame to the end of my cig. He’d chase me down and shove his fingers down my throat or in my pussy, all while waiting for me to give him that two-letter word.

One simple fucking word I had yet to tell him when it mattered. Part of me doubted it would do a damn thing. He loved to goad me about how many lies I told, yet failed to acknowledge that he did the same. Only, his lies hurt more.

Much more.

A horse whinnied from the barn, and I squinted, checking for tattooed limbs, or a cropping of dark brown hair.Something. The horse made another noise, and I straightened. I knew little about horses, but that sound—

A crash ripped through the air, and I tossed my cigarette in the bushes before darting toward the barn.

“Carver?” I shouted, but saw no one.

I pushed the heavy doors open right as a huge black horse reared back on its hind legs in one of the stalls. My hands shot up as I neared the stall door.

“Woah, easy.”

The horse made a snorting sound, mixing with something that sounded like he, or she, was panicking. With even, steady strides, I stepped closer to the enclosure. The horse whipped its sturdy body, shaking the wooden walls and rearing back again.

“Hey, girl.”Definitely missing a dick.“It’s okay.” I kept my hands level with my head and followed her eyes to the ground where her hooves were stomping.

“Oh, sh—”

The back door of her stall flung open, and the horse bolted out right before a whooshing sound rippled through the thick air. Istood frozen to the spot as red splattered along the hay bales, not two feet from where I was on the other side of the closed gate.

“That was a—”

“Coyote,” Carver finished as he tucked a gun into his waistband. He raised his hat and swept his forearm across his brow. “Bee hates ’em more than the others, it seems.”

“Bee?”

“My horse.” Carver examined me, his eyes stopping on the scabbed-over cut on my knee. “She hurt you?” If my feet hadn’t already frozen to the spot, they would have frozen then, because he almost sounded…like he gave a damn.

“No-ope.”

“No-ope?” He scratched the back of his head and walked into the stall, then leaned forward on the metal gate, ignoring the dead coyote completely. “You sure she didn’t knock your head, or is that a new word?”

I folded my arms and straightened, trying my best not to search his hand for the matching cut to my knee. “I meant, ‘nope.’”

“Okay.” His tongue darted across his bottom lip. “Did you come in here to ride her?”

“N-uh uh.”