Page 59 of Ly to Me

“Years?”

Lyra’s face turned a deep red as she tried to lunge again. I shifted my hold from her shoulder to her throat and locked my elbow.

“Since I’ve known her, I’ve yet to hear about any sexual encounters,” Sophia admitted. “And we lived together, so I think I would’ve heard something coming from her room.”

“And how long has that been?”

“Ten years.”

“You’re lying.” I swallowed down the odd mix of feelings warring in my chest. Part of knowing when people lied was seeing their face. I couldn’t see this person, nor tell if her voice shook on the words as Lyra made my hold unsteady with continued attempts at getting her phone back.

“I mean, ask her. I could be wrong if you slept with her—wait, what’s your name? Is this Jamie?”

“Carver Roland,” I growled.

Her friend paused, then finally said, “Hmm. No. Never heard of you.”

“Figures.” I hung up and dropped the phone to the floor.

“You—” Lyra’s eyes darted to it, then settled on me. “You can’t just take people’s phones.”

I yanked her to me by her throat. “Was she lying?” Her hands flung up to claw at my wrist. I didn’t let go. “Was. She. Lying,” I repeated louder.

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

“Who’s the last person you slept with? Noah?”

Her eyes darkened. “I never touched him.”Not a lie.

“Then who?”

Her eyes turned down, all the color stricken from her face. “I’m not telling you.”

“Ly, tell—”

“No!” she shouted and my hand fell instantly from the use of her safeword. She collected her phone from the floor and ran. Amoment later, the front door slammed, then the window at my back, and last, the bathroom door.

Nightfall came, and the fire had long since died, leaving nothing but ashen chunks of wood and glass over gravel. The only time I went back inside was to roll the blunt I now held in my hand. I lit it up and stared at all the destruction my little Ly had created.

To her core, I knew who she was. The way she reacted, the words she said, the lies she was prone to telling. I knew the things she liked, the things she didn’t, and had learned how to read her body—better than anyone else had ever had the chance to. Because if what her friend had said was true, and with the way Ly had reacted, then I was the last person to touch her. Not Noah, like that asshole had told me, not some guy she’d met over the last ten years. It was me.Iwas the last person to make her come undone. To be inside her. To hold her that intimately.

As satisfied as that made me, it was a problem.

I didn’t know the woman she’d become. Who Lyra Roland was. How she got to the point of celibacy for tenfuckingyears when I’d done the complete opposite without her. The hollow pit in my chest was starting to beat to a new, revitalized rhythm—one that was ready to recognize she cared, more than I’d given her credit for.

No one else had touched her, and I’d make sure no one else ever would.

She was my wife, and it was time I showed her that.

22

Lyra

The Truck

Morning sun pierced into my swollen eyes as they fluttered open. I sat up and turned, my gaze darting around the room like I’d actually find Car beside me, or in the chair facing the bed. Somewhere, waiting for me.

But he was nowhere to be found.