Devious Lies: A Cruel Crown Novel

by Huntington, Parker S.

  Dear Emery,

  I love you more than pretty birds

  and all the words.

  I love you more than clear blue skies

  and fresh apple pies.

  I love you more than poop.

  Love, Timmy.

  Poetic.

  He’d even spelled my name right.

  It seemed fitting that, all these years later, a starless night numbed my fingers as I decided to spill my biggest secret to Reed.

  If you want to date a boy Dad doesn’t own, you’d have to leave the state, I reminded myself as I snuck my way from Dad’s mansion to the servants’ quarters.

  The chill of the North Carolina winter taunted me, nipping at my bare arms. Like it was trying to tell me something. Maybe even stop me.

  I lifted my phone and reread Reed’s text again, twice to be sure.

  I broke up with Basil. For real this time.

  Hope spun threads of excitement and anticipation through my body, and I ignored the rest—the part of my brain that told me to turn around, to preserve us because once I professed my love for him, I couldn’t take it back.

  We would never just be friends anymore. Either he felt the same way and we became a couple, or he didn’t and something ugly and awkward would cloud whatever remained of our friendship.

  Don’t worry, Emery. You know what you’re doing. It’ll be worth it.

  Plus, I’d never possessed an aversion to risk. I jumped first and dealt with the consequences later. Only this time, I had too much to lose. Anxiety tied a chain around my legs, weighing them down with each step I took.

  Toska.

  Lacuna.

  Kalon.

  I muttered unique words that made me happy, keeping my voice low. I shut my phone off in case it rang inside Reed’s house. Because I had no pockets, I slid it into the Prescott’s wooden mailbox, the same mailbox Reed and I had once watched Hank Prescott make.

  Reed’s dad had let us paint it. It ended up a royal blue with the Duke logo on Reed’s half and black with wilted, gunmetal roses on mine. Betty had pretended to love it, while Hank laughed, patted my head, and said I was something else.

  Tucked beside a purple heart pergola, the Prescott’s tiny three-bedroom cottage seemed ant-like compared to my parents’ mansion. I slipped my key into the back-door lock and turned it as quietly as possible. The door creaked and so did my steps as I slithered through the kitchen and crept into Reed’s room, ingrained memory of the cottage allowing me to navigate it without light.

  Are you sure about this?

  I could almost hear Reed asking me that, his smooth accent dipping its way past my ears and into my heart. He was ever so cautious, the one to watch my back as I leapt. And he always caught me.

  Always.

  Countless scraped knees and a constellation of faded scars told tales of childhood adventures on my body, but they didn’t speak of the golden-haired boy who stood beside me for them all, even when Mother sneered at him and made jabs about his secondhand clothing as if she couldn’t pay the Prescotts what they deserved to make in the first place.

  (If Dad ran the house rather than Mother, I bet Reed would never wear used clothes again and I could eat more dinners at the Prescott’s without feeling like I was taking something I shouldn’t.)

  Bottom line—Reed had my back. The scar across Able Cartwright’s face proved that. It sent a secret thrill down my spine each time I passed Able in the halls of Eastridge Prep and saw it.

  Being near Reed made my stomach quake like it’d been hit by an avalanche, and tonight, I was going to sleep with my best friend.

  “Are you awake?” I winced. My voice had come out tentative, but the Southern drawl still filled the room louder than I’d intended.

  I inched deeper into the small space and shut the door behind me, not bothering to turn on the lights. No sense in waking Mr. and Mrs. Prescott. Not a hint of moonlight filtered in past the black-out curtains, but I’d been in Reed’s room enough to reach his full-size bed in the center without missing a step.

  “Wake up,” I urged, not quite knowing what I’d tell him when he did, indeed, wake up.

  I’d planned a speech on the flight back from winter break in Aspen, but standing in front of Reed’s bed, it felt stupid. Like something one of Nash’s groupies would say to him after spending the night.

  “You’re so sexy, Nash.”

  “The things you do to me, Nash.”

  “I think I love you, Nash.”

  Reed and I would press our ears to his bedroom door, our cheeks tinged pink when we heard things we were too young to hear. After he sent them away (and he always did), they left in tears, and we would pretend we didn’t see them.

  The sheets rustled as I sat on the edge of the bed and shook Reed’s shoulders a bit. He stirred, groaning before settling again.

  “It’s me.” I exhaled all my uncertainty, closed the distance, and made my move, straddling his bare chest before he could speak. Pressing a finger to his lips, I spoke before he could, “Don’t say anything.” Don’t stop me. “Please. I just… I’ve been waiting too long. I want this. I want you. Now.”

  He didn’t answer, so I shook his shoulders again and whispered, “Wake up.”

  Slipping my silk robe off my body, I tossed it to the floor. My lace bralette and matching panties might as well have been nothing with how naked I felt right now. Reed’s hands found the narrow curve of my waist, lazily, as if he was still half asleep. The sheer size of his palms made me feel small.

  I rubbed myself against his broad chest. His body cut sharply, all marble and bold strokes. Everything about how he felt was unexpected. The toned abs and rough ridges that met my palms. The energy he radiated that vibrated around us like an earthquake.

  I lowered my lips to his, and then he was on me, flipping me onto my back as he took over with an eagerness I’d hoped for but couldn’t anticipate.

  “Took you long enough.”

  His words sent anticipation spreading through my body like embers igniting a fire. His voice sounded deeper with lust, his groan like a man’s as I reached between us and stroked him.

  Oh, god.

  He wasn’t even wearing underwear.

  Reed was bigger than my ex. I wasn’t quite sure he’d fit inside me, but my determination wouldn’t allow that to stop me. I stroked him again. My lips sought his, catching his cheek in the dark instead.

  His day-old stubble scratched my chin, longer than I was used to seeing, but I hadn’t seen him since I’d left for winter vacation two weeks ago. I tried to kiss his lips. He didn’t let me. He grabbed both my wrists in one hand, held them hostage above my head with a single palm, and sucked on my nipples through my bralette.

  “These feel bigger.” He licked the underside of my breast and whispered against the skin “Boob job?” His voice was so low, I almost convinced myself I hadn’t heard him right.

  “Um… No?” I kept my voice even lower than his was, half mortified, hoping he wouldn’t be able to make out my words and would drop this line of questioning.

  “Hmm…” he hummed against the curve of my neck, and I felt him speak against my skin, “I’m not doing period sex. Too messy.”

  What the hell, Reed?

  “I’m not on my period…”

  “Not doing pregnant sex either.”

  I was sure I hadn’t heard him right this time, but I wasn’t about to ask him to repeat that louder.

  I stroked him again, hoping he’d shut up and stop ruining the moment. He thrust himself into my palm and bit down on my neck, sucking so hard it would leave a bruise. His movements were confident. Experienced. Like he knew precisely how to make my body come to life.

  In all the years I’d pictured this moment, I’d never thought it’d be this feral, this instinctive, this good. I didn’t know if I’d done such a great job of convincing myself we were meant to be or if we really were fate, but it felt like destiny, like gratification, like three thousand jigsaw pieces finally c
oming together.

  Reed’s other hand explored my body as if he knew exactly what to do with it. I whimpered when he tore my panties off, ripping them without a care. Pain lashed at the top of my ass where the panties had snapped off and bit my skin, but he didn’t give me a chance to dwell on it.

  This.

  This was better than all my fantasies of Reed put together. It was passion. It was lust. It was all the reassurance I needed to make taking the first step worth it. I felt his need for me, and it drove confidence into my body like nothing else could.

  Reed’s fingers glided up my inner thigh and found me soaking, sliding inside with embarrassing ease. The adrenaline rushed to my head.

  “I’ve wanted you for so long. You make me so wet. So, so wet. I’ve touched myself to you in the shower. In bed. In…”—I hesitated before admitting—“… my ex-boyfriend’s bed.”

  He let out something like a laugh, a possessive half snarl that sent shock waves straight to my core. “Fuck your boyfriend.”

  “Ex,” I corrected.

  “Don’t care,” he said, his voice still groggy and different from sleep and lust.

  He slid his finger out and pushed himself inside me. I bit my lower lip to hold back my moans, pressed my forehead against his shoulder, and closed my eyes, meeting each of his thrusts. One of his palms gripped my ass and squeezed while the other held my waist.

  He flipped us, so I sat on top of him. I’d never done it this way, but I moved on instinct, grinding myself against his skin.

  “Atta girl.” He leaned back against his pillow as I placed each of my palms on his chest and took over. “Ride my cock.”

  His gruff voice was almost indistinguishable past the hoarse lust, so deep and different, his desire something I wanted to explore until I knew it just as well as I knew him.

  “I’m close,” I gasped.

  It felt deeper this way, like he reached a part of me I never knew existed and my body hinged on the brink of explosion. My fingers dug into the skin of his shoulders. Each of his hands met my waist.

  I needed to mark him, to claim him as mine as I left bruises and scratches all over his chest, hoping I’d leave evidence that this happened, that this was real. That tomorrow, when we both woke up, I could look at him and call him mine.

  Reed took over from below, meeting me with so much force, it rattled the bed, and I feared his parents would discover us.

  “Oh, God.” I leaned forward, buried my head into his neck, and whispered against his sweat-stained skin, “I’m coming. I’m coming, Reed.”

  He stumbled a moment, halting his thrusts, but I was too far gone to stop. I pushed myself down harder on him and came, clamping around his length, biting down on his shoulder to quiet my moans. He came with me, his tongue brushing the shell of my ear as he let out a harsh curse.

  I’d been with other guys in the past, and they’d never made me come. Inexperienced teenagers, fumbling to clumsy completion compared to the sheer masculinity Reed fucked me with.

  Maybe having feelings changed sex. A part of me considered that he felt better because I was in love with him and I’d never been in love with any other boys, but I dismissed the notion. The way Reed slid inside me, the way his hands explored my body, the way he knew exactly what angle to push into me…

  It couldn’t be my head making it up.

  We fit perfectly.

  We settled into silence as I came down from bliss. Reed’s hand rested on my thigh, his fingers brushing the crease where my thigh and lips met until goosebumps lined my arms. I didn’t dare move, refusing to be the one that interrupted this.

  Chaos ran laps around my body. I needed to figure out what this meant. Still a little hard, Reed pressed deeper inside me as he reached for the lamp on the nightstand, his breathing a ragged exertion I felt against my skin.

  I blinked away the post-orgasm haze as the light flickered on. When my sight cleared and I finally got a look at him, I froze. Shock bulldozed into my body, nearly pushing me back had I not been gripping his flesh.

  Black spots scattered across my vision, and for a second, I thought I’d faint—and it would still be less mortifying than this.

  Anything would be less mortifying than this.

  It was almost too much to process.

  To make it worse, he was still inside me.

  This wasn’t Reed Prescott.

  This was a six-foot-two, hazel-eyed Adonis with short black hair and bedroom eyes that made you picture him naked if you looked long enough. Only he was actually naked and, I repeat, still. Inside. Me.

  Nash Prescott.

  Reed’s older brother.

  His nearly thirty-year-old brother.

  “You’re soaking my brother’s bed,” Nash remarked as he leaned back against his pillow and took in the sight of me. He looked annoyed, liked I was a pest who had royally fucked up his weekend plans.

  “You—I—What—” I floundered, my mouth opening and closing like a fish.

  You slept with Nash Prescott.

  Nash Fucking Prescott.

  And it felt amazing.

  Don’t freak out.

  Don’t freak out.

  Don’t freak out.

  I was totally freaking out.

  Nash raked his fingers through his hair, leaned over to snatch my robe, and tossed it to me. “Just fucking relax, would you? You’d think the goddamn orgasm would loosen you up.”

  For a split second, all I could think was, you weren’t always like this.

  Perhaps to other girls, but never to me.

  Nash was a fierce protector, the guy who would stop by my table with his brown paper lunch bag when my mom ‘forgot’ to give me lunch money. And while we’d rarely talked, even when he would share his lunch, I always took comfort in knowing I had two protectors—Reed and Nash.

  Something flipped the night of the cotillion. And after cops almost arrested Reed, the rift between him and Nash became unnavigable. They barely spoke. If they did, it was with a cordiality that reminded me of my relationship with Mother.

  My heart wept for Betty, who tried desperately to mend things. Surprise parties. Homemade dinners. Family outings they couldn’t afford with a son going off to college and one fresh out of grad school.

  Reed placed all his focus on Basil, football, and school. And Nash? He became a different Nash around us. One who lived up to his reputation. Gorgeous. Arrogant. Insufferable. Whenever he visited, he’d spend the weekend fucking every bored twenty-something housewife in Eastridge.

  I don’t recognize you anymore.

  The words sat at the tip of my tongue. I would never release them. That was Reed’s hill to die on. I cared because I hated the way Nash stared at me sometimes, accusations stabbing me from his eyes.

  Snide comments I would never ask him about because I was loyal to Reed, and even talking to Nash felt like picking the wrong side.

  “Such a Winthrop, Emery,” Nash once said when I stole capers from Reed’s plate after Betty made Chicken Piccata.

  “So good at hiding things.” He caught me sliding extra money into Reed’s stocking. I lied about it being from Dad. “Gideon has you sneaking around for him often?”

  “Betrayal. Taste it often?” I’d spit out a rotten peach from the garden. It landed by his foot, a few inches past my target.

  I wanted to take a few seconds to study Nash, to process my mortification, to enjoy the aftershocks of my first orgasm, yet all I could feel was Nash’s overwhelming gravitational pull, one more dangerous than that of any other boy I’d ever met.

  But Nash Prescott wasn’t a boy.

  He was a man.

  One who made me feel like the little girl I’d convinced myself I wasn’t.

  My arms slipped through the robe. The second the tie wrapped around my waist, my body solidified. My underwear remained lost somewhere, but at least I was covered.

  I ignored the sting of his derision, shook my head, and pushed aside the embarrassment. “Did you know?”
<
br />   The sharp accusation unfazed him. He stretched his arms, drawing my attention to the deep V of his body. I clenched around him. A reflex. My mortified eyes flicked up in time to catch his cocked brow.

  “I figured it out when you moaned my brother’s name while coming around my cock.” His eyes dipped down as if to remind me I was still on him.

  I scrambled off the bed, pushing the blanket over with the rushed movement. Horrified didn’t even begin to describe how I felt, but it was the plain irritation on his face that almost undid me.

  Couldn’t he at least pretend he enjoyed it?

  Because I did.

  I’d come.

  I never came.

  I’d spent the past two years filling out my body, my full chest the one thing about me that didn’t scream runway model. Riding Nash made me feel like a goddess. As if my body possessed magic, I controlled my pleasure, and something that had always worried me didn’t need to be anything but bliss.

  Yet, I obviously did nothing for Nash. He stared at me like he wanted nothing more than to forget this had ever happened. Like he disgusted himself for screwing somebody so young.

  It wasn’t as if either of us intended this to happen, and I didn’t have the guts to ask him why he looked slightly sickened and a hundred percent scornful.

  Pulling the sheets had left him bare, but Nash didn’t bother covering himself as he ran a hand through his hair again. Maybe if I were a guy and I was as big as Nash, I wouldn’t cover up either. Still, you’d think he’d at least have the decency.

  Then, I remembered there was nothing decent inside this man.

  Reed had warned me.

  “Careful, Em.” Reed glowered at his brother’s retreating Honda the weekend after the cotillion. “Nash does unforgivable things without bothering to ask for forgiveness.”

  I dug my nails into my thigh, hating this cycle of hurt. “Can’t you two talk it out?”

  “What would be the point in that? He’s a devious liar. I can’t trust anything he says.”

  I’d never been able to reconcile Reed’s version of Nash with the one who saved me too many times to count. Even if three years passed since he flipped a switch, I’d still hoped Nash hadn’t become as bad as Reed accused him of being.