Innocent Lies

by J.W. Phillips

  I thought he had a hodgepodge of food the first time he invited me over to dinner. Well, it had nothing on the buffet laid out over the counter. Ethan had been chopping veggies for the salad.

  “Come here, babe.” He pinched off a piece of mint chocolate truffles and held it up to my lips. I eagerly gobbled it down. He smirked. I could never resist his charm. I moaned as I chewed. This man’s cooking was seriously above par. He smiled and continued to hold a bite up to my mouth. I took another bite, letting my tongue run across his fingers. I loved the ease in which he moved around the kitchen. I didn’t, however, love his attire. Sarah, the girl who saw every piece of eye candy as a challenge, was scheduled to be there any moment; and Ethan had nothing on but a pair of unbuttoned jeans and an apron. I tapped his shoulder, letting my finger trace over his new tattoo. “Ethan, put some clothes on.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He gave me this knowing smirk and grabbed a shirt hung on the back of the barstool. “I was airing out the new ink.” He turned as I brought his bottle of beer to my lips. “When did you start drinking?”

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you. This hunk, with a big manhood, has taught me all kinds of naughty behaviors.” I winked and took a gulp of the beer. A small drop clung to my bottom lip. Ethan’s eyes bored into me as I wiped it away. Nervous under his stare, I twisted my head to the side and picked up a chip.

  He touched my chin and lifted it up, bringing my eyes to his. They were burning with a fiery lust. “Maybe, he will teach you some more. If you’re a good girl.”

  “Pay attention, Sarah will be here soon.” I thumped my fingertip on his nose. “What did the old tat mean?”

  “It’s the symbol to our clubs. It is usually the first tattoo we all get.”

  “Was it yours?” My fingers sprawled out over his stomach. His first tattoo. The symbol of his family. To think he erased it and replaced it with a token of us caused my heart to hammer in my chest.

  “Yeah, I got it when I was sixteen in a drug induce craze.” His hand grazed over my backside as his other hand drifted down my side. He gripped my ass and pushed me against him.

  “Sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For causing you to cover it up. I know it was special to you. But thank you, it means a lot.”

  “First off, the only thing special in my life is you. Secondly, I’m glad you like. My bro might get mad, but I think it’s my favorite.” He kissed me, slowly and deliberately. Lost in each other, we were interrupted by the cellphone. “What,” he spit into the phone.

  Ethan’s face went pale. His hand slipped in my back pocket where he worked his fingers painfully into my flesh. “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  He didn’t acknowledge me, just stood there listening to the person on the other line. He let me go and yanked his fingers through his hair. His face got whiter. I kept waiting on him to say something at least look at me. Anything. “Fuck,” he said, slamming the phone against the wall.

  I reached for his arm. He didn’t so kindly shrug me away. I was more scared than I have ever been with him. His eyes had lost all tenderness, and were so dilated they appeared black. I stared into the eyes of a man who had lost all control. “What’s wrong?”

  “That damn bastard Larry O’Neal called and told my dad I was with you. Shit. Shit. Shit. I expect this crap from Victoria not him.” He pulled his hair and rammed the back of his head into the kitchen cabinets. “Call your friends tell them tonight is off. I’ve got to get home now.”

  “The district attorney? Why?” I asked.

  “Because he is a S.O.B., Dylan, they want you dead.” He closed his eyes and muttered a stream of words I was relieved not to understand. My heart stopped. I touched his face, his hair, even his shoulder. I was breaking right in front of him.

  “Dylan. Beautiful Dylan.” His hands rammed in my hair. “Nobody is ever going to touch you. I’ll take care of it.” My breathing was ragged and on the verge of hyperventilating. Ethan’s lips were smooth as he kissed around my mouth never actually touching it. His thumb stroked my jaw. “Shush, trust me.”

  I started to nod, but my head involuntarily shook. “Sorry,” I whispered and rolled my head onto his chest.

  “I need to feel you and you have to trust me.” He kissed the top of my head and then jerked my hand, pulling me to the bedroom. He placed me on the bed and pushed my hair behind my ear. “Privy, you can trust me. Anytime you want me to stop just say so, I will, babe. Understand?”

  I nodded as he kissed my forehead. He walked to his closet. I heard him shuffling around and even imagined I heard a chain rattling. He came out holding rope and a black silk tie. “Hold your hands out.”

  I hesitated. He jerked my hands out in front of me. “I need you totally at my mercy. Don’t question me. Just do it.”

  “I can tell you no?”

  “Always,” he whispered and gazed down over my face. “This is what I know and the only way I can convince you to trust me.”

  “You won’t hurt me?”

  Ethan took a step back, completely and utterly stumped. “No.” He fell to his knees in front of me. He looked torn. Ethan at my feet, staring at me with a steady, helpless gaze, was the most chilling sight I had ever encountered. Blood drained from my face. That phone call didn’t rip my heart out, it ripped his. “This is for me. I need my control back. I need to know you are mine.”

  I held my hands out and crossed my arms at my wrist. “Stand.” He ordered. I paled and stood without a question. I didn’t notice the knife until he sliced through the rope. My knees wanted to buckle as I was seized with panic. I didn’t blink. He wanted to show me that I could trust him. I would trust him. Without a sound, he bounded my wrist together, knotting it firmly. So many questions flew through my mind, but all that mattered was wiping the hopelessness from his face. He tugged at the binding. Fuck, it was secure. He glanced up and for a moment I saw a flash of excitement in his eyes. “Are you sure, beautiful?”

  I nodded, vaguely lightheaded. I was not sure at all. He reached up and popped the button on my jeans, and leisurely pulled down the zipper. Without shifting his stare from me, he hooked a finger in my waistband and yanked my pants and panties to the floor. I started to step out of them when he barked, “Don’t move.”

  I stilled. He leaned forward and ran his nose along my inner thigh. His eyes closed as he circled his tongue over my opening. He flipped me around and shoved me face down on the bed. My feet tangled in my jeans.

  “Good girl.” He gently stroked my behind with his oversized hands and slid a finger along my folds. “I’m going to blindfold you now.” It was a different Ethan talking. He was domineering and totally in control. My breathing was almost nonexistent as I tried to scrabble around all the conflicting emotions in me and prayed for some internal strength. His teeth traced along my spine as his body descended over mine. “Hands over your head.”

  I did as I was told and he hooked the rope around the bedpost. I tugged against the rope, gaining no leverage. “Hold your head up.” He kissed my cheek. “I love you.” He fastened the tie around my face and secured it tightly around my eyes. Everything went black. All my senses were in hyper mode. My hearing was more acute. Even my smell was more attuned with my surroundings.

  “This has to be fast. We don’t have much time.” The words barely left his lips when he thrust into me hard. “Babe, don’t go numb on me. I want you to feel this.”

  For the first time, I didn’t go numb. I didn’t flashback to that night. I was totally in the moment and cherished every second I could feel without the baggage of my past. He started to pound into me, over and over again. I whimpered.

  “I love you, beautiful.” His voice was raw and powerful. I exploded around him as he pounded into me one more time. He collapsed on top of me and quickly released the ropes and blindfold.

  At that moment I trusted him immeasurably and would have done anything for him. “I love you so much. Trust me and I will give you the world. I will show you things
you only dreamed about. I will keep you safe.” He almost moaned. I wrapped my arms around him wanting to lay there forever. He pushed up. “We have to pack. We have to get out of here.”

  I laid unable to move and had to resist the urge to brush the blond piece of hair that fell over his forehead as he bent to pull the suitcase out from under his bed. He started to throw random clothes into it. I noticed he opened the third drawer from the top on his dresser and it was full of women’s clothes. I looked away afraid to ask did he buy them for me or if they were leftovers from other stray women. He zipped the overflowing suitcase and tossed it to the floor. He caressed his hand over my exposed breast. “Beautiful, you need to get dressed. Thank you.”

  I struggled to sit up as he helped me redress. Gone was the dominant Ethan and in his place was the sweet, caring Ethan that captured me. I could trust him.

  The whole ride Ethan smoked one cigarette after another. I was beginning to wonder where he was keeping them all. I finally had enough and took the cigarette from his lips, flicking it out the window. “Talk.” I demanded.

  We had been in that car for no less than four hours and I was still uncertain as to what was going on. We ran out of his house, leaving all that food still lying on the kitchen counter.

  “About what?”

  “What do I need to tell Sarah?”

  Sarah and her man of the day, along with Deacon and Allison showed up within minutes of the most intense moment of my life. Ethan told them he had gotten called back home for a family emergency, and gave them a one hundred dollar bill to pay for dinner. Sarah, however, could read me. She knew it was more than a sick grandparent or unruly brother. And she wouldn’t stop texting me.

  “Ignore her.” He twisted the knobs on the air conditioner, and switched the radio station. “Want to play a game with me?”

  “What kind of game?”

  “Quid pro quo.”

  I didn’t answer him, but my blank expression gave me away. Huh?

  “Tit for tat. I ask you a question about anything and you can ask me one. Hell, I’ll be nice you can ask two. I figured you have more running around in that beautiful head of yours than I do. You first?”

  “Favorite tat?”

  “Ours?”

  “Other than that one?” I angled my head to the side and rolled my eyes.

  “Oh.” He shifted and pushed his shirt off his left shoulder. “This one.”

  It was a white tattoo of the contour of an ear with a thick line running through it. “What does it mean?”

  “It’s the symbol for deafness. I got it for my momma.”

  “Why?”

  “She was born deaf.”

  That was a new one. I knew that other than a few pictures of his sisters and one brother, he only had pictures of his mom. She was the one who decorated his place. Then again his family was trying to kill me. They dealt in drugs. Could she had really been that great? “What is she like? Are y’all close?”

  “That is a lot more than two questions. But yes, she is this little firecracker. You can’t help but smile when you’re around her. My dad is an arrogant bastard. Yet, he even melts with her.” He shot me a sideways smile that made me want to kiss him. “She can’t wait to meet you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you’re the woman who has finally stole her little boy’s heart.” He curled his fingers around my knee. “My turn. How is it that I know Deacon eats no less than three donuts every morning, but I was unaware that she is a lesbian?”

  “I don’t know. It’s something I don’t like talking about?”

  “Lesbians?”

  “Love. I don’t like talking about who someone loves or even try to figure out why they do. Take us for instance. If people understood the facts to our story they would say I was crazy to feel the way I do. But that’s the problem they don’t know how I feel. They can’t feel the way my heartbeat speeds up every time you touch me” I blushed. “The way your kisses send my whole body haywire. The way the sound of your voice just makes me happy. If Allison does that for Deacon, I’m just thankful she has it.” I twisted my head to look out the window. “You’re not a homophobe are you?”

  “No, I just think it’s wrong.”

  “Who says?”

  “God.”

  “He also says that murder is wrong, lying, judging, sex outside of marriage, even marrying a divorced woman. So whose place is it to say my sin or your sin is bigger or smaller than someone else’s? I think we need to quit judging and start loving.”

  “How is it possible that I love you more every day?” He had that damn look in his eyes that made my toes curl.

  “I’m pretty damn lovable.”

  “A-fucking-men to that.” His too perfect face lit up with his most sinister smile.

  “My turn.” I was not ready to ask the question that would probably wipe the smile off his face, but it was the question I had been suppressing since day one. “Who the hell is Victoria?”

  He white knuckled the steering wheel. His jaw tensed drawing his skin tight over it. “A bitch that was dating my brother that died earlier this year. The brother who attacked you.”

  The air had been sucked from my lungs. Ethan told me he had a brother who had recently died. It was obvious he was a brother that Ethan cared nothing about. But to know that the monster who hurt me so bad was gone; I would never have to lay eyes on him again. That made me want to punch a fist in the air. I bounced in the seat and bit down on my lip not to smile. He was my nightmare. However, he was still Ethan’s brother.

  “She blames me for his death?” He shrugged his shoulder. “Don’t blame her. Let’s just say we have a rocky past. She wants to see me suffer. That’s why I never wanted her to know who you were or more what you mean to me.”

  “Did you?”

  “What?”

  “Have anything to do with his death?” I honestly didn’t know how I would had reacted if he had. Jamie was the man that had agonized me every day for the last five years. But could I had stayed with Ethan if he was capable of murder.

  “I sent him on the job, knowing, damn well, he could be hurt. But babe, I couldn’t hurt him myself. Though I can honestly say I have not lost one night of sleep over it.”

  That was as close to the correct answer as he could have given.

  Ethan fisted and unfisted his hands on the steering wheel. “He tortured you for four days and would had killed you too if I hadn’t shown up. What did he get twenty-two fucking months behind bars.”

  The district attorney had never known anyone found guilty of those charges to get the minimum sentence. Six years, only having to serve twenty percent of it.

  “It was his sentence.” Even if he deserved much more.

  “Dad paid off the judge. Hell, we have half the police force in the state on our payroll.” He looked so tormented it made my heart sink. “Hungry?”

  Change the subject often. “You’re honestly using your question to see if I am hungry?” and yes I am starving. I have not eaten all day.

  “That and trying to change the subject.”

  “Yes, I’m starving.” And thanks for being honest.

  “Then we will eat.” He lit up another damn cigarette. “Beautiful, never give up on me. Fight for this. I would die for you.” He rolled down the window and stuck out his hand, letting the wind whip around it. Another time he needed the subject to change.