Playing House: A Black Widow Novel (Dark Secrets Duet Book 1)

by Christa Simpson

  I’m watching on adoringly when my professor catches my undivided attention. I try not to flinch when he notices the way I’m staring. I have to chew on the inside of my mouth to hang on to my embarrassed smile. I hear his voice hitch in its delivery, and he pauses for a breath, but maybe I’m dreaming. He quickly recovers and looks to the next student.

  Finlay isn’t so quick to recover from it. It looks like I’ve found my revenge after all. My eyes glaze over, with Finlay’s drilling through the side of my head, again. I know he’s just waiting for me to look at him, but I’m not going to do it. I won’t give him the satisfaction. I stare straight ahead like he doesn’t exist. It’s like I don’t even exist. There’s not another word breathed in class that I hear, embarrassment and anger fueling my mental departure. It’s not until I notice students moving around the classroom that I get to my feet, tucking my book against my chest and walking toward Ryan and Savari. I do all of this before Finlay has a second to recover from the shock of me leaving his side.

  “Hey, Savari! Wait up.” I jog down the stairs and fall into step beside her. A bunch of classmates crowd the stairway behind me. “How’ve you been? We haven’t talked much lately.”

  She flashes a look toward Finlay, who must be gaining on me by any means necessary. That small look of disgust speaks volumes about how she feels about our dwindling friendship. “No thanks to Finn.”

  “Please, don’t pin this on him. I’ve been busy.” I say it quickly, knowing how much Savari hates when I lie to her. We might not have been friends for long, but we were close, before—now, not so much. We cheer for the same team. She’s my co-captain of the school’s Crimson Squad, but other than that we really are nothing to each other, anymore.

  She shakes a full head of straight blonde hair. “Are you sure you’re not moving too fast? This guy, you’re really in love with him? Because you don’t look very happy. You look... different.”

  Different? What does she know?

  “We’re in love. There’s no reason for us not to be together.”

  Oh, but there are reasons; if I’d only admit them to myself. I’m living in Finlay’s house now. His house. His rules. He decides what I buy and when. He decides what I wear and where I go. At first it was innocent—he was protective; it was sweet—but now he decides when I leave the house and who I hang around with. Over the course of the holidays, I managed to alienate all the friends I’d worked so hard to win over since moving to Queens two years ago for school.

  Finlay wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me away from the crowd, scowling at Savari in the process. “She’s just jealous because she doesn’t connect with Luke the way we do,” he says against my ear.

  The first part is true—she’s jealous—but only because we used to be super close. The rest is a line Finlay spoon feeds me daily. It’s just one of many things he swamps me with now that he has me under his thumb.

  Savari nods at me, disgusted with the woman I’ve become. “Good to see you, too.” Then she walks away with that same sour expression on her face that I’ve come to recognize all too well.

  Luke glances at me with the same disappointment written in his brow but grabs on to Savari’s hand to stop her. He tugs her back until they’re only a few steps away. Even with him whispering in her ear right next to us, she refuses to look at me.

  Luke delivers us a peace offering. “We’re all going out tonight and there’s room for two more, if you two want.” He looks optimistic, squeezing Savari’s shoulders.

  She’s still doing a good job of ignoring me.

  Finlay’s hugging me tightly against him, seeming to have forgotten about what happened in the classroom, and so I forget about it too. He looks down into my eyes. “What do you think?”

  “Maybe we could go out tonight,” I say, after I garner enough courage to make the suggestion. We haven’t gone out with anyone besides ourselves since the day I moved into his house.

  His jaw tightens. Clearly I’ve read the situation wrong. The beady, black balls in his eyes warn me to reconsider.

  “Except we have that thing,” I add.

  “What thing?” he asks, making me look like a total ass in front of our friends.

  I turn my eyes to the floor, and everyone waits for Finlay to end the conversation. “Oh, right. That thing. Yeah, we’re busy. Not tonight, I guess,” he says to Luke and Savari. “Sorry.”

  The anger continues to course through his veins, the heat from his body rushing toward me in waves. This argument is not over. Oh, no, it’s only just begun. I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut, speaking only when spoken to—by Finlay. Why can’t I just stick to the rules?

  Being with Finlay isn’t so bad. He loves me. He’s not all bad. He’s usually really good to me—usually. The fact of the matter is that everything is fine when we aren’t fighting, and I just want us to be happy, like we were before I moved in with him.

  The silence on our walk to his car is painful, the grip of his hand cutting off the circulation in mine. I don’t bother asking again whether we can go out tonight. Asking dumb questions right now would be a mistake. The ride home is no better, the quietness buzzing like a mosquito stuck in my ear canal. I wait for the show to begin—the Finlay show—wondering when and how it is going to happen this time, praying with basic hope that I’ll make it through another night.

  4: Survival

  Finlay is taking me home for war. I know the drill. Sit there and take it like a woman. Make dinner. Get bitched at for baking it wrong. Clean up the clear glass when he slams the dish of lasagna off the side of the table. Cry on my knees while cleaning the floor, broken like Cinderella but unable to keep a steely face with him standing over me screaming about what a mistake of a human being I am.

  “What is wrong with you?” he screams. “Can’t you do anything right? All I ask for is an edible plate of food on the table. Is that too much to ask? You can’t even get that right.”

  “I’m sorry, okay?” I cry hysterically. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

  “You’re sorry? You’re sorry?”

  I zone out after that. Words... they’re just words. He doesn’t mean it. I’ve done this to him. This is my fault. If I would have stayed calm, it would have been fine. Maybe if I was a better cook, he wouldn’t flip out over everything. He leans toward me to shout in my ear, as if maybe I will hear him better when he’s spitting at my ear drum.

  I want to scream back at him—tell him to stop—but think better of it, stiffly doing what I know I have to do—bow down and take it. I have to calm the fuck down and get through this, one episode at a time.

  I take a deep breath and smear my tears with the sleeve of my shirt. I listen to the seconds tick by, the oversized clock on the wall reminding me that this will all be over soon enough. He starts shouting again, but I can handle it now. This anger will pass, like it always does. He can’t keep this up for much longer. The volcano will erupt and soon the sweet, emotional rush will flow again.

  I know what Finlay’s working toward—make-up sex—but it won’t be until I’m a trembling, tear-faced wreck, browbeat into submission. I snap free from that safe place in my mind and tremble from the cold rush of tears on my cheeks. I place the wasted food into a plastic bag Finlay throws at me, together with the broken glass and dirty napkins I used to pick up the saucy mess. A chunk of the broken dish slices across my thumb as it drops into the bag, and I cry out in surprise. Blood instantly pools on the surface of the long cut, and I stare at it, wondering whether it’s deep enough to make a bloody mess. It takes a second for Finlay to realize something is wrong.

  My eyes fly across the room. Finlay’s suddenly watching me with a disgraceful look in his eyes. He notices the drops of blood on the floor and takes a step toward me. I flinch, raising my arm to hide my face, afraid he’s finally going to raise a hand on me.

  “Please,” I beg, not knowing what I beg for anymore. The shouting to stop. The name-calling to end. The rotten feeling inside my soul to subside. Just
hit me and get it over with.

  His hand comes gently down onto my shoulder. “You winced. Why did you wince?” He pauses as the words sink in and make me shudder. “Do you not love me anymore?” He sighs, tears coming to his eyes as I lower my guard. “What a monster I’ve become.” He pours his face into his hands. “Oh, God. What have I done?”

  Every second is torture, but this is no show. He means it and I can’t escape him. The other Finlay is back, and I can never leave him. I drop the bag to the floor, tuck my thumb into the palm of my hand and curl into his crumbling form. The tips of my fingers slide over his wet cheek and drag through his hair. “You know that’s not true,” I whisper, burying my face into his neck and clutching my injured hand to my chest. “Our love isn’t finished yet.”

  He kisses my wound, tasting my blood before pulling me to the sink. He rinses my hand under a stream of cool water, watching the pink swirling down the drain until the water runs clear. Finlay hands me a paper towel, and I press it against the laceration while he searches the cabinet for peroxide and a bandage. He cleans the fresh wound, dries my hand and covers the sliced skin, kissing the spot now concealed. His eyes remain downturned. Does he feel bad for the way he’s treated me? Will he remember this feeling tomorrow? His thumb smooths back and forth over my hand.

  “Can you ever forgive me?” he asks, his eyes pleading with the rush of a thousand oceans.

  I nod, his lips crashing down upon mine. His kiss is hard and heated, his hands immediately moving to the waistband of my skirt. I pant for air, the need to feel his skin against mine so overwhelming that I throb for him.

  “Say yes, Clarisse. I need this,” he breathes between harsh kisses, with a heavy hand squeezing my breast. He lifts me onto the table and spreads my legs, pushing against me where I’m most sensitive. “Say yes. Please say yes.”

  “Yes!” I gasp, when I hear the sound of a key and a jiggling doorknob. He hears it too, but it takes him a second longer to react to it.

  “Your mom’s home!”

  Finlay takes my good hand, tosses the remnants of our argument in the garbage and pulls me into his bedroom, closing the door behind me.

  He stalks me toward the bed, and I fall backwards onto it. Sex with Finlay tends to be good, especially after an emotionally-charged argument. Finlay pulls his shirt over his head in a single motion, his pants and underwear shed in the next moment. His eyes are hungry. He’s hungry for me, eager to make things right between us, as if sex fixes all things. For him, it often does.

  Even though this will be our third time today, it is a moment I look forward to. I shouldn’t complain. The sex is still amazing; my body tells me so every time he touches me.

  Finlay steals my attention away from the door with an erection so hard it’s flattened against his belly. “This is love,” he tells me while yanking down my skirt.

  His muscles aren’t huge, but he’s fit, and when he removes the only barrier left between me and him, I see the flex in every agile muscle.

  Without checking to see whether I’m even ready for him, he plows into me. I cry out in shock from the invasion. His hands clamp down on my shoulders as the pressure pins me deep into the mattress. I tamp down the bitterness that rises to my throat, feeling repulsed by the way he simply takes it whenever and however he wants it, without protection.

  I take steady breaths in and out, matching every other thrust. Just as my body adjusts to the rhythm, he slows down, filling me completely and working himself deeper. He keeps that up, watching my eyes flutter shut and feeling my hips bucking against him, craving the depth he was once giving me.

  My body wars with my mind, grinding against him and asking for more while my mind screams for him to stop and roll on a condom. He gets harder, if that is even possible, as my body tightens around him. I scream out, forgetting about the world around me as the sensations spiral from my body like an abstract painting.

  He doesn’t stop with my orgasm; he only moves faster, slamming into me again and again. My mind resurfaces from my next orgasm, which I realize is not born from love. I clench my teeth down in a mixture of pain too unpleasant to call true pleasure. My body starts to catch up with me, feeling the scrape of all that hardness passing over my sensitized flesh.

  “Oww,” I cry out as he makes another sharp pass over me. “That hurts, Finn.” My whimpering only turns him on more. “No,” I gasp, feeling the weight of him bearing down on me.

  Tears start to spill out of the corners of my eyes from the rawness as he rams into me long after my second orgasm has expired. I wonder now if the wetness between my legs is tinged red as I sink deeper into my psyche, farther away from the pain and the disgust of being used like a thoughtless ragdoll. I think of the better times—those when I want him. I take him in my hand or rub him just right, until he gives me what I need. He always gives me what I need. He’s good that way: always hard and ready for me. I feel so powerful at times like that, when he succumbs to my sexual prowess. I’ve started to use sex as a weapon. When I do, Finlay becomes vulnerable. He can’t say no to me. Not in the bedroom.

  Tonight is not one of those times.

  Finlay is not vulnerable and I am not in control. Tonight, I’m using sex as a shield, to protect me from his wrath. Some would call it a coping mechanism. I call it survival.

  When he’s done with me, he finally notices how I’ve withdrawn, shaking me ruthlessly by the shoulders until I respond to him, his anger threatening to bubble back to the surface. I instantly snap out of it, the soreness between my legs finally registering on a human level.

  “Clarisse. Clarisse,” he repeats.

  “Shhh,” I hush him, pressing my index finger into the flesh of his lower lip, now realizing it is fear fueling this rough treatment. “I’m here. I’m okay,” I say, running my fingers through his hair. I kiss him and whisper my love, drawing him to my breasts. It’s completely innocent and honest, because my love for him is true, and I want nothing more than his love and acceptance—that and for the throbbing pain to stop hurting so damn much.

  I ask him to help me clean up and he obeys, taking care of me the only way he knows how. I grab onto him and squeeze my legs around his neck. He clutches onto me like I’m his lifeline in tortured waters. He couldn’t escape if he wanted to, but he doesn’t and neither does his tongue, which doesn’t stop tormenting me until I’m thoroughly fucked and convulsing from the sensory distraction.

  It works like a charm, for the both of us. He stakes that claim and hangs it over my head like a noose that I wrap around my own neck. There are a couple of things he and I both know for sure: he owns my body, and if he can’t have me, no one can. If he only knew now, the very thing that drives us together would be the thing that digs his selfish ass an early grave.

  5: Social Suicide

  For once, I had everything going for me: good grades, a full scholarship, popularity. Being a varsity cheerleader has its benefits, but something is missing. Family. Finlay tries to fill that hole for me, for better or for worse. I didn’t know that filling that hole would open up new ones, but Savari seems to have set out to remind me of that every chance she gets.

  For an entire week, she follows me around and slips in a comment here and a glance there. After class this one time, Finlay needs a bathroom break, leaving Savari a new opportunity to badger me when she catches me lounging on a sofa down the hall. She cranes her neck around, like it’s shocking to find me on my own. I shoot her pouty lips, and that makes her smile.

  “I don’t know why you put up with him, Clarisse. Why do you let him control your life like this? He’s bad for your health, and you look like hell.”

  I don't deny it. I feel like hell, too. There’s no doubt in my mind that my life has changed since I’ve let Finlay Turnbull into it, but I have to admit another thing. “He's nuts, but I love him.” And no matter how badly I want to leave him, I can’t. There would be no one there to save him from himself, and I honestly believe he will hurt himself without me to balance
the bad times with the good.

  Savari sighs harshly. “You keep saying that. I’m not sure you understand that what he’s showing you is not love. It’s possession. There’s a difference. It’s the difference between a natural, healthy relationship and the one-sided nightmare you’re putting yourself through.”

  I catch Savari flashing a glance down the hall. Finlay quickens his steps when he sees that I have company. Savari smiles in his direction and scurries off but not until she’s softly reminded me that I’m not alone. “Later, girl. You know where to find me if you ever need to talk.”

  Clasping my hands together, I stare down at my linked fingers almost afraid to look up and find out which Finlay I have to deal with now. When I finally do look up, I’m forced to take in the evil stare that bears down upon me.

  “Clarisse, what are you doing talking to her?”

  My smile flips into my trademark scowl. Does he really think he can control who I talk to? “She’s my friend.”

  “No. No,” he snaps, throwing his hands down angrily. “She is not your friend. She tries to put things into your head that aren’t there.” He leans forward and gets in my face, with passing students starting to stare. “She’s trying to break us up. Is that what she was doing just now? Trying to break us up?”

  I try to cover his lips with a hushed finger, but he pushes my hand away and drops down onto the couch next to me, slouching forward to bury his face in his hands.

  Finlay knows I have cheer practice tonight. He is supposed to be walking me to the gym right now, but this new development poses a problem. I know this isn’t something that is going to pass in the next few minutes.

  “How am I supposed to let you go now?” he asks me.