The Deception

by Nikki Sloane

  Wait. The door.

  Had Royce left it like that, or perhaps ajar, and the hinges had let it slowly swing away from the frame? Because the ornate door with its brass handle was currently open, revealing the empty hallway beyond.

  Not empty, a warning voice in my mind whispered.

  I peered through the doorway into the darkness, letting my eyes adjust to the form lurking there. As my gaze met his, Macalister stepped out of the shadows.

  SEVEN

  Macalister’s silent entrance tore me open, poured hot lead inside, and then dumped me into the harbor. I sank into the depths, the pressure of the ocean water making it impossible to move or scream.

  There weren’t words to describe his expression. He was angry, that much was clear, but a myriad of other emotions skulked in his eyes. Longing. Jealousy. Hurt.

  Interest.

  With his back to the door, Royce was unaware of the danger who had edged into our room and now stood towering just inside the doorway. He was too focused on what he was doing to understand I’d seized up because of an intruder and not his tongue caressing my clit.

  When I opened my mouth to speak, he pushed his finger past my entrance and deep inside my body. The unexpected pleasure was so great, my mind fractured and my body bowed instinctively. I let go of his hair and latched my other hand behind me, my elbows pointed to the ceiling as I arched up, away from the couch.

  My moan was louder than the sound of satisfaction Royce gave, and it wasn’t likely Macalister heard a thing besides me, anyway. He braced one hand on the doorframe, and the other that hung at his side curled into a white-knuckled fist.

  All the control he had on himself was clutched in those fingers like a hand gripping reins, and the tense way he held his body screamed of the powerful chaos trapped inside. It was desperate for escape, for release.

  His glacial eyes pierced mine as a harpoon and dragged me in, even as I tried to resist. He wordlessly demanded to know how could I do this to him.

  The longer he stood there and stared at me, the angrier I became.

  The door had been shut, I now knew that. This was still his house, and he owned everything inside, so he didn’t feel the need to knock. He’d come in here unannounced, perhaps to stop what he suspected was happening.

  I’d told Macalister I was in love with Royce, but he wouldn’t accept it. A dark, sinister voice made a suggestion.

  Show him.

  I was vaguely aware it was a fucking terrible, dangerous idea, but he’d pushed me repeatedly to my breaking point, and I cruelly wanted to return the favor. My hands ached from how hard I gripped the back of the couch, but I tipped my chin down to my chest and glared at him through my heavy-lidded eyes.

  Watch, I dared.

  As he’d pointed out back when I’d lost in the hedge maze, it was nothing he hadn’t already seen. Macalister had stood beside the dining table the night of the initiation with an hourglass gripped in his hands while his son fucked me with both his mouth and his cock.

  I turned my head to the side so I wouldn’t have to look at Macalister and gasped it into my arm. “Oh, my God. Yes, Royce.”

  My fiancé’s finger pushed and pulled inside me, moving faster to match the hurried pace of his tongue lashing at me. I gulped down air but grew lightheaded anyway. There was nowhere to look. Not at Royce, whose penetrative gaze made me want to explode, or at Macalister, who appeared both tormented and enraptured.

  I knew it was wrong.

  That I should send him away, or at least open my mouth and say something. This moment was supposed to be between Royce and me. But if I spoke up, it’d ruin everything. Royce would be rightfully furious, and he didn’t handle his emotions well. What if he lost control and said something he regretted? What if he gave away what he was planning?

  The greedy, selfish part of me didn’t want this to be over. I was close to orgasm. Royce’s mouth lapped at me, and when he added a second finger to join the first, my lips parted into an inaudible cry. Electricity danced over my bare skin. My breasts ached, and my nipples pinched tighter.

  So, I kept my tongue leashed and let Macalister watch how his son pleased me. I allowed him to listen to my soft sobs of pleasure and the sound of Royce’s fingers as they made me wetter still.

  The wrongness of it was so overwhelming, it consumed everything. It pinned me to my seat on the couch and in Royce’s hands, naked and squirming as I gasped for breath. I tried to keep my gaze on the man kneeling on the floor, but Macalister’s presence demanded attention and stole my focus.

  The way his fingers tensed on the doorframe made me think he was imagining what he’d do with them if given the opportunity. How he would use them to coax out an orgasm. It was difficult to concentrate with my climax closing in, but I stared at him, trying to give him the darkest look of disapproval I had.

  Without a sound, I made my battle cry.

  Macalister made his with the corner of his mouth lifting in an evil smirk.

  There was power in this room, and it had all been mine up until this moment. Like a fool, I hadn’t realized we were playing a game, and as usual, Macalister was already two moves ahead. His hand came down off the doorframe and seemed to glide through the air in slow motion.

  Holy shit. I watched with dread and sick fascination as he cupped himself through his slacks and began to massage his building erection.

  My hands tunneled into Royce’s hair, preventing him from turning and seeing the horrifying thing unfolding behind him. It was hypnotic the way Macalister’s palm slid up and down, and how his fingers clenched and gripped. Dark, twisted satisfaction spread across his face.

  He wasn’t mad anymore. No, he was enjoying the view. His gaze trailed over me, lingering on my breasts, and followed the lines of my spread legs. I felt his scrutiny the same way I imagined his cold fingers would feel.

  This had to be a bluff, I told myself. Macalister couldn’t stand I’d been in control, and he’d done what he could to level the playing field. I held his gaze with defiance. He wasn’t going to actually . . .

  God, I was supposed to know better. It was win at all costs in this family.

  I hopelessly chased my breath while watching his fingers methodically undo his fly, and my muscles coiled with anxiety. I choked on air as his zipper was pulled down, tooth by silent tooth. No, no, no, repeated in my head, but I didn’t issue a whisper to stop it. I was drunk off desire.

  The flurry of Royce’s tongue seduced. His fingers touched the spot deep inside me that made my heart skip and stumble. I was right on the ledge, only a fingertip’s grip away from falling into ecstasy.

  My frantic gaze bounced between him and Macalister’s hand as he buried it inside his undone pants and dug around. And then it began to move, sliding up and down in long strokes.

  It was beyond fucked up. So perverse, even the Greek gods might have been proud.

  Royce’s fingers plunged inside me so fast the couch began to shake, and I forced my gaze down, wanting to see him and nothing else. I was a passenger who naïvely boarded a rollercoaster, but only once I was strapped in and the cars were climbing the hill did I realize what a mistake I’d made.

  I needed off. I had to find a way to stop it, I had to—

  Satisfaction erupted and burst from my core, spiraling out along my limbs faster than lightning as I came. A shocked moan crashed through me while I flinched and contracted and let go of Royce’s head. It felt like I was being jolted with a Taser, only instead of painful electricity, it was hot pleasure.

  He sat back but left his fingers buried inside me, where he could feel every reactive pulse my body gripped him with. He watched me with wonderment and desire, and I forgot about the other man in the room. All I wanted was the one who’d waited a year to have me, even when he wasn’t sure he’d get to.

  The man I loved who was trying to dethrone a king.

  “Royce.” My voice cracked with emotion as I begged. “Make love to me.�
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  For a moment, Hades stepped aside, and Ares took over. His expression said he’d go to war and march through hell, and Royce would spend every last dollar he had to keep me. Nothing would stand in his way.

  I blinked, unleashing a tear I hadn’t realized had collected in my eye, and Hades returned. He came to me, wiped the tear away, and pressed his mouth to mine. His arms caged around me, and I was Persephone, happy in her prison.

  It was unclear when Macalister left, but by the time Royce lifted me up off the couch, his father had vanished. He must have shut the door behind him because it was closed again. A stone of guilt settled on my chest, crushing my heart. I shouldn’t have allowed any of that to happen.

  There wasn’t time to dwell on it. Wooden beams decorated the ceiling, and their lines continued down the back wall, so they were the only thing breaking up the floor to ceiling windows, and Royce walked us toward it until my upper back was flat to the smooth wood.

  He was already hard as he stood between my legs, but I clasped a hand around him and pumped my fist, trying to repay at least a fraction of the pleasure he’d given me. His palms were on the beam over my head and he looked down to watch my strokes, and although it severed the connection of our stare, it didn’t break the spell between us. His chest rose and fell with his uneven breath, and he throbbed in my hand. He enjoyed the feeling, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he was allowing it more for my benefit than his own, giving me an opportunity to reciprocate.

  His eyes met mine and announced all he wanted was to follow the command I’d issued.

  Make love to me.

  A breathless sigh slipped from my mouth as his hands drifted around me, both behind my waist. One moved to splay across my back and the other slid down over my backside. Without thinking about it, I hiked my leg up to wrap around him, and his fingers trailed lower. They skated down through the crevice of my body between my cheeks, and he stifled the noise of surprise I made by planting his mouth over mine.

  There was only the faint brush of his fingertips against my clit before he moved on and his palm slid against the underside of my thigh. I was balanced on the ball of one foot, but then he was lifting, and it left me with no choice but to wrap my legs and arms around him and hold on.

  He stared at me like he might die if he didn’t, and slowly lowered me onto him, inch by impossibly good inch. On the outside, we were so still we were practically statues, but inside everything was going haywire. My pulse was an engine in overdrive. Nerves fluttered in my belly. A whine threatened to bubble out of me.

  Once he was fully seated inside, my body tight around him, Royce began to move. His hips drew back and pressed forward, pushing the small of my back against the wall. It didn’t take long for our gasps to sync. I banded my arms tighter around his neck and dropped my forehead against his shoulder, letting moans pour from me freely.

  The position was taxing on him, but he didn’t set me down. He struggled for breath, and it fluttered the loose ends of hair beside my neck, and his muscles quickly began to shake with fatigue. But he kept going. He wasn’t able to tell me he loved me, and maybe it was foolish to believe he did, but he affirmed his feelings for me with each slow thrust and deep kiss.

  The edges of the beam bit into my back, and he’d become so slippery with sweat it was hard for me to hold on to him, but I wanted it to last forever. I wished we could freeze time and exist the rest of our lives here where we were just ourselves, connected to each other.

  “Marist,” he uttered against the shell of my ear. The single word was loaded with so much emotion, it was nearly the same as the three words I hoped to hear from him someday.

  The hands supporting me lowered until I could put my feet on the floor, and then I was turned in place, so my back was against Royce’s toned chest. He used one hand to steady himself, and the other grasped my hip to guide him back inside me, and as soon as it was done, he folded our arms together over my chest, lacing his fingers on top of mine.

  His mouth latched on to the sensitive spot just below my ear and sucked gently, and it made the muscles inside me clench on him. He groaned his satisfaction.

  It could have been hours or minutes before the pleasure became too much and we neared our end. When he trailed his fingertips down my stomach and pressed them to my aching clit, it set me off. I slapped my hands against the beam in front of me and gasped through the onslaught of my orgasm, which was so strong my legs threatened to give out on me.

  Once I had come, he let himself loose. He moved at a faster tempo. The hand on my hip squeezed until my flesh dented around his fingers. Behind me came the sounds of his approaching orgasm. The slew of tight, short breaths followed by a lengthy groan and shudder while his hips jerked to a stop.

  It was quiet besides our heavy breaths and the soft hum of the gas fireplace.

  “I love you,” I whispered in the silence.

  He captured my chin between his thumb and forefinger and turned my head into his needy kiss. It was so powerful, it was overwhelming, and he carried me to bed.

  Where I curled beside him and slept the whole night through.

  The dining room of the Hale’s Aspen house was similar to the one in Cape Hill, only here it was warm and open and less formal. It still had high ceilings, a crystal chandelier, and a rectangular table big enough to seat twelve, but the back wall was a window, allowing for more light. It meant there were fewer shadows, both metaphorically and literally.

  We’d assumed the same seating arrangement we’d used for our weekly family meals at the Hale house before Alice and her lily of the valley tea had shredded the dynamic. Macalister sat at the head of the table, his murderous wife to his right and his plotting eldest son to his left. While I wasn’t directly across from her, she was only a few feet away, and I spent most of the dinner looking toward my parents seated beside me, or down at my dinner plate.

  The Thanksgiving meal was prepared by a Michelin star chef, but the food tasted bland in my mouth. There was too much tension everywhere I looked. Macalister’s gaze was always fixed on me whenever I made the mistake of looking his direction. Across from me, Vance was seated between his former and current lovers, although Jillian was oblivious to the undercurrent in the room.

  My parents were for the most part too. They didn’t speak much during dinner, probably worried about saying anything that could draw Macalister’s attention or ire. I was glad they were here, but I wasn’t sure why he’d invited them. Was it to remind them who held the purse strings and make them feel small?

  Plates of mini pumpkin pies were set before us on our chargers, and Jillian cleared her throat. Her voice was hesitant. “So, my family has a tradition when the dessert is served, and I was wondering if we could do it tonight?”

  It came from me before I could think better of it. “I’m sure. Macalister’s a big fan of traditions.”

  A choked, strained laugh came from Royce that he tried to play off as a cough.

  Hot irritation simmered in Macalister’s question. “What is it?”

  Jillian was visibly regretting her decision to speak up, but there was no going back now. “We go around the table and each say what we’re thankful for.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and straightened her shoulders. “I’ll go first. I’m thankful to the Hale family for inviting me to dinner.” When she realized that wasn’t enough, she tacked on more, but it wasn’t the least bit convincing. “And . . . for being so welcoming to me.”

  I pressed my lips together to stop my mouth from running away.

  She turned toward Vance expectantly, who gave her a blank look. When she didn’t break, he reluctantly shifted in his seat. “Yeah, okay.” He wiped a hand over his mouth while he struggled to come up with something. “I’m thankful Professor Robuchon didn’t call on me in class on Monday because I didn’t do any of the required reading.”

  Cold annoyance wafted down the table from Macalister, but Vance was indifferent.

 
; Jillian scrunched her mouth to the side. It wasn’t the answer she was hoping for, but she wasn’t going to say so. When the table went quiet, she peered around. “Um . . . anyone else?”

  Awkward silence answered, and I scrambled to save her. “Sure, I’ll—”

  “I’m thankful for my husband,” Alice announced, her chin lifted high as her gaze zeroed in on me, “who knows what we have is unique and special, and will always be my partner, no matter what happens.” Her smile was devoid of emotion. “And, of course, this family too.”

  It was Alice’s classy way of spitting in my path, marking her territory, which was totally unnecessary. I wanted nothing to do with her husband. Beneath the table, I dug my nails into my thigh, letting the pain distract me from losing my head.

  “Then, I suppose I’m next,” Macalister said. “I’m thankful for Marist.”

  If there had been a record playing, the needle would have dragged loudly across it. I could hear the what the fuck echoing through Royce’s head, and see it visibly on Alice’s face.

  Macalister wasn’t finished. “For her upcoming union with my son and uniting our families together as the mother of my children had always hoped for.” He cast his inescapable gaze on me. “You’ve brought me great happiness by coming into our lives.”

  I nearly heaved the contents of my dinner all over my dessert, but Royce’s hand found mine and held me together. His tone was casual, ignoring the bomb his father had just detonated, or how the fallout was currently washing over his stepmother. Color drained from her face and emptied into her neck, turning it a violent pink.

  “I’m also thankful for Marist,” my fiancé said.

  He lifted our joined hands out from under the table and kissed my knuckles, his eyes twinkling. It was a silent message telling me not to let them get to me. To do as he did when others were around. Play a role.

  I peeled my lips back in an uneven smile, digging deep inside myself to find the Instagram version and not the Medusa one who wanted to destroy her enemies. “I, uh . . . am thankful for Royce, especially everything he’s done for Emily.”