Deceptions: A Collection

by Shiloh Walker

  A hungry whimper escaped her as he rocked against her again and he swore, nudging her forward. “I want you again,” he said, his voice a growl in her ear. “I’m going to take you like this. Here. Now. Unless you say no.”

  She shivered and then shoved her butt back against him in response.

  Decker bent her over her desk, unable to look into her eyes just then.

  She stripped him naked, left him raw, and he’d almost said it. Just then. He’d almost said it.

  He practically tore the rubber in his haste to get it on and she pushed up onto her elbows, staring over her shoulder at him, her breaths coming in hitchy little pants.

  He moved in, closing his hand around his cock, arrowing it at the wet heart of her. She was swollen, tighter around him. She went to spread her legs and he used his knees to stop her. “Like this,” he murmured. Slow, he told himself. Go…slow…

  Feeling her gaze, he looked up.

  “Lizzie, I…”

  He had to snap his jaw shut, lock the words down.

  No. Not like this. Not until…no. Just…

  He stretched out his hand, pressed it between her shoulder blades and pressed her down, down, until she was flat against the desk. Then he pressed his hand to the back of her neck, keeping his hold light, but steady. That look in her eyes, hungry and open…somehow it ripped out all the secrets he’d kept hidden so long.

  Unable to give up that part of himself, he gave her everything else, pumping into her with deep, slow strokes that had her twisting back on his dick, while she pleaded and moaned, her hands scrambling against the surface of the desk.

  She wanted him.

  She moaned his name as she came.

  It was more than he thought he’d ever have…and now he realized it wasn’t anywhere close to enough.

  It was a bittersweet knowledge to carry and he swallowed down the pain it brought as he climaxed with vicious intensity. There he was, buried inside the woman he loved, and he hovered on the brink of both heaven and hell.

  He took her home.

  And then he took her again.

  Elizabeth might have lost track of how many times they came together, except…well, up until that night, she’d realized she’d only thought she understood what a climax was.

  She’d used her hands, the showerhead, the occasional vibrator and found pleasure.

  She’d thought she had good sex with Noel.

  The two awkward encounters before that were too embarrassing to think about.

  But she had thought she understood what a climax was.

  Now, thanks to six mind-blowing orgasms from Decker, she realized just how wrong she was.

  She fell asleep in his arms, her mind half-focused on those thoughts she’d refused to let herself linger on for so long.

  That day she’d gone to the ramshackle house where he’d lived with his dad—not for much longer, though. He’d won a scholarship and was heading to Alabama soon.

  He’d leave and he’d never know…

  The back door wasn’t closed, but then it never was. It hadn’t closed well for a long time, Decker had told her and then, in a rare fit of openness, he’d told her why.

  His dad had been drunk on the porch. Decker had gone outside to help him in and the bastard had hit him—or tried to. They’d ended up tumbling into the door frame, knocking the door uneven and it hadn’t shut right ever since.

  That had been when Decker was fourteen.

  “When I’d started to get bigger,” he’d told her. “It wasn’t much longer before he finally started to leave me alone. Once I could kick his ass, I wasn’t worth the effort to him.”

  She hated his father.

  Hers was a cold man, more concerned on appearances and propriety but he wasn’t violent. He’d never hit her before. She didn’t have scars on her. Decker did.

  Easing inside, she darted a look around. Austin Calhoun wasn’t likely to be here. He’d managed to land a job—whether or not he could hold it was a different story. But Decker was here. He didn’t go in to his shift at the YMCA until three.

  She heard a noise, soft, low…

  Her face flamed. Instinct whispered, Get out…

  But she couldn’t.

  Gripping her purse, she eased down the hall, and there, she froze. Stared. Horrified.

  She should have backed away. Immediately. But she couldn’t.

  Decker stood over the brunette, his hands holding her thighs wide. She lay on the rickety table and it squeaked with every thrust. Mesmerized, she stared, watched as his cock disappeared. He was thick. And the girl moaned, reaching down to stroke herself.

  Elizabeth’s gasp lodged in her throat.

  Decker’s head flew up. Through his bangs, his eyes locked on her and he froze.

  “Lizzie…”

  “What the—” The girl on the table tensed.

  Decker shoved away, fumbling with his jeans.

  Elizabeth turned and ran.

  He shouted her name.

  She ignored him.

  She couldn’t get away fast enough. And to think she’d come to tell him that she loved him.

  I love him…

  The thought was there, in her mind, even as Elizabeth stretched her way into wakefulness.

  That truth she’d hidden away for so long.

  “What were you doing with Hamilton, Lizzie?” Dark blue eyes staring at her from behind a thick plate of glass. “Why were you with him? I warned you about him.”

  Guilt lodged in her belly liked a stone and nausea churned, a brewing storm that was determined to break free.

  Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes. She had to tell him.

  Every time he’d tried to talk about that that night, she’d shied away. It was one of the things they never talked about. Oh, he would try. But she never would, pulled back every time he tried. Because she was afraid, and because the guilt still haunted her.

  She’d ruined his life, had cost him a scholarship, the chance to play ball, to find something better. And she’d done it for stupid, petty reasons.

  Sliding a hand out, she reached for him. One more touch, she thought. One more, before she told him…and probably lost even him.

  “Deck…?”

  She opened her eyes and sat up.

  She was alone in bed.

  It didn’t take long to find out that she was alone in her little house, too.

  He wasn’t there.

  Twenty minutes later, she sat alone on her front porch. Oleander and magnolia shaded the area in the sunlight, but just then, it was dark. She sipped at her coffee and brooded.

  He hadn’t come back.

  She’d hoped he’d just gone out for a run, but he hadn’t left a note.

  Hadn’t texted.

  Hadn’t done anything.

  She had to be at work in two hours.

  But she wasn’t going to wait around here.

  Tonight she had a date, one she was tempted to cancel.

  She’d debate on that later.

  For now, though, she had to get out of here, because even being in the house…hell, the porch reminded her of Decker. He’d helped her re-stain the floorboards.

  He’d planted a new oleander for her after a storm had destroyed the one she’d planted a few years before. He’d shaken his head at her when she told him she wanted a new one. Aren’t these dangerous? he’d asked. She’d just laughed. Dangerous things don’t bother me…not all the time anyway. Then she’d pulled his hair.

  He’d just rolled his eyes at her.

  The entire time, one of her neighbors had watched them from behind her curtains.

  Oleander…

  She groaned.

  That damned date.

  How could she go out on a date with anybody when she was so twisted up over everything that had played out with Decker? Over everything she’d refused to let herself feel…everything he’d made her feel.

  He wanted her.

  She loved him.

  “This is impos
sible,” she muttered.

  But one thing was clear.

  She needed to cancel the date.

  Cancel the date, remove her profile from Wanna Play, because she wasn’t in the right place to be dating—or playing—right now. She’d just dumped, or had been dumped, by her boyfriend. Then she’d slept with her best friend…yeah.

  Talk about a complicated mess.

  Chapter Eight

  “Lizzie…”

  She wouldn’t open the door.

  That didn’t matter.

  He knew how to get inside whether she opened the door or not. And she’d showed him the way, after her father had made it more than clear he didn’t want Decker around.

  Now, leaning against the door that opened onto the little balcony outside her room, he closed his eyes.

  Why had she been at his house?

  Why had he let Jeanette inside?

  He knew the answer to one of those and that answer was simple—he’d been living in a state of terminal horniness for the past two years, ever since he’d met, and befriended, one of the sweetest, smartest girls at school.

  But Lizzie wasn’t for the likes of him. He knew that.

  So he handled it in any other way possible.

  Still…he’d seen a look in her eyes.

  He’d almost thought it was hurt.

  He had to know.

  But she wouldn’t open the door.

  He knocked again.

  “Lizzie, c’mon…let me in.”

  He braced a hand on the wooden frame of the door, leaning forward. Maybe if he begged…

  Abruptly the door swung open and he almost ended up flat on his face.

  Then he was almost on his knees anyway as he caught sight of her. White sundress, skinny straps that went up over sunkissed shoulders. Her tits…his mouth watered every time he even thought about those tits and now he saw more of them than she ever let show.

  The dress flowed down over round hips and he wanted to pull her up against him and take big, greedy bites out of her.

  “What?” she asked, her voice snappish and cold.

  “Lizzie…” He blinked. “Wow. You look…” Beautiful. Sexy. Gorgeous. “Nice. Are you…”

  “I’ve got a date. Did you need something?”

  A date? He almost asked who with but yanked it back in time. Maybe he’d imagined what he thought he saw. Yeah. He had. But even as he went to make up a lie, her lower lip trembled.

  Fuck it. He was going to try.

  Reaching up, he cupped her cheek. “Why are you mad at me?”

  “I’m not.” She went to back away and he followed her, crowding her up against the door.

  “Yeah, you are. Look, about earlier…”

  “I don’t want to hear it. You can have sex with whoever you want. Next time, I’ll call before I head over.”

  He heard the words. Really, he had. But she was so close. Pressing his thumb to her mouth, he lowered his head. Sweet….she smelled so sweet. “I didn’t want to have sex with her. She was just…there.”

  Lizzie blinked at him. Then she tried to wiggle out from between him and the door. “Yeah, you looked disinterested. Deck, I have to finish getting…”

  He caught her mouth.

  Once. He’d kiss her just that once and if she didn’t like it, if she didn’t want him, he’d never do it again.

  But she opened for him, her lips parting on a ragged sigh.

  “Sweet, sweet Lizzie,” he whispered, before taking the kiss deeper, harder.

  Her hands curled into his shirt and he hauled her up against him. Yeah, this was what he wanted. She was what he wanted. What he…

  “Elizabeth.”

  A hard, heavy knock at the door.

  “Elizabeth!”

  She wrenched away, staring at him. Without taking her eyes away, she said, “Yes, Dad?”

  “Your date is here. Are you ready?”

  “I…I need a few minutes, please,” she said, her voice trembling.

  A date. She had a date. Dazed, he reached for her. She couldn’t go.

  But she backed away.

  They listened as the footsteps receded and then she said softly, “You need to go.”

  “Lizzie, I need to talk to you.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “And don’t ever do that again. Unlike the other girls you want to screw, I’m not just there, Decker. I’m…”

  She turned around and all but ran to the door.

  Gritty-eyed, Decker sat in the middle of his little apartment, surrounded by letters…and memories.

  He’d asked her, once, when she’d come to see him in prison why she’d been with Hamilton Price.

  Hamilton Price—the so-called golden boy to Decker’s bad boy. Decker might have been the beast on the football field, but Hamilton was the team captain. He was the one who got all the pretty girls, who had the fawning eyes of the teachers, and if a few times a girl would whisper that he got too rough, or didn’t listen to no, it was brushed off.

  Because, yeah, boys will be boys.

  That was what they said.

  Decker hadn’t had much use for Hamilton off the field and he went out of his way to avoid him. Hamilton, though, had seemed to be everywhere Decker was. Invited him to parties, showed up at the Y.

  And he was there, at the wrong time, when Decker had sent Elizabeth running out of the house.

  He’d figured it out.

  There was a lot of time to think in prison and when she’d closed up on him the one time he’d asked, he’d let himself puzzle it out.

  He knew from the trial how Elizabeth and Hamilton had met, and he knew just how long they’d dated, and details he really wished he hadn’t needed to know.

  She’d done it because he’d hurt her—that one time he’d thought he saw something in her eyes, he’d been right. He’d hurt her and Hamilton had seen a way to get at Decker. Lizzie might not have known how he felt, but plenty of others had seen it, and Hamilton had spent three weeks rubbing Decker’s face in it.

  You ever had your hands on her? She’s a little too big for me, but man, those tits…

  You think she’s the kind to go down? With that mouth, I bet she will.

  Don’t go expecting to see Lizzie tonight. There’s a party…and I’m taking her.

  Decker had tried to warn her about Hamilton, but for those three weeks, there had been a chasm between them.

  That chasm didn’t matter, though, not to him.

  He’d gone to the party.

  It had been all loud music and kids already boozed up. Shouts and laughter had flooded his ears…until the screams took over.

  It had ended in blood.

  And with a young man dead under him. A man he’d killed with his own hands while Lizzie huddled on the floor, her clothes half-ripped off, bruises blooming on her pale skin, her mouth busted and one eye blackened.

  He reached for one of the letters and opened the envelope.

  It was dated. A quick glance showed that it was a year and half after he’d gone inside.

  Please stay safe. You’re my best friend…I’m sorry I was so mad at you. Stay safe, Deck. I need you.

  She wrote him, one letter every week.

  He wrote her…two letters. But he only ever sent one.

  She’d needed him for a friend, so that was what he gave her. The other letter was the one that held all the bits and pieces of himself he’d never let out.

  Once, while he’d been writing the two letters, his cellmate, the tattoo artist, Luther, had given him a funny look and just shook his head. You ought to send her the letter you really want her to read, son. You never know when you’ll run out of chances.

  Nobody knew that better than him.

  His chance had slid by without him even realizing it. It had been too late then.

  Or so he’d thought.

  There was a beep from his phone and he shot it a cursory glance. Email. He hated email. Something he’d never gotten used to. If it wasn’t for the texts and cal
ls he got from Lizzie, he’d give up the phone. Not like he had that much money to spare. But he wouldn’t sever any connection he had to her.

  There was another chime.

  Groaning, he grabbed it and punched the icon that brought up his email.

  When he saw the sender, his heart stopped.

  He’d gone back to Lizzie’s earlier—he’d come home to get these letters. It was high time he tell her the secrets, but she’d been gone. So he’d tell her later.

  Or maybe not.

  It was a message from Wanna Play—from Lizzie.

  I can’t come tonight. Actually not any night, O. My head is in a bad place and I don’t need to be dating right now.

  He swore and went to the next message.

  I’m sorry.

  He lurched upward, all but ran to the computer he’d bought used off eBay and fired it up. It took too long to load but finally he was on the website. She was online. Fuck, yes.

  Please reconsider. He sent the private message then shoved a hand through his hair.

  For a moment, there wasn’t a reply.

  I don’t think that’s a good idea. I can’t give you anything right now. I’m closing my profile here. I need to get myself together and figure things out, O.

  Closing her profile—hot damn, that was good.

  But…

  I can understand that. I’ve been a mess a few times myself. There’s just…look, I’d like to talk to you. Just once. Please.

  She had a hard time telling people no. He hated it when people took advantage, including himself.

  But right then, he needed a yes.

  Fine. But not dinner. There’s a bar, called Rush. Will that work? I’ll have a friend bring me. She hangs out there a lot.

  A friend. Selah. Selah…not him.

  Somehow, he didn’t think she’d be calling him for tonight.

  Didn’t matter, he’d be there anyway.

  “You look like shit,” Selah shouted over the music.