Deceiver

by Robin Lovett

“See the ties hanging from the canopy? Grab onto those and face the pole.”

  “This better be good.”

  “It will be.” A strategy forms in my head. I love making plans. Deciding how things will go and watching them play out exactly as I say. This will be no different. And she will like it. More than she wants to.

  She turns and her backside faces me, all round and curving in that tight pencil skirt she wore to work. Her hips swerve outward from her waist, and I only lament that when I turn off the lights, I won’t be able to see her. But I will be able to feel her.

  “Reach up,” I say when she hasn’t followed my other order.

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “You’ll like what comes after.” Why I’m making promises, I don’t know. I shouldn’t care what she thinks, how she feels, but it’s odd. I want her to enjoy what I’m manipulating her to do. It makes my power over her more complete.

  She does it, stretches her arms overhead and grabs onto the straps that tie the curtains around the canopy. It elongates her body, arching her back, perking her ass out even farther, and I’m salivating to touch it, to take it in my hands and feel it.

  My footsteps as quiet as I can manage, so she can’t hear me move, I go over to the control panel and turn out the lights. We’re plunged in darkness, so no one in the house can see what I’m about to do to her.

  She gasps, “Why’d you do that?”

  “Because there’s something I want, and I don’t want anyone else to see.”

  “Tell me.”

  “No.” I walk closer to her, remembering where she is, how many steps. I hear her breathing and her clothes rustling as she turns to try and see me. But can’t. Our eyes will adjust to the darkness, but they haven’t yet.

  “Don’t let go,” I whisper.

  Her voice comes out low and rasping, “I didn’t.”

  I step softly, so she doesn’t know where I am. Her breathing gets louder, faster. She knows I’m coming closer but doesn’t know when I’ll touch her. I stand behind her, taunting, listening to her anticipation creep higher and higher.

  This is as much a part of the torture as anything. Making her wait. Letting her imagination run on what I might do to her.

  “I can feel you behind me,” she says.

  “But can you read my mind? Do you know what I’m going to do next?”

  She’s silent for a moment, then says, “You’re going to touch me.”

  “Am I? Maybe my plan is to just leave you here, in the dark, waiting.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “You know nothing about what I would and wouldn’t do.”

  “I know that you want me and won’t be able to keep your hands off me for much longer.”

  She does know me a little, I suppose. I reward her with a caress on her ass. She stiffens, then arches her lower back for more, like a cat aching to be scratched.

  Unable to stop myself from feeling her whole cheek in my palm, I slide my hand lower, grip her, and squeeze. She purrs a delicious sexy sound that goes straight to my core. My cock responds and thickens and prompts my hands to move for more.

  I grip her with both hands, massaging her cheeks, then sliding around her hips to her thighs. I want to lift her skirt, to feel her skin, but more I want to see what her reaction will be to more tantalizing over her clothes.

  Moving my hand to the front of her is an instinct that brings my groin in contact with her ass, and I can’t help rubbing against her. She encourages me, her hips moving up and down, coaxing me harder.

  I’m trying to remember what my plan was—it’s fading, fast. To give her what she wants, but withhold what she needs. That’s what it was. But nowhere in that plan did I factor in what I would want or what I would need or how much it would consume my brain.

  All of her stubbornness, her defiance—I want to take it in my hands and wrap it around me so tight that it breaks me. Until it chases away my need for control and pushes me out into the realm of not caring about plans or revenge or wants or needs. Only . . . feeling.

  My hands find her breasts and I hold them, full and soft, planning to tease her with the touch, but only reveling in it myself. How formed and perfect they are, even through her shirt and bra. They’re the size of my hands, the precise firmness to squeeze, but the softness to sink into.

  My face lands in her neck, where I smell her and feel the softness of her skin on my face. She writhes against me, rubbing me just where it feels so good. I’m hard and throbbing against her.

  Before I come, though, I have the logic to turn her. She keeps her hands above her head, the ties twisting with her. Her mouth meets mine. Her hunger matches mine.

  Unbelievably, shockingly, her tongue duels with me. I had a plan, I’ve forgotten it.

  * * *

  His hands are everywhere, his mouth a starving animal over mine, and I am at his mercy.

  And I have never felt so overcome in my life, so robbed of every thought of my own, so transformed from the bored girlfriend of too many men who didn’t interest her. I am alive and awake and moving against him with abandon.

  I have the urge to let go of the ties above my head, to touch him with my hands. I can let go anytime I want to. But I can’t. Or rather, I don’t want to. Not until he says. I want to know what he’s planning. Because if his plan is for me to keep holding, then I want to experience it.

  I want whatever he plans to give me.

  His kisses grow harder, stronger. I want him to remove my clothes, to strip me and strip himself until we’re both bare and needing together.

  He slides my skirt up my thighs and his hot hands comb over my skin. I moan things—please, yes, more—wanting him to keep going, not wanting him to stop.

  Wanting to let go and touch him, but more to have him take over me.

  He makes me wait for it—he inches my skirt higher, making me beg, reworking my mind until it is only wanting. The urge to assert what I want, or to protest what he tells me to do—they’re gone, and I am all there is. Feeling his touch is all there is.

  His fingers slip between my legs beneath my clothes. I spread my legs, opening for him, letting him in, and he goes. No teasing touches, no stroking. He finds me wet and sinks his fingers in and in, deeper and deeper, until he’s cupping me with his whole hand.

  I inch my leg up around his, opening further, needing him deeper. But it doesn’t matter. Just his hand. He adds another finger, stretches me wider, but it’s not enough. I want him against me and weighing me down with his body while he pumps all of himself into me—not just his hand.

  The hunger, the neediness, shocks me. I didn’t realize, until now, what was beneath my boredom. Stripped of it, there’s a craving for life and feeling as deep as an ocean. An infinity of desire that can never be quenched, one that I didn’t even know was there until he opened me up.

  “I need . . . I need . . .” I moan, not knowing what to say after. I just need. I don’t know what, but I am need. That’s all there is to me.

  He starts thrusting his fingers into me, making me need more. Some voice is crying his name and I think it’s mine, but if it’s leaving my lips I can’t tell. I have awareness of nothing but where he’s touching me, where his hand is reaching into me, moving within me, stroking the deepest parts of me that even I can’t touch.

  My leg that’s wrapped around his—he moves it, takes it from around his. I whine in protest, fearing he’ll remove his hand.

  But he doesn’t.

  Leaving his hand inside me, he eases my foot back to the ground, then pushes my thighs together. “Squeeze,” he says.

  My thighs wrap around his hand, and clenching them together, thrust his fingers deeper into me—blissfully. Carnal need takes over and my whole body grips his hand for dear life as he pumps it into me, stroking and pressing, wringing heart-wrenching pleasures from within me.

  My hands cling for dear life over my head while the rest of me goes limp, sinking onto his hand. My body’s sensations stretch past rat
ional.

  The orgasm. I watch it coming like an approaching train—an oncoming storm. It builds and gathers, and a fear builds in me. It’s going to overwhelm me. It’s going to sear something in my brain, detach something within me that I didn’t even know was attached.

  It barrels through me, leaving destruction like a passing tornado, destroying things and remaking things. Things I didn’t know where there, things I didn’t know I could feel.

  And I’m spent.

  I don’t remember letting go. I’m only aware I’m in his arms, all of me surrendered and collapsed over him. He holds me up, keeping me from crashing to the ground.

  I am wordless, thoughtless, and will-less. If there’s something I wanted besides being supported by him, I can’t remember what it ever was.

  * * *

  She hangs onto me. I don’t know how it happened, but she’s like a helpless child clinging to me.

  I did this to her—rendered this strong, fiercely independent woman helpless.

  The shock is like a fist to my gut and I hold her. Not knowing what to do.

  All of me screaming to fuck her.

  But it doesn’t matter how hard and aching my cock is, or how unsatisfied my body, throbbing for release.

  I can’t. Not with her like this. Not with her wasted by what I did to her.

  I don’t know why I did it. It was vindictive. She reached a point where I knew I should relieve her—let her come—but I pushed her, I wanted to see how much she could take, how far she’d go before she’d lose it all.

  She went farther than I expected.

  And for me.

  Confused, and frantic to get space between us, I ask, “Can you hold onto my neck?”

  She moans but manages to drape her arms around my neck. I lift her, cradling her against my chest. She tucks her head beneath my chin, burrowing into my throat, breathing in my skin.

  It’s a move of such dependency, I go lightheaded. I stumble one step, but stay upright, holding her. I have to take her somewhere. I can’t hold her, not like this, for much longer. It’s not me, it’s not what I’m for. I don’t do this sort of thing.

  My system begins to panic—too close, too intimate. I have to get away from her.

  But I can’t just leave her. I need to take her somewhere.

  One of the rooms off the patio, on the far side, has a faint light on inside, and I wander closer.

  The guest suite. Yes, I can put her there.

  I avoid the stairs, fearful I’ll trip in the dark, and take the lawn around to the lower brick walk. I find the door cracked, and push inside.

  A small light glows on the bedside table. A fresh bouquet of roses is on the dresser, a bottle of wine in a basket with glasses.

  Mrs. Tanner has been busy.

  But what she thinks will happen and what will actually happen are not the same.

  I place Daisy on the bed. She collapses against the pillows and, with some easing, releases her hold on me. Her eyes don’t open. She lies there—her face blotchy red and her breath still quick.

  Beautiful. Too beautiful. I can’t stay and look at her.

  But on a weird instinct, I take off her shoes, then reach for a blanket, covering her. I check the room. Not sure if there’s anything else I should do, anything else she’ll need.

  What the hell. No.

  I don’t care what she needs. She’s fine. I’m leaving her.

  I rush out back into the yard before the usual suffocation of being in the house overcomes me.

  I bend at the waist, leaning on my knees.

  This isn’t happening to me. That woman isn’t doing things to me.

  The pull to go back in there, to not leave her, is followed by a quick burst of revulsion. I want nothing to do with her except the revenge I need on her father.

  Tomorrow I tell her. Tomorrow I tell him.

  I made her trust me. And that was a mistake.

  Tomorrow I’ll change that.

  Tomorrow she’s going to hate me more than she’s ever hated anyone in her life.

  Chapter Eight

  I wake to sunlight streaming through the windows and have no idea where I am. Not that it seems to matter. The happy lethargy in my limbs makes any kind of confusion or panic impossible. Nothing can be wrong with the world when I feel like this.

  The room is like something out of a magazine. It’s decorated in a buttercup yellow, with the exception of the red roses on the dresser.

  I turn over to look out the French doors and see they open onto the gardens of the Vandershall estate.

  Oh . . .

  It comes back in a wave: my hanging onto that pole with Blake’s hand doing . . .

  I roll over and stare at the ceiling. Did that really happen? All I do is ask and I know it’s true. My heart feels as calm as it’s ever felt, and I know why.

  Feeling. I didn’t know feeling something—sensations lighting my nervous system, putting it on overload—in the aftermath could ease anxiety. I didn’t even know I was anxious before.

  In my bored state, my state of limbo, there was an anxiety, a fear that I would never wake from my state of perpetual apathy. But I’m here and it’s happened. For the first time in a long time, I’m not afraid of boredom today. I’m aware of every sensation in my body and aware of a desire for more. A desire to feel more of what he gave me and remove any trace of my former ennui, for him to make me into the living, breathing vibrant creature I know I am meant to be.

  I sit up and feel my legs and middle still constrained by my skirt. I’m still in my work clothes. Ugh.

  I strip to nothing, ridding myself of my dirty clothes, without a thought for what I’ll put on next. Free of hindrance, I stand and stretch, testing the new sensitivity in my muscles. Who knew one orgasm could do so much for a girl.

  My stomach growls at me. Breakfast.

  I look around the room and spot a robe hanging from the bathroom door. I put it on and the rich terrycloth floats over my skin with a scent of vanilla.

  Which is lovely. But it makes me want Blake and his smell.

  He left me to sleep alone. The bed isn’t even rumpled beside me.

  Either he wanted to give me privacy, or . . .

  Or I scared him. Being so close to me, the emotional intimacy of what happened between us last night surprised him to a level he couldn’t handle.

  I’m okay with that. I’m overwhelmed myself and happy to wake alone to have some time to think about this without him. But I’m ready for him now.

  I open the bedroom door into the house and the opulence strikes me.

  Antiques, antiques and more antiques. A living area meant to impress. Every piece of furniture and decoration a conversation starter.

  In the front foyer, I’m confronted by a staircase of unmistakable grandeur. A sweeping set of marble steps with a polished banister dominates the space, the centerpiece of the home’s artistic achievement. It’s like something out of Gone With The Wind.

  Not knowing which way to go next, I call out for Blake, wondering where he is. He could be upstairs still sleeping in another bedroom. He could be in some more comfortable living space in the back of the house or in the kitchen, wherever that is.

  I wander farther and hear a door open somewhere. An older woman enters with a smile so bright, I can’t help but match it.

  “Good morning, dear. I’m Mrs. Tanner, the Vandershalls’ housekeeper. How are you this morning?” Her voice drawls with a comfort that speaks of home.

  “Good morning to you too. I’m Daisy Nowell.”

  She stops with a proud clasp of her hands. “I know it. I hope you slept well.”

  “I did, thanks. I didn’t get a chance to thank you for dinner last night. It was lovely.”

  She blushes and waves with her hand. “It was nothing. Can I fix you some breakfast?”

  “I am hungry. Is Blake up?”

  She gives me a sensitive frown. “He left an hour ago on an errand.”

  He left me. Great. He must
be more spooked after last night that I thought. “Did he say when he’ll be back?”

  “I suspect soon, but in truth, I have no idea.”

  I reach for my cell phone on instinct to text him, forgetting that I don’t have it, and realize I left it in his car. Along with my purse. “He didn’t by chance leave my cell phone with you?”

  “No. But you’re welcome to use mine.”

  I follow her to the kitchen where she texts him and asks when he’ll be home. His response is prompt but irritatingly vague.

  “‘Soon.’ That’s all he said?”

  She sighs. “I’m sorry. How about I’ll make you a nice breakfast?”

  “Sure.” I glance down at my robe. “I don’t have—”

  “No worries, dear,” she offers gently. “We can go through Miss Penny’s clothes and see if we can’t find you something to wear.”

  “That would be lovely. Thank you.” Not as lovely as if Blake were here.

  I ignore a small feeling of being trapped. I have no car, I can’t leave without him. But he’ll be back soon and then he’ll take me home whenever I’m ready to leave. Still, I wish I had my phone. I can’t even text someone to let them know I’m here.

  * * *

  I pound on Nowell’s front door with all the rage that’s brewing inside me.

  Sleeping last night proved impossible, and getting to Nowell, delivering the rest of my threat, has consumed me.

  I can’t stop feeling her around my hand—envisioning how it would’ve been to strip us both and sink all of me into her. To truly fuck her, not just with my fingers.

  But it would have killed us both last night. It would’ve been too much.

  And the knowledge that she’s affected me like this is driving my rage harder than even before.

  Footsteps come running from inside the house and the door is yanked open.

  “It’s eight A.M. on a Saturday!” Emmett Nowell cries out. Then he sees me, and a look of apprehension replaces his annoyance. “Blake. Come in.”

  I enter the house and he leads me to an office that’s a world of earthen colors—brown leather chairs, wood paneled walls, a great oak desk. We both sit, facing off on either side of his desk.

  This is a game of dominance between us. It’s a battle between lies and truth, and I am going to win.