Don’t Lie to Me

by Amber Bardan

  “Libby. She’s stronger than we imagined.” He swallowed, his lips pinched. “She was able to tell me a few things.”

  His hand emerged from his pocket.

  It took me a moment after I saw it to see it. A moment where the sound of air-conditioning grew droning, where it filled my skull. Where all the color in the room turned white. I marched forward and took the tiny piece of gold. Such a simple thing, a ring. My fist closed around it.

  “I’m sorry.” Marcus slumped in his chair. “But now you know for sure.”

  Air became a toxic hot venom in my lungs.

  Pain exploded through my veins, a swift corruption that atrophied my limbs. I squeezed the ring tight in my hand. The gold dug sharp, but not sharp enough. I might ruin the ring the way I’d ruined every perfect thing I’d ever had.

  This precious heirloom that had been our mother’s, and then Rebecca’s. A treasure that would have had to have been cut from her or pried from her cold, dead hand before she’d ever relinquish it.

  Rebecca, who’d been on that bus with Libby, along with my mother—the one who got away.

  My sister was dead.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Emma

  I did what any smart girl would do in this situation—armed myself.

  Armed myself with a full face of makeup, and the tightest dress in the wardrobe.

  Then waited.

  Everything, freaking everything, rushed through me. I want to take care of you. My mind skipped. Blood on his cuff. The lies. I heard them in his clever words.

  I felt them in his mouth when we kissed. Sensed them between us when we fucked. I knew they were there and ignored them.

  I’d never wanted anything so bad as to trust him. But my phone suddenly wouldn’t make calls. Here I was, in fucking India, with no passport. Unable to leave a compound that appeared to be designed to keep me in.

  He’d told me to relax, enjoy myself, trust him—but had he manipulated my entire environment so there’d be no choice?

  A click sounded from the hallway. Footsteps thudded slow and dull. My pulse thrummed like an echo that radiated from my head to the base of my heels.

  He walked into the sitting room. His gaze came to me instantly.

  I sat in an armchair facing the doorway, legs crossed, hands on the armrests. “Where have you been?” I heard it as I said it—I sounded like a jealous girlfriend.

  Maybe I was, but I’d never had anyone I cared enough about to make me suspicious, angry or threatened. Even as I’d prepared myself for confrontation, deep down I hoped that’s all this was—new relationship training wheels.

  Me freaking out over nothing. And him saying the right thing and making everything okay. He tore at his tie, and walked right past me to a cabinet and turned over a crystal cup. “I had business to take care of.”

  “In the middle of the night?” My teeth scraped against each other. “Without saying anything to me?”

  “I did not wish to disturb you.” He pulled the cap from a bottle and poured himself something amber. “You could try thanking me.”

  Fucking—fuck. He was back to talking like a hundred-year-old robot. An asshole robot who dared sass me when he was the one in the wrong.

  “Would that be the same kind of business that you came home from yesterday, with blood on your shirt cuff?”

  His back stiffened. “Wine spilled.”

  He tilted his head back, downing the drink, then poured himself another.

  My midsection contracted.

  “This suspicion and resistance is getting tired.” He turned to me, and took the second drink with his gaze fixed on me.

  The contraction turned to a slashing twist in my middle.

  Was he drinking this way to torment me?

  The look in his eye was pure menace. What the hell was up with him?

  “So I’m imagining everything?”

  I couldn’t pretend, no matter how much rage attempted to do away with my good sense, that there wasn’t something very wrong here. Wrong with him. Beyond walking into a confrontation that would’ve been apparent the moment he set eyes on me.

  “Perhaps.”

  Violence simmered in his expression. Rippled in currents from him.

  “You think I don’t know that you’re breaking laws? You did that getting me here. You’ve been breaking laws since I met you.” I stood. “I wouldn’t be here if your secrets could scare me away.” I took a breath. Today I wouldn’t let doubt and fear make me rash. He deserved a chance to explain himself just as I deserved an explanation. “I don’t need to know everything, but I do need the truth. I need to not be lied to or treated like an idiot when I’m not one.”

  He tossed the glass, not even toward where he’d got it from, just onto the carpet. “There is nothing you need to know that I haven’t told you.”

  My chest heaved. “Then where were you tonight?”

  “That would be one of those things you don’t need to know.” His scowl cannibalized his handsome features. “I don’t divulge business to people I’m dating.”

  “People you’re dating?” A dark laugh burst from me. “But we’re friends remember? We’re supposed to have each other’s backs.” I took one small step toward him. “You’re full of shit.” I took another step. “You’re full of so much shit I could smell it if I was all the way back in Melbourne.”

  His eyes flashed, his expression tightening.

  “You’ve asked me to trust you, and I’m trying. Avner, I’ve been trying so hard.” The adrenaline I’d been running on dipped, sending my legs limp, but I kept myself from sinking back into the chair. “But you’re sneaking out of bed. You’re leaving in the middle of the night.” My throat pinched. “You’re lying to me.”

  He stared at me, and the more he stared the quieter the world went. The more he stared the less I gleaned from him.

  “There are things I won’t tell you—can’t tell you. I’m never going to.” He stared at me harder. “That’s the way it is.”

  Take it or leave it.

  I stepped back, not sitting on the arm of the chair but giving it the greater part of my weight.

  Accept him or not.

  Could I do that? The hour of the night seemed to arrive all at once—it felt exactly like 4 a.m. Could I take him as he was, no questions asked?

  Pain twinged my chest.

  Hadn’t he accepted me that way? Weren’t there still things I kept from him?

  “Okay.” I breathed in deep, then let it out and straightened, making myself look at him again. “I won’t ask another question about your business.”

  His shoulders lowered, tension dropping a notch. He still wasn’t himself. There was a weariness to him that exceeded the hour.

  “But I will ask about you. I will ask about us. You need to give me something.”

  His Adam’s apple shifted. “What do you want then?”

  “I want to know why your mother doesn’t speak to you.”

  A twitch jerked from his chest and shoulders. He dropped my gaze. Silence expanded so sharp my ears rang with it.

  “Ask me something else.”

  No. And I don’t know why it couldn’t be anything else. Maybe because the one time he’d mentioned his mother was the one time I glimpsed him fully.

  Where I’d seen that he was real and human, and that he loved and had been loved. That he’d had relationships, and valued them.

  That he’d fucked up and had the humility to accept it.

  “Answer me and I’ll give you all my trust. I won’t question you again.” I moved toward him. “I’ll personally wash the blood out of your shirts and call it wine if that’s what you want from me.”

  “Emma, no. Please, not tonight.” He stepped aimlessly across the carp
et away from me. His lips thinned, but his voice roughened. “Ask me something else.”

  My eyes stung. His pain was vibrant. So vibrant I experienced it as a punch to my lungs. So vibrant I wanted to let everything go—to drop the whole damn thing.

  “I can accept if there are things that aren’t safe to tell me, but this is personal.” I caught up with him, catching his hand. “You have to tell me. I need to know you will tell me this.”

  He frowned, and for a moment agony wrinkled and twisted every line of him—then it was gone. “The thing is Emma, I won’t.”

  My hands dropped to my sides. He backed away, then left the room. I stared at the doorway, then clamped a hand over my mouth and breathed through my nose.

  So where the hell did this leave us?

  I’d wanted to trust him—I’d tried.

  He’d made that impossible.

  I went upstairs and found him in the bathroom, shirt off, brushing his teeth. Tan skin rippled over his muscled shoulders.

  “When do we fly home?” I tried to tear my gaze from his shoulder blades. From the movements that made my skin shiver.

  He stopped brushing, and spat. “Anxious to leave me?”

  He met my gaze in the mirror.

  My throat went thick. No. Stupidly, that idea tore me apart. But I couldn’t stay, not in India. I had to go home. My heart prescription was almost out and now was not the time I wanted to give him ultimate knowledge and power over me.

  “I told Angelina I’d be there for her first ultrasound.”

  He turned the tap on, then dropped his attention to rinsing his toothbrush. “Angelina will understand.”

  “Will she, because I haven’t explained anything.” I watched the mirror. “Which reminds me, my phone isn’t working.”

  He turned off the tap and set the toothbrush slowly in the holder.

  “Which also reminds me, I’m here without my passport.”

  He glanced in the mirror. “I told you I’d handle everything.”

  “Oh, I believe you.” I backed toward the door. “I believe you’ve been handling me perfectly. Handling me into not noticing this place is a fortress and your people won’t let me leave.”

  He turned.

  “You tried to go?” His voice went silky—dangerous.

  I took another step back, off the tiles onto carpet. “I tried to look for you, and was promptly informed I’m not to leave without your permission.”

  “For your safety.” He came closer. “This is all for your protection, and you swore to accept it.”

  Heat crept into my cheeks. I had. I’d sworn in good faith.

  “In that case you won’t mind if I insist on leaving the day after tomorrow. That makes a working week.” I lifted my chin. “I’ll even stay at your place when we get back.”

  He inched closer.

  “Just to make sure you can protect me however you want to.”

  I took another step backward. My heel snagged on the carpet.

  Avner’s arm darted out. He caught my elbow.

  “But, Emma, how I want to protect you is here.”

  My lungs froze. “I want to go.”

  “Not yet.”

  My head spun. “I insist.”

  “No.” He breathed that easily. As though he hadn’t just committed me to being his prisoner. That’s what I was now—his prisoner.

  “Then drop the pretense and admit you’ve conspired to trap me here.”

  He released me. “What I admit to is doing what I’ve sworn to—protecting you.”

  I backed up until the bed hit my hips. “Call it what you like, you could protect me in Melbourne. You want to keep me here.”

  “I do.” His smile was more of a snarl. “You’re mine.”

  His abdominals engaged so sharply they doubled in size.

  Boy, he was strong.

  He was fast.

  He was strong and fast and suddenly all I could think of is the morning after I’d been drugged when I’d attempted to fight him.

  And he’d beat me.

  He’d have done it in half the time if he’d seen it coming. If he knew what I was capable of as he did now.

  He was braced—prepared. There’d be no tripping him tonight. There’d be no getting away. If he wanted to keep me, then I was his.

  “You are my responsibility.” He walked right into me. “Mine to look after, and I won’t let anything stop me. Not even you. You placed yourself into my care. You made your choice. Now this is the price.” His hands came down on the mattress on either side of me. “Did you think I wanted nothing in return?”

  His gaze dropped to my mouth.

  My stupid tongue darted between my lips.

  “Relationships go both ways, remember?” His voice lowered.

  Heat flooded my vital organs.

  “So what do you want?”

  His lashes dipped. He watched my mouth, devouring the reaction I couldn’t hide.

  “You.”

  I couldn’t escape—he was too strong. There was no matching his strength, but I was far from helpless.

  He bore me back onto the bed. I didn’t fight it because there was no denying I wanted this if nothing else from him.

  He stripped my dress away.

  I’d no longer think he was something he wasn’t. He tugged me to the edge of the bed, ass on the edge, my cunt at his disposal.

  And I couldn’t pretend this was just sex.

  He opened the bedside table drawer, and took out the lube I’d found in my rummaging. Couldn’t he see that even furious I wouldn’t need it?

  He left the bottle by my hip.

  My pulse went crazy, twinging the side of my neck. He stood over me, between my legs, and took off his clothes. Every jerking movement said, See what I’m doing? Every flick of his eyes screamed, See how you’re mine?.

  My hips arched. I ran my hands over my nipples, the hard points getting no relief from my smooth palms.

  His actions slowed.

  I watched him, and smiled a smile at this small fraction of control I had over him. Avner, for all his macho declarations of ownership, was as susceptible to me as I was to him.

  He scowled, so I did it—exactly what he feared I’d do.

  I touched my clit and moaned. He snatched my hand up in his. My eyelids grew heavy. I sucked the index and middle fingers of my other hand, then pushed them into my pussy.

  His eyes flared so wide I almost released the triumphant laugh budding in my lungs. So he thought he could own me?

  I had yet to begin owning him.

  He grabbed that hand too, pinning both above my head. Then he was over me, pushing me back, holding me down—yet I had him.

  “Emma.” He said my name in a damning growl. And I was damned. Damned by him. Damned for doing this. Damned for needing it.

  I rubbed myself against him. My tits scraped his chest. He shuddered. His entire being quivered its restraint.

  He stilled. I gasped. He’d won.

  No.

  I arched toward him again, but he held himself out of reach, leaned back keeping my wrists imprisoned single-handedly, and took up that bottle.

  My heart rioted in my ribcage—ready to flee.

  He tore the top off with his teeth. Plastic snapped. He poured the cool liquid over my pussy from the broken bottle top.

  Wetness saturated my vagina, flowed to my ass and soaked my upper thighs. He threw the bottle aside without bothering to replace the cap. Oh, the chaos in that move. It made me quake. He touched me low on my pelvis, looking right at me before he moved his touch to my core. My flesh was wet, even the lightest stroke glided and tormented me. He spread the lube over me with his palm, stopping to roughly push two fingers into my pussy.


  He fucked me with his fingers until my feet pushed off the mattress, my hips went high and tension clamped down on all my muscles.

  Then he slid free and rubbed me again. I cursed him. He laughed, low and guttural, then moved to my ass.

  My wrists strained in his grip. His lubed finger entered my ass easily. My hips twisted in shock, exacerbating the pressure in my behind. A feeling I couldn’t be sure yet was pleasant.

  “You knew this was coming.”

  I froze, staring up at him. Even as he said that, even as we played this game, his question remained present between us. “Anything that’s not okay?”

  His thumb moved against my clit, rubbing at the same time he moved his finger. The sensations built. Better. Heat ignited in my middle.

  I moaned, muscles loosening against the bed. Then he stopped and released my wrists. A moment of confusion struck me, watching him spread the lube still on his hand over his cock. Then he covered me again, the round head of his cock nudging my ass.

  My head cleared. “Oh, fuck.”

  He rubbed himself over and around the area, then pressed in. I grabbed his shoulders. The pressure stung. He backed off. I caught a breath. He rubbed and pushed again. My eyes watered. I stopped breathing.

  He kissed me. My attention moved to our mouths. His tongue stroked deeply, passionately. I kissed him back, and wrapped my arms around him. He lowered his weight over me a fraction at a time. Our bodies fused, sweat all that existed between us. He pushed deeper. The feeling didn’t become less overwhelming. He entered me, the fullness almost unbearable.

  But he kissed me gently.

  He stilled, buried deep in my ass. My fibers seemed to be popping. If he wasn’t forcing my jaw open and closed with his mouth, I’d have bitten down.

  Everything was more.

  More present. More intense. More connected.

  He reached between us and rubbed my clit. Pleasure radiated from his touch. He pulled back. Everything went bright. My nails tore at his shoulders. He thrust into me again. I moaned into his mouth.

  “I’m taking you everywhere you can be taken.”

  He pulled back and thrust. His entry grew easier. I adjusted, but every tug was like moving at super high-speed—my head couldn’t keep up with my body. His fingers rolled over and over my clit. Friction, pleasure and an ache bunched up inside me, building into bliss.