Twisted Truth (Truth Vs Lie Book 1)

by Maria Macdonald

  “Sounds good,” Noah replies before heading for the men’s changing rooms.

  I enter the women’s locker room and go directly to locker thirty-eight. It’s my own personal space, so I always keep two spare sets of dance clothes and towels inside in case I decide on an impromptu session. I change my attire and grab the stilettos. I look in the mirror. “Ready to dance,” I tell myself.

  “So how about a tango?” I ask Noah as I walk into the studio.

  He lifts his head from digging in his bag and seems to mull it over for a moment. “It’s been years since I’ve tangoed. I might be a little rusty, but I’m game if you are?” he offers, and I can’t stop the huge grin which spreads across my face.

  I love this dance, but I don’t dance it. Not with anyone, not even Toby. I always wanted to dance it with Isaac, but we never did. I know he’s been taught how to tango, just like I have. But for fun? Yeah, I can’t speak for Isaac, but this will be the first time I’ve danced it for fun. It’s a masterful sexual dance. At least that’s how I feel about it. In my heart, I know Isaac should be my partner, and I’m not sure if my offer to dance it with Noah is because there’s a small part of me that wants to rebel against my own need.

  “Shall we?” Noah asks and takes his stance in the centre of the floor holding out his hand to me.

  Gotan Project’s ‘Santa Maria’ sparks to life over the speaker system, and I step up to my partner.

  We dance the tango, and it’s… fine. We move correctly, enjoy the music and repeat the same dance to different songs practicing until our movements are perfect, but it lacks... passion. There’s nothing beyond some choreographed shapes measured to the beat of someone else’s song. As much as I appreciate stretching my legs and trying something new with Noah, this just isn’t how I dance. I like to claim the music as mine, feel it to my bones. Today, the only thing I feel is downhearted.

  “Shoot, it’s nearly one. I need to get to my sister’s,” Noah says, collecting his things and hastily shoving them into his bag.

  “No worries, I’m just going to cool down,” I tell him grabbing my towel and wiping the back of my neck. I stretch and take a second to think about what I’m doing. It’s Monday, that means no classes are due until six p.m. I checked the register in the office before I came into the studio, and none of the other rooms are booked. I have the whole place to myself for hours.

  “Gotta go,” Noah shouts running toward the door. “Shit,” he spits running back to me. “I forgot to give you my number.”

  “Huh?” I question.

  “So you can text me Helena’s number,” he tells me, his cheeks pinking slightly. Yep, totally a good guy. “Also, I’d like to think we’re friends now, right?” he says nonchalantly, but there’s an undertone of uncertainty.

  “Of course,” I reply, pulling out my phone.

  “Hit me with your number and I’ll text you tonight,” I tell him.

  He reels off the details, and I add them to my phone before he rushes away.

  I stretch for about five minutes and am just getting ready to take off my shoes and choose a new song and dance when the silence in the room is shattered.

  “Finally. I thought he’d never leave.” Isaac’s deep voice throbs through my whole body, and just like that, I’m alive and buzzing.

  “Y-you were watching us?” I have no idea why my words come out as a stammer, only that this man always leaves me breathless.

  “Pretty boy can dance.”

  “Noah,” I snap.

  “Whatever. He can dance, but it’s all technical. There’s no passion, no emotion,” Isaac airs the same thought’s I’d had as he walks over to the stereo and fiddles with the music.

  “I suppose you’re so different?” I ask.

  “Baby, you know I am,” he retaliates striding over to me. Placing his palm on my lower back, Isaac slams my body into his. “Now we’re going to do this right.”

  “Do what?” I breathe.

  “Tango,” he says, and the music starts. Once again, ‘Santa Maria’ plays, but this time I know it’s going to be different. I can already feel the fraught tension between us, and as Isaac pulls me tighter, I realise this isn’t just a tango. With Noah and I there was space between our bodies, but this is Isaac’s version, and much like the Argentine Tango, we’re chest to chest. He moves me around the floor, both physically and with his aura, which fills the room. I’m a slave to him, to the music, and it infuses every modicum of my being. More than once our chins and the tips of our noses meet at exactly the same time, meaning our lips are mere millimetres apart. It’s frustrating and sexy as fucking hell.

  As his legs move and his body grinds against mine with almost every movement, I’m helpless. I’m his.

  Looking into his eyes, I see darkness, danger, love, and lust.

  Yeah, Isaac James is not, and never has been, a good boy.

  Once the song finishes, I pull away and rush to the office. I need to… I have no fucking clue what I need. Every inch of my skin tingles, and as I stop and lean over the desk, I squeeze my legs together desperately trying to control the aching in my core.

  “Don’t keep running, Via. This only ends one way,” he promises.

  “And that would be?” I rasp.

  “With you, admitting you’re mine. Submit to your feelings, you know you want to.” He’s cocky now, but I can clearly hear the want behind his words.

  His body presses against my back and a shiver runs through me. I twist my head and neck around until my eyes are locked with his.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, my voice betraying the need I’m trying—and failing—to keep locked up.

  “I made a mistake, Via. I went against my own nature and was waiting for you to realise you belong to me. I’ve changed my mind, your time’s up, now I’m claiming you. The decision isn’t yours anymore. I can read your body baby, and it agrees with me.” His breath tickles my neck as he speaks and my skin pebbles. “I’ll still explain everything to you in time, I promise. But for right now, I need to make sure your body remembers it’s mine and when you’re ready, your head can catch up.”

  Isaac wraps my hair around his fist and pulls my head back running his nose from my collarbone up to my jawline. “Don’t think I’ve gone soft... but I missed your long hair, Via.”

  I close my eyes and steady my short, shuddering breaths, trying to calm my chest from the jerky movements I display every time he’s near. “Missing my long hair would make me think you’ve gone soft… how?” I almost pant with need as I continue to press my legs together.

  “Sweet talk and soft voices often give women ideas. I know you, Via, I don’t want you to get the notion this will be gentle. We have time for that, but right now I’m not that guy. In about twenty seconds, you’re going to be bent over this table, and I’m going to fuck you like a savage who hasn’t had pussy for years.”

  I gasp, my mouth dropping open. “Why? You’ve had pussy recently,” I state, sure of my statement.

  “Not yours,” he snaps back at me, his hot breath like a shot into my ear.

  “Isaac?” My emotions are warring. I feel like an animal in heat ready for him, and I so desperately want him between my thighs right now. But at the same time, I know he’s always held my heart in a vice and depending on his words, he could loosen the hold, allowing it to beat once more… or he could strangle what little life it has left. I’ve avoided him, but I knew it would come to this. I knew.

  “I could have a million women, but they’d never be you.” Although his words are affectionate, his tone’s sharp, exposing his need for me. As his hand travels down my ribs, his fingertips hit my hipbone before slipping into my knickers and finding my centre wet and waiting. I know the need I have for him is stronger, so much stronger than the little control I’m desperately holding onto, a control I’m barely able to maintain over my body whenever Isaac James is around.

  He’s always been the one leading, and I’ve always followed him anywhere he’s asked.
This man, even when he was a boy, could command everything and everyone. I never stood a chance back then, and I still don’t now, no matter how hard I try. Each time he left while he was in the Army, I convinced myself I could walk away from him. That when he returned, I’d be more in control, that I would find someone else and move on with my life. Then all my grand ideas washed away like old bath water every time he came home. My heart has always belonged to him, and it seems my body does, too.

  With his fingers still inside me, Isaac slips his other arm across my breasts and lifts me, taking two steps until we’re standing facing the desk lengthways. With one hand, he lifts my arms up and pulls my top off, then shifts my body forward while pulling his fingers from my folds. Instantly I feel the loss. His hand moves away from my breasts and journeys around to my back pushing me over the table until my front is flush against the cold surface.

  Isaac runs both thumbs along my spine. “Such a beautiful body,” he murmurs pulling my loose dance skirt down my legs along with my knickers. Without thinking, I kick away the clothes now at my feet keeping my stilettos on. His hands are like reflections of each other as they run up the backs of my legs until he palms both my arse cheeks. “This is going to be hard. I need to fuck you right now, Via. That need is the only thing I can feel, I can’t promise to be gentle.”

  “Isaac…” His name comes out in a whimper as I hear rustling, he must be pulling his joggers and t-shirt off.

  “Brace yourself,” he warns.

  Even with his warning, I still convulse with surprise as he lifts my legs off the floor.

  “Stretch your arms apart and grip the sides of the table,” he demands.

  I do as he says, my breasts squashing against the desk. His hands once again move up my legs until he’s clutching my thighs. He stretches my legs apart, and I hear a low groan rumble from him.

  “Fuck,” he growls.

  I’m still thinking of his last word when I feel the tip of him nudging me apart. He hasn’t even entered me yet and still, I can’t help but close my eyes, biting my bottom lip with arousal.

  Excruciatingly slowly Isaac pushes inside me, filling me as I adjust to him. It’s almost magical. I’ve had lots of sex, but I’ve never had sex in this way. The position opens up a whole world of new feelings, and as he seats himself inside me fully, I want him to stay there forever. Filling me, fucking me, owning me… loving me.

  Isaac has no constant rhythm. He’s slow, then fast, hard then soft—it’s delicious. Every movement Isaac makes feels precise like it’s been selected especially for me, to accomplish a never ending frenzy of sensations with pleasure leading my ecstasy. Circling his hips, his dick hits just the right spot. At the same time, he leans over me and bites down on my shoulder. I explode. I can feel myself pulsing around him. Isaac moves back pulling my hair out of the way and kissing along my neck and down my spine. I thought he was fucking me hard before, but as soon as my clit stops vibrating, Isaac steps up a level and slams into me. I can hear our bodies slapping against each other and something that has never happened to me before finally happens. I come again at the same time he roars out his release but he doesn’t stop moving inside me.

  The minutes rush by and my body falls deliciously limp.

  Isaac leans forward fitting his body to mine and whispers in my ear, “Your body knows I’m in love with you, but do you know it, too, Via?”

  His body is still attached to mine, and my heart is still attached to his.

  “Yes. I know it, Isaac.”

  “Fucking finally.” He breathes in my ear.

  ISAAC

  “One more job.”

  My shoulders tense as Doreen studies me. This is the first time I’ve seen her since our last assignment was completed. She knows what I want. I’m just not sure my handler wants the same thing as I do.

  “I said I wanted out. What part of that statement was confusing for you? Did I stutter?” I growl as my annoyance bubbles to the surface.

  She grins. “Well, well, there is emotion inside of you, something other than a cold, calculating—”

  “Don’t finish that fucking sentence.”

  I tilt my head from one side to the other, clicking my neck and trying to release the tension that’s slithering like a vine through my muscles. I know what I am, but I also know what I want to be, and nobody is going to fuck with my forever. If they do, I’ll have to cut them off at the knees. I’ve been what they needed me to be for so long sometimes having to live in the gutter with the dregs of society. You don’t get clean by rolling around in more dirt. I might always be filth, but I crave the purity that only Via can give me. She’s unpolluted, wholesome, and I’m worried I’ll end up contaminating her. It’s one of the reasons I left in the first place, why I’ve stayed away again. Now, it’s too late, chasing her has brought me what I wanted. I know I should have waited until I was completely out. I didn’t, and it was a selfish choice. I just hope like fuck it doesn’t spell her demise. There are a lot of things I can deal with, much more than most. Losing Via in any permanent way isn’t one of those things.

  “Fine,” I concede. Doreen smirks, and my fingers twitch with the need to shoot her in the head. Leaning toward me, she passes me a flash drive.

  “Everything is on there. Encrypted, of course, but you have the means to retrieve the information you require. Shelly will be in play this time, too. In fact, your whole team will be needed.”

  I say nothing. If the whole team’s in play, it means this is a bigger op than I was hoping. I’m not sure who I’m trying to kid. If she needs me to lead it, then it’s not going to be a small op. She has plenty of junior agents for those.

  I remain silent as Doreen stands moving toward the door. Before slipping through, she turns to me. “I know you want out. It’s been granted. Paperwork is signed and sitting in your classified email account, but it had to be after this last job. Sorry, Kane, that’s just the way it goes.”

  I want to growl Isaac at her, remind her of my real name, but there’s no point anymore. Even if I weren’t in the process of getting out, I’m not sure who I am these days. I certainly seem to be failing at keeping the two identities separate. There’s a blurred line where Kane stops and Isaac begins, and I’m starting to wonder if I’ve always survived as both of them. Now, I have to try and shed Kane to be Isaac, and if I can’t, then I’ll need to find a way to live in tandem with both my personalities.

  The minute I hear her chauffeured car drive away, I pull out my phone and text my team telling them they need to be at my house in one hour.

  “Shit.” Shelly is the first one to speak after we open and upload the documents to dissect the newest assignment.

  “More like, fuck me,” Darwin mutters.

  “You know what this means?” I question them, and they all nod knowingly. Shelly is the only woman on our team, and because we can’t have any identifying marks, her skin remains untainted, she’s also young enough to be our bait. Once again, the innocent look she has going on will be the lynchpin to securing our success, but it’s dangerous, like always.

  “How are we going to get their attention?” she asks.

  Dropping my head back against the wall, I close my eyes and think over the intel I already have. It’s not as much as I’d like, but it’s all we’ve got to work with, and it says the gang we’re going after will be carrying out their business in eight days. After that, they’ll move into another area closing down their current operation. They don’t need to remain in one place as sex sells wherever you are, and they’ll want to ravage another big city so they can kidnap a new selection of young women. The only way their business survives is with a constant stable of girls. The sex traffic trade has a quick turnover, and unfortunately, these days there are so many people forming new alliances that we can’t take them down quick enough before another one has emerged.

  “Victor, Clint. I want you to go out tonight, hit up all your known contacts and try to find out as much as you can.” With a nod, they
immediately move out the house.

  “Dean, Brand. Go to the dive bars, see if you can find some underground fights. See who’s whispering and find out any plays or plans, especially those in flight.” Just like the first two, they nod and exit hastily to carry out my orders.

  “What are you thinking?” Arlo questions and my head snaps up. He doesn’t speak very often.

  “I’m thinking we have no fucking time, not enough intel, and this is one we can’t fucking lose. We need to bring these motherfuckers down. This time, there’s no second option,” I tell him, and he smirks darkly.

  My gaze moves to Shelly.

  “What?” she snaps folding her arms across her chest. “I know that look, and whatever you’re going to say, I’m not going to like it, am I?”

  Dragging the palms of both hands up my face, I continue right over the top of my skull, running my fingers through my hair, only pausing to thread them together at the back of my neck. Then, I tell her what I need. “Get to the hairdressers and the beauty shop. Do your nails and hair and whatever it is that women do to make themselves soft and feminine.” Her eyes narrow, and her mouth opens, but I don’t let her say anything, not yet. “Go buy some new clothes. Everything has to be girly, innocent. So no bright red or black nail varnish. Instead, think light pink, sundresses, and minimal makeup. And buy a necklace… a cross.”

  “What the fuck, Isaac!” she yells, and although I want to laugh, especially when I see King and Darwin grinning, Arlo’s lips definitely twitch, I manage to remain stoic.

  “You need to seem younger, innocent, delicate… virgin like. I can’t help the fucked-up people who are out there or the fact that we have been saddled with this assignment. Roll with it, Shel,” I order. I can see her jaw working, but she just nods and storms out.

  My eyes move from the door when I hear her leave the house and rest intently on Arlo, then King. “You two will protect her. Never let her out of your sight, starting now.” I point to the floor. “You don’t let them touch her. Nothing else matters to you except keeping Shelly safe and alive.” They move out, and we all know how dangerous this will be for Shelly. They have probably been given the most important job, and they’ll die for her if they have to.