Lust & Lies Box Set-Sexual Awakenings, Excess, Predator & Prey

by Kate Stewart

  Damien was one of Charleston’s most notorious playboys. And on that night, he’d made himself one of the most delectable by pouring himself into a perfectly fitted Brooks Brother’s suit. His thick, brown, cropped hair was styled in a mix of class and sex. Within seconds of my arrival at the bar, his light brown eyes flicked my way. His warm smile was genuine in greeting, but his eyes screamed “Wanna fuck?”

  “Ms. Ellison—” he tipped his glass my way “—you look stunning tonight.”

  “White wine, please,” I said to the bartender before I acknowledged him. “Mr. Baldwin, thank you.”

  Several words popped into my mind at that moment and then a name. Handsome, entitled, wealthy Ray. Damien kept in his seat as he angled his body toward me, his eyes trained on my face before they slid down my body. “You know, red is my favorite color.”

  I took my wine and gave him a sly grin. “And how would I know that?”

  “I guess you wouldn’t,” he drawled with a hint of southern tongue. “Why don’t you let me buy you that wine so I can tell you more about myself.”

  “Narcissism is unattractive, Mr. Baldwin.”

  “Call me Damien.” His lips twitched. “And I believe I’m pretty sure I can figure out a way to make the conversation all about you.”

  I scoured him. He was truly a beautiful man. I took the two strides toward him and stood by his side. He studied my profile and then smirked at his scotch.

  “Something on your mind, Damien?”

  “I find myself thinking that we may have a little in common, Taylor.”

  Lust-filled eyes met mine as he inched closer, the smell of his cologne inviting as his breath hit my ear. “Let’s discuss it over fucking.”

  “Wow,” I mused, “two sips into my wine.”

  Damien quirked a brow. “I’d say that dress did the conversing for us. Let’s not bullshit each other, Taylor.”

  He stood and tossed a bill on the bar, winking at the younger girl Daniello had finger-fucked months ago in front of my eyes. My lover later revealed he fucked her that night, which only fueled my anger. It was a game.

  He was a predator and I his prey.

  I was Daniello’s mouse.

  With a fresh drink in hand, the bartender bent low in delivering it, giving Damien an eyeful of cleavage, which he had the good sense to ignore. I remembered the heat I felt when I watched Daniello touch her, fuck her with his fingers, and then bring her to orgasm for everyone on that deck to see. The desire that built that night slowly seeped into me as Damien turned his gaze my way.

  Full of anger and desire for a man I couldn’t grasp, I homed in on the man in front of me—starving. Damien read my mind. “Let’s go get comfortable.” I followed him to one of the unoccupied couches away from the crowd. Damien crossed an ankle over his knee and patted the couch beside him. Exhaling out the idea that what I was doing was wrong, I took my seat and let him do his bidding. It was easy, too easy, and I found myself deflated at the lack of connection. Still, I forged on, unwilling to admit defeat. Two white wines and a filthy whisper from his lips later, his mouth was on mine in the parking lot. Without a firm answer to him stating where I wanted to go, he nailed me to my Chevelle and tore into me, thrusting his tongue into my mouth as his hands explored beneath my dress. It was quiet in the tree-covered and car-filled yet otherwise deserted parking lot.

  Damien took his fill before he pulled his lips away for a quick proposition. “I have a place down the street, four beds, nice kitchen, big bathrooms,” he mumbled as his lips traced my neck. “I could fuck you in every one of them.”

  I gripped his hair as he roamed my skin, and I tried to will myself into the moment, my head and heart at odds as I forced myself open and molded my body to his. Pulling away, I sank into the Chevelle as he dove in, misreading my defeat as an invitation. “Jesus, you are beautiful, so fucking hot, Ellison.”

  Awareness hit me like a ton of bricks, and I felt a piece of me break when I searched for and found the dark eyes a foot away. My whole body jolted as Damien backed away to study my face before he took a look in both directions, his back to Daniello.

  “What’s got you spooked?” Damien asked as he slipped a warm hand behind my neck.

  Averting my eyes to his, I felt the unspoken threat as I gripped Damien’s jacket, keeping his attention on me and not the certain death that stood behind him. “Nothing.”

  Daniello’s eyes screamed murder as Damien’s lips brushed my shoulder. Two men I didn’t recognize emerged from a sedan and walked toward Daniello. They were oblivious to us as they spoke rapid Italian. Daniello paused only a second after his name was called before he tore his gaze away and walked with them toward the club.

  He was in Charleston, and he hadn’t come to me.

  He. Was. In. Fucking. Charleston.

  My heart sank as I abruptly pushed Damien away. “What the hell, Taylor?”

  “Just give me a second, okay?” I fumed as I looked toward the building.

  I straightened my dress as Damien smirked down at me. “You don’t strike me as the indecisive type.”

  “I’m not,” I snapped as I tried to gather myself. I weighed my options as Damien patiently stood next to me, confusion covering his handsome face. “I’m suddenly thirsty again.” I saw irritation flash through his eyes briefly before he extended his elbow. “Tonight is about you, right?”

  “Thank you.”

  He gave me a sideways glance as we walked back toward the bar. “I have a good feeling you’re worth the wait.”

  Seated on the same stool I’d recently occupied, the curious bartender passed out a repeat of drinks while I did a horrible fucking job of not looking in Daniello’s direction. He was seated on the couch as he had been a few short months ago, surrounded by the men he’d come with, and didn’t once glance my way. My heart pounded as Damien’s fingers trailed casually across my skin while I sipped my wine at a snail’s pace. I heard Daniello’s laugh bellow out in the night air, and the bartender noticed his arrival. A playful “I remember you” smile graced her lips as she sauntered over and took drink orders. Daniello dismissed her without a second glance, and I couldn’t help the slight satisfaction that lay in my gut as she stomped away, forgotten.

  But then again, I was walking a mile in her shoes.

  Damien, too transfixed with seduction and the cock that pulsed in his pants, was completely ignorant to my shift in attention. The man I longed for was feet away, and I was fuming at his indifference toward me.

  It was punishment. But why? I obviously meant nothing. And if that were the case, message received.

  I inched toward Damien as he turned my way, encasing my legs between his, and leaned in. “Now you’re just fucking with me,” he whispered before pushing the hair away from my neck. It was at that moment I finally caught the eyes of my lover. “Fuck you,” I mouthed as I moved to stand. It was a game. I was a game. Emotional involvement was for fucking fools, and I’d played one long enough. I snapped and gripped Damien by the arm before I leaned in with a promise, my lips ghosting against his skin. “I’ll be right back.”

  I made my way to the ladies’ room and paced the floor as I tried to rationalize my anger.

  Sex is not love. Sex is not love. Sex is not love. Sex is not love, Taylor! And I was a fool, again.

  I checked my appearance and fixed my lipstick before I stormed out of the bathroom. When I returned to the bar, Damien was gone, and so was Daniello.

  I raced to the penthouse, my blood boiling as I rode up the elevator. With my keycard in hand, I stalked toward the door when the elevator opened behind me.

  Turning on my heel, ready for war, I began to pale when I saw the man who greeted me.

  His face was twisted with anger while his eyes scoured me.

  Rage.

  Jealousy.

  And more painfully, disgust.

  My galloping heart kept my tongue still. The current in the air pierced my insides with the precision of a sharp knife. Daniello to
ok a single step out of the elevator and froze. Fully lit by the hall light and dressed in a fitted suit and tie, his beauty was only amplified by his anger. I ached to go to him. Touch him. Slap him.

  Cold eyes had my flesh crawling with anticipation. The sick idea crept over me that I wanted him this way, in this state. I wanted his anger, if only to solidify my suspicion. He had to have felt something. Because I was practiced at the art of playing immune to emotion, and with Daniello, those emotions now ricocheted between us and felt like daggers as they buried themselves deep.

  “I’m not happy with our arrangement.”

  His hands fisted at his sides repeatedly, as if he was trying to figure out what to do before he punched the button behind him and the door reopened.

  “So that’s it? You’re just going to leave?” I took angry strides toward him.

  His voice was venom. “I need to be away from you, Taylor.”

  I shook my head and scoffed indignantly. “Well, that’s nothing new, now, is it, you bastard! How long have you been here? How often do you do this?! Leave me here waiting for you to play with your friends!” Daniello stood his ground as I reached him and pushed his chest. “This is not who I am! I wait for no man!”

  Daniello gripped the flesh of my upper arms, picked me up, and carried me as if I was weightless as he growled, “You would let another man touch you, fuck you?!” His voice was evidence of the deceit he felt as his eyes pierced me. Anger rolled off him as he slammed me flat against the door of the penthouse and smashed his palm against it while he cornered me. “You want to be fucked, Taylor, but he would not have satisfied you. I am inside you. You want me. You need my cock. Your thirst is not for him. You fool yourself. You make me a fool.” He tore the fabric off my shoulder with a vicious swipe of his hand, exposing a breast. He kept our eyes locked, green to brown. “You let him touch you.” He grasped my dress in annoyance.

  Rip.

  Rip.

  My shredded dress hung at my waist as he tore himself from the frame of the door before he pounded his fist to his chest. “You reduce yourself to being some faceless man’s whore when you are my fucking sun!”

  Unable to contain them, angry tears streaked my cheeks. My eyes widened as he pushed the dress down, so I was reduced to wearing nothing but my thong and heels. I stood bared to him, defying his attempt to weaken my state.

  Sex is not love.

  I kicked the ruined fabric aside and faced him head on. “You owe me a dress and a fucking explanation!” Exchanged energy pulsed between us as his chest bounced with quick breaths. He gripped my hair and leaned in an inch from my mouth. “In that bed, behind that door, you put your fingers inside your pussy with my name on your lips. I am the man you want. There is no other explanation.”

  Realization dawned. “You watch me.”

  There was no apology in his eyes or his tone. “I watch you with my cock in my hand, Phoenix, with my need for you. I know who you are. I know what we are. Do you?” he sneered as I snaked my tongue out to wet my lips. Tumultuous eyes narrowed as his lips turned up. “I can smell him on you.” He gripped my hair and tugged it until I was kneeling. Sparks prickled up my spine to my screaming scalp. “You need me, here I am.”

  His words bit and stung as he challenged me. “Fuck you.”

  He leaned down. “I am what you crave. Dare to deny it.” My eyes watered from the sting. He stood, a picture of pure temptation, while he kept my hair fisted, and slowly unzipped his pants. His bulging length sprang free and my mouth watered.

  “Deny it, Taylor. Lie. To. Me.”

  Sex is not love.

  Warmth soaked my panties as I reached out and scratched his thighs before I enveloped his hard as stone cock in my mouth. Scalp screaming from his angry pull, he thrust his hips, and I choked as he made sure it hurt. Stroke after stroke, he satiated his rage as he kept our eyes locked. He punished as I took every inch and moaned, fueling his anger.

  He hissed through his teeth while he demanded remorse from my lips I refused to give, opting for delicious punishment. His eyes closed briefly when he saw a solitary tear streak my cheek. His misread it for hurt when it was an elation of sorts. I’d never felt the passion I had for him for any other man. The want, the need, it surprised me, but I knew it was lurking. I’d ignored it before, but my eyes were wide open. He knelt in front of me as he gripped my throat. “Do you need me?”

  “No.”

  He wiped my mouth with the back of his hand before he pulled me to the concrete floor, his back to the door. His eyes searched mine as he gripped my ass and pulled it apart, teetering me on his spread thighs, his cock displayed between us. I eyed it with hunger before he thrust two fingers inside and pushed a third into my ass. I pumped his cock as his fingers teased. With hooded eyes, he spoke. “Impossible fucking woman. You need me.” Built up to the point of breaking, he gripped my throat again. “The truth.”

  Emotion-filled words slid off the edge of my tongue as his eyes implored mine. He wanted to break me. He was blurring the lines. I knew better. But I tipped over anyway. “Daniello, don’t.”

  He let go of my throat and gripped my hips, robbing me of my orgasm. Lust-filled black eyes dove into me as the silky head of his cock nudged my backside. Inch by inch he filled me as I crumbled in his arms, full of emotion and on the brink.

  His grip tightened as we connected and then collided.

  Fully seated, he waited as I gripped his shoulders to ease the burn. It was a blissful pain. “Do you feel me, Taylor?”

  “Yes,” I gasped, my heart plummeting as he kept me idle.

  “I cannot see that, Taylor. I cannot see that man with his hands on you, his lips on yours.” Pressing his thumb to my clit, he resumed pumping his fingers while I scratched his shoulders, drawing blood. He eased his hips up from the cold floor and fucked me, claimed me, owned me, possessed me, and took the rest of my control.

  “Taylor.” With a hoarse whisper, he demanded his answer. “Tell me.”

  “I need you,” I gasped before his lips claimed mine. With one deep thrust of his tongue in my mouth, I burst, inside and out, my heart heavy between us as we worked into a frenzy, mouths and movement and deep-seated need.

  We clung to each other as he tore me apart piece by piece and fed me for his absence. My body repeatedly shuddered as he commanded it. At his mercy, an ocean of feeling swept between us as he silenced my doubts with every soothing touch of his hands. Devoured and defeated, he took my lips again before he filled me with a heavy release. Touching his forehead to mine, he eased me off his cock and pulled me to his chest. “I just want to know who you are.”

  Gentle lips brushed my temple before he whispered, “You know.”

  We lay in bed, the penthouse silent hours after the most intimate sex I’d ever had. The early morning light covered the penthouse in an eerie blue hue. Daniello slept next to me as I pulled his dress shirt around my body and looked out at the harbor. I fed on the feelings that surfaced from simply being with him and had done my best to sabotage it. I knew why. He knew why. Emotions were becoming a thick cloud between us, far too hard to ignore. Denial was my only escape, and he was doing his best to stop me. But why? We had no future; we barely had the semblance of a relationship. We were fiery sex and stolen moments.

  And still on his terms. I hated myself for it, but I’d lost the battle. I wanted him, that much I knew, but he’d just proved to me I needed him.

  His silky, sleep-filled voice drifted through the air. “You think too much.”

  “I think too little,” I said as I turned to look at him. He was a perfect picture of masculinity. Dark, ominous, and fully alluring. No man had ever compared. No man after him ever would. “When it comes to you, Mr. Di Giovanni, I think too little.”

  “You regret this?”

  I nodded slowly. “In a way, yes.”

  He looked down briefly at the bed before his eyes shot to mine. “I do not want that, Phoenix.” I shrugged as I turned back to face the water becau
se looking at him hurt.

  “It’s too late.”

  Cedric looked at me then to Amber, who shrank in her seat.

  “Laz isn’t just going to go away.”

  I spent the next few minutes filling him in as Amber silently cried on the couch. Every day, even with her progress, she was raw with the loss of her son.

  I was sure Cedric’s tongue-lashing after I told him about what went down in Tennessee could be heard by every resident in my complex. Once we moved on, I pleaded Amber’s case.

  “It could take months to get custody. But from what the lawyer said, things are moving faster than she expected.” I briefly gripped my sister’s hand and felt her return squeeze. We finally had a reason to be thankful to have lived in a town with a minuscule population. There wasn’t much on the court docket.

  Cedric palmed the top of his freshly shaved head and scrutinized Amber. I trusted him more than anyone in my life, and the worry on his face was doing a number on my mental state. I called him in for reassurance, and he looked like he was about to pass sentence.

  Cedric narrowed his eyes when he questioned Amber. “You’re clean?”

  She looked up at him from the couch with a nod. “Yes.”

  With worry-riddled features, Cedric warned us, “He’s going to come, no matter what. We just have to make sure we’re prepared.” Cedric paced the condo and stopped with his hands on his hips. “Christ.”

  Amber bit her lip, her meek posture a sure sign of her guilt. I gave her a reassuring nod. “We’re in this together.”

  She smiled weakly. “Okay.”

  Cedric turned to both of us. “We can get the local PD on this.”

  “No cops.” I shook my head. “No cops.”

  Both of them turned to me in surprise. “Slapping him with a restraining order will only get him here faster. We have to do this legally and by way of custody. And then deal with whatever he brings with him when he comes for Joseph.”

  Cedric blew out a breath. “I agree. Any sort of drama between you two could hold up the case. Laz is behind you having full custody?”