Playing House: A Black Widow Novel (Dark Secrets Duet Book 1)

by Christa Simpson

  Finlay drips from the walls and a dark crimson color oozes all over the floor. I stare at the pile of man for what feels like a long time, although in reality only a moment passes. I look for a distinguishable feature on Finlay’s face—anything to identify him as my living, breathing Finlay—but I don’t find one.

  He’s dead. Finlay’s dead.

  “Help,” I whisper, but my voice is barely audible. I feel gutted, like my insides have been stripped of all major organs. But how do you react when it's your own doing? I've no one to scream at but myself.

  I begin to cry, selfishly. “You can't die. You just can't. Please!” I scream hysterically. “No!” I grab on to his shirt and try to shake his rumpled form, but he’s too heavy.

  He’s already dead.

  My voice comes back to me with a vengeance. My scream seems to echo indefinitely. I don't remember stopping, except to vomit. Mrs. Turnbull bursts into the room first, followed by my best friend, Savari. I don’t meet either of their eyes, dizziness taking me. I know what they’re thinking. Horrific voices screech and cry out for help until the sirens arrive.

  Now, I’m not in any sort of shape to think clearly, and there is much that I can’t remember from that night, but in life there are some lessons you never forget. It was on that night I learned it only takes one shot at close range for a man to blow his own face clean off, and that’s exactly what I said to the authorities.

  14: Downward Spiral

  If I’d been asked to say a few words at Finlay’s funeral, which I hadn’t, I would have compared him to cancer. He’d latched on to my body—clutched on tightly—and dragged me toward a cruel demise, but not before suffocating the life right out of me. He left me no other option but to fall to my knees and beg for my life back, because that’s what he’d taken from me, and so that’s what I did.

  That day at the church, after sitting through the depressing revelations from friends and family I’ve never even met and struggling with the ill-informed stares from people who blamed me for Finlay’s accident, I snap. While praying to the high heavens and begging for forgiveness, something happens—and not something good.

  All my sad thoughts, silence, and grief morph into disturbing feelings that have always been there, festering just below the surface. That nasty frame of mind bubbles up now, intensified by Finlay’s ultimate selfish act. That greed rides me like a wave, an indulgence I grant myself while I gamble away my sanity in exchange for freedom.

  Finlay has ruined me. I offered him my virginity, and he stole my innocence, my spirit, and my light. Life with him was torture, but life without him is something else entirely. What ifs plague me, pushing me to the edge, leading me down a path that’ll take me nowhere good. I hop onto a downward spiral, all those nasty stares eroding my care for all humanity.

  Something is different now. Suddenly, I’m not the innocent one anymore. I see the way people stare. It’s not so much fear I see, as it is curiosity. Did she kill him? Will she do it again? But no one has the nerve to ask me. Not my teachers. Not my friends. Not Finlay’s family. In fact, the only person with the gall to ask is the police detective who looks like he has a chip on his shoulder.

  He doesn’t even see through my lies. None of them understand how I feel inside. I’m done being a doormat. I told him what happened. Finlay flailed a gun around in a torture chamber meant for me. He tried to kill me. His plan backfired. When he tried to see what went wrong with the gun, it blasted his face off. No one was present in that room except for me and him. We are the only ones who will ever know the truth, and since Finlay’s dead now, I can say whatever the hell I want, and they have no choice but to believe it.

  I turn up the tears and take a week off of school, but my mind plays nasty tricks on me. Dare I say I’m happy by this turn of events? Savari has given me a place to stay, much nicer than the place I was staying at before, and Finlay’s mother is convinced to replace all of my belongings that were ruined by Finlay’s outburst and now splattered with his blood and brain matter. She didn’t have much of a choice. It was either that or she makes an insurance claim, but her lawyers told her she didn’t want to do that with the evidence stacked against her son.

  I hold up my designer heels and smile. Thank you, Mrs. Turnbull.

  A few weeks have passed since Finlay was buried, and I find that I have a lot of spare time on my hands. All this free time opens up a new venue for finding temporary relief. I go out at night and make new friends of the male variety. Savari seems to think that I’m drinking to wash away the horrible feelings brought on by Finlay’s death, and that I’m letting men touch me because I’m lonely, but the truth is I enjoy the attention and the control.

  Every weekend, I try on a different flavor of man: tall, short, firm, fat, hard, and soft. In public, I tease them to the point of erupting. When they ask me to leave with them, I say yes. Everyone around me believes these men are getting lucky. Every single time, I’ve escaped to use the restroom and then disappeared out the back. It’s a dangerous game I’m playing, but I keep at it until I’ve secretly seduced a good portion of the men’s basketball team.

  No one says a thing about it to me. The guys take off and let everyone believe I left with them. They probably rush home to whack off. I don’t know why they keep their lips sealed. I figure they’re either ashamed for taking advantage of the lonely widowed girlfriend, or they’re unwilling to tarnish their chances of getting laid by me in the future.

  In reality, taking another man to my bed is the last thing I need right now. I was made to suffer by a man, and now man will suffer from my wrath. With all this time spent drinking and dreaming up my revenge, I’m barely scraping by at school. It’s amazing how quickly your GPA can take a nosedive after you’ve seen the inside of your boyfriend’s head.

  It looks like I’m going to have to put my new prowess to work while trying out my new shoes. Something has to give or I’m not going to get through this school year. I’m not about to repeat it because of this one man. I’ll have to do something drastic to fix this.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  I adjust my black dress so my tits look extra perky, the flesh of my cleavage visible to anyone who’s looking. Mr. Varela shouts for me to go away but I’m persistent.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Convincing my first three teachers to fix my grade was a cinch. Even the short lesbian lady was open to my less than traditional tactics. I was shocked to learn they only needed tears, when I was fully prepared to make it worth their while. Mr. Varela, I’m afraid, will need a little more convincing. I’ve saved him for last. I’m not below begging.

  Mr. Varela is the youngest of them all, handsome, married, head of the Psychology department, and a stickler for the rules. I don’t even need his sympathy at this point; my GPA will probably be fine now that my other teachers have heard my sob story. But there’s something stopping me from turning down the challenge. Varela’s alpha composure attracts me, for one. The fact that he’s married makes me want to try my luck even more. I need to know whether all men are that selfish, or if it was just Finlay.

  Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

  I glance down the hallway. It’s late. Most of the students and many of the teachers have long ago left for the night. He’s one of those professors—you know the type—who stays late every night to keep on top of things. I’ve heard he’s not the type who mingles with students. By your third year, you get a good grasp of which profs are faithful and which ones are dirty dogs. Everyone has placed Mr. Varela strictly among those in that first category. I tend to agree with them, but I’m not afraid to gamble.

  I’ve been working on him for days, and I believe I’ve found a glitch I plan to capitalize on tonight. He’s often cold and arrogant, but he’s attracted to innocence and awkward apologies. I can be whoever he wants me to be. I look forward to it. No matter the cost.

  Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

  “All right, all right,” he growls, his anger and exasperation
laughable.

  He throws the door open, his eyes landing on my chest and his mouth falling slack before he can check himself. He quickly recovers but I’ve already seen what I needed to see. As I suspected, underneath that perfectly laundered suit and good manners is a man with raw needs and a desire to satisfy them.

  “Good evening, Mr. Varela.”

  His expression softens when he finds my face on top of my boobs. I know this is my chance, as he takes a step back into his office. He nods at me. “Miss Blackwell.”

  I love how he already senses his own weakness. He hasn’t shut me out. There’s another win in my future yet.

  I mimic his frustration. “I’m sorry. It’s late. You’re busy. I shouldn’t have come.”

  His response comes quickly. “No, no. It’s quite all right. Please.”

  He offers for me to take a seat in front of his desk. When I enter his office, the temperature in the room spikes a few degrees, and I flourish in the knowledge that he’s reacting to my presence. Before I sit down, I turn to face him.

  “What can I do you for—do for you! What can I do for you?” he corrects rather loudly.

  My teeth sink into my lower lip as I feign embarrassment.

  “Sorry, long day,” he admits, and I would have believed him if his eyes hadn’t settled on my porcelain skin and then lit up when he noticed the warmth reaching my cheeks.

  If he thought his day was long, it’s about to get a whole lot longer. I twist away and move toward the door, but he rushes over to stop me.

  “I can come back another time,” I explain, turning my eyes to the floor.

  His hand slides onto my shoulder and squeezes, like he’s supporting a student torn from youth by her tragic life experience. I can’t help but smile, barely managing to keep it hidden from him.

  “I’d like to help you.”

  I peer up at him wearing that wickedly aroused smile. “But you already have.”

  He swallows, snaps out of it, and closes his door. He’s new at this—nervous—but he knows full well what he’s doing. He doesn’t lock his door or usher me out of it. He does lose the masculine grace that I’ve come to love from a distance as he walks toward his desk. The way he trips over himself is kind of cute.

  “Please, sit.”

  I take a seat this time, without hesitation. “I hate to trouble you.”

  “No, no trouble,” he says, perching on the corner of his desk.

  I love the way his buttoned-up shirt strains across his chest when he folds his arms across it. The thoughtful expression on his face is convincing. His jaw is strong but tense. His body is rigid and confident, but his eye twitches from behind those intelligent glasses when I cross my legs. The fact that he notices the way my dress inches higher up my thighs tells me he’s struggling to maintain that steely composure.

  I take advantage of that small victory and smile. “You don’t have to be ashamed for looking, Mr. Varela. I actually enjoy having your eyes on me almost as much as I’m going to enjoy your lips.”

  He shakes his head like he’s misheard me. “Huh? What?” I let him believe that he has for the moment.

  “I was hoping you could give me a hand with something.”

  “Of course. Anything. What is it?”

  He doesn’t wait for me to pull work out of my bag. He knows exactly what kind of help I’m referring to. I’ve grown tired of spending my nights seducing the dumb jocks and easy targets. I want to know what it’s like to bring a successful, intelligent man down. I want to be the subject of all his desires so that I can hold his life in my hands and rip it out from underneath him. It’ll be nice for someone else to understand what it feels like to be at rock bottom—like I do.

  “There’s this thing that’s been plaguing me and I think you’re the answer I’ve been looking for.” I uncross my legs and spread them apart, with my hands pushing the insides of my knees until they’re wide enough apart for him to see something that students should keep covered in their professor’s office, even if I did shave especially for him. He stares, shamelessly, it finally dawning on him that I’m not wearing any panties.

  “I, uh. No. I, I, I mean,” he stutters, retracting his refusal. He lifts his glasses, covers his eyes with one hand, and lets out a heavy sigh of pent up sexual frustration. “I can’t.”

  I push to my feet, but my dress stays hiked up like a good mini skirt should, just barely hiding my goodies. “You can’t? Or you won’t?” I slide my hands up and down his solid chest, waiting for him to break. I chew on my bottom lip again, drawing his eyes to the ruby color before dropping to my knees. I have his belt undone before he even realizes what I plan to do. His eyes zero in on my puckered red lips as I stroke him through his pants.

  He shakes his head, but he doesn’t pull my hands away, and I’m close to having his zipper down. “I can’t,” he chants repeatedly as I tug down his pants and pull him out of his briefs.

  Holy, shit. We have a winner! Mr. Varela is packing, and whatever I’m doing must be working because he’s as hard as it gets, and I haven’t even put him in my mouth yet. I tease him first, allowing my red lips to wrap around all that man and slide down the length of him. He is astonished, overwhelmed, and speechless. So am I! Almost.

  “What’s wrong, Mr. Varela? Cat got your tongue?”

  He gives up the fight and weaves his fingers into my hair, guiding the depth and speed of penetration to his liking. He’s close. It hasn’t been but seconds, and he’s already close. When I know he’s past the point of no return, I pull away, breaking the seal.

  “Wait,” he pleads, stroking himself, maintaining his hardness.

  I can’t believe how erotic and appealing I find him right now. This was not a part of the plan. “Yes?”

  “I need more. Please,” he begs.

  I push him backwards until he’s lying on his back, his man parts standing perpendicular to his desk. I hike my dress over my hips and crawl over him, propping myself over a very erect cock.

  “Wait,” he pleads, warring with himself.

  Without battling it out, I lower myself onto him, just slightly. He’s barely past my entrance, throbbing where we touch, when he groans. Oh, yes, I’m wet, too. He sighs again, as I let him dip in a little farther before he makes his final decision.

  “I can’t fuck you,” he moans, even though he’s already inside me.

  It’s a little late for that, I would say. “Then sit still and enjoy the ride.” I lower myself onto him, my tightness encircling him slowly, until he’s completely buried in my warmth.

  He closes his eyes and groans, appreciating the tightness, his fingers involuntarily digging into my hips.

  I rock forward, taking him as deeply as I want. I expect him to sit back and be still, but he can’t do it. Instead, he leans forward and takes my mouth against his, his tongue seeking out mine, kissing me with that very expert tongue. He grabs on to my ass with two rough hands, working himself deeper and deeper, until he’s the one thrusting upwards into me.

  I lean back with my mouth partially agape and his lips naturally magnetize to the soft flesh of my neck. Shit. I didn’t want to enjoy this. This wasn’t supposed to be this much fun. But as Mr. Varela rams into me, I find myself swirling with desire and shocked by the way my orgasm suddenly takes me. He stiffens seconds later, holding me sensually, like a lover, his lips pressed into my throat.

  Neither of us speaks, but I can’t stop smiling. Now that was fun! He twists off the side of his desk and helps me off of his semi-hard dick. I put my feet on the floor one at a time, my heels clicking with each step. I cross the room, where I find and retrieve my purse.

  “Thank you, Mr. Varela. You’ve been most helpful.”

  After pulling his pants up to his waist, he lifts his glasses and covers his eyes with a masculine hand. “Zayne,” he says. He peers at me from under that guilty salute. “Call me Zayne.”

  We exchange glances as I pull on some underwear. He does up his pants and readjusts his tie, thr
owing it aside when he realizes that righting himself is a lost cause. He might regret this in an hour from now, but I guarantee you, he’ll be coming back for more. They always do.

  15: Blackmail

  Blackmail is such a dirty word but not half as dirty as the deed my prof has succumbed to: a married man screwing a cheerleader who happens to also be his student. You’re probably wondering whether we’ve done it again. We most certainly have, each time getting more exhilarating and risqué than the last. Somebody might have even snapped a few web shots of me pressed into the wall, half naked with Zayne’s pants around his ankles—you know, for my screensaver, or maybe his wife’s.

  Mr. Zayne Varela has no idea what he’s gotten himself into. He’s too high on young pussy to realize I am the poison that’s going to ruin his career and marriage. All this power goes straight to my head and fuels my yearning for more. There are some days I wish I could just roll over and die. Other days—like today—I feel a strength I never knew existed.

  I wasn’t planning on making an appearance at my graduation ceremony, knowing the event is going to be a bore, and it is, beyond dreadful, but to see Zayne’s face when I shake his hand and exchange a photograph for my diploma will be worth all the glowering at the cute couple holding hands next to me. I’m up next, so I climb the stairs and wait for the announcer to call my name.

  “Clarisse Blackwell.”

  Mr. Varela startles, searching the throng of graduates for me. There’s a commotion in the audience and a gang of cheerleaders and basketball players hoot from the back of the room.

  “Ow ow!” is the last thing I hear before the president of the school shakes my hand.

  “Good luck in your future endeavours,” she tells me.