Deadly Deception: A Dark Romance

by J.C. Valentine

  Forcing myself to turn away, I look out over the darkening skyline, my eyes searching for any signs of life on the horizon, any witnesses that will need to be handled, and all the while, I’m explaining myself the best I can for a man who isn’t used to opening up about anything.

  “I know I said I was done with the contract, but I couldn’t let this one go. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t have an answer for you. I just needed to see it through.”

  “If I had known…”

  I swing around, pinning her with a hard stare. “What? If you had known you would have…waited for me to do it instead of getting your own hands dirty?”

  Why do I sound angry? Because I am. I hate that she marred her flawless record with the death of another. That’s why I exist. It’s my hands that should be dirty, not hers. Never hers.

  Brenda spreads her hands out, palms toward the sky. In an almost apologetic way, she says, “Yes?”

  Of course. What else could she say? When faced with a choice, what kind of person would choose to risk their lives and freedom to murder another? Aside from me, that is.

  I rake my hands through my hair. Then I marched toward her with purpose. Snatching her arm in a punishing grip that has her protesting, I tow her toward the waiting tree line. “We need to get out of sight before someone sees us. We have no idea if anyone witnessed anything, but if they didn’t, we sure as hell don’t need anyone discovering the body and making any connections.”

  Brenda’s expression shifts to a mix of understanding and panic. “What do we do now?”

  That’s the easy part. Or at least it would have been, had we had time to adequately prepare. My plan had been perfect, no witnesses, and once Brenda discovered what had become of her husband, she could have claimed ignorance and all would be well. Now, lies would have to be crafted and told, and those always had a chance of failure.

  I don’t like to fail at anything.

  “We go back to the cabin, and we work on your story.”

  “My story? But you’re a witness.”

  I shake my head. “No, Brenda, as far as anyone is concerned, I was never here. You understand? The simpler this is, the fewer witnesses to question there are, the easier it will be to pass inspection.”

  We walk while she digests this, the silence lasting long enough to bring us to the doorstep of the cabin.

  Brenda turns and looks up at me. “When do I call the police? You know, to pretend he’s missing.”

  I consider my options and settle on, “Wait a couple of hours. Then you’ll call and tell them that you’re worried something happened to him. That he went out for a hike—”

  “Glenn doesn’t hike.”

  With his waistline, she was probably right. “Fishing?”

  She gives a nod of agreement, and I continue weaving her story.

  “He went fishing. He’s usually gone for hours, so you didn’t think anything of it when you didn’t see him all day, but then it started to get dark, and you started to worry. By total nightfall, you knew something was wrong. You could just feel it. You’ll stand out on the porch and call for him, and you’ll tell them you did that too.”

  “Why do I have to actually do it? Isn’t that weird?”

  “If there’s anyone nearby, they’ll hear it. If they hear it, it could corroborate your story if they’re asked.”

  Her downcast eyes and nod say she understands the relevance.

  “After that, they’ll search for him. You’ll be too shook up to join, but you’ll stay behind with an officer for moral support. When they do find him, you’ll be beside yourself with relief. If you cry, it’ll sell it better. Remember, you’re going for an Oscar here. Everything is riding on your performance.”

  “Yeah, okay. That all makes sense.” She steps up onto the porch. I stay rooted to the ground below. With her hand on the handle, she said, “I’m so nervous. What if I can’t pull it off?”

  Without thinking, I place a foot on the bottom stair, as if to go to her to comfort her. “That won’t happen. You can do this.”

  Her pleading eyes meet mine. “I’m scared.”

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of. The worst is already behind you.” She’s already done the hardest part. Now it’s a matter of getting through the next few hours, and after that, the next few weeks of sorting the legal stuff will be a cakewalk in comparison.

  She nods again, hesitant, and draws her bottom lip into her mouth, scraping it with her teeth until the pale, rosy flesh turns white. “Will you…will you come in with me? Just for a little while,” she rushes on. “Just until I calm down a little.”

  My immediate answer is to say no. I know that going inside with her is a bad idea. I can’t foretell the future, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that with the chemistry between us and emotions running high, things we can’t take back are bound to happen.

  Neither of us needs the added complication in our lives. It’s better for both of us if I walk away now.

  “Just for a little while.” The words leave my mouth unbidden, and my feet are already carrying me up the final two steps to stand by her side before I know what’s happening. I am so dismayed by my own inexplicable behavior that I just keep going. Like a zombie, trapped inside my body, watching my every move play out as if on a screen and with no ability to stop it, I follow her into that cabin and close the door behind us.

  I’ve officially crossed the line. Broken my own rules. God help us both because if this turns out badly, I will have no one to blame but myself.

  Twenty

  ~Faith~

  There are no games, no illusions. We both know what we’re here for.

  His first words when that door closed were, “If I’m going to break my own rules, I’m going to make every moment worth it.”

  My response was, “I would be disappointed if you didn’t.” A shiver of awareness traces up my spine. I have been waiting for this moment to happen since day one. Except, I never thought it would. It had felt like a fantasy, something that would never come to pass unless in my wildest dreams. And it had there, many times.

  Now I am standing in front of the real thing, knowing that what comes next will be my dreams come true, quite literally. It makes a girl stop and think, is this what I really want?

  Of course, it is! I may have been married to a fool, but I wasn’t one. I have spent my life in servitude, and now I am going to get served. Cal is a sexy man beast with a killer instinct and fortitude to match. Everything about him screams virile, and I want him to take me with a ravenous hunger of a wild animal.

  I have a feeling that’s exactly what is about to happen.

  He stalks closer, inspecting me visually. Wondering what part of me he is going to sink his teeth into first? A flash of heat pools between my legs, tingling close on its heels, and it makes my body ache for even the smallest piece of him.

  But I have a feeling that nothing about Cal is small.

  “The only reason you want anything to do with me is because your husband just died. You’re running on endorphins.” Cal’s comment is accurate, but it isn’t the whole story.

  My craving for Cal has been consuming me for far too long. Now, I just don’t have any reason standing in my way to ignore it. “Does it matter the reason?”

  He stands in front of me now, chest to chest, staring down into my eyes. Those cold, dark eyes, so menacing, holding an untold depth of cruelty that I can only guess at. It excites me like nothing else.

  Lifting a hand, he traces a single finger across my exposed collarbone. “Not to me. As long as you understand this is the first and last time anything will ever happen between us.”

  I do understand that. It’s the way things have to be. We’ve undertaken an impossible situation that came with untold danger to our future and freedom. Beyond this moment, beyond this night, I have no intention of risking any of that ever again. But as long as I’m here, I might as well take full advantage.

  But I have one stipulation. One that seems
terribly important, despite the circumstances. “I understand, but…” I peer up into his eyes, hoping he’ll see just how badly I need just one more concession. “I have to know your name. Your real name.”

  He recoils as if struck by a viper. “That’s not part of the deal.”

  “Neither is this. None of what has happened has been part of the deal,” I argue. “You and I both know that there’s something between us, an attraction that goes far beyond anything either of us has ever experienced before.”

  Those cold, dark eyes turn to stone, and he narrows them at me. For just a second, I wonder if that’s how he looks at all of his victims before he murders them. “How do you know you’re not one of many, Brenda.”

  “Faith,” I correct, loathing hearing the fake name come from his lips. I want to hear my name on his tongue, that deep, thick, resonant voice washing over me as we make love as many times as we can in the little time we have to spend together.

  His anger mounts, visible in his every feature and the way his muscles tensed throughout his body, seeming to add to his already wide frame and inherent strength.

  “And I know,” I continue, testing his patience and not caring one iota, “because you wouldn’t be here now, breaking your own rules, to be with me, if I wasn’t something special to you.”

  “No one is special to me.”

  I lift my chin, taking yet another risk. This time to my own ego. “I am.”

  His upper lip curls back in a silent snarl. He wants to strangle me; I’d bet my life on it. But then the craziest thing happens.

  “Declan.”

  I have no words. I search his eyes, his face, while my brain downloads the new information and rewrites over the old. While “Cal” had seemed to fit him before, now it seems almost laughable. How could I have ever seen him as anything other than a Declan? It’s perfect. He’s perfect.

  “Hi, Declan.”

  “Okay, enough!” His unexpected assertion isn’t loud enough to call a shout, but it is just as startling as if he’d bellowed it right in my face. I flinch hard and take a step back, my body acting on instinct alone, as it would when faced with imminent danger.

  Meanwhile, my mind isn’t at all shaken. I am steady as a rock in my belief that Cal—Declan would never raise a finger to harm me. I don’t know how I can be so sure about something like that—maybe I am just reckless with my life—but I feel it in my bones. I’m safe with him when no one else is.

  That knowledge makes me step forward in a bold move that is uncharacteristic of me. I’m not going to allow any more distance between us. We’ve come so far, and now I want to collect on one last thing before we part ways, never to see each other again.

  “I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to talk.” I touch his chest, a gentle pressure applied gradually until I’m sure he’s used to it, and then I move forward more, adding a caress as my hands make their way up his sweat-dampened gray T-shirt to broad shoulders that I now sense hold the weight of the world.

  Has this man ever known a moment of peace in his life? True peace? I don’t think so.

  “Thank you for coming here. To help me.” The gesture isn’t to butter him up, but a genuine offer of gratitude and affection. He didn’t have to come. He could have kept his promise to cut me loose and leave me to fend for myself, but he didn’t. In some strange way, I can almost call him my hero. He’d come to my rescue, and together we made my dreams come true.

  “I can’t remember the last time…” Declan’s confession trails off, leaving me to fill in the blanks.

  “It’s been a long since I’ve been with someone that I really wanted,” I reveal, taking the lead. “I’ve spent years just going through the motions, not feeling, not desiring.” My gaze travels over the thick column of his throat to the Adam’s apple that bobs with each swallow. He wears no cologne that I can discern, but he smells divine. A combination of the outdoors, saltwater, and something uniquely him.

  My tongue pokes out to wet my lips, desperately wanting to lick him, every inch of his skin.

  “Why me?”

  His question puzzles me, but then I consider everything he represents, with the chief quality among them being death incarnate. “I could ask you the same.”

  In a surprisingly gentle act that he’d done only once before—in a similar moment to this that’d turned into a night of humiliation for me that I’d just as soon not remember—he reaches up to tuck the hair behind my ears. “You’re beautiful, kind, gentle. I could tell right away that you were caring and loving…”

  I cock my head to the side, my heart drumming a mile a minute. “I hired you to kill Glenn, and that’s what you took away from it?” I could almost laugh if it didn’t sound so absurd. But then, who am I to judge? I want to have sex with a hitman, to claim him as my own.

  “No one ever accused men of being logical.” He shrugs.

  “Or thinking with their big brain,” I tease.

  “I don’t know why, but I like you. I haven’t been able to get you out of my head, no matter how hard I tried. The very idea of your husband’s hands on you made me so mad…”

  I feel his hands, resting on either side of my neck, begin to squeeze. His eyes are distant, off in some dark, dangerous place that doesn’t terrify me as it should, but I know I have to stop him and bring him out of it before he hurts me.

  “Declan,” I say softly. After a moment, he blinks and looks down at me, his grip loosening gradually until it’s as gentle and soft as it had started. I move my hands to bracket his neck, mirroring his gesture. My fingertips just reaching the short, tightly cropped hair at the base of his neck, tease the ends, enjoying the soft but prickly feel against my skin. “Touch me. Erase him forever.”

  I want Declan’s hands on me, everywhere Glenn’s have ever been, rewriting the past, reshaping me for a bright, new future. I don’t want to take anything of the previous years with me on my new journey. Just fond memories of a time when I did something for myself, without concern for anyone else.

  Declan hesitates, seeming to engage in some internal war. And loses.

  In a rush of movement, he swoops down and captures my lips. The kiss is fierce, filled with a wild intent that thrills me to my toes. His hands transfer from my neck to my nape, fisting the long strands and pulling to the point of pain. I don’t care. I want it rougher, more passionate. I’ve never experienced true passion, and Declan’s actions promise to rectify that, here and now.

  In turn, I throw myself into the kiss. Thrusting my body against his, I scrape my nails across his scalp and my tongue duels with his for dominance. He is a fantastic kisser, but we’re were both fighting to taste one another, to overtake the other, and I’m not about to back down. I want to overpower this man, to show him that I’m just as strong and powerful—worthy.

  Releasing one hand from my hair, Declan skims his palm down my waist, stopping to cup and knead my right breast, and then he goes lower, gathering my shirt and pulling it up. His fingers yank roughly at the cup of my delicate white lace bra, and the tearing of fabric reaches her ears at the same time I feel the cool, air-conditioned air kiss my heated flesh. He tweaks my nipples as he bites at my lips. Deciding that turnabout is fair play, I grapple with his shirt with both hands, finding his fiery skin with my eager palms, and scratch my blunt nails over each hard ridge of his abs, all the way down to the waistband of his jeans where they disappear inside.

  I delved in to continue the journey of discovery.

  What I find confirms my suspicion. He isn’t small anywhere.

  Boldness is the name of the game tonight, and I’m going for broke. I grab onto the thick shaft of his hard cock and stroke as best I can in the tight confines. With a grunt of assumed pleasure, Declan does the same to me. With zero fanfare, he invades my shorts and panties, coating his fingers in my slick heat before slipping two thick digits deep inside.

  My lips part on a gasp, and he takes full advantage of my momentary weakness, taking over the kiss and my body in o
ne fell swoop.

  Pleasure so great it’s blinding envelopes me, and I have brief flashes of coherency in which I run a finger over the blunt head of his cock, collecting the bead of silky moisture and using it to pump him in time to him fingering me.

  We’re breathless, panting into each other’s mouths, our hands working hard enough to cramp…and then Declan abandons the act altogether, forcing me to free myself from his clothing or risk personal injury, before sweeping me into his arms and carrying me to the hard, uncomfortable, decade-old futon pushed up against the northern wall of the cabin.

  With deadly efficiency I would expect from a man like him, he tears my clothing off, uncaring of buttons and zippers, of delicate fabrics, laying waste to all of it. He performs the same treatment on himself, until we’re both naked, our bodies pressed flush to one another, covered in a sheen of sweat despite the cool air inside, and without asking, without any finesse at all, he drives into me.

  Instantly, an orgasm rips through my body, taking with it any shred of sense, leaving me clutching onto him for dear life, while Declan chases his own orgasm, joining me moments later with a shout of surprise that echoes my own experience.

  We come down slowly together, our skin wet with perspiration and our bodies sticky with our shared passion. Declan, still hard as a rock and buried inside me, pulls his head back and asks, “Wanna do that again?”

  I have no objections. Wrapping my legs around his hips, I tilt my hips to take him deeper, and we repeat the act well into the night until both are so depleted, we crashed into a sleep deep enough to rival the dead.

  Twenty-One

  ~Declan~

  I awoke the following morning, not because of the heat that had invaded the cramped room—the air conditioning didn’t seem to be working—but because the bed beside me was empty.

  It took a moment for my brain to come online and remember where I was at, but once I recalled my surroundings and the fact that Brenda was missing from the bed, I leaped up like a shot, my heart racing.