Crown of Lies

by Pepper Winters

  I careened around the corner, spying Penn’s building.

  So far.

  I’ll make it.

  I skidded on an old newspaper but didn’t slow down.

  The thief cursed and grumbled, keeping pace with me, slowly catching up.

  Headlights appeared in the distance, bright and glowing, warm and welcoming.

  I flew off the sidewalk, directly into the car’s path.

  Instead of slowing down to help, the vehicle sped up as if to run me over and deliver my corpse to the man currently wanting to hurt me.

  I waved my arms. “Stop. Help!”

  The darkness in the car showed a single driver, their hands clenching the wheel. He drove directly for me. I had a split second to decide what to do—where to run before he struck.

  But the collision never happened.

  The driver wrenched the steering and drove over the curb, slamming to a stop.

  The engine screamed as the front door flung open and a man leaped from the interior. “Get in the fucking car.” He pointed at me. “Now!”

  It took a second to register.

  My ears knew that voice.

  My body knew that body.

  I’d never been so thankful to see someone. Even if he’d thrown me from his house. Even if he hurt me in ways I wouldn’t admit.

  Penn threw himself over the hood as the man chasing me skidded to a standstill only an arm’s length from grabbing me.

  I pressed against the car, my mouth gulping air. My feet burning from sprinting on concrete and debris.

  Then my pain was no more as Penn launched himself at the man. “You motherfucker.”

  Together, they went down.

  Penn landed on top of him and didn’t give gravity the joy of crunching him into the pavement before his fists rained on his face.

  He didn’t speak. Just beat him.

  The robber did his best to cover his face with his arms, curling up, trying to push Penn off. But he didn’t stand a chance.

  I counted one, two, three, four, five fists to the jaw before Penn effortlessly pushed off from the man’s chest and stood over him.

  He cracked his knuckles as if he’d just washed his hands not doused them in some criminal’s blood. “Rob again. Try to rape again. And you’re fucking dead.” With a black shoe, he kicked the man in the ribcage. “Got it?”

  The guy looked up, blinking through a rivulet of blood. For a second, his eyes were blank, full of hate and rebellion. Then they focused on Penn’s face. On the way he stood so regal and calm, demanding utmost obedience. Recognition popped in vibrant color, and the robber swayed to his feet, wrapping an arm around his kicked chest, and holding his head with the other. “Shit, it’s you.”

  What?

  I froze, desperate to know what he meant.

  Penn stiffened. “Leave. Tonight is your lucky night.”

  The man nodded, dropping his eyes, forgetting I even existed. Turning in his filthy sneakers, he took off at a stumbling jog.

  He ran away with my earrings, just like the men in the alley ran away with my sapphire star.

  I’d been saved again, but this time...all I felt was terror not desire.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “GET IN THE fucking car, Elle.” Penn’s voice remained low and hushed but rang with steely authority.

  He knew him.

  He knew Penn.

  How? Why? What does it mean?

  I blindly grabbed the door handle and cracked it open. Numb, I slid into the passenger seat as he strolled nonchalantly to the driver’s side and climbed in.

  A few seconds passed after the doors slammed shut, cocooning us in heavy, oppressive silence. His bloody knuckles clenched the steering wheel as if he could throttle it.

  My throat had permanently closed with fear and questions. So, so many questions.

  How did that man know Penn?

  Who was Penn?

  And why...just why...did he beat up that man with the same effortless grace as the man in the alley that fateful night?

  Penn reached across the gear stick, placing his hand on my thigh.

  I flinched, yanking my legs to the side.

  His fingers dug into my muscle, keeping with me. He breathed hard, squeezed me, and then let me go. Pressing the clutch, he slid the still rumbling engine into gear and drove off the curb and back onto the road.

  The bump jostled us, but we didn’t speak.

  I daren’t.

  I didn’t know what to think.

  Part of me wanted to over-analyze everything; to replay the way he disciplined that guy and try to connect dots that weren’t there. My imagination worked over-time, doing its best to believe that perhaps I knew Nameless’ identity all along. That maybe, just maybe, he’d been the one to find me after all these years and not me failing to find him.

  But one awful flaw sat like a toad in that perfect fantasy. Penn didn’t have a gentle bone in his body like Nameless. Nameless was cool and prickly but beneath that armor had been kindness—sweet wrapped up in daggers.

  Penn was just the blade, shiny and impenetrable, one dimensional with refracting surfaces to distort my true perception.

  The only problem was I couldn’t distinguish one punch from another. I was seeing things—making things up—trying to link two very separate incidents into one.

  To do what?

  Find meaning in why I slept with Penn?

  Validation that I wasn’t some romance-broken girl, after all?

  “I owe you an apology.” His voice barely registered over the hum of the tires on the road.

  I tensed, staring out the window. “I owe you thanks.”

  His head snapped left and right in denial. “No. I kicked you out. I thought your driver would collect you, but then you walked off.”

  “You were watching me?”

  He didn’t reply. “You almost got hurt.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  “If you had...fuck!” He punched the steering wheel, making the horn blare, shattering the sleep in many apartments. “I would’ve fucking killed him.”

  “I wouldn’t have asked you to.”

  He glowered. “I wouldn’t have done it for you.”

  “So you would’ve taken a life purely because you wanted to and not to somehow avenge me?”

  “I would’ve killed him because he touched what wasn’t his to touch.”

  My heart beat wild. “So you protected me, not because I shared your bed and gave up a significant part of me, but because in your twisted ideals, I’m a possession that only you can touch?”

  His jaw worked as he drove fast through residential streets. “Yes.”

  “Not because you feel anything for me?”

  “No.”

  “Anything at all.”

  “Nothing.”

  “But the sex was good.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want to see me again?” I hated that I had to ask; that I cared about the answer. He’d turned into a bastard who terrified me. He’d hurt that thief with such ease.

  But with him emotionally withdrawn and icy, it helped remind me what we had was purely physical. I didn’t like him. Not in the slightest. I didn’t even feel some resemblance of gratitude-induced affection from him rescuing me. He turned everything that could be good and exciting into bad and unwanted.

  But I’d tasted what sex could be like. And I wanted more. I wanted to be selfish for me. So, for now, I’d accept his asshole persona and ignore my questions.

  “I don’t know.” His confession wasn’t what I expected.

  “You don’t know if you want to sleep with me again?”

  He half-smirked. “We didn’t sleep together, Elle. We fucked.”

  “Thanks for the clarification.” I huffed, crossing my arms. “Forgive me; do you want to fuck me again?”

  His fingers latched tighter around the wheel, the leather creaking. For a moment, his head shook with a silent no. Then a cocky smirk stole the truth with
yet another lie. “Yes, I want to fuck you again.”

  Why the hesitation?

  Why say we are engaged if he only intended to sleep with me once?

  Why the cold shoulder and strict boundaries?

  Why, why, why?

  “Good.” I sat prim, reveling how the ache in my womb turned liquid again. “Me too.” Testing my innocent mouth with erotic commands, I added, “I liked fucking you. I want more.”

  His gaze shot from the road to mine. “More?”

  I swallowed, fighting back my embarrassment. “I want your uh...cock. I want you inside me again.”

  He groaned and focused on the road, the speed we traveled far too fast. “Fuck you for saying that.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.”

  I had no come-back for being cursed at.

  How rude.

  What an ass!

  I sat silent, stewing as the neighborhood switched to one I knew and my penthouse on top of the white sparkling building up ahead beckoned me home.

  Home.

  Where Sage would be waiting and Penn could fuck off with his secrets, curses, and lies.

  Pulling to a stop, he turned off the car and climbed out.

  I didn’t wait for him to get my door. Cracking it open, I jumped out only to wince and hobble as the cuts from running tormented me.

  “Fuck, look at your feet.” Before I could reply, he scooped me into his arms and carried me toward my building.

  The doorman nodded and opened the large entryway without showing any signs of shock. Penn left his black Mercedes coupe parked haphazardly on the street and marched me through the foyer of my building.

  “Everything okay, Ms. Charlston?” Danny, the night manager, called. His lined face worried beneath the navy cap of his uniform. He eyed Penn with wariness.

  Preventing me from yelling for help or for Danny to call security, Penn growled, “I’m taking my fiancée to her apartment. She’s fine.”

  I squirmed in his arms. “You are not my fiancé. Stop telling everyone that.” Waving at Danny, doing my best to keep up appearances rather than panic the neighborhood, I said, “Everything's fine. Sorry for the odd entry.”

  Danny waved back, frowning and unsure but polite enough not to intrude.

  The moment we left the foyer and entered the bank of elevators, I hissed, “Put me down.” I pushed at Penn’s chest. “I can walk.”

  “Your feet are bleeding.”

  “I don’t care. I want you gone.”

  He looked down, his brown eyes bordering oak-black. “That wasn’t what you said a few moments ago.”

  “That was before you told me to fuck off.”

  “I didn’t tell you to fuck off. I said fuck you. There’s a difference.”

  “There's no difference.”

  He punched the elevator button and strode into it as the doors opened instantly. “Press your floor.”

  I did so then froze as the doors whispered shut, imprisoning us. “Wait, how the hell do you know where I live?”

  “I researched.”

  “You stalked, you mean.”

  Once again, he didn’t reply. The ride upward was awkward and strange and loaded with every foreign sensation imaginable. I hated him holding me, but I liked his protection at the same time. I hated the way he took control but liked his need to make sure I was safe.

  Ugh, I just hate him.

  I don’t like any of the other stuff.

  The elevator stopped, and Penn stepped off, pausing in the middle of the fancy wide hallway. Two doors—left and right. Two penthouses taking up one-half of the entire floor each.

  He glanced at me. “Which one?”

  I crossed my arms—or the best I could while reclining in his embrace. “Don’t you already know?”

  His gaze tangled with mine, deliberating to show me a truth or lie.

  He chose the truth.

  Striding toward the left door—the correct door—he waited while I inputted the nine-digit code rather than a simple key then leaned on the door handle to enter.

  I made a mental note to change the sequence tomorrow, seeing as his eagle eyes had watched the nine digits with quick intelligence.

  His attention swooped over my foyer where a chandelier hung from the ceiling in crystal glitter before pooling onto the floor with a glass table imprisoning it. For a statement piece, it had oodles of wow factor.

  A loud meow sounded just before a silver streak charged from the white couch facing the floor-to-ceiling windows directly for Penn. Sage latched onto his leg, no doubt sinking her claws into his calf.

  I laughed softly. “Seems I’m not the only one who doesn’t like you.”

  “The feeling is mutual, I assure you.” Wincing, he stalked forward—with Sage still clinging to his leg—entering my sleek kitchen, where every cupboard looked like a high gloss wall with no handles or appliances in sight—all hidden or magically designed to keep such necessities of life a mystery.

  Placing me on the white bench top, he grabbed Sage, ripped her off his jeans, and plonked her down beside me. She swatted him, hissing, but immediately leaped into my lap and purred, stretching to lick my chin with her sandpaper tongue.

  “You did well.” I scratched her neck. “Thanks for protecting me.”

  Penn snorted, turning to locate the sink. He wouldn’t find it. It was hidden beneath a large slab of bench top that revealed the tap and bowl with a press of a button by my orchid plant.

  He searched for two seconds then stalked off, leaving me gaping after him.

  Where the hell is he going?

  A few moments later, he returned with a white towel from the guest powder room and a bowl that had contained blue marbles for decoration now filled with tepid water.

  Without a word, he dropped to his knees and grabbed my foot.

  I froze, speechless as he wet the towel then slowly, carefully, with all the tenderness in the world washed my feet, running the towel so, so gently over the lacerations from the beer bottle I’d run over.

  I sucked in a gasp, my breath wobbly as he cleaned the towel and the water turned pink with my blood.

  There was nothing else in that moment.

  No questions. No lies. No lust.

  Just him giving himself in ways I never imagined he would.

  My heart stopped thudding, settling for the slightest tiptoe as if afraid one wrong move or noise would shatter this strange new existence.

  His hands were swift but sure, soft but serious. He didn’t tickle me while he felt my instep to make sure no debris remained, and he didn’t take advantage when my legs spread with instinct as he rubbed my ankle with his thumb.

  He tended to me, and once I was tended to, he stood, placed the bowl onto the counter, then grabbed my face in his warm hands.

  He stared into my eyes, barriers in place, curtains protecting his true thoughts. He didn’t speak, but he leaned forward and his lips claimed mine in the most sensual kiss I’d ever been given.

  His tongue was velvet. His mouth cashmere.

  I swooned into him, utterly seduced and unbound.

  There was magic in this kiss, a spell promising secrets, a connection to sever all other connections.

  And then, it was over.

  As silently as he’d washed my feet, he turned around and walked out of my apartment.

  Just like that.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  A FEW DAYS passed.

  I didn’t contact him.

  He didn’t contact me.

  It was as if he never existed.

  If it weren’t for the fading cuts and bruises on my feet, I would’ve struggled to believe the night at his place even happened.

  My mind was a broken record—even work couldn’t distract me.

  All I could think about was Penn washing my feet, Penn hitting that guy, Penn sliding inside me.

  He’d shown two totally different sides of himself, and I couldn’t unscramble what it meant. I’d hoped hav
ing some time to myself would deliver decisions on what to do. To make up my mind to forget about him or chase the answers slowly turning me hollow.

  Spread-sheets and conferences calls didn’t help, and the lack of contact did the opposite of what I wanted. My heart grew fonder (just like that stupid saying). My idiotic mind sketched him in a kinder light than the one he’d shown. I second-guessed his pretension and conceit, making up stories that would explain his sudden switch to guardian and medic all in one.

  Just like my unpaid debt to Nameless, I had one toward Penn now. I owed him thanks at the very least for ensuring I returned home safe and my injuries were disinfected.

  When he finally did text me, I no longer wanted him to fall off the face of the planet but was grateful to hear from him.

  Penn (08:47a.m.): How are your feet?

  Elle (08:52 a.m.): Fine. I never said thanks for taking care of me.

  Penn (09:00 a.m.): Are you saying it now?

  Elle (09:03 a.m.): Maybe.

  Penn (09:06 a.m.): Are you sore?

  Elle (09:08 a.m.): My feet?

  Penn (09:08 a.m.): No. The other part I touched that night.

  Sex between us exploded into my senses: sight, sound, taste, feel—I wasn’t in my office but back in his bed. I had no intention of letting him know how much I wanted a second round.

  Elle (09:09 a.m.): Oh yes, that’s right. I’d forgotten about that.

  Pen (09:10 a.m.): Do you want me to refresh your memory?

  Elle (09:11 a.m.): Perhaps you should.

  Penn (09:12 a.m.): I want to fuck you again.

  Elle (09:14 a.m.): So do it.

  Penn (09:17 a.m.): Fair warning, I won’t go so easy on you next time.

  I choked a little.

  I’d played fairly easy to catch, and the thought of tangling in bed together sounded far too tempting. But if I let him into my body again, I might not be able to keep my feelings out of it. Damn him for washing my feet and showing me he could care. How could I keep my heart frosty if he’d thawed a little?

  The answer was I couldn’t.

  We’d slept together. We’d had three days apart. It was a good time to end this charade before everyone he’d lied to got hurt. I’d thanked him. I could move on.

  Elle (09:20 a.m.): I’ve changed my mind.