“How?”
“Maybe you’ll end up meeting somebody who treats you the way you deserve to be treated. Not the way that bastard has you thinking you should be treated.” He dipped his head and pressed a kiss to her brow.
He’d done that, easily, a hundred times.
More.
Was it just her or did it seem like his lips lingered? Or maybe she was just lonely…and wishing that was what had happened.
Chapter Three
Uploading images…
“I’m going to be sick,” Elizabeth whispered, dropping her face into her hands. She was really doing this. Memories of the way Noel had reacted had given her the courage to go this far, but now? “I’m going to throw up.”
“No, you’re not. Here. Take a drink.”
Elizabeth eyed the green bottle Selah had pushed her way, then, with a sigh, she accepted it. As she took a small sip of the ginger beer Selah drank like it was liquid candy, she refused to look at the monitor.
“Okay. Pictures are uploaded…what do you want to say in your profile?”
Putting the bottle down, Elizabeth leaped to her feet and started to pace. It had been two weeks since she’d sat down with Noel and laid things out. Yes, we can try this. But if you’ll be pursuing this open relationship idea, I’m going to as well.
She hadn’t planned on doing it, not really.
But then he’d smiled at her. A sweet, understanding sort of smile…while his eyes laughed at her. It had taken her a while to understand why she felt all hot and tight in her gut. She didn’t let herself get mad. She fought against getting mad. When she got mad, other people got hurt, because she sucked at solving her own problems. So she’d stopped letting her temper interfere, and had started using her brain.
But this…oh, yeah. It had taken a few days for that slow burn to break through, but once it had, Elizabeth had realized she was pissed. Hell no was she going to let somebody else solve this for her—Selah had already given her the answer.
Now, though, days after the fact, when her fury had cooled and all she had was her misery—and her discomfort at seeing the pictures Selah had taken of her, she wasn’t so sure about any of this anymore.
“What if nothing happens?” she blurted out, turning to look at Selah across the room. She was still wearing one of the outfits Selah had talked her into wearing—one that had seemed kind of weird, in Elizabeth’s opinion, but Selah was the one with the artistic talent so what did Elizabeth know? The oversized battered denim workshirt was one that Decker had left at her place and she used it to sleep in. For the pictures, she’d worn just the shirt, but she’d pulled on a pair of shorts under it once Selah was done, so at least she didn’t feel completely naked.
Selah waved a hand at her. “Relax. Hey…why don’t you order us some pizza? I’m starving.”
“Pizza. I’m about to come out of my skin and you want…”
The knock on the door interrupted her grumble and she shot a look down at herself. She was braless. Wonderful. Buttoning up two more buttons, she padded over to the door and looked through the peephole before opening it.
“Deck.” An immediate smile broke out over her face and then she stared at what he held for a long moment, before she just rolled her eyes and turned away. “The two of you seemed to forget I’m trying to cut back on the carbs I eat.”
“Cheat days! You’re supposed to have them, I remember. One a week,” Selah said. She shot Decker a grin. “Pizza, amigo. You must be psychic. I was just telling her, pizza would taste so good right now.”
“Hey, Selah.” He nodded at her as he carried the pizza in, depositing two pizza boxes and a double order of wings on the table. “Am I crashing something important?”
“Would you care if you were?” Selah continued to pound away at the keyboard.
Elizabeth fetched plates from the kitchen. If she didn’t, he’d just eat from the box. As she turned, she caught him staring at her, an odd look in his eyes. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.” He reached out as she moved in to give him a plate. Flicking the collar of the shirt, he said, “That looks sort of familiar.”
Heat rushed up to stain her cheeks red. “Well, finders keepers.” To cover up her embarrassment, she stuck her tongue out at him. “It’s comfortable.”
He took the plate from her and she turned away, suddenly feeling a little too warm.
Looking toward Selah, panic suddenly grabbed her—shit! The monitor was huge. She’d invested in a decent computer system since she did the website for the coffee shop on her own. Plus she liked a decent screen for gaming and the pictures she took—all of that meant one thing. It was too damn easy for her to see just what Selah was doing. That meant Decker could see.
“Selah. Can you do that later?” she asked, keeping her voice casual.
“Hell, no. This is too much fun. The assbag has no idea what a mistake he has made.” Devious amusement filled Selah’s voice and she started to mutter to herself in Spanish as she continued to pound at the keys.
“Selah, let’s eat first and…”
But it was too late. Decker had cut around her, plate in one hand, a slice of pizza in the other. “So what are you doing?”
He’d noticed. Almost right away. If he hadn’t been knocked almost speechless from the sight of Lizzie in one of his old workshirts, the images that Selah was manipulating on the screen definitely would have done it.
Of course, he’d been warned ahead of time.
Selah, nosy woman that she was, had texted him more than two hours ago.
I’m at Lizzie’s. You should come. Bring pizza.
He’d told her he had stuff to do.
He tried to avoid being around Lizzie when Selah was there, because Selah was anything but subtle lately. She’d suspected how he felt for a long time, but lately that suspicion had become something more and her hints were the size of elephants. Hints that Lizzie was oblivious to.
But then she’d sent him another message. You want to be here for this. Unless you don’t want to know her screen name for that website. Maybe you don’t care that she’s going to look beautiful and men will be drooling all over the pictures I’m taking of her.
He’d been pacing outside the pizza parlor pretty much since they’d opened, waiting until he could put the order in.
Selah shot him a laughing look as he moved in closer, while behind him, Lizzie muttered under her breath.
The pizza he’d just swallowed had the consistency and texture of lead, it seemed, lodging in his throat until it was almost impossible to force it down.
“Hey, Deck…ah…”
He slid her a look over his shoulder. “You’re going through with it, huh?”
Her face was red. She looked down and fiddled with the top button on the shirt and damn it, why did she have to do that, because now he wanted to see her fingers loosening that button, then another, and another…
Abruptly, she jerked her head up and everything inside him went hot and ready at the look in her eyes. “Yes, I’m doing it.” She jerked up her chin. “So what? Noel looked at me and practically laughed. All but gave me a pat on the head. You going to do the same thing?”
Instead of answering, he looked back at the computer. His dick was twisted into a miserably uncomfortable position and it was a good thing he’d had some warning. He’d worn a T-shirt with a flannel hanging out over it, and hopefully nobody looked below the level of his belt because his cock was currently throbbing in time with his heart, and his hard-on wasn’t going away. Maybe not any time this millennium.
“This doesn’t inspire a pat on the head,” he finally said, voice a little rougher than normal, but for the most part, he thought he was holding it together pretty well.
She was naked under that shirt.
In the pictures at least. He could see the frayed edges of the shorts she had on now, but in the pictures, he didn’t think she was even wearing panties.
In one of them, it fell off her shoulder, hanging
so low, only the swell of one ripe, round breast kept it from falling off completely. There was a slideshow of the images and the next one that came up had him biting back a groan. She’d swapped out the button-down for a tank top. A white one. She had a lacy white bra under it, but neither of those did anything to hide the shadows of large, plump nipples. His mouth was watering. Son of a bitch.
She was two feet away, one of their best friends was in the room. And all he wanted to do was turn around, go to his knees and pull that shirt open—his shirt—so he could see just how large and pretty those nipples really were.
Another image rolled across the screen.
Glass shattered.
Looking down, he stared at the plate he’d dropped but he wasn’t seeing the plate. He was seeing long pale limbs, the sheet that had been strategically twisted and twined around her lush curves so that it fell in swathes against her tits and her hips, but leaving everything else bare.
His mind was working overtime to fill in the blanks.
“You’ve got butterfingers today, Deck,” Selah said, her voice sly.
He shot her a dark look. “Yeah. Looks that way.”
He turned just as Lizzie tried to go around him to get the glass.
“I’ll get it,” he said, his voice gruff.
“I can help.”
“You’re not wearing any shoes.” He shot a look down at her feet, and fuck him, he couldn’t help but let his gaze linger on the neckline of the shirt—his shirt—and he knew another thing she wasn’t wearing. A bra. She still hadn’t put on a bra.
He nudged her back, putting his slice of pizza onto the plate she’d been holding and then he crouched down. Maybe he could cut open his hand. If he lost enough blood, it would do something to deaden the hard-on, he thought. Adequate blood supply was needed to maintain erections, right?
Of course, the likelihood of losing a pint or so from a broken plate was slim. And spilling that much just so she wouldn’t notice seemed a bit extreme…
She wouldn’t notice anyway, he thought sourly as he plucked up pieces of glass and dumped them in the palm of his hand. She’ll put herself up on a kink website for any damn body—
Any damn body.
Tension grabbed him.
“So how does this website work?” he asked slowly.
“People will post to her profile. If she’s interested, she can check out their profiles and they can chat. It’s up to her if she sets up a meet,” Selah said cheerfully. “Of course, I’ve already told her that the first few times she meets anybody one of us have to be told.”
“I’m a big girl,” Elizabeth said from the kitchen. “I can take care of myself, you know.”
“Of course. That’s why you understand the need of being careful with people you’ve only met online, right?” From the corner of his eye, Decker could see the way Selah winked at him. “It’s a decent set-up. If anybody hassles her, she just has to block him and if she contacts the administrators with proof that a user contacted her without her permission outside the site, the user is banned for life. You need a credit card to register—it’s only five piddly bucks a year—but that makes sure the users are legit and if they don’t behave, they are done. The ban is likely to be more effective here than elsewhere.”
“How do they keep the crazies off?” From the corner of his eye, he saw Lizzie approaching and he used his body to block her when she tried to sweep the area. “My mess. I clean it up.”
“My house.” She made a face at him but shoved the broom and dustpan into his hand.
While he swept up, Selah answered his earlier question. “Naturally they can’t check people’s medical history, but they state straight up that all users must go through a criminal background check.”
He felt every muscle tighten. So much for that idea—
“But they also make it clear they don’t limit people simply for having a record.” It wasn’t his imagination that Selah’s smile widened and took on a smug turn. “They refuse anybody with any sort of sexual assault or domestic violence, but everything else, they consider on a case by case basis. There’s a form for those who do have a record so if they still want to get on the site, they can apply.”
She rattled off a few more things—stats and shit that made no sense to him and why would he care? But then she paused and looked at him. “I emailed you a little while ago about something—don’t you go ignoring it now.”
Decker had written this probably a hundred times, or explained it. He would probably do it again, the next time he had to talk to somebody about a job, or the next time somebody complained about a felon living next door and the supe found a reason to kick him out.
Not too many people liked the idea of a convicted killer working for them, or living close by, although he’d learned there were those who’d give him a chance. Rowland had been cool with it, and his current landlord seemed fine to live and let live. But Decker was under no illusions that anything in his life was permanent—except Lizzie—so yeah, he’d have to tell this story again.
Just as he’d told it so many other times, and it always started out the same way.
I did what I felt I had to do, and while I regret the fact that it was necessary, I have no regrets that I took the actions I did…
And so it went.
He did have to admit that he didn’t think he’d ever be explaining himself to a fucking dating site. Well. It was a little more than a dating site. It was a social site for those with tastes outside the mainstream ideal. That was how they advertised themselves. And why they were probably not totally opposed to having felons on the site.
Fuck knows there were women who’d all but crawled over him when they found out he had a record.
That kind of thing left him cold inside. Although more than once, he’d taken a lady up on it. She wanted what she saw as a risky fuck and he just needed to not be lonely every once in a while. It got damn lonely in bed at night, him, his fist, his fantasies.
It was sex, nothing more, nothing less. At least on his side. Whatever they got out of it, he didn’t know. Well, other than orgasms. He could give them that.
If they tried to linger with him, ask questions—why did you do it, what was it like—well, that just hurried the end along that much quicker. He didn’t talk about that night unless he had to. And it was a kick in the face that he was doing it with total strangers. Via email, no less.
But every time he thought about the profile he’d seen Selah working on?
Yeah. He had to try.
Because whether Lizzie realized it or not, she was going to have guys crawling all over her profile.
The phone rang just as he sent the form off—he thought of it as I’m a killer, but only under certain circumstances form. “Really,” he muttered, grabbing the phone. “I’m safe. Trust me.”
Lizzie’s face flashed across the screen and he reached up, pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Hey, Lizzie.”
“Deck.” Her voice was…weird.
Slowly, he straightened up in his chair, turning away from the miniscule desk to face the single studio apartment where he’d lived for the past nine months. “What’s up?”
“There—um—well, this is…I don’t know how to say this.”
“You just say it, sugar,” he said, rolling his eyes—amused even as frustration bubbled. Lizzie sometimes seemed like two people trapped inside that sex-bomb body of hers. When she was at work, or when she was in a position where she had to be in charge, she was just that. In charge. Capital letters, italics, full out in charge.
But when it came to her? Her personal life? What she wanted? What she needed? What made her happy? She went all quiet. Bunnies could be more demanding than she was.
And it pissed him off, because she hadn’t always been that way.
He knew, all too well, what had caused it. But he didn’t know how to knock down the wall she’d built around herself. Not without hurting her.
“I’ve got guys talking to me.�
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He tensed. “What? Where are you? Are you safe?”
“No…” A nervous giggle escaped her but he barely heard it as the rage bled through, trying to take him over again.
“Not that. Decker, it’s the website.”
Through the pulse of his own blood pounding in his ears, he caught those words. He’d been halfway out the door, but now he paused. “The website.”
“Yeah. Um. On my wall. Some of them are talking to me. I’ve already had three guys ask me out.”
Fucccckkkk…
Dragging a hand down his face, he shut the door and slumped against it. A new kind of rage, the small and mean and petty kind twisted inside him, even as something warm settled in his heart as he understood that odd note he’d heard in her voice. Bemusement. Shocked, puzzled bemusement. “Lizzie, what did you think would happen? You’re gorgeous and you put up pictures where any guy with eyes could see it and you think nobody is going to notice?”
“But I’m not…”
“Stop it. I’m not going to listen to the shit you think you see in the mirror,” he snapped. “You’re beautiful and you always have been. And now somebody other than—” me “Needledick Noel is going to be able to appreciate it. Enjoy it. Just…”
He stopped, drove his head back against the door even as he mentally slapped himself. He’d encouraged her to do this. Even if she ended up with somebody else, somebody not him, it would be better. Maybe she’d just wake up and realize she deserved better and dump Noel and he could try to make a move then. But regardless, he’d promised himself he’d see her happy…and loved.
Granted, he’d always planned to be the one loving her, but in the end, if she was happy, and loved, that was what mattered.
“Just promise me you’ll remember what we talked about, you, me and Selah. First few dates are in public—no going home with anybody the first few times. Okay?”
As she promised him, he shot his computer a look.
Deceptions: A Collection Page 4