Before the Lie (The Confession Duet Book 1)

by KD Robichaux

  I’ve never been one for holding hands, and I damn sure haven’t ever been known for being a cuddler. But having Vi so close, snuggled into my side, her tiny body fitting against mine so perfectly, I could sit here forever.

  But the movie ends, and as soon as the credits start rolling, Vi lifts her head and reaches across me for the drink, and I feel the loss like she’s cut off one of my limbs.

  “I’m starving. Where we going for dinner?” she asks, standing up and stretching her arms above her head, which lifts her shirt and bares a sliver of the perfect, creamy skin of her stomach, making me instantly hard.

  I exhale slowly and stand, waiting to adjust myself until she turns away from me to lead the way out of our row of seats. “How about Olive Garden? It’s just right up the street,” I suggest.

  “Ooh, sounds good,” she replies, holding the railing to make her way down the steps ahead of me.

  “I love their breadsticks,” I say, watching her ass sway with her every step.

  “Psh. No. If it’s breadsticks you want, then you need to try Fazoli’s.”

  “No way. No one has better bread sticks than Olive Garden.” I shake my head.

  She turns around on the bottom step to face me, looking up at me with a challenge in her eyes. My dick throbs behind my waistband, where I’ve got it tucked. “Trust me. Fazoli’s has the most delicious, hot, buttery, garlicky breadsticks ever. Olive Garden’s don’t hold a candle.”

  “Wanna make a bet?” I ask, a smirk pulling up my lips.

  She straightens and tosses her hair over her shoulder. “What kind of bet?”

  “I don’t know yet. Let me think about it on our way there.”

  As I get into the driver’s seat of my Camaro after closing Vi’s door, I realize something. “Vi, I noticed your mom’s car in your driveway, and what I assumed was your dad’s truck, but no other vehicle. Do you not have a car?”

  “Why have a car if I don’t have a license?” She shrugs.

  “You don’t have your driver’s license?” I ask, my face obviously showing my shock, because she giggles and touches the crease between my eyebrows. “But you’re eighteen.”

  “I mean, I went through Driver’s Ed and got my permit and stuff, but driving terrifies me. The thought of having to be in control of anything, even a vehicle….” She shakes her head. “In my class, I was okay, because my teacher had his own set of pedals and a steering wheel on his side of the car, so I knew if I were to screw up, he could take over and get us out of danger. But in a normal car…. Scares the shit out of me.”

  I try to ignore the images that her hating to be in control of anything brings to mind, and I refrain from telling her I’d happily take control of whatever she’d like. But her being too scared to drive pushes past all that. “Baby girl, you need to get your license. You don’t want to be dependent on everyone else to get you anywhere you need to go. It’s just lack of confidence. I think with enough practice, your fear of driving would lessen.”

  “I don’t really need it though. I only go to school and to Rock On. Plus, cars and insurance and all that is expensive,” she justifies.

  “Yeah, but soon, you’ll be going to college, and then working at the gym. You don’t want your mom to have to keep taking you everywhere, do you?” I ask gently.

  “I guess not. I haven’t really thought about it,” she replies honestly, wringing her hands in her lap.

  “I’ve got it.” I reach over and place my hand between hers, lacing my fingers through hers to stop her nervous fidgeting. “If I don’t like Fazoli’s breadsticks better than Olive Garden’s, then you have to practice driving with me. If I do, then you don’t have to.”

  “That’s not fair,” she whines. “You’ll say you don’t like their breadsticks better just to make me drive.”

  I smirk. “That’s true, even though I doubt anyone is going to be able to top my love of Olive Garden’s breadsticks. I mean, come on. Their initials are OG. They’re the OG of Italian food, straight up gangsta,” I reply, gaining the laugh I was hoping for. “Then just let me teach you to drive. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  She lets out a growl of frustration, looks over at me with the most adorable scowl I’ve ever seen, and then looks down. “Oh hell no! You have a stick shift. No way,” she says, shaking her head.

  “I’ll take you in your mom’s car then. It’s an automatic, right?” I prompt, knowing her mom has a little four-cylinder Chevy Cavalier.

  “Ugh. Fine. If you can convince my mother—the woman who won’t let anyone drive her car—to let you take me to practice driving, then yes, Corbin. I’ll learn,” she says with such self-assurance that it makes me believe there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to talk her mom into letting me use her car. But after our conversation at the gym, I’m confident I’ll be able to sweet-talk Eva out of her keys.

  “Deal. Now where is this place? I’m hungry.”

  “WOULD YOU LIKE another breadstick?” the waitress asks, the wicker basket full of the carb-loaded little pieces of heaven hanging on her arm, her tongs at the ready to give me another two after the dozen I’ve already eaten.

  “Last round and that’s it for me. I’m stuffed,” I reply, looking over at Vi, her expression of triumph still in place since my first bite of the best damn breadsticks I’ve ever tasted in my life. The waitress leaves, and I lean forward so only Vi can hear me. “If you don’t wipe that smirk off your face, baby girl, I’m going to bend you over my lap and spank your sexy little ass.”

  Her jaw drops and her cheeks turn an attractive shade of pink in the dimly lit restaurant. Her eyes dart to the couple at the next table over, and she leans forward, over her plate of half-eaten spaghetti. “I’d like to see you try, soldier. I’ve never been spanked in my life,” she tells me haughtily, and my dick instantly hardens. She’s grown bolder over dinner, talking to me openly as she’s answered every question I’ve asked about herself. I think it’s because I’ve been open and honest with her as well, sharing everything about my past without trying to hide anything.

  “It won’t happen the first time I make you mine, Vi, but you can bet that sweet ass I’ll be turning it red someday soon.”

  Her mouth opens and closes like a fish before she sits back in her seat and takes a sip of her drink. “I skipped a night of climbing to get threatened with spankings,” she pouts.

  “Trust me. When it happens, you’ll be begging for more. And by that time, rocks will no longer be your favorite thing to climb,” I assure her, and sit back to watch what I said click into place. Yup, there it goes. And as usual, when one of my sexual innuendos finally meets its mark in her mind, her eyes widen, her face pinkens, and her mouth falls open once more. One of my favorite expressions I can get her to make.

  She clears her throat and tries to change the subject, but I’m having too much fun making her squirm to let her escape my dirty mind. “What’s your favorite movie?” she asks.

  “Harry Potter. And after we watch it, I’ll avada kedavra that pussy,” I reply, and she gasps.

  “You did not just say you’d use the death spell on my lady bits,” she hisses the last bit, and I can’t help but chuckle.

  “What’s yours?” I counter, taking a bite of my fresh breadstick, which I begrudgingly admitted were the best ones I’d ever eaten as soon as I took a bite of the first one that came with my chicken fettuccini alfredo.

  “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” she answers, and I nod.

  “Love that movie. I have it on DVD.”

  “Really?” Her eyes brighten. “Okay, you win some cool points back. What’s your favorite color?”

  “Pink… like your pu—”

  “Corbin!” she cuts me off, covering her eyes with her hands. “I know pink is not your favorite color, dammit.”

  I throw my head back and laugh, and when I look at her once again, she’s uncovered her eyes and is watching me with a sweet smile on her face, as if she’s enjoying my laughter. “Orange. My
favorite color is orange.”

  “Seriously? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say orange is their favorite before.” She tilts her head to the side.

  “It’s a bright, happy color. I’ve just always liked it for some reason. I bet I can guess yours,” I say, and she sits up straight.

  “Shoot.”

  “Purple.”

  “How’d you know?” she questions, her brows lowering but a smile on her lips.

  “Your harness and your bag. The harness is important to you, a piece of crucial gear for your favorite activity, and it has purple details. Your bag isn’t a cheap one. So one would assume you wouldn’t get it in a color that isn’t one you really love.”

  “Nice. Yes, purple is my favorite. I’d wear a lot more of it if I didn’t have a school uniform. My whole room is done in different shades,” she tells me.

  “Even your bed?” I ask, an evil little grin spreading across my face.

  “Yeees, even my bed.” She rolls her eyes.

  “Ah, so now I can better picture you when I’m lying in my bed talking to you on the phone every night.”

  Her smile returns. “What does yours look like?”

  “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours, baby girl,” I tease, laughing at how easy it is to make her squirm. When she growls, I give in. “Okay, okay. Mine has an outdoor scene on it. It’s a buck in the middle of the woods. I have a thing for stuff like that, and Native American artwork. I’m half Cherokee, and I love hunting, so it fits me.”

  “Cherokee. That must be where you get your gorgeous dark eyes from. Which half?” she asks, and my chest puffs up a little that she likes my eyes. Even though I’ve heard it countless times before, it actually means something coming from her.

  “My dad’s side. My mom is Irish.” I glance down at my G-Shock watch, seeing it’s only 9:38 p.m. “Well we have lots of time before I promised to have you home. Anything you want to go do?”

  “I can’t think of anything. I’m usually in bed by now, right after getting home from climbing,” she replies with a shrug.

  “I could take you to an empty parking lot and teach you how to drive stick,” I suggest.

  “Hell no,” she squeaks, but then looks at me with a straight face. “If you promise not to bug me about learning manual transmission, I’ll seriously consider saying yes to the driving practices in my mom’s car. I’m sure if I asked her nicely, she’d say yes. Especially if you were the one going with me and not her.”

  “Deal. I had already planned on sweet talking her into it anyways.” I grin, and she throws her napkin at me. “When’s your birthday?” I inquire.

  “September 3rd. Yours?”

  “August 26th.”

  “You’ll be 21, yeah?” she confirms, and I nod. “What do you want to do for your birthday? Any big plans to go out and get white girl wasted?”

  “Nah, I don’t drink anymore. Did enough of that when I was way younger. Doesn’t seem like it’ll be very cool after I can do it legally,” I joke.

  “Really? I’ve never heard of anyone not wanting to drink on their twenty-first birthday.”

  “Confession time?” I wait for her nod. “I had a pretty fucking tragic experience when I was a teenager that turned me off drinking for the rest of my life.” I shift in my seat, clearing my throat. I’ve never told anyone this story before, because I try not to ever think about it. “I had a girlfriend. She was a total sweetheart. She was the only person who ever got me to pay attention to anything besides the gang I was in. One night, there was a little fair in town, and we used our fake IDs to drink while we were there. We went on all the rides, the typical shit, like The Zipper and Rock-n-Roll Express, all those spinny type of rides. We went back to her house, where I spent the night. Her parents weren’t home. We passed out, totally drunk, and exhausted from all the fun we had at the fair. And when I woke up the next morning… well, she didn’t.”

  Vi gasps, covering her mouth. “Oh my God, Corbin. What happened?”

  “She had vomited in her sleep and suffocated. We were so drunk that her throwing up didn’t wake either of us up. The only thing I can be grateful for was she didn’t suffer. She died in her sleep. That day, I swore I would never drink again. If not for myself, then for the safety of my friends. I’ll stay sober to take care of them, so if that ever happens to any of them, I’ll be there to wake them up.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she tells me quietly. After a beat, she offers me a bit about herself. “My parents don’t drink. My dad was a sailor for twenty-two years and never drank a sip of anything other than wine at church every Sunday. We’ve never had it in our house, so I’ve never had a drink before. Add that to the long list of things I’ve never done.”

  “Trust me, it ain’t all that great. Now weed, on the other hand. That’s a whole different story.” I grin, trying to get back to the jovial conversation we had before.

  “I’ll take your word for it.” She smiles. “You ready to go?” she asks, scooting back from the table.

  “Ready to go, but not ready to leave you. We’ll figure it out.” I stand and take her hand in a loose hold, running my thumb across her palm. I discovered, while sitting in the theater and holding her hand, that though small and delicate, she has some pretty impressive callouses across the top of her palm, right below the webs of her fingers. I actually love that she has that tiny bit of toughness to an otherwise soft and fragile exterior. It’s much like her interior as well. She’s innocent and sweet, but God knows the walls she’s built around herself are as strong as a fortress.

  The dynamic between us is completely opposite of what I’m used to. It’s usually me hiding, closing myself off, not letting anyone know the real me. It’s always the other person trying to pry bits and pieces of my true self out of me. But for some reason, with Vi, I’m an open book. I spill everything freely. All she has to do is ask, and the truth is hers for the taking. And it’s been so long since I’ve given a shit about another person enough to want to get to know them that me pulling answers from Vi feels like a new experience in itself. But it’s a challenge I readily accept. With her, I can’t just order her to tell me things or do something, like I would with one of my soldiers. I have to treat her equal to me. Give and take. It’s confusing the fuck out of the Dominant part of me, but oddly exciting to the man.

  “Is there a park around here somewhere?” I ask, making a left onto the main road that leads to her neighborhood.

  “A park? It’s probably closed this late, but yeah. Right up here,” she tells me, pointing me in the right direction. We pass the fire station, and behind it, I see a couple of baseball fields, a basketball court, and finally an open area with a playground, a large swing set, and a merry-go-round.

  I pull into the parking lot and turn off the ignition. There isn’t much light out here, just a couple of floodlights that illuminate a piece of the playground and one of the baseball fields.

  “It’s closed, Corbin. That sign when we entered said park hours were from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. It’s almost ten,” Vi says, looking around the abandoned area.

  “Is there a locked gate keeping us out, baby girl?” I prompt, and she looks over at me, brows furrowed.

  “Clearly, there’s not a fence around it,” she replies, gesturing out the windshield.

  “Then it’s all good. Live a little,” I tease, unbuckling both our seatbelts. “If a cop shows up, we just didn’t notice the sign when we came in, and we go on our merry way.” I open my door and hop out, going around the car. I literally have to drag her out of the vehicle, but as soon as she’s in a standing position, I reach beneath the backs of her thighs and swiftly lift her into my arms, and she immediately stops her playful struggle. Her arms come up to lock around my neck, and she melts against me. It’s a curiously abrupt change in her demeanor, but I’ll take it nonetheless.

  I kick her door closed and carry her over to the merry-go-round, sitting down on the edge with her in my lap, and it brings me back to the movi
e theater, when I’d pulled her into my lap to assure her I wouldn’t get upset with her inexperience. There’s something about this position, her small body cocooned within the strength of my arms, that puts her completely at ease, the most relaxed and at peace I’ve ever seen my beautiful Vi. The ever-present worried look in her eyes, which is only ever replaced by an expression of complete concentration when she’s climbing, disappears, and words can’t describe what it does to me that I can give her that sense of comfort just by holding her.

  She sinks against me, her head resting on my shoulder, the heat of her pressed against my chest soothing something inside me I didn’t know was there. Suddenly, it isn’t thoughts of dominating her, teaching her the things I needed to satisfy my urges that play on repeat inside my mind. No. Instead, in their place is an overwhelming need to protect her, to remove the weight of the walls she’s built around herself and place them on my shoulders, just so she won’t have to bear the weight on her own. For the first time in my life, I want to be someone’s savior; I want to be the person she turns to, to make things better for her, without anything in return but the satisfaction that I made everything all right in her world.

  It’s a strange feeling, because God knows I’m a selfish bastard. It’s why I get uncomfortable when random people tell me, “Thank you for your service.” They thank me like I do my job for them, when really, I do it for myself, for my family, for our freedom.

  But Vi brings out a facet of myself I didn’t know existed, one that is a fierce protector who wants to snap and snarl at anything that would dare do anything to harm what’s mine.

  Mine, it growls, as I turn my face and bury my nose at the top of her head, inhaling the scent there.

  “Is it always this way?” she asks suddenly, and I feel her arms come loose from around my neck, but her fingers begin to play at the back of my head, lightly stroking along the stubbly hair that’s probably tickling her fingertips.