Before the Lie (The Confession Duet Book 1)

by KD Robichaux

  Such a vague question, but somehow, I know exactly what she means. “No, baby girl. It’s never been this way for me before,” I confess, laying my cheek on top of her head.

  “It’s like I’ve known you forever. You don’t feel like a stranger—well, not a stranger, but someone pretty new—to me. Almost like I might’ve known you in another life or something. Does that sound weird?” She tilts her head back and I lift mine, looking down into her gorgeous green eyes, which are imploring me to soothe away her doubts.

  “Before I met you, I would’ve said yes, because I wouldn’t have understood what you’re feeling. But, Vi, it’s the same one I’m having right now. I know exactly what you mean. And as weird as it may be to someone who hasn’t felt it before, how scary it is to be falling for someone so quickly”—I shake my head—“I’m not going to fight it. It was fighting and stupid shit that landed me in juvie. I fight every day in the military. When I get deployed, it’s a war over there too. But you? I’ll fight for you, but that’s the only battle you ever have to worry about when it comes to us.”

  She blinks up at me, a sweet smile lifting the corners of her lips. “So what does that make us?”

  “It makes you mine. And I’m yours, baby girl,” I whisper, bending down to kiss her softly.

  “Does that mean I’m your girlfriend?” she breathes against my lips.

  I lift my hand to her jaw then slide it down to let it rest against her sternum, watching as she closes her eyes and presses herself into my palm, seemingly unaware that she’s doing it. My cock hardens painfully behind the zipper of my jeans, and she must feel it, because she squirms in my lap.

  A growl escapes me before I can stop it, and my nostrils flare, but when I get myself under control, forcing myself not to spin around, lay her flat in the middle of the merry-go-round, and take her right here in this empty park, my voice is steady. “You’re so much more to me than what that word implies. But for all intents and purposes, yes. I’m not even going to ask, because you have no choice.” I grin, so it seems like I’m joking, but I’m really not. I wasn’t kidding when I told her I’d fight for her, and I wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  Thankfully, this isn’t a battle I have to worry about, because her face alights with the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen and she laughs before nodding. “Fair enough,” she says, and lifts her chin for another kiss. I give her what she wants, but when I try to deepen the kiss, tracing my tongue along the seam of her lips, she ducks her head, burying her face in my neck.

  “Don’t run away, little mouse,” I murmur against her ear, and she nuzzles further into me. “What are you afraid of?”

  “That I’ll be terrible at it,” she replies softly.

  “And if you are, I’ll teach you, and we can practice all you want until you get it just right,” I rumble, feeling her shake her head in the crook of my neck.

  “Is this your character flaw coming out to play?” I ask.

  “Huh?” Her hot breath puffs against my flesh.

  “Your mom told me you don’t like to try anything new because you’re afraid to fail right off the bat. You won’t allow yourself to even attempt something, not knowing whether you’ll be a pro at it from the start or not,” I tell her, and she mumbles under her breath, “I’m gonna kill her.”

  “It’s okay, Vi. No one’s going to laugh at you. No one is going to make fun of you. I’m sure as hell not, and I’m the only one you’re going to be kissing. So let me teach you,” I implore, my hand moving around to the back of her neck then up into her hair before fisting it between my fingers. I use my grip to gently tug her head back, forcing her to look up at me instead of allowing her to hide any longer. “Can I teach you?”

  She doesn’t reply, but her chest rises and falls rapidly with every panted breath she takes. I lower my mouth to just above hers and hover there, the tension building as the seconds tick by without her answer. I tell myself I will not do it without her permission. I will give her sweet pecks pressed to her lips, and that’s it, until she actually tells me she’s ready to go any further.

  She still doesn’t say anything, so I decide to make a confession, hoping to shock her into answering. “You know, that's my favorite part about you. Physically, that is. You couldn't stop me, even if you wanted to. I could control you,” I whisper slowly, allowing every ounce of my desire for her to fill my voice.

  She gulps, and her perfectly white two front teeth clamp down on that luscious, pouty bottom lip of hers, making my cock throb beneath her ass. I feel her tremble, and it takes everything in me not to say fuck it and show her exactly what I want to do to her without waiting for her consent. Yet, I wait, showing more self-control than I ever thought possible.

  “I could,” I repeat, “but… I want you to want me bad enough to ask for it. I won’t make you beg for me. At least not yet.” I do nothing to hide the mischievous glint in my eyes as I stare down into hers, which I see are glazed with want, but still enough fear that she just… won’t… answer.

  Suddenly, she stands, and I release my grip on her hair before I accidentally hurt her. I watch as she flees, but she doesn’t go far. Just to the swing set on the other side of the playground, where she picks the one directly in the center and sits, using her feet to walk herself as far back as the chains allow before lifting her legs in the air. I watch her swing herself for a few moments, letting her have her space.

  When she comes to a stop, she clasps her hands together, her arms circling the outside of the chains, and she leans way back, looking up into the cloudless sky. I stand and make my way over to her, sitting down in the swing next to hers, and mimic her position.

  We’re quiet for a long time, just enjoying the silence. It’s not an uncomfortable silence, which is surprising, seeing how she just ran from me. But eventually, I speak up, if nothing but to get to know her more by opening up myself. “When I first moved here, the first thing I noticed was all the stars. We arrived in the middle of the night, and as soon as I stepped off the bus, I looked up, and the whole sky was filled with them. In the city I’m from in California, there’s so much smog you can’t see the stars.” I look over at her and see her eyes are on me instead of the sky. “I mean, you can see a few of the brightest ones, but nothing like this.”

  “I guess since I grew up here and they’ve always been there, I never take the time to appreciate them,” she murmurs, glancing up once more. “That, and I don’t spend a lot of time outside.”

  “You don’t go real rock climbing?” I ask.

  “I’ve never been, no.” She shakes her head.

  “Isn’t that the point of climbing in a gym, to learn so you can eventually go climb a mountain or something?”

  “Not for me. I really have no desire to outdoor climb. The thought actually scares me,” she admits.

  I spin my swing around to face her, the chains crossing in front of me. “Have you ever considered, baby girl, that what you think you’re feeling as fear is actually just excitement? Adrenaline?”

  She looks at me, her eyebrows lowering. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m seeing a pattern with you. You think you fear trying new things, when in all actuality it’s probably the same feeling everyone gets before they take a leap of faith. I get that feeling every time I try something I’ve never done before. Learning to rappel, the first time I shot my rifle, the first time I jumped out of an airplane. But now, it’s like a habit. Where most people would take that leap, no matter how small, knowing it’s a learning experience, you just can’t seem to make yourself jump. Is it all a fear of failure, or is it something else?” I press quietly.

  “You jump out of airplanes?” she asks, instead of answering, and I sigh, shaking my head.

  “Yeah, Vi. I jump out of airplanes. I’m a paratrooper,” I mumble.

  “I thought you were a sniper.” She tilts her head.

  “You really know nothing about the Army, do you?” I ask, chuckling, and she shakes her head. “I’m in an
airborne infantry division, which means I’m a paratrooper. I jump out of airplanes to get into otherwise denied areas during an operation. Then, once I’m in, I’m a sniper. I don’t run in guns ablazin’. Alone, with a partner, or with a small team, we set ourselves up in a concealed position. Our slogan is One Shot One Kill. Only the best marksmen can have my job. I’m highly trained in many more areas than the regular Joe. I’ve always been good at shooting, ever since I was a kid and my dad took me hunting, but it wasn’t until I was in the Army that I learned just how good I could be. All that bullshit my teachers used to tell me in school about if I just applied myself, I could do great things… I finally did that once I saw what a natural talent I had at making a bullet hit its target. Every. Single. Time.”

  “That was me with climbing. Once I saw I had a natural gift for it, that’s when I really got into it. It was the trying it for the first time that was the hard part,” she confides, and then softly, she asks, “Have you… have you ever had to shoot anyone?”

  I look her in the eyes. “No. Not yet. I’ve never been deployed. But when I go, I will. It’s my job. It’s what I’ve been trained to do. Do I feel what you’re feeling every time you’re faced with something you’ve never tried before? You bet. Anxiety, excitement, and maybe a little bit of actual fear. But I know when I get over there, it’ll be either kill or be killed. If I don’t do my job to the best of my ability, I won’t make it home. So I have to suck up those feelings, store them away, and do what I’m over there to do.”

  Finally, I’m rewarded for my complete honesty, because she opens up at last. “Apparently, I’m an easy target,” she whispers, looking down into her lap. “For some reason, bullies single me out the minute they meet me, and they’re ruthless. I hate confrontation. When someone picks on me, I seize up. I think I might’ve been a possum in another life, because when confronted, I basically play dead. Words won’t come out. My brain doesn’t make up any witty comebacks in my defense. Nothing. I freeze. I can’t even run away from it. I just have to stand there and take their wrath. Cruelty I did nothing to deserve.”

  A single tear slides down her cheek, and I see red, wanting to tear apart every asshole who’s ever said an unkind word to this amazing girl before me. But I swallow it back, wanting to hear what she has to say. “What could they possibly pick on you for?” I murmur, trying to keep the growl out of my voice.

  She scoffs. “It would be easier to name the things they don’t tease.” She wipes at her face with the back of her hand then grips the chain of her swing once again. “I’m skinny. Always have been, and looking at my mom, I probably always will be. No matter how much I eat. So they spread rumors I was anorexic. The one time I tried to defend myself, pointing out how much I eat, for everyone to see right there in the lunchroom at school, they said I must be bulimic then. ‘Don’t sit near Vi. She probably smells like barf, since she throws up her food.’”

  She sniffs, and the sound breaks my heart. “When all the other girls my age started hitting puberty and growing boobs, mine never came. I got a poem in my locker disguised as a love letter one day. I had been so happy that a boy was actually nice to me. I had a secret admirer? Like… you have no idea how absolutely thrilled I was someone had written me a note. I didn’t even care who it might’ve been from. Sad, I know. But then I opened it up, and it wasn’t very loving at all. ‘Roses are red. Violets are black. Why is your chest as flat as your back?’”

  She laughs, but it’s not a happy sound. “To make it worse, the boys who had sent it to me were standing across the hall watching me while I read it. And when they saw how much it hurt me, did they apologize? Hell no. They pointed and laughed at me, then snatched the paper out of my hand to gloat to anyone who walked by. So proud of themselves.”

  She shakes her head and looks up at me, her eyes brimming with tears. “You know, I was actually pretty good at dancing. I had been doing it for several years. Tap, ballet, and jazz classes twice a week. I grew up with a lot of the kids. No one in the class was from my school, so it was my escape, to be around people my age who weren’t complete jerks to me. I loved it there.” She looks back down into her lap. “But then these new kids signed up. A set of twins, a boy and a girl. They were really good, having moved here from another state, where they danced since they were little too. The girl was really nice, but the boy… it’s like he had that same radar in him, the one that singled me out as an easy target. Not only did he pick on me for the usual—how skinny I was, how flat-chested—but he also went after my actual abilities. If it took me longer to learn choreography, if I messed up a step during a routine, if I stumbled during warm-up, anything. He zeroed in on me and gave me hell, like I was the only one who ever messed up.”

  “Where was your teacher during all this? What did your mom do?” I growl, unable to contain it any longer, balling my fists as I picture throttling the little shit who tortured Vi into thinking she was anything less than perfect.

  “Oh, he got into trouble every time he did it. Time out, scolding, that sort of thing. And to me, my teacher would just say that boys are mean to girls when they like them. But that never made me feel any better. And my mom raised hell at my school when I’d come home crying, but then I just got picked on for being a baby who ran home and tattled to my mommy, so I stopped telling her,” she says, making my gut twist when I realize she started taking the blows all on her own, hiding it from her mom.

  I’ve taken as much as I can stand, giving her space to open up and tell me about the part of herself she keeps hidden. I reach over, grab the chain of her swing, and pull her to me, sitting her—seat and all— in my lap as I wrap my arms around her middle. “I can promise you one thing, baby girl. No one will ever say another unkind thing to you without having to deal with me. If anyone ever says a hateful word to you again, you tell me. And you will never have to worry about them giving you shit for it afterward either, because it’ll be hard for them to tease you with their tongue ripped out of their head.” She makes a sound, half giggle and half surprised squeak, as if she thinks what I said is funny, but can’t figure out if I’m exaggerating. I’m not. “Promise you’ll tell me, Vi,” I demand.

  She blinks up at me, clearing her vision. “I promise, Corbin,” she whispers, and I lean down, pressing my lips gently to hers, not attempting to take the kiss further. Now is not the time to push her. I’ll give her time to come to me when she’s ready to take our physical relationship to the next level. From the sound of it, she’s had enough assholes pushing her around to last her a lifetime. The last thing she needs is me coercing her into doing something she’s not ready for.

  “Knowing you’ve got me by your side, no matter what, you think you might be able to let go of some of your fears?” I breathe against her lips, pressing my forehead to hers.

  After a brief pause, in which I can tell she truly thinks about her answer, she whispers, “Yeah. I think I can.”

  Warmth spreads throughout my chest. Feeling the weight of the moment, I try to lighten the mood, the seriousness of the past few minutes too heavy to end our first date on. “I’m glad. Your first driving lesson is tomorrow then… my beautiful girlfriend.” I grin, seeing her face scrunch up as I pull back to look at her.

  “Ugh. Fine. You can ask Mom if we can use her car when you take me home, boyfriend,” she concedes.

  “Good girl,” I tell her, giving her a light swat on the ass as I slide her off my lap and let her swing away. I stand and hold out my hand to her, and when she takes it, I pull her out of the seat. “Let’s get you home.”

  “But it’s still early,” she says quietly, and I love the disappointment I hear there, knowing she doesn’t want this night to end either.

  “I know. But think of the brownie points I’ll earn with your dad for bringing you home way before curfew. Plus, I’m going to come over bright and early tomorrow. After you get comfortable, you can drive us to Rock On, and we can make up for some of the hours you missed climbing today while you were being t
hreatened with spankings.”

  MY HEART POUNDS inside my chest, and I place my trembling hand on the shifter, pressing the brake with my foot so I can move it into drive.

  “Nice and easy, baby girl. We’re just gonna do a couple of laps around the school,” Corbin tells me, and I lift my foot off the brake and move it over to the gas. The car begins to roll forward without me pressing the pedal, and I wonder for a minute if it would be acceptable just to let the car drift around the building going three miles per hour. “Give her a little gas,” he orders, cutting off that hopeful train of thought.

  I can’t believe Mom agreed to let us use her car, no questions asked. After a sweet kiss on my doorstep, I’d opened my front door last night just as Mom was coming out of the kitchen, and seeing Corbin there on the porch, she’d come over to tell him goodnight. He asked her simply, “Would it be all right if we used your car so I can take Vi to practice driving tomorrow? I’d happily let her use mine, but I have a manual, and she told me no.”

  “No problem, sweetheart,” she told him, and after thanking her, he turned to me with a smirk and a wink before telling me goodnight, kissing me on the cheek, and heading out to his car. If he weren’t so freakin’ sexy, my palm would’ve itched to smack him.

  So here we are now, in the parking lot of the high school near my neighborhood—what would be my home school if I didn’t go to a private one. It’s Sunday, so it’s completely deserted.

  I press the gas gently and get the car going a little faster. It’s been two and a half years since I took Driver’s Ed, and the same length of time since I sat in a driver’s seat. I had no desire to be in control of a moving vehicle, the responsibility feeling way too overwhelming. But Corbin was right. I can’t depend on other people to get me where I need to go for the rest of my life. And with him by my side, I feel a little bit of his strength and a whole lot of his protectiveness seeping into me as I begin my second lap around the school.