Before the Lie (The Confession Duet Book 1)

by KD Robichaux

  “Okay, great. Now, you ready to take it on the road? We can just drive around your neighborhood if you want. Nothing crazy yet,” he suggests, and I take a deep breath and nod.

  I stop fully and look both ways at the parking lot’s exit, and seeing no one coming, I pull out onto the empty road, traveling only a few yards before putting my left turn signal on and turning into my neighborhood. I get up to the speed limit, 25 miles per hour, and follow each of his instructions, when he tells me to take a left at the next stop sign, or a right in the fork. I do a U-turn in a cul-de-sac, and we practice parking, backing up, and three-point turns.

  After another fifteen minutes of this, with my confidence building higher and higher with his words of encouragement and praise, he tells me, “It’s almost time for the gym to open. Your mom has my car if she needs to go anywhere today, and she said it was okay with her if you felt comfortable enough to drive hers to Rock On. She’ll meet us there later to switch cars.”

  “Couldn’t you just take me home?” I ask, trying to stall before making my final decision on whether or not I have the balls to drive across town for the first time.

  “Not tonight, baby girl. The gym is much closer to the base than your house, and I’ve got to be up before the sun tomorrow for PT. Not unless you want to quit climbing early this evening,” he offers, but I shake my head.

  “No. That’s okay. I want to climb as much as I can tonight, since I didn’t go at all yesterday,” I reply, my grip tightening on the steering wheel.

  “I figured as much. Okay. You’ve got this, Vi. Just go the speed limit, if not slower if you’re scared. But I’ve got you. Not going to let anything happen to us. We’ll take the back roads your mom told me about, so you won’t even have to get out on the busy main streets if you don’t want to,” he assures, and I nod.

  After twenty minutes, five minutes longer than it normally takes to get to the gym from my house, I pull into the parking lot of Rock On, my blood pumping with my racing pulse as if I just won a national climbing competition. I ease into a parking spot, put the car in park, and turn to Corbin, my whole body trembling with unspent adrenaline.

  My eyes lift to meet his proud ones sparkling down at me, and the look is my undoing, as I tell him, “I need something, Corbin.”

  “What do you need, baby girl?” he asks, his eyebrows lowering in confusion.

  “I… I don’t like this jittery feeling. I need it out of me,” I tell him, my voice a little shaky as I try to figure out a way to convey what my body is demanding.

  “Do you feel like you’re going to have a panic attack? What is it, Vi? You need some air? Let’s get you out of the ca—”

  “No!” I shout, wincing at my volume in the enclosed space, repeating “No,” in a much quieter voice. “I… I’m already past that wanting to run feeling, and at the part where I’m ready to be a little reckless and just say eff it and try something new for the first time. The fight feeling instead of the flight, yeah?” I implore him with my eyes, begging him to get what I’m saying. “Th-that stuff you were saying last night….”

  Suddenly, understanding blankets his face, and his eyes go soft. “I got you, baby,” he murmurs, unhooking his seatbelt before reaching across the console to do the same to mine.

  My eyes never leave his as I feel the tight belt disappear from across my body, until I feel his hot, strong hand wrap around the back of my neck and he pulls me to him. And the next thing I feel is his breath against my lips, as he whispers, “I fell asleep when I got home from our date, thinking about this very moment, Vi. Then, my night was filled with dreams of kissing you, of getting to taste my girl for the first time. Of being the very first man to ever get to taste you. I want your first real kiss to be one you remember until your dying day.”

  My world tilts on its axis, and I feel dizzy listening to his intense words, my adrenaline pumping and my pulse pounding, so with my eyes still closed, I reach up to grip his muscled forearm to ground myself. “Corbin, please. Dyno,” I beg, hoping he gets me.

  Finally, with a growl that reverberates from his chest and shoots straight to my core, he takes my lips possessively with his. After a moment, I gasp as he bites down on my bottom lip, his tongue dipping in, and I taste Corbin for the very first time, savoring it as he seemed to do in his dream.

  With a whimper, I tentatively flick the underside of his tongue with mine, and he lets loose another growl, tilting our heads to deepen the kiss. I’m enveloped in an all-consuming bubble of sensuality, memorizing everything from the sound of his quiet groan, to the heat of his mouth against mine, to the taste of… him. Just Corbin.

  I feel him subtly guiding my movements, as if leading me in an erotic dance of tongues and panted breath. And now that I’ve finally taken this leap of faith, I never want this feeling of flight to stop. I soar higher and higher with every stroke, every flex of his strong fingers around my nape, every moan that escapes, until I feel like I’ve flown so high I’ve reached the sun. My body is ablaze as I give myself over to Corbin, showing him I’m putting all my trust in him and that I want him to teach me everything he’s willing to.

  We devour each other for what feels like forever yet no time at all, and when we finally pull back from each other, we’re both out of breath and flushed. As I meet his eyes, they swarm with all the emotions I feel inside myself, and it’s a comfort that our kiss affected him just as much as it did me.

  He pulls me back toward him, but only to rest his forehead against mine, as he whispers, “Never letting you go now, baby girl. That kiss just sealed our fate. You’re mine.”

  The little hairs on my arms stand up as my skin prickles before a feeling of warmth washes over me. All I can do is nod, as I pray that he always feels this way about me, because it’s exactly what I feel for him.

  THE NEXT MONTH and a half passes in a blur. Every moment I’m not at work or sleeping is spent with Vi. From the second I get off work in the evenings until the rock gym closes at night, we spend it climbing, Vi teaching me techniques that have improved my skills tenfold, while I return the favor with strength training. It’s amazing what it’s done for her self-confidence, both seeing me as her student get better and better at my climbing, and also as her teacher, who has made her work hard and gotten her to the point where she can now do ten pull-ups, when before she could only do one.

  I’ve been lucky enough to have weekends off for a while now, and they’ve been spent together, going to countless movies, trying out every restaurant in town, and venturing a little ways to go to the history museum an hour away. It’s been blissful, nothing standing in our way as we learn everything about each other. She comes to life under my touch. She’s still too shy to initiate anything intimate between us, but I have no problem taking control and giving her what I know she wants but is too submissive to ask for. Nothing past the best kisses I’ve ever had in my entire life, but she’s worth the wait.

  Our… courtship, I guess you would call it, has been so different from any relationship I had in the past. Almost as if we’re living in a different era. We’ve taken our time reaching each milestone, making each one special, instead of rushing to get to the immediate gratification of going all the way. The first hug, the first date, the first peck, the first passion-filled kiss with tongue… every marker has been distinct, had its own story, its own memory to look back on and cherish separately from all the rest. For once in my life, I feel like I’m doing something right, outside my job.

  Our two personalities seem to have been made for each other. I can read her like a book, knowing what she needs from me when she can’t seem to figure out what it is she actually wants. It keeps the dominant inside me satisfied having so much power over her needs, being able to please her without her having to say a word. He puffs up his chest and struts, feeling like her savior, her knight in shining armor, after a lifetime of feeling like a worthless asshole who couldn’t do anything right. It soothes my soul, much like her sweetness. The way she looks at me, li
ke I hung the moon and every single one of those stars we saw in the perfectly clear sky that night in the park, it makes me want to be the man she sees me as.

  I’ve heard lots of those inspirational quotes on relationships, but never paid much attention to them until now. “Be the man your dog thinks you are.” “Be with the person who gives you the same feeling you get when you see your food coming at a restaurant.” Or the one that really hits home when it comes to Vi and me, “A perfect relationship is just two imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other.” God knows we both have our flaws, but we seem to fit each other like jigsaw puzzle pieces, filling in the gaps of each other. Her softness cushions my roughness. My overabundance of fearlessness spills into her over-cautiousness, making her braver. At the same time, it pulls me back, making me take a second to think about the consequences of actions I wouldn’t have taken the time to worry about before. Two imperfect people, with too little of some characteristics and too much of others, but then we come together and we are a perfect balance.

  As I said, bliss. But I got some news today that didn’t make me very happy, yet I suppose it’ll be our first lesson in the military life causing disappointment in our relationship. I just hope Vi doesn’t take it too rough.

  When she finishes her route inside the cave we’ve been climbing in for the last hour, I take hold of her hand and pull her down next to me in the regrind I’ve been sitting in while I watched her boulder. “Gotta talk to you, baby girl,” I murmur, wrapping my arm around her hips to pull her side flush with mine.

  “What is it?” Her eyes immediately fill with worry, and I hate that I am the one who put it there.

  I reach up and tuck the fallen strands of her hair behind her ear. “I just found out my unit will be going into the field for training for three weeks. The bad news is while I’m out there, there is no communication. No phones, no email, nothing,” I tell her, and she visibly wilts at this information. “Also, worse news, it takes place during your graduation as well. I’m so fucking sorry I have to miss that, Vi. I know you wanted me to be there, but there’s nothing I can do.”

  She looks down in her lap and nods. After a moment, she asks quietly, “That was the bad news, so what’s the good news?”

  “Well, the good news is that at some point during the three weeks, I’ll get a few days completely off in the middle of the week. I’ll have to do twenty-four hours of straight guard duty at the barracks one day, but then I’ll get time off to do whatever the hell we want, and I’ll take you wherever your heart desires to make up for missing your walk across the stage.” I squeeze her hip, and her eyes lift to mine.

  “Can we go to Six Flags?” She tilts her head, her face full of hope that I’ll say yes, and I grin.

  “Anywhere in the world, and you want to go to an amusement park?” I chuckle.

  “I told you I love roller coasters,” she says with a shrug.

  “Then that’s what we’ll do.” I lean over and kiss her, making her smile and some of the disappointment leaves her face as she glances away.

  “That’s actually way less terrible than what I thought you were going to say,” she confesses, and my brows lower.

  “What did you think I wanted to talk about?” I question.

  She sighs. “I always have this tiny voice in the back of my head that says any day now you’re going to realize I’m nothing special and—”

  “Not another word, Vi,” I growl, taking her jaw in my hand and forcing her eyes to meet mine once more. “Nothing pisses me off faster than when I hear you putting yourself down.” Her face falls, but I don’t back down. She needs to hear this. “You are amazing. You are the one who is too good for me. You make me want to be a better man, one who deserves you. So never let me hear you say you’re nothing special, because there’s no one else who could’ve gotten me to learn patience. Or self-control. Or how to care about anyone other than myself.” My grip tightens, wanting to make sure she pays close attention to what I’m about to say, because it’s the most important thing that will ever come out of my mouth. “Just stay loyal to me, my beautiful Vi, and you will never have to worry about that stupid-ass voice in the back of your head being right. Got it?”

  She bites her bottom lip and her eyes go soft, and I can’t tell if she actually realizes when she says it, but she whispers, “Yes, sir,” and my cock swells inside my basketball shorts. I drag her into my lap, sitting her soft ass directly onto my erection to soothe some of the throbbing as it’s sandwiched between my body and hers.

  I tug her face down to mine with a hand tangled at the back of her hair, and kiss the breath out of her. And I don’t let up until we’re interrupted by Sierra calling, “Get a room, you two!” from the mouth of the cave.

  I allow Vi to slide off my lap, and I adjust myself, bringing her eyes to my painfully hard cock. She unconsciously licks her lips, red and swollen from my assault, and I growl deep from within my chest. “You keep looking at it like that, baby girl, and you’re going to make me eat my words about having patience and self-control.” I watch her eyes widen when she sees me grasp my shaft, giving it a brief squeeze to ease some of the ache. She lets out a soft gasp, my size and shape no longer left to the imagination, clearly visible through the soft fabric of my shorts, and I groan, the sound pained, even to my own ears.

  Her eyes meet mine, worry filling them yet again. “Does it hurt, Corbin?” she whispers, and the concern in her voice puts another stitch in my previously ripped soul. God, with as much bad as I have done in my life, how the hell did I manage to find and fall for someone so undeniably good?

  “It could feel better, baby girl. But I’ll survive.” I give her a soft smile before leaning over to steal a gentle kiss from her pouted lips, and then get to my feet, adjusting my hard-on to sit behind the waistband of my shorts. Her eyes flare then dart away when she catches a glimpse of the swollen head before I cover it with my black T-shirt, and I can’t help but smirk, knowing mine is the first cock she ever had a peek at in the flesh.

  Face red and a voice breathy, she tells me it’s my turn to try out the ceiling route. Without a word, deciding not to tease her, I get into starting position.

  IT’S BEEN TWO weeks since Corbin went into the field. I’ve tried to keep myself busy, sticking with the routine I had the four years before he came into my life. But now that he’s in it, I can’t help the emptiness I feel without him there.

  I used to be completely content, spending hours climbing by myself, with no one there to hang out with except my mom. But now… now I find myself constantly listening out for the jingle of the bell above the door, when before I barely paid attention to it. Now, I brace myself for an excited whoop and to be spun in the air by massive and protective arms whenever I finish a super hard route, when before, just my satisfaction of knowing I did it was enough.

  It’s a double-edged sword. But as lonely as I feel right now without him with me, I wouldn’t want to go back to the way it was before. I might have been content in my self-imposed solitude, but I didn’t know happiness until I met Corbin.

  I had no clue when his break would be during the three-week training, in which he explained was out in the wilderness of Ft. Vanter. He just said he’d call as soon as he got his hands on a phone to let me know he was in from the field to pull his 24-hour guard duty, and then after that, I’d have him all to myself for a couple of days before he went back out to finish training.

  A part of me had expected his call to come a lot sooner than this. And that evil little voice in the back of my head kept trying to whisper that maybe he just didn’t want to see me, so he hadn’t called like he promised. But I always push it back, choosing to trust Corbin, to believe what he said when he told me that as long as I stay loyal to him, then he’d never have a reason to leave. I scoff every time I think about it. I would never in a million years cheat on anyone, and the thought of ever doing that to Corbin, the only man who has ever made me feel anything, is completely ridiculous. So I guess he
’s stuck with me.

  Graduation was last night. I actually hadn’t been too upset that Corbin missed it, because I didn’t want him to be there to see I had no friends to hug after we threw our caps in the air, or feel sorry for me when no one clapped. My brother had driven up from Charleston for the day to see me walk. I had dreaded crossing the stage, expecting to hear nothing but crickets chirping after the principal called my name, but with Mom, Dad, and Henry in the crowd, they made as much ruckus as even the most popular graduates’ families, making me laugh as I got back to my seat.

  Tonight, I lay restless in my bed, unable to fall asleep, so I chose an old favorite off my small bookshelf and began to read about sexy shifters and their loveable heroines.

  My eyelids are finally beginning to get heavy, and I’m just about to bookmark my page as I read the last one in the chapter, when my cell suddenly rings, making me jump and drop the paperback right on my face.

  “Shit!” I hiss, and then realize I hit the green answer button with my arm in my fight with the book. “He-hello?” I sit up in bed, rubbing the bridge of my nose.

  “Baby girl, you okay?” Corbin’s voice comes through my phone, and immediately the bit of pain I felt disappears as a feeling of pure joy washes through me.

  “Corbin!” I squeal, hopping up on my bed.

  “Vi, you all right?” he asks, and I hear a door slam closed in the background.

  “Yeah! Your call just startled me. I was reading and dropped my book on my face.” I laugh. “Did you just get in? I’ve missed you so much!” My heart pounds with my excitement, and any tiredness I felt before has completely vanished.

  “God, I’ve missed you too, baby. I just got to the barracks. I have half a mind to come see y—”

  “Do it!” I cut in, the words flying out of my mouth without my permission, and I bite my lip, snorting. “Sorry. I was literally drifting off to sleep, but then the phone scared me and now I’m all jittery.”