Deceiver

by Robin Lovett

  I shut off the shower and get out. I struggle my wet legs into my pants and retreat, escape, out the back door.

  It’s a coward’s move.

  But better a coward than an abuser.

  At least in that way I will not be like my father.

  But maybe I already am.

  Chapter Ten

  Kneeling on the hard shower floor. Alone, dripping wet, and cold.

  The feeling of abandonment is a revolting embarrassment. I ignore it, squash it back where it came from, and stand.

  It’s a struggle. My legs weak, my balance off, I grip the door and my head swims in nausea for a moment. What a mess he’s made of me.

  I’ve let him make of me.

  One taste of him was not enough.

  He disappears for half the day and rather than asking for any explanation we’re at it where we left off last night without a word. And then he runs off again.

  At least I know he’s as affected as me. Just with the opposite reaction. I feel like clinging, he feels like running.

  Story of the fucking human race.

  I wrap myself in a thick towel that engulfs me in a wonderland of soft comfort. I stumble to the bed, scrounging the will to pull down the covers and climb beneath them.

  I can’t believe this is me. I haven’t spent the night at a guy’s house on a first date ever. Sex, yes. All night, no. And never when the guy wasn’t beside me, a freaking invalid who needs to be tucked in after every orgasm.

  And this for a guy who runs from me like I’m poison—I should’ve been gone last night. This person, this me who hangs around for the sake of more, is not the Daisy Nowell I know.

  I’m out of here. So out.

  As soon as I have the strength to open my eyes.

  I can’t tell if they’re dreams or hopes or what I know will be, but the haze of visions that pounds me while I drift in and out of consciousness wakes me in a sweat.

  I don’t know how long I was out, but I bolt upright in bed like an alarm is going off, though when I do there is nothing but the quietness of an empty house and the dimming light of the setting sun.

  Anxiety like I’ve never felt shakes through me. I wipe my forehead and my hand comes away damp with sweat. Something is wrong, horribly wrong. I don’t know what, but I have to get out of here and go home.

  I instinctively reach for my cell phone, which I should know by now I don’t have. That that wasn’t the first thing I asked him for when he got home is a sign of how far gone I am.

  It’s like he drugged me, hypnotized me, and conned me with orgasms into forgetting who I am and what my life is.

  I stand from bed, my knees still as shaking as before because . . . I don’t know.

  I think I thought I knew what my life was, or at least I thought I knew what I was missing, or had an idea of what I was working toward. Now . . .

  He gave me new ideas. But I can’t explain what any of those new ideas are except sex. I can’t define myself by sex. Living one’s life by sex is a drug as dangerous as any other addiction.

  I have to get out of here.

  I get out of bed and realize that once again, I have no clean clothes. But then I look to the closet, and see my work outfit hanging clean and pressed on its door.

  Mrs. Tanner is a godsend. I will be sending her an enormous bouquet of thank-you flowers tomorrow.

  I dress in minutes, not caring that I have no makeup or that my hair looks who knows how. I’m leaving, and that’s all that matters.

  My anxiety lessens behind my determination to get away, and I find relief in the knowledge that someone will be taking me home—whether it’s Blake, one of his staff, or a taxi I call. I am leaving.

  I stalk through the house. “Blake! Where are you? I’m going home!” I go from room to room on my way to the kitchen where I’ll most likely find Mrs. Tanner, which I do.

  “Have you seen Blake?” I ask her.

  “He’s probably in the guest house.”

  “The guest house?”

  “The little building on the other side of the drive.”

  “But why would he be over there?” Isn’t this house big enough for both of us? Is he so repulsed by me he can’t even stay in the same building?

  “He stays over there, dear. He sort of claimed it as his own after he went to college.”

  “Right.” Whatever. I don’t care. “I hate to impose, but could you give me a ride home?”

  Her mouth turns down in motherly concern. “Is something wrong? Bless me, I’ll gladly take you, but really, Blake should be the one. Haven’t you asked him? Are you sure you don’t want supper first?”

  The gazpacho I spy cooking in a pot does smell tempting but . . . “You’re very kind, but I must get home. I’ll try to find Blake.”

  “I’ll send Mr. Tanner with you.” She calls for her husband. I thank her for cleaning my clothes so promptly and follow the quiet man to a guest house which I hadn’t noticed on my earlier explorations. It’s hidden amongst a copse of trees, like a forgotten cottage. Its stonework matches the main house.

  I don’t knock. I just walk in. “Blake!”

  He doesn’t say anything, but I hear the floor creaking upstairs. Footsteps sound on the carpeted stairs and his feet come into view.

  “I’m ready to go home,” I say, before I even see his face.

  Good thing.

  He turns the corner—shirtless, barefoot, wearing only khakis. And I’m back in the shower, on my knees in front of him, consumed by the desire to touch all of him as thoroughly as I can.

  I turn away. I cannot look at him if I’m to have any hope of getting out of here. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

  “You’re not going anywhere.” In his voice there’s a heaviness, an ironclad certainty that puts my heart in a tailspin.

  “No.” I turn back to him, clinging to the anger his refusal rouses in me. “If you don’t want to drive me, fine. Mrs. Tanner said she’d take me.”

  “You’re going nowhere.” He drops his gaze, his eyes scanning the floor. It’s the first time he hasn’t met my eyes. Something’s wrong. But I don’t give a shit.

  “Fine. Then I’ll walk down your two-mile driveway and catch a cab. By the way, I need my phone.”

  He doesn’t look up at me but he whispers “No.”

  I roll my eyes. “Is it in your car? I’ll find it myself.” I turn the doorknob. Mrs. Tanner will call me a cab if my phone battery is dead—which is likely.

  “It’s here.” He takes it from his back pocket, holds it up, but puts it back.

  “Give it to me!” I hold out my hand. To take it from him, I’ll have to touch him, which is the last thing I want to do.

  He lifts his gaze to mine finally, and I gasp.

  Hate. Pure, thick, black, hatred.

  I stumble backward. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.” He gives an ominous chuckle. “Well, actually a lot, but I’m clear on one thing. You’re staying with me. Leaving is not an option.”

  I stare at him, shock and outrage blooming in my chest. “Who the hell do you think you are? My jailer?”

  “Yes.”

  A feeling of being trapped descends over me and makes sweat break out over my skin.

  He can’t be serious. He can’t possibly mean what he’s saying. “Look, the sex was great. But this and you and your issues with running from me aren’t going to work, so just get over yourself and give me my phone.”

  “You don’t understand. I’m not giving you a choice.”

  I take a deep breath and try to control my erratic pulse. “I’m not saying I won’t see you again, okay? I’m just saying I need to go. So please, give me back my phone.”

  This time he says nothing, just shakes his head.

  “Stop being a dick.” I reach around him, fast, determined to take my phone back for myself.

  He seizes my arm, gripping it hard enough I can’t move it, but not hard enough to hurt. “No, Daisy. I’m not giving you your phon
e back.”

  “Why?” It makes no sense. Fear takes root in me. There’s no reason for him to confiscate my phone unless he actually means what he’s saying.

  “You’re going nowhere.”

  “Fuck you.” I yank back my arm and walk out the door, panic racing my heart, confusion punching holes in all my reasoning. I run to the back kitchen door, to Mrs. Tanner and a phone.

  Blake follows me. “You’re here with me to stay.”

  I face him. “However many times you say that, it doesn’t make it true. Are you delusional?” Is he psychotic somehow? Disconnected from reality in some way?

  “No. I’m telling you the truth. Some things happened with your father. As a result, you’re mine now.”

  My whole face squints in confusion. “None of that makes any sense. What happened with my father?” He never did tell me the whole story. I never asked him this morning because I was too sex-obsessed. Now getting out of here is more important, but maybe if he talks he’ll find some sense and let me go.

  He looks skyward, like he’s praying for patience or words or something. “What do you know about my mother?”

  A part of me softens. Maybe this is a grief thing, him not wanting to be alone. “I know she died giving birth to your sister.”

  “No. That’s what they wanted everyone to think. That’s what my father and your father led everyone to believe.”

  “My father? What does my father have to do with it? And why would they lie?”

  A strange look passes over his face, something that looks close to fear but it’s distorted and registers more as . . . derangement. “My father did it. And your father helped.”

  “What?” A sickening twist starts in my belly and contorts outward. If he’s saying what I think he’s saying, I may actually be ill. Oh my God.

  “My father killed my mother!” He says it too fast, too loud, too frantic. Like he wants it over with. Like it’s the thing he hates saying yet needs to say most in the world.

  “How is that possible?”

  “He . . .” He swallows and twists, looking everywhere but at me. His hands gesture at nothing, and the internal struggle in him is so fierce, I’m weakened by pity.

  Something happened to his mother. Something bad.

  “How old were you?” I ask.

  “It doesn’t matter!” He shouts at the woods. “I saw what I saw. How old I was doesn’t make it any less true!”

  “Whatever it was, I believe you.”

  “How could you?” He sneers at me, making me draw back. “You don’t even know what your father’s guilty of.”

  “What?” Breathing becomes difficult and I have the urge to sit down.

  “Your father was his lawyer. He knew. And made sure my father never went to prison.”

  “How could you know that?”

  “I have proof! I know what he did.” He looms over me like he’s trying to scare me. But I won’t let him.

  I see what he is: a frightened little boy who never got over his mother’s death. Except he’s not a little boy anymore. He’s a man, with power. Enough power to ruin someone’s life.

  Like mine.

  “So keeping me here,” I offer, “is some sort of revenge for what my father supposedly did? Is that it?”

  “Yes.” The anger in his eyes, the brutality he looks at me with—this is what that look has been all about. “I won’t turn the evidence over to the police, in exchange for you.”

  “Are you that obsessed with me?” I knew his interest was a bit over the top, and the whole remembering me from school thing was a bit hard to believe, but I had no idea it was like this. He’s creepier, beyond creepy, more deranged than I knew.

  How could I have misjudged him like this? How could I be so stupid as to follow a man like him home and have sex with him? I feel duped, no, betrayed. I couldn’t have gotten it so wrong. The chemistry between us was real—is real.

  Fuck. Even now, I’m watching him and feeling the pull to him. Even knowing the truth behind his anger, I can still feel what it’s like when he pours it into me. And how much I love it and want it.

  I don’t know who’s more deranged, him or me.

  “Quit flattering yourself.” He snorts. “There’s no greater revenge on a man like your father than taking his only daughter from him.”

  “Then the story about knowing me from school was a lie?” Now I feel really stupid. What kind of person falls for that? Me, apparently.

  “No, that was true. I threw the party to meet you. I didn’t know I would recognize you. Or—” He doesn’t add but it’s there in the way he stops himself: how attracted he’d be to me.

  “Well, that’s some consolation, I guess.” At least that was real.

  I groan and turn a circle. What am I saying? That makes it worse. Not better. Him using me for sex? Knowing all this time he was going to be keeping me?

  I’ll be damned if I’m going to just let him do this.

  I storm off toward the kitchen again.

  “Don’t do it,” he calls after me.

  “You can’t keep me here!” I keep walking.

  “I can still turn him in.”

  I stop. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that if you leave, your father goes to prison.”

  “Your evidence could be fake.”

  “I have emails. I have financial records. My father has been paying your father a half-million dollars a year since my mother died. For his silence.”

  It’s like a hit to the chest. “A half-million dollars?” I turn back to him. I grew up rich, but even to me that’s a ton of money.

  “Yes.”

  “But my father would never do something like that. Keep a guilty man from prison.”

  “He’s a lawyer, Daisy. That’s what lawyers do.”

  I’d never thought of it that way. But he’s right. That is what lawyers do. Still, my father would never have defended a man guilty of killing his wife. He just wouldn’t. He loves my mother too much for that ever to be something he could conceive. “He must not have known your father was guilty.”

  Blake snorts. “He knew. I was there at the hospital when he came to her room and saw her on life support with a contusion the size of a baseball on her head. While she was pregnant. It’s a miracle my sister survived.”

  It’s sad. It’s horrible. But the fact still remains. “You can’t keep me hostage. This was a long time ago.”

  “I’ll keep you for as long as I fucking want.” The irrational anger is back, the man who cannot be reasoned with.

  “I’m not a toy, Blake. I’m a person. How long are you going to keep me?”

  “Until your father is dead.”

  I march to him and slap him, open palm, across the face.

  He grits his teeth and growls something primal. I lift my arm to hit him again, but he catches it. He grabs both my wrists and crowds me backward.

  “No one hits me,” he warns, forcing me to walk back or trip. “Not even you.”

  I’m backed against the wall. The way his hands bunch around my wrists, not squeezing but tensing, the way the force of his temper builds in him, I’m afraid for a moment he’ll hit me back.

  Except—the ferocity in his eyes, the tension in his body, the wandering of his gaze to my mouth. All of them say he doesn’t want to hurt me. He wants to fuck me. So it would feel like bliss and heaven in one. So it would make all these horrible things he’s told me go away.

  The way I still want it.

  Chapter Eleven

  The way she’s looking at me is not with the eyes of someone trapped, who’s beaten down from her freedom being taken away.

  No.

  Those are the eyes of a person who knows what I want—and wants it too. I’m infuriated that it’s the case, but I want her more than I want vengeance. And she knows.

  My blood is roaring for her. Not just in rage, or in retaliation, but to get all of this out of me. This consuming fury that has taken over my life, the stuff I kep
t bottled for decades, now that I’ve acknowledged it, it clouds my mind and my thinking. It strips away my ability to live and be normal.

  She is a willing outlet. She wants what I have. For a reason I don’t understand.

  She should be pushing me away, running from me. But she’s not. She lifts her chin and it’s all the invitation I need.

  I crush my lips to hers and she moans like I’ve given her what she craves most in the world. She feeds on my tongue, biting and swallowing what I unleash.

  My fury, my rage, my need to control and manipulate her and everything in my world, I pour into her. Frantic and sharp, wild and frenzied, I’m caught. If holding back was ever something I could do, she destroys it. She sucks the worst of me into her.

  I hold her arms on either side of her head against the wall and press into her. I feel a rush of need as I trap her with my body.

  She still manages to arch into me, to writhe beneath me, rubbing me hard.

  The need—it’s engulfing us and swallowing us whole. Taking over who we are and what our lives mean. There is only this sexual urge driving us, like rabid animals gnawing at each other. The longer we’re locked together, the more we infect each other with this greed for passion, our desires clashing and exploding exponentially until there is no hope of resisting.

  If I’m not inside her, the need will consume me alive, and with the way she’s moving against me—desperate, reckless—she’s fighting the edge of it too.

  “You want it.” I growl in her ear. “Is that what you’re telling me? You want to be fucked.”

  “Yesss,” she hisses like a tantric snake. She yanks open my pants, pulls her skirt up to her waist, and drops her panties to the ground.

  I have a frantic thought of our location, outside, under the sun. Anyone can see.

  I don’t care.

  I find her soaking and hot between her legs.

  This is too much, too much feeling, too much everything.

  But I can’t stop.

  I wrap her legs around my hips, palm her ass, and grit my teeth.

  I thrust inside her and we both cry out, for the satisfaction, for the creation of even more need. If we are animals, the desire is the devil, driving us to do things that we wouldn’t normally do.