Deceiver

  I smile, closing my eyes and leaning my cheek against his hand. “I don’t care. I just know that I love you, Dan Cole. And, we can figure everything else out as we go. Can’t we?”

  “Yes. But…” He kisses my lips softly.

  No! No buts!

  “But what?”

  “But, I think that we should do it as husband and wife.”

  I blink several times in rapid succession, my eyeballs suddenly drying up and turning into a couple of shriveled raisins.

  “Huh?” It’s all I can manage to eke out.

  “Just think about it.” He grins.

  “You’re serious?”

  “As a heart attack,” he replies, and I almost choke. “I don’t want to be without you. Hell, I don’t even want to be apart from you anymore. Promise me you’ll think about it.”

  “Mm hm.” I nod slowly, the power of speech eluding me at the present.

  “Good. Now, let’s eat. Our food’s getting cold.”

  Just like that, he says!

  We carry our plates into the living room, picnicking around the coffee table as we watch old reruns on television. I stare blankly through the space between us, my mind shooting off in twenty different directions at once.

  Marry him? He said marry him. Did I get Rufus’ squeaky toy? What if Mr. Stratford didn’t have a heart attack? Or, what if he did and he survives? We can’t get married! No way! That’s ridiculous. Isn’t it? When is Josh’s tuition due? What would he say about me and Dan getting married? What would Amelia say? Where would we live? I have a house. He has a house. Did I turn off the stove?

  “You’re thinking about it right now, aren’t you?”

  “What?”

  He grins knowingly.

  “You have a little frown line right here.” He drags his index finger lightly across my forehead, tickling. “And, a little bit of soy sauce right here.”

  He slides his finger down to the corner of my mouth, and I lap at it with my tongue, trying to get the offending condiment off my face.

  He stills, his eyes narrowing into heated slits. “Now, that was sexy,” he whispers.

  Holy shit. My eyes turn hazy with lust, and I squirm against the floor.

  He stares at my breasts and licks his lips, and I can feel my nipples getting hard. Then, he reaches forward, fondling them through my shirt as I close my eyes and moan.

  “Take it off,” he orders.

  Hell, yeah. Immediately, I shed my shirt, pleased to show him my sexy new underwear. My nipples poke against the sheer fabric of the bra, and I know he can see through it just enough. Just enough to set his mind, and his blood, racing.

  “I like,” he whispers, his eyes blazing as he squeezes his cock, ordering up a fresh round of liquid lust in my panties.

  My gaze dips to his crotch, and I stare, transfixed. He looks like he’s about to burst through the zipper. Abruptly, he reaches forward and tugs sharply at my bra, yanking it down so that it rests beneath my breasts and my nipples peek at him over the top.

  “Yes,” he whispers, seemingly pleased with this latest alteration to my wardrobe.

  He skims his fingers back and forth across each nipple, his eyes locked like magnets. Then, leaning forward, he takes one in his mouth, sucking and biting and licking until I almost come undone. Then, he changes to the other. I’m mad with need, wriggling against the floor, trying to draw some friction, anything, against my throbbing sex.

  My fingers twist desperately in his hair, fisting and pulling. “Dan, please,” I plead, my sex literally aching.

  “Do you need something, baby?” He stops, and stretching out his tongue, flicks it against my nipple. “Tell me what you need.”

  “You,” I moan. “I need you.”

  “You’ve got me,” he says cruelly, and then he covers my nipple with his hot mouth. I whimper.

  He sits up, grinning wickedly as he unzips his jeans. Oh, goody! I run my anxious tongue across my lips to slick them. He stands up, pushes down his jeans and produces his magnificent cock. Then he sits back down and takes my hands in his, pulling me to him and wrapping my fingers around his erection as he works my hands slowly up and down.

  I hover in front of him like a spider-eating assassin bug, watching with my tongue lolling out, unable to take my eyes off him. He closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath, exhaling with a long, loud groan. Then, he gives me a look that sets my panties to smoking.

  “Is this what you need?”

  I nod emphatically, trying hard not to pant. “Yes, yes.”

  “Take off your pants.”

  Fuck! Are they still on? I leap off the floor, unbuttoning and unzipping in a single motion, peeling them off, along with my socks and slinging them somewhere behind me. And, while I’m at it, I reach behind me and unfasten my bra, flinging it across the room where it lands on Rufus. He looks at it, unimpressed, and rolls back over to sleep.

  Dan leans back, bracing himself with one hand against the floor behind him and stroking his cock with the other as he eye-fucks me. I stand there before him the same way I was born, naked and drooling.

  “Come here.” He releases his cock and holds out his hand to me.

  I’m standing in front of him before he finishes his sentence. He grabs my ankles, sliding my feet apart as I straddle him.

  “That’s it, baby. Open up for me,” he whispers as he pulls my cheeks apart and glides the tip of his tongue up and down my lips. My legs tremble and I begin to build, moaning like a dying wildebeest.

  “Slow down.” He kisses me as he slides his finger back and forth through my wet folds. I wiggle my feet a little farther apart, and he drives a finger inside me, sending me into a coma.

  “Ooh, so wet,” he whispers, and a shudder runs throughout me. “I think my girl’s ready for me.”

  “Yes.” I nod in complete agreement. She is. Yep.

  “How should I make you come?” he asks as though it’s a conundrum of significant magnitude.

  “Like this?” He pushes two fingers inside of me and toggles my clit with his thumb.

  “Oh, yes.” I shiver. Almost there. He stops, and the feeling ebbs away.

  “Or like this?” He leans forward, lapping at my clit, and then takes me in his mouth, sucking and moaning.

  “Yes!” This is definitely good, too! I lean forward, my hands on his head, balancing myself and praying that my legs hold out. Quickly, the energy builds again, and I gasp, sucking all the air from the room. Then, he stops.

  Wha? No! I pant, looking down at him over the tops of my heaving breasts.

  “Hm. Or, I think, with this…” He stares at me as he begins to massage his cock, squeezing it and pulling it with long, hard strokes. I wipe at my mouth, which is watering at an excessive rate.

  I’m in a total fuck-daze now, and I can barely think. I nod excitedly. “Yes. Yes.”

  Definitely that. I want that.

  He smiles, standing up and spinning me around, folding me across the chair and before I can process what just happened, he’s inside me, driving so hard, the chair creaks and I gasp. He pounds into a punishing rhythm, and hits it, the spot, over and over, sending me to extraordinary heights.

  “Yeah, this is what you want,” he informs me, driving into me again and then grinding and circling his hips. “This is what you need.”

  Oh, yes!

  The softness in his touch is gone. There is no more sweetness in his voice. Just a desperate, all-consuming tide of lust and desire. I claw at the chair as a warm, prickly wave washes through me, starting at my core and casting outward, up my arms and down my legs, driving into my toes. I jerk and twitch, screaming as I fall, weightless and limp beneath him.

  He groans as he buries himself into me, driving me into the chair cushion and lifting my feet off the floor.

  “Candy,” he yells, gripping my hips tightly and pumping into me again, emptying himself into me as he spasms and grunts and groans.

  Finally, he stills, panting as he stretches forward and lay
s his cheek against my back.

  “I love you,” he breathes.

  I smile, my face pressed into the chair cushion. “I love you, too, baby.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  We lie in the dark, wrapped around each other in knots, recovering once again.

  “You’re going to kill me.” He chuckles.

  I lay there, puffing silently. Somehow, I don’t think that joke’s appropriate under the circumstances.

  “Say yes,” he says out of the clear, blue sky.

  “To what?”

  “Marry me. I love you. You love me. We could do this every night.”

  “We could do this every night, anyway,” I tease. “Besides, if we got married, you wouldn’t want to do this every night anymore.”

  He squeezes me tighter. “Surely, you don’t really think that?”

  Hm. Marry him. Christ, I don’t even know his middle name! How can I be considering this? How old is he? Does he have a birthmark? I have no idea!

  “What’s your middle name?”

  “Robert. Daniel Robert,” he says proudly, with no hesitation.

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-nine.”

  “When’s your birthday?”

  “January eleven.”

  “Do you have a birthmark?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is it?”

  “On the back of my thigh.”

  “Early bird or Night Owl?”

  “Night Owl.”

  “What’s your sign?”

  “Uh… My what?”

  I giggle. “Your Zodiac sign.”

  “A Capricorn, or something like that, I think.”

  “No matter,” I drag my fingers down his hard, thick arm. “I don’t really believe in that stuff, anyway.”

  “Then, why’d you ask?”

  “I ran out of meaningful questions.” I laugh.

  “Does that mean you ran out of excuses, too?”

  I am just about to say yes when his phone rings.

  “Shit.” He sighs.

  “If you ignore it, will it go away?”

  “I doubt it. It’ll probably just get pissed and show up at my front door.” He untangles himself from my arms and legs and rolls over to grab his phone from the nightstand. “Cole,” he barks.

  I continue dragging my fingers along his warm, naked skin, drawing little circles across his back. Surely, I can’t be getting turned on again? The dampness between my legs tells me otherwise.

  “Where?” Dan’s voice sounds urgent.

  I remove my fingers from his back and sit up, tugging the sheet over me.

  “When?” He slings the sheet off and swivels his legs to the floor. “You’re sure?”

  He’s not saying enough for me to get any idea what the call is about, but whatever it is, I can tell it’s important.

  “She’s okay, though?” he asks. “You’re sure? I know I just asked you that. It’s just hard to believe is all.” He runs his fingers through his hair, sighing. “No, no. I’ll be right there. Thanks for calling.”

  He leans forward, dropping his phone back on the nightstand.

  So much for round three. I toss the sheet down and prepare to get up. “I’ll go home.”

  “No. Don’t.” He turns around, grabbing me around the waist and laying his head in my lap. “Please. I don’t want you to leave. I want you to stay here. I don’t think I’ll be very long.”

  I stroke his hair, smiling down at him.

  “We found her,” he says as if he still doesn’t disbelieve it.

  “You what?”

  “We found her. The little girl. She’s alive.”

  “Oh, thank God, Dan. That’s wonderful.” I lean over and kiss his hair.

  “And, Stratford’s dead.”

  I freeze, my heart pounding. “What? How?”

  “The son-of-a-bitch had a heart attack right in his bedroom tonight.”

  “You’re kidding?” I debate my theatrics. “Well, thank God for that, too. Where’d they find the girl?”

  “All I know right now is that they found her in his barn when they responded to a 9-1-1 call.”

  Jesus! She was there while we were there. We left her there. Oh, my God, we left her there. Why didn’t we search the barn and all the buildings while we were there? Wait. What?

  “A 9-1-1 call?”

  “Yeah. Apparently, he called 9-1-1 before he died. We have his address flagged. So, we responded along with the ambulance.”

  “What’d he say? When he called 9-1-1?” Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything else right now.” He raises his face and nuzzles my breasts, softly kissing my stomach. “I have to go. Will you stay? I want to know that you’ll be here when I get home.”

  “Of course I will.” I try to smile, but the bile has already risen to my throat, and I’m starting to choke on it.

  “Good.” He sits up, gives me a quick peck on the lips and then pushes himself off the bed. Snatching his jeans off the floor, he begins to stuff his feet into them. “I shouldn’t be long. I’ll know more after I get there.”

  I lay down, pulling the sheet back over me. “Please be careful.”

  He freezes, a sock hanging loosely from his fist as he stares at me, a beautiful smile spreading slowly across his face. “Say that again.”

  “What? Be careful?”

  “Yes.”

  “I do want you to be careful. I want you right back here, in one piece preferably, as soon as possible.”

  “Marry me,” he says as he hops around, trying to lasso his foot with a sock.

  I sigh, crossing my arms behind my head and staring at the ceiling. “I’ll make you a deal.”

  “Oh, really?” He sits down in the chair across the room, tugging on his shoes. “What kind of deal?”

  “If you still want to marry me when you get back home, then the answer is yes. I’ll marry you.”

  But, if Mr. Stratford somehow recognized me last night, I’ve a feeling you may not want to.

  “Well, baby. You’d better start working on your guest list, then, because I’ll be back in about two hours.” He pauses, sitting up straight and looking at me skeptically. “Do you mean it?”

  I smile and nod. “Yes. I do.”

  He stands up, leaps on the bed, shoes and all, and straddles me as I giggle and tug at the sheets. “Mm.” He grins. “I like the sound of that.”

  “What?”

  “I do.”

  “You do?” I laugh. “I do, too.”

  He leans forward on all fours and kisses me sweetly. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  “I’ll be here,” I promise. “Naked.”

  “Damn. Make it two hours.”

  He bounces off the bed and strides to the door, turning around to flash me one last sexy smile before he leaves.

  I snuggle into his pillow, breathing in the delicious scent of Dan, relaxing on Cloud Nine as I close my eyes and drift. I’ll know soon enough what Mr. Stratford said to the 9-1-1 operator. For now, I’m done with confessions.

  ***

  It’s still dark when I wake up. Dan’s arms are wrapped around me like a vine, my boob resting in his cupped hand.

  I turn my head to look at him, and he stirs, tossing his leg casually over mine. I glance at the clock and sigh. Five-forty. I need to go home and get ready for work. Surely, he wouldn’t have come back to bed with me if he suspected anything?

  I feel like I’m playing a game of human Jenga as I untwist and unwrap all our body parts. Finally, I’m free, and slip out from beneath the covers and look for something to pull on. I settle for his shirt. Then, I pad down the dark hall to the kitchen with only one thought in mind. Coffee first. I slide in the filter and grab the coffee jug, digging out a full, heaping scoop.

  “There you are!”

  I let out a blood-curdling scream, flinging coffee to the far corners of the kitchen. “What the fuck?”

  I lean against the cabine
t holding my hand over my heart, sure that one more start like that is going to tip me over the edge.

  Dan does his best to stifle the roiling laughter that erupts from his belly, but he fails miserably. It continues for a full five minutes as I set out on a coffee cleaning expedition.

  “Will you leave that?” His eyes sparkle as he sits at the table watching me.

  “I don’t want you to walk around with coffee on your feet every time you come into the kitchen.” I think I’ve gotten most of it, anyway. I finally return to the coffee pot to finish what I started. “What time did you get home last night?”

  I measure out a full, heaping scoop once again.

  “Around two,” he says, watching me with interest.

  “Did you get to see the little girl?”

  “No. She’s at St. Vincent’s, actually. Your hospital. They found her in a root cellar, under the floor in the barn. He’d already…”

  I turn around and flip on the coffee pot, not wanting to hear the rest of his sentence. “I’ll check on her today and see how she’s doing.”

  Taking a deep breath, I walk slowly to the table and sit down across from him trying my best to sound nonchalant. “What about him? Did you learn anything else about him?”

  He shakes his head. “He dialed 9-1-1 around seven-thirty last night, and never said a word. He was already dead when they got there.”

  Air leaves my lungs with an audible whoosh. Thank God.

  “Sick fuck was trying to call someone to come and save his wretched ass while she laid down there in the dark ground half-dead.” He grits his teeth and shakes his head.

  I reach across the table, placing my hand on top of his. “Don’t do that to yourself. You did everything you could, Dan. He was just…” I shake my head.

  “Untouchable.” He finishes my sentence.

  I stare into his bright, knowing eyes and nod. “Yes.”

  He strokes my face lovingly. “Marry me.”

  Nuzzling his warm hand, I close my eyes and melt into his palm.

  I’m a murderer. A cold-blooded killer without a conscience and he’s sworn to uphold the law, to track people like me down and hold us accountable, punish us.