Delusive

by Courtney Lane

She jumped up, dusting of her denim dress and closing her jacket. Wringing her hands out of nervousness, she continued to have a difficult time looking at me. Her eyes slowly trailed to my ring, and while she smiled—playing the part of someone who would’ve been happy for me—in her eyes I could see she was heartbroken. “Congrats! I didn’t know you two got hitched.”

  I couldn’t hide my apprehension when I kept my distance from her and continually studied her.

  It was obvious she felt the vibes I gave off, and it increased her awkwardness around me. “I guess…you didn’t know I would be here, huh?”

  “I told you it would be a surprise to her, didn’t I?” Elias asked her, appearing at my side and looping one arm around me to close the space between us.

  Nodding, she slipped a piece of paper from her jacket pocket and handed it to Elias. “I got the clinic paperwork just like you wanted.”

  “Paperwork for what?” I asked.

  He put a finger to his lips and shook his head at me.

  “So, uh, Elias?” Skylar nervously tucked her hair behind her ear and fluttered her eyelashes. “Can I talk to you alone for a second before we do this thing?”

  At a loss, I stepped away from him. He opened the door to the house, directing me to enter first. Once inside, Skylar and Elias disappeared into the sitting room.

  I tried not to jump to conclusions—to trust Elias—but the scene was unexpected and unnecessary. Turning back to the car, I retrieved my various shopping bags and struggled to get them upstairs.

  I PULLED A suitcase out of the closet and set it down on the floor by the couch. After taking the tags off the items in the shopping bags, I neatly folded them and placed them inside the suitcase.

  On my fifth trip to the closet, retrieving and putting back items I couldn’t make up my mind about taking with me on the trip, I caught Skylar in the doorway, wearing a smile, a lace bra and matching panty that I knew came from La Dentelle.

  Elias sauntered in, brushing past her and sat on the couch opposite the bed.

  “Okay, what is this about?” I asked, glancing from him to Skylar.

  Spreading his legs, he crouched forward. He rested his elbows on his knees and folded his hands in a steeple position above his lap. The twinkle in his eye told me the night was going to end on a very interesting note. “This is your night, Hanley. Because tonight, Skylar and I are going to share in the duty of making you come,” he said to me.

  I coughed as my saliva went down the wrong pipe and attempted to recover demurely. I squinted at him, wondering what he was really up to. “Is…that…it?”

  “Mostly,” he said with a grin. “But there are rules. I don’t want your mouth anywhere near her pussy. I don’t want to taste her on your lips. Other than that, there are no rules for you.”

  “What?”

  Sauntering over to me, in a slow seductive runway-like walk, Skylar removed her bra and panties. By the time she got to the edge of the bed, she was wearing nothing at all. “He has a rule for me,” she said, sliding her hands down the curves of her body. “I’m not allowed to touch him. Just you.” With a taunting smile, she held up her hand, giving me a come hither stare and beckoned for me with her index finger.

  Despite all the things she’d done to me and her disloyal practices, I couldn’t deny the attraction that was still there. But it was simply an attraction. Man or a woman, it didn’t matter, Elias was the one who had my heart. With him, I felt fulfilled and didn’t need anyone else.

  I glanced at Elias, who thumbed his lips as if in deep thought. Catching my eye, he gave me a nod and a wink. “Take off your clothes,” he said to me.

  I shifted my feet to the bed. Skylar crawled down on all fours to meet me at the edge. Running her hands up my body, she moved in to kiss me. I tilted my upper half away from her, arching my back at an awkward angle.

  The couch protested with a muffled noise as Elias rose to approach me.

  With my back to his front, he pushed me forward, pushing my body against Skylar’s naked one. The light stroking of his hands down my exposed neck erased my doubts and awakened my desire. “Do you remember what I said about our unfinished business?” he whispered in my ear.

  “I get that, but…”

  Grabbing the back of my head, he pulled me in for a kiss that filled my mind with white noise, hindering my ability to be dubious.

  “It’s just sex, Hanley,” Skylar said, taking my hands.

  Elias began to undress me. I trailed his eyes, silently pressing for answers I never received.

  With my shirt, dress, and panties fluttering to the floor, it left me completely nude. Cupping my face, he gave me an open mouth kiss that set my face aflame. “If you don’t want to do this, say something now.”

  “I need to,” I said, opening my eyes.

  Turning back to Skylar, I ran my hands down the back of her silky mane and met her soft lips in the middle. She reached up and touched one of my breasts, timidly. Becoming more comfortable, she pressed in, kneading the bottom shell and circling her fingers around my nipples until they hardened.

  I opened my mouth, giving her a tease of my tongue between her lips. She responded by pressing her lips firmly against mine and opening her lips a little to clench my tongue gently between her teeth.

  I felt the soft as satin skin on her back and dipped my fingers down the crease of her ass until I reached her wetness. She slipped her hand down the front of my body, finding my sex.

  I crawled on the bed to kneel in front of her.

  Our fingers roamed to explore each other’s bodies, finding our wet heat. With a synchronistic rhythm, we finger fucked each other, our kisses turning more passionate. Both of our free hands got lost in the back of each other’s hair as we verged on the cusp of a simultaneous climax.

  Her sex began to squeeze my fingers as she whimpered against my lips. Resting my head on her shoulder, I slammed my fingers inside her, making her convulse. Across the room I could see Elias standing against the wall, watching me. Slipping my hand from her hair, I gesticulated with my hand, inviting him to join in. Biting the corner of my mouth as Skylar’s fingers began to circle around my clit, I mouthed, “I want you,” hoping he understood.

  He lifted off the wall and began to unbutton his shirt and let it fall to the ground. At the edge of the bed, he lazily undid his pants, slipping them down his legs. As Skylar came, whimpering and gushing her juices on my hand, Elias grabbed my head and kissed me, torturing my lips with bites and sucks until she came down.

  Rounding the bed, he stopped at the foot and grabbed my legs, making me fly into an all-fours position on the bed. Skylar swung around on the bed to meet me. Clutching my face, she gave me sweet gentle kisses as her hand travelled down my body to find my pussy and finger my clit.

  From behind me, Elias grazed his teeth against my spine, provoking subtle shivers from my body. Tilting my hips, he adjusted me, making me shift into a perfect angle for his entry. A warm glob of saliva slid down my ass cheeks and settled at a hole I wasn’t sure I wanted explored again.

  He grabbed my neck, forcing me upright on my knees with my back arched in an exaggerated half-circle shape. “All your fuckable holes are mine, Hanley,” he reminded me, clearly reading my mind. “Remember?”

  “Yes,” I replied, short of breath as I felt his finger slide inside the hole. He and Skylar pressed against me, sandwiching me between the both of them. The simultaneous feeling of his finger in my ass and Skylar’s fingers inside my pussy stretched me full, making my body feel like it was flying high on a plane that was nowhere near declining. As I began to tighten, ready to come on Skylar’s fingers, he urged in another finger.

  “Harder,” I whispered to her, grabbing her shoulders to brace myself.

  With a grin, she began to slam her fingers inside me. My muscles tightened and relaxed in repeated waves in response to the sensation of four of Elias’s fingers, slowly and gently urging their way inside my ass. My head fell back to rest against Elias’s shoulder.
The moment I shivered with a climax, he pushed down on my spine, directing it to curve and inclined my hips to give himself easier access. Gently, he urged the head in my ass.

  I immediately tensed up and held my breath.

  He tilted forward and whispered in my ear, “Breathe.”

  After I had taken a deep breath in and expelled it, he pushed farther in, rocking shallowly and slowly, letting me adjust to him. I tangled my hands in Skylar’s hair and jerked her head back. Startled, but turned on, she grinned as she removed her hand from my sex.

  My fingers crawled down her body and began to rock up and down her tight wet slit. Her hands dangled at her sides, twitching, wanting to touch me. I forced her head at an angle parallel with the ceiling, making sure she couldn’t see me.

  I firmed my grip on her head and curled my fingers up inside her, thrashing them in and out wildly. She released a high-pitched groan, her voice loud enough to bounce back from ceiling.

  Elias kept up his gentle sway, giving me as much of him as I could take, making sure not to hurt me on the insertion and withdrawing slowly. The friction moved me from a discomforting state into pleasure. His hand roamed down my groin to thumb my clit.

  With his fingers in my hair, he forced my head to the right and tongued my open mouth. While my fingers provoked Skylar, his tongue, cock, and fingers provoked me. Closing in on me, his cock filled me all the way and rocked easily inside me. His thrusts became more intense, his groin crashed against my ass, making it pleasantly sting.

  The harder I fucked Skylar with my fingers, the harder Elias fucked me.

  Skylar called out my name at the same time I cursed Elias. The tense hold Elias had on one hip and his low, guttural groan let me know he was close, too. The sounds of our sex reverberated off the walls in a chaotic symphony.

  The roaring fire consumed me and shot like a rifle through me, rendering me a shivering puddle that was completely under Elias’s control. I sank back against him and the climax Skylar and I shared made us both collapse against one another.

  Wedged between the two of them again, I reached up behind me to wrap my hand around the back of Elias’s head. His chest heaved as he continued to move, pressing against my back and pushing me closer to Skylar.

  Elias swiftly tangled his hand in the hair on the back of my head and forced me to turn around and bend over on the bed until his erection was in front of my face. I opened my mouth, waiting to receive him.

  Sensuous grunts came forth from deep inside his chest as he unloaded his arousal inside my mouth. When he had given me every drop, he released me. Skylar clutched my face and explored my mouth, stealing and swallowing as much of Elias’s cum as she could.

  Parting from her mouth, I glanced up at Elias with a smile. He leaned down and lovingly kissed my forehead.

  “You have to admit, that was pretty hot, right?” Skylar beamed, running her hand down the back of my sex-messed hair.

  “It was hot, because this woman conquers everything she sets her mind to.” Elias’s attention remained on me as his smile deepened, showing the return of the grin that stopped my every involuntary function for a mere second. “Including me,” he added in a low voice I was sure only I could hear.

  Breathing. Thinking. Heart-Beating. I was in his world and everything paused around us when he touched me, spoke to me, or looked at me that way.

  While I would always be attracted to both genders, I only had room for one person inside my heart. Elias. Everything about him was vast, enthralling, and consuming, and it didn’t allow room for anyone else.

  At first, I had qualms about the purpose of the night. Now I was clear on why he invited her here. Tonight was the start of a long goodbye.

  He turned his gaze to Skylar, and his expression dropped immediately. “You still disgust me.”

  “Someday, I hope it changes,” she remarked with a sullen grin.

  Slipping his hand in mine, he guided me off the bed to stand and walk with him to the doorway. On his way there, he effortlessly slipped his shirt from the floor and slipped me into it. “There is a box on the dresser for you when you’re ready.”

  “Ready for what?” I questioned, matching his hushed speaking level. I exploited his nude state and traced one of many of my favorite parts of him—his lower abdominal muscle.

  Embracing my face, he whispered against my lips, “Use it with care. It’s recently become a rare find in this town,” leaving my question unanswered.

  I looked over my shoulder at Skylar, who didn't notice I was watching her. The look she had on her face while she observed Elias walking out of the bedroom wasn’t a look she should’ve had while calling herself my friend. Her actions made it easy to become privy to the ideas churning inside her mind.

  In mere seconds, the discrepancies between the Skylar I knew and the Skylar Elias had warned me about were no longer competing versions of one another.

  The reason Elias warned me against being friends with her was crystal clear. If he had kept someone like her as a close friend, I doubt he’d be able to enact the plans he had or continue to live the life he did.

  I wondered why Skylar bothered to sleep with Natanael, and with the way she looked at Elias, I figured out what Kirsten had said about her to be true. I was sure she’d gotten close to me, being apologetic and endearing, because she wanted to worm her way back into Elias’s life. When I came here, I wasn’t a friend to her, I was competition. When she knew she couldn’t compete with me, she thought she could use me to be her minion and a way to get her closer to Elias.

  Skylar held no allegiance to anyone. Her loyalty was on sale to the highest bidder.

  She caught me staring at her and immediately threw a smile on her face. “That was fun. I’d do it again, as long as I can have some dick every now and then.” Kneeling on the bed, naked, she gestured with her hand for me.

  “Whose dick would that be?” I asked, taking my time in coming back to the bed.

  “Not your husband’s.” She took my hand, helping me to get back in bed. “I mean, unless you two chat about it and say it’s okay.”

  Sitting opposite her, my stare turned impassive. “I’ve had a talk with Elias, and…” Fingering her manicured fingernails, I slipped my fingers between the spaces in her hand. “Look, I know you don’t have a passport and you’ve never gone to Paris, Rome, or all the places you mentioned visiting. I know it would be a dream for you to travel. I have a feeling you thought you’d be able to do that when you became friends with Elias. But after Carter, Elias wouldn’t let you travel with him.”

  Her grin faded. She slipped her hand from mine and pulled up the sheet, folding it just above her breasts. She brought her arms down to keep the sheet in place.

  She nodded to my unasked question, turning my wild guess into a factual statement.

  “You probably miss the life you had when you were friends with Elias. It was your way to escape from this town and it was taken from you. You went from a friend to a tool. And he became cold toward you.”

  “You know how he is,” she stated, breaking her silence. “He cuts people out of his life like”—she snapped her fingers in the air—“that.”

  “Is that why you started being with Natanael? Did you think he would help you?”

  She began to waver, and I knew I was seconds from convincing her to tell the truth.

  “Elias can be so intense, he can make you angry enough to want to hurt him,” I continued. “I’ve been there. I know what you’re going through. I want to help you. I want to send you to Paris, like you’ve dreamed about, and let you live far away from the craziness.”

  Her eyes watered. “You really mean it?”

  “Haven’t I always been honest with you?”

  With a heavy sob, her chin dropped to her chest. “You’re going to hate me.”

  I slid next to her and reached up to smooth her hair. “After what we just did…?” Closing my hand into a fist, I propped it under her chin and tilted her head up to look at me. “I can
’t hate you, Skylar. I never will.”

  “I would love to go to Paris,” she admitted with solemn glee. “It was always my dream. Elias promised me he’d let me and Carter tag along with him and his model of the moment before Cabo happened. What’s better than the city of love to get a guy to notice you, right?

  “But then, Carter was an asshole to me in Cabo. He said so many shitty things. I don’t know what happened. I blacked out, and when I snapped out of it, Carter was dead.”

  I wondered about the identity of the man she wanted to notice her—it could’ve been Elias or Carter—but I knew asking would only result in a skewed truth.

  “I guess….it’s too late for me to redeem myself, huh?”

  “It’s never too late,” I reassured her. “After what happened to your mother, you deserve a second chance. My offer is your second chance. Go to Paris, find a man who is going to give you everything you want, everything you deserve. I know there is a good person with a kind heart hiding underneath all the lies. Show me that she’s there. Tell me the truth about you and Natanael.”

  “I only had one mission for Natanael”—she brought her palm up to wipe her runny nose—“who isn’t my father. To tell the truth, I don’t know who the fuck my father is. My mother wasn’t a hairdresser. She’s never been much of anything. I wanted her to be something. I wanted to be something better than what I am, so I lied to you about a lot.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” I told her with a faux sweetness I could tell she believed was real. “The truth wouldn’t have made me think less of you.”

  “It would have. I know it would. I’m a nobody, Natanael Cari’s fucking side piece when he gets horny. I believed him when he said if I did things for him, he would show me the world. He was so convincing. He has that way with the women he’s interested in, you know. There is a reason he has so many kids. I gave him my virginity, and it all went to shit after.”

  When I first met Natanael, I could’ve understood. After facing off with him at the restaurant, I knew the charm wasn’t real…the man was a monster. “What did he make you do?”