Bed Of Lies

by King, Dean

  She shrugged one creamy brown shoulder, and he was tempted to drop a kiss on it. “It matters to some people. I know we're just lovers, but I thought you should know. My coloring tends to throw people off.” She looked up at him, her eyes the bright green of a freshly born leaf. “What are you?”

  “I’m half Spanish and half English,” he laughed, again at her shocked look.

  “From Spain?” she asked frowning.

  “Yes, my great, great grandparents were from Spain.” Nina nodded thoughtfully. Rafe could almost see the wheels spinning in her pretty head. “Does that matter to you?”

  “No,” she said absently. “You don’t have a lot of hair. Most Spaniards have a lot of body hair.” She said it so matter-of-factly that he laughed again.

  “I think we’re mixed with some sort of Native American. But, yes, you’re right, I don’t have a lot of hair.” Rafe moved to lie on his side and pulled her sweet, warm body against his. “My mother is the original English Rose. But my father’s people have been in America for six generations. I think we have a Cherokee or two rattling around in our closet.” On his elbow, Rafe tugged on a strand of her hair twirling it around one finger. “What about you? Is this your hair or is it from a bottle?”

  She shrugged, her eyes scurried away from his. “It’s real. Most people assume I’m black when they first meet me. But then they see my eyes and they think I'm white with an overdone tan, or they think I’m from some island. But all my papers say I'm black, so I guess that's what I am.”

  Rafe pulled away from her to look into her face, he was sure she had to be joking. “What do you mean you guess? Don’t you know?”

  “I was left on the doorstep at an orphanage when I was an infant. No note, no picture, just me. No one knows what I am, but to most of the world I look black. Until they see my eyes, then they start to wonder about me. I didn’t want you to do that. I want you to know from the start what I am. If you have a problem with it, then we can end this right now.” Her eyes were trained on him as she spoke, they took on a flat look.

  Rafe couldn’t help it, he recoiled. How horrible not to know such a basic thing. All he could do was stare at her.

  Nina saw his look, her heart crumbled. Why did he have to be just like everyone else? “I need to get out of here,” she pushed at his shoulders.

  Suddenly Rafe knew she wasn’t joking, her eyes were turning red and filling with tears. “I’m sorry,” he rolled from her and she pushed past him.

  Nina hurried from the bed and started gathering her clothes. Anger and shame ripped at her, and made her movements sharp. She cast a glance at him lying on the bed looking like a statue of Adonis, so sure of himself and everything around him.

  “What sickened you the most?” she snapped, willing the scalding tears not to flow. “Tell me so the next time I fall into someone’s arms like an idiot, I’ll know what not to say. Was it the black part, or the orphanage?” She ignored the traitorous tears that slid down her cheeks as she pulled on her shirt, self-pity made her movements quick. She was already falling for him, which was a foregone conclusion. Stupid, stupid, stupid! She chastised herself. I knew better, I knew, and yet I dared to believe anyway!

  Rafe jumped at her, before she knew what was happening he had her in his arms and Nina found herself on her back in the bed glaring into his tight face, his gray eyes thunderous.

  “If you think I’ll allow you to have other lovers, you are mistaken!” He growled his face a mask of fury. “Nothing about you bothers me, do you understand? Nothing! I don’t ever want to hear talk like that again.”

  She lifted her nose, to stare him down, even though she lay under him. It was a challenge if ever he’d seen one.

  “What if I told you I have three children and I’ve never been married?” Nina knew it was wrong to lie to him. They were not from her body, but they were still her children nonetheless. It was too early for this kind of test. She didn’t have a relationship with him, but she had to see if he was worth getting her heart broken for. To see if this thing between them was worth giving him the chance to hurt her. From the look on his face, it wasn’t. Her chest ached, but it was always better to find out early.

  Rafe stiffened, his eyes shuttered, “What did you say?”

  “You heard what I said,” she bit out bitterly. She wanted to push him away, she needed to distance herself from the madness he brought. Deep in her heart she’d hoped for more from him, he didn’t seem to be the shallow type. She had thought there was more to him than this. A hollow burning knot formed in her stomach. She smiled despite her disillusionment.

  Rafe stared at her, each word that left her mouth was like a knife in his heart, twisting. “You have three children?” He was very much aware of her eyes on him. Like a fist to his stomach, it hurt like hell to hear that. He shrugged as if it didn’t matter when it did, it mattered a whole hell of a lot.

  “Why should that matter to me?” he growled deep in his throat. “All I want is your delicious body.” He pulled open her shirt and pushed it from her soft shoulders. “What happens outside those doors will stay out there. When we are together, in here, this is all that matters.” He leaned forward pushing her back to the bed, his lips finding one breast, and he tenderly lavished its soft dark peak. He looked up, she was staring at him, her eyes dark emeralds and just as fathomless. “I don’t want our time ruined by anything,” he whispered against her still lips. “We are here for one reason and one reason only. That’s to sexually satisfy ourselves. Remember that.”

  Nina nodded, he was back to being the sweet lover again. Her eyes caressed him as he loved her body, her fingers adoring the hard muscles of his chest and stomach, even as her mind raged at the unfairness of it all. She ached with the pain of knowing one of these days their time together would be over. She didn't know if she could continue to come here. It went against everything she’d been taught, but at this point she’d do just about anything for the pleasure of being in his strong arms.

  But the thought that this might be the last time she would ever see him filled her with an urgency she had never known before.

  Nina had seen such tenderness in his clear gray eyes, which she'd actually begun to hope he wanted more than a physical relationship. But she'd been wrong. She stiffened her resolve. She was no longer a child, she could walk away from this without so much as a thought when it was over. And that is what she intended to do.

  Five

  Sharon LAID her purse on her desk. It was early, not quite six in the morning, but she had a report due to Nina by eight.

  Suddenly her head popped up, squinting toward Nina's closed office door. Sharon cocked her head to the side, listening. Lifting her arm, she looked at her wristwatch. “That’s strange. Nina shouldn't be here until eight.” Curious, she walked the short distance to the door and flung it open. Walking inside she flicked on the light switch. A small scream leapt from her throat, “Who are you?”

  “Christ!” A man dressed in black was crouched behind the desk rooting through the drawers.

  Sharon turned fast on her heels and headed for the door. A hard hand clamped over her mouth, cutting off her breath. Struggling hard against a solid chest, she clawed at the hurtful hand. But all movement stopped when his voice hissed into her ear. “I hate it that you saw me. I thought I was getting good at this. You, my lovely, will have to disappear.” A strangled scream bubbled up from her throat but it was cut off by a hard twist to her neck.

  *****

  “Rafe!”

  Rafe jumped at the sound of that joy filled voice, and felt his cheeks grow warm at being caught daydreaming. “Darling, I didn’t know you were here.” A petite, dark haired woman rounded the corner of the desk where he sat, and dropped a kiss on his offered cheek.

  “Hello, mother,” he swung his legs from the black marbled desktop, not in the mood to listen to her yell about his feet on her precious desk. He needed to think, actually he was in a foul mood. Thinking only made his mood worst. He sat up i
n the chair, and propped his arms up on the desktop, as he studied her. He had been trying to find a solution to the problem Nina represented. He just didn’t know what to do. He knew what he wanted to do, but it was still too early for that. He had found Nina to be everything he wanted in a wife, but was she really all she seemed to be? He couldn’t bring himself to ask her if her kids all had the same father or not. He was afraid of her answer. If she said no, he would have to stop seeing her. He was sure they did, knowing a bit about her, he was sure she wasn’t a woman of lose morals.

  “I’ve been here for hours.” Rafe said as he cut a quick glance at her. Miranda Montoya was as close to a female friend as he had ever had. Something Frank resented with every fiber of his being. But Rafe couldn’t help the fact that he had led an uncomplicated normal life until now. He couldn’t remember ever hiding anything from her. She was meddlesome, and he dreaded getting her involved, but he needed her wisdom.

  “What? You’ve been here all this time,” she frowned, curiosity shining in the depths of her dove gray eyes. “And you didn’t come to say hello to your mother? Shame on you.” She walked with stately grace to one of the two high backed cabbage rose damask chairs in front of the desk, and fell lightly into it. The youngest daughter of an impoverished English lord, her life had been hard. She'd often made reference to it, but she never expounded on any one part. Just that her mother had died with her birth and, so it seemed, had her father’s heart.

  Daintily, she removed her floppy straw hat with its pale pink ribbon, her long braided black hair spilled out to lay down her small back. Next, she pulled off her work gloves and tossed them onto the black marbled cherry wood table in front of her. She fell back against the thick cushion and crossed her legs. “God, why does it have to be so hot outside?”

  “It’s only the beginning of June, you know how Houston is. It’ll only get worst,” Rafe said, absentmindedly he ran the tip of one finger along the carved edge of the desk. He hesitated, he remembered the last time he involved Miranda in his love life. God, what a disaster that had been.

  Miranda fanned herself with her small hands, her pale cheeks bright red. “I should've listened to your father when he told me to cover those windows with that dark paper.” Even with air-conditioning, fierce sunlight pouring through the bright windows heated the room. “Oh well, it's never too late.”

  “Window tint, mother.” Lost in thought, Rafe turned away. Picking up an ink pen, he twirled it between his fingers. “I would've told you I was here, but I have a lot on my mind.” He focused on a clear egg shaped glass paperweight sitting to his left on the desk. The bubbles of amber suspended at its center reminded him of Nina's silky skin.

  “I see,” she nodded. “I can tell by that frown it’s not good.” She patted her hair back into place. “Tell me what has my baby all worked up...”

  Rafe shot her a quick look, “Is Frank home yet?”

  “No dear, our mischief-maker is still wreaking havoc in Spain.” Her light laughter did nothing to ease his foul mood. “Your cousin Sabine called, saying Frank has totally turned the elders on their ears.” A grin split her pretty face.

  “Mom, how can you tell if a woman has had a baby?” He blurted, his hands lying loosely in his lap.

  Miranda's mouth fell open, and then closed with a snap. “Rafael David Christopher Montoya!” She stood facing him her hands on her small hips. “Don’t tell me you have gotten some girl pregnant without a ring on her finger!” She shouted waving a finger at him.

  “Mother, please, I’ve done no such thing. Sit down before you burst something.” It always tickled him when she became angry; she took on his father's Spanish accent. Her cultured English voice didn’t fit it at all. But right now, he didn’t find anything funny.

  Her suspicious gray eyes were trained on him. And made sure he kept his face carefully placid and disinterested. “Are you sure you haven’t done this?” He nodded and Miranda eased back into the chair. “Why would you want to know such things?”

  He shrugged, casually. “There is a woman I met a few months ago, she told me she has three children.” He didn’t know why he started telling her, but it was too late to stop now. Maybe she could give him the answers he needed without to much digging. “We dated a few times. She shows no sign of ever giving birth.” He tossed the pen down and stood up. That one thought had kept him from totally giving in to Nina’s charms. The night she had told him of her children was supposed to be their last. He’d convinced himself that she was a lose woman and that maybe each of her kids had different fathers. He didn’t want to add to her list of baby daddies. But he found himself trapped by her smile and the look in her eyes when he entered the room. It gave him delicious chills. And he couldn’t stay away. When he was away from the club, sanity prevailed and his certainty remained strong. No more Nina. But when Thursday came and the sun went down, so did his conviction. He couldn’t fight the need to hold her in his arms. Over the last two months, she met him every week. Even though he sensed hesitancy in her, she always came to him with a smile and an unreadable shadow in her lovely eyes.

  Rafe chided himself for being a selfish fool. She was not his. And to keep it that way he made sure she had nothing more to do with the club. For now he made her his and he wouldn’t share her sweetness with any one. He began meeting her outside the club; they would walk hand-in-hand up the back stairs and into Frank’s apartment. He told Nina it was just another section of the club, and of course she believed him. Lying was nothing new, but with her it made him feel dirty, deceitful, and underhanded. But he felt righteous in his decision to keep his identity from her. What if she turned out to be a money hungry witch? Looking for a rich daddy for her kids. He’d had enough of that kind, and didn’t want to go through it again. But so far she seemed genuine, but once before he’d made a snap decision and had ended up paying for it with a broken heart.

  But something about this girl intrigued him. At times, her eyes sparkled with living fire, warming him to the core, yet at other times she seemed to look through him as if he wasn’t there. It was as if she were hiding pieces of herself from him. And he found he wanted those pieces.

  Her eyes speculative, Miranda laced her fingers together. “Why would she lie about a thing like this?”

  His mind snapped back to the conversation. “That’s just it, I don’t know.” He tried to conceal the fact that he desperately needed answers. But this intense, unnamable, emotion was getting in the way. He glanced at his mother to make sure she hadn’t heard the frustration in his tone. Clearing his throat, he continued. “What if she’s not lying? What if she really has three children?”

  “Well, my son, that depends on why you care.” Miranda pushed out of her chair. She went to the edge of the desk, and sat on it, then she caught one of his hands in her smaller ones holding tight.

  “I don’t care, mother,” he kept his tone light. “I just don't like being lied to.” He shrugged and looked away from her.

  “Maybe she seeks to make you jealous,” Miranda suggested caressing his tight cheek. “You remember Jan? She did that to you. Maybe this one is like that.”

  “She’s nothing like Jan. Our relationship is no where near deep, why would she try to make me jealous at this stage? And then why with children? She could’ve come up with something better.” Shaking off her hold, he stood up and began pacing the hardwood floor.

  “If it really bothers you, why don’t you end the relationship? Unless you do have feelings for her.”

  “We don’t care for each other that way. Anyway, if someone told me she had three children, it would do the opposite. It would make me run as far and as fast as I could.”

  “So are you running?” Her voice came to him as if from his own mind. Why am I not running? Rafe wondered to himself. But she continued. “Maybe that’s what she wants, maybe she wants you to run?” Miranda suggested. “Maybe she doesn't want to be the one to end it.” She sat swinging one foot; her curious eyes followed his restless moveme
nt.

  Rafe was fully conscious of her eyes on him. He stood straighter and clasped his hands behind his back. “I told you, mother, it’s not like that,” he snapped a bit rougher than he intended. That thought had never entered his mind. She didn't act as if she wanted it to be over, she's always happy to see me when we meet. No, it has to be something else.

  “Don't think to raise your voice to me, young man. I'll not have it!” Her gray eyes snapping with icy fire, she hopped off the desk and stood her full five feet five inches.

  “I'm sorry, mother, it won’t happen again,” he said vaguely, his mind still rolling over this new thought.

  She dismissed it with a wave of one small hand. “What do you want to know about a woman’s body after giving birth?” She asked one inky brow lifted at him.

  “It's not important.” That night and all the weeks since, Rafe had gone over Nina’s sleek amber body with a fine toothed comb while she slept. He couldn’t find any proof that she had had even a single child, let alone three. Her body was impossibly perfect in every way, not a blemish marred it. But her records at the office did say she had three dependents.

  He was tired of trying to stay away from her, it was taking too much out of him. There was no denying it; he had to see her again. Maybe one day he would end this affair with her. No, not maybe. He would end it, he couldn’t take on some man’s children, he wasn’t even ready for his own let alone someone else’s. But he had a need to find out about these children. Knowing that she had loved some man enough to give him children, and dream of making a life with that man, was eating him alive.

  “Rafe,” Miranda’s quiet voice broke through his troubled thoughts.

  He flushed, “Yes?” he flashed her a quick smile.

  She had that slow smile on her face which told him she was watching him, and then her eyes narrowed. “What’s going on? I know that look, tell me.”