Crown of Lies (Truth and Lies Duet #1)

by Pepper Winters

  I stood at the crossroads, staring at Greg and the future my father wanted—the one where I stood side by side with a man who knew Belle Elle the way I did and would help run the business—while a stranger held me and pressed his cock against my hip, blatantly claiming what wasn’t his to claim.

  One was a long-term choice. The other a short-term adventure.

  I’d had enough long-term commitments in my life. I wanted to be different. I wanted a rumor or two because that would mean I was interesting and not predictable.

  Greg made my decision ridiculously easy.

  He came forward and grabbed my other elbow, pulling me away from Penn. “Elle, I’m willing to overlook whatever you just did with this bastard. You’re drunk. I know I should never have given you that champagne. Let me take you home where you belong.”

  Home.

  I no longer wanted to be at home.

  I wanted to be lost and crazy and wild.

  I yanked my arm from his hold. “I’m sorry, Greg. But I should’ve told you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  Locking my eyes on Penn’s, I whispered, “Yes. My answer is yes.” A little louder, I added, “But it doesn’t mean I like you.”

  “Doesn’t mean I like you, either.” Penn smiled full of cream and sharpness and calmly wrapped his arm around my shoulders, tucking me close.

  Together, we faced Greg.

  I didn’t know what I expected Penn to do, but it was his turn to be in charge. I was in charge on a minute basis in every aspect of my world. If he wanted to share that control in a few areas, then fine...be my guest.

  “I must apologize, too.” Penn smiled coldly. “We weren’t ready to tell people, but I guess now is as good a time as any.”

  “Tell people what?” Greg’s eyes filled with panic, not at knowing he’d lost me but that he’d lost any chance at owning Belle Elle. His true colors revealed.

  Relief siphoned through me to be free of whatever takeover he’d planned. To finally see what I’d suspected all along—that I was right to be wary of him, smart to listen to the faint warning bells whenever he was around.

  “Tell them that Elle and I...we’re together.”

  I flinched a little as Penn kissed my cheek. Still uncomfortable and aroused and so confused I had no idea if this was what I wanted or not.

  Too late now.

  “Elle is mine. In fact, I’m taking her home right now. My home.” He pushed me forward, deliberately forcing Greg to the side so we could pass. “We’ll just say our goodbyes to the others.”

  Greg spluttered something I didn’t hear.

  I turned to Penn. “What do you mean the others?”

  “The reunion you’re here with.”

  How does he know that?

  It added to all the other questions I had about him. All the ponderings and wonderings and itchy uncertainties he invoked.

  Was it coincidence at Belle Elle or manipulation that he’d been there when I’d done my rounds?

  Was it luck he was here tonight or careful planning?

  Would answers to those questions change what I was about to do with him?

  That was one question I didn’t want an answer to.

  My heart raced, already out of breath with what I’d agreed to participate in. “Let’s just go. I’ll call them tomorrow with my apologies.”

  “Oh, silly girl.” He laughed. “The moment you said yes all your choices became void. This is my game now.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “YOU MUST BE Chloe.”

  “I am.” The girl who tormented me in high school simpered, tossing her red hair like a high-strung model. Her green dress complemented the tan she said she’d earned from the Caribbean last week. Her gaze sank into Penn as if he were some prize to be won. A prize she’d very much like to taste.

  Penn pulled me to his side, feathering his hand up and down my arm. Such a simple touch, but it bruised with claiming and domination.

  “I believe you know my partner, Elle.” The mastery of his voice and damning sentence locked my spine and made Chloe jolt.

  “Wait, partner?” She blinked. “I thought she was with Greg.” She glowered at the way Penn found subtle ways of touching me. Her eyes found mine, hot with jealousy.

  I’d never seen that grisly emotion on her face before. She believed I was beneath her to ever covert what I had.

  Not tonight, it seems.

  She sniffed. “You got two men now, Ding Dong Bell? A little greedy, don’t you think?” Her giggle was forced and fake.

  For a moment, I’d been proud to earn her cattiness. Penn was the type of man any woman could appreciate and desire with his crisp suit, unreadable eyes, and aloof handsomeness.

  But that damn nickname stole everything, hurtling me back to the school hallways as if I’d never left. I wanted to sink into the ground and never reappear.

  I waited for Penn to mock me, just as Greg had. I tensed for him to snicker and roll his eyes at my misfortune. But he stood cold and primitive, a velvet purr falling from his mouth. “That’s an unimaginative slur to call a friend, don’t you think?”

  Chloe fluffed her hair. “Oh, Elle knows it’s in affection. Don’t you, Bellie?”

  I didn’t respond.

  Penn did, though. “Unoriginal nicknames are a sign of low intelligence.” His snark cut through her tartness with an axe. “And in answer to your condescending question...Elle only has one partner. Me. And believe me, I’m all she’ll ever need.” His eyes smouldered with decadent chocolate. “I’ll make sure of that.”

  His caresses turned heavy with guarantee. He danced the line of appropriate and wicked, deliberately stepping over it to antagonize those I had no wish to antagonize.

  I wasn’t petty or prideful.

  I wanted to leave.

  I opened my mouth to reply, but Penn squeezed me, keeping me silent. His touch was a hot poker controlling me and making me wet in equal measure.

  The other girls from school slowly looked up from their conversations, paying attention to the tense standoff while trying to appear uninterested.

  They didn’t fool Penn or me as he smiled his signature sexy smirk and grabbed my chin. His lips planted on mine in a brutal kiss, marking me, consuming me as his tongue stole my arguments and his power pinched my remaining breath.

  He stupefied me.

  He bewitched me.

  The instant I released the tension in my spine, he let me go—as if he’d deliberately kissed me to keep me out of my head and in my body with him.

  “Are you going to tell them the good news, or shall I?” His authoritative tone blended with a dark flirt.

  I blinked. “Tell them what?”

  I was one step behind.

  I couldn’t catch up.

  I’d never been that way before. I’d always been the boss—always leading. I didn’t know if I liked being a follower.

  “Tell them you’ve decided to let me own you.”

  “Wait, what?” Chloe’s mouth hung open. “What does that mean?”

  I shook my head, rubbing the sudden goosebumps on my arms. Penn said we were playing a game. Yet I didn’t know the rules or what was expected. To verbalize it in such crude terms in front of the bitches from my past wasn’t appropriate.

  My forehead furrowed.

  He answered Chloe before I could. “We met a few days ago, and it was love at first sight.” He dragged me close. “It took some convincing but Elle has agreed to give me a chance.” He glanced at Chloe, filling his pretty face with ardent satisfaction. “She said yes.”

  “Yes to what?” Frankie appeared, eyeing Penn from his black shoes to his five o’clock shadow.

  “Yes to marrying me.”

  The world screeched to a halt.

  Wait...what?

  “No, I—” I flinched, trying to tear myself from Penn’s embrace.

  He held me tighter, his fingers sinking like keys into my arms, turning a lock, keeping me bound to him and useless.
r />   Chloe’s mouth hung wider. “Wow, Elle, I never knew—”

  “Never knew she was the sexiest woman alive?” Penn snarled with sudden viciousness. “Never knew she was one of the richest women alive? Never knew that she was ten times the fucking woman you’ll ever be?”

  I stood stunned.

  Why did he fight for me?

  This was too much. Too fast. Too scary. Too far out of my comfort zone.

  Yes to marrying him?

  I never agreed to that.

  I’d agreed to sex.

  Stupid, silly, sensual sex.

  And now, it’s time to say no.

  I tore myself from his embrace, my body shaking. “Stop. That’s not true. Don’t spread such lies.” I stared helplessly at Chloe whose face had turned snow white. “I’m so sorry. Ignore him. I don’t know what’s gotten into him. We’ve only just got together. We’re not engaged. He’s not—”

  “What my fiancée here is trying to say—” Penn interrupted. “Is she’s too kind-hearted to rub her success in your face even though you do the same to her. I don’t need to hear stories of what it was like to grow up with you. I see her, and I see you, and I understand the shadow you made her exist in. But not anymore.”

  His teeth flashed as he snarled. “I’m stealing her from you now. From all of you. She’s mine. And it’s a sad loss that you never figured out what an incredible creature you had under your noses the entire time.”

  Greg sidled up, hate stares fired at Penn. “You don’t know jack, dipshit. Elle and I were raised together. I know her a fuck load better than you ever will.”

  “You’re the blindest of them all.” Penn pointed at him. “I don’t care how long you’ve known each other. You fucked up.” He laughed low. “You’ll never get her back because she’ll never be the same once I’ve had her.”

  My cheeks turned into flames of hell. I ducked my chin, doing my best to hide. I wanted the club to vanish and Penn to disintegrate into dust.

  Words and curses tangled to spew at him, but he pulled me from the crowd, away from cringe-worthy declarations, away from high school trolls and wannabe boyfriends, and through the nightclub to the fresh air outside.

  I managed a few gulps of oxygen before he yanked me down the alley between the nightclub and a restaurant and slammed me against the brick wall.

  Quicksilver memories of another alley and another man tried to twist my present with my past. Garbled commands, ripped clothing, fists flying in the dark.

  Nameless shot bright into my thoughts.

  His black hoodie, his closed-off answers, his mind-melting kiss.

  And then history had no power as Penn’s lips crashed over mine and he replaced my remembered kiss with a savage one.

  He kissed me and then he kissed me.

  Each swipe of his tongue blasted through my decorum, dragging alive the sexual being who’d never been allowed to evolve.

  His right hand bunched my dress up my leg. My brain tried to split—to focus on the foot traffic only a few feet away and not on the blistering heat of his fingertips on my inner thigh.

  And then nothing else mattered as his touch found my core, pushing against my underwear.

  He didn’t ask permission.

  He didn’t pull back to see if I was okay with this.

  He merely kissed me and fingered me over the lace.

  All I wanted to do was to let go. To trust in the magic he created in my blood and allow him to be as arrogant as he wanted. To take charge.

  But I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t let him get away with what he’d said. His lies. His verbal bashing to people I had to converse with.

  He was far too brash and daredevil for my world.

  His mouth kept working mine, dragging a moan deep from my lungs.

  I had a second before I drowned under his powerful wave and lost myself. A second and then I would be gone, and I couldn’t blame anyone but myself.

  So I bit him.

  My teeth sank into his lip, not holding back as I did the only thing I could to slow things down and breathe.

  He stumbled backward, holding his bottom lip where a bead of blood welled. “Fuck.”

  My ribcage rose and fell. I sucked in gasps, giving in to the slight hysteria he’d caused. I held up a shaky finger. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Touch you? Fuck, I own you.”

  My braid caught like Velcro on the bricks behind me as I shook my head. “No. You don’t.”

  His eyes etched with black. “You said yes, remember?”

  “Yes to a beneficial sexual relationship. Not to damn marriage!”

  “That’s what’s got you afraid? Marriage?” He chuckled “I have no intention of marrying you.”

  I frowned. “Then why lie about it?”

  “Why not?” He shrugged. “Why do other people have to know exactly what we do and who we are? Why do they have to hear our truth when they’re so fucking fake themselves?”

  I hated that he had a point.

  He placed a hand on the brick wall by my head, his body swaying into mine. If he touched me again, I doubted I’d have the willpower to stop him for a second time. My clit still throbbed from his touch, the echoing bands of release a phantom cry in my veins.

  “Stay back.”

  He lowered his head, a tight smile on his lips. “Fine.” Holding his hands up in surrender, he kept his distance but didn’t move away. “What will it take for you to let me touch you again?” His voice dropped to sand and sleet. “Because I really want to touch you again.”

  I shivered, doing my best to keep my thoughts focused and not on the molten heat inside. Having him so close didn’t help. He’d been gorgeous in the club—dappled in strobes and painted in shadows—but out here; out here where the vague lights of apartments and streetlights didn’t dare enter the sanctity of the alley, he was camouflaged in darkness.

  His shoulders strained against the stitches of his suit. His forearms ropey and tanned with his cuffs pushed up. His entire body flexed as he waved a hand with feline grace, hiding the throbbing tension between us, pretending he hadn’t just fired my libido to the point of excruciation.

  “I’m not answering any more of your questions,” I hissed. “Who the hell are you? What do you want from me?”

  Sighing heavily, his lips pouted, blood smeared a little to make him seem part vampire. “You already know what I want.”

  “But who are you?”

  “I’m someone you can be free with.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means you don’t need to be afraid of me.”

  I clasped my hands together, seeking comfort from myself. Fighting with a strange man—even one who’d touched and kissed me—in a deserted alley wasn’t exactly encouraged. Once again, Nameless came to mind and I couldn’t stop comparing the two men.

  Nameless had been the hero.

  Penn was the anti-Christ.

  One saving, one damning.

  I knew which one I preferred.

  I stood firm in my heels, locking my limbs from betraying my lie. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  He cocked his head. “Are you sure about that?”

  “I’m not sure about anything anymore.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, disrupting the strands into a mess. “Isn’t that the point?”

  “Stop answering everything with a question.”

  “Fine.” He stood tall, his legs spread with dominion. “You said yes to me. I won’t let you take that back. But I will try to ease your mind.” His face tightened as if this game had higher stakes for him than he let on. “I’ll only say this once, so listen carefully. I will lie to others about us. I will paint a picture that isn’t true. I will curse and hurt and do whatever I damn well want, but you have my word on one thing.”

  My voice carried on a hesitant whisper. “What word?”

  “That I won’t lie to you. What you see from me will be the honest fucking truth. I’ll only hurt
you if you want me to hurt you, and I’ll protect you even while I do it. Give me yourself, let me take control, and I promise you, you’ll enjoy it.”

  My heart only heard the word hurt and envisioned images of him abusing me. “Why would I enjoy you hurting me?”

  “The answer to that question will come later. It’s a matter of showing not telling.”

  I paused, sucking in another breath. My world had vanished, and I had no way of returning. Once again I stood at a fork, hidden in a dirty alley. Unlike last time, where I’d had to beg Nameless to help me, Penn had to do all the convincing.

  He shifted in the darkness, dragging my attention back to his height, body, and undeniable command. “Tell me your objections.”

  “My objections?”

  “Your objections to letting me fuck you.”

  My mouth watered but I didn’t swallow. I wouldn’t show any signs of weakness. “I have too many to list.”

  “Try me.” He crossed his arms.

  My eyes wanted to drop to the ground. My fingers wanted to stroke my dress with nerves.

  I did neither of those things. I treated him as I would any bossy manager, negotiating our terms for a successful business deal. “I find you arrogant and rude.”

  Which makes me wet.

  My nose turned up. “I don’t like liars, and I don’t like men who think they can use me.”

  Even though I’m contemplating giving my virginity to you.

  He rubbed his jaw, his gaze dragging over me as if he could hear my silent answers and focused only on those. “I’m arrogant because I’ve earned my success the hard way. I’m rude because I have no time for idiots.” Stepping forward, he hovered over me, pressing me against the wall with sheer will. “You already know I won’t lie to you.”

  His head crept over my personal boundary, his nose nuzzling my ear. “And I promise you, I’ll use you. I’ll use you every morning and night. I’ll use you on your knees. I’ll use you strapped to my bed. But with every use, you’ll beg for another. You’ll beg me, Elle.” He bit my earring, tugging it until a sharp bolt of pain appeared. “That’s what you should be afraid of. Nothing else.”