Necessary Cruelty: A Dark Enemies-to-Lovers Bully Romance (Lords of Deception Book 1)

by Ashley Gee

  But it isn’t pain that makes my heart race and robs me of breath.

  It feels like hope.

  And maybe even a little bit of love, because sometimes I see in him the boy I used to know.

  There was a time when we didn’t hate each other. When I was his only friend, the only one who ever saw him at his weakest. He let me past the hardened shell that is all the rest of the world gets to see, so I know somewhere in there is a beating human heart.

  I wish I didn’t remember, but I do.

  Ten Years Ago

  I liked the outside of Cortland Manor much better than the inside.

  The moment we pulled up to the driveway, I sucked in a huge breath. I wouldn’t let it out until I had hurried through the massive foyer, past the kitchen, and out the French doors that lead into the gardens.

  I wouldn’t breathe until I was back outside again.

  Vin hadn’t been in the wheelchair for very long, and there were good days when he was able to walk. He really wanted to make sure I knew that.

  Mama said he had been able to walk when she first started working at the manor, but she didn’t know exactly what was wrong with him. Something to do with a weak heart, maybe. She got annoyed if I asked too many questions and would change the subject.

  I used to wonder if it was the house itself that made him sick. The air inside the manor was so cold that it burned my lungs if I inhaled. It felt like poison. Even then, I knew something about that couldn’t be right.

  But it wasn’t the air I should have worried about.

  At some point, instead of already waiting outside at the garden table, the tea set and tray would be sitting on the edge of the counter in the kitchen, waiting for me carry it out.

  I held my breath as Mama explained it, fidgeting from one foot to the other while my lungs burned. I had managed to convince myself that something terrible would happen if I took even a single breath inside of the manor. What started as a child’s game had morphed into a true phobia.

  “There is medicine for him in this cup, so make sure that one goes to Vin.”

  Vin never drank or ate anything in the garden, until I started bringing out the tea. That first day, he warily eyed the cups as I set them on the table. But when I sat down and took my first sip, so did he.

  “It’s bitter,” he complained. Then dipped the frosted cookie in the tea to sweeten it.

  Mine didn’t have a bitter aftertaste, but I assumed that had to be the medicine Mama mentioned.

  For weeks that summer, every day it was the same.

  Eventually, she no longer had to remind me. Rushing into the kitchen, I would scoop up the tray and carry it outside, exhaling a desperate rush of air the moment I passed through the French doors.

  The black cup was for him and the white one for me.

  One day, things were different. When I raced for the kitchen, the tray wasn’t on the counter waiting for me like it should have been. Mama grabbed the back of my shirt and held me back when I tried to run outside without it.

  She made me wait while she made up the tea. I fought so hard not to breathe, chest burning as I silently begged her to hurry. It would have cost too much of the little air I had left to speak. It seemed like it took so much longer than it should to pour hot water into the delicate ceramic pot and drop little bags of tea into each cup.

  I wouldn’t remember until later how odd it was that Vin’s medicine was in an unlabeled bottle kept under the sink. Mama seemed to hesitate before pouring a generous amount of it into the black cup without bothering to measure. Then she adjusted the cups on the tray once. Then twice. Then again.

  I wanted to scream at her to hurry up, but all I could focus on was how badly I needed to breathe.

  It took too long for her to finish preparing the tray. I didn’t have any choice but to inhale a lungful of frigid air that did nothing to relieve the burning in my lungs. My hands shook when Mama finally gestured at me to take the tray outside.

  I should have known then that something terrible was about to happen.

  Vin smiled as I approached with the tray. I couldn’t have known it, but it was the last smile I would see on his face for a very long time.

  In hindsight, I wish I had appreciated it more.

  Instead, I rambled about how annoying Mama was being, barely giving him a chance to respond. I didn’t have anyone else in my life to complain to. Zion was more interested in hanging out with the neighborhood than spending time with his sister and Grandpa rambled more than I ever could, so there was no getting in any words edgewise.

  Vin said something nice and took a gulp of his tea.

  Then his face changed, eyes widening like he just saw something that scared the hell out of him.

  Then he collapsed onto the table, knocking aside the plate of tiny cookies.

  I laughed, thinking he was messing with me. Then I said his name a few times, each one more strident than the last. His face was the color of skim milk, pale and faintly bluish.

  When I screamed for Mama, she didn’t come.

  The Cortlands were away, a day trip out of town. Vin had been left with a Ukrainian nanny who barely spoke any English and didn’t even seem to realize I was in the house with him. Instead of calling an ambulance, she panicked and bundled us both into her own car. I was too small for the front seat, barely able to see over the dash, but Vin was sprawled across the backseat.

  He wasn’t breathing by the time we got to the hospital.

  Vin Cortland’s heart stopped beating for two and a half minutes.

  They eventually brought him back, but a lot of people would say that necessary organ never started back up again.

  The doctors said the damage was consistent with poisoning. That was how I first learned that the beautiful oleanders lining the pathways of Cortland Manor’s gardens are toxic. Perfectly safe from afar, but the leaves secrete a poison. When consumed, enough of them can stop a grown man’s heart.

  They asked if I had ever seen Vin eat the flowers. Maybe we had played with it, like kid’s do when they scavenge the yard for ingredients to make mud pies. Pretend play that had turned unknowingly, and accidentally, dangerous.

  I didn’t answer the question. I didn’t answer any of their questions. At first, I was too shocked to do anything but stare up at the intimidating men in their white coats looming over me, insistent and impatient.

  My throat squeezed shut, and all I could manage was a whimper.

  They ran tests on me too, just to be sure, but I was healthy as a horse.

  Later, when I finally found the words to speak, no one bothered to ask me any questions.

  The nanny drove me home and dropped me off without bothering to see me to the door. She had just been fired, so had better things than me to worry about.

  My mother was gone.

  She must have been in a hurry, but her belongings were packed up so thoroughly that it was hard to say she had ever lived there at all.

  A postcard arrived from her a few weeks later. Sorry written on it in big block letters, scribbled so hastily that it barely even looked like her handwriting.

  It would be years before I stepped foot in Cortland Manor again.

  Grandpa told me when Vin got out of the hospital because he’d heard from the butcher who delivered meat to the Bluffs. For years, I would wonder why she did it. Had it been some strange sort of accident? Or had she hoped to swoop in and save him to the relief of the Cortland family, but somehow miscalculated?

  I’ll never know.

  The next time I saw Vin Cortland was on our first day at Deception High. He was bigger than I remembered

  “Who did it?”

  He had snapped the question as a crowd gathered. They might not have known precisely what was going on, but recognized the start of a fight when they saw one.

  My throat froze in the same way it had with the doctors. So many years had passed. I almost had myself convinced that I had imagined most of it. Grandpa always said that Mama would come bac
k eventually. She had never been good at sticking with anything. Not her education, or relationships, or jobs. Why would motherhood be any different?

  But I knew the truth. She ran away from what she did.

  Vin looked at me like he wanted to grind me into dirt. And the longer I stayed silent, the more anger filled his eyes.

  His reputation from middle school preceded him. People already whispered about the rich boys from the Bluffs who did whatever they wanted and got away with it.

  The VICE Lords.

  And he was the worst of them.

  Vin’s lip had twisted in a sneer. “If you can’t tell me what I want to know, then maybe you shouldn’t speak at all.”

  But even when I opened my mouth to speak, no sound came out.

  She did it.

  She did it.

  She did it.

  I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t turn on my own mother even after what she did.

  Even after she left me.

  I had a few friends from middle school, the ones who hadn’t dropped out before we reached freshman year. But none of them were willing to stand with me, not with Vin Cortland on the other side.

  Maybe he meant it to be an idle threat at first, even a joke. But it didn’t matter. Words passed from Vin Cortland’s lips to the ears of pretty much everyone in town.

  Eventually, I got so used to the silence that I forgot how to exist with anything else.

  The truth might set you free, but guilt is a cage that has been welded into place. There isn’t a key in the world that might unlock it.

  I won’t ever be able to escape it.

  Twenty-Nine

  I scrub at my body with the excruciatingly hot water and rose-scented soap. Like I can wash away whatever part of Zaya feels like its stuck to my skin.

  It was fucking stupid of me to set all this shit up. I told the vineyard staff to make it nice, but I didn’t know that would mean covering literally everything in roses. I have no idea what stupid urge drove me to make things nice for her, but I need to get my shit together.

  We aren’t in love. This isn’t some tragic story about star-crossed lovers. We have a deal, and we just need to put up with each other until the deal is done.

  No more of this romance shit.

  I hear it when the door opens, but initially assume that the latch didn’t catch and a gust of wind blew against it. But when the shower curtain parts and a slim body slips in behind me, the last thing on my mind is the breeze.

  “What the fuck?”

  “I don’t want you to use all the hot water,” she says lightly. “My hair takes forever to wash.”

  Which does nothing to explain why she is shoving herself in behind me butt naked.

  “This place has dozens of rooms. They don’t run out of hot water.”

  She snaps the curtain shut. “Thanks for the bit of trivia. I clearly don’t know as much about luxury accommodations as you do.”

  Her tone is sarcastic, but teasing. Miles away from the moody anger I saw downstairs.

  I have no idea what to make of this.

  “I got here first.”

  She shrugs and reaches for a bottle of rose-scented shampoo. “I know you never learned to share in kindergarten like the rest of us, Cortland. But it’s never too late for a lesson in the basics.”

  If any other girl looked at me like this, opened up her hot mouth to smart off like this, I’d bend her over and smack her ass a few times. I can practically hear the wet slap of flesh because the water on her already heat-reddened skin will hurt that much more.

  I’ve got a lesson for her. It’s hard as a rock and about to be inside of her.

  For about a minute, I try to ignore her. I scrub my face and rinse it off in the water spray where I can’t see her naked body or hear anything aside from my own thoughts.

  I feel her eyes follow me like a burning on every inch of skin her gaze touches. It lingers on my chest and the flat plane of my abs before coasting down to my dick that is so hard it’s almost painful.

  When I lean back and swipe the water from my eyes, Zaya is still staring at my dick.

  I wonder if I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole in Wonderland, or maybe Earth had an alien invasion when I wasn’t paying attention and Zaya got body snatched. Those are literally the only explanations I can think of for this surreal situation.

  Especially when she turns, giving me an unfiltered view of her luscious ass and looks coquettishly over her shoulder. “Will you get my back?”

  No matter how much weight this girl loses, and she has already lost way too much, that ass never changes. Round. Soft. The perfect size to fit inside my hands if I want to pick her up, spread her legs, and force her down onto my cock.

  I force those thoughts away as I reach for the soap. When my hands glide over the sharp lines of her back, all I can think about is gripping that flesh in my hands as I sink inside of her.

  My shower gel coated hands skim over her back. Her smooth, dark skin feels even softer under the water than it does normally, glistening and flushed from the heat. Every time I look at her, I discover something new.

  Like the way that curls in her hair tighten and define before she has even stuck her head under the water, twisting like some living thing. I used to sit behind her in English class and would study the back of her head, trying to count how many different types of curl I could find there. Each one is entirely unique, like snowflakes. Beads of water catch on her eyelashes, making her look like some seductive water nymph emerging from the waves.

  Even if I spent the rest of my life studying every facet of her face, I’d probably never lose interest.

  It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her naked, especially in the light with no part of her hidden away. Yes, I’ve fucked her. Eaten her out. Held her down and dragged my dick across the soaked lips of her pussy through her panties, whispering filthy things into her ear, until we both came.

  But I’ve never just looked at her like this, especially without any timeline to stop doing it.

  We have hours here. Days, if we want them.

  Plenty of time for all the things I want to do to her.

  When her back is cleaner than any piece of skin should rightfully ever be, I lean forward to whisper in her ear. My murmur is barely loud enough to be heard over the rush of water from the showerhead.

  “You have about thirty seconds to get out of here before I fuck you up against the wall.”

  Her smile widens as she backs toward the spray of water. “It takes longer than that to rinse my hair out.”

  Before she can say anything else smart, I press my lips hard against hers.

  I can count on two fingers the number of times I’ve kissed a girl, unless you want to count pecking Emma on the forehead when she was a baby. Both times were about Zaya, because everything has always been about her, even when I refused to admit it.

  Once was to make her jealous.

  Twice was to make her mine.

  But I only kiss her now because I want to taste her again. Her scent suffuses my senses, warm cotton laid in the sun with just the lightest hint now of roses. If I had known kissing her would be like this, I might have started doing it sooner.

  Zaya melts against me. Her body fits against mine like a matching puzzle. My hand wraps around her slim waist to pull her closer to me. Everything about her is soft, yielding. I don’t sense any of the resistance that has characterized every other encounter we’ve ever had. Usually, I have to compel her responses, force her to accept what her body craves, even when her mind screams out protests.

  There is no hesitation here.

  My hands settle over her breasts, stroking and punching until her breaths come in desperate gasps. I force my tongue in her mouth, just as I twist one taut nipple between my fingers so I swallow her low moan.

  She breaks our kiss. “You did my back, let me do your front.”

  The diamond glitters on her finger underneath the spray of water. She keeps adjusting it back down sinc
e the ring ends up closer to her knuckle because it needs to be resized. I didn’t do that, because it seemed liked a step too far considering the temporary nature of all this, but now I’m rethinking that.

  I don’t have a choice but to release my hold on her as she sinks to her knees in front of me. The water spray hits me square on the chest, burning hot but still soothing compared to the fire raging inside of me. My hands push into the strands of her hair, curls slippery from the conditioner she hasn’t washed out. I pull a curl out with my fingers, watching it spring back when I let go.

  Her hair is momentarily fascinating.

  Until her slim fingers wrap around my dick and she sucks the tip of it into her mouth.

  It stands up so stiff that she doesn’t need to do anything to keep it straight, but that doesn’t stop her hand from running up and down the length of me. Her cheeks pucker from the effort she puts into sucking me off. My eyes roll back into my head with the effort it takes not to come down her throat after the first minute.

  Zaya could lick me like a lollipop, and it would still be the best blow job I’ve ever had. Because it’s her mouth. And her hands. It’s just her.

  She pulls back enough to lick her lips before sliding them slowly back over the sensitive head of my cock. Her hands work harder, both of them twisting down my shaft. My thighs twitch and I almost lose my balance. I have to hold on to the little towel bar on the wall to keep from falling to my knees and taking her down with me.

  As nice as it might be, I don’t want to come down her throat. Not this time, at least.

  I yank her to her feet, catching her when she slips on the soapy floor and stumbles against me. Kissing her hard again, just because I can, my hands grip her ass and mold her body against mine.

  Her leg lifts to balance on the shower ledge, grinding her herself against my upper thigh. The heat of the water is nothing compared to the furnace of her cunt against my skin.

  I think about how easy it would be to slip inside of her without any barriers between us. Later, I could blame the heat of the moment and manfully insist on dealing with any potential consequences.