Beautiful White Lies Duet

by K L Clare

  It was an unusually warm evening, even though the sun had set hours before, but the cooling sea breeze balanced the heat. As we walked along the shoreline, he threw rocks and cursed. Finally, his thoughts spilled out and ended with a sharp command.

  “It would be easier for us both if you’d choose to go to England free of my coercion, but we’re running out of time. I’ve been placating you. It’s wrong for me to gamble with your life. You have forty-eight hours to get used to the idea. Then we go.”

  I pushed aside his edict without responding. I didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t need a reply, anyway. His words were a decree, not an attempt at conversation—not that he’d get away with that.

  We sat at the water’s edge; some moments we filled with small talk, some with silence. I leaned back on my elbows and lifted my face to the moon, where it hung in the deep-blue sky, surrounded by twinkling stars. The tide swept over my legs.

  “You should roll up your pant legs.” I’d already convinced him to take off his shirt.

  Will’s sculpted body seduced my creativity on more than one level. His chest was a smooth canvas, beautifully flawed by two scars. The largest was five inches in length and slashed across the middle of his right pectoral muscle. The other was about three inches long, located at the top of his rib cage beneath the left pec.

  High on his right deltoid he was inked with an artful masterpiece, though it was void of color. A shield was detailed with vining roses, a heraldic lion, and the Latin word defensor. Defender.

  I slid my gaze to his face and found him watching me. He stared with hunger, his pupils blown. “Even warriors have to play now and then, right?” I leaned forward, slipped my hand into the water, and splashed him.

  “Keep it up, woman, and this one will show you how we play. I’m not sure you’ll like it.” He winked and flashed a grin. It was the first time he’d stowed his commanding tough guy and allowed me to see how lighthearted and charming he could be.

  I splashed him again.

  He rolled up his jeans as I splashed him once more, but instead of extending his legs to the water and retaliating with a splash, he stood and pulled me up with him. That wide grin returned to his face, and he maintained a firm grip on my arms as his eyes moved over the water.

  “You wouldn’t!” I pulled back, laughing, but he held on firmly. I shrieked as he swept me off my feet and stepped into the sea.

  He kept walking, grinning. “I would.” His cuffed jeans were wet to his knees.

  “Will,” I shouted through my laughter, hammering on his chest with my fist.

  He put me down in water that reached the hem of my shorts. I stepped back and, with a bit of luck, found a shallow spot where I kicked water up at him. Lunging, he tossed me over his shoulder and stepped into rolling waves.

  “Okay, okay, you win! Go back!”

  He carried me in closer to the beach and allowed me to slide down the front of his hard body. “I always win, Elle. Always.” His hands never left my waist.

  “We’ll see.” Tumbling waves struck my knees. He watched as I dragged my fingers over the scars on his chest and upward to his shoulders and the shield. I couldn’t stop touching him, caressing the length of his neck. “Kiss me, Will.”

  My defender leaned in and erased the distance between us. The hunger was there, burning in his eyes. He wanted that kiss as much as I did. But he only shook his head. “You’re too exposed out here. I need to be more focused.” His breath brushed my lips.

  “Then kiss me inside.”

  He shook his head again and pulled me out of the water. Will had found ways to touch me, to put his arms around me, to feel my skin. And he’d also found ways to validate each touch—keeping me together when I crumbled was part of the job. But when he stretched that as far as he could, he pulled back and punished us both. He denied his desire for me, though we both felt its constant pull.

  I was ready to push him. “Why won’t you touch me?”

  He stilled, his mouth opening but no words forming.

  “Kiss me. Save all of me.”

  Glints of moonlight played in his eyes as he stared into me. “You mistake me for one of those good guys you belong with. I’m not that. Not principled nor heroic. I destroy things, destroy people. I take what I want and don’t care who objects or who is ruined in the process.”

  He takes what he wants. He doesn’t want me. The unspoken words messed with my head. I knew they were wrong but couldn’t make them stop. I let my eyes drop to the sand, and tightened my arms around my middle.

  “Look at me, Elle.” He grabbed my chin and forced my face to his. “Look at me.”

  I did.

  “Ask me if I’ve taken lives. Ask me if I’ll kill again. How many lives do you think I’ve ruined in my business dealings? Ask me.”

  “I won’t ask. I don’t care,” I said in defiance.

  He still held my chin. “Don’t you? You should.” His fiery eyes burned deeper into mine.

  “I don’t.”

  “You’re so stubborn.”

  “So.”

  His lips were parted as he fixated on mine. “I hurt people, Elle. But I will never hurt you. Not you—not ever.” He ran his thumb over my bottom lip.

  “Keeping me alive and well is your sworn duty.”

  “It is.”

  I pushed his hand away. He’d taken something from me, and I planned to take it back. “As you’ve said, we’re bound in a way that can’t be undone, not until one of us is dead. So what difference does the rest of it make? But if you see me as an obligation, not someone you want—if I’m undesirable to you, then it makes sense for you to keep your distance. Because, after all, you take what you want.”

  “What? You don’t know what you’re saying.” Will raked a hand through his hair. “You’re the only one I’ve ever desired.” He cursed and paced on the sand in a wide circle around me, calming himself. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  It would have been easier to walk away and let him win. Easier to guard my heart against the danger of more wreckage. The problem was, my heart was already in too deep—it wanted to know him. I needed to know him. I stepped closer.

  Will retreated and I stepped close again. When he recognized my resolve, he stopped moving and let me place my hands flat against his chiseled abs. He glared at me, his eyes mirroring my own determination.

  “Tell me, Will. How will you hurt me?” I lowered my chin and met his stare from beneath my lashes.

  His eyes narrowed further. “What are you doing?”

  I shrugged. “You’ll hit me?”

  “Never.” He clenched his teeth and flexed the muscles along his jaw.

  “How, then, how will you hurt me?”

  “Stop this.”

  “I’m not finished. What about—”

  “You deserve better than what I am,” he snapped.

  There it was. The choice he’d taken from me. My decisions were mine. All of them. I’d never allow anyone to take that away from me.

  “But do you want me?”

  “I think you know the answer to that.”

  I pressed myself against his rigid body. I stroked the back of his neck and played with the ends of his hair. His body responded, his eyes burning and his arousal straining between us. Although his arms remained at his sides, his hands were no longer balled into fists. He’d lowered his head during my attempted interrogation. His mouth was close to mine.

  “Elle. Pushing me this way is reckless.”

  His rumbling voice, the gravel, it made me ache. I wanted to kiss him—wanted his hands on me—and I longed to touch his face, but I did nothing.

  Instead, I reproached him in a soft manner, my lips near his. “Reckless or not, here’s the thing. I decide the level of emotional risk I’m willing to assume. You manage the physical risk . . . for now. I’ve accepted that. Everything else is still mine.”

  I launched off his chest with both hands and walked away. “I decide what I deserve,” I shouted
over my shoulder, heading down the beach.

  “That’s far enough, goddammit,” he shouted back.

  I turned around, and as I continued walking backward, I flipped him off. I had the urge to run as I spun back in the other direction. I wanted to sprint away from him, from the responsibility of caring for Lissie, from my whole lonely, screwed-up life. So I did run. I raced along the beach, not caring if someone was waiting at the other end to kill me. I ran and freed myself from it all, if only for a few moments.

  I never looked back. I just ran.

  Will grabbed me from behind and lifted me mid-stride. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Let go of me!” I twisted and kicked at air.

  “Give me your word you’ll not run away from me again.”

  “Go to hell.”

  Without warning, he tossed me over his shoulder and headed back to the cottage. One arm restrained both of my legs over my thighs, and he used his other hand to gather and hold my wrists behind his neck. “Christ, Elle. You have an awful temper.”

  I called him names and demanded he let me go, but he ignored my insults and walked until we reached the cottage. I pounded on his back when he let go of my wrists to open the kitchen door.

  “Stop this or I’ll smack your arse,” he threatened.

  “You said you wouldn’t hit me.”

  “I won’t, not that way, but I will smack your arse if you don’t quit this tantrum.”

  I pushed harder. “Fuck you, Will.”

  He set me on my feet with a furious jolt and backed me against the wall. His body was cemented to mine—he was aroused again—and he held my wrists to his chest. His charged eyes rested on my mouth. “I’m beginning to think that’s exactly what you need—a good, hard fucking. One you’ll never forget.”

  “Let’s go,” I challenged. I chewed on my bottom lip and matched him stare for stare.

  Ben came into the kitchen but reversed his direction as soon as he realized what was going on. He didn’t say anything, but the raised brow and snicker said enough. He’d heard everything.

  That was all Will needed to remind himself that a good, hard fucking was exactly what he wouldn’t give me. “Go to your room.” He released my wrists and stepped back. “Do not leave this cottage.”

  He strutted down the hallway and returned to his stack of newspapers, confident I would do as he’d commanded.

  9

  I pounded the side of my fist on the doorframe after recalling a conversation I’d had earlier that day with Will. He’d taken another hard-line position—we’d have to skip the funeral. Not only had the Order taken our family from Lissie and me, but they also had stolen our opportunity to say goodbye. They would be there, lurking in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity to get to me.

  I imagined Reverend Archer’s prayer as he committed the bodies of my grandmother and my sister to the earth for rest and their souls to our Father in heaven. The vision failed to soothe me.

  No one was positioned on guard outside my bedroom doors, and I needed a connection, craved Will’s comforting presence, so I headed to the kitchen. No one was there either.

  The intensity of the full moon tugged at me through the window, and the energy of the riotous sea called out.

  I left through the kitchen door and made my way down the uneven path to the beach, seeking freedom from the endless clutter in my mind. My tired legs carried me knee-deep into the sea, where my lungs finally filled with ease again. Brisk water struck my thighs. “Just a few minutes to clear my head,” I said to the sea. “He’ll come quickly and haul me inside, anyway—no doubt he’s already headed this way.”

  I closed my eyes and inhaled, taking a deep breath through my nose, refocusing on the sea. I extended the length of my arms backward and pulled in another vigorous breath.

  His thick arm squeezed my neck, preventing my exhale, and his crude whisper told me not to move. Cold steel replaced his arm at my neck.

  My body and mind failed me. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think.

  An assassin was behind me, pressing a large knife into my throat. He slogged through the climbing waves, dragging me into deeper water. His blade’s sharp edge chilled the skin where it demanded the attention of my throbbing carotid artery.

  Blood pulsed violently through my veins. Pain twisted inside my chest.

  “You’ll die tonight, and this will be done at last.” He filled his other hand with my hair. “I don’t even have to spill your blood out here in this mad sea.” His accent was thick and inarticulate. I couldn’t place it.

  I still held my breath. Both lungs burned, pleading with me to use them. I released the breath I’d held hostage, and my choking gasps were followed by a loud, exhaled cry.

  “Shut your fucking mouth. No noise.” He yanked hard on my hair.

  My blurred vision improved as oxygen reached my blood once again. I heard the respiration of my own lungs and the thumping of my heart inside my head. It grew louder. I could no longer hear the crash of waves.

  It was my turn. I would follow my sister in death.

  The executioner moved another step into the sea. “You made this too easy, standing out here alone while my men are distracting yours. What a stupid girl you are.”

  When he drew me another step into the sea, I stumbled on a slimy rock and lost my balance. Another wall of waves rolled in as I fell forward and sank into the water. The force pulled me under, yanked me from his grasp, and dragged me several feet away from him, closer to shore.

  He lumbered through the waves and jerked me upright by my hair. I gulped air and vomited seawater. The brine burned my sinuses as I choked on both.

  “Ready for more? Take one last look at land. You’ll never see it again.” He turned us toward the beach and wrenched my head up. But then he stopped with a sudden lurch and put the blade to my throat once more.

  I gasped with such brutal force that salt blistered my lungs.

  My defender stood before us.

  Clouds withdrew over the horizon, allowing me to see Will clearly in the light cast by the moon. His posture was tall and erect, while his stance was wide. His fists were balled into lethal weapons. The muscles in his jaw were clenched, and his chin jutted. Veins bulged and throbbed in his neck and arms. His eyes flashed with fury and the promise of death. He was a dangerous storm in his own right.

  “Focus on me, Elle,” he thundered above all other sound. “Look at me. Only me.”

  As I locked into his fiery stare, terror fled from my soul, and those raging flashes of emotion in his eyes pacified me. Maybe I was sick for feeling that way—maybe my mind was broken. Either way, the blaze of his eyes was my salvation.

  Cloud cover rolled in again, and Will became a dark silhouette against a blanket of stratus haze. I felt the intensity of the assassin’s rising desperation as he considered Will’s hulking, shadowed form. I searched the darkness until I found Will’s eyes again. He nodded.

  Strength climbed from my quivering stomach. I elbowed the assassin twice in the abdomen.

  He grunted and grabbed his gut in reflex, losing his grip on the knife. It fell away from my throat and into the water. I dislodged my lower body from his. He still held the ends of my hair firmly in his other hand.

  “I can snap your neck just as easily, bitch,” he spat through his teeth, yanking my head back. Before he could secure my body against his again, a sharp pop and its echo rang through the night. Then another. The second bullet hit the assassin in one of his legs and caused him to jerk and contort.

  “Hold, goddammit,” Will shouted over his shoulder.

  The assassin steadied himself using my shoulders, shielding his body with mine.

  I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t draw breath or release it.

  Terror reclaimed me.

  He was strangling me.

  Will charged, his eyes burning with rage. A bellow tore from his throat. His powerful arms ripped me from my captor’s hold and thrust me toward the shore.

  Free
ing waves whisked me close to dry land. I forced my exhausted body up on all fours and clawed my way through sand, stones, and rotting seaweed onto the beach, where I collapsed. My lungs purged seawater and filled with air at the same time. I lay there gasping and choking, closer to death than I’d ever been, the side of my face pressed into wet sand.

  My mind let go, giving way to darkness.

  * * *

  I regained consciousness in Ben’s arms as he carried me into the cottage. He placed me on the sofa and wrapped my soaked body in blankets, keeping close. Too close. He scrutinized my actions as though he expected something from me. I trembled with cold and shock but had nothing else to give. My soul was numb.

  Male voices rumbled from the kitchen, snatching my brain from its fog.

  “Stay here, Ellie. Do not move,” Ben ordered as he jumped up and headed that way.

  “Where is she?” Will snarled.

  “Calm down and think. You’ll scare her. You’re covered in—”

  I kicked the blankets to the floor and staggered in the direction of his voice. Ben and John barricaded the doorway with their bodies. Were they protecting me from Will? He would never hurt me, and I needed to see that he was safe. I pushed at their backs, but they were solid.

  “Please . . . let me through,” I rasped, my throat burning with pain.

  In the small gap between their bodies, I saw Will look down at himself. His soaked shirt was stained with blood. He pulled it over his head and wrapped it around his mangled fist. “I won’t say it more than once. You will not touch her, and you’ll move out of her way as she’s asked you to do.” His tone was calm, but he was primed for attack if he didn’t get what he wanted.

  Ben and John stepped aside, and I exploded forward, racing to Will. He caught me and lifted me into his arms. His warm lips rested on my temple as he held me tightly against his bare chest. My heart raced. It was in that moment I realized how far gone I was—I’d fallen hard for the dangerous man who’d just killed another to save my life.