by Lily White
She blinks, a slow drop of her eyelids as her cheek nestles against the palm of my hand. When her eyes open again, golden lashes sweep up to reveal eyes the color of the Caribbean Sea.
“My opponent.”
Damn it…that’s not what you’re supposed to say.
“We hated each other,” I remind her.
A small shake of her head.
“No. We challenged each other. And each time one of us stepped up to accept the challenge, our colors became brighter. Richer. We’re bold when we have something that makes us feel alive, but muted when life becomes-“
“Boring,” I answer for her.
Ivy nods as if the ceasefire between us will last. Only I understand the truth that the long game is still being played, even if I’m tired of playing it, even if nobody knows I’ve always had every intention of winning it.
Did you believe me?
Think I changed?
Even after you were warned?
That’s very noble of you.
It’s a shame I’ll have to break your heart.
My mouth stretches into the smile I’m known for, wearing the mask nobody looks past when I’m cracking jokes and playing the friend who everyone can trust.
What most don’t understand is that my past is a disease for which there is no cure and a poison that has no antidote.
Time has only improved the mask, making it so that even Ivy can’t see past it.
With another sweep of my thumb against her jaw, I let my gaze dance with hers.
The game continues...just like always.
“Let’s go inside. We have a lot to discuss.”
Her eyes sparkle. “Like what?”
I tap my thumb against her chin.
“Like how you’ll pay me back for what you did to my house.”
Ivy laughs, the sound filling the car as I let myself out and round the front to open her door.
She has become so accustomed to my polite manners that she doesn’t budge until I’ve offered my hand to help her out. She expects the gentleman, so that’s what I always give her.
Pulling Ivy to her feet, I refuse to release her from my stare. The door quietly shuts before I press her body against the car and dip my head to brush my lips over her mouth.
She trembles and runs her hands up my shoulders. “What are you taking as payment?”
It’s such an openly sexual question disguised as innocence. My teeth bite her bottom lip, my eyes flicking open to trap hers. She allows it. Doesn’t move. Refuses to pull away.
Releasing it, I lick my tongue over the sting, sliding it into her mouth as my fingers fist into her hair to tug her closer. She moans as my knee pushes between her legs, my thigh shoved up until she’s on tiptoes, her pussy grinding against it.
I grip her hip, fingertips pressing bruises into the sensitive flesh. Dragging my mouth to her ear, my voice is a smooth whisper, my muscles tight with restraint.
“Is this how you plan to pay me?”
She grins against my cheek, but another moan escapes her lips when my fingers squeeze her hip tighter and force her to grind harder against my thigh.
And fuck if this woman isn’t going to destroy me eventually. Every noise she makes sets my heart beating faster, makes my cock hard with the need to thrust inside the wet heat of her body.
Flicking the soft lobe of her ear with my tongue, I trap it between my teeth, the pressure a warning. It only makes her shiver again, soft whimpers crawling up her throat.
“Those sounds are mine. Every one of them. I’ve owned you since the day we met.”
She doesn’t argue, instead she arches her back so her tits press against my chest, her body writhing.
After sweeping my tongue over my bottom lip, I kiss her one more time before stepping back, my gaze locking to hers to see pure heat behind the liquid blue.
“Let’s go inside,” I say, taking her hand to pull her along beside me.
Ivy has to take three steps for my one. She’s practically jogging because I refuse to slow down.
Once inside, Ivy attempts to turn right into the living room, but I pull her back and direct her up the stairs.
“Where are we going?” she laughs, the sound husky and breathless.
“Where do you think?”
I slap her butt and grin. “Get that fine ass upstairs, and stop asking stupid questions.”
Watching her body move as she runs up ahead of me, I catch her by the waist when she attempts to turn in the direction of my bedroom.
Ivy squeals when I pick her up to carry her in the direction of the guest bedrooms, my hand slamming against the door of the smaller room to shove it open.
As soon as I step in, I lower her feet to the ground and spin her to face me, my hand catching her jaw and forcing her mouth open as I lean down to kiss her again.
Her knees weaken, and I wrap my arm around her body to hold her up, my steps slow and steady, directing her against a wall.
Everything inside me is screaming for me to lift the skirt of her dress and take her right now, but that’s not how this game is being played.
Gripping both her wrists, I lift them above her head, pinning them to the wall with one hand.
She pulls away from the kiss, her breath beating hot against my lips.
“Is this the payment?”
I smile, wondering how she doesn’t see that it’s Fraud staring down at her.
The instant metal clicks, one cuff and then two, Ivy’s eyes round, her head tilting up to see I’ve trapped her in place.
My mouth presses to her ear. “This is the beginning of it.”
Laughing as I step away, I wait for her to realize what I’m doing. It doesn’t take long, her arms shaking the thin chains, her eyes rounding more.
“What are you doing?”
“Playing the game,” I answer smoothly. My head tilts just slightly. “Or did you think I was done?”
Anger rushes in to replace the sensual heat in her eyes. “You’re joking.”
“We’ll see,” I answer as I spin on my heel to leave the room.
“Where are you going?” she demands.
“To make a phone call, love. Hang tight, and I’ll be back eventually.”
“What the hell? You can’t leave me like this.”
The chains slap against the wall to emphasize her words. I had them installed during the two days I waited to go fetch her from the cabin. It amuses me she thought the game I’d set up began and ended with running her through the woods.
Stepping through the door, I turn and stare back at her in the room. Her cheeks are pink with anger, her body stretched taut.
With her arms above her head, the hem of her skirt sits just beneath her pussy. My eyes graze down her exposed thighs, my cock twitching with the need to push her skirt higher to explore.
But that’s for later.
“It looks like I am leaving you like that. But don’t worry. I’ll be back. Plus, this is just another challenge. According to you, that makes you bold. I’m only doing you a favor.”
Flashing her a smile and a wink, I slip my hands in my pockets and walk down the hall, chuckling as her voice tears through the house.
“Damn it, Gabriel. You son of a bitch! I’ll pay you back for this.”
“It’s going to be kind of hard when you’re shackled,” I call out in answer.
She growls just as I turn to run downstairs, confident that a woman who is not to be trusted is contained for now. But she’ll be all sorts of pissed when I get back to her.
I’m looking forward to it.
Hanging a right as soon as my feet hit the first floor, I cross the foyer into my home office, shut the door behind me to ensure Ivy’s screamed threats don’t disturb me and drop my weight into my chair to lift my feet to the desk.
Facing the monitor on the wall, I clench my teeth and take a steadying breath before dialing a number that will bring Warbucks up on screen. The video feed comes to life when he answers.
My
mood sours as soon as I see his face. As usual, his complexion is ruddy, his chin sagging from years living in excess.
Warbucks is missing the jacket and tie he was wearing at my office, his shirt undone at the top. Behind him a gas fire rolls over fake logs, the gentle ambiance bullshit.
“It’s about time, Gabriel. I was beginning to think you’re intentionally avoiding me.”
He pulls a cigar from a small humidor on the table beside him, clips the tip and lights up, smoke rolling over the screen that obscures his face.
My mask is firmly in place as I lean back in my chair and grin at him.
“It’s like I said: I’ve been busy.”
“So I’ve read,” he barks, barely able to hide the anger of not being kept in the loop. “Tell me what you’re doing about getting me the information I need.”
Thankfully, Ivy was right when she believed she’d set me up for this conversation. I use it to my advantage.
“Ivy is in love,” I answer, my fingers tapping against the armrest of my chair, “and while she’s busy planning a wedding that will never happen, I’m taking what I need.”
He cocks a brow at that, and I groan to realize I inherited the expression from him.
But the lies I developed all by myself.
“I’m not surprised. You were always intended to marry her. At least until her father stepped into politics and decided to hide the fact he’s just as dirty as us.”
Ripping my feet down from the desk, I sit straight, my chair creaking with the sudden movement.
“What does that mean?”
Warbucks takes a few puffs of his cigar before tapping the end to dump the few ashes into a crystal dish beside him.
“Just what I said,” he answers, his voice gritty.
Again I silently pray for that sound to indicate throat cancer, but I think this bastard would somehow survive even that.
His green eyes meet mine.
“Thomas Callahan and I made the arrangement the same day you shoved that dumb bitch to the ground when you were kids. Not that it matters now. He called it off to appear polished despite being dirty.”
I was supposed to marry Ivy? The thought doesn’t make sense. Warbucks is the most powerful man in town. He didn’t need to tie his son to another family like Emily’s parents did.
All I want to do is press further about the issue, but think better of it. Relaxing against my seat, I stare at him instead.
“Yeah, well, I’m thankful he did it. Ivy isn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the pack.”
“No woman is,” Warbucks grumbles.
Except, Ivy actually is one of the smartest people I’ve known. She easily matches Tanner and me, and she’s kept me on my toes for a lifetime.
Even if she is still caught in the trap I’d set around her years ago.
“What information do you want? I have access to her father’s files and can obtain whatever you need. I’m not sure how much longer that access will last if her father hates us as much as you claim he does.”
Another puff of smoke blows over his lips.
“Forget what I asked for at the beginning of this. Things have changed since then because Tanner royally fucked up with Luca Bailey. But then again, we always knew he would eventually buckle, and everything would be handed to you. Unlike Tanner, you know how to follow orders.”
It takes effort to restrain my smile. These fat fucks have no idea.
Fraud is on full display, when I cross an ankle over a knee and steeple my fingers at my chin.
“Of course. I warned him against what he did. As usual, he didn’t listen.”
Warbucks flicks another ash.
“Get me everything you can find on Jerry Thornton. He recently disappeared from view, and we have a suspicion why.”
They’re still after the servers, I realize, which means we’re right to want them as well.
Curious, I lie like I have no idea and ask, “Who is Jerry Thornton? What relationship does he have with Governor Callahan?”
Green eyes pin me in place.
“That’s not important. What’s important is you get me everything you can find. Make it happen, Gabriel. Time is running out on this bullshit.”
It’s the second time our fathers have mentioned a specific timeline. William Cross warned Tanner when he said tick tock and now Warbucks has hinted to it as well.
“Why is time running out?” I ask, but the video feed ends to leave me sitting with my marching orders like the good son who does as he’s told.
My jaw grinds at the thought of it, my fingers tapping again when I realize I still need Ivy to get information out of her father.
Unfortunately, she’s only agreed to ask her dad what he knows. But beyond that she won’t give us anything else. She’ll refuse to do anything that might hurt her father.
The game has to change again, apparently, and with time running out - whatever the hell that means - I have to be willing to play it as dirty as fucking possible.
The ceasefire might be ending sooner than Ivy knows.
I run my hands through my hair hating what I know I have to do. Hating that no matter how Gabriel feels about her, Fraud has to step in to finish this.
With that thought in mind, I push to my feet and walk from my office to go check on the little prisoner.
Ivy
Gabriel is a dead man.
Oh, sure, he walked off smiling and laughing about what he’d done. And I’m sure he’s confident in his thinking that he’s winning this war I didn’t realize he’s still playing.
But I know it now, and I’m willing to play just as much.
Apparently, it’s true that when you think of the devil, he appears, Fraud gliding through the door with his smooth peacock strut as my eyes lift to stare at him.
His hands are tucked causally in his pockets as he leans back against the wall opposite me, his emerald green gaze sliding down my body and back up again because he likes what he sees.
“You look good like that. Although I’m sure it would be a prettier picture without any clothes on.”
His heated stare lifts to mine.
“I surrender,” I lie.
He laughs. “And I believe that about as much as I do that you weren’t the person who burned down the memorial pavilion your father had just finished dedicating to the city that afternoon.”
Stilling at what he said, my thoughts race back to the mistake I’d made in high school. The same one that sent me running to Tanner to fix what I’d done.
Gabriel grins to see the expression on my face. He’s Fraud when he speaks to me next, his voice smooth as silk and soft as satin.
“What would your father’s reaction be to find out that the symbol he’d planted in the middle of the city to commemorate his fight to clean up crime was burned to the ground by his very own daughter?”
Smiling at my silence, he asks, “Why did you do it again? I forget the details.”
I’m not surprised at all that Gabriel knows what I did. What does surprise me is that he finally admitted it.
I refuse to break a sweat over it, though. I don’t panic until I have to.
“Probably because I was set up,” I answer in my saccharine voice.
“By who?”
“That, I don’t know.” Grinning back at him, I ask, “Was it you?”
“I wish it was, but I can’t take credit for that.”
“Liar.”
The truth is written all over the crooked line of his grin.
In our last year in high school, my father won his election bid for Mayor. It was a step up for the family, but mostly my father’s official entry into the world of politics. In celebration, he vowed to curb the crime that went on in the city and spent several million dollars on a large pavilion to stand as a symbol of his promise.
The only problem with that was that almost every family of our social circle was involved in the crime he swore to expose. I was ostracized at school for a week after the pavilion was built, a ru
mor spreading that I was a snitch just like my father. I became a pariah, and the only people who didn’t treat me differently were Ava and Emily.
No matter how hard they dug, they couldn’t find the source of the rumors ruining my life.
As we approached the day of his official commemoration, the rumors got worse, but one floated above the rest that if I were to destroy what my father built, I would be accepted into the fold again, and the rumors would end.
It was stupid of me to go through with it.
I know that.
But I was young and still trapped in the belief that my social life was my entire world.
Plus, I’d been challenged, practically called a coward for not following through.
I burned the place down eight hours after my father’s commemoration ceremony.
It was the following morning that I received the video proof of what I’d done.
Worried that it would leak before I had the chance to make the next step, I’d run to Tanner. I begged him to have Taylor trace the source of that video and make it disappear. Nothing ever came of it, and I’d left for college without worry of my father discovering what I’d done.
The only issue remaining was the price I owed Tanner for the favor he did for me.
I knew I was set up. And now the person who did it is smiling at me from across the small room, his green eyes glimmering with triumph for setting that trap.
Smiling back at him, I refuse to let it affect me.
Shifting my posture to relax as much as possible with the position I’m in, I let out a sigh.
“That was a lot of effort on your part to trap me, Gabe. Did I really mean so much that you did all that just to get me to owe the Inferno something?”
He looks so proud of himself. And he should. As far as games go, that was expert level. I might have sunk his car afterward on the last day I saw him, but the Inferno had me under thumb, and he knew it.
And judging by the look on his face now, he has every intention of playing this until the bitter end.
“Like I said before, this is just the beginning.”
I rattle my chains. “Is that so?”
He pushes away from the wall to march toward me, his powerful swagger so insanely sexy that it strips me of the ability to be angry with him.