Bound by Lies: Bound #1 (Adult Romantic Suspence) (4 page)

Oh dear God.

I whimper.

He pulls back, right back, so that I can see his face. The
intensity of his expression hasn’t softened – if anything it has darkened.
There is no playfulness in what he has just said, no lightness to his
expression, no quirk of his lips. Just a promise. A promise I know he is going
to deliver.

A single white-hot flame licks between my thighs, leaving me
aching and my thin lace panties wet. I tear my gaze away in case my eyes have
become transparent and he can see how much he is effecting me inside. I cross
my arms over my breasts to hide my nipples which are so torturously pressing
against the material of this dress.

Thankfully, the waitress arrives at this very moment,
breaking the tension. She places two black napkins down in front of us before
adding drinks. “Your scotch, sir. And your Shirley Temple, madam.”

My drink is tall and orange and filled with ice. I play with
the straw and take a sip just to be polite. I frown when I detect something
missing.

“I noticed that you don’t like to drink,” he says, noting my
reaction. “So I ordered you a virgin cocktail. I hope you don’t mind.”

A strange feeling starts to invade me. He knows where I
live, he knows what size dress I wear, he knows I don’t drink. It has been a
while since another man has
known
anything personal about me. And a long
time since any man has cared to know.

I take another sip. This time it is long, and I use it as a
way of buying time while I try to regain my balance in this conversation. “You
know so much about me already,” I say, “but I don’t even know your name.”

“Caden. Caden Thaine. Some people like to call me Cade.”

Caden Thaine. I roll these words silently around my head.
They fit him. Like that jacket fits him and those pants fit him. And that knowing
twist to his lips fits him. Fuck. Even the scar across his eyebrow fits him.

Caden Thaine. Cade.

“Okay, Cade.” I am thrilled at the sound of his name coming
off my lips, and I love how my tongue has to flick up at the roof of my mouth
when I say it. Even that little movement is sexy. “Who are you? And what do you
want?”

He smiles but there’s a glint in his eyes like the edge of a
blade. “Be careful what you ask me. You may not like the answer.”

He is baiting me. And I’m not biting. “You don’t scare me.”

“Maybe I should.”

I watch him. Despite how brutal he looks even smarted out in
this suit, I still can’t help the feeling of safety I get around him. It makes
my panic about the dress earlier seem silly. “No,” it comes out before I can
stop myself, “I’ve known bad men, truly bad men. And you’re not one of them.”

“No?” I see a flicker of something behind his intensity as
he searches my face. I see… hope.

“No,” I say softly. “You don’t
feel
like one of them.
You think you’re bad. Maybe you’ve done bad things. But you’re not. Not really.”
The words he used against me the other night come to my mind. “You may think
you’re beyond redemption, but… you’re not. You just need someone to remind
you.”

I catch the surprise washing over his face. For a moment I
can imagine him as a boy, scarless and vulnerable and carefree, before whatever
happened to make him the jaded man he is now. Then his face changes as the
doubt draws back over him like a tide that can’t be held back. He leans back
again, looking uncomfortable.

“Touché,” he says softly.

He scoops up his scotch and tilts back the whole shot in one
gulp. When he lowers his glass the mask is back on his face. I feel the
distance between us again. For one moment we were just two people being real. I
feel like I have lost sight of something precious, and the disappointment this
brings me makes it hard to continue looking at him. I turn my head to gaze out
at the glittering view from the window.

This bar is on the very top floor of the Hotel deCrystal,
which sits like a gem in the center of a city that stretches out across the
darkened landscape of the night. Below us is a fairground of twinkling, moving,
whirling lights. A pretty circus that I can never truly be a part of.

I feel a sudden rush of sadness when I remember that I’m
here with Caden only for tonight. One date is all I can afford to have with
him. One date, one night of passion. That is all. I can never be a part of
anything significant. I can never be a part of anything real or lasting. Not
anymore.

It doesn’t matter that we are having the most intimate
conversation that I have had in years. It doesn’t matter that I already feel
oddly close to Caden. Connected. Bound. I can’t keep seeing him. Caden Thaine,
regardless of how patient he is, will eventually want to get closer to me. He will
eventually want to know about me, who I am, where I came from. And I can’t let
him. I can’t get close to someone without revealing the things that need to be
kept buried.

“You look sad, kitten.”

I turn to him, a little startled. I didn’t think my thoughts
had been playing across my face. I always take such great pains to hide what I
am feeling that it has become second nature. I don’t know whether I have
already started dropping my guard around Cade or whether he can just read me.
Either situation is just too risky.

“I can’t see you again after tonight.”

“Oh? Are you going somewhere?”

Not yet.

I shake my head. “No. I just can’t do…” my fingers flutter
between us as if I am trying to capture the right words to say from the air.
But the right words are like disobedient butterflies and won’t be corralled.
“…this,” I finish lamely.

A knowing look softens his features and Caden catches my
hand in his. His thumb brushes along my fingers. I marvel at how gentle he can
be with those large, brutal-looking hands.

“You are not a conventional woman, kitten, I know that. But
I am not a conventional man. We both have parts of ourselves that we can’t
share. But this is why we fit each other. We are cut from the same cloth. Why
can’t we design our own version of
together
?”

Our own version of together.

My heart feels like it is already filling with the hope that
the thought of
together
brings. But is it wise for me to hope?

“What does that mean? Our own version of together?”

“It means whatever we want it to mean. You would never have
to tell me anything you didn’t want to and neither would I. We wouldn’t have to
involve ourselves in each other’s lives, we could just be together when we were
together. Things could be simple. Our own version of togetherness.”

God, it sounds like heaven. And it sounds like he isn’t
asking for anything more than what little I have to offer. Because I am broken.

I realize that maybe Caden is broken, too. Maybe we really
could carve out our own version of togetherness?

No
, I tell myself. I can’t entertain this thought for
another moment. Whatever we could have, no matter how perfect the arrangement,
it would have to end. One day I would have to leave and it would have to end. I
am about to refuse him, but then…

“Aren’t you tired of being alone, kitten?” I can hear the
whisper of a deep and hungry pain in his voice. “I am.”

His words stab me so violently through the heart that I
swear it stops for a second.

I am.

I am tired. So tired. And for some reason it hurts me to
think that this beautiful man could feel so alone, too. Maybe we could be less
lonely together?

“Would you start something,” I say, “even if you knew it
would eventually have to end?”

“Everything ends, kitten. Relationships, love, life itself…
But you don’t stop living because you know you will die one day, you live
because
you know you will. Or, at least, you try.”

For a few seconds we just sit, basking in each other’s
gazes. Even though the stare is intense it sits like a well-worn coat, warm and
comfortable. God, I feel like he just understands me.

“You don’t stop living because you know you will die one
day, you live
because
you know you will.”
And I realize that I
stopped living some time ago.

I want to live.

After the date Caden insists on walking me home. He winds my
arm through his and leads me through the streets of the city. Even in my heels
I barely come up to his shoulder.

We are both quiet on the way, but it isn’t an uncomfortable
quietness. It is the soft, soothing quiet of lolling waves, a rocking hammock,
our own version of togetherness. I find a smile playing upon my lips. Fancy
that. Who knew I could still smile?

When we get to my apartment I unlock the lobby door. He
holds it open for me and lets me check my mailbox before leading me upstairs.
Déjà vu. My heart is beating when we reach my apartment door. I turn and he’s
closer than I thought he would be. I have to lean back against my door to look
up to him.

My heart rams up into my throat as he leans into me. His
giant body crushes me against the door and his hardness presses against me. His
fingers run around my neck and close around my hair pulling my head aside to
expose my neck. His teeth close gently around my flesh and he sucks...

I blink. I haven’t moved. Neither has he.

God dammit.

“I suppose you want to come in?” I say trying to keep the
shake out of my voice.

He smiles. “No, kitten.”

I blink at him, stunned. No?

He leans close to me, so close I can make out the dapple of
the lighter jade in his irises. Then he continues in that dark chocolate voice
that turns my insides out, “You don’t believe this yet. But you are a woman who
deserves to be taken slowly. And I intend to do just that.”

Now I can’t move.

And I can’t tear my eyes from him.

And I am both terrified and soaring because I think he might
kiss me.

I close my eyes and inhale as he leans in. And my mouth
parts…

But his lips brush softly on my cheek. Like a single drop of
rain rolling off a leaf.

“Be good, kitten.”

And he walks away, leaving me stunned and confused and
shaking in my heels from unfulfilled desire. At my feet is the bag holding the
green dress.

The present

It’s easy to remain hidden in a large city. That’s why I
picked this one. With a population of just over two million, people are too
busy to care. Nobody knows their neighbors. I can go several days without
really speaking to anyone if I wish. Even the local cafes are too packed and
stressed and the staff turnover is too frequent for me to ever become a
“regular”. And there are plenty of cafes to choose from to make sure I don’t
ever fall into too much of a routine. It is perfect.

It’s the sixth city in five years. They are beginning to all
look the same to me. High-rise buildings in the city center, dropping down to
suburbia further out. Grey concrete, grey sidewalks, small splashes of green in
the form of parks or the slip of nature along a river. As I walk the short
distance between my apartment and my job, I barely notice these things anymore.
But my eyes snap to everyone’s face as they pass me, searching for anything
familiar. This has become habit.

At 3:58 this afternoon I slip into a low-ceilinged bar to
start my shift at Dixie’s. Dixie’s is like a well-used sofa, warm and welcoming
with bottle-green windows, exposed beams and generous booths that curl around
tables like sets of fleshy arms. It has a basic food menu: pies, sausages and
mash, steak and chips – all the things you would get at home. It doesn’t serve
cocktails and only offers house wine, but it has more than twenty varieties of
whiskeys, rums and bourbons.

No sooner am I behind the counter then I hear a whip of
cloth and feel a sharp sting on my ass. I whirl around.

“Dixie!” I scold.

My forty-going-on-twelve red-headed firecracker of a boss is
standing there, all five-foot-nothing of her, snapping gum between her teeth,
holding the offending dishrag in her fingers and grinning at me.

“I couldn’t help it, honey. You have the cutest little tush
packed up in them shorts.” She winks before throwing the dishrag at me and
pointing to a tray of glasses fresh from the dishwasher that are sitting on the
counter.

Our “uniform” is a black “Dixie’s does it better” t-shirt
paired with any kind of denim bottoms. Today I am wearing denim cut-offs
because it gets hot running around orders. Dixie’s is a small bar, but it gets
busy, especially on a Friday – today.

I roll my eyes and start to dry and reshelf the damp glasses
with the dishrag. I mutter something about sexual harassment. But inside I like
the way she is so comfortable around me. She has been like that from the moment
she hired me on the spot, cash in hand, without a reference or ID check, after
I had fallen into the bar drenched from a storm outside in answer to a
handwritten ad in the window.

Jeff, the other bartender sharing my shift, walks out of the
back area with a tray of napkins and cutlery, eyes my denim shorts and makes a
noise of agreeance before he begins to restock the tables.

Dixie narrows her eyes at him then points a finger his way.
“Hey,
you
are not allowed to ogle her ass. Rein it in, buster.”

He splutters. “But−”

“But nothing. She got a boyfriend who’d bust your ass if he
caught you looking at her longer than you should. Ain’t that right, honey?”

Dixie winks at me again before walking towards the kitchen
to prep for the Friday after work crowd. I never talk about Cade to anyone. Not
even to Dix. After all, how the hell do I explain
us
to anyone? I don’t
know how she knows, but she does. She’s an intuitive thing, Dixie is.

“How come you’re allowed to, then?” Jeff yells to Dix.

“‘Cause when I do it, it’s funny. If you do it, it’s
harassment.” She disappears through the swinging kitchen doors.

Jeff shakes his head.

I pick up another glass, still warm from the dishwasher. I
can sense his eyes still on me, so I look up and arch an eyebrow at him. Jeff
doesn’t flinch at being caught staring.

“You really got a boyfriend?” he asks after a short pause.

“Sorta.”

He purses his lips and frowns. “That’s okay,” he says
finally, then he nods slowly. “He’s just warming you up for me.” He grins.
“Can’t get to the main act without going through a warm-up.” He blows a kiss at
me before continuing to restock the tables.

I can’t help but laugh.

Jeff is a cutie, a baby face with light brown hair and a
smattering of freckles but with a burgeoning man’s body, wide shouldered and
coming to terms with a growth spurt that has put him just over six-foot-two.
I’m guessing by the way he curls his shoulders in and hunches over slightly
that this growth spurt has been recent and none too welcome. The way he moves
is still all boy and he seems awkward in his freshly grown man’s body, like he
isn’t used to it yet. He is way too young for me, barely out of school. But his
flirting is harmless and we both know it. And I can’t help but enjoy his little
attentions.

From the little things I have heard here and there, I
understand that he left home over a year ago when it became too rough to
handle. I’ve heard him making snarky remarks about his new stepdad. They don’t
get along. Nothing violent or anything like that, all verbal. But sometimes the
verbal stuff can cut deep, too.

Dixie took him into her spare room above this bar, and this
job is paying his way through a part-time graphics design course. He’s always
sketching something in his black art pad during breaks.

Tonight’s shift goes faster than usual. By the time the
customers leave it is close to 1 a.m. I’m wiping tables and Jeff is behind the
counter counting the till when Dixie and Robert, the chef, bust out of the
kitchen together singing happy birthday in an ear-splitting, off-key tone.
Dixie is out front carrying a small chocolate cake with a single lit candle. Behind
her Robert carries a tray of small plates and a knife. I frown when I realize
they are headed towards me.

I stare in bewilderment as the cake is placed down in front
of me. By now, Jeff has joined in too. The three of them end their birthday
serenade in a long melodramatic wail. I wonder if Dix is already drunk.

“But… it’s not my birthday,” I say when their voices finally
fade.

Dixie slaps my arm. “That’s ‘cause you won’t tell me when
your God damn birthday is, hon. Jesus, I can’t believe how young you look, you’re
already hiding your age.”

I blink, still confused.

She continues, “Everybody needs a birthday celebration, and
I figure if you won’t tell me when it is, then today is as good a day as any to
celebrate it.” She grins.

I stare at their three faces, then at the small cake and
candle. It has been three years since I’ve had a birthday cake. Three years
since I’ve had anyone to celebrate it with. I clench my jaw to stop the prickle
behind my lids.

“Maybe there’s a reason I don’t celebrate my birthday,” I
snap.

Dixie’s face drops. Robert frowns. I hear Jeff admonish me
under his breath.

Shit. I’m a complete bitch. My anger dissolves under the
heat of shame at my outburst. Dixie didn’t deserve it. And I don’t deserve this
cake.

“Shit,” I mumble, staring at the table. I can’t even look at
Dix at the moment. “Dix, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I’m just…” …a messed up
excuse for a human being.

Dixie smiles and steps closer to me so she can hook her arm
into mine. “Well, if you can’t be a cow on your birthday, when can you be?” She
winks at me and I can’t help but crack a smile. She is too easy to forgive me.
“So…” Dix says as she beams her pink-lipsticked smile at me, “blow out the God
dang candle then so we can eat this sucker. Robert came in early especially to
bake it for ya.”

I stare at the flickering candlelight on top of the homemade
cake. This is dangerous. I can’t let myself believe that this is real, that
their friendship is real. I can’t get attached. It wouldn’t be good for me and
it wouldn’t be good for them.

But there is nothing much I can do except go along with this
fake celebration.

I lean down towards the candle and inhale.

“Don’t forget to make a wish,” Dix says.

I wish I didn’t have to be so alone.

I catch Jeff’s eyes.

“You can wish for me,” he says, “don’t fight it.”

The breath I inhaled huffs out my nostrils and I can’t help
but smile.

Jeff nods, looking pleased.

“Jeff.” Dix admonishes him with a slap to the back of the
head.

I inhale again. And exhale, blowing out my candle. And
during that exhale, I let myself hope.

Dixie makes me sit while Robert begins to cut the cake. She
won’t let me help serve or anything. “It’s your birthday,” she keeps saying.
“Relax.”

Jeff disappears into the back for a moment. He reappears,
clearly hiding something behind his back. He sits in the seat opposite me with
a sheepish look on his face and his hands move quickly under the table.

I peer at him curiously. “What’s up, Jeff?”

“Just a little something for you.” Jeff pulls up an A4
envelope from under the table and pushes it across to me.

For me? I reach out and pull it towards me with the tips of
my fingers, smiling. Until I see my fake name lettered across the front. My
fake name. To go with this fake life. And this fake birthday celebration. And
it reminds me that it doesn’t matter how much I want to let myself be friends
with these people, I can’t. Because it’s all a lie.

“It’s your birthday present,” he says.

“You shouldn’t have,” I say, and my voice sounds dull. I
notice Dixie pausing as she fusses over the cake slices. Even Robert’s eyes are
on me. God, I feel like such a shit. Why do I have to act like such a shit?

Jeff shrugs. “Whatever. If you don’t like it just pretend
you do and you can throw it away later, ‘kay?”

I stare at Jeff now slumped back in his chair, arms crossed.
And I recognize the vulnerability that he hides under the smirk. I hear the
desperate need in his voice for me to like what he has given me, shrugged over
with a mask of “I don’t care”. I know these things because I am looking at him
as if I am looking in a mirror.

Suddenly I don’t feel so alone.

I stand up and walk over to Jeff. He watches me, suspicion
clearly in his eyes. I lean down from behind him, wrap one arm around him and
squeeze. “Thanks, Jeff. I love it already no matter what it is because you gave
it to me.”

I hear Jeff in my ear, “You so want me.”

I push him away and slap his arm but only half seriously. I
sit back down in my seat and am pleased to see his demeanor has changed in a
snap. He’s grinning at me and bouncing lightly in his chair. “Open it, open
it.”

“Alright already.” I open the flap and peer inside. Just a
single piece of paper. I slip two fingers in the envelope to grip the paper and
notice it is thicker than normal paper. I pull it out.

It is a sketch of the four of us − Jeff, Dixie, Robert
and me, our faces done in pencil. It is frickin’ brilliant. He has shadowed the
sketch so well it pops out from the page. Along the bottom of the page he has
written, “Your family away from home”. A small sob chokes me and I strain not
to let it out.

“I love it,” I breathe.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

I do. But I can’t keep it. I have to throw it away as soon
as I get home. I can’t get attached. But I can pretend, can’t I, just for the
moment that I am part of this family?

I force a smile to my face.

Robert hands around the small slices of cake on little white
plates with black and white dotted party napkins. I cut into my slice of cake
with my fork and pop the first piece into my mouth. It is moist and rich with a
dark chocolate cream filling and a matching layer of icing. He has even added
piped icing around the base and top edge of the cake and placed several pink
marzipan roses with pale green leaves across the top. I wonder at how this
giant of a man was able to produce such a delicate and pretty cake. The bar
becomes silent for the moment except for little moans of culinary pleasure.

“Thank you, Robert,” I mouth to him when I catch his eye. He
nods back.

Robert is a big man with a soft voice and skin as dark as
night. He’s soft-spoken and loyal to Dixie, always guarding her like a bear. I
often catch the edge of ink against his skin around his arm when his sleeves
shift up. I know it’s jail ink. I have seen jail ink before. I wonder what he
did time for. I wonder how he came to meet Dixie. But I know not to ask. I just
know that I feel an odd sense of comfort with Robert around. We both have a
past, a story. And again, I feel less alone.

Everyone finishes their cake in no time.

“Well, my honeys,” Dixie says, jumping up from her seat.
“You know what we need to do now?” She makes her way to the bar.

“Go home to bed?” I offer.

Jeff nods his head enthusiastically at me.

I roll my eyes at him. “Our own beds, Jeff.”

He shrugs. “One day you’ll stop being so scared to admit
what we have.”

I shake my head and turn my attention back to the bar behind
which Dixie has disappeared. What is that woman doing?

“Dixie?” I call out. “What is it that we need to do now?”

Her head of flame shoots up from behind the bar like it was
just fed a blast of oxygen. “Shots!”

I groan.

Dixie returns to the table with a bottle of whiskey and four
shot glasses on a tray. When she picks up the unopened bottle, I catch the
label.

I gasp. “Dix, that’s an 18-year-old Macallan. You can’t open
that. Not for me. It’s too much.”

Dixie raises an eyebrow at me. “So… your man is a scotch
drinker, hey?”

I feel my cheeks flush. “Why do you say that?”

She grins at me. “I notice that’s not a denial. Honey, when
you first got here, you didn’t know your single malts from your blended. Hell,
you didn’t know your rums from your whiskies. Now you’re familiar with high-end
scotch brands?” She raises an eyebrow at me.