Bound by Lies: Bound #1 (Adult Romantic Suspence) (6 page)

And he backs out of my driveway and rides away.

There are things that stay the same every time with Cade.

I never know when the next note is coming and he won’t give
me a way to reach him. When a note arrives I never know where it came from.

We never meet at my place or his.

He always instructs me to meet somewhere different –
sometimes in a bar or restaurant, sometimes at a museum or gallery. Often he
surprises me with someplace I would never expect.

Like the planetarium after it closes; he helps me scale the
wall. With his hands on my legs pushing me up and over, I forget about the night
sky and see stars of my own.

Or when we ride out to the national park and he leads me to
a cave thick with glowworms.

Or the toy store.

He hasn’t once asked me to meet him when I have to work, so
I’ve never had to ask to swap my shifts. I wonder whether my schedule is
another thing he somehow knows about me. Or just good luck.

I am struck dumb with a rush of heat every time I see him.
And he always smiles at me as if knows exactly what he’s doing to me. We talk
or sometimes we just walk in silence. But there are questions that he just
won’t answer. Like what he does for a living. And he won’t talk about his
family.

After three months of seeing Caden this way, the ache in my
gut is like my shadow, a constant, ever-present shade. It’s an exquisite kind
of torture.

When we sit next to each other he always tucks me into his
side and under his arm, our thighs touching, his body curling around me as if
he is my shield. My shield. My shelter. My safety.

He still hasn’t kissed my mouth. But his lips know the curve
of my neck, the line of my jaw, the arc of my ear. He knows the smell of my
hair and my skin. Yet he still hasn’t kissed me. But I know he wants me too. I
can feel the strain against his jeans, hear the hitch in his breath, see his
irises darken. But every time, he leaves me only with a,
“Be good, kitten.”

I have to scream around my fist with frustration. God damn
it. What is he waiting for? I find myself locking myself in my apartment and
medicating myself with masturbation again and again until I fall sleep,
exhausted and delirious.

But it’s not enough. This ache and this pressure just gets
worse and worse. Soon, pulling on a shirt over my breasts or the fall of my
hair across my bare back or rubbing moisturizer into my legs has become an
erotic experience that has me moaning for Caden as I touch myself again. My
skin is so sensitive it almost hurts to be clothed. I’m going to go crazy. Mad.
Or perhaps I already have.

I could go out and find someone else to soothe this fire,
but his words, spoken on the night we met, stick in my mind.

“No more sex with strangers. No other men. Or you’ll
never see or hear from me again.”

And the fear of never seeing Cade again is too much to bear.
Although this hurts in the most exquisite way, to be without him would be like
death.

Besides, no other man could be enough. He was right. He has
ruined me. He hasn’t even kissed me yet and already he has ruined me.

Sometimes the frustration bubbles into anger. When that
happens I vent my frustration through my gym workouts. My kickboxing coach has
noticed the increase in my energy. Instead of taking it out on myself, I take
all of it out on bags, imagining that they are him and I am beating him with my
knees and my thighs and my fists because he makes me feel this way.
He
makes
me feel this way yet refuses to kiss me and fuck me and quell this God damn
ache. Bastard.

I don’t know what to do with me.

Until this note arrives.

It comes with the delivery of another dress, wrapped
lovingly in scented pink tissue paper within a silver box.

Hotel Astoir lobby, 7pm Saturday.

The present

I finger the most recent note again.

Midnight Falls. Cabin #11. Sunday 4pm.

After searching the internet for Midnight Falls I know that
it’s a group of cabins in the mountains of a nearby National Park, close to a
nature trail that leads to a waterfall of the same name. It will take exactly
one hour and seventeen minutes to drive there. But the way I drive, I’ll make
it in under an hour. I stand in front of my closet like a solider about to
choose armor. Sometimes I feel like I need armor with Caden. But even if I
could wear it, it wouldn’t help. That man can strip me bare with his eyes.

I only focus on one section of my closet. “Caden’s section”.
Since that first date, Caden hasn’t stopped buying me dresses. Since I realized
he wasn’t going to demand I wear any of it or insist that I owe him, I have
stopped resisting.

His gifts are all designer labels and silk and lace, elegant
and lush. All clothes I would have never chosen for myself. Or had the money to
buy.

Where Caden gets all his income from, I don’t know. From
whatever work he does, I guess. But he still won’t tell me what he does.

After six months of our own version of togetherness, what do
I know about Caden Thaine?

I know that he loves architecture – Baroque and modern but
not art deco. I know he can’t sing to save his life. I know he drinks
single-malt scotch neat and shakes his head with sadness at anyone who taints
the scotch with coke.

I know that he doesn’t believe in God. But he believes in
the existence of evil. And I know, just like me, he has seen pain in his past
that would make the pages of a horror novel bleed. And I know, just like me, he
is always looking over his shoulder, and sometimes he flinches at shadows.

I know when he touches me his palms are large and rough and
calloused, so I wonder if he does woodworking or carpentry. He definitely works
with his hands. I know that his body seated behind me on his motorbike is hard
and strong. Maybe this is just from the gym. Maybe it’s not.

He is an enigma. On one hand he has the charm and
conversation of a well-bred gentleman. He has more money than I could ever
fathom, evident by the fact that part of my wardrobe is worth more money than
my yearly salary working at the bar. But his hands and his body are rough and
thick and well used. He is my enigma. I wouldn’t have him any other way.

I don’t actually care about the dresses or the money or the
nice places he takes me. Some of my favorite dates have been where he has spent
nothing on me and it is just him and me, hidden from the world.

As I brush my fingertips across the silky edges of these
dresses, I stop at a full-length royal blue gown, dirty and ruined, but I
haven’t had the heart to get rid of it. I pull out the dress. At once I can
smell the scent of vanilla and I am taken back to that night...

Three months ago

The Hotel Astoir is set off the glittering main strip. I
take a cab there from my place. In my mind I can see his cursive scrawl across
the latest note.

Hotel Astoir lobby, 7pm Saturday.

This is the first time Cade has asked me to meet him at a
hotel. A hotel. I know what this means. It’s time. Tonight is the night.

I only realize I am grinning like an idiot when the cab
driver laughs at me and asks me why I am so happy. I merely grin wider. “I
see,” the cab driver says. And for a few moments I am just a girl falling in
love with a boy.

We pull up to the hotel, which has a driveway that stretches
along a row of manicured bushes and fountains. It curves into a wide front
entry where Caden is already standing waiting, dressed in a black suit. He is
pressed and suave, but on his face he wears my favorite things: that deadly
looking scar above his eyebrow and his rough smile. At once I am flooded from
the ends of my hair to the depths of my soul with a fierce aching. My hands are
already stripping him of that dinner jacket and unbuttoning that shirt and
unbuckling those…

I pass the cabbie some money. A twenty maybe. “Keep the
change.” Or maybe it’s a fifty. I don’t know. I don’t care. I can’t take my
eyes off Caden – my Caden. My soon-to-be-naked Caden. He has beaten the
concierge to the door of my cab, opening it for me. He reaches a hand in and
pulls me out.

The dress that he sent with the note cascades out of the cab
after me and spills around my ankles. It is a strapless full-length gown in a
brilliant blue satin. I felt like a princess when I put it on, so in honor, I
wore my hair up in a French twist and secured it with diamante pins. Above us
the gilded hotel entrance, studded with down lights, glitters like diamonds.

He greets me with a kiss on my cheek. He whispers, “For as
long as I live, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing you.”

I melt into his arms and my heart trills as it clings to his
words.
For as long as I live…
Maybe Caden and I could carve out a future
in this version of together?

Behind me I hear a car pull up in the hotel driveway. But
I’m not looking. I am staring up at this beautiful man who somehow decided that
I was his. A valet interrupts us and hands Cade a set of keys. “Here you go,
Mr. Thaine.”

What?

I turn and stare at the black town car as if it has grown
legs and feelers and has started wriggling. I keep on staring when Caden opens
the passenger door for me.

“But we aren’t…” my voice fades. No. Of course we aren’t
going into the hotel. Of course he hasn’t booked us a room. Of course he isn’t
taking me upstairs and stripping me naked and fucking me until I am finally
sated. Bastard. He tricked me.

I grit my teeth and force a smile to my face. There is no
point in arguing. I clench my jaw and ignore his hand when he offers to help me
into the car. I hike my skirts up in my arms and drop into the passenger seat
in a puff of blue satin rage.

The inside of the car smells like pine air freshener and the
cream leather seat squeaks under me when I shift. I kick my heels into the
freshly vacuumed cream carpet like a surly child. It’s another damn rental.
Why? Where are we going? Why couldn’t we have stayed at the hotel in a room,
just him and me?

He gets into the driver’s seat and we pull away. The hotel
lights fade from the reflection in my window along with my fantasy of where
this night is taking us.

I am silent as he drives, glaring at the buildings and
streetlights that pass by the window, cursing this man with every pulse of my
wretched and frustrated core. I hate him and love him for how this feels. This
aching beautiful. I want him so much it fucking hurts. I want to hurt him back.
Or throw myself at him and beg that he put me out of my misery. But he… he is
gloriously ignorant of how he has tortured me over these last three months. He
just keeps drawing it out in this pointless dance.

Does he even want me? My lip trembles as I consider this
possibility. Fucking bastard. I fucking hate Caden Thaine.

These thoughts dissipate when he pulls into a dark driveway.
Ahead I can see gates and beyond that, a blackened building. A knot forms in my
throat. He cuts the engine, gets out of the car and walks to my side. He opens
my door and helps me out.

When he begins to pull me towards the iron gates I resist.
“What are we doing here?”

He turns to study me, his eyes giving away nothing. He
raises my hand to his lips and runs his soft mouth across the bumps of my
knuckles.

“Do you trust me, kitten?”

I remember what he said to me when he told me why he was
taking things slow with me:
“I need you to trust me first. And you don’t
trust me yet.”

Do I trust him? Do I? Really?

I learned long ago that the true test of a man is how he
treats the people to whom he owes nothing. Waiters, bar staff, strangers. Over
the last few months I have watched Caden interact with all types of people and
he has been nothing less than manners and kindness to everyone.

So do I trust Caden Thaine?

I don’t know him, but at the same time, I
know
him.
Not once in the last three months has he raised his voice to me or been
anything but gentle even though one squeeze within his thick arms and large
hands could crush me. Not once has he demanded anything of me. Anything he asks
for he always leaves as my choice.

Yes, Caden might be hiding things, but I am hiding things,
too. And whatever he is hiding, he has a good reason for it – I just know it.

He hasn’t given me any reason not to trust him.

So I nod and step forward, an indication for him to continue
leading me. The smile that he rewards me with is the most beautiful thing I
have ever seen. And it causes my stomach to roll with pleasure.

“I have a surprise for you,” he says. I can hear the
anticipation in his voice. And, if I’m not mistaken, nerves. His fingers pull
on me to hurry, and I am caught in the updraft of his excitement like a
fluttering leaf. A surprise? For me?

Oh, Caden. Every day with you is a surprise already.

We slip through the unlocked gates. The building is low-set,
only two stories, spray-painted with the uninspired tags of bored and high
teenagers. I stumble on some broken glass, but I don’t fall; Caden catches me
with his arm around my waist.

“I’m sorry, kitten. I wasn’t thinking.” He pulls my arms
around his neck. I feel my legs sweep from under me and his strong arms cradle
me to his chest. I am floating and it feels like heaven.

“Close your eyes,” he says when we reach a dark,
partially-open side door.

I do and I push my face into the crook of his neck. In the
darkness behind my lids
he
is everywhere – in my nose with his smoked
wood scent, blanketing my body with his warmth, in my ears with the noise of
his breath, and he takes up this space in my heart, space I didn’t think anyone
could ever fill.

I hear the arthritic creak of the side door we enter. I feel
the difference in temperature inside. It’s warmer and still, the air smelling
faintly of turpentine and something sweet… vanilla?

It is vanilla. The scent gets stronger as we move further
into this building. He keeps walking and the gentle rocking of his gait and the
warmth of his arms lulls me into a haze. Underneath his feet I hear crunching
glass.

Finally he stops. “Keep them closed.” And he gently lets me
down. I find my balance with my heels on the hard ground. He maneuvers me to
face a certain direction by my shoulders, his large hands curling over them
like plates of armor. “Okay. Open them.”

In front of me the blackness dissolves into two rows of low
candles that light up a corridor. At the end I can see an open door. The small
flames shine across every peel and bump of the wallpaper and cause long dark fingers
to flick at the ceiling.

“It’s through the door,” he says.

He lets me take the lead and I walk the last few steps. When
I step through the doorway my mouth drops open. The room opens up to the left,
spanning both stories of the building, high ceilings draped with pale curtains
like ghosts. And candles, hundreds of pillar candles covering the side benches
and floor and lighting the room with a warm glow. In the middle of the room is
a table covered in a white cloth, dressed with a silver candelabra lit with
three thin white tapered candles. It is set for dinner for two.

I hear a click. Through the speakers set up across the room
a woman starts to hum, breathy and sweet, over a deep undulating note.
Something in her voice caresses the little hairs on my skin. The beat kicks in,
raw and sensual like a heartbeat.

Caden squeezes my hand. “Do you like it?”

No. I don’t like it. I love it. It is exactly Caden Thaine.
Softness, light and beauty set among the rough, dark and broken. I tell him so
and he rewards me with a radiant smile that outshines all these candles.

“What is this place?” I ask as I take another step in.

“It used to be an art college before they ran out of
funding.”

He leads me to the table and pulls my chair out for me. He
moves to the side and I notice a silver bucket of ice on a stand. Within it is
a bottle of… sparkling grape juice. This makes me smile. Next to it is a silver
serving trolley complete with a small burner underneath to keep the contents
warm.

He opens the bottle and pours the liquid into the two
champagne flutes. “Madam,” he says as he hands me one.

When he lifts the serving dish lid the smell of roasted
chicken and herbed potatoes makes my stomach rumble. He starts to serve the
food onto my plate and places it in front of me. I stare at the potatoes when I
recognize that smell.

“Rosemary potatoes,” I say. I stab one with my fork.
“They’re my favorite. How did you know?”

He smiles. “A lucky guess.”

“Did you cook all this?”

“Maybe.”

“I didn’t know you could cook.”

“I can’t give away all my secrets.” He pauses as if he has
realized what he just said. The air grows heavy with the things we are both
keeping from each other, the pieces of ourselves we keep locked away. The
things that made us who we are but which we never ever talk about.

He clears his throat and continues to plate his food. The
fog starts to dissipate and I try to ignore the clamminess it leaves on my
skin.

The meal is delicious; the chicken is moist and rich and the
roasted vegetables coat my tongue with the flavors of garlic and herbs. As I
eat I catch him watching me, a slight crease between his thick dark eyebrows.

“Why are you looking at me like that? You look like… you’re
looking for something.”

He wipes his mouth with his serviette and stands. “Perhaps I
am.” He takes my hand and leads me to a space on the floor. He drapes one of my
hands around his neck and pulls me flush against his body. I have to tilt my
head to look into his eyes. His other hand curls around mine as he holds our
hands out to the side. The music is still slow, but it has become simple and
stripped-back and it glides through the room like a naked creature. As we slide
together, my body feels like it is melting against his.

He is looking at me again with that probing look.

“So,” I tease softly, “did you find what you were looking
for?”

He leans in. Close. So close it makes my heart skip. My eyes
flick down to his lips for just a second. But I know better. I don’t try to
kiss him. I don’t lean in. I just look back up at him, watching him, waiting
for him.

But he doesn’t lean in to give me our first kiss.

I expect to be angry like I was earlier. I expect to be
frustrated. But what he has done for me – turning this dark abandoned place
into something wonderful – represents what he is doing for my soul. And I am
grateful. Right now, I don’t need to ask for anything more. I am content to
just be here.

It is in that moment I see something change in his eyes as
he watches me. And he smiles. “I just did.”

Slowly, he lowers his lips to mine.

At first it is just a press, his soft lips, tasting of sweet
grapes and rosemary, touching mine. It is butterflies and falling leaves and it
makes my skin tingle like those sparkles of sunlight that dance upon a babbling
brook.

Then his lips move, achingly slow. They part around my
bottom lip drawing it slightly into his mouth. I can barely breathe. He is
kissing me. He’s really kissing me. I am afraid to move in case he pulls away.
He draws the tip of his tongue slowly back and forth across my lip trapped
between his. I feel that small wet line all the way in my belly. Then he sucks,
starting an energy in me like the distant rumble of earth under hooves.

My bottom lip pops free of his mouth and I whimper at the
loss of contact. He rubs the tip of his nose along mine like he is reassuring
me. Then he licks a line across my lips from one corner to the other. He is
tasting me. He groans. Then he licks me again.

His tongue teases my mouth and at my heart, coaxing it to
open for him like a flower. I part my lips for him and he enters me with his
tongue. Like a jolt of electricity, I awake. My body lights with fire, aching,
consuming fire. I begin to move with him, searching for his taste, exploring
his lips and his mouth, tilting my head so our breaths can fuse even more.

More. I need more. My right hand clutches the back of his
neck, still terrified that he might take this away. I pull my other hand from
his. Like a desperate animal, it skitters across the thickness of his arm
towards his chest. But he grabs my wrist and wraps it around his neck to join
my other hand.

He pulls away for one moment, and I catch a glimpse of his
eyes. They are now dark grey-green like a sea in a storm. That dangerous scowl
is back on his face as he glares at me with the hunger of someone who needs to
consume. “I told you that I wouldn’t be able to taste you without taking more.”
His voice is low and threatening, but I’m not scared.