Duplicity (2 page)

Lilith let him kiss her as his hands undid the buttons of the
schoolgirl’s blouse she wore. She kept waiting for his hands to get hard and needy
as they roamed over her skin, but they never did. And when he pulled back,
kneeling above her as he slipped on the condom, he looked at her. He looked her
right in the eyes.

Lilith’s breath caught.

They never looked at her.

He kept his eyes on her as he moved inside her, and she couldn’t
look away. The expression there was so soft. No one had looked at her like that
before. The atmosphere seemed to change all around them, and Lilith felt as if
she were right on an edge, about to fall into oblivion. But it wasn’t the edge
of orgasm. She wouldn’t know anything about what that felt like. No, this was a
precipice Lilith had never imagined. Looking into his eyes, somewhere deep
inside her, an odd, overwhelming feeling stirred.

Lilith closed her eyes.

With that strange connection broken, she was able to find her
rightful place again. This role she knew. She wrapped her legs around his
waist, pulling him close as her hands ran through his hair and searched along
his back and ass for pleasure points. She got vocal, testing to see if he liked
a dirty talker or just liked to hear her moan. When she whimpered and made
little noises, he responded with moans of his own, so she ran with that,
working her way too an all too familiar finish. She had perfected the art of the
fake orgasm.

Trey’s body pressed against hers as he caught his breath. Lilith
was somewhat surprised to find she wasn’t counting the seconds until he rolled
away from her. Most of the time, she was indifferent to sex. She didn’t hate
it, but it gave her no pleasure. On occasion it could be fun, but more often
than not it was just a job.

Lying in the aftermath with Trey
felt .
 . .
pleasant.
Almost comfortable.
She ran her fingers
through his hair with absent movements.

But then he did roll off her, and she sat up, dressing.

“Stay.” He blurted the word as she was about to make her
good-byes. He was lying on the bed, blinking with sleep-hooded eyes in the soft
light of the room.

A smile played at her lips. She found his sweet nature endearing. She
grabbed the condom wrapper off the nightstand, studying it a moment before she
spoke.
“ ‘The
condom is the glass slipper of our
generation. You slip one on when you meet a stranger. You dance all
night .
 . . then you throw it away.’ ”

He snorted.
“
Fight Club
.
Nice.”

Lilith smiled. “The party ends when the clock strikes midnight,
kid.” But she indulged them both with one last, soft kiss. “I’ll find my own
way home. Don’t worry.”

Lilith was already in the taxi on her way back to the club when she
realized she’d set all the bait she needed for a repeat customer, but she had
forgotten to invite him back.

Chapter 2

“They’re going to get the order wrong,” Lilith grumbled
into her coffee.

Malcolm—Mal—Cooper glanced up at her over his orange juice.
He took a long drink and smacked his lips the same way as he had done since
there were all in third grade together. “How do you get biscuits and gravy
wrong?”

“Ah, see. I ordered biscuits with a side of gravy.”

Beside Mal, his twin sister, Dana, snorted.
“Yeah right.
You dip the pieces in the gravy anyway. What’s
the difference?”

“Huge difference.
Come on. This is my one persnickety food quirk. I get one
for your five billion.”

Dana sniffed, affecting an offended air. “So I have a
delicate palate. Sue me.” She took a dainty sip of her milk.

Picking up a rolled up straw wrapper from the table, Lilith
flicked it at her friend.

“Anyway.”
Mal stopped the inevitable, oh-so-mature wrapper fight
that was about to ensue. “I think the waiter and the cook can handle biscuits
with a side of gravy. Give them a little credit.”

“I’m not trying to insult the staff. It’s just been one of
those days, and it’d be par for the course.”

“How can you tell it’s one of those days already? It’s
barely ten,” Dana said, her expression bemused.

“That’s right. It’s ten. Where am I usually at ten?”

Her friend rolled her eyes. “Most of the world is up and
about by ten.”

“Let most of the
world get
up
before ten. I’m not most people.” Lilith took a long drag of her coffee.

“Well, it’s not my fault.” Dana waved her hand in a
dismissive gesture. “If Mal wasn’t such a worrywart, you’d still be sleeping
right now.”

Mal huffed. “Uh, let’s turn that around, little sister.”
Dana rolled her eyes because she was younger by all of six minutes. “If you had
answered your phone, our dear Lilith would still be in bed.”

In most people’s lives, a twenty-year-old girl not
answering her phone wasn’t cause for alarm. When it came to Dana, both Mal and
Lilith knew better than to take her safety for granted. The abashed look on
Dana’s face spoke volumes. She knew damn well Mal had every reason to be
worried.

“
Well .
 . . I
just . . . I got distracted.” Dana shrugged and glanced away,
but not before Lilith caught the look her face. Lilith had to stifle a groan.
She knew that lovesick look, that giddy glow of infatuation. As well she
should. Dana wore it often enough. Dana was boy crazy, and she had a knack for
picking partners who were all kinds of wrong for her.

Mal wrinkled his nose.
“Oh, Dana.
Not another one.”

“He’s sweet, Mal. He’s so sweet.”

He groaned, but the noise was resigned. “You don’t say.” He
looked up at Lilith, and they shared an exasperated but affectionate
expression.

Lilith gave a minute shrug of her shoulders as Dana waxed
romantic about her latest crush.
It could be worse
. They both knew how
bad it could get.

All things considered, her trepidation over just what kind
of a loser this latest guy could be was a welcome change to the downright dangerous
path Dana had been walking two years before. The boys she tended to fall in
with these days weren’t the pick of the litter, but they weren’t complete
assholes either.

It could be so much worse.

Breakfast came, and the atmosphere between the three
friends got lighter. About forty minutes later, they were ready to leave.

Lilith reached for the check without thinking, but Mal
pushed her hands away. “I got this one.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”
He grinned at her. “They got your order wrong anyway. You
shouldn’t have to pay for soggy biscuits.”

“Heinous stuff,” Dana said around her last mouthful of eggs
and stuffed French toast.

Lilith stared at her friend.
“Delicate
palate my ass.”

~0~

In the continuing theme, the second mini-emergency of the day
struck almost as soon as breakfast was done. Mal and Dana both had class.
Dana’s car decided then was a good time to break down.
Again.
The siblings rode off together—they were going to the same school, after
all—and Lilith had the joyful task of donning coveralls to work on the car for
the better part of her afternoon.

She had just enough time to sneak in a nap before work, but
of course, that nap had run a little longer than she’d intended. Lilith arrived
at work fifteen minutes late and sprinted to the dressing room to change while
hoping to avoid her boss. Smith didn’t tolerate tardiness, and the last thing
Lilith needed was a lecture tonight or a dock in wages; she was still three
hundred dollars short on rent as it was.

Nodding at the others, Lilith made a beeline for the
clothes rack. She shifted through the various dresses and accessories. Smith
catered to every fantasy, from dominatrix to librarian. Deciding she didn’t
have much time to get fancy, Lilith grabbed the naughty nurse get-up that would
allow her to pull her hair back into a ponytail.

“Hey, good
lookin
’,” Ethan, the
club’s main bodyguard, said as she poked her head out. He was a flirt, but he
had no interest in scantily clad women. He had no carnal interest in women
period.

Lilith offered him a grin, and peered around the club.
“No one yet?”

“Nary a soul.”
He shrugged. “It’s Tuesday, and it’s early.”

Not a lot of people were looking for the kind of fun she
provided on a Tuesday. Even though she’d been late, the other girls weren’t in
any hurry to get out on the floor, so Lilith hopped onto a barstool to wait.

Almost as soon as she’d settled, she heard the telltale
bing
-bong
from behind the bar. It was the
alert that the door to the club had opened, and she looked toward it. A man
she’d never seen before stood in the entry. Lilith began assessing him as a
potential customer before the bartenders, whose job it was to usher men to
tables and booths, had a chance to approach.

He was huge. He had to have been almost seven feet tall.
His arms were bigger than Ethan’s, and that was saying something. He wore a
black suit and shirt with a red tie, and his thick, dark hair was combed
straight back, reminding Lilith of the hit men in the old mobster movies she
used to watch. Lilith knew money when she saw it, and this man was definitely
money.

She also knew trouble when she saw it. The stiff way he
stood and the scowl he wore on his angular face gave her a bad
feeling. Nonetheless, rent was due. She didn’t have to leave with this
clown. Maybe all he wanted was a little hands-on dance. Resolved, she stood
from her barstool, straightened her skirt and readjusted her tits.

“Be careful with this one, Lil Bit,” Ethan
said,
his tone low as he leaned over the counter. He’d
always had a soft spot for her for reasons that escaped Lilith’s comprehension.

“You know I got this.” She winked and nodded her head
toward her boot where she kept the three-inch blade he’d given her when she’d
first started working there.

“Signal if you need me.” They had a system. If she got
herself in a predicament with a customer, she would signal to Ethan with her
eyes, and he would come over with some made-up excuse. It wasn’t something that
happened often, but every once in a while a real nut walked through the door.
The crazy ones could be scary.

Of course, Ethan was only of help while they were still in
the club. Once she walked out the door, she was on her own—hence the knife in
her boot.

Lilith focused on her prize, settled now in a booth, and began
working her way over, giving the bartender time to get his drink to him. She
hoped her initial assessment was wrong. He was intimidating because he was so
huge, and if he was coming in alone on a Tuesday night, he’d probably had a bad
day.

Well, she could make it all better. Just what the doctor
ordered, right?

He was a little older than the usual frat boys that
frequented the place. He was quite handsome now that he had relaxed a little.
Not as handsome as Trey by a long shot, but—

Lilith stopped short, somewhat disconcerted by the unbidden
thought.

It had been four days since Trey, and she didn’t quite
understand why she even remembered his name at that point. There was something
about the man that had gotten under her skin, and as much as it irritated her,
she couldn’t seem to brush it off.

Her eyes swept the club again, looking toward a small group
of guys that had entered. When she saw they were college-aged, her pulse
quickened, and she wondered if he was with them.

Such a stupid thought
,
she chastised herself.
As if he would appear just because
he’d been traipsing around her head for days.

Just another john, even if he had looked at her in a
way .
 . .

She shook her head to clear it. Thoughts like that were
counterproductive.
Rent, rent, rent.
That was the one
thing she needed to think about. Her work wasn’t so unlike anyone else’s; she
wasn’t getting paid to daydream.

“Hey there, sunshine,” she purred, coming up to his table.
“Is this seat taken?”

His bored expression turned into a charming grin so quick,
it was almost comical. He slid over to make room for her. “Well, hello.”
When she sat, he leaned in, his voice a rumble near her ear. “I didn’t eat my
apple a day to make sure I didn’t keep the doctor away.”

Oh, he thought he was clever. Never mind that she was in a
nurse’s outfit and not a doctor’s. Lilith gave an appreciative giggle, as if he
was as funny as he thought he was, and leaned forward so she could feel the
heat of his skin. “Well, you look plenty healthy to me.” She drew her hand down
his chest. “But maybe we should check.
Just to make sure.”

He grabbed her wrist hard enough that she gasped. “Easy,
sweetheart,” he said in a low, borderline threatening timbre. “I know your
little tricks. You keep your hands where I can see them—out of my pockets—won’t
you?”

Lilith’s eyes
narrowed,
and she
yanked back her arm, scrambling to get out of the booth. “What the hell is
wrong with you, prick? Are you accusing me of trying to steal from you? I
wasn’t trying to get to your pockets.”

“Settle down, kitten.” He leaned back, one arm thrown over
the back of the booth.

What she should have done was walk away from him. She knew
better than to engage an asshole customer. But he’d pushed the wrong button,
and she was pissed. “Listen, rich bitch, unlike some of us at this table, I
work for a living. I don’t take anything I don’t earn.”

He
chuckled.
”You
are a pistol, aren’t you?”
Another
chuckle.
“My name’s Francis, by the way. Frank.” He reached out, drawing
his hand down her side. “Why don’t you tell me—
”

She smacked his hand away. “You don’t get to touch me.” She
leaned into his bubble space and got right in his face with a sneer. “That’s
how pathetic you are—you couldn’t pay me to fuck you.”

Spinning on her heel, Lilith was ready to storm away, but
he grabbed her by the arm. “Don’t walk away from me.”

“Bite it.” She yanked her arm from his grasp and flipped
the bird before she strode off.

There’d been a rush in the time it had taken her to get to
him and the infuriating minutes they’d been talking. The club was dark, the
music pumping, and there were a lot of people milling about. She shouldered her
way along the edge of the crowd, slipping into the spots the lights didn’t
touch, so she could get to the back to regroup.
She
was unaware her little friend had followed her until he had grabbed her again
and dragged her into a secluded corner.

Lilith’s back hit the wall, and Frank’s arms came up around
her, caging her against it. She looked toward the bar for Ethan to come help
her out, but she couldn’t see him anywhere.

Her thoughts were a crazy whirl in her head. She knew how
to defend herself, but this guy wasn’t attacking her—not really. These guys
were used to being in charge, and a lot of them liked it rough. If she
overreacted with a client, caused a scene in the club, Smith would be pissed.
She would be out of a job and shit out of luck.

Frank huffed. “Just in case you were wondering, this little
hard-to-get act is not cute.” His hand was heavy on her cheek. “Okay, princess.
You win. You should be paying me for the fun we’re going to have tonight, but
I’ll bite.” He started to grope through his pockets.

Taking the opening where she saw one, Lilith ducked under
his arm. “Look, I think it’s sweet of you to have donated your brain to science,
but you need to listen to me now. You—” she poked her finger at him “—are not
getting any of this.” She gestured at herself.