FaCade (Deception #1) (19 page)

“What happened?”

Malik looked to the floor instead of at me when he replied. I was all the more aware of his need to hide from me, his action driving my curiosity higher. “I had an accident last night, it’s nothing. The doctor came straight out and fixed it.”

“It’s in a cast,” I told him like he didn’t know

“It’s just a fracture, Star. He’s a big boy, it will remind him to be more careful when handling things he shouldn’t be.” Malik left the room with Dante’s eyes following his retreat.

“Is there something I should know?” I asked, feeling somehow responsible. Malik wouldn’t look at me, and after he untied me last night, I couldn’t help the nervous ball of energy that lived as a constant in my stomach from warning me that Dante no doubt did this. But would he be that brutal? Flashbacks suddenly assaulted me of him telling me he sorted Theo and that he was gone for good. My breathing picked up pace as the unease settled in the atmosphere around us.

“You only need to know what I tell you! Malik is not your concern and in future you’ll do well to remember who you belong to! If I wanted you untied I would have done it myself.”

The rush of air from my lungs expelled from me in a gust. Goosebumps laced every inch of my skin. I stared at him, my mouth as wide as my eyes. “You broke his fucking hand, Dante!”

He moved so quick it was almost inhuman, grasping a fistful of my hair just like he did to the fan skank last night. “You belong to me! He had no right untying you and he knows it. He only did it because you made him, so
YOU
broke his hand.” He released me with a shove.

Tears were already on my cheeks, the sting from his grasp setting fire to my scalp. The empty feeling inside me grew, swallowing more of me. Screw him! What a crazy fuck. Who breaks their friend’s hand?

Rushing to our room, I went straight to the closet and began packing a bag. Twenty minutes later I was out the front door. I ignored his presence behind me and ran. There was a dock, I would sit and wait for someone to come by and then I would ask them for a lift to shore.

“What are you doing?”

I wouldn’t answer him; my voice would only waver from my tears and the lump clogging my throat.

“Fine, Star. Have it your way.” His footfalls faded as he left me.

My tears washed away like the tide. The ripples of the water lapping at the wooden platform relaxed me. I hadn’t realized how tense I was until my muscles uncoiled. The vast amounts of water reminded me of my life. On the surface there was nothing. A bare slate of blue, but underneath there was life, a whole world that couldn’t be seen. I wanted so bad to break through the surface of my memories to the world underneath but there was only ripples of who I was teasing the surface.

An hour later I was still there and the sun was beginning to redden my skin. Why did it always seem like I was left waiting? I heard movements behind me and then the buzzing, almost growling sound swooshing over the water. A speed boat. An older woman walked towards me from the house, her greying hair piled high on her head. She was tiny, well under five foot. She didn’t acknowledge me. What the hell? She walked right past me like I was invisible.

The boat pulled to a stop, a young guy driving, the only passenger. His eyes nearly fell from his head when he saw me standing there. I checked behind me to make sure it was definitely me he was gaping at. Screw it. I would flirt a little to get a lift. “Hey.” I smiled, picking up my bag. “Can you take me with you?” His mouth actually fell open. The woman I assumed was Matilda shook her head and waved her finger then spoke in a different language to the boy. He then shook his head and appeared scared, his face a tad paler and his eyes staring at me. What the actual hell?

I stormed back up towards the house and found Dante standing against the doorframe, arms crossed, face void of reaction.

“What’s going on, Dante? Why didn’t they take me?”

He snatched the bag from my shoulder, throwing it inside the house. “Because you belong to me! It’s not their place to take you anywhere. Why won’t you stop being difficult and learn your place!” My mouth fell open in an O. Was he serious?

“Did you really kill Theo?” I knew I’d caught him off guard, and in truth I didn’t give a shit about that disgusting little worm but I needed to know who I was letting in my body. Did the other me know he was capable of such brutality?

Ah crap! He was pissed and I found myself suddenly backing up from his approaching fury. He crowded my entire frame with his, engulfing me in his sea of loathing. “That cunt got what he deserved. How dare you bring up his name to me!”

How dare I? I was that ‘cunt’s’ victim, not him. “Fuck you!” I spat and regretted it as soon as it left my mouth. His hand shot out around my throat.

“Fine with me.”

I found myself over his shoulder again, being carried through the house. Déjà vu once again.

We passed Malik, whose eyebrows reached his hairline when he saw me clawing at Dante’s back while screaming for him to put me down. “What’s going on?” he asked. Dante stopped his fast pace, turning on Malik.

“You, follow me!” he commanded, and like a freaking puppy, Malik fell in step behind him, looking down at my bobbing head.

“You both need to fucking learn this lesson. Sit.”

Malik took the seat at the head of the table still littered with plates of untouched food. It looked amazing and reminded me how hungry I was. With a swipe of his arm, Dante knocked everything onto the floor with a startling crash, making both me and Malik jump. Fear trickled into my veins. I had awoken a beast.

“You need to accept your fate. This is your life, Star. You belong here with me. You know it and yet you keep fighting it. Why?” He didn’t expect an answer. “I gave up so fucking much for you. Done shit I’m not proud of, and this is what I get - a fucking brat who refuses to remember her love for me.”

How did he manage to make me feel so angry at him in one breath, only to feel guilty and ashamed of my behavior in the next?
I’m sorry
was on the tip of my tongue. Even though my brain told me he was in the wrong, his instability proof of it, my heart still told me I made him this way. I had made him go through with that stupid fantasy and now we… we were broken. He had a fiancée, a woman who loved him and now he had this shell, this carcass of confusion.

Placing me on the table, he yanked my jeans from my body, making me screech in surprise. “You both crossed lines. You both broke rules. You both need to remember who owns who!”

What the fuck did that mean? And how was taking my jeans off going to do that, and more to the point, what was I? A freaking object?

Pure rage and fire lit his eyes; it was like looking at the sun. I had to turn away. He flipped me with ease onto my stomach, pulling my legs over the edge of the opposite end to where Malik was seated. My feet touched the floor, my torso flush with the table top. Kicking my feet apart, my breath hitched. I tried to raise myself up but his heavy hand came down between my shoulder blades, forcing me back down. No way was he going to do what I thought he was.

“Hold her arms,” he demanded. A heavy hand came down on my wrists, pulling them together and stretching my arms out in front of me above my head. Malik was almost replicating my position on the other side of me. His torso against the table, his palm wrapped around my wrists. I felt a tugging on my ankle and then weighty material wrapped around it, tying me to the table leg. It was my jeans. A tug between my legs, a rip shattering the silence, and then my other ankle being tied with the panties he tore from me. I couldn’t look at the confliction in Malik’s face; there was lust in his eyes and I knew the table hid his erection. I turned my face, laying my wet cheek from the fall of my tears against the cool wood of the table.

“I don’t think so, Belle,” Dante spat. I heard him stripping, the wisp of his belt and the sharp snap of his zip lowering then the thud of his slacks hitting the floor. The leather of his belt came over my face to rest against my throat forcing my head up to look straight into Malik’s eyes. The belt tightened as Dante tugged on it like reins on a horse. He gave me no foreplay, no warning. His cock nudged at my opening and then thrust straight into my body. Malik’s eyes flashed when I was jolted forward towards him. “Your dirty little pussy was made for my hard cock, Star. Even when you deny it you can’t deny the wetness coating my cock right now.”
Thrust.
“Who owns you?”
Thrust.

Fuck him! I wasn’t going to answer. I could barely breathe from the leather belt cutting into my windpipe. My tears fell harder, their torrent stinging my lip where I had bit into it and distorting the image of Malik’s lust. The bastard. My body was the biggest bastard in the room because it answered everything Dante was giving it. My core tightened and pulsed, the heat rushing through me in waves. My nipples were hard, pushing against the fabric of my bra and tee. “Who owns you, Star? Use your words.” The condescending asshole.

“Fuck you!” I growled.

His thrusts became harder, pushing me to the brink. “Oh, you want to fuck me?” The belt left my throat in a slice sure to leave a mark. It burned. He must have communicated with his eyes to Malik because my hands were freed from his tight hold. Sweat from his palm left a wet sticky layer there. Gross!

Dante’s cock slipped from me, my mouth mewed from his loss making me cringe at my own need for him. I was such a cock whore. “Aww, my little slut missing me already yet refuses to admit I own her.”

A chair scraped behind me then I was pulled upright. His hard cock re-entered me, making me moan. His teeth nipped at my ear and neck before sinking into my shoulder, making me wince and groan at the same time. Lowering us down, he sat on a chair with me on his lap. His belt wrapped around my wrists this time and then he looped them over his head to rest around his neck. Hot palms splayed against my inner thighs pushing them open to bare me to the cool air and Malik’s greedy eyes. “Look how pink and perfect she is. My filthy girl.” I couldn’t stop my hips from moving, grinding down on him in quest of the release I knew he could bring me. Everything else disappeared. It was just me and the pleasure seeking. His thumb circled my exposed clit, his words lifting me into a state of euphoria.

“Look how I make her juices leak from her; how I make her pussy squeeze my big thick cock. Strangle my dick, Star. Fuck me my beautiful, Belle. Make me fill you up.”

That was it; I screamed my release, my inner walls demanding his. The groans echoed all around, his throbbing cock pulsing his release into me. Hot ribbons of cum flooded me and leaked from me when he lifted my hips to slip free from me. His fingers replaced his cock, gathering his cum and rubbing it all over every inch of my pussy. “Who do you belong to?” he whispered.

“You,” I panted my response.

“Who does she belong to?”

“You,” Malik replied, reminding me of his presence.

I closed my eyes and waited until I heard their footsteps fade before I sank to the floor and sobbed into my hands.

I REMAINED THERE FOR A long time, my unblinking eyes fixed on a random point on the wall. My fingers stroked over my sore neck, the tender skin under my touch shriveling back at the contact.