Tell Me No Lies: The Black Orchid, Book 1 (27 page)

She yelped in pain, eyes wide with fear. “Kael?”

I smacked her again and she moaned. I ignored the sound, instead focusing on the mission at hand, making her hate me. “I told you I wasn’t good, Rain. Maybe now you’ll listen.”

She tried to move forward but I grabbed her by her ankles and pulled her back. “Don’t run from me, it’ll only make me angry.” I gazed at the tiny puckered pink hole begging for my attention and eased my finger inside. “Oh you’re ready, baby. So ready.”

She arched her back, a delicate noise escaping her parted lips. I almost came right then and there watching her luxuriating in the pleasure I was giving her. I pressed my finger further but then stopped, slowly pulling it out. I couldn’t, not yet. I had a mission to complete before I allowed her or me to come.

I reached into the bag and pulled out a narrow wooden paddle covered in thin vertical grooves. I drug it across her hips before swatting her softly with it. For all my gentleness she still jumped.

Her eyes darted to me then her bound arms. “You’re going to spank me with that?”

I ignored her question and pulled out a silk pillowcase and a long white, satin ribbon.

“Kael?” Her breath came in pants. “What are you going to do with all of that stuff?”

I held up the paddle. “This is for your beautiful ass.” I grabbed the pillowcase. “And this is going over your head, tied around your neck with this ribbon.”

She rolled onto her back and scooted into a seated position, scrambling away from me until she was pressed against the backboard. “You’re scaring me, Kael.”

I crawled over the bed until I was straddling her legs. “Baby, I told you to leave. And what did you do?”

Tears slid from her eyes. “I slapped you?” I nodded. “Twice,” she added in a whisper. “I’m sorry.”

I leaned forward and kissed her mouth. “I’m sorry too. I’m sorry it had to end like this for us, with me breaking your heart again. You have to know, this is not what I wanted.”

“But Kael, I love—”

I slipped the pillowcase over her head before she could finish her sentence. I didn’t want to hear her. I needed to finish this. I tied it closed around her throat. Tight enough to slightly restrict her breathing and not come off, but not enough to suffocate her. She would hate me when I was done, but she would hit her climax so many times, and so intensely she wouldn’t be able to recall her own name.

“Kael,” she said through the silk.

I could track her breathing, with the fabric clinging to her nose and mouth when she inhaled and exhaled.

“Conserve your breath, baby, and remember to take deep, slow breaths.” I flipped her over, so that she was once again on her knees. I leaned forward and kissed her butt cheek before nibbling at the toned flesh. “You’ll come harder if you do.”

She moaned through the pillowcase and gyrated her pelvis at my touch, rocking it back and forth against my skin. I opened my mouth wide and licked and bit her backside until I felt like my cock would explode. I picked up the paddle and rubbed it against her hips.

“Tonight, I’m going to show you how I love. I’m going to show you the real, unvarnished truth. And then maybe, you’ll understand why I’m no good for you.” I raised the paddle and smacked her ass.

She cried out and crawled forward. I grabbed her by her ankles and pulled her back to me in the doggy position, and smacked her on the opposite cheek. “Just take it, Rain.” And hit her again.

She squealed and I dove between her thighs and pushed my tongue inside her pussy. She was so wet. For all her screaming, she loved it. I found her clit and swirled my tongue around it until she was close to coming, and then I brought the paddle down on her ass in rapid succession.

One, two, three. I paused to watch her, saw her find the pleasure in what I was doing. She turned back toward me, gyrated her hips toward me.

The endorphins must have been coursing through her body from the erotic spanking I was giving her. And it was clear she wanted more. Four, five. I lost count as my cock pulsed with pleasure. I tossed the paddle onto the carpet, and returned to her pussy, ramming my tongue deep inside her. I lapped back and forth until she screamed in pleasure, her body started trembling and she came in my mouth.

And when it was over, I ran my tongue over her cheeks, blooming with red color. She looked so beautiful, so sexy like that, and I wasn’t nearly done.

I flipped her over, kissed and then bit her face through the pillowcase. “You okay, baby?”

“Yes,” she whispered through the silk. “I can’t believe you just paddled me.”

I had to see her face. I knew her cheeks would be flushed with color, eyes filled with lust. Gently untying the ribbon, I removed the pillowcase from her head and allowed her to breathe freely.

She was the picture of sex, of lust, of passion. Her curls were tousled carelessly around her face, her cheeks were pink, her lips ruby red and her gorgeous amber eyes…she looked like what she was, a woman who’d just experienced an intense orgasm.

“You came.”

She nodded. “And then I came.” She eyed me warily, her gaze falling on the half-empty bottle of lube. “There’s more?”

“There’s more, baby.” I pushed her onto the bed, turned her over so that she was on her knees again. Without hesitation, I pushed one finger into her lubed hole and it slid in with ease.

She groaned in pleasure as her back arched and she opened up for me. “Oh God, Kael.”

I quickly pulled out, coated my shaft in the rest of the lube and grabbed the base of my erection positioning it between her hips. “Say your safe word and I’ll stop.” She was silent and I rubbed the tip over the puckered pink flesh and she pushed against me, wanting more.

I closed my eyes, enjoying the sensation. My mouth watered as the darkness billowed around me, the sound of Rain’s mewling barely reaching my ears. I would give her pleasure, but I would also hurt her. I knew this but couldn’t stop.

I pumped my shaft up and down allowing the pleasure to course through me. Giving myself a moment to reconsider, a moment to find another way to keep Rain safe. But then she looked at me over her shoulder, her eyes fixed on my face.

“Kael,” she began, her voice low, sweet and thick with emotion. “Please, fuck me.”

No mercy. Ever.

I pushed my cock inside of her, impaling her to the core. The sounds of her wail filled the room and my ears and then my vision clouded over and I could see nothing, hear nothing, only feel the soft warm body beneath me.

My hands found her breasts and gripped them for leverage as I thrust in and out of her. She was so tight, so warm. I couldn’t stop, not even when her legs gave away and she fell flat on the bed writhing and moaning below me.

I fell on top of her, allowing the full weight of my body to crush her. My hands moved up, one to get caught in her mane of curls and the other to cover her face, partially covering her nose, with two fingers in her mouth.

Instead of crying out, she sucked on my fingers even when I forced them further down her throat and she began to gag; she only closed her mouth around my fingers. And then her body began to tremble and her mouth slipped open. She threw her head back and I slid my hand around her windpipe.

“I’m coming, Kael,” she whispered. “I’m coming.”

“Come, baby, come for me,” I said before I licked at her ear, the side of her face, her neck.

She began to orgasm and her entire body clenched around my cock and I allowed myself to come too. Both hands closed around her throat and I fought against the darkness to stay aware of how tight I squeezed, how long I restricted her flow of air. It would’ve been so easy to give into the blood lust that pumped through me when I fucked like this, just allow my fingers to crush her beautiful, delicate neck just so I could have that extra thrill of power and conquest that came with killing.

That feeling that was overwhelming and ever present, that thing inside of me that I fought to keep hidden from Rain. Tonight she got no protection, because this was the one that would finally push her away and keep her safe from me, from The Group.

I felt her go limp beneath me and I came in a thundering explosion deep inside of her. But I kept pumping, deeper, harder, until the last drop of cum dripped from my cock.

Finally spent, I pulled out, grabbed the wet towels stacked on my end table and cleaned us both before cutting the duct table that bound her, kept her from running from me. She was still unconscious when I stretched her out and covered her with the sheets and then kissed my sleeping beauty.

She looked so beautiful, so at peace. The muscles around my heart clenched. When she came to, she’d come to her senses, recall my savagery and leave.

Just like I planned. She’d be safe and I’d be alone.

An iciness filled my heart and numbed my entire chest cavity. I stood and stared at her for a moment until my entire body felt anesthetized. I could’ve been shot in the chest and I wouldn’t have felt it.

A lump formed in my throat when I tried to speak. “I love you, Rain.” She couldn’t hear me and I’d whispered the words anyway. But I wanted to say them one more time. , Before… Before.

I slipped into the bathroom and turned the shower on.

* * * * *

I felt his presence first when I came to. It had been like swimming to the surface of an impossibly deep, dark sea with beautiful, colorful shapes all around. I remembered everything that had happened, but the overwhelming feeling of pain suffused with pleasure, or was it pleasure saturated with pain that rocked my body, that overtook me so completely that I could think of nothing else but the sensation of my body and belonging to this raw passionate man.

I lay on the bed with my eyes still closed, still enjoying the sensations of my body. The ache from deep within, the tenderness of my swollen nipples, the feel of his lips and teeth on my body. I wasn’t repulsed. I wanted more. I liked the way he physically, mentally and emotionally claimed me for his own.

His stake was complete. How could I belong to another, ever? How could I ever want another man to hold me, to touch me after Kael had branded me with his love? I was practically ruined for all other men.

And then I heard him, I heard him say it.
I love you.

I knew it. Of course he did. I hadn’t been imagining things. And I loved him back. Which begged the question, why would he want me to think otherwise? Why would he push me away? With the click of the bathroom, I opened my eyes and sat up. Aware that he had ravaged me like a romance novel heroine. Aware that he’d cleaned my body.

I stood and went to the bathroom, opened the door, freeing the steam that had amassed there and stepped inside. He was in the shower with his back to me. His head bowed and resting against the ceramic tiles with water running down his neck and back.

I slid the door open and stepped behind him, snaking my arms around his waist.

“Can I join you?”

He turned around slowly, his expression one of confusion. “What are you doing here?”

I gazed at him, wondering at the redness of his eyes. If he hadn’t already been in the shower, drenched in water I would’ve sworn he’d been crying. “Where else would I be?” I dragged my fingers across his chiseled chest

“You’ve come to say goodbye, then?” He touched my chin and lifted my face up.

I grabbed his wrist, turned it toward me and kissed his palm. “No. I’m not going anywhere. Ever.”

“But after what I did to you…” He glanced at the bedroom door. “You must hate me.”

I lowered my hand to his crotch, found his shaft still long, still thick even at rest and gently curled my fingers around it. “I love the way you love me.”

“You do?” He glanced at my hand before raising his gaze to meet my own. “You don’t hate me?”

I shook my head. “I can’t even describe the way you make me feel. Just…completely dominated. Like I belong to you and only you.”

He reached for my hand and gently removed it. “But I hurt you. I know I did.”

I couldn’t look him in his eyes. “It was a good hurt. I don’t know why, but I liked it.”

He inhaled sharply. “I know you said that before, but tonight was different. I was—”

“Brutal?”

He swallowed hard, flinched at my word. “Yeah, that.” He picked up a soapy sponge, avoided my eyes. “May I?”

I nodded and he kneeled on the titled floor and began to wash me, starting with my feet. I stared down at his bowed head and felt a wave of love and tenderness wash over me.

He slowly made his way up to my legs and knees before gently parting my thighs and rubbing the sponge across my skin. I touched the side of his face and he looked up.

“I love you. Nothing you can say or do will change that.” He nodded and continued bathing me until he was standing before me, sponging my breasts in lazy circles.

A look of resignation crossed his face. “I don’t know how to make this work.”

“Make what work? Things have been great between us. What happened in Atlanta? Something must’ve happened.”

He looked past me at the wall as if he hoped to find answers written there. “I just want to keep you safe.”

“From what? From you?” I wrapped my arms around his neck and held him close. “I know all your secrets now. This is what you were keeping from me, isn’t it? “

I felt him stiffen in my embrace but he did not respond.

“I knew it. I’ve always felt as if there was something you were keeping from me, some secret you couldn’t trust me with.” I pulled back and looked into his face, the serious eyes, the unsmiling lips. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

Sighing, he lifted up his arms and hugged me back with the water pouring down on us both.

His lips found my ear. “After tonight, if you’re not going to leave me,” he whispered. “I’m not going to make you.”

And we stayed like that for the longest time, wrapped up in each other’s arms under the steaming water.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The kitchen door swung open and Rain walked out with her father’s BBQ-ing apron covering up her cream sundress shot with gold thread. Her hair was twisted into an impromptu bun at the nape of her neck with tendrils of curls springing around her face.

She was Betty Crocker-hot and I was imagining the sex we could have with her bent over the kitchen table when everybody cleared out. From my spot on a leather recliner in the middle of the living room, I watched her greet her sister with a big grin on her face.

“So nice of you to take a break from your whirlwind schedule to join us.”

Haley tossed her overnight bag on the floor beside the front door. “You know I try to spend as much time as possible with my family. Keeps me grounded.” She glanced at me and I gave her a friendly wave.

“If I get bored, I’ll just bother Kael.”

Rain looked my way and smiled. “Alright. Dinner will be served in about five minutes.”

It had only been twenty-four hours but it felt like something significant had shifted in our relationship. There was a new level of trust, a deeper sense of intimacy between us and I welcomed the change.

Despite the threats from Il Morte and The Group I felt optimistic about my future with Rain. She knew how I could be and she still wanted me, she still loved me. That was important. That was a big deal and it was a huge relief to know that she accepted me, proverbial warts and all.

Everything else, I could handle. I would find Il Morte and I would figure out a way to do my job and keep Rain in my life.

She walked back into the kitchen where I could see Charlotte at the counter dicing cucumbers for the salad. Her boyfriend, Gian-Carlo, would be arriving soon with a vat of tiramisu.

As soon as Rain left, Haley made a beeline for me, perching herself on the arm of my chair.

She lowered her voice and leaned toward me. “I overheard your conversation with…that crazy woman.”

“What crazy woman?” Puzzled, I considered her for a moment and then I realized she could only be talking about Zelie. “When? How?”

“It Atlanta, after we met at the restaurant.” She favored me with a smug look. “I was hiding in coat check, waiting to see if any mysterious women appeared when I left. And what do you know, I was right.”

I stared at her, not sure if I should laugh or cry. One of my worst nightmares was happening, I’d been found out. By my girlfriend’s baby sister of all things. I thought of what she must’ve overheard. Certainly she couldn’t have processed it properly.

And then I laughed. Because it was ridiculous. Haley hiding behind coats watching Zelie and her crazy girl routine. “Wow. Just wow.”

Haley glanced furtively toward the closed kitchen door and back at me. “So, you want to explain what I overheard?” She stared at me expectantly as if I could offer a succinct explanation to her before dinner.

I exhaled loudly and shook my head. “I don’t know if I can.”

Her eyes almost bulged out of her head and her mouth dropped open. “I heard
rice for guns
, which is something they’ve talked about on CNN, and
the group
, Taiwan and
Operation Serpentine
… What does it all mean? And the word
kill,
I heard it mentioned like five times. What the hell is going on?”

She was so excited, I couldn’t help but smile. “Fancy yourself Nancy Drew, huh?”

She folded her pretty features into a scowl. “That girl tried to attack you! What kind of mess are you in?”

“Nothing I can’t handle, Haley.” She was a little too excited about her discovery. I calmed my features, hoping she’d unconsciously mirror me. “Nothing for you to worry your model mug about.”

But she stood, her jaw set and with one eyebrow arched.

Oh
shit
. I didn’t like the way she was looking and with her hands on her hips like that.

“Fine,” she began. “That’s how you want to play it? I’m telling Rain
everything
I heard.”

She opened her mouth wide, like she was about to yell for her sister, and I grabbed her hand and yanked her toward me. I glanced at the kitchen door. “Sit,” I commanded in my sternest voice and gestured to the arm of my chair. Thankfully she followed my direction.

I gave her a hard look meant to relay the seriousness of our conversation, and then lowered my voice to almost a whisper. “I’ll tell you. I’ll explain things to you and then you better keep your pretty little mouth shut. Got it?”

Surprised at my tone, her eyes widened, her nose scrunched up and she opened and closed her mouth several times before settling down. She favored me with a suspicious squint. “I’m all ears.”

I took a moment and decided on the minimal amount of information to tell her. “The CIA recruited me when I was still in the Army.”

“You were in the military? “She gazed at me anew. “Rain never mentioned it.”

“I was a Green Beret.” I shrugged. “I didn’t tell her.”

“But the CIA? So, you’re like…a spy?”

I rolled my eyes, couldn’t help it. “Sure. Something like that. And that girl you saw—I work with her. It’s business. All business.”

She opened her mouth to ask another question, but I shut her down with another hard look.

She clamped her mouth shut and stared at me.

The sound of Charlotte laughing interrupted us, fortunately for me. We looked to the kitchen.

“Charlotte seems to be in a better mood these days.”

“Yeah,” Haley said. “Rain told me she hooked up with some Italian guy.”

“Rain mentioned that he and Charlotte have been spending a lot of time together. Sounds serious.”

Another peal of laughter filled the air. We both paused and again turned our attention to the kitchen. “At least Charlotte’s happy and it sounds like she and Rain have resolved their differences.” She turned to me, her blue eyes determined. “Are you going to tell Rain what you really do? I think she’d be relieved to know you’re not cheating on her.”

Hell no. Absolutely not.
“I’d rather have her think I was cheating than know the truth.”

Haley gasped and then she gaped at me, probably wondering what could be worse than cheating on the one you loved.

“I think you should come clean. Today after we eat. Just pull her to the side and tell her what you told me.”

I shook my head. We’d just overcome one huge obstacle in our relationship. I was not about to tempt fate by telling her that as a matter of course, I killed bad guys. “I want to work on us right now without any complications. I don’t want to spook her. Obviously, she can’t know what I do for a living.”

She gazed at me, a question on her face
.
I could read her like a book.
So, what exactly do you do for a living?

But I wasn’t answering. “She wouldn’t look at me the same.” I forced myself to laugh. “Hell, I don’t see myself the same.”

There was another awkward silence between us as Haley stared at me apparently fascinated by what I’d told her, and then I literally saw a light bulb appear over her head.

“Did your job have anything to do with why Rain didn’t hear from you for so long?”

“It had everything to do with it. Sometimes my line of work puts the people closest to me in danger.” I turned to look at the kitchen door Rain had gone through. “The case I was working on at the time involved some hard-core criminals in Bosnia. I didn’t want anyone hurting her to get to me, so I laid low until it was safe. I wrote her a letter, several in fact, explaining as much as I could at that time. It should have made everything better.”

“But it didn’t?”

“She never got the letters. Someone convinced her to tear up the first one. Then they purposely intercepted the rest of them.” I sighed. “I had no idea until recently that she thought I’d just left her hanging. It’s difficult for me to believe that after what your sister and I shared in Jamaica, that she’d just forget about me and move on.”

A burning sensation sliced through my chest and I gritted my teeth. “All this time. She must’ve thought I was such a bastard.”

Her face softened and she placed a hand on my arm. “I think everything will be fine going forward.”

The kitchen door swung open and Charlotte appeared with a mean look on her face.

“Well, you two certainly look cozy.”

Haley snatched her hand back and stood, her face flushing a warm pink.

And that was my cue to leave. I stood and made a great show of sniffing the air. The pungent fragrance of roasted tomatoes and sautéed garlic filled the air, so it really wasn’t much of an act.

“Something smells good. Dinner ready?”

“Yeah,” Charlotte replied with a frown. “That’s what I came in here to tell you guys.”

I tried not to scowl back her, but it was difficult. She was a pretty girl but she always seemed angry or suspicious. When she entered the room, an entire dark cloud of negative vibrations followed her.

Maybe talking about the Italian guy would change her mood. “So, when do we get to meet this great guy you’ve been seeing?”

And her face did light up momentarily. But then the smile was gone. “That’s the second thing I came out here to tell you. He just called. There was a grease fire at the restaurant, nothing serious but he needed to get down there. Maybe another time.”

Nodding, I moved toward the door. “I’m going to see if Rain needs any help.”

When I looked over my shoulder, the suspicious look on Charlotte’s face had returned and she looked like she was about to read poor Haley the riot act for the crime of touching my arm.

* * * * *

Tonight had been perfect. Kael stayed to help clean up and Charlotte left to spend the night with Gian-Carlo who never did show up. Kael wanted to spend the night but with my baby sister crashing in our guest room, I had to nix that idea.

There was no way I could get romantic with Kael, not the way he liked, with my sister in the next room. I rolled over onto my back and squinted into the dark, found my digital clock. Three o’clock. Ugh, why had I awoken so early?

I closed my eyes

Grunting at no one in particular, I rolled over onto my stomach, sticking my head under the pillow. Loud noises woke me up and I still wanted several more hours of sleep.

But sleep would prove to be elusive because even though my ears were covered, it was not enough to completely muffle the sounds of drawers being opened and closed. That is what I was hearing. The sound of stuff being moved around, of footfalls outside my door. I pushed the pillow off my head, kicked the purple comforter from my legs and sat up.

I looked at my watch. It was two o’clock in the morning. Who was up at this hour anyway?

When I heard someone running down the stairs, my first thought was that it was a burglar. I jumped up and ran to my door, and saw Charlotte pause at the foot of the stairs, frantically looking around.

Rubbing my eyes I called down to her. “Hey, can you keep it down? I have an early morning meeting with the café’s interior decorator. What’s going on?”

She gave me a wild-eyed look and then ascended the stairs. “It’s nothing. I’m looking for— I’ve misplaced my journal.”

I switched on the upstairs hall light and was shocked to see Charlotte crying. Once she was on the landing with me, I wrapped my arms around her and discovered that she was trembling.

“Charlotte, it’s not that big of a deal. We’ll find it.” I moved toward the stairs, but she grabbed me by the arm. “No, I don’t want you to look, it’s fine. I’ll find it myself.”

But her face was pale, her eyes wet with tears and she looked as if she might vomit. She was obviously not fine. I was also beginning to wonder why she didn’t want me to help her.

She eyed the door to my room nervously. I turned to look at the door too and it occurred to me that our diaries looked the exactly the same. I slowly turned back to her. “Are you thinking I picked up your journal by accident?”

Her lips twitched into a reluctant smile and she inched toward my door. “Possibly. Maybe I should just go—”

I stepped in front of her, blocking her way further down the hall. “I’ll check.”

She scurried after me, pulling at my shirt. “I was going to write in my diary tonight before bed when I realized that I had yours.” We reached my door and she gave me a pleading look. “And you must have mine.”

The way she was behaving was raising all sorts of red flags. “You’ve obviously written something in your diary that you don’t want me to see.”

She glanced into my room and then back at me. “Just my private thoughts. You know, stuff nobody else would care about.” She took a long ragged breath. “Would it be weird if I asked you to just hand me the diary without looking inside?”

Now I was afraid of what I might find. I shouldered her out of the way, entered my room and slammed the door behind me. I stared at the doorknob for a moment and then locked the door.

“Rain!” I was alarmed by the way she loudly and insistently beat her hand against my door. “Don’t open it. If you value our friendship, please!”

I found the journal on my nightstand. They did look the exact same, except the edges of my pages were worn while hers were still crisp and new looking. I picked up the book and inspected it before opening it. Yeah, it was definitely not my journal.

Taking a deep breath, I sat on my bed and flipped through the pages. A postcard fluttered to the ground. I picked it up and stared at the picture, an image of the Nile River. The words
Greetings From Eritrea
splashed across the bottom of the square in bright yellow. A spinning sensation grew in the pit of my stomach as I slowly turned the card over. It was another message from Kale, this one dated several months prior.

Would like to see you. Please contact me. Kael
As before, a phone number was printed under his name.

What the hell? I glared at my locked door, imagining I could see through it to Charlotte on the other side with her red nose and wet cheeks. Why was she keeping Kael’s postcards? Why hadn’t she told me about this one? How many more had she kept from me?

“Rain?” she called from the hallway. “Can we talk?”

I went back to the book, slowly flipping through the book, skimming the pages for my name. After a long minute, I didn’t find my name anywhere but I did find Kael’s.