The Deception series boxset: FaCade, Cadence, Beneath Innocence (19 page)

I let him lead me to our bedroom. He stripped me from my dress and guided me to the bathroom. He freed himself from his clothes and pulled me into the shower, turning it on. I let him satisfy my body. I was strung too tight. I combusted into an intense orgasm as soon as his lips closed over the tight bundle of nerves just inside the folds of my pussy. He was an expert with his tongue; his hands knew every inch of my body from the years of exploring it. His cock fit me to perfection, grazing the front wall where my delicious g-spot awaited him. Every lap of his tongue, slide of his hand, stroke of his cock was precise and designed to bring me to my knees.

I was left in a sated mess as he tucked me under the sheets after our shower. I wasn’t completely asleep when he left the room.

KISSES BEGAN AT MY ANKLES, urging me from my slumber as they travelled up my calves and thighs, inhaling over my mound then up to my navel. “Mmm, I’m so in love with you, baby. I can’t wait for you to own my name.”

His body became completely flush with mine, his eyes looking down into mine adoringly. Wow, the intensity of his love shone so bright down on me. “I want to be inside you so bad but this tattoo needs to heal,” he whined. My eyes widened. “I can still taste you though.” He grinned nuzzling into my neck.

He seemed so carefree. Where was the Dante from last night? “Mmm, what’s that smell?”

His head lifted, a cinnamon aroma filling the air. “Room service. You ordered me pancakes. I can’t stand the food on set. I need to be there in an hour so ssh and let me enjoy my first breakfast before my pancakes.” He disappeared under the sheet covering our bodies.

“What?”

“I said Matilda made you breakfast.”

My eyes shot open at the sound of Dante’s voice booming across the room. It was a dream? No - a memory. Sitting up way too fast I called out, halting Dante’s departure from the room. “Do you have any other tattoos?”

His icy glare from last night was back as he turned to me and ate up the distance between us, coming to stand at the foot of the bed. “No, why?”

It was so real but maybe it could have been a dream. Lying back down, I shook my head. “Just a dream.” He stood in silence, looking down on me. “Can we go somewhere?” I asked into the room without looking at him. “I know we’re on an island but Hunter and the others came here so we must be close to land right?”

I felt his anger, like a shadow coating the bed, seeping closer to snare me in its darkness. “I have work!”

“Can I go then?” I shouldn’t have had to ask permission but I had no clue where to begin getting off the island.

“I don’t want you out without me. You have no memories.”

I needed space, the thought of being trapped there was making me claustrophobic, like an itch under my skin making me jittery and frustrated.

“What about work? Don’t they miss me?”

“You have a studio at the back of the house.”

I sat up. “Really?”

A small tilt to the side of his mouth eased some of the anger from his features. “Yes. Would you like me to show you after breakfast?”

What he said earlier registered. “Wait, who’s Matilda?”

“She’s my cook and maid and… well everything.” Huh!

I threw on some jeans and a loose fitting tee and made my way to breakfast. The table was filled with a buffet of food and no one eating. I walked into the kitchen to find Dante holding a paper and drinking what I assumed was coffee. Malik was beside him, whispering in his ear. Both sets of eyes came to stop on me. I awkwardly raised a hand with a weird wave. Dante arched a brow and Malik averted his gaze. It was then I noticed a cast on his hand. Walking over to him with my mouth open, I reached for his arm, to be stopped by Dante’s hand capturing mine. “What are you doing?” he questioned.

“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.