Black Lies

  My return to the candy quandary was looking like a lost cause. “Am I what?”

  “Lucky.” His voice low, it grated of intentions, desire, and Iwannafuckyourighhere sex.

  I looked up, meeting his gaze and was taken aback by the sizzle of chemistry between us. This was nothing like how it was with Brant. This was electricity and danger and raw want, a combination that pushed my feminine buttons and made me reckless. “Why don’t you try me and find out?”

  He chuckled, stepped back, the yellow suede of his work boots creaking on the linoleum floor. “You’re not that kind of girl.”

  I kept the eye contact, swallowed the apprehension sitting in my throat. This was wrong. This was bad. I should run home, wait for Brant, and forget this ever happened. My voice disobeyed, coming out cool, confident. Exactly as I’d always wished a flirtation to sound, yet this time was when I finally nailed it. “Not that kind of girl? Then you really don’t know me.”

  “Anybody can talk big in public.” His eyes dared me, his cocky smile returning, and he glanced at the hidden magazine, then back at me.

  “Then take me somewhere private.” The challenge was in my tone, even as my conscience screamed a long, silent death somewhere in my bones.

  Private turned out to be the back of the store, a gravel lot enclosed on both sides with privacy fence and junk cars, an abandoned bucket and empty packs of cigarettes littering the ground that our feet kicked through. He shoved me against the wall, his hands pulling at my Vince sleeveless tank, sliding it down over my shoulders, the neckline popping as it stretched beyond its means, his strong hands ripping further until the pale top of my breasts were exposed, peeking out of the lace of my bra. “Nice,” he murmured, dropping his head, pulling down with greedy hands until the cups of my bra were pulled aside and my breasts hung free, out of the cloth, his hands cupping and squeezing them as his body pressed against me. Inside me, my conscience battled with need, every brush, grip and grope of his hand like fire across my skin, lighting my arousal till it was at the point of madness. I struggled with my emotions, unable to keep a clear head as I gasped for breath, his head lifting until we were staring at each other and everything paused.

  A long freeze in time, both of us caught until he broke the moment with the long scrape of a chuckle. “What are you doing Lucky? Aren’t you late for afternoon tea?”

  I growled at him, leaning forward and biting into his neck, the taste of his skin one of sweat and salt, heat and man. Dirt and want. A far cry from the cologne and dignity of which I was accustomed. “I thought you were a man of action. You nervous? Worried you can’t compete?”

  He pulled my mouth from his neck. Twisted my face with his hand until I was staring full force into him. Dominant eyes, the playfulness gone. Nothing but gorgeous alpha male, competitive forces at play in their depths. I’d seen the look in Brant’s eyes before. When he was attacking a problem. Going after a competitor. But never when he’d stared at me.

  “I’m worried I’ll fuck you so well I’ll ruin you for life.”

  God, I know it was wrong. But in the face of recent events, I closed my eyes to reason.

  I liked it. I wanted it. I wanted it to fuck me.

  And it did. Right there in that overgrown parking lot. An employee’s car watching us pulse and moan against dirty brick. Heaven above cursing my soul while I spread my legs and let his cock take me hard. A cheap gas station condom on his cock. Hard and clean and hotter than I’ve ever gotten it before. Including from Brant. He fucked me to use me, his focus on his pleasure, his attraction to me not masked in any way. It should have felt wrong, it shouldn’t have been hot, but it was, dirty and desperate, and I came hard, my hands gripping the rough brick, my legs shaking, the pleasure ripping a forbidden path through my body.

  He finished a minute later with a roar, not attempting to censor his speech, his cry whipped by the wind, my own moan loud against his neck, his hands tight on my ass, pulling me into him, the gasps and pants letting me know how long and how good his finish was.

  “Fuck,” he swore, pushing off the building, his cock dropping out of me, one of his hands hard against my shoulder, keeping me pinned to the wall as he stripped off the condom and tucked his cock back into his pants. Zipped up ripped jeans with one hand while his heavy breaths and wild eyes traveled up my body. “So that’s what the other half gets.”

  “Fuck you,” I shot back, with as much challenge as I could, given that my linen shorts were stretched tight around my ankles, my shirt up, tits out. A strong breeze gusted, and my nipples responded, the skin tightening, my cunt heavy and wet with my arousal.

  He squatted before me. Gripped the top of my shorts and worked them up, my legs sliding together to aid him, the scuff of jeweled sandals against gravel as the heat of his fingers drug up my legs, his eyes never moving from mine, their directness more of an invasion than his cock.

  At my navel, I felt the turn of his hands as he fastened the button, then he slid his knuckles higher. The rough skin of them brushed over my stomach, then the curve of my breasts, my breath hitching as he rolled his hands over and squeezed possessively. Hard enough to almost hurt, he used the grip to pull himself up, and I had to look up as he rose to his full height.

  Another squeeze. I felt every single finger as they spread across my chest. He alternated the pressure and I would have laughed except that I was on the thin verge of asking him for round two.

  His hand released. He pulled up my bra and down my shirt so quickly that I got distracted from whatever I was about to say. And… with clothes in between us, we suddenly had less in common.

  “Get back to his mansion, Lucky. I’m sure he’s waiting.”

  “He’s not.”

  He grinned again, this one less playful, harder, cynical. “You always fuck strangers within five minutes of meeting them?”

  “Did they leave that fact out of the article?”

  “I guess high class bitches like cock just like any other.”

  “I guess low lives don’t know how to take a girl on a date.”

  A catch in those eyes. A slow nod, the corners of his mouth turned up a tad, a dimple breaking through. Brant had a dimple, though I hadn’t seen it in months.

  “Then let me take you to lunch.”

  I glanced at my watch, the Tag sparkling brilliantly against the afternoon sun, framed by California-kissed skin. “A little late for lunch.”

  “Then beers. Unless that’s too lowbrow for you.”

  I shrugged. “I can fuck in a parking lot; I think I can down some dollar wells.”

  His face darkened, and I had already seen more emotion from him in thirty minutes than in the last month with Brant. Ever since my rejection of his proposal, there’d been a gap of sorts. Maybe it was me, maybe he had withdrawn, maybe it was a little of both. Whatever the reason, this man’s passion, his attitude… it was a refreshing change.

  We got in his vehicle, a jeep, one that pulled a trailer full of mowers and tools, my eyes skipping over the contents, inventorying everything, his eyes catching the movement. “Sorry. Left my Ferrari at home.”

  I sat on a broken vinyl seat, my fingers itching to pull open the glove box and check the registration, put a name and some bit of understanding to the man who sat beside me. The jeep hitched, then jerked, throwing me against the steering wheel as he tore out of the parking lot, my white Mercedes still parked in front, the candy bar craving still present as I let him drive away.

  “What’s with the tools?” I had to yell over the music, some country song about broken hearts and Texas, his hand leaving the shaky shifter to turn the dial down, the easy way his hand returned to the shift knob sexual in its dominance.

  “I do landscaping. Cut, trim, edge, plant. Work with my hands.” He glanced over. “That work for you?”

  “It doesn’t need to work for me.” I gripped the seatbelt. Hoped his next tight turn didn’t tumble us into the ditch. Whoever decided on pulling the doors off these vehicles needed t
o be shot. I wondered about the vehicle’s safety rating.

  “You always such a bitch?”

  I laughed. Shook my head. “No.” Brant would never call me a bitch. Didn’t use words like that. Thought of them as unintelligent, a waste of syllables when there were so many more appropriate terms.

  “So I’m just lucky?”

  “You’re… different,” I mused, unsure how to say all of the things I didn’t need to say.

  “I’m just ordinary, Lucky. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

  No. I thought a piece of us all yearned to be ordinary. I’d like to escape into it myself sometime.

  He pulled up to a bar I had never seen, in a part of town I had never visited. The In Between—sandwiched between two larger bars that probably served food and had wait staff and a sanitation rating above a D. But we walked into the In Between, the bartender looking up with a familiar smile and greeting him by name. Lee. Wouldn’t have guessed that. Lee fit strange on him, would take some adjustment of my mind. Guess we missed introductions in our romantic rush to the parking lot.

  The first stool I sat on wobbled badly, my discard of it and attempt at stool #2 also a failure. I accepted the failure, hooking my feet on the rungs and looking up, into the bored face of the bartender.

  “Whatcha want?”

  “What do you have?”

  “Millers, Bud, and Pabsts.”

  Super classy. “Miller Lite please. Bottle.”

  I got a draft two minutes later, the glass looking less than clean, a Solo cup more welcome, had one been available. I took a strong chug of the beer, happy to find it cold, then set it down, feeling his eyes on me. I turned my head, catching a glimpse of his smile, the glass pausing on its way back to my mouth.

  His smile was my kryptonite. It was shy in the way that only a confident man can work, the slow drawl of a mouth that asked you for permission to step inside and fuck your mind.

  I took another sip of beer and he watched my mouth. And even when his smile stopped, it continued in his eyes. He fucked me with those eyes. I felt them pull off my clothes and push me back, climb on top of me and make me his. I couldn’t look away; I couldn’t help but smile back. I should be confident, I should hold the cards, but instead I blushed and lost track of thought. This man, he could be the death of me. I knew that, but feared I could not stay away. It was worth losing the war for time in the battle with him.

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Anyone ever tell you you’re weird?”

  “In what way?”

  He laughed. “Every way.” He took a heavy sip of his own, reached over, and grabbed my stool, in between my legs, his hand brushing against the crotch of my shorts as he gripped the wood and pulled it, my hands gripping the bar top for balance as he drug the stool and me toward him, stopping when I was in between his legs, his hand on my bare thigh, sliding confidently up the muscle until he reached the hem of my shorts.

  “You’re pretty weird yourself.”

  “You don’t know me yet.”

  He was right about that. This man was a complete mystery to me. “I have a pretty good idea.”

  “I’m glad one of us does.”

  I stared at him, fascinated. By the way his fingers dipped under the line of my shorts, by how he was sexual and frank, yet secretive. Cocky, but with a hint of vulnerability. He showed disdain and attraction for me all at one time, and acted as if it was completely normal. But most fascinating, most tempting: all of the ways he was different from Brant. In the loose gesture of his hand, as he tipped back his head and emptied his glass. The manliness in every movement, the smell of him, one of earth and grass and sweat. Masculinity personified, and proved legitimate in how he had fucked me against the wall. Hard, invasive. For his own need more than mine. Greedy, animalistic. Marking me with his cock. He was the type of man I had always run from, but might just be the type I had always needed.

  He swung back on his stool to me, looped a hand around my back and slid me to the edge of mine, taking a moment to lift one leg, then the other, until I was all but straddling him, the push of his jeans against mine maddeningly stimulating.

  “Kiss me.” He pulled the glass from my hand. Set it on the counter and faced me fully. Cupped my face and stared into my eyes. Waited. I closed my eyes, exhaled. Turned my face to his.

  Nothing. I cracked an eye open to see his smile, the slight shake of an oncoming laugh.

  “I didn’t say, ‘be kissed’. I said, ‘kiss me.’”

  Anger made me yank his shirt, fisting the fabric and pulling him close, my butt working its way off the stool and onto his lap. I attacked his mouth, surprised at their meeting, surprised at how soft and supple his response was, his hands curving down my bare back and pulling me tighter to him. I loved my mouth in his, the flex of his tongue under mine. We did not feel like strangers; our mouths instinctively knew each other.

  He turned in his stool, taking me with him, pinning my back against the bar as his hands kept me glued to his lap, his mouth breaking from me long enough to speak.

  “You want more?” he whispered. “Cause I want to feel the inside of your mouth before I send you back to him.”

  “I want more,” I gasped.

  Two minutes later, we were in the bathroom.

  I didn’t think places like this, bars smaller than my walk-in closet, had bathrooms. But this one did. A tiny cube, a pedestal sink screwed to the wall, condom dispenser on the wall, a drain beneath my feet. Thirty square feet, max.

  The door slammed shut as my back pushed it closed, his hands forcing the action, the taste of beer on his tongue as we kissed. His hands, pulling at my shirt, yanking it over my head. A quick flip of his hands freed my bra, his hands skimming the straps off my shoulders. Our kiss hot and fevered, I pushed any rational thought from my head and enjoyed the moment, enjoyed the touch of a man who could not get enough.

  He took a break from my mouth, dropping his head and staring, like he had never seen breasts before, a heavy sigh tumbling from him as he scooped them into his hands, his hold tender, his gorgeous mouth—when he dropped it to their surface—not. “God, these are beautiful.” He nibbled the delicate skin, inhaled deeply as his tongue circled my nipple, sucked one into his mouth, and devoured each in turn as my head dropped back against the door. I heard the metal of his belt, the ting of it against tile as his jeans dropped, my own hands helping to skim his shirt off his torso until he was naked before me, his head coming off my chest, his eyes, when they met mine, showing the breaking point of his control. And God, he was hard. I could see it in my peripheral vision, felt it as it bumped against me.

  “Get on your knees,” he rasped.

  I had no interest in getting on that floor. I’m pretty sure it hadn’t seen the scrub of a mop in months. But I had every interest in taking him in my mouth. Every interest in making his look of raw lust continue. I snagged his pants, created a pillow for my knees, and knelt down before him.

  God bless. Even though I’d done this a hundred times, it felt different. Opening my mouth, wrapping my hand around the complete stiffness that was his cock, licking my lips and hearing him inhale… I had never been this wet. Never wanted this so much. Never desired a hard hand on the back of my head, an impatient shove, to look up in a man’s eyes and see disrespect and desire all rolled into one heated stare. I dove down on his cock, pumped my hand, inhaled through my nose, and took as much of him as I could, gagging at times, my mouth finding a rhythm, sucking and withdrawing, sucking and withdrawing, the groans from his mouth letting me know I was doing it well.

  I sucked him until my jaw hurt and his hands yanked me up. Ripped down my shorts, the button flying somewhere, my body naked before him, his hands spinning me until we both faced the dirty mirror, our eyes wide, chests panting. Something outside bumped against the door, reminding me of our location. “Bend over,” he growled, and I did, moving my legs back until I was leaning against the sink, staring at our reflection as he looked down, wr
apped his cock, tested my pussy, and then shoved inside.

  I gripped the sink and tried not to scream, but ohmygod I was addicted.

  Chapter 23

  We returned to the bar, two warm beers waiting, the bar twice as full as when we left, meaning that six bodies now dotted the tiny landscape. He picked up the glass, downed the drink, then pushed the empty glass forward. “Thanks for the beer.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Ignored my own. Dug my cell out from my pocket and checked for missed calls. Zero. “Thank you for the beer.”

  He waved to the bartender, a man in a tight shirt, one who gave me a smile that I was pretty sure was mocking me for our bathroom playtime. “Naw. I’m pretty sure your drinking and fucking budget is bigger than mine. I’ll be in the truck.” He swung by me, shaking a few hands and slapping backs on his way out, his stride relaxed, confident.

  I looked back at the bartender, who wiped down the counter and gave me an expectant look. “He got a tab?”

  “Not one he’s paid recently.” The man reached for our glasses, raised an eyebrow at my full one before dumping them both in the sink.

  “Figures.” I dug in my pocket, coming up with a twenty, and smacked it down on the counter. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Always great to see one of Lee’s girls.”

  I paused in my exit, turning around to glare at him. “I’m not one of his girls.”

  The man snorted back a laugh, shrugging as he plucked up the cash, stuffing it in his front pocket. “Whatever.”

  One of Lee’s girls. I wish I’d driven. Wished I could get back into my car and return to luxury. Instead, I crawled up into his jeep. Suffered the ten-minute car ride back to the convenience store, the wind whipping my hair as his speakers crackled through the bass beats of Florida Georgia Line.

  He came to an abrupt stop behind my car, his eyes sweeping over the clean lines that had put Brant back six figures. “I assume this is you, Lucky.”

  “It’s Layana.” I grabbed my purse and unclipped the seatbelt, stopping when he flipped open the ashtray and fished out a business card, the edges worn and bent. “Lana to my friends.”