Dirtiest Lie Read online

  “It’ll be a fast shower,” he says.

  ~

  While Romeo is gone, Slade pulls me into his lap.

  His cock is already hard, and even though we’re both naked, I don’t expect anything to happen.

  So when he shoves my knees apart and thrusts his hard length into my pussy, I’m surprised.

  An unexpected orgasm sweeps through me just from the penetration. Whimpering, I arch on his lap, and he sucks on my nipple, then bites it hard. The orgasm draws out, and I spasm in his arms.

  “That looks like fun,” he says, sounding amused.

  “What does?” I gasp. Another shudder makes my pussy clench.

  “That,” he says, and he pulses his cock inside me. This makes my pussy tighten again, an uncontrollable reflex on my part.

  He begins to move slowly, rocking his hips underneath me. His large hands sit low on my waist, almost on my buttocks.

  The door opens, and footsteps approach. I’m facing away, but I assume it’s Hawthorne. Slade slows his tempo.

  “Nice of you to wait,” Hawthorne says, and he sounds miffed. “Maybe next time I’ll take Karen up on her offer.”

  “Don’t deny yourself on my account,” I say.

  “Let me guess… She suggested all five of us get together,” Slade says.

  “I’d be up for that,” I say, turning to look at Hawthorne.

  Irritation slides across his face. “No one likes a martyr. I’m going to shower.” Hawthorne walks away. He’s already dragging his shirt over his head.

  Slade bucks his hips, and I face forward again and wrap my arms around him.

  “The first time I met you, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen,” he says.

  “And now?” I ask, smiling.

  “Now I think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”

  “Prettier than Karen?”

  “Without a doubt,” Romeo says moments before he moves into my peripheral vision.

  He isn’t wearing a towel, and his skin and hair are dripping wet. I always knew his body was perfect, but I had no idea. Flawless bronze skin stretches over muscles so hard that he looks carved from stone. In the daylight coming in through the frosted windows, he’s every exquisite Renaissance sculpture, every gladiator, every perfect hero.

  His cock thickens, broadens.

  The size no longer shocks me, but as always, I feel guilty that I can’t suck him the way he deserves.

  Slade slips down a little under me, and Romeo steps one foot into the hot tub, onto the top step so that his ankle is in the water. His heavy balls swing appealingly. Remembering the night when I was made to suck Hawthorne’s balls, I feel myself getting even wetter, the slippery, slick moisture between my legs easing Slade’s long, sure movements.

  Fisting his cock, Romeo directs the head between my lips. He’s clearly in a hurry; he doesn’t try to push my limits. It’s a nice, easy blow job, designed to get him off quickly.

  Footsteps approach.

  “Et tu, Romeo?” Hawthorne asks. “No one can wait two minutes.” Hawthorne crowds in next to Romeo. They both smell like a pleasant but unfamiliar soap. They take turns with my mouth. Slade gives me a series of orgasms, and in the brief moments when my mouth is empty, I beg incoherently for more.

  I’m the luckiest woman on the planet.

  And after, instead of running back to work, Romeo waits for me to shower and change so that we can all return together.

  Now I know something has shifted.

  Chapter 7

  I fiddle with the dress’s modest neckline as we walk across the lobby of our office building. Because the garment’s cut is so perfect, the dress isn’t as unflattering as I feared. With sexier shoes, it might even be a keeper.

  “Maybe I can work from home,” I say as I get onto the elevator with all six men—my bosses and the clones. It’s uncomfortable, having a small army going around with me. Yes, I feel protected, but I also feel weak and unable to take care of myself. Surely there’s a middle ground?

  “If you work from home, I’d want to be with you,” Romeo says.

  “She could work in the Tarraget skyscraper,” Hawthorne suggests. “Better security.”

  “And I suppose you’ll decide to work there as well?” Slade asks. “No hogging our girlfriend.” He winks at me.

  Girlfriend. Obviously we’re beyond casual sex, but it’s still nice to hear.

  “I don’t mind working from here,” I say, hoping no one notices the blush spreading across my cheeks.

  My security detail sweeps the office.

  “I want to work at my own desk,” I say. “It feels important for some reason.”

  Romeo consults with the clones, then nods approval. I can’t imagine what the other employees are thinking as I walk to my workstation with Slade and a clone in tow.

  Slade installs himself at the next desk over. “I’m here to keep an eye on you,” he says. “It’s part of your employee retraining program.”

  Several of my coworkers glance over.

  “Oh,” I murmur.

  As I take my seat, I get only the briefest flashback of the night I was abducted, and within a few minutes I’m immersed in the work.

  I even manage to ignore the clone standing by the wall.

  Not much has changed in my week away. There are a few reports to read, and I spend some time making sure that my own reports from the Food4Life acquisition are properly referenced.

  Every ten minutes, Slade makes me explain what I’m doing, and why.

  “This is really irritating,” I point out.

  He treats me to a lazy smile. “I’m happy to let Hawthorne take over.”

  “If you do that, you might as well have an ambulance waiting downstairs.”

  There’s a new acquisition on the horizon. This one doesn’t seem nearly as fraught with potential to blow up—no greedy founders demanding extra money and ridiculous concessions before they’ll agree to sign.

  It would only be my second case, though, so what do I know?

  There are a few executives who just want to be bought out. As for the employees, of the fifteen who work for the company, almost all of them seem ready to move on.

  Frowning, I consider that. Do the employees lack faith in their product? It’s an app that matches volunteers to open positions.

  I pull out my phone and download the app. It loads just fine, and when I say that I’m available to volunteer for two hours, eight different opportunities pop up. The app itself seems solid, and it has good ratings in the store.

  So why are the employees so anxious to leave? Bad management, maybe. Even though I’m sure my bosses have already considered that angle, I find myself picking up the phone.

  The next few hours pass in a blur. Slade dials back his interruptions to every half hour, then he gets pulled away for a phone conference.

  It feels good to be working again, to have something to occupy my mind. By the time I wrap things up, I think I’ve identified the problem with the employees. They’re being underpaid relative to how many hours they’re working.

  I’m jotting down tomorrow’s to-do list when Slade walks up, looking sinfully sexy. His tie is missing and his white shirt is partially unbuttoned. He hasn’t removed his jacket yet, but it’s just a matter of time.

  “You’re dedicated for your first day back,” he says.

  I shut down my computer and relax in the chair. His hazel eyes are locked onto mine, and I think of our conversation at the country club.

  Take me away, I think, but it’s half-hearted. I don’t really want to go. What I want is this… but safe.

  Maybe Slade knows that, too.

  “The driver will be downstairs in a few minutes,” he says. “We’re going to my place to discuss things.”

  Nodding, I stand and reach for my purse. Slade seems awfully tall, but right now I don’t feel small and insignificant without heels on. Maybe I’m standing a little straighter.

  Or maybe I’
m already resigned to not being in sky-high stilettos all the time.

  Romeo and Hawthorne accompany us to the street, but only Slade and I, along with two of the assassin triplets, get into the limo.

  As it pulls into traffic, I twist to look at my other two bosses, already heading back into the office building.

  “What are they doing?” I ask.

  “They’ll be along soon,” Slade says. He takes my hand and gives it a little squeeze.

  Even though I know everything is fine, I can’t help feeling anxious.

  Apparently it shows, because Slade asks, “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” I say with a shrug. “It’s like things are going too well. Too smoothly.”

  “Everything is fine,” he says, his deep voice soothing, reassuring.

  Of course he would think that. He hasn’t lived my life. He doesn’t have that sixth sense that tells him when everything is about to go to hell.

  Something is wrong.

  Or maybe I’m just not used to being happy.

  Chapter 8

  Slade lives farther from the office than I would have imagined. I even drift off to sleep before we get there. When I wake, my head is in Slade’s lap.

  Blinking away my disorientation, I push myself to sitting.

  “Sorry,” I mumble.

  “No need to apologize,” he says.

  It’s almost dark out. Looking through the window, I discover that we’re in a forested area. Lots of trees. A deer walks stiffly into the road, then leaps back into the bushes.

  “Are we in a different state?” I ask. “Have you taken me across the Canadian border?”

  “No, and no.”

  The house, made of gray stone and plenty of wooden accents, fits perfectly into the landscape. It looks to be one level. What it lacks in height, it makes up for in sprawl.

  We get out to a chorus of chirping crickets. The air is warm and smells of fresh pine. Not far away, the intermittent golden flashes of fireflies give me a thrill of pleasure.

  “I never realized that you live in the middle of nowhere,” I say.

  “I’ve got a two-story penthouse in the city,” Slade says. “This is where I come for weekends. And, apparently, to hide beautiful damsels in distress.” He heads for the door, and I follow.

  The assassin clones go in first. It takes a good five minutes before they return, satisfied.

  “I’ve got cameras all over the place,” Slade says. “There’s an excellent security system in place.”

  “You always struck me as the super-urban type,” I confess. “What do you do out here?”

  “Half a mile away, there are world-class trails for running and mountain biking,” he says. “Though you’re right. I never set out to buy a place in the country. I just saw it and fell in love.”

  “Who looks at houses they’re not interested in?” I ask.

  “We were searching for somewhere private,” he says. “Before things with our ex went upside down. Romeo didn’t want anything to do with buying a house together after that, and Hawthorne said he was done with relationships, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to look, to keep an open mind.”

  “I still don’t understand this thing with the three of you,” I murmur. “Where did Karen fit into all this?”

  “She hit on Romeo. I felt he needed to put himself back out there—it was several months after our ex left, and he’d been moping. Actually, I sort of tricked him into it. Took him out, got him some drinks, texted her where to accidentally run into us.”

  “Just you and Romeo? Without Hawthorne?”

  “He said he was done. Anyway, it didn’t go well. We like sharing, as you may have noticed. It didn’t feel complete without Hawthorne, and he wasn’t interested in her. So we made a deal. All of us or none of us, decided by majority vote. I’m afraid that’s what you walked into the first night we met.”

  “Ah,” I say. “So he didn’t want to be hooking up with anyone. It wasn’t just me.”

  Slade’s expression says that it was partially me. “The timing wasn’t ideal.”

  I think back to what I learned about Romeo’s sister. Apparently she stayed with him for a few months last year because he was “going through some stuff.”

  “I don’t want to pry…” I say.

  “It’s not a secret,” Slade says. “I thought Romeo told you about her last night?”

  “He was light on the details.”

  “Leona was our girlfriend, but she and Romeo had a special bond. We all wanted to take it to the next level, but then she backed out. It was all very mysterious. She didn’t say much to me or Hawthorne. I suspect she was much harder on Romeo. After all, theirs was the primary relationship. If she had major complaints, he’d have heard about it.”

  I start to mess with the ends of my hair, then make myself stop. “He didn’t tell you?”

  “No. One thing I do know is that Leona had problems with his size. Physically. Romeo alone was uncomfortable for her. We would spend a lot of time on foreplay. So there was a basic incompatibility there.”

  “Did you love her?”

  He reflects for a moment, then nods. “I did. She was a good person. Clever and generous and very loyal. If Romeo’s tastes and needs were more conventional, I think he would have been happy with her. Well, other than the size issue.”

  That snakelike thing that coiled around me at the tennis courts is back, and this time I identify it much faster. Jealousy. I hope it’s not like poison ivy, that I’m not more susceptible to it with each exposure.

  And I wonder if it’s related to the feeling I had earlier, that something is wrong, something I can’t name, let alone solve. Is it a new variety of fear? Worry about losing them?

  Silly.

  I don’t even have them, but things do seem to be headed that way.

  “Does he still love her?” I ask. How I manage to get the words across my dry tongue, I don’t know.

  Slade’s look is full of compassion. “I think he does,” he says. “Romeo is loyal like that. The best friend you’ll ever have. The best boyfriend. And the worst enemy, which is why your grandfather doesn’t stand a chance.”

  But I don’t care about my grandfather anymore. Not here, in the middle of the woods, in a top-of-the-line secure estate, covered in cameras and with security guys roaming around.

  Is this the other shoe, then? Slade says he’s falling for me. Hawthorne… who knows? And Romeo still has feelings for his ex.

  When Romeo came for me in Milford Crossing, I thought it was because he cared.

  The reality? He’s loyal. He’s dependable. He always does the right thing, which includes helping out a damsel in distress. Which is apparently what I am.

  I fucking despise his ex, and my hatred is directly proportional to all of Romeo’s noble feelings and intentions, to his loyalty and love. Maybe I should try to convince Slade to run away together.

  “I’m sorry,” Slade says softly. “When we met you, I don’t think anyone knew it would turn out like this, that it would get so serious. But I can promise we’ll all have fun for as long as you want, and when you do decide to go, your life will be better than we met.” He pauses. “If you decide to go.”

  Amazing how his throwaway comments make me feel so good. “You said Leona and Romeo had a special connection. Is that typical?”

  Slade nods. “Assuming I understand your question, yes. I mean, if we waited for a woman who might fall in love with all of us, that’s already difficult. And then we’d all have to fall for her. The odds are against it.” He seems on the cusp of saying something more, but he doesn’t.

  The whole time we talked, we didn’t get any deeper into the house than the doorway, and I realize now is a good time to take an interest in my surroundings.

  I look up and notice stained glass overhead. The scene depicts tangled grape vines of muted purples and dark greens. The walls are neutral. Beneath my feet, the wood floor is polished to a high shine.

  “Show m
e around,” I say.

  By the time we reach the master bedroom, I’m not paying attention anymore. A few hours ago, all I wanted was to run away with Slade.

  Now all I want is Romeo’s love.

  He wants to save my life? Give me back my freedom?

  Well, I want to take away his loneliness. I want to give him a reason to leave work at a reasonable hour, to sleep past four in the morning, to go ten minutes without handling an urgent phone call.

  Yes, I want his love. Me, the woman who knows as much about romantic love as a monk living out a vow of seclusion.

  And it’s not just his that I want. It’s all of theirs. I want everything their ex rejected.

  “You can sleep in here with me tonight if you like,” Slade says. “Or you can have your own space.”

  “I like your bedroom,” I say even though I barely noticed what it looks like. My general impression is of solid, clean lines and nature paintings for artwork.

  His phone rings, and he glances at the screen. “Romeo and Hawthorne will arrive in twenty minutes with dinner. It can get chilly here at night. What do you think about building a fire?”

  I don’t think he could charm me more if he tried.

  Chapter 9

  Dinner is takeout from one of the city’s most exclusive restaurants. One that I’m pretty sure doesn’t do takeout, at least not for mere mortals.

  While we eat, my bosses discuss work stuff.

  Whenever there’s a lull in the conversation, I make sure to take another bite of my dinner or a sip of the tart, almost astringent red wine.

  “Let’s discuss the fascinating and despicable Mr. Yorker,” Slade says calmly.

  Three sets of eyes turn my way.

  Thick pappardelle noodles, messily wound around the tines of my fork, begin to slide off. I shovel them into my mouth, then use my finger to wipe creamy sauce from the corners of my lips.

  I don’t realize my hands are trembling until I go to pick up my water glass. Immediately I set it back down.

  “What did you find out?” I ask.