Page 25 of Deception

“I don’t like it,” she adds as I glance back at her. “You’re a liar…pretending to want me.”

“And you’re a liar pretending you don’t.”

“I don’t,” she spits at me—audibly swallowing down her conflicted emotions even as they well in her scowl—chasing it with, “I can’t…I won’t.”

Little Red is a little liar.

Her fear betrays her as it cloys the air around us, making my pulse race and my muscles ache to exploit her weakness. In her forthright fight, she’s exposed the chink in her armour. Now the urge to exploit it is too strong to ignore. My body throbs with a demand so strong that I can barely draw breath.

Who knew that her weakness would be something so fleeting as lust?

What a wicked curse to befall such a beautiful creature. A part of me pities her for being innocent enough to fall for the whims of her heart. She’s made our game so much easier for me, and yet, as I force myself to walk away, my gut twists with the certainty that it’s far from over. If anything, the stakes have been raised.

10

TOMASZ

The chessboard stares up at me as I pause on my way to the bathroom. There’s so much I don’t understand about her. The fact that she’s smart enough to beat me at a fair game doesn’t sit well with the fact she’s ended up here. How could she not have sensed that she was walking into a trap when her handler took her to the club in London?

Picking up the white queen she used to ambush my king, I twirl it between my thumb and finger, holding it up to the light emanating from her bathroom window. She knew to pick off my side piece by piece, saving her most valuable pieces to the end. Red disarmed before she went in for the kill, not the most popular strategy. It’s risky, leaving the king open to vulnerabilities.

Putting the queen back down on the board beside the dark king I’ve righted, I stare at the two pieces side by side, wondering aloud, “What game are you playing?”

The answer never finds me, even as I walk through my closet to the bathroom and search through the cabinet for all the things I need to take care of her foot. It strikes me when I’m heading back to her room in the dark and that I’m doing everything I was taught not to. I’m breaking every rule that’s been passed on to me.

It’s you that’s meant to destroy her, not the other way around.

Is that what she’s doing? Picking me apart—rule by rule and defence by defence—until she makes her ultimate move?

Pausing outside her bedroom door, I drag in a breath, shaking my head clear of the questions. This isn’t me. I’ve never doubted my intentions or resolve or, more frustratingly, my strength. It’s not something I’m going to start now.

For a moment, I contemplate turning around and leaving her until tomorrow. Niko and Emin will come for our weekly dinner. It’s my father’s way of ensuring Vanya warms to the fact she’s going to be marrying my friend, his godson, soon. A part of me thinks that he’s waiting for my mother to get better. Or well enough that she can be a part of the planning and the tempering of my sister’s aversions to our life.

Opening the door, I step inside. I’m too lost in my thoughts to caution myself, and as I head towards the bathroom, she ambushes me. Her arms latch around my neck, constricting my air supply as her legs wrap around my body tight, making it hard for me to shake her off as I drop the shit in my hands to the floor and grasp her elbows.

“Let. Go.” My warning is strangled as my vision frays slightly.

Red’s breaths are getting harder and harder the more I twist and shake closer to the bed. I may not have expected her attack right now—stupidly—but I’m stronger, and my mass dwarfs hers so that with every second, her legs loosen around me.

Spinning, I squeeze her elbows to my shoulders before knocking back onto the bedpost. Once, twice, and a much more forceful third time. The sudden rush of air hazes my head as I release her arms, and she drops onto the mattress with a cry.

“Little.Fucking.Snake.” I slap the inside of her thigh so hard that thethwackechoes around us, and her legs fall open. Her naked body is fully exposed to me in a way that makes my blood pound harder in my veins. The sight is like a feast, ready and waiting for me.

“Never…ever…” I spit at her between gritted teeth as I descend on her prostrate form, kneeling between her spread legs so that she is fully at my mercy. My hands knot into fists in her hair while I squeeze her head between them.

Her stare bores into mine, making it exceedingly clear that the fear I smell between us has nothing to do with me or my actions and everything to do with her and her feelings. A part of me pities her. A small part that sees the dying hope in her unseasoned eyes. As fiery as she is, the girl is still green to the savagery of this world.

“Neverthink that you can best me, Red. You can’t.”

To make sure she feels as well as hears and understands the meaning of my words, I lower my body completely flush to hers. I really would be a liar if I didn’t notice how good it feels. The warmth she radiates. The way her flesh gives to my muscle. Hard and soft pressed together so that the rage gonging in her chest is palpable while she kicks her legs and tries to throw me off her. It only makes my body even more aware of hers.

“It doesn’t matter how many times you try, I’ll always come out on top.”

Wild, blazing anger glows in her eyes as she continues bucking beneath me, her hot cunt writhing on my hardened cock. Every move. Every second. Every fucking breath. My body aches with a need that mocks my control.

“No matter what happens. No matter what you do. Even if you escaped, I would hunt you down. I would find you, and I would make you wish you’d never left.”

“That would never happen,” Red replies, the strain of our wrangling husking her voice as I allow her to flip us over.

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