Bound by Lies: A Dark Mafia Romance Read online

  He reaches for me and pulls me inside, kicking the door shut behind him.

  The inside of the cabin is decorated in wood and cream with splashes of gold and green, I suppose to represent the forest outside. Apart from a separate toilet the cabin is all one room separated into areas – living, dining, bedroom – by a slight shift in the floor height.

  Caden takes my bag off me and places it on the low rattan seat at the foot of the bed. I eye the bed. It looks so soft, piled up with so many pillows that I could sink into it. Perhaps I will later. When I look back to Caden, his eyes are roaming all over me and I feel I may as well be naked already. He growls from deep in his throat. I really, really like it when he does that.

  “You wore the first dress. I think it’s my favorite dress,” he says, stepping closer to me and gazing at me as if I am the most precious thing he has ever seen. I feel it. When he looks at me I feel precious.

  “You said that about the last dress.”

  “Hmmm,” rumbles from his throat. His eyes become unfocused. “The red dress that clung to you here and dropped so obligingly at the back.” He wraps his fingers firmly around my neck to replicate the dress’s halter neck. He traces his other hand down the length of my spine to where the dress sat to expose the small of my back. I shiver and press my throat into his palm, making my lower belly clench.

  He pulls me to him by the neck. He growls in his throat as he inhales into my hair then runs his nose along my shoulder and up to my ear. It is animalistic and possessive and the knowledge he is breathing me in makes my legs tremble. I run my hands through his hair, one of the few places I am allowed to touch him. His hair is soft through my fingers and smells fresh like shampoo.

  I tilt my head to kiss him but stop when he says, “Do you know what makes me sad?”

  I pull back expecting a joke, but I see his brows pressing down upon his eyes that match my dress.

  I frown. “What is it?”

  He continues to stare at me, forlorn.

  “You can tell me, Caden,” I urge.

  His mouth parts. My heart thumps and I wonder what he is about to reveal to me. I am so desperate for any information on who Caden is. What makes him happy? What makes him sad? If I could reach inside his mind and scoop out all his secrets I would. I would love them and cherish them because they are part of him. No matter what they are.

  I wonder, would he do the same if he knew my secrets?

  “It makes me sad… that I can’t look at all of you and kiss you at the same time.”

  I giggle. Me. Giggle. Like, an actual giggle. And not because I want to get my own way. He is being silly and gorgeous and I love it. Damn him. Look what he does to me.

  He maintains his seriously distressed look. “Don’t laugh at me. This is a very serious problem. My eyes and mouth are jealous of each other.”

  “Aw, no. Don’t be sad.” I brush his lip with my thumbs in order to tug them up into a smile. “They can share me.”

  He closes his lips over mine, possessing them, and his hands start to roam across my body. They tug and brush against the silk of this dress, making my skin tingle. I make all sorts of uncensored noises in my throat. Our kiss deepens and my head gets dizzy. It has been almost two weeks since the last time we saw each other and I’m desperate for him.

  So much of me is aching. I ache to run my hands across his chest and his stomach. I ache to unbutton his shirt and push it off his hard shoulders. I ache to tangle my fingers in his dark chest hair that I only glimpse peeking out from his shirt. I ache to have him naked and laid out under me. But the rules…

  Screw the rules.

  My hands slide down his face and neck to his top button.

  His hands cut off my access to his chest as he grabs my wrists. He pulls back from my lips and I whimper. He shows me my own hands and tuts at me like a master would show a naughty puppy a chewed up toy. “You know you can’t do that.”

  A flash of defiance shoots through me. “Why not?”

  “Rule number two, I can touch you but–”

  “I can’t touch you.” I know the stupid rule. I have been dying slowly from this stupid rule.

  “So why do you–”

  “Why can’t I touch you?”

  “It’s just what I need. You know this.”

  “What about what I need, Caden?” Anger causes my stomach to tighten. I yank my arms from him and he lets me go. I spin and stride over to one side of the cabin. It only takes a few words and a few steps for the distance between us to feel like a canyon. I hear him sigh and drop down onto the bed.

  I stand my ground. I stare out the glass door that leads to the balcony. Beyond I can see nothing but forest leaves. It’s stunning out here. And peaceful. Yet a silent storm rages between us.

  This is stupid. We shouldn’t be fighting, we should be loving each other. Who knows when we will get to see each other again? But he should be the one to apologize, shouldn’t he?

  The seconds tick past and I don’t hear him walk to me. I turn my head and take a peek at him. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, torso bent over so that his forehead rests in his fingers. His eyes are closed, but I can tell by the creases across his face he’s in pain.

  I shouldn’t have tried to break his rules. I should have just left it alone like he leaves my secrets alone.

  Where I once would have been grateful for this privacy, now I rage against it. I realize, I want to tell him my secrets. I want us to tell each other our secrets. I want to close this last gap in our fractured intimacy. I want him to love me – all of me. I want to love all of him. We just need to take that last leap of faith…

  I turn and walk slowly towards him. I can see by the way his shoulders hitch that he hears my footfalls and the swishing of my dress. He doesn’t take his face from his hands.

  I stand in front of him. “I don’t want to fight.” I test the waters by reaching for his hands. I feel hope when he lets me slip my fingers through his. We’ll be okay. When he lifts his face to look at me, his features are etched with weariness. We’ll be okay, won’t we? “I don’t want to waste what little time we have together. Can we start tonight over? Please?”

  His features don’t change. He stares at me, his green eyes hardened. “You’re starting to resent me for my rules.”

  I war internally for a split second whether to lie to him. I decide not to. I nod slightly. “I just want to touch you so badly.”

  His features turn fierce and he yanks me forward with his hands on my hips so that I stand between his knees, his face pressed into my breasts. His fingers tighten into fists, crushing my dress material between them. I hold my hands up in the air, not sure where to place them.

  His voice rumbles through my heart as he talks against my chest. “Don’t you think I want so desperately for you to touch me, too? I dream about it. When I’m asleep and when I’m awake, it’s all I dream about.”

  “Then why…?” I stop talking. It’s a question that can’t be answered. Whatever the reason, Caden isn’t willing to expose it to me and I must respect his need for silence. I sigh. I lower my hands on his head and run my fingers through his hair. “Will… will you ever tell me why?”

  Caden doesn’t answer. Suddenly his fists clutch my hips and he pushes me away so I stand at arm’s length. My stomach pains as if someone is wringing it in their hands. He doesn’t meet my eye. I try to catch his eye, but he won’t look at me. He won’t look at me.

  “Maybe this isn’t enough for you anymore? Maybe we should–”

  “Don’t say it.” I reach for his face. “It’s enough. I just… I’m sorry, forget I said anything.”

  I can’t stand the thought of losing him. It would be like cutting off oxygen to my lungs. He is my air. I need to keep breathing. I don’t want to have to try to find a way to live without him.

  I search his face. He still looks weary and uncertain. I step back out of his reach and his hands fall off my hips. Only then does he look up to me. I reach behind me and fin
d the zipper at the top of my dress. I draw it down and let the silk fall off my shoulders and skim over my hips to the floor. I can see a flinch in his features like he is about to tell me to stop trying to cover up our problems. Quickly I unclip my bra and pull it from my body. His eyes widen in surprise. I have never taken the initiative to undress myself.

  “How about… every time I want to touch you, I touch myself instead?” I keep my eyes on him as I run my hands across my stomach and up to cup my breasts. I pretend they are his hands. I brush the tips of my fingers across my nipples and the sensation makes my lips part to draw in a breath. His mouth parts as he watches me. I notice the creases in his forehead starting to soften.

  I drop one hand down my stomach, slip it inside my panties and touch myself between my legs. This time I moan.

  “Take them off. I want to see what you’re doing.”

  I draw in a breath and my body trembles with a flush of nerves. Do I dare be so bold in front of him? I peel my underwear down off my body and step out of them. I stand back up slowly, legs pressed together to stop them from shaking, my gaze cast to the floor. My hand slides up my thigh to touch the spot just above where I am all wet.

  “Open your legs.”

  My breath hitches, but I do as he says, taking two small steps out to the side.

  “Wider.”

  I swallow. My eyes flicker closed because I feel braver in the dark. It’s in the dark that I’m taken to when I’m blinded and stripped for my Caden. I feel stronger. So I step out wider as I imagine Caden’s knees knocking my legs apart. I let my fingers slide right down between my legs, spreading my slickness all over me.

  I hear him hum in approval from the bed, and knowing this is turning him on spurs me on further. In my mind and in this darkness, it’s his hands on me. My breathing becomes heavy as he teases me, rubbing me just the way I like it. His other hand brushes across my breasts. I moan as he dips a finger into me. God, it feels so good, but I need more. He slips in another finger and starts to move them inside me, grinding the heel of his palm against me.

  “Look at me.”

  I swallow, then let my eyelids open. He is watching me with hooded eyes from the bed. Suddenly they aren’t his hands on me but my own. He isn’t the one fucking me with his fingers, I am. I feel a flush of heat in my cheeks. Before I can withdraw my hands he growls. “Don’t stop. That looks so fucking amazing.”

  I close my eyes and start to–

  “Keep them open.”

  I force my eyes open. He’s leaning back on the bed on his hands watching me, his tongue languidly licking around his mouth, his excitement evident in the strain of his pants. I can barely look at him as I start to move against myself again.

  He groans and it sends a rush through me. I move with more confidence as the flush of shame is slowly replaced by a wave of pressure. I start to roll my hips from side to side as if I am dancing. I meet his gaze and the intensity shakes me to my core.

  Soon, I am rocking my hips forward against my hand and the noises coming out of my throat are unrestrained. Caden’s eyes – and the heat and the fire in them – are almost all I can see. My legs are trembling as I climb to this peak and I’m almost… almost…

  “Yes.”

  His soft demand pushes me over the edge. My insides shatter and I am liquid stars. Unable to support myself anymore, I start to fall like dust and ash returning to the ground. But I don’t land. I smell wood smoke and home as he cradles me in his arms. I feel myself floating and floating. Then the softness of the mattress underneath me. The bed shifts as Caden lays himself around me and pulls me back into him as the feeling returns to my limbs.

  I turn my head to look at him over my shoulder. His eyes are jade with lust and I can see he is itching to run his hands over me. He doesn’t yet. He waits. The only remnant of our argument is a small pinch at his brows.

  Now I’m too aware of my curiosity about Caden. This feeling has grown so big that it barely fits the box I’ve built to contain it. It takes a great force to push it shut and click the latch. A sense of dread waves through me. It’s only a matter of when – not if – the latch will spring.

  When – but not now. For now, it’s contained. What Caden and I have is enough.

  I lift my arms above my head in an offering of submission.

  In the darkness behind my blindfold, I hear Caden speak. “Where should I start?”

  I am laid out naked with my wrists tied to the headboard. I arc my back and shove my breasts out towards him. There, please?

  Instead he chuckles. “Patience.”

  This man is good at testing my patience. I contemplate tearing at my bonds. They are just silky ties after all. Surely I could rip through them if I were strong enough.

  He closes his teeth around the flesh of my upper arm, just enough until it is almost too much. I cry out and he releases me. Where his teeth leave a dull ghost of pain he brushes something which feels like soft velvet, causing a crackling of sensation to run along my skin. It’s so light it’s almost painful. What is it?

  I feel a light slap on my inner thigh, then the softness again. More crackles under my skin. My body continues to heat as he places curt slaps and bites across my body, down my arms and my legs and along my side, and follows each one up with a stroke of this soft thing, each caress growing longer and longer. The sensation is so soft and yet it sears me. My body reacts against it by clenching tightly.

  It’s only when it kisses along my jaw and I smell the distinct floral scent that I know that it’s,

  “A rose,” I gasp.

  “Yes. It’s open and pink and soft. Just like you.”

  He licks across my nipple. The cold air against it makes it pinch into a bud. Then he bites it hard. I moan under my breath. Finally the rose trails across my breasts.

  I feel the heel of his palm strike my clit in a firm slap. I gasp. Under his hand the dull pain bursts out like a small firework. The rose travels over my hips, which buck involuntarily, then down between my legs. The mixture of pain and searing lightness is so exquisite I could cry.

  “Please,” I pant, “again.”

  He continues to tease me across my body, my breasts, my clit. Hard and soft, pain and pleasure.

  On and on until my head is spinning and I can’t think straight. I need him so badly that I start to whimper. I am tugging on my binds so hard I’m sure I would feel pain around my wrists if I could indeed feel anything above this desperate need for him. I am begging. Crying. At this point I don’t care I just need–

  I moan with relief when he shifts on the bed to kneel between my legs. The rose leaves my skin. I hear a soft plucking noise. As he thrusts inside me, petals drift across my body like silken rain.

  Hard and soft.

  Pleasure and pain.

  This is Caden to me. This is what I love.

  When our love making is over, I lie under the darkness of the blindfold, my body feeling like warm mist. Every time I am here like this with Caden I feel a strange sense of peace. I’m no longer a broken girl, a lonely soul, a scared runaway. I just… am.

  I can hear Caden across the room, putting on clothes as he always does after we finish. I can smell him from here, all man and wood smoke and the musk of sex. It gets stronger as he nears me. I wriggle against the silky sheets for my audience. I can hear his little hum of appreciation as I feel his eyes travel all the way up and down my body.

  “I’m tempted to keep you here just like this.”

  “Maybe that’s what I want.”

  He laughs softly. “My insatiable kitten.”

  “Only with you.”

  Yes, only with him. He does something to me that no one else does. The scent of his hair and the shape of his arms and the timbre of his voice. Like he was designed just to unlock these parts of me. I may be broken, but I am no longer closed off.

  The mattress shifts as he sits by my side. He lifts the blindfold from my eyes. I have to blink and wait a moment before my eyes adjust. I can’t
help the smile that rushes across my face. He has wrapped himself tightly in a white bathrobe. He has my favorite look on; all hooded eyes and lopsided grin.

  I feel the ties loosen and slip away. He leans against the headboard and pulls me against him so I’m nestled with my back against his chest. His arms wrap around me. Using his thumbs he caresses the marks around my wrists where I pulled against my restraints.

  “Cade?”

  “Hmmm.”

  “What do you eat for breakfast?”

  I can feel him chuckling behind me. “Why? You want to cook for me? You know I can’t stay for breakfast.”

  “I know. I just…” Will I sound silly? I sigh. “It just feels weird to be so close to you and not even know what you eat for breakfast. I guess I just wanted to know.”

  He relaxes behind me. I think he understands. “Oats. Sometimes with fruit. Eggs if I have more time.”

  “Do you read the paper?”

  “Yes.”

  I smile. Any piece of information I get about him makes me smile. It’s like every time I know a little bit more about him, he becomes a little more mine.

  We finish our routine. I shower first, alone. Then he does. He takes in his overnight bag with him so that he can dress before he comes back out again. Just as the bathroom door unlocks a small hope blips in me that maybe this time he won’t have dressed yet or maybe he has left his shirt off. Every time, when he steps out fully dressed, my heart sinks.

  We settle in to sleep with him behind me, one arm wrapped over me. In the soft dim shaded silver with moonlight filtering through all the open windows, I can’t fall sleep tonight. I stare at the silhouette of the dining table and the small kitchenette. I see myself cooking eggs for Caden at the stove. He would come up behind me and nestle his nose in my hair and whisper good morning. We would sit down together and I would slip the paper by his plate and look at him across our breakfast table. He would smile back at me and reach across for my hand.

  Stupid girl. It’s no good for me to wish these things. It’s no good for me to dream. The images dissolve and a sadness falls over me like snow. We aren’t normal people. We aren’t a normal couple. And we will never be.