Page 25 of The Truths that Deceive

“I can’t trust you.”

“No one else is here, Calista.”

“I need my phone.”

“Not happening.” Last night, I went through everything, but getting into her phone or computer is impossible. For me. Probably for most.

“I need yours. I…” She takes one step toward me. “Please.”

The phone isn’t my personal one, but it’s set up like it is. Anyone getting their hands on it has a whole lot of rich asshole crap. Calls and conversations. I don’t think she can do much damage with me standing here. So I unlock it and hand it to her.

She makes quick work of opening something and hands it to me. A cloud storage with screenshots.

The type of screenshots that are enough to land her in the kind of hot water that burns down to bone.

“Fuck.” The threats like the picture she got of her brother. Gossamer thin and innocent until you think about it.

Pictures of her working. Lunch. Dinner. Going out. Coffee. Or statements like “I hope you enjoyed your caramel latte.”

Tiny things no one would take seriously. Tiny things that make her look incompetent and the cause of a leak.

And the thing is, maybe it is Calista. She’s clever enough.

Not my problem. I need to get her home and collect my pay.

I close down the cloud and pocket the phone. “Good thing we’re leaving as father and daughter?—”

Suddenly, she shoves me and darts for the door. I grab at her, dragging her away from the lock as she tries to pry it open. Calista can’t get out, but it pisses me off, lights the fires of the chase in me, and I tackle her down to the ground.

She struggles, fighting me, inviting me, her thighs parting, hips thrusting up. I coil my fingers in the silk of her colorful hair, wrenching her head back so her jugular’s exposed, and I’ve got her pinned.

The weight of me presses into one of her thighs and I thrust against that inviting softness there. Her breath comes in panting sounds. I glare down at her.

Her eyes glitter, the mother of storms coming. I scrape down on her pounding pulse, my teeth exposed, my touch light. I don’t want to mark her. Yet. I want to feel the reined-in power, the violence of response in her.

“I told you,” I murmur, “I’ll take and not give a shit. Calista, that means one fucking thing.”

“That you’re a pervert out to make money off me?”

I flash her a smile and lick her jugular, making her moan. This time when I lift my head, everything goes still.

“It means,” I say, “that there will be consequences.”

“Like?”

“This.”

Chapter 8

Calista

He’s off me in a blink. Then he flips me onto my stomach so hard and so suddenly, the air whooshes from my lungs. It’s like carpet burn, scraping on all my senses and lighting them in the wrong way, the kind of way that’ll pull and stick with me for days to come.

If I even have days.

He uses a zip tie to restrain my wrists, then sits on the back of my upper thighs, my clit mashing into my panties, pushed against the floorboards.

And my heart beats wild and fast.

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