Page 21 of Master of Lies

What else? Well, tits and ass, of course. Big gray eyes with long, artificially lengthened lashes. I clean up well when I make an effort, and I figured, I might as well use my looks for something I cared about. I hadn’t been with anyone for ages, even before my life exploded. Dating struck me as superficial and boring, and sex was underwhelming when it happened at all. Which was probably more a function of my own inhibitions, not the guy in question. I take full responsibility for how psychologically fucked up I am.

Probably the truly shitty reason that sex never worked was because none of those guys were Jed Clearwater. It was like he’d imprinted on me by being my number one crush, right when I was starting to bloom. And that was that. Permanent fixation.

Until now, the plan I’d dreamed up had seemed like better than nothing. Offer Jed attention, entertainment, flattery, ego-strokes, phone sex. Draw him in. And when his guard was down, get inside his head. It was supposed to be slow, methodical, and safe. Because the guy was incarcerated, for fuck’s sake.

Now the rug had been ripped from underneath my feet. I was alone in the dark with a guy who had sold my brother out for fifteen million dollars. And what was my cover identity? Sandee, the painted-up bimbo fuckbunny who had shared her wild erotic fantasies with him only hours before.

God, I couldn’t possibly be any more compromised. Not if I tried.

He was out of the shower, checking on me in the bathroom mirror, towel wrapped around his waist. He’d told me I was off the hook, sex-wise, but I’m sure he was still hoping I would deliver on the sexual promises. Why wouldn’t he?

Jed Clearwater was the only sexual fantasy I’d ever been able to get off to, and he must feel that energy on some level. No one, not even me, would blame the guy for assuming I was a sure thing tonight. The bulging muscles in his back were brightly illuminated by the cold light of the bathroom. The bright highlights, the sharp shadows. Scrapes, bruises, slashes. Wow. Prison must be full of sharp edges.

I could go in there and dab disinfectant on the wounds he couldn’t reach. The Florence Nightingale routine. Show him how sweet and nurturing Sandee was, cooing over his wounds. Dab-dab with the gauze and the disinfectant and the butterfly Band-aids.Poor baby, let me kiss it and make it better.He was beat up, stressed, exhausted. His defenses were down. That was the whole fucking point of my efforts in the first place, right? Now was the time to make a move on him. Get closer to him.

Big girl pants, Frey. Pull ‘em on, cinch ‘em up.God only knew what horrors Shane might be suffering. It wouldn’t kill me to take this scenario all the way to its natural conclusion. See what I could glean from it. It was the obvious next step. It was just like my previous plan, except on mega-steroids. Speeded up. Intimate. Deadly.

Jed checked on me constantly as he cleaned the wounds he could reach. Those penetrating eyes, that grim, sensual mouth, those massive muscles. His sexual energy blasted out at me, rattling my every last nerve, making me breathless and confused.

But hey, breathless and confused was pretty much on-brand for Sandee.

A small part of me was yelling into the void about how this could destroy me. Well, maybe so. What of it? Wondering what Shane was suffering was destroying me anyway. Shane and Ethan had rescued me from my own hell, back in the day.

I would return the favor, or die trying.

The issue now was lack of technique. I was not versed in the arts of driving men mad with desire, having never put in the time necessary to get good at it. So I’d wing it.

My ankles wobbled in those ridiculous boots, still soaked from the snow that had melted in Jed’s Jeep. I schooled the expression on my face into that spaced-out, dippy glow that said,“Go ahead, take advantage of me. If you don’t, the next guy will.”

I still had on my coat. My real cell phone was hidden in the hem of the jacket, along with the Badass Bitch Bag. Sandee had her own phone, with her own carefully constructed life on it. It would withstand a casual examination, but not an extended deep dive. Maybe I could keep Jed busy enough to not think of doing one.

I pulled the lip gloss out of my coat pocket and slicked some on. Time to turn on the juice. All that lovelorn, overheated girlish lust backed up inside me, all of that was Sandee now, begging to bust loose.Own it. Use it.

I slid off my coat and hung it on the back of a chair. I had to be careful Jed didn’t handle it. It was heavier than it ought to be, with those secret pockets loaded with my phone and my Badass Bitch Bag stuff. If it fell, he’d hear a loudthud.

Jed was buckling his belt, naked to the waist. His eyes grimly focused on me as I came closer, hips swaying. Lips slightly open.Don’t overdo it, girl. He’s not stupid.

Jed turned around. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Just, you know. Looking.” I pitched my voice to a throaty whisper, with a tremor that was totally justified by the circumstances. “I never thought I’d get a chance to look this close at you. And without the orange prison thing. You’re…so hot.”

He just stood there, speechless. His erection pressed against the denim of his jeans. And what an erection it was. I had never seen dimensions like that in any of my previous adventures. Or maybe “encounters” was a better word. “Adventure” denoted risks, thrills, high stakes. Nothing I’d ever associated with sex so far.

Just act. Offer yourself up like a virgin sacrifice. Pretend.

Hah. Like it was so easy. Sandee was a different kind of woman, the way I’d dreamed her up. Vulnerable in all the ways I wasn’t, confident in all the ways I wasn’t. Sandee was sexually bold, experienced, eager, wildly submissive. Sandee melted into screaming multiple orgasms at the drop of a pin. Sandee would do absolutely anything her lover wanted. She had told him so this afternoon. She’d told him in her letters, too. So the bar for this performance was set very high.

Without my coat, my arms were all over the place. Clasped in front, then behind my back, then all around, looking for pockets that didn’t exist, then wrapped over my ribs, propping up my tits.

“Sandee,” he said. His voice sounded thick. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?” I leaned in the bathroom doorframe.

“Me,” he said. “You don’t have to do me.”

Well, hell. I didn’t want Jed to act decent or sensitive. That was confusing. I preferred he be an entitled, selfish, self-absorbed asshole, so my defenses would be in no danger of faltering. I did big, hurt eyes. “You…don’t want me?”

He let out an explosive sound. “Of course I want you. But we shouldn’t do this. You never thought you’d actually be alone in a room with me. This was just a fantasy. Fucking me for real wasn’t part of your plan.”

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