Beautiful Liar Read online

  What had I expected to find when I finally did find her? Those weeks after the photos had been leaked, when she and I had graced the cover of every magazine and newspaper in the tristate area—ruining my political career, breaking apart my family, and costing me the charity my father and grandfather had worked their entire lives to create—I’d made her out to be a witch in my head. A cheap whore. But looking at her here, all small and scared, I couldn’t reconcile that image with the reality. There was more here than met the eye.

  She’s a good fucking actress, that’s all. Remember the interviews, the exclusives that had probably earned her a fucking fortune on top of the five grand they’d already paid her to fuck you.

  “Although maybe I owe you some gratitude. I mean, if it weren’t for you, I’d never have learned the truth about my wife or my best friend.” I rubbed my hand over the scruff of my jaw, their betrayal still burning hot inside me, like a fucking brand. Three years hadn’t cooled the anger I felt, the hate. The hurt.

  “You fucked me, Slater. Your wife may have paid me,” she started, her voice sounding more confident and sure as she spoke, “but it’s not like she was standing over your head with a gun in her hand making you do anything you didn’t want to do.”

  Nick, my best friend, a man I’d known all my life, had comforted my then wife, Dinah. Nick, who’d never been a friend at all. Nick, who now sat at the head of my table with my wife by his side, my daughter calling him Daddy. I didn’t care about him and Dinah. I could live with their betrayal. I wouldn’t forgive it, and I’d never forget it, but I could live with it. My little girl calling another man daddy, though?

  That fucking destroyed me.

  MacKayla watched me, waiting for my reaction.

  Hell, she was right. No one made me fuck her. Dinah and I had been over long before that night. I’d just been too blind to see it. I blamed MacKayla Simone for ruining my life, but was it her fault? If it hadn’t been her, it would have been some other cheap whore.

  But that didn’t matter anymore. This, this hate, this vengeance, it owned me, and I needed to get it gone. I only knew one way to do that.

  I finished my mug of wine and poured another, emptying the bottle. I moved to the more comfortable couch, set the mug on the coffee table and looked around. I’d been waiting for this moment for so long but hadn’t formed a plan for once it came. I wanted to punish her, and I would. Hell, I needed to do it. It was just that being in the same room with her, it felt different than I’d expected.

  “Stand up.”

  “What?”

  “Stand up.”

  She pushed herself off the chair and stood barefoot, wearing just the emerald-green dress and a pair of earrings.

  “Put your glasses on the table.”

  She did, and I stared at her eyes, strange in their different colors but beautiful. I still remembered them clearly from just that one night.

  “Take your hair out of the braid.” I settled back against the couch cushions, my legs wide, hands in my lap.

  A look of confusion crossed her face, but her hands moved, fingers clumsily working the woven hair loose.

  “Shake it out, like you did last night.”

  She froze, her eyes glossy again. “It was you, wasn’t it? In the parking lot.”

  I nodded. “And inside.”

  She swallowed. “What are you going to do to me?”

  “I said shake it out. That’s twice now. You sure you don’t have a hearing problem?”

  She put her hands in her hair and shook out the waves.

  I pressed my lips together and shook my head. “No. Not like that. Like last night on the stage. Or do you need dollar bills stuffed into your panties to do that?”

  The look in her eyes screamed hurt.

  Good.

  She did as I said, shaking out her hair, something seductive in the way she moved now. This was natural for her. Her body, her face, her mouth, her eyes—eroticism clung to her. That’s why the hush when she’d stood onstage to dance last night. They’d all felt it, just as I had.

  When she straightened, she looked more like she had last night.

  “You wear contacts when you’re dancing to hide your eyes?”

  She nodded. Anyone would recognize her by her eyes, no matter what she had on—or didn’t.

  “Where’s the red lipstick?”

  “I don’t have it here. It’s at the club.”

  “Hmm.” I watched her, enjoying her discomfort. “Dance.”

  She stood unmoving, staring. “I…” she started. “I can’t.”

  “You can and you will. I want it slow.”

  “Please, I can pay you. I don’t have much, maybe a thousand dollars in cash. I can get—”

  “Dance.”

  She studied me for a few moments, searching my eyes. I took off my jacket, and she shifted her gaze to my arms, full-sleeve tattoos on both. When I’d discovered how much the buzz of the needle, the prickling pain of it, soothed me, I had gotten addicted fast.

  I settled back again and gestured for her to continue.

  “I need music.”

  “Then put it on.”

  She looked around. “My purse. It’s at Lydia’s house. My phone is in there, and it’s the only way to work the stereo system. I can run over. I’ll be right back.”

  She actually took two steps toward the door, which was fucking hilarious. As if I’d let her out of my sight now. No, that wasn’t happening. Not until she understood her new situation.

  “I guess you’ll dance without music, then.”

  “But—”

  I got to my feet, and she pulled in on herself but remained within reach. I touched her face with the knuckles of one hand. She braced herself. Did she think I’d slap her? Hit her? I’d do other things, but I wouldn’t physically harm her. I stroked her hair, then gripped it and tugged her head back. Stooping, I brought my forehead to hers to make sure she could see my eyes.

  “MacKayla, this isn’t a fucking game. I’ve been searching for you for three fucking years. Do you really think I’m about to let you out of my sight? You think you can just walk away?”

  I jerked the handful of hair, and she pressed her hands against my chest.

  “Tell me what you think. You’re a clever girl, aren’t you? Tell me.”

  “No,” she squeaked.

  “No, you’re not clever, or no, I won’t let you walk away?”

  “You won’t let me walk away.”

  “That’s right.” I looked down at her, her eyes uncertain, and shiny with tears. Something bugged me. It had since I’d found out my lying wife had set me up. Mackayla Simone was seductive and sexy as fuck. I saw how those men reacted to her last night. Even at the bar all those years ago, when she’d walked in, hell, everyone’s head had turned. But she wasn’t a whore. I knew that. It would be easier if she were, but she wasn’t.

  I released her, and she rubbed her scalp.

  “Why did you do it? Five grand. That’s not a lot of money anymore.”

  She studied me, her struggle to contain her tears obvious.

  “Just tell me why.” I retreated a step, giving her space. “You owe me that much.”

  WHAT COULD I tell him? Slater Vaughn came from a wealthy family. People like him could never understand someone like me. The shit I dealt with would blow his mind.

  I’d been eighteen and working in a dive bar when I met Nick, Slater’s best friend. He’d come in, sat down at my station, and flirted with me, like most men did. Although with him, red flags had blazed warnings inside my head from the first day I met him. I ignored them, though. He tipped too well.

  I didn’t know who Slater Vaughn was, not until after. What eighteen-year-old followed politics? Not me, and not anyone from my neighborhood. Nick had told me he had a friend whose husband was cheating on her, but that she wouldn’t believe him without evidence. Gave me this sob story about how she stayed home with his baby while he was out banging a different woman every night. He talk
ed about it again and again, and I always wondered what he was getting at. Hell, maybe I knew all along. If I were honest with myself, that is. When he had finally spit it out, telling me he needed proof to make her leave him and make sure he still paid to raise their kid, well, I’d have said no, but the timing was right.

  My sister, Janey, was sixteen at the time. We lived with our stepdad, who reminded us daily of the burden we were both on his wallet and his life. Although it wasn’t like he was the one with a job. That was me. And on bad nights, in addition to being his paycheck, I became his punching bag. I’d taken the abuse to protect Janey, and it worked. He left her alone, never raising a hand to her. It never once occurred to me there was something worse than taking a beating, though.

  Janey didn’t tell me for the longest time, not until she had to because she got pregnant. If I’d known, I’d have gotten us out of there earlier. I was always saving, scraping aside a few dollars whenever I could, so we could leave town, start somewhere fresh. I just left it too late. I knew if he found out she was pregnant, he’d do whatever he needed to do to make sure that baby didn’t make it because if she did, well, that meant trouble for him on so many levels. So when Nick offered me five thousand dollars to bump into Slater and seduce him, I agreed.

  Nick arranged everything, even an apartment I was supposed to say was mine. When the night came, I dressed in a sexy black dress and pumps Nick had bought me and went to the bar he said Slater would be at. It was easy after that. Slater was half-drunk, and I did what Nick had told me to. And I enjoyed it.

  I got five thousand dollars in cash the next morning, and that afternoon, Janey and I got on a bus and headed to New Jersey where my mom, who’d passed away a few years before, had a sister, our Aunt Alice. Janey still lived with Aunt Alice now, along with Sadie, her little girl. I’d planned to stay too, but when I saw the papers, saw my face along with Slater’s splashed all over them and realized who he was, who the Vaughns were, I knew it would go wrong, and it did.

  The reporters found me easily. They knew everything about me. They followed me, asking questions about the newly elected, young Senator Vaughn. About that night, about our relationship. His dad had held a senate seat, among other political offices, for more than a decade of his life, his granddad before him the same. The Vaughns were a prominent political family, had been for generations. People whispered about me everywhere I went. Ultimately, Slater resigned his Senate seat. Not only that, but he vacated his position on the board of directors of Bright Futures, a conservative, Christian-based charity funding education for low socioeconomic-class kids, a charity his grandfather had started, one his father had run, one Slater was meant to pass down to his own children.

  I left a few weeks later. I had to. My aunt and Janey didn’t deserve this.

  But how did I tell Slater that? I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I’d be too ashamed.

  “I’m a whore, like you said,” I answered instead.

  Slater’s face grew harder, a battle raging behind his eyes. Anger rolled off him, but confusion and pain came on its heels. I took a step back.

  He ran a hand through his hair and turned away for a moment before facing me again. “You knew I’d come looking for you.”

  I nodded, unable to give him the answers he deserved. Tears streaked my face, but I didn’t deserve to cry them. I had no right to feel sorry for myself, not when it came to this man.

  “You’ve built a life for yourself here. Been in the same town for a year now?”

  I nodded.

  “You probably want to stay put.”

  I nodded again.

  His gaze slid over my body, making my breath catch. He licked his lips. “Take off your dress. No music. No dance. No whore’s show tonight. Just you. Naked.”

  I flinched. I deserved this. I deserved his cruelty, his hate, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt.

  He took a step back when I reached to slip the dress off one shoulder, then the other, his eyes lustful as I slid the dress down to the floor and covered my bare breasts with my hands. The only other stitch of clothing I had on were the panties I wore.

  Slater sat near enough to touch me, on the edge of the coffee table, legs wide, elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. I watched him as he struggled with something, something that seemed to be deep inside him. I watched until he decided. He looked back up at me, his dark eyes holding so many emotions, too many to catalog. But then his gaze shifted to my hands hiding my breasts, down to my belly, to the triangle of material that covered my sex. There, it hovered, as his breathing leveled. Sweat collected under my arms and across my forehead. His gaze was intense on the seam of my sex, which I knew showed through the cream-colored lace panties. My clit, the object of his attention, reacted to him, to the heat, the need in his eyes. Slowly, he raised dark, lustful eyes to mine, his voice husky with his next command.

  “Take them off.”

  My hands trembled as I lowered my arms, exposing my breasts to Slater’s hungry gaze. I saw the outline of his thickening cock pressing against his jeans. My fingers trailed lightly over my belly as I slid them down into the band of lace and pushed the undies over my hips and thighs and down to the floor, where they settled around my ankles.

  Slater took his time, licking his lips, swallowing. My belly was in knots as he shifted his gaze from breasts, to belly, and then down to my bare pussy, desire heavy in the air between us.

  When I’d first seen a photo of Slater Vaughn, I’d found him attractive. But when I’d met him in person that night, that attraction had sparked like a live wire between us, electrifying at every touch, every glance.

  But that had been different than this. That had been easier, because I hadn’t yet known the consequences of my actions. This heavy lust—guilt weighed it down, and my debt to this man bound us.

  He moved his hands, and I stood still as he brought them to my belly, just fingertips at first, touching softly, tentatively, making goose bumps rise across the places he touched. His thumbs slid down to either side of my pussy, and I watched as he gently eased my lips wider, my pussy throbbing at his touch.

  I wasn’t afraid of him. Maybe I should have been, but I wasn’t. This man was different than the one I remembered from three years ago. This man was hard edges and harder fists, but he wouldn’t harm me with those fists. He would hurt me, ultimately, but not with fists.

  “I smell you, MacKayla,” he whispered, leaning closer and taking a long inhale. “I smell your sex.”

  Before I could process his next move, his tongue licked my length, making my knees buckle, making his touch turn into a gripping of my hips to keep me upright as I reached for his shoulders to steady myself.

  “And you taste fucking good.”

  “Slater.”

  He licked again, meeting my gaze as he did so, his tongue soft, his jaw rough with several days’ growth. He tongued me expertly, tasting every inch of my pussy before circling the hard nub of my clit. I closed my eyes and sucked in air. My hands went involuntarily to his head, my fingers twining in the thick, dark hair as I pulled him closer, even though I should be pushing him away. He stood, walking me backward, shoving me against the wall and kneeling before me, forcing my legs farther apart and tugging the lips of my pussy open.

  “I bet all the men at the club want to eat you out, don’t they?” he asked, breaking the spell momentarily before his tongue circled my clit again. “I bet they’d pay to suck your clit, to have their tongue inside your pussy, tasting you.”

  I lifted my hips, pressing into him, pulling his head onto me, needing release, needing him to give it.

  “Please.”

  “Please what? Please eat my pussy, Slater?” he asked, looking up at me, his face pure malice while he took one long lick. “Please make me come, Slater?”

  “Oh…” I gasped and, although ashamed, I pressed against his face. Just as I did, though, he pulled back and held me against the wall with a hand pressed to my belly, a wicked grin on his face.
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  He shook his head and rose to his feet, towering over me. “No, MacKayla, you don’t get to come. Not yet. Not unless I say.”

  He closed his mouth over mine, crushing my lips, the taste of myself on them strong, wanting. I didn’t kiss him back. I didn’t need to. Did he even expect me to? In this game, this play of power, only he had control. Absolute control.

  His cock pressed like a steel bar against my naked belly. He ground his hips against mine, and took my jaw in one hand to turn my face to the side.

  “You don’t get to come because first,” he said, his mouth by my ear. “You need to pay, and this is how you’re going to do it.”

  Abruptly, he stepped back, a shit-eating grin on his face. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. I watched him, confused, wanting, humiliated.

  “You owe me, and tomorrow, you start paying off your debt to me.” He moved to the couch and collected the jacket he’d discarded earlier. “Tomorrow, at midnight, I’ll expect you.”

  “What?”

  “I own your nights, MacKayla. In the small hours, I am your master.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Don’t try to run. I will find you, and your punishment will be worse, understand?”

  I nodded, although I wasn’t sure at all.

  “Be at my house. I’ll be waiting, and I’ll be watching.”

  He tugged his jacket on and returned to me. Gripping my jaw with one hand, he slid his gaze over my body, his lips in a smirk.

  “Sleep well tonight, MacKayla Simone, and don’t touch your needy little cunt.”

  He came closer, and I expected him to kiss me, but he didn’t. He took a deep inhale instead, then licked the pulse at my neck, bringing his mouth to my ear.

  “I want you hungry.”

  My eyelids closed. I didn’t breathe, didn’t open my eyes again until he released me. I watched him walk out the front door, unable to believe he was here, in the flesh. That he’d found me. The way he’d talked to me just now? He hated me. I accepted that, on a logical level, but on a deeper level, it hurt me. In a way, over the last three years, I’d created—in my mind alone—some sort of bond between us. And we were connected. We would always be connected. I would always be the one who had destroyed his life. It didn’t matter that I hated myself for it, for what I’d done. Didn’t matter that I’d had no choice.