Mind Games - A Bad Boy Romance With A Twist Read online

  I saw my father’s face. I saw all her clients, standing in a long, lecherous line before her. I pulled my lips away from hers and took a step back. She searched my face, confused.

  “Kat’s a virgin,” I declared.

  “Kat?”

  “Yes. But not after he’s done with her.”

  I could see the cogs working behind her eyes.

  Do you think I’m a big, possessive brute because I couldn’t handle the thought of her being with other men? Do you think I’m just a typical, egotistical man who judged his woman’s sexual past even while it turned him on?

  Well, guilty as charged.

  I was the most possessive, most egotistical brute I knew. I wanted her for myself. I would have invented a million personas for her with a million different hair colors if it meant she would forget about all of them for a second. The thought of her being used by someone else made my blood boil. But deep down, it’s because I wanted to be the one to use her. Only I loved her enough to defile her the way she needed.

  Do you think I’m fucked up?

  Maybe.

  But, that’s the magic.

  As Nora looked at me in the bathroom just then, a big swirly mound of purple hair dye on her head and her breasts bare, I knew she understood.

  “Oh, I’m sure he’s not so bad. I’m sure he knows what he’s doing right?” she said, voice light and breezy.

  “Yes.”

  I knew she could see the ugly, possessive, animal streak inside me. Not only did she not recoil back in horror, not only did she not judge me, but she smiled and nodded. She saw that darkness, and didn’t look away. And even better, she wanted to play with that darkness. Words cannot describe the overwhelming swell of lust I had for her right then.

  The sound of a car pulling up on the gravel outside in the parking lot pulled my attention away from her for a second. I hurried to the window to peak through the curtains again.

  Nothing. Just another motel guest.

  It didn’t look like we were being followed, but it wouldn’t hurt to be cautious. We only had to hunker down here for one night and if we left early enough in the morning, we’d be in Oklahoma late tomorrow afternoon.

  By the time she had rinsed the dye out and had a shower, we stood together before the mirror and examined the overall effect. It wasn’t blonde so much as …white. Colorless, even. It made her dark eyes seem even bigger, almost scarily large. When it was dry she made two small braids at the crown and pulled them back into a little clip. She put on her glasses and paraded around the room in her new tights and a dress I had never seen before. The transformation was shocking.

  She lowered the glasses and winked at me then pranced around a bit more, admiring her reflection in the mirror.

  “Come here,” I said to her.

  She seemed surprised by my rough tone, but came to sit beside me. It was late. We had done everything today that we could, and now it was just me, her, and the night ahead of us. We had both skirted around one another, dancing past this idea of what we would do when it finally came time to share the only bed in the room. But we were out of distractions now, and her little fashion show was giving me ideas.

  “Are you going to tell me to kiss you again?” she said in a syrupy voice, head tilted. Where was the feisty Dominatrix with a sneer on her lips and a weapon in her hands? Who was this woman and what had she done with Mistress Morgan? I smiled at her and invited her in with my gaze. Slowly, she leant forward and gingerly offered her lips to mine. I pulled back.

  “Not there,” I said. She gave me curious eyes. “Here,” I said and pushed her head gently down. The smile that flashed across her face was deliciously nasty.

  I leant back into the palms of my hands and tilted my hips up towards her. She stared at my crotch, then at me, then down again, before carefully unbuckling and unzipping me.

  She was Nora, a devastating, expert sex goddess, but I knew she had never taken orders from any man before, not like this. I would be her first. I wanted to be her first everything.

  “Take it out,” I said. Her fingers paused on my trousers. I watched her chest rise and fall with a breath before she continued obediently, removing my stiff cock from the slit in my pants and pausing again.

  “Good,” I breathed. “Now come closer.”

  She did.

  Her bent knees pressed close against mine and she lowered her head, grazing her cheek against the swollen shaft of my cock in a sweet, almost worshipful nuzzle.

  “Now kiss it,” I growled, and this, too, she did… each soft press of her lips making me grow even harder. “Suck it,” I continued, voice low and dark, and then put a firm hand to her newly blonde tresses, guiding her. Her lips closed warm and slick around me, and I moaned my appreciation.

  “You’re not the only one who can be bossy,” I said teasingly. “Don’t be shy. I want you to take it all in.”

  She took her time sliding the full length into her mouth and deep down the back of her throat. I loved the little kink in her eyebrows, the look of sheer concentration on her face as she tried to swallow my thick, hot pole.

  Her hands were shaking as they spread out on the bed under us. She might have needed a fancy outfit and props and a sexy name to dominate men. But me? I needed only one thing to dominate her. One thick, stiff thing. And as I pressed it deeper into her beautiful throat, I claimed her. Melted away all those barriers she put up. The thought that I was doing with her what no other men could do sent a dirty little thrill all through me.

  My cock was soon pumping wet into and out of her mouth like a fleshy piston. I clutched a fistful of her white-blonde braids and held her close; desperate to squirt everything I had right down her greedy little gullet. Every time her perfect little lips bounced off the flat of my stomach and went gliding back up to slurp the tip, a quivering wave passed through me. Again and again her gorgeous tongue stroked up and down, till I could feel myself twitching inside.

  “Don’t come yet,” she whispered. “I don’t want to stop sucking you.”

  “I come whenever I damn well feel like it,” I growled, and tightened my grip on her hair. I could feel her smile. I sat up straight, pushed her off me a little and we locked eyes as she slowly wiped her lips with the back of her hand.

  “Get on the floor,” I said. “Now. On your knees.”

  It’s impossible to describe all the juicy things I saw in her eyes right then. She scrambled off the bed and positioned herself in front of me, kneeling, while I towered above her on the bed, kneeling myself, my cock in her face.

  “Touch yourself,” I said.

  I don’t think she had ever been spoken to as roughly as I was speaking to her now. In that moment, she was mine. Put on the earth to service me, her life’s mission to get me to come as hard as I ever had.

  She dutifully pressed her hands to her breasts and stroked herself, before sliding one of them down and over her tight belly, then into the crevice between her splayed legs. I watched as her fingers disappeared into that sweet slit and reappear, gleaming wet. I nearly lost my mind.

  “Don’t fucking stop.”

  Her eyes were glazed over, but somehow still staring straight into my soul. Her lips parted slightly as she held my gaze and worked her fingers over her pretty little clit.

  “Open your mouth.”

  She tried to suppress a smile as she opened up, sticking her tongue out at me. I loved seeing her like that. Loved her exposed and naughty looking.

  “Now beg for it,” I moaned, finding it harder and harder to hold off. This gave her pause, but she cleared her throat and leant in a little closer.

  “I want you to come, Dean,” she said, voice husky.

  I shook my head.

  “No, I said beg for it.”

  Again came the naughty smile.

  “I want your cum, Dean” she said almost inaudibly.

  Fuck, yes.

  “How badly?”

  In and out went her wet little fingers. “So badly. I need it. I wan
t it all down my throat and on my tongue,” she purred.

  A knot at the base of my cock tightened and threatened to explode. I wanted nothing more than to burst all over her. Well, there was one thing I wanted more: for her to beg just a little harder. Her fingers were moving more quickly now, and her spine arched gently inwards as she rocked her hips.

  “Please, I need all of that delicious cum,” she moaned, and it was the trigger that set me off.

  A grumble deep in my chest burst out of me as I came one thick spurt of white after another, each gush shooting straight into her wipe open mouth. Instantly, her head flew back and her body twisted and bucked with an orgasm of her own. She came deep and hard and slow, her eyes slammed shut and her hands outspread beside her to anchor. When she finally regained her composure and looked up at me, there was the faintest white dribble on her chin, to match her new white hair. God in heaven, was she the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

  “That was …nice,” she said, that faraway, glazed look still in her eyes. “But I’m still better than you at being bossy,” she added, and got to her knees, her eyes still glued to mine.

  In a heartbeat I was hard again.

  “Don’t push me,” I said.

  Chapter 5

  Myth: It’s all about money.

  Reality: It’s all about sex. ALL OF IT.

  We left the next morning before sunrise. My body was aching and sore. I couldn’t tell if I was exhausted from last night or horny all over again. It was like waking up next to a stranger. Part of me wondered if she would start the day being naughty, punishable ‘Kat’ again, but she acted like nothing at all happened… and I let her.

  We were on the road for hours. We spoke about everything and anything, but we also just drove in silence, each in our own thoughts, the world whipping by in a blur that we weren’t paying too much attention to.

  Nora seemed …softened. There was something tipsy in the way she laughed, something unfocused in her gaze as she pointed out this and that on the road. Soon I was laughing too, and feeling playful and carefree. Maybe it’ll sound weird, but though we were both smack bang in the middle of a dire situation, soon to be suspects in the highest profile murder story to hit this city in years… I was having fun.

  I hadn’t told her about the call I had received this morning when she was still sleeping. The call from him. The one where he gave me one more ‘chance’ to do what he wanted, and throw Nora to the dogs. I had hung up on him. I remember smiling darkly to myself, and relishing how I could still smell her on my fingers, still taste the little bite on my lip she had left there.

  When she rolled down the window and started to sing “we’re off to see the wizard” at the top of her lungs, I couldn’t help but forget about that call and join in, laughing till my sides hurt. I couldn’t even remember the last time I laughed like that. She caught her breath and then, face still red, turned to me in earnest.

  “But really, Dean, who are we going to see? Some old business friend? Some big shot? A lawyer?”

  I sighed.

  “We’re off to see …my mother.”

  She seemed disappointed.

  “Your mother? I thought you said she passed away.”

  “Well, in a manner of speaking she did,” I said. “Oklahoma’s as good as the afterlife, right?” I added, but she wasn’t smiling. I glanced over to see her trying to figure it out.

  Forgotten first wife Margaret Cane might have been a ghost for all the media knew about her, and as far as anyone was concerned, she was just a half line on Jeff Cane’s Wikipedia page, just a footnote before his life became as big as it did. I could tell Nora was a little alarmed.

  “You’re probably wondering what on earth somebody’s mother could do to help us right now,” I said.

  “Well, yeah. I honestly didn’t even know about her …you never spoke about her.”

  “That was intentional.”

  “You said she was the only person who could help bring your father down?”

  “She knows things. She has information.”

  She stared out the window. I could tell she wasn’t expecting her thrilling on-the-run adventure to turn into a family visit.

  “Information? I don’t see how information is going to fix the problem.”

  “Nora, information is the only thing that ever fixes the problem.”

  “So, what does she know?”

  I sighed again. I wanted us to be singing again like big goofs, or driving in comfortable silence, both of us relaxing in the glow of last night’s memories.

  “I’ll let her explain things, I think.”

  Her head flopped back on the car seat. Nora was good at dishing it out. Good at stringing people along and teasing and playing coy. But she certainly didn’t know how to take it. I tried hard but couldn’t imagine her as a psychologist, either. She was just too… I don’t know. I had no idea what Nora was like at all, actually. The joke was on me. I had swooped into her life and tried to seduce her and get her to fall in love with me as hard as she could. But now I was the one that felt like I was being seduced, unsure who was really in charge anymore, who was being chased, who was chasing. I only knew that it felt good. And that the craziest things I did with her seemed more sane than anything in my life ever had.

  It was late in the afternoon when we finally pulled up to that familiar old driveway, completely frozen in time and red dust. I carefully guided the car down that dirt road, cleaving up big red clouds on either side of us like the waves of an ancient, orange sea. Nora was silent, taking it all in, her eyes growing wider as she spied a trio of dusty yellow chickens picking through the brush just ahead of us.

  “How did the ex-wife of a billionaire find herself out here?” she said, mostly to herself. It was a rude question, really, but an obvious one. We were in a flat, harsh smallholding with nothing but a simple farmhouse in the center and various rundown outbuildings flanking it like neglected children holding onto their tired mama’s skirts.

  “I don’t even know how you managed to find this place,” she said.

  I smiled. “Yep. That’s kind of the point.” She gave me a strange look and we both stepped out of the car.

  An old, jowly dog raced to our feet and began barking desperately at us, but then tore off to one of the outbuildings. He ran behind the legs of a woman standing in the doorway, a shotgun hanging down long by her side. I caught her eyes and we stared at one another. It had been more years than I could remember. Those years had been filled with bank transfers and furtive weekly phone calls. With guilt and unspoken promises. I realized all at once that I had completely forgotten her face.

  “Mom,” I said quietly.

  Nora stared on in astonishment as I walked over, extended my arms and hugged the woman, the barrel of her shotgun tapping my shinbone. I was waiting for her to come out with one of her witty one-liners. To say that I was a ghost or make a joke about not taking kindly to Jehovah’s witnesses. But she said nothing. Her body felt thin in my arms, and I couldn’t tell if the little puff of air that left her chest was a sigh or a sob. She patted my back, looked deeply into my eyes and then reached over to grab a bundle of dead rabbits strung together. These she handed to Nora and gestured for me to follow us both into the main house. Nora flashed me a bewildered look and followed behind us, hand held out far in front of her body as the still-bloody rabbits bobbed on their string.

  Inside, the kitchen was poorly lit but homely. In the dusty silence, we all sat down, Nora looking petrified. The place was filled with rickety old furniture, faded wall hangings and flowers in vases that had long gone brown and crispy.

  “Mom, this is Nora.”

  “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry, where are my manners! Being out here has a way of making you forget these things, you know,” she said and extended her hand to Nora, who shook it but kept casting glances my way.

  I knew what she was thinking. Mom’s face was deeply lined and ashen, and her hair was pulled back into the kind of braid that
belonged on a Mormon prairie wife. Her hands were dirty, and her overalls covered in dust and feathers. The only thing that was bright and lively about her was the glint in her eye. No matter what happened, I would have recognized that sparkle anywhere.

  She laughed and gestured to her clothing.

  “Not quite Gaultier, is it?” she said to Nora, who colored deeply.

  “Mom, are you well?” I asked.

  She shrugged and smiled. “Alive and kicking, darling. Haven’t found the thing that can kill me yet,” she said, that fire in her eyes flashing fiercely. I cleared my throat.

  “Mom, we need to stay here overnight. Do you… have you heard the news? About dad?”

  Her face dropped at just the mention of him. It was a stupid question, anyway. There were no TVs out here. No nothing. She had wanted it that way. I looked at her questioning face and cleared my throat again.

  “Mom, Elizabeth’s dead.”

  I waited for her to respond. The lines seemed to dig a little deeper into her face.

  “Two days ago, she was found in dad’s house, stabbed to death. An hour before that someone released horrible images of dad to the press. He’s claiming…” I turned to Nora and her splendid white hair, so out of place in this dusty red farmhouse. “Nora… worked with him. He’s trying to frame her as the murderer. He wants me to be his alibi so he can say she was in love with him and killed Elizabeth out of jealousy.”

  Her face went even ashier. She listened carefully to each word and I could see her trying to hear past them, trying to listen ahead to the real reason I was here, and why I had brought this strange blonde woman with me.

  “We need your help” I said finally. There wasn’t much time to waste, and no point beating around the bush. Not with someone like my mother, anyway.

  She was nodding and thinking carefully, then looked over at Nora.

  “You worked with him,” she said, more of a statement than a question.

  My mother had told me many times that living alone in nature for years sharpens the senses, and trains a razor-sharp perception. But Nora dripped sex appeal. She was unnecessarily beautiful. You didn’t need any crazy hill-woman powers to deduce what kind of ‘work’ she might have done with my father. Nora nodded but looked away. My mother turned her gaze to me, and one look at my face and I knew she understood my part in it all. I couldn’t hide how I felt about Nora. Perhaps my mother’s finely honed huntress skills had sniffed out some obsession in me. Nora certainly felt like she had seeped into every one of my pores, and settled in a layer over my brain. And maybe that was glaringly obvious to anyone who looked at me.