Liars and Liaisons by Sav R. Miller

15

Violet’s mothershould’ve named her Rose for the way crimson is so quick to spring to her features. Dark pink colors her cheeks and flushes her neck despite the slight bronze her skin has acquired from all the morning yoga and gardening.

It’s quickly becoming my favorite color.

She squeezes her knees together. There’s something downright delicious about her squirming just at the idea of me watching her make herself come.

Frankly, my cock has been stiff as steel since I walked in and spotted her, and the insinuation hanging in the air between us does nothing to aid the situation. My only salvation is the substances she added to the bathwater that make it impossible to view beneath the surface.

“I have a hard time believing you can be good,” she says after a moment, toying with a strand of her wet onyx-colored hair.

Fair. If she knew why she couldn’t remember anything from our night together, she’d be running for the hills.

“You’re a quick study. Why is it you didn’t finish your degree?”

“Plant therapy is a harder field to break into than it sounds.”

I do my best not to make a face at the sound of plant therapy. “Interesting. And do plants have a lot of traumas that needs to be discussed in a clinical setting?”

She stares at me for several seconds, as if processing my words. Then, something incredible happens.

She presses her hands to her mouth and laughs.

A sweet, chest-deep sound that bounces off the walls of the bathroom and paints my veins with envy. It’s free and enchanting, and it’s obvious this is something she does often. Without abandon.

Somehow, I want her to cease and never stop, all in the same breath.

When the raucous melody ends, she wipes a tear from beneath one of her eyes and rolls her shoulders. “Okay, Professor. What should I do first?”

It takes me several moments to realize what she’s talking about. Prickling heat envelopes the entirety of my being, scorching me from head to toe. My cock bobs against my abdomen, and I claw the edges of the tub to keep from just showing her myself.

I said I’d be good, and if being good is what makes that fucking sound come from her, then I’ll be the best damn boy she’s ever encountered.

At least until I no longer need her services.

But I can indulge the both of us until then.

“Put your hand between your legs.”

Her eyes almost bug out of her head. “Jeez, just skip right to it then.”

She shifts slightly, hiding her breasts with her knees, and plunges both hands into the water.

“Wait.” I sit up a bit, the water rippling around us. “Just one hand. I’ll need the other.”

“You said—”

“Not for me.” Disobeying a little, I reach out with one hand and shove her knees apart, then press down on the tops of them. “I can’t see what’s going on under the water, so I need a view of everything else.”

She swallows. I can almost see her pulse thumping in her neck, wild and out of control. “Why?”

“So I can see what feels good. What turns you on most.” I glance down, letting my gaze rove lightly over the sight of her tits rising and falling with each leaden breath she takes. Her nipples are a dark pink and hard as fucking diamonds. Just as I suspected. “I want to know what exactly I say or tell you to do that makes you blush the color of these roses you butchered.”

“I didn’t butcher them,” she insists, but I’m barely even listening.

“Doesn’t matter.”

I lift an expectant brow, and finally, she moves, lowering her knees. Her feet hook beneath my thighs, and she jumps, searching my gaze for signs of distress.

I give none because I don’t fucking care. She could kick me in the balls right now, and I think I might find a way to enjoy the searing pain.

“Are your fingers on your pussy?”

Her eyes widen even more, and she gives a curt jut of her chin.

“I’m going to need you to speak, Little Echo. I want to hear your words.”

“This is wrong,” she rasps.

“Wrong is relative.” This time, it’s me swallowing as I hold up two fingers. “Press these against your clit. Show me what you look like when you’re making yourself feel good.”

Those pouty lips part, just barely, and her breathing grows ragged. Her eyes fall to the water’s surface, and I reach out, using the same fingers to tilt her chin back up.

“Watch me,” I tell her in a dark voice, one I hardly recognize. “If you make yourself come in front of me, I want those eyes on mine. Don’t you dare look anywhere else.”

“Or what?”

My brows arch. I release her chin and reach between us, strumming a ripened nipple with the side of my thumb. “Or I’ll be forced to take matters into my own hands.”

“You said you wouldn’t touch.”

“Fair.” I move back, shoving my hands under the water and then sitting on them to keep from breaking the promise a fourth time. “Can you do me a favor then?”

“Is this not enough?”

It never could be.

“Touch yourself. Not just where I can’t see, but above too. Your body is a fine-tuned instrument, and in order to play it right, you need to utilize each section.”

A shaky breath, and then she slides her free hand up, crossing her chest to pinch one puckered peak between her thumb and forefinger. Beneath the water, my hands curl into themselves, my cock on the verge of exploding.

And we’re not even touching. There’s no contact here besides some semi-innocent rubbing where she sits between my legs, but other than that, nothing is happening. I’m just watching her face, cataloging every sharp inhale so I can play this whole scene out again later tonight in my room.

When I stroke myself this evening, coming into my fist like some thirteen-year-old who’s just discovered porn, I want to remember every piece of what she’s sharing here.

And when I destroy Nate later, I want the memory to be fresh. So it hurts him that much more.

After a few moments, she huffs. Loudly. The elation falls from her face, and she frowns. “It’s not working.”

“Try harder.”

She shoots me a dirty look. “It’s not that. I just… it’s weird with you sitting here.” When I don’t say anything, she drops the hand from her breast and starts to push out of the water. “Look, this was stupid. It’s not going to work, and—”

“Close your eyes.”

Pausing, she narrows them instead, right at me. “You just told me to keep them open.”

Sliding my hands out of the water, I hold them up, palms out in surrender. “That’s my thing. Doesn’t mean it’s yours. This entire exercise was about your pleasure, your memories. Maybe… maybe what you need is your own fantasy. One I’m not in.”

Truth be told, I just don’t want her to leave right now.

Every morning, I’m plagued by the exact same things. The memories, the haunting noises, the phantoms of my past trying to suffocate me with their invisible hands.

For some reason, when I’m with Violet, all of that sort of disappears. Maybe, like the shadows, their disappearance is only a temporary feat, but still. I can’t deny that in the weeks since I blackmailed her into coming here, things seem to quiet down when she’s around.

And right now, I’m at what feels like the end of my rope. Paranoid, uninspired, and completely alone.

It’s taken me far too long to realize that I don’t actually want to be.

Violet settles back into the water, watching me with a furrowed brow.

“Close your eyes,” I say again.

She does this time, though her shoulders are still tight, eyebrows still taut.

“What do you usually think about when you’re fucking yourself?”

“Do you have to be so crude?”

“I told you, whatever makes you blush.”

Sighing, she slides both hands between her legs, then slips them into the water. My heart pounds a million beats a minute.

“I don’t know. Whatever pops into my head, I guess. Stuff I’ve read in books, movies…”

“Our night together?” I tilt my head, noting the hitch in her breathing. “Do you ever try to remember on your own?”

She doesn’t say anything at first, and I fear I’ve lost it. Lost her.

Then, “Yes.”

It’s so quiet that I almost don’t hear it over the sound of the water rustling around her. She moves back, shifting her chin toward the ceiling. I open my mouth to tell her I want to see one of those hands, but she beats me to the punch, slapping her palm over one full tit.

Silently, she kneads, and I can’t help wondering if the hand I can’t see moves in tandem. My blood boils, and hot, delicious desire electrifies every nerve in my fucking body.

All those nights I spent taking drugs and fucking until I was sick, and I never knew this was what lust was supposed to feel like. I didn’t realize there was a difference between manufactured euphoria and being on the cusp of a violent religious revolution.

“What do you focus on?” I ask, trying to place myself there in her mind. Right now, I want to be wherever the hell she is. “What can you see?”

“The mask,” she answers instantly.

So instantly that my head jerks back. She almost sounds eager.

“Mine?”

“The goat one. Not the gold devil one you had on last night.”

Interesting. It was clear at the fundraiser that the mask did something for her, but I wasn’t sure exactly what. Not everyone equates fear and excitement with positivity or pleasure.

I’ve underestimated the vixen.

My fingertips buzz with the urge to smooth up her calves, but I resist. “What about the mask?”

She swallows audibly, and her eyes flicker behind closed lids. Back and forth, back and forth, like a swinging pendulum. Her fingers dig into her flesh, and every fiber of my being wishes it were my hand there instead, pawing at her, making her feel delight.

But for now, I’ll take what I can get.

“You kissed me with it on,” she breathes finally. “And I-I didn’t mind that I wasn’t a hundred percent sure who was underneath the mask. Actually, I liked that I didn’t know.”

“Because…”

Her mouth parts on a sound, half-gasp and half-cry, and she pushes her legs further apart. I can’t see, but I’m certain her fingers move against her clit with fervor, likely matching the tempo of each breath she heaves. “I don’t know why.”

“Because it’s easier when you can’t see, right?” My voice is low, harsh, and I lean in closer so she doesn’t miss a word. “Easier to be anyone or do anything. With a mask, you can enjoy things that don’t look as pretty without. You can pretend. It’s just like dancing in the dark; nothing ever feels the same in the light.”

I’m right in front of her face when she sucks in a deep breath, then releases it with a harsh exhale. My mouth opens, tasting the air as it leaves her body.

“You can pretend you don’t want me,” I growl, so close that I can see the sweat dotting her skin.

She squeezes her tit, and the soft sounds coming from somewhere in her throat ensnare me, unrelenting in their grip. I wish I could record them, keep them to play on an loop for the rest of my life.

Her moans are the sounds I want to be lowered into the ground to.

“When you envision the mask, it can be anyone. You’re free to be uninhibited, and you don’t have to feel bad about it. It’s just you, touching yourself for your masked figure. Nobody else for those few moments in time. And that feels good, doesn’t it?”

“Oh God.”

“Answer the question, dirty girl.”

“So good.”

“Push your fingers in.”

Her eyes fly open, and I lash out without thinking, covering them before either of us has a chance to regret the touch.

“Do it,” I command, not giving us time to read into the situation beyond the palpable lust swirling around us. “Slide them in and let them fill you up.”

It seems to take a minute, but finally, she lets out a little puff of broken air, sagging slightly against the tub.

“Oh my God,” she whispers, the sound filled with awe. “So full.”

Not as full as you will be.

My dick throbs to the point of pain, but I ignore it. I’m desperate now, dying to watch her come.

“Pump slowly and curl the tips until you think you might pass out.”

She moans softly, and I lean in just enough for her breath to caress my face, my lips. Anywhere I can get it.

“Who’s fucking you with their fingers?” I ask, though the words come out breathless and strained. “In the fantasy, I mean.”

“I-I don’t—”

Leaning closer, until our lips are just a centimeter apart, I ask, “Who is it? Who’s behind the mask that you’re so eager to come for?”

She doesn’t answer. Her breathing hitches, and her head jerks against my palm as her face flushes.

“Fuck,” I mutter, gritting my teeth hard enough to crack a molar when she tweaks her nipple, then slides her hand up her throat, collaring herself like she isn’t exactly sure where to grab.

She’s flailing, lost in the throes of passion, and I have a front row seat.

“You’re close, aren’t you?”

She nods, frantic.

“Words, Violet.”

“I’m close,” she pants, her back slipping against the porcelain. “I’m ready, please. I want to come for you.”

The soft pleas catch me by surprise, but I quickly recover. Gently, I remove my hand and meet her dark, hypnotic gaze. Wickedness pulses in those smoky-quartz irises, and a part of me wonders if I got it all wrong about her being sunshine and innocence.

The eyes don’t lie, and hers paint a picture of decadence and sin.

Perhaps she just needs a hand in unleashing it.

And I certainly wouldn’t mind the distraction.

“Come,” I tell her, sliding back to my spot in the tub. Like I never touched her in the first place. “But keep those eyes on me, so I can see just how much of a dirty girl you really are. Nathaniel never got to see this, did he? It’s just for me. Just for your masked man.”

Again, she nods, and I realize as her mouth parts on a silent O that I don’t even care if she’s lying.

The earth shatters around her, around us, and in that moment, it could actually implode, and I wouldn’t even notice.

Because she doesn’t look away once.