Bound by Lies: Bound #1 (Adult Romantic Suspence) Read online

  Bound by Lies (Bound #1)

  By Hanna Peach

  Our love is on his terms. He contacts me only through notes − unpredictable and untraceable. When we meet, he can touch me, but I’m not allowed to touch him. When we make love, it’s only after I have been bound and blindfolded. It’s the only time I truly feel alive. Which is why I play along with it. For now.

  Caden Thaine is the most sinfully beautiful man I have ever seen. But more than that, his touch sets me on fire. And dear God, do I ache for him. I don’t know where he lives or even what he does. But this doesn’t scare me. My only fear is that one day his messages will stop.

  I know he’s hiding something. But that’s okay. I am hiding things, too. Like my real name and... who I really am. But what we have is enough. Sort of. And everything works…

  Until one day, I follow him.

  Soon our dark pasts will collide and I will discover just how much we are both bound by lies.

  Adult romantic suspense. +18 years.

  “You won’t realize how strong you are until you are given no other choice.”

  ~ kitten

  This book is for the strong in all of us.

  Author’s Note: For the sole purpose of ensuring the story flows, references to condom use have been removed from the sex scenes. Please always practice safe sex.

  Chapter 1

  This time, the note comes through a letter.

  When I return home from work, it’s there: the only envelope in my mailbox. Plain and white. I know it must be from him because no one else sends me letters. No one else knows where I live.

  As I pull the envelope from my mailbox my heart starts beating against my ribs like a trapped animal against its cage. In some ways it is, and he is the only one who can set it free. I know that this letter will contain a note. And this note means I will see him again soon.

  My address on the front is written in black ink and I recognize his neat cursive handwriting straight away. I brush my thumb over the stamp, a stern face of a foreign president, and notice it is postmarked express from Colombia. Another one from Colombia.

  I turn the envelope over and catch the whiff of a masculine scent of musk and wood smoke. His scent. Like always there is no return address. Without caring that I’m still standing in my cramped gray apartment lobby, I touch the envelope to the end of my nose and inhale. I breathe him in deeply. My belly clenches as his scent cascades down through my body and pools between my legs.

  I shut the mailbox, snatch the mailbox key from the rusted lock and run up the stairs two at a time, my groceries and bag slapping against my hips. I unlock my door and push into my apartment, tripping over the small rise of the doorframe in my haste.

  My apartment is a compact studio apartment; a single room with a small kitchen immediately to the right of my front door with a slim kitchen table that doubles as a work bench. An armchair sits alone next to a window, which allows me to sit in the sun when it’s out and read fifty-cent paperbacks from second-hand stores. At the end of the room is my double bed, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers and a bedside table. The only other door leads to my compact but usable bathroom. The paint is peeling, there is a weird musty smell that hangs about if I shut up this place for too long, and I’m on the wrong side of town, but I don’t care. It’s cheap and somewhere to sleep. I don’t ever bring anyone back here anyway.

  My bag of groceries and satchel are dumped and forgotten by the door. I pause long enough to turn the key in the lock and test the door handle, then I flick on the deadbolt that I had installed when I moved in. I turn, leaving the keys swinging in the lock, and go straight to my armchair, a second-hand ratty thing with a suspect stain that I’ve covered with a throw. Not beautiful, but it does the job and it was cheap.

  I sit, the letter still in my trembling hand. I take a deep breath as I caress the edges of the rectangle, enjoying this little game of torture I play with myself, seeing how long I can sit here without tearing the envelope apart to get at the secrets within. My insides burn to see the contents. How many hours and minutes and seconds until I see him again?

  I run my fingers along the lettering and I can see his hands, thick and strong and rough with a single perfect freckle marking the back of his right index finger, holding a pen and writing these words for me. I hold the envelope up to my nose again and smell him. Then I run my bottom lip where I imagine his tongue has licked across the lip of the envelope before he sealed it.

  Enough. I give in.

  I tear into this flimsy outer layer. The shredded envelope flutters to the ground and the note, again on plain white paper, is now in my hand. Like always, written in his handwriting, is a single line.

  Midnight Falls. Cabin #11. Sunday 4pm.

  Sunday. 4 p.m. And today is only Thursday. Oh God. Three whole days until I see him again. This constant dull ache for him crescendos into a crushing fist deep in my belly. Like always, it gets worse when I know exactly when I’ll see him next. Three days. As usual, he’s making me wait. But there’s nothing I can do. I’m tied to him.

  It should have been an omen that I met Caden at a nightclub called Bound.

  Chapter 2

  Six months ago

  Bound is a loud, moralless pit hole slunk in the shadows of the warehouse district of this city. It is gritty exposed-brick walls, exposed ceilings and rusted pipes, and medieval furniture made of thick wood and black iron. The bar staff is costumed in structured leather, whalebone and PVC. Some of them wear masks to protect their day-time identities. Others wear their faces open and proud with painted red lips. Some adorn themselves with spiked collars or jewels on chains strung across from various body piercings like Christmas decorations.

  The music is so wild it almost sounds like it has no beat. Just a furious epileptic noise that bangs through the bodies on the dance floor, a perfect soundtrack to the carnal stills of thrusting hips and flicking hair given up by the flickering strobe lights. It is a perfect place to meet like-minded people who just want to forget.

  I come here when I need to forget. No, I lie. I can’t forget. The most I can hope for is a distraction.

  In this private booth in Bound, I yank his pants off him and they drop to the black marble flooring. With one hard push he falls back onto the black couch, his erection waving slightly at me.

  He grins at me from under his floppy sandy hair. Dimples mark his cheeks. “You’re an aggressive one, aren’t you?”

  “You here to talk or to fuck?”

  I lift up the hem of my dress to reveal that I didn’t bother with underwear. His eyes drop to my freshly shaven pussy and I see them widen a little. I straddle him and reach past him to the pieces of leather piled on the shelf behind the chair. It’s dark in there, but I know what I’m looking for by feel. As I lean forward my chest pushes against his cheek. He pulls my left breast free from my dress and gives my nipple a lick.

  “You don’t even want to know my name or anything?” His voice reverberates against my breast.

  I grit my teeth as the frustration builds in my body. Finally, my fingers find the piece of leather I’m after. I lean back to sit on his thighs. “I don’t give a shit what your name is.”

  Using both hands I stuff the ball gag into his mouth and push the leather strap down over his head. With a swift move I tighten the strap and buckle it off behind his head. His eyes widen further and his fingers flinch up to the leather gag. But before he can protest or unbuckle the piece, I lick a generous line of moisture across my palms and wrap them around his shaft. I start to move my hands apart in a twisting motion, almost like I am wringing out a towel, then back together. He lets out a groan muff
led by the gag and his head falls back onto the chair as I continue to work his cock.

  Yes, that’s it. The feel of his hard smooth skin sliding in my hands raises the itch under my skin to an almost unbearable level. I can’t. I need. Release. Now.

  I lift myself up and slide down onto him. I dig my nails into his chest to leverage myself, ignoring his hiss, and start to ram my hips against him. He raises his hips to meet me and his hands grab my ass. I panic, scratching at his chest then pushing his hands off me. “Don’t touch me.”

  He scrunches up his face and looks down to the raw red marks across his pecs, but he holds his palms up in a surrender.

  Yes, you surrender. I’m in control. I start to move again and he settles back, his arms laying across the back of the small couch. His fingers grip the leather tighter and tighter as I work against him. He groans again and his eyelids flutter shut. My own pressure builds inside me. My head falls back and my eyes close. Under this darkness I am empty, if but for a moment. The rhythmic motion of my hips against his is like waves crashing against cliffs, violent and furious. But it numbs me and I can almost mistake it for freedom. The wave of heat rises through my body. I grind my hips against this stranger, taking what I need, hoping that this time it will be enough to last.

  But it isn’t enough. It is never enough.

  That was last night. Tonight, I lean my elbows against the bar, stirring my straw through my vodka and tonic, trying to pay attention to the guy on my left who bought me this drink. But my mind is too scattered. This itchy, uncomfortable feeling clenches me like too-tight skin, and my unwanted memories are like a buoy. They keep bobbing up to the surface no matter how much I keep pushing them back under. God, I need a distraction.

  I watch Barry or Bozo, or whatever this clown’s name is, waving his fingers around as he talks. I nod my head like I give a shit and wonder how long decorum dictates that I wait to suggest that he pay for a private booth. His brown hair is conservatively cut and combed to one side; he reminds me of a Ken doll. Especially when he flashes that expensively purchased smile of his. He wears a tailored pinstriped suit with a red silk folded handkerchief in his jacket pocket. Who the hell wears a frickin’ handkerchief in their pocket to a club? Corporate-douchebag-Ken does.

  His right nostril is dusted with white powder and he has that gunky white residue at the corner of his mouth as most coke users do. Fucking gross. I hope he doesn’t expect me to kiss him. I look down at the bar counter, shiny from polish and spilled liquor, because I just can’t keep looking at him. Otherwise I fear I’ll get put off to the point where I can’t do this. And I need this.

  I place my lips around the straw and pretend to take a sip of my drink. They are generous with their shots here, so I can taste the sting of the vodka mixed with the sharpness of the lime on my lips as I draw up the cold liquid. Then I stop sucking without swallowing any liquid and let it all fall back down the straw. I don’t drink. Especially not when I’m on the hunt for a distraction. I don’t like losing control of my faculties. I won’t do it. I don’t like it. Most importantly, I can’t afford to.

  At that moment something in the music changes and I look up. It’s then that I spot him leaning against the wall across from me. His giant form with overbearing shoulders and intimidating arms straining against his dark shirt makes it difficult not to notice him. From here I can see that he has messy dark hair and dark eyebrows. I can’t tell what color his eyes are, but I’m desperate to find out. Black as night, I guess, to match his hair.

  I can tell that he is staring at me, making no attempts to hide it. I can’t help but smile.

  I noticed him several weeks ago. He had been standing in almost that very spot, also staring at me. But he didn’t come up to me, despite the fact that he had basically fucked me from across the space with his eyes. I fucked him right back. But I didn’t go up to him. I don’t chase men. I don’t have to.

  I thought that he would approach me. But he didn’t. He just watched me. He didn’t even come to lay claim after a good-looking suit sought to charm me into giving him some of my time. I left with the suit that night. Although you’d better believe I was imaging him buried between my legs later that night. Since then, I’ve found my eyes being drawn to that very spot where he stands now.

  “Hey, sweetcheeks.” My attention is diverted back to Bozo. This wannabe lover is frowning at me, obviously ticked off that he isn’t getting his vodka tonic’s worth of attention from me. The dim bar lights flash off his hair like an oil slick, making it look like someone has spat all through it. I cringe when I imagine running my hands through it to pull at it. “You even listening to me?”

  I smile and I can feel it dripping thick with fake honey. I pull in the corners of my mouth so that it forces dimples to my cheeks. “Of course I am, babe.” I giggle and place my hand lightly on his arm.

  Bozo’s face relaxes. Predictable fucker. He leans in close so I can smell a mix of rum and cigarettes on his breath, and I have to fight the urge to throw up in my mouth. I rack my brain for why I even let him buy me a drink.

  “Well, why don’t you drink up, beautiful, and we can go take this party upstairs into a private booth?”

  This is what I want, isn’t it? I feel his hand slip onto the small of my lower back then slide down to feel the round of my ass. He presses his partial erection against my side. Usually the touch of a sexed-up man ready to go gets me excited, but tonight, for some reason, it only serves to make me feel queasy. I swallow and try to fight this feeling from showing on my face. For some reason I look over to the wall again.

  Mr. Tall Dark and Fuckable is gone. I glance around in an attempt to find him, but I don’t see him towering over the mass of bobbing heads in the crowd. My heart sinks into my stomach, making my nausea feel worse.

  “Sorry, babe,” I say, taking my arm off Bozo and stepping aside so his hand drops off my ass. “I just remembered I have to meet someone. Maybe next time.”

  Before I can step away his fingers grab at my arm, pulling me off balance. “Don’t play games with me,” he grunts, his breath coming out hard and fast like a bull. “You were all over me a second ago. You wouldn’t have come out here wearing no underwear if you weren’t up for it.” He runs his other hand up the back of my ass again to prove he was right. “I can smell that you want me from here.”

  I cringe. I try to shake his hand off, but his grip is like a vice. “Let go of me, you pig.”

  Instead he pulls me to him and tries for a kiss, his disgusting mouth puckering like a fish. His other hand slips under the hem of my dress. I lean back and try to balance on one heel so I can kick him where it hurts. But he releases me, almost causing me to fall over, and disappears behind a wide back wrapped in black cotton. I grab the bar to steady myself.

  Oh God. It’s him. The man from the wall. I know it’s him. Even though I can’t see his face, I recognize his presence. I stare up at his thick shoulder muscles pushing out against his shirt, then down his lats, which are wide enough to hang off, tucking down into a trim waist and a round butt and lovely strong thighs hugged by dark blue denim. Holy sweet Jesus. My mouth is already watering.

  “She said she had to meet someone. Now back the fuck off,” Mr. Tall Dark and Fuckable’s words rumble to my ears over the thump thump of the music. Even his voice sounds like sex, deep and rough and demanding.

  “Shit. Okay, man. I’m going.”

  “The fuck you are.” This sex god steps back so that I can see that he has Bozo by his shirt. He yanks Bozo forward. “You apologize first. And make it a good one.”

  Bozo starts to grovel at me, but I can’t hear him. I am mesmerized by my first close-up look at this man’s face. He was good looking from far away, but up close he is just… beautiful. Not in a structurally perfect Abercrombie and Fitch pretty boy-model come-run-with-me-through-the-fucking-daisies kind of way.

  God no.

  He is beautiful like the wild, untamed mountains. He is tan skinned, thick jawed and stubbled,
and there is a scar that cuts across one of his eyebrows. His generous lips are pulled into a scowl that makes him look dangerous and a little bit nasty in all the right ways. This combination sends a rush of heat through my veins.

  But his eyes… Heaven help me. I am so wrong about his eyes. They aren’t brown. They are the intense green of rough seas, turbulent and luring with depths that I might never be able to swim out of. And Lord, do I want to swim in them. Naked.

  He stares back at me, meeting my gaze head on. His snarl softens into a smirk. But he still manages to make it look mean. Like a warning.

  I definitely should not be staring back so boldly. I definitely should not be wondering how dark a shade his eyes get when he’s turned on. I definitely definitely should not be going anywhere with him to find out.

  I only realize that Bozo has finished groveling when he is shoved away. “Get lost and stay lost.”

  Bozo disappears into the crowd. And I am left with him. He still hasn’t broken eye contact with me.

  I hear a little voice in me begging me to be the first to look away. Play it cool. I snap out of my reverie and lean one elbow against the bar so that my other hip rolls out, something I know showcases my small waist.

  “So I guess I owe you a thanks then, huh?” I tilt my head down so that my hair falls across one eye and look up at him. I give him my fake name just quiet enough so that he has to lean in to hear it. Now that he is right where I want him, I hold out my hand and give him my slowest, sexiest smile – the one I reserve for when I want to impress, the one that never fails to have a man eating out of my palm.

  He laughs.

  The prick laughs at me.

  I am so shocked I just blink at him like an idiot, my hand still stuck out like a misplaced limb. What. The. Fuck.