Liar (9 page)

“I think I understand,” Peter said thoughtfully. “Like roleplaying. Shall we have a safe word?”

“That’s bondage,” I said, smirking as he raised his eyebrows at me. “What?”

“You seem to understand an awful lot about it.”

“That’s beside the point.” I had to look away from him to get my blush to fade. “But yes. I think it would be wise if we both understood that in the event we should have…carnal knowledge in the workplace, it would be between girlfriend and boyfriend — not boss and employee.” I swallowed. “Though it is encouraged that boss and employee themes for such play be explored.”

“Layers upon layers of reality,” Peter remarked, but with a smile. “Gemma, I’d do anything to make you happy. If setting these definitions is what does it, I’ll gladly comply. Now, let me see those feet of yours.”

He tugged me down to sit on his lap and examined one of my feet, clucking with disapproval.

“It’s a longer walk than I thought from the office to here,” I confessed meekly. “And these aren’t walking shoes.”

He eyed the heels that I’d dropped at the door. “No, I don’t imagine those are very good walking shoes.” Standing abruptly, he swept me into his arms and carried me into the bathroom.
“What are you doing?” I squeaked. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“You don’t weigh a thing,” he claimed. “And you’re not walking on those feet any more today.”

He set me back down on the edge of the gigantic bathtub and ran the water until he was satisfied with the temperature, shaking the droplets from his hand. Reaching for a washcloth and a bar of soap, Peter took me by surprise yet again by gently reaching for one of my filthy feet and washing it, cleansing all of the grime from my soles. It turned the water that continued to run black, and stained the washcloth probably irreparably.

“I can clean them myself, you know,” I told him. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I want to do this.” He finished with one foot and dried it tenderly on a hand towel before starting on the other one. There was something oddly intimate about Peter washing my feet. I didn’t think anyone ever had — minus my mother, when I was too young to do so myself. It was sweet, a little sad, and, when he pressed his thumb into the scrubbing at a stubborn bit of grit, strangely erotic. I jerked forward at that touch in the arch of my foot, and Peter took careful note, slowing his rubbing down to strokes, caresses, bringing my clean foot back into play, running the perfectly warm water over it to make his hands glide over the skin there.

I never had any idea that someone massaging my feet would send those kinds of signals to my inner nerve centers, the ones also responsible for making me bite my lip, watching Peter like a hawk, my breathing quickening as I noticed his response to my very obvious arousal.

There wasn’t time — or inclination — to feel insecure at a kink revealed. I never would’ve guessed I’d find someone rubbing my feet to be a turn-on, but, then again, I’d never had anyone rub my feet the way Peter was rubbing them. He was taking his time, making sure he divided his attention evenly between both feet, drawing tiny sounds from my throat that I knew he could hear even over the water splashing from the faucet.

I yowled when he licked my clean sole from heel to big toe, popping the digit into his mouth before making sensual eye contact with me. I nearly kicked him in the face jerking my foot away, the contact becoming too sensitive, other parts of my body screaming for attention, now.

Peter caught me as I launched myself back into his lap, my fingers scrabbling against his chest in an effort to rip his shirt open, forgetting about his tie as I nearly strangled him in pulling the shirt up and over his head. When his face was freed amusement danced over his features, before he pulled my own clothes off of me.

“Ouch!” I yelped when he was a bit too rough yanking my panties from my hips.

“Sorry — did I hurt you?”

My face flushed. “Um, it’s still sore from…earlier.”

“Earlier?” Slow recognition dawned across Peter’s face. “Oh. From that little incident. Poor Gemma.”

He moved his fingers lightly over my rump, and I shuddered into his embrace. I didn’t realize the bathtub was full until I was sitting in it, my naked body immersed, Peter sliding in alongside me. That was another first — I’d never had a bath with anyone. I had a very strong feeling that I’d thoroughly enjoy myself.

We sloshed around for a few moments as Peter got the water turned off and the jets bubbling. I hadn’t even used the bathtub yet, always in too much of a hurry to do anything but shower in the penthouse. The strong jets sending froth into our muscles was yet another surprise of the afternoon.

Peter maneuvered me onto his lap and began massaging my back and shoulders. “What can I do to make everything up to you?” he wondered out loud.

My face went hot. “I can’t say that I didn’t…not enjoy that ‘incident’ earlier.” God! What I would’ve done to simply be able to lie successfully to the man behind me. He chuckled richly.

“You mean you liked it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t…not like it.” I didn’t have to see his face to know that Peter was grinning.

“That’s what I said.” I tried to remain prim and proper, but it was hard, naked, sitting on a naked man’s waterlogged lap, his erection making itself very clear to me as he rubbed my back.

“Then maybe that’s something else we get to explore down the line,” he reasoned. “There’s no reason for shame, Gemma. Sex is the most natural thing in the world — in all the shades it comes in.”

I was just glad I didn’t have to look at him as he continued to work his hands over my back, making me relax limply into his embrace. My head lolled on his shoulder as he smoothed his hands down my arms, cupping my breasts briefly before moving down my belly and to my thighs. My legs spread almost of their own accord, allowing Peter access to my pussy, its wetness disguised by the bath. It was almost overstimulating when he started circling his fingers around my clit — the press of his torso against my back, the erection poking my leg, the bubbling jets all around us, the motors buzzing with a dull roar in the bathroom, echoing against the tiling.

I couldn’t say that I’d been entirely vanilla when it came to sex, but it was seeming more and more that I was going to get an enormous education with Peter. Most of the men I’d been with previously had lacked imagination, only interested in sex as a means to an end and not necessarily open to exploring all of the possibilities inherent in it. Peter had already awakened things in me I didn’t understand, but that didn’t mean that I was about to shy away from exploring them.

I looked forward to pushing the boundaries with Peter, especially now that we had discussed what those boundaries entailed.

I hadn’t realized that I was mewling continuously until I cried out at the shock of Peter lifting me and settling me again directly on his cock, impaled on his hard-on as the water swirled around us. He caressed my breasts as he started thrusting upward, his mouth on my neck, switching back and forth between nibbling and breathing hard against my skin.

Without warning, he pinched one of my nipples, rolling the sensitive flesh between his fingers. I yelped and bucked against him, and I could feel his smile on my skin.

“You said you liked it earlier, when I spanked you with the ruler,” he murmured in my ear, stilling my movement with his throaty voice. “Is that true?”

“That I didn’t dislike it, yes,” I maintained, stubborn.

“That you didn’t dislike it, then. That perhaps you’d be open to exploring that feeling again?”

“Maybe…” I sounded about as certain as I felt, but I couldn’t help my nervousness. I’d never done anything like this before, never had a partner open so many sexual doors for me.

“Then feel this,” he urged, one hand circling my clit again, his cock still buried deep in my body, thrusting up against my G-spot. The other hand remained on my breast, becoming all but an afterthought as the pleasure and pressure grew with his movements below the surface of the water.

Then, an explosion of sensation. He was pinching my nipple again — hard — but the pain was tempered by just how good my pussy was feeling. For some reason I couldn’t explain, the sharpness of his fingers on my nipple worked to magnify the pleasure, as if the two opposite feelings worked together to create something new entirely.

Something entirely intoxicating.

Peter switched hands and explored my tolerance with the other nipple. Now that I knew what to expect, knew the impossible sweetness, I rolled into the sensation eagerly, squeezing my eyes shut and making shameful sounds over the bubbles of the bathtub’s jets.

Orgasm was hot and slippery, magnified by all the tricks of Peter’s fingers, the extra caresses of the moving water, the weightlessness that gave his thrusts even more power than usual. Our shouts rang out in the bathroom, and Peter turned the jets off to get us some reprieve from sensation. We panted in the humid room, steam clinging to the mirrors and masking out appearances. Peter was able to reach the basket of washcloths on the edge of the tub without disturbing me and carried on with washing me, as if I were some kind of invalid.

I opened my mouth to lodge a protest against this kind of coddling, but I could force no words out. I was so relaxed, so sated, that I couldn’t even complain. Peter soaped up every inch of me, and I simply allowed him to do so. There wasn’t much else I could do about it.

We sat in the tub as it emptied, both of us emotionally drained.

“I’ll get you to bed,” he said tiredly. “God, girl. I’ve never come so hard in my life.”

“Ditto,” I said. “I can get myself to bed.”

But I must’ve fallen asleep there in the tub. It wasn’t until the middle of the night that I woke up, the lights of New York City twinkling like stars in the windows of my bedroom, Peter curled around me like a pet. He must’ve been forced to carry me in here after I passed out on top of him in the tub, then fallen asleep in exhaustion afterward. My hair was lingeringly damp, and we were both still naked.

Still, it was so comfortable to feel his arms around me. I wondered if we’d slept like this, too, after that initial night when we’d hooked up, in this very same hotel. I didn’t remember much from that night besides the sex, and I’d woken up alone.

The idea that I’d have many more nights to sleep with Peter — and potentially many more mornings to wake up beside him — made my heart do a flip-flop that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. In spite of all the complications our relationship presented, it was still something I wanted to pursue. There were so many things I was looking forward to discovering with Peter by my side — or under me, or behind me, or on top of me.

I smiled in the darkness of the room. I’d fallen in love with Peter — in love, and definitely in lust.

Peter was so easy to be with. That was the most rewarding thing I discovered over the course of the next few weeks. He eschewed drama, was eager to make things simple, and had a passion for enjoying life. He came over to the penthouse often, sometimes just to chat before he had to jet off to some meeting. The man stayed busy, which was probably why the company had continued to do so well after he took it over from his father.

When he wasn’t meeting with important businesspeople from around the world, though, Peter was with me. He loved taking me out to restaurants and bars around the city — places I never thought I would so much as peek inside, past the doorman. Peter never had trouble getting us in whether he bothered to arrange for reservations or not.

We grew to love each other in the most natural way possible. Maybe it wasn’t the classic way — how people met on the street and had a whirlwind romance and got married and had babies together. At the very least, it was the modern way. We’d hit it off at a bar and gone off together to consummate that mutual lust; then our parents planned to get married, and he hired me at his business and set me up in the penthouse of one of his company’s hotels.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t altogether conventional — or even modern.

I had trouble believing my life sometimes, the way the skyscrapers jutted out against the blue sky just outside my window, the way Peter made me feel when he escorted me from place to place around the city, his hand on the small of my back, directing me as to where to go, even how he fussed at me for not spending as much as he thought I should on the card. It troubled me a little that he kept track of the spending, but I understood. It was his money. It was just strange to consider him examining line by line itemized receipts of my purchases — which I knew he didn’t do. I had odd daydreams about him confronting me over picking out the generic brand of tampons, which were about three dollars cheaper than the name brand. It was the way I’d been raised. Just because I had a credit card with no limit at my disposal didn’t mean that I was going to start spending superfluously. I refused to buy something unless I needed it.

“You’re going to need a coat for autumn — winter, too,” Peter would remark, drinking wine while he watched me model a new outfit I’d bought for him. “Those dresses are nice, but you’re going to get cold.”

“You forget I’ve already spent a winter in the city,” I crowed, whipping out my old quilted ankle-length coat — complete with hood lined with faux fur. I’d saved up for this bad boy, put it on layaway, paid for it every week with whatever money I could spare. I’d starved for this thing, and it had kept me warm all winter.

But when Peter saw it, he broke down laughing.

“What’s so funny?” I demanded, examining the coat to see if it perhaps carried a stain on it throughout the off season, or perhaps a hole. It was a little frayed, maybe, but still serviceable for several more years, as long as I took good care of it. “Maybe it needs a cleaning, but this is a good coat!”

“All right, I can see that it’s a good coat,” Peter said, choking on his laughter as he tried to take a sip of his wine. “I’ve noticed that you’re missing no fingers or toes or other extremities, so I trust that it took care of you last winter.”

“You have a big ‘but’ coming,” I said, peering at him and hugging my coat to my chest. “I can hear it.”

“But,” he exploded, giving me a wild look that made me laugh in spite of my insecurities, “that coat just won’t do this year. Maybe it was good on a walk through the park, scooping poop, but you’ll need something new this time. How do you feel about fur?”

“I feel that I would rather not,” I laughed, throwing the coat at him. “You don’t understand. This coat was an investment for the next three winters in the Big Apple. I can’t just throw something like this away.”

“You don’t have to throw it away,” he said. “But how would your new outfits look underneath it?”

“I won’t even have to have a coat this winter,” I decided.

“And how’s that?”

“The car,” I said, as if it were obvious. “I’ll barely be outside. Just out of my hotel and into the car, then out of the car and into the office. Easy.”

“Not in a blizzard it’s not,” Peter countered. “And certainly not in the dress you’re wearing.”

I looked down at the low-cut silk item I’d picked up recently at his behest. It was a little something for the evening, as he put it, and I felt like a princess in it. “What, you don’t think these match?” I shrugged on the coat, and Peter nearly spilled his wine jumping up to all but tackle me.

“Don’t you dare!” he said, laughing as he unwrapped me. “That dress deserves a nice coat, don’t you think?”

“This is a nice coat,” I persisted. He just didn’t understand what it had taken for me to get it. I couldn’t give it up as easily.

But the next evening, as soon as I got back to the penthouse following work, Peter was there with his customary grin, bearing three enormous boxes.

“Those better not be what I think they are,” I warned. “I said I didn’t want another coat. That also goes for three whole new coats.”

“Think of them as gifts,” he said. “A present from me to you. Not something you had to go out and buy.”

I looked at him, suspicious. “When did you even have time to go out and get these? You were at work all day.” I knew that because we’d been role playing all day. I’d had no fewer than four orgasms during the extent of business hours and had barely gotten anything of note done. I hoped that my coworkers were getting more accomplished than I was. Otherwise, I wasn’t sure how the company was going to fare this quarter.

I gasped each time I opened a box, each coat more beautiful than the last. The first one was a rich wool, soft to the touch and so warm it made me break out in a sheen of sweat the second I tried it on. The second one was a buttery leather pea coat, belted at the waist and extremely flattering to wear. And the last was a red satin trench coat, warmly lined and gorgeous.

“I don’t know what I’ll do with this one if it starts raining,” I said, twirling around in the last red coat. It made me feel somewhere between princess and super spy. It was an empowering coat, if that made any sense. I knew I looked good in it without having to glance at Peter to judge the approval in his face.

“Jump back in the car, I’d imagine,” he joked.

Life with Peter was amazing, and that was no lie. I didn’t even feel the compulsion to lie to him anymore. He knew my every whim and desire, knew the things that made me throw my head back and laugh. Even my mother noticed a difference whenever I’d chat with her on the phone.

“You seem happier than normal,” she observed after talking my ear off about various wedding planning meetings she’d been conducting with a host of dress shops and potential reception halls.

“Do I normally not sound happy?” I asked, laughing at her.

“Well, not necessarily,” she allowed. “I don’t know how to describe it. Lighter. Like you’re not as stressed out. Did me intervening on your behalf with Peter do anything? I noticed you’re not having as many night events anymore.”

“Night events” had been the way I’d lied to my mother about having a second job, at night, following my day job as a dog walker. It was a good explanation to have when she wanted to yammer on after 6 p.m., when I was trying to get dressed to cocktail waitress and shove some food down my throat at the same time. Otherwise, she would’ve been suspicious of me.

“He’s been a little more conscious of which events I go to,” I allowed. “But you shouldn’t have said anything. It’s his prerogative. He’s the boss. And I benefit from going to those things. I learn a lot.” I enjoyed a private smile at that. Peter was teaching me a lot — sexually and otherwise.

“I like Peter,” my mother announced. “And Frank speaks highly of him.”

“I should hope so. Peter’s his son, after all.”

“He’s good to work with?”

“Very good.” And that wasn’t any kind of lie whatsoever. I’d never worked with someone as “good” as Peter before in my life. I doubted that I’d ever come across anyone else with Peter’s specific talents, but I didn’t want to think about that. It was strange. I didn’t think of my life beyond the point when Peter and I would give up our dating experiment. I didn’t think of the men who might follow him. For some reason, it was easier to think of Peter as the man I’d be with for the rest of my life.

It was a frightening thought, especially since I hadn’t dated anyone at all since moving to the Big Apple. Had I finally found the man I was meant to be with?

“Gemma?”

“Yes?”

“I asked you if you saw Peter outside of the office,” she said, and I blanched. “Do the two of you socialize?”

“Don’t you think it would be a little weird if we did?” I countered. “I’d be afraid that it would show favoritism among the other employees.”

“Gemma, you’re about to become family,” she said incredulously. “There’s nothing nepotistic about it.”

She had no idea. It was the very definition of nepotism — and maybe even something a little more insidious — that he’d hired me in the first place, but she didn’t know anything about that. He’d only hired me after we'd realized our parents were marrying each other. And when we’d agreed to give dating each other a try. He had been behind my renaissance, of sorts, in New York City, giving me the means to start fresh after my solo attempts at being successful had failed miserably.

“I’d just rather function at work on my own merits,” I said, wincing at my own lie. That was a bad one. Peter might try to convince me otherwise, but I was somewhat convinced that I had very few professional merits. He’d used an idea of mine for a marketing campaign that was becoming more and more successful each time it aired on television, but I’d just been running my mouth, nervous at being inside a real office for the first time since I’d moved to the city. My other main task was entertaining Peter, but I wasn’t complaining about that.

“Well, as long as you’re happy,” my mother told me. “Call me soon.”

“Okay, I will. Bye.”

I wished I could tell her the whole truth, but I wasn’t about to reveal to my mother that I was not only seeing Peter extensively during and outside of work, but I was also having the best sex of my life with the man who was about to become her stepson. It was too strange, too off-kilter, and I was sure it would make her worry about both my well-being and my sanity.

The reasoning behind all my lies was to make sure she didn’t worry. She had enough on her plate with her upcoming wedding. It was something she was excited about, but it was also a point of stress. I don’t think she’d ever planned a wedding before, and there were more choices than I think she could’ve ever imagined.

All I’d ever wanted to do was to make my mother believe that everything was going just fine in my life, even when it wasn’t. She didn’t need to worry about me. I could worry about myself.

And now, somehow, impossibly, Peter was very occupied with worrying about me. He wanted to know constantly whether I was happy, whether I needed anything, if there was someplace I wanted to go or something I wanted to do.

“You can’t buy love,” I protested one day when I walked into the penthouse to see dozens of red roses in a stunning crystal vase on the countertop in the kitchen. “I love you just the way you are, dummy. You don't have to lavish me with money and gifts.”

He blinked, and I realized it was the first time either of us had confessed to that emotion. Love was such a funny and fickle thing. Lust was easier, the mutual admiration two people had for the movements they were able to produce together, the feelings. Love was sticky, worrisome, a bag of worms.

But Peter took a single rose from the vase and touched the soft petals to my lips as I smelled the blossom.

“I love you, too,” he said. “But I also love spoiling you, so you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

I coped as best I could. Retail therapy helped. With Peter encouraging me to spend his money, I did. It was fun. If that made me a bad person, then so be it. But when the money was there and it made him happy for me to buy things, I’d do it.

It was late summer — perhaps the last of the hot days we’d have this year, barring anything apocalyptic next month. It was a mere handful of weeks ahead of our parents’ wedding, something that still gave us pause.

“Have you told your dad about us?” I asked on the way to work. We were both taking the car, as Peter had stayed the night with me in the penthouse. I told him that he should just move in, but he said there was more excitement and mystery with two separate places we called home. It was hard to believe that he still considered some things to be mysterious after he’d explored every inch of me, but there it was.

“God, no,” he said, chuckling and shaking his head. “Nothing against you, of course, but he’s irrepressible. He’d want to know every detail. He’d call you at all hours to make sure I’m treating you right. He has chased away many a girlfriend, I’m afraid.”

“Maybe I’ll tell your dad,” I said, stroking my chin thoughtfully.

“What about you?” he asked. “Does your mum know?”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “If she knew, your dad would know, and the whole thing would be blown apart.”

“We’re going to have to tell them, eventually, you know,” he said. “It’ll be a hell of a thing to hide at the wedding.”