Butterflies & Vicious Lies (Fractured Rhymes Book 1)

THE ORIGINAL THOUGHT behind this plan was if I had her dress like the whore she is, then everyone in attendance would also see her as such. Had I known how spectacularly it would backfire on me, I would have let her stay the fuck home.

Posie emerged from the dressing room looking like a piece of fucking art. Instead of my patrons staring at her like she’s nothing but a cheap piece of meat for them to use, they’re staring at her like she’s something displayed at the goddamn Louvre. The point of having the women working here is they’re meant to fawn over the players and make them feel important. It’s never supposed to be the other way around.

But I can’t blame them.

The top resembles something like a harness. It interweaves across her chest and shoulders in one-inch leather straps. Two pieces create an X over her nipples, but other than that, her perfectly-sized round breasts are on display for everyone’s enjoyment. Over the black thong I’d been toying with earlier is a leather garter belt. It wraps around her waist and thighs, and leaves her ass completely exposed.

While those two things were enough to draw attention, she didn’t stop there. In the dressing room, she’d found fishnet stockings and knee-high black boots. Her long hair has also been pulled back into a sleek ponytail and she helped herself to the makeup sitting on the vanity. The dark shadow around her eyes only makes them more alluring.

We keep the dressing room fully stocked with various items as we provide the attire for the girls that work here. I have absolutely no idea what’s kept in there since Kason oversees things like that, but had I known she would come out dressed in those additions, I would have removed them from the building before she stepped foot in there.

There’s a part of me that is silently raging they’re admiring her so much. I was under the false impression I wouldn’t care if others paid attention to Posie, that their stares wouldn’t anger me. I believed the overly jealous part of me died when my mom did, and that is the only reason I went through with this plan. Again, I was sorely misguided. It’s taking everything in me to not throw a coat over her bare shoulders and drag her away from their approving looks.

While everyone else stares shamelessly in her direction, I’ve been doing my best to ignore her. Her current appearance isn’t doing any favors for the unfavorable state she left me in before I exited the dressing room. I don’t have an issue being turned on by Posie when I control the scenario in which it happens. Like the cemetery. Tonight, I forgot the very meaning of control.

I wasn’t supposed to touch her, only observe. That rule was blown into oblivion when she stood before me mostly naked and stared at me like she did when I was seventeen years old. I let myself get pulled back into those memories and feelings, and I forgot momentarily who she is and what she’s done.

I may have been able to stop, but for the past hour, as she’s stood behind me like a silent shadow, I’ve struggled to regain control. My cock, still throbbing for her, has been distracting me this entire game. If I don’t find a way to pull myself together, I’m going to be the one who owes money at the end of the night. And that’s not how this works. The house always wins and I’m the fucking house.

Lifting my empty rocks glass off the table, I wave it at Posie. “Another.” Perhaps with a little bit more alcohol, it’ll help me ignore her.

Reaching over my shoulder, she takes it from me. My jaw clenches when her slender fingers brush against mine in the process.

“Do you want the same thing?”

“Make it a double,” I grit between my teeth.

She makes it no more than a foot away from the table when the ruddy oil tycoon from Texas calls out to her. “Hey, darlin’, would you mind grabbin’ me a refill too? Only if it’s no trouble, of course.”

From his spot across the table, he lifts his empty glass with a friendly smile. He seems harmless with his Southern charm and friendly appearance, but he’s a bigger piece of shit than most of the criminals that grace my tables.

When I turn my head in her direction, she’s already looking at me. As if waiting for me to grant her permission, she quirks a brow. For a moment there, I believe she’s starting to understand her new role, that, for the foreseeable future, she can’t make a move without my say-so. The belief is fleeting because with a bright smile, an expression I don’t think I’ll ever be the recipient of again, she abandons her post at my side.

Strutting around the table, she heads toward the Texan. “It’s no trouble at all, honey! What are we drinking tonight?” Her voice is sweet like sugar, but I know it’s laced with venom. She’s as much of a snake as the corrupt politicians sitting around us.

He grins at her like a lovesick puppy, relishing the fact her attention is exclusively on him. It strokes his ego in just the way he likes. “Whiskey. Jim Beam. One ice cube.” He passes Posie the glass once she’s close enough.

“You got it.”

The flirty wink she throws him over her shoulder has my chest burning and blood boiling. She knew doing this would piss me off, and that’s why her mouth pulls in a knowing smirk as she passes me on her way to the bar.

Muscles tense, I sit rigidly in my chair and attempt to return my focus to the cards in my hand. But the Southern cocksucker doesn’t allow that to happen because he opens his dumb fucking mouth again.

“Wilde, I like the new girl. Can we expect to have her here in the future? I sure do enjoy havin’ a new piece of eye candy struttin’ around while I gamble. It lessens the sting of losin’ my money to you.” He chuckles loudly, it’s a hoarse sound that results in a ghastly coughing fit.

Tilting my head, I examine the man sitting across the table who looks like he’s eaten about one too many cows in his lifetime. “You’ve never met a twenty-one-year-old girl you didn’t like, Martin.”

“You’re absolutely right about that!” He tips his cowboy hat at me. His entire appearance looks so out of place here. The only reason I keep inviting him back is because he never knows when to stop playing. That ego I talked about always keeps him in the game longer than he should. Each time he sits at my table, I make a minimum of five figures.

Martin’s trying to get me to smile or laugh like he is, but I’m entirely unimpressed with him and my face conveys that. “She’s not the ‘new girl’. Posie is not employed here.”

“Oh, well, how was I supposed to know any better? You’ve got her dressed like those other sluts you’ve got walkin’ around.”

Putting my cards down, I shift forward in my seat and clasp my hands together on the green velvet table. “You’ve falsely assumed Posie is here for your entertainment. Let me set the record straight for you. The only person in this fucking building she is meant to entertain and please is me. The next time you tell her to get you a drink or call her darlin’, you’ll be walking out of here without your money and your tongue.” Everyone around the table has fallen silent as they listen in. Good. I want them to hear this too. “Now do us both a favor and stop looking at what’s mine.”

Out of my peripheral vision, I see Posie return to the table with two drinks in her hand. I’m not sure how much she heard, but I know she heard something because she hesitates a second before walking toward Martin.

She’s two feet away from the cowboy when I stop her.

“Butterfly.” The use of her nickname has her coming to an abrupt stop and her head snapping in my direction. Her brows are furrowed in suspicion, but she still does as she’s told when I beckon her with my two fingers. “Come here.”

She’s fully aware of everyone’s eyes on her as she comes around the table. The fluidity and gracefulness with which she moves are evidence of her years spent dancing. It’s truly a shame she fucked up at Juilliard. She was going places. If she still wants to be picked up by a ballet company, it’s going to be much harder for her.

Stopping before me, she asks softly, “Yes?”

“Give me his drink.”

Posie hands me the glass with the single ice cube floating in it. Martin’s already red swollen face deepens multiple shades as I swirl the cheap alcohol around the glass a few times. “Jim Beam? Really?”

With that, I hold it out at my side and let go. The thin glass shatters into pieces on the polished concrete floor beneath me and the whiskey splashes against our shoes. The crashing sound echoes across the vast room and has heads turning in our direction. Everyone at my table is taken aback by this move, their eyes darting around to each other as if they’re having an unspoken conversation.

The only person who doesn’t flinch or make a sound stands at my side. Completely unfazed by my antics, she simply nudges the broken glass around her feet with the toe of her shoe.

“You know where the bar is, Martin.” The Texan looks like he wants to reach across the table and strangle me. “I suggest you retrieve your own drink,” I tell him, dismissing him.

He’s breathing hard when he pushes away from the table, whether it’s from anger or his bad heart is unknown to me, and I don’t care either way.

Posie leans over my shoulder and places my replenished glass of scotch in front of me. She’s just about to pull back when I see the pink lipstick print on the rim. It’s the same shade she came out of the dressing room wearing. My hand locks around her wrist before she can move away from me.

Her face is right over my shoulder in this position, so I turn my head slightly to speak to her. “Did you enjoy my scotch? It’s from a forty-year-old bottle that’s worth more than you ever will be.”

If my words affect her, she doesn’t show it. In fact, she hardly skips a beat. Her narrow shoulders lift as she whispers in my ear, “That’s an unfortunate price tag because it’s disgusting.”

“Maybe you just haven’t had a proper taste of it yet.” I push my chair back from the table to ensure there’s enough room and pull on the wrist I still hold captive. “Sit down,” I order, motioning toward my lap.

I don’t give two shits that there are four other players and a dealer watching us, or that I’m holding up the game. This is far more entertaining and important.

Expecting her to hesitate and fight me, I’m surprised when her long leg swings over my lap and she straddles me without complaint. Her hands hold on to my shoulders to keep herself balanced. I want to despise her touch more than I do. It enrages me that I still enjoy the feeling of her body pressed against mine.

“Hand me my glass.”

Reaching behind her, she picks it up off the table and hands it to me. The liquid inside is only a couple shades darker than her inquisitive eyes scanning me. She’s confused but being such a good girl by doing what I say.

Lifting the cup, I take a drink and savor the burn as it goes down my throat. “Your turn.”

Posie frowns at this. “My turn?”

With my free hand, I clasp her jaw. Applying just enough pressure to make it clear she shouldn’t try to pull away, I tell her what to do next. “Open your mouth.”

Her lips are just barely parted when I take in another mouthful of scotch. This time I don’t swallow it. Yanking her face closer to mine, her eyes widen as my plan dawns on her. To my delight, she doesn’t try to stop me when I bridge the remaining gap between us. Her entire body tremors in my lap when my lips just barely brush across hers. The contact is almost nonexistent, but it still goes straight to my dick.

Her chest heaves beneath the leather straps crisscrossing over her skin when I repeat the same move, this time applying just a little bit more pressure. I’m not sure if it’d classify as a kiss, but either way, it causes her to release a shuddering breath. As she does so, my grip tightens on her face to keep her perfectly still and I spit the contents in my mouth between her parted lips.

Posie’s body stiffens when the spicy scotch hits her tongue. Shifting my hand on her face, I drag my thumb across her bottom lip, smearing the lipstick that resides there. “Swallow.” My command is a dark murmur only she can hear. “We both know how good you are at that.”

The column of her throat shifts under her butterfly collar as she swallows the scotch. To further prove she did as told, she wraps her lips around my thumb and sucks. Her eyes with pupils the size of saucers flick downward as her hips rock ever so slightly forward against my cock. She knows what she’s doing to me. Posie said in the dressing room that she’s a quick learner, and with each passing day, she’s relearning how to get through my defenses.

After releasing my thumb, she presses a kiss to the pad and says, “Maybe I can learn to like scotch after all.” Then a wicked grin splits her face as she grinds against me once more. “Too bad I’m just your bitch tonight, because it feels like you could really use a whore.”

She’s referring to earlier when I told her tonight would be the bitch part of her punishment. “You’re whatever I need you to be, whenever I need you to be it,” I correct.

Fingers digging into the fabric on my shoulders, Posie tilts her head. “Tell me, Rafferty, what do you hate more? Me or the fact your body still craves me?”

Reaching between us, she cups me through my slacks. My hands hold onto her hips in a punishing grasp as I hiss out a breath between clenched teeth. I hate that she can still guess what I’m feeling and what internal struggles I’m having.

She doesn’t wait for an answer because she doesn’t need to. She knows I hate her more. I hate what she did, I hate she felt I was the one who needed to be protected, and most importantly, I hate that she made me hate her. Holding on to me to stay balanced, she climbs gracefully off my lap. Not bothering to wait for permission, she turns and heads toward the dressing room.