Tell Me No Lies (4 page)

“So that makes you the expert?”

“No, knowing you since before elementary school makes me the
expert.”

“Oh, and what do you know?” Tess countered. “That I like
cherry lollipops better than grape? That I know how to diagram a sentence? You
don’t know a thing about me that matters.”

“I know more than you think.” He eyed Tess with an intensity
she felt straight down to her toes. She felt pinned there by his cobalt gaze,
and her heart fluttered madly.

“Like what?” she asked, more hesitantly. This wasn’t quite
the turn she’d expected the dreaded conversation to take.

Jake leaned closer, pitching his voice lower. “Like you
hate
grape lollipops, grape soda too, because you drank one once at the county
fair and threw up later from the teacup ride. Like you used to sell term papers
junior and senior year. Priced according to grade, thirty bucks for an A,
twenty for a B, and there were never any lower than that. Like you used to go
down to the creek alone in the dark and skip rocks and make wishes on the
stars. And like you never actually slept with Danny Fields.”

She had to swallow before she could make her voice work
again.

“How would you know? Were you spying on me?”

“The fuckwit kept a list on the inside of his gym locker. He
wrote the names there with a laundry marker. It was a long list, but you
weren’t on it, and I couldn’t help but see it because his locker was right next
to mine senior year.”

“He really was such an asshole. But I wasn’t talking about
Danny. Plenty of people knew I never put out for him. He wouldn’t have kept
dating me so long if I had. I meant about the creek. How would you know that? I
never told anybody that.”

Jack gave her a lopsided smile then leaned back to let the
waitress place their sandwiches in front of them. He waited until she was out
of earshot before speaking again.

“I used to go night fishing down there by the bend, where
the swimming hole is. One time I was finishing up and I heard something. I
don’t know why, but I ducked behind a tree. I saw you feeling around on the
bank for good rocks to skip. You only stayed a few minutes. Your longest skip
was five. Before you left you looked up at the sky—it was June, and you would
have been about fourteen, fifteen at this time, because I was fifteen—and you
said the ‘Star light, star bright’ poem out loud.”

“I didn’t know anybody heard me,” she murmured.

“You didn’t say your wish out loud though. You never did.”
He pushed his food around, acting about as interested in it as Tess felt.

“It won’t come true if you say it out loud. How many times
did you spy on me like that?” Tess thought she should probably be creeped out
to find that she had been secretly observed, but she couldn’t feel threatened
by Jake if she tried. Ticked off at him, yes. Stalked by him, no. She nibbled
on her BLT, waiting for his answer.

He shrugged, looking chagrined for the first time since
mentioning it.

”I don’t know. Maybe a few dozen times? Over the course of a
few years, not all at once. It was never on purpose,” he added hastily. “But I
worried about you, out there all alone in the dark. I didn’t want to disturb
you, so I would sit and wait until you were done and then make sure you made it
home safely.”

“So you spied on me
and
followed me?”

“I didn’t want anything to happen to you.” He was
embarrassed about being caught after so much time, but he wasn’t defensive in
the least, wasn’t apologetic about what he had done. “Even in a town like
Cranston, it isn’t smart for a teenaged girl to wander around in the dark by
herself. Especially if she goes to the same place every time. You should know
that, a woman living alone in the city.” He eyed his grilled cheese, sighed,
then took a huge bite.

She couldn’t argue with his logic, but still wasn’t sure
what to make of the fact that Jake had watched her most secret moments, had
shared something she’d always thought was private. She didn’t feel violated but
she did feel wary, vulnerable to attack in a way she wasn’t used to.

For several minutes they ate in silence, which could have
been uncomfortable but somehow wasn’t. Tess finished first, leaving half her
meal on her plate and pushing it away with a decisive gesture.

“Well. Thanks, I guess. For lunch, and for the protective
stalking.”

“You should try going out there again some time. It seemed
to help.”

Tess considered that. “It did in a way. It was so quiet, and
I was all alone. Or thought I was, at least. I could zone out, not have to
think about anything or worry about what I was going to say. Just
be
.”

“Zen stone-skipping.”

“Exactly. But you can’t go back. I’ve never been able to
reproduce that.”

Jake chuckled. “You don’t really have a Zen vibe going on
now, that’s for sure. And do you worry about what you’re going to say? Because
it seems more like you just—”

“Come right out and say it? I know, and it’s hard
considering my foot is stuffed in my mouth so much of the time. You’d think
that might keep me from saying more stupid stuff I’ll regret, but apparently
not.” She shrugged, embarrassed to admit it but oddly relieved to confess. Jake
munched the last bite of his sandwich, friendly and interested in what she had
to say. He’d always been insidiously easy for Tess to talk to. “Afterward I
always realize what I should have said, and wish I’d said that, but it’s too
late. Then I obsess about it and beat myself over the head. Sometimes I wish I
could stop talking altogether. Duct tape my mouth. Let people infer their own
meaning.”

“So stop for a while.” He looked at her expectantly. “Why
not?”

“Because talking is how people communicate.” And she wasn’t
quite ready to give up on trying, to stay home and go the full Boo Radley. It
seemed too extreme a solution.

Jake frowned thoughtfully. “That’s one small part of
communication. Why not try letting that part go since it’s getting you into
trouble? See how you do without it for a bit. As an experiment. It might be
good for you. Help you notice new things. It could even inform your writing
voice.”

“You’re always so interested in me doing things for my own
good. Why is that, Mr. Hogan?” Her tone was joking but her question was
serious. She felt as if she were at the edge of discovering a secret, something
about Jake that she needed to know and couldn’t quite put her finger on.

His eyes narrowed, and Tess’ stomach did a backflip.
Dream-Jake
.

“Clearly
somebody
needs to pay attention to what’s
good for you. Right now, you’re running rampant.”
Young lady.

“I love it when you talk like a duke in a bodice-ripper.”
That was actually true, she realized.

Jake snickered but his gaze stayed on her, dagger-sharp. The
air between them had grown charged. “My secret is revealed. You may call me My
Lord from now on. But seriously, you should try the not-talking thing. As a
friend, I’d be happy to help you out.”

Dangerous, dangerous
. Tess felt entirely out of her
league, suddenly doing this bizarre form of flirting like a madwoman with Lord
Dream-Jake. It was thrilling. “Maybe Your Majesty? You
were
my
Homecoming King, after all. So you want to help me as a friend? Were we ever
just friends? Even
you
can’t make me stop talking, Hogan.”

“I was thinking I’d gag you. You’d look cute in a ball gag.”

“They don’t have a store in Cranston or even Smithville that
sells that stuff.”

“Yes, I know. But you’re assuming I’d need to buy one.”

“Oh you have one in your nightstand, do you? Why not do it
then, Mr. Freaky Sex Toys?”

“For you? No, I was joking about that part. I wouldn’t use a
gag on you. That would only give you another thing to think you had to fight
against. It’d be all about resisting the gag, and that would defeat the
purpose. It can’t be external. The motivation and the control need to come from
here.” He reached over and tapped her forehead twice, then ran his finger down
to tap the tip of her nose. His expression was bland as rice. “And I don’t keep
it in my nightstand. I have a custom-made cabinet for my special toys, with a
lock on it so my cleaning lady doesn’t get the shock of her life.”

She blinked and tried to puzzle through what he’d said, how
he’d said it…and then it hit her like a brick. The whole conversation took on
new meaning.

Oh, look over here, Alice. A rabbit hole. Mind the edge.

“You’re…you’re not kidding, are you?”

He smiled, cool as a cucumber. “About gagging you? Or about
having a ball gag at my disposal?”

Tess studied his face for a moment, her thoughts too fast
and improbable to capture. Her toes were at the crumbling rim of that rabbit
hole, and the temptation to let herself fall was almost too much to bear. “You
have more than just a ball gag, don’t you?”

He acknowledged it with a tip of his head. “Quite a bit
more. The gag is really the least of it, Tess. But those are props. Like I
said, it’s all up here.” He tapped his own temple this time.

She shivered as the memory of her recurring dream ghosted
through her, recalling the pressure on her wrists, the weight of his body over
hers. “How long have you…you know…been doing stuff like that?”

“Since I became aware of, you know,
stuff
.”

Tess tried to slow her breathing to a normal rate. “But you
went out with Allison. She isn’t into all that. I’d know if she were.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Jake countered, sounding almost
weary. “People who do…this sort of thing, whatever you want to call it, we can
be very good at hiding it. We have to be. But no, she wasn’t into it, at least
not back then. I doubt she is now.”

“Then why were you with her, if you already knew?”

“Why were you with Danny Fields?”

She glared at him for making the suggestion that her dear
cousin had been his female equivalent to her own placeholder boyfriend. His
beard. “You asshole.”

Jake was already shaking his head, searching for the words
to explain. “I was talking about the similarity between you and me, not between
Allison and Danny. Why do you think we broke up? Look, I liked Ally. Hell, I
would’ve slept with her if I’d had the chance. God knows I wanted to. I was a
kid, I was still figuring stuff out. But I liked her too much as a friend to
string her along, to pretend we were ever going to last, once I realized she
and I needed different things. Can you say the same of Danny?”

He clearly didn’t expect her to answer, which was gracious
of him considering they both knew she could
not
say the same. She had
used Danny until she’d no longer needed him. Not that he had ever complained;
he’d had his uses for Tess too.

But Jake was going on. “Ally is pretty open-minded. I think
she would have played along with some of it, if I’d tried. But she isn’t a
natural submissive. I think Lindy’s a bit that way, but she was always more
like a little sister to—”

“Lindy? My
sister
Lindy? Submissive? You have got to
be out of your ever-lovin’ mind! She’s shy, but she doesn’t go around
submitting to people. And it sure as hell doesn’t sound like you saw her as a
sister
,
if you were speculating on what she might be like in bed. Gross. I am done with
this conversation.”

Tess started to get up, to leave on her own and find a cab
home, but stopped cold when Jake circled her wrist with his fingers.

“Sit back down, Tess,” he said softly.

And she sat. Even with no idea why, she did it.

Chewing on her bottom lip, she stared down at the Formica
tabletop and tried to figure out what was going on. He wasn’t holding her
tightly enough to prevent her from going if she really wanted to. So why wasn’t
she out the door?

“You can have that talk with your sister another time. You
can discuss it to your heart’s content. I hope you do. But for right now you
will sit here and you will at least listen to what I have to say before you
leave, do you understand?”

She could hear the implied
young lady
again, as
clearly as if he’d spoken it aloud.

After a second’s pause, Tess nodded, feeling muddled. Things
seemed surreal. Or rather, reality had been reduced to the invisible cord
between the pulse in her wrist, where Jake’s fingers still held her lightly,
and the pulse between her legs, which seemed to be throbbing in time.
Everything else faded into the background.

“I don’t think she’s
submissive
, I think she’s
a
submissive—there’s a difference. To me, it’s the same thing as speculating
about whether somebody might be gay. It doesn’t imply I do or don’t want sex
with that person. And I could be wrong about Lindy anyway. But you, Tess…you’re
in another league. I could smell the kink on you back then, and it’s still
there now. It amazes me that you don’t even seem to know it. You’ve gone this
long and you’ve never admitted it to yourself. Which means you’ve never really
had your needs met.”

“There’s nothing to admit,” she stated, not ready to concede
that even this, his hand on her wrist, was better than any foreplay she’d ever
had. “My needs are just fine, thanks. You’re delusional. And a pervert.”

“And yet you’re still sitting here. Just because I told you
to. Just like you used to be the first one to yell ‘how high?’ when the coach
said ‘jump’ in gym class.”

“I had a thing for the coach.”

“No. You had a thing for
coaches
. And not just
coaches either. Our yearbook advisor. The principal. You weren’t a front-office
aide senior year because you liked the secretaries so much. No, you definitely
have a type, even if it’s not the type you’ve ever dated.”

He flexed his hand around her wrist, letting his fingertips
graze lightly at the sensitive skin just above her palm. Leaning closer still,
he pitched his voice even lower. “You’re very turned on. Your pupils are
dilated, you’re breathing fast. Your nipples are hard. I’m willing to bet
you’re already soaking wet, aren’t you? Tell me.”