Hoax

  “I want you to show me how you feel about me. If you think I’m wrong about something, tell me why. Tell me everything you’re thinking. I’m giving you my permission to do anything you want. Right now.”

  It was the truth. If he was angry and wanted to walk away, I wanted him to. If this was too much, and if it proved he couldn’t handle Blake or the others doing the same, and this was over, I wanted to end it as quickly as possible, to allow them to heal or move on.

  But I trembled, fearing his answer. My own heart was breaking, seeing him like this. I didn’t hate what I’d done with Blake, but it was the true extent of how nonexclusive I needed to be right now. I couldn’t hide my feelings from them and still figure out how to feel about them, either. If I was going to figure this out, I needed to be free to be myself and do anything with them without boundaries.

  If that wasn’t going to happen, with one or all of them, then they needed to bow out. I would have to be okay with that.

  The storm brewing inside him filled the air around me. His electricity lit up the hairs on the back of my neck. Every cell within me was alive, holding out for whatever he decided.

  He pulled his fist from my hand.

  My heart sank. He was leaving. I couldn’t blame him at all. I knew it was insane to even ask.

  Just as I was about to step out of his way to let him access the door, he reached for my face, cupping my cheeks and pulling me to him.

  I had only one little fraction of a second where I didn’t understand what he was doing and hesitated.

  He kissed me.

  Hard.

  The Academy

  The Scarab Beetle Series

  Hoax

  Written by C. L. Stone

  Published by

  Arcato Publishing

  Copyright © 2016 C. L. Stone

  http://clstonebooks.com

  Published by Arcato Publishing

  http://www.arcatopublishing.com

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1537293301

  ISBN-10: 1537293303

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  From The Academy Series

  The Ghost Bird Series

  Introductions

  First Days

  Friends vs. Family

  Forgiveness and Permission

  Drop of Doubt

  Push and Shove

  House of Korba

  The Other Side of Envy

  The Healing Power of Sugar

  First Kiss

  Black and Green (coming soon!)

  The Scarab Beetle Series

  Thief

  Liar

  Fake

  Accessory

  Hoax

  Tempest (2017)

  Other Books By C. L. Stone

  Smoking Gun

  Spice God

  Thank you for downloading this book. Keep in touch with the author to find out about special releases and upcoming events, including spoilers, author chats and swag.

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  Website: http://www.clstonebooks.com

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  Salt and Sand

  I dreamed of eating McNuggets with Raven while we watched SpongeBob.

  I dreamed of kissing Marc in a pool of black water. I saw Brandon and Corey, the three of us holding hands while being photographed. Axel was there, with a hurt expression.

  I dreamed I couldn’t breathe.

  Blake was next to me, also not breathing, his face turning blue.

  At some point, like a wave of icy seawater hitting my heart, I realized all at once I had killed Blake in my dream, if not by my own hands, then by my own inaction.

  I was powerless.

  Blake nudged my arm, waking me up. “Kayli. We should go,” he said. “We’ve got a ship to catch.”

  The anger faded, but as it receded, in came the realization that my body was itchy, and I was sore from head to toe. When my eyes opened and the blur cleared, I spotted a clock radio on a side table, glaring three in the morning. I groaned, burying my head in the pillow, mumbling curses into it.

  Never an early riser, I wanted to retreat, even back to my dark dreams, just to find that numbness that sleep provided. I wanted to hide from the world because it was a confusing mess and I was too tired to make sense of it.

  I felt Blake’s touch on my shoulder and then I realized it was his lips kissing my skin. “Come on. You can sleep once we’re there.”

  His kiss drew me out of my internal gloom, but at the price of having to deal with the soreness and itchiness. My eyes didn’t want to open, but I moved to try to sit up. My long brown hair was clumped and dry, stiff, like I’d used a ton of hairspray and teased it. My stomach and breasts were raw, the skin irritated. The bed was gritty with sand.

  My heart was a tight ball of misery.

  I was surprised to find myself mostly naked, only in underwear. He must have removed the shirt I’d been wearing after…

  I sat up sharply. I rubbed the grit from my dry and crusted eyes, looking around and realizing we were in a hotel room.

  What the hell?

  Not a nice hotel room, either, but one that was run-down and reeked of smoke, probably the cause of my burning eyes.

  How did we get here? And why were we getting up in the middle of the night?

  Beside me, Blake got out of bed, his feet padding on the carpet toward the bathroom. He flipped a light switch. The orange glow of the overhead lights was too bright for my sore eyes, but I focused on a dark corner until they adjusted.

  Blake was in his early twenties, just a little older than me. He was wealthy, a part of Charleston’s elite who moved within their polished world. He seemed the playboy type, well put-together with expensive clothes, perfectly cut hair and manicured nails.

  I stretched, trying to figure out why we were here and what was going on.

  My brain became distracted by his naked body.

  I stared blankly, tired as I was, at his nude form. His sculpted shoulders were covered in patches of red, irritated skin. His normally groomed golden hair was a mess—stringy, with patches of it stuck to his head.

  He turned toward me. His eyes were red, with dark circles underneath. He didn’t seem to be in any better condition than I was.

  My gaze headed down his body and then I realized I was staring at his groin.

  Then he smiled in a way that made him look crazy. “You awake now? We’ve got to go.”

  I blinked, shaking my head to stop staring. Every part of me itched, head to toe. I lifted my arm to my nose, smelling my skin. Salt and dirt. “Ew.”

  “We don’t have time for a shower,” he murmured. “Get dressed.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “We have to get back on the ship.”

  The last couple of days began to sink in. We’d spent less than a day aboard a ship called Lucienda. Ethan Murdock had asked us to lead a team to find out who’d stashed over two billion dollars his father had tucked away in secret accounts. He assumed other CEOs among his companies were part of the conspiracy. Our goals were to find out the truth, find the money, and settle things as quietly as possible.

  After only our first day, Blake and I had been thrown overboard. We weren’t exactly sure who had done it. There were a lot of possibilities. Blake even suspected mutiny among my team.

  I couldn’t blame Blake for thinking that. The Academy guys,
the people I’d brought on board to help, weren’t happy he was around.

  And then there was how complicated things had gotten between the guys and me. I’d been flirting with all of them. I hadn’t been honest with them about what was going on, avoiding their questions about commitments and exclusivity.

  Guilt sank in the more I thought about my actions. They had all been seeking a romantic relationship with me, and I’d let them believe I was interested. And I was, but in reality, I found it too difficult to choose between them.

  They had all been criminals in their former lives. Had one of them been angry enough to throw me overboard? Had they decided I wasn’t worth the trouble?

  I tried to ignore that thought, although I couldn’t dismiss any of the guys entirely for doing this. Axel hadn’t wanted me on board in the first place. Raven had seemed okay with things, but could he have been holding back? Brandon had a temper and had even attacked Blake before. And Marc…I’d been intimate with him before he found out about the others. I couldn’t blame him if he was angry.

  Blake walked over to me, bending forward to look me straight in the eyes. “You okay? Can you get up?”

  And then last night, on the beach, Blake and I had had sex. My thighs were a bit raw from the sand, and I was sure there was more sand in parts of me that I needed to rinse out at some point. On top of that, my entire body was sore from swimming, and from walking a few miles to get to a place where we could call for help.

  I pushed him in the shoulder to get him to back off. I was sore, but I didn’t need help.

  I flung the blanket away from my naked chest. My breasts were covered in crusted sand, and I started to flake some of it off.

  “I know it itches,” Blake said, watching me. He reached over, touching my side, sliding his hand down and brushing away a clump of sand there. “But we need to hurry. I want to rinse off, too, but maybe we should wait until we get on the boat.”

  “That would be better,” said a male voice by the door.

  My whole body snapped awake, going rigid in shock. I covered my breasts and looked over my shoulder to check who was at the door. It was only open a crack, but there was clearly a figure standing just outside. “If you two want to make it to the boat, we’ll have to be quick.”

  “Who…” I started to ask, thinking I recognized the voice and struggling to recall if I knew him. There were blank spaces in my memory. I remembered the time in the water after being pushed off the boat, swimming to shore and barely making it, being on the beach, making love to Blake, walking through the woods, waiting for someone to pick us up…and then nothing.

  I thought I remembered another voice—this man’s—but assumed it had been a dream. But then, how did we get here?

  “I’m Liam,” said the man. “Corey sent me. I’m here to help. I drove you here last night, in case you don’t remember.”

  Corey. One of the only ones I could count on to like me still, although I wondered if loyalty to the others—including his twin—and learning the truth about me might have muddied our friendship. I vaguely remembered talking to him, letting him know we were okay, but even then, he’d seemed angry. At the time, I was sure it was he was upset we had almost been killed, but my tired, suspicious mind could have been filling in gaps, too.

  Blake tugged at my arm to stand up. As he did, he leaned in to me, nodding toward Liam at the door. “I think he’s Academy,” he whispered. “But don’t ask him directly. He won’t admit to it. Seems like a good guy, though.”

  “We need to get going,” Liam said. “We can talk on the way.”

  I agreed, mostly because I wanted to dress and get to wherever we were going and take a shower. The sand on my skin felt like fleas biting at my skin. I wondered if we had caught sand fleas of some kind. Or bedbugs. I made a face as I glanced back at the bed. Gross.

  An arm came in through the crack in the door, holding out a plastic shopping bag.

  “The mart up the road didn’t have much,” Liam said as Blake took the bag. “I’ll be out here when you’re ready.” He closed the door with a click.

  In the bag were two sets of sweats. Blake compared the sizes and then passed the smaller ones to me. They were still a little big, but there was a drawstring on the pants, and I tied it tightly at my waist. The sweatshirt was a little oversized, too. There were flip-flops in the bag for both of us as well. Good enough.

  Once Blake was done and we each had a turn at the restroom, he collected his old clothes, putting them in the shopping bag. He took off his watch, too, and put it in the bag.

  “Are you throwing it away?” I asked, grimacing. “Did we break it?”

  He seemed to consider this and then, with a wink, fished out it out of the bag, putting it on his wrist. “I’ll keep it,” he said with a soft smile. “But, yeah, it’s broken.” He looked up at me, the gold flecks in his eyes shining. “I think it’s my favorite broken thing now.”

  I pressed my lips together, looking at him, unsure how to feel. I had felt so strongly about him on the beach, and believed I did now, but this was new territory for me. We’d agreed not to be exclusive, but what did all of this—making love on the beach—mean for us now?

  Now wasn’t the time to discuss it, with Liam on the other side of the door, rushing us out to meet the boat. It would have to wait.

  Blake went to the door, but before he opened it, he looked at me, eyes wide, expectant. He was silently asking if I was ready for this next step.

  “Should we be doing this?” I asked. “Should we go back?” I was so tired, unsure how I’d be of any help. I wanted to be angry, to find my strength and help Corey. But I was afraid, too. I blamed it on being so tired and sore.

  Blake nodded firmly. “I know I made mistakes back on the boat,” he said, turning the door handle but keeping the door shut. “I want to fix it.”

  I did, too. I nodded to Blake. Yes, I was ready.

  He opened the door, and we hurried out into the darkness, a few streetlights illuminating the parking lot.

  I touched my hair, trying to rake it back with fingers, but it was matted. I wished then I had a baseball cap or something just to cover it for now.

  Liam was standing by a metal rail. He appeared to be in his midthirties. He was shorter than me by about an inch, with reddish-blond hair. He had a gritty, unshaven face.

  He nodded to me but then turned to Blake as he spoke. “Let’s go. We don’t want to miss it.” He backed up a step and then hurried toward the parking lot without waiting for Blake to answer.

  “Is there a reason”—I paused to yawn—“why we’re going so early?”

  Blake nudged me in the elbow and then grabbed my hand to pull me along. “The boat will swing back near here before most of the crew are awake. Ethan gave orders to the captain to change course. We’ll be able to board without too many witnesses.”

  “Hopefully, you’ll look like more crew boarding instead of guests,” Liam said, opening the door to a dark sedan. “We have to time this right, because if the boat lingers for too long, more people are going to notice.”

  They were going to stop the ship at another port for just two people? Blake seemed to trust Liam. I was so out of it, forming more questions but without the energy to ask.

  I hopped into the backseat of the car. I just really hoped I didn’t have to kick anyone’s ass right now if Liam wasn’t genuine.

  Blake got in next to me, slid close, put his arm around my shoulders. He held me, supportive.

  Protective.

  The car ride was silent; Liam wasn’t much of a talker. Blake yawned and rubbed his face, maybe trying to keep himself awake. After a couple of miles, his attention went to the road, and keeping an eye out the window.

  The car ride was a half hour long, at least. I wasn’t sure how fast Liam was moving, and with the dark landscape and no other cars around, it felt as if it went on for eons.

  I tried to keep my head up, but I ended up with my cheek aga
inst Blake’s. Every bump in the road made me grip Blake’s leg, wondering if this was where we needed to get out.

  Liam eventually pulled into what looked like a park. The gate was up, the sign brown with white lettering, but I didn’t catch the name before we zoomed past. He wound along a narrow road, surrounded by trees and the occasional dirt path walking trails.

  Eventually, we arrived at a parking lot. Beyond it was a small dock, motorboats and sailboats tied to it. There wasn’t a big cruise ship.

  “It’s not here,” I said, squinting as if I could have failed to see it in the dark. “Did we miss it?”

  “It’s out there,” Liam said, nodding toward the water. He pulled into a parking space and stopped the car. “We’ll be meeting it.”

  In the distance, the river opened up into the ocean. I scanned the area for the lights of the ship, but from where we were, I didn’t see any. “And how are we supposed to do that?” I asked.

  “We sail out there,” Liam said.

  We?

  “Come on,” Blake said, opening the door and then tugging my wrist. “Try not to ask them too many questions.”

  Them? “Ask who?”

  He jumped out without answering me. I groaned, got out of the car and followed Blake across a dim parking lot. I raked my hand through the mess of hair on my head again, scratching some sand loose.

  The air was thick, cool, misty. There was the heavy scent of woods and salt water. I had a small flash of déjà vu. Not even a few hours ago, I was slogging through woods just to get away from the beach to find help, and now here we were going back to the ocean, back to the ship.

  My spine tingled, all the way up to my neck.

  The only lights were around the dock, and only half of those were on. There wasn’t a guardhouse here, and only a handful of boats were moored. The ships bobbed a little, sails and ropes creaking in the otherwise quiet night.

  This was like a poor man’s marina. No security. Very few slips available.