Hey all. With just a couple of days to go before the release of Seeing is Deceiving, I figured I owed you one extract, at least!
This is, as you might imagine, spoiler-packed. This book in particular has a lot of twists and turns right from the start, so if you want to preserve the surprises… move right along and pre-order the book.
Still with me? Let’s have a spoiler-filled peek.
You need a little backstory here. This is from Chapter 8, and the main thing to know is that Ginny – Linda’s flight attendant friend, who was up close and personal with Billy more than once in Practice to Deceive –now knows that she wasn’t with Linda, but with Billy-as-Linda.
In addition, Billy has just come back from trying to persuade Kate’s parents to allow Kate to go to Comic-Con… while dressed as Linda. It didn’t go well. Now Billy is ready to remove his disguise and go to bed, but Ginny, who’s had a few glasses of wine, has other ideas…
Spoilers!
Linda looked sad in Billy’s mirror. That was Billy’s fault, but he didn’t feel like manipulating her feelings right then. One performance was enough for the evening.
He sighed, starting to get ready to remove his makeup and the mask of Linda’s face. He wished he was sleeping in his own room, just for that night at least, but Ginny was waiting to get to bed, so he couldn’t delay. A guest was a guest.
As he faced Linda once more, he couldn’t help but remember how Mike had looked at her face. His mask. Mike had always had something of a crush on Linda, it seemed, but when Billy brought her to life… things really got interesting.
Now Mike was going to be sharing Billy’s room, in a week when he’d probably be spending more time as Linda than ever before.
“What could possibly go wrong.” He reached up and pushed his fingertips beneath the edge of this lace front wig, looking for the pins that kept it in place.
“What, indeed,” Ginny said behind him.
Billy almost yanked his wig free in alarm. Ginny was leaning around the edge of his bedroom door, which he hadn’t bothered to shut completely. He’d assumed he had some privacy in his own home, even if this was Ginny’s room temporarily. She’d known he was going upstairs to change.
Turning slightly, he smiled Linda’s smile, but hoped Ginny didn’t take that as an invitation. “Sorry,” he said. “Talking to myself.”
“Literally, I guess,” Ginny said. She leaned against the wall, still holding a glass of wine in her hand. She wasn’t quite inside the room, but she wasn’t quite outside, either. “Does that get weird? Talking to yourself, when that face is in the mirror?”
“I’m… kind of used to it,” Billy said. “Er, did you need something?”
“Can you do the voice?”
“What?”
“You know.” Ginny ran one finger around the edge of the wine glass. “You’ve got the face. Seems wrong not to match. You know, for me.”
“What if I don’t want to?” Billy said, deliberately in his own tones.
Ginny stuck out her lower lip in a playful pout. “You’d make me sad.”
“I’m really tired,” Billy said. He turned back to the mirror. “I need to go to bed – and this will take a while to deal with. So unless you need something urgent….”
He heard the door close. Ginny crossed the room in a few steps before he could even turn around.
“Don’t get changed just yet,” she said, her voice a half-whisper. “I haven’t….”
“Haven’t what?” Billy said quietly.
“Haven’t had a chance to do this,” Ginny said. Before he could react, she leaned down – and kissed him, softly, on the neck. “God, you even put on her perfume….”
Billy said nothing, his mind accelerating while his body froze to a stop.
Her lips touched his neck again, moving upwards, towards his ear, his face – the mask. She was so gentle, so light in her touch that he felt his blood rising, flushing upwards, twisting his gut in anticipation as he fought for control.
“You’re the Linda I never had, you know,” Ginny said, a hot whisper in his ear through strands of Linda’s hair. “Never could have. Believe me, I tried… your mom drove me crazy for a long time. Imagine my surprise when one day, out of the blue….” She kissed his neck again. “Not as surprised as I was when I found out who I had really been sleeping with.”
She drew back, stepped to the side, staring down Billy in the mirror. “You’re unbelievable, you know that? You’re a fucking vision.”
Billy wasn’t sure what to say. He knew this tone, he’d heard it before as Ginny moaned beneath his lips. Now she knew exactly what she was looking at. “Thank you,” he said finally.
“My pleasure,” Ginny said. She took another swig from her wine, finishing it. “It was my pleasure that day after brunch, too. Do you remember that, hmm? Playing footsie with you under the table. Going back to my hotel room. You were such a horny bitch… or at least, so I thought.” A finger moved to her lips, touching them gently, drawing his attention to their perfection. Her lipstick wasn’t too smudged, despite the wine. That meant she’d reapplied it. She wanted this. “Turns out you were a horny bastard. Very, very horny.”
Billy shut his eyes, as if Ginny was a ghost that he could will away, but she remained, her voice haunting him. “Does it make you horny, dressing up? It has to, right? Putting on her clothes. Wearing her perfume. Using her makeup… I bet it drives you crazy.”
“Let’s not talk about this,” Billy managed, his own voice still pushing through. “Let’s not… do this.”
“You owe me,” Ginny said, low and hard. “You know that? I let you take my face, Billy. You’re going to be able to become me. And I bet that turns you on even more. I’ve seen you watching me. Studying me.”
“That was the deal.”
“Mmm-hmm. You know why I agreed, Billy? Do you have any clue?”
“Because you’re in love with my mom,” Billy said, the words spilling from him before he could stop them. Ginny started, like she’d been slapped – but then her smile reappeared.
“Maybe,” she said. “It’s a little more complicated than that, though. I said yes, Billy, because I wanted to get a little closer to you. A little closer… to this. This version of the woman that yes, I love. Or at the very least… want to fuck. Badly. If I can’t have the real thing….”
Billy stared at a tiny flaw in the wood on the surface of his dresser. As if he could will himself away, vanish instantly. Hide from Ginny. Reassert himself. Take control.
Ginny’s hands touched his shoulders, rubbing at them through the scoop-necked jersey he’d picked out from Linda’s closet. He shifted in his seat, feeling the pantyhose slide against his jeans, sending a shudder of excitement through him he couldn’t resist. A betrayal, now. An inevitable one, perhaps.
“You know I still want you, don’t you honey?”
“You don’t want me,” Billy said, still using his own voice, hoping it was a last line of defense. “You want her.”
“I do. But it turns out… there’s an even better alternative.” Ginny smiled in the mirror, burying her face in his neck once more, lips nibbling on his skin, sending shocks through him. “I never expected you to be so… different, Linda,” she whispered. “All those times I fantasized about being with you. I never thought the reality would be so unbelievable. So unique. I think I have an idea why.”
She dragged her fingers up, through his hair – the wig, he reminded himself – sighing as she did so. “It’s because you’re not what you seem… Linda.”
Using her name turned him on even further. He closed his eyes, listening to her seductive voice, remembering their first time together. His first time with anyone.
“You have a secret,” Ginny said. “A secret that I love knowing. That I’ll keep forever. Do you know that?” He nodded, hoping she wasn’t lying. “Your secret is safe with me. Because I want to keep your secret, Linda. I want to keep it… because it’s so delicious.”
“I appreciate that,” Billy said, in his own voice. Ginny frowned, obviously unhappy. He cleared his throat, knowing this was a moment he couldn’t take back. “I appreciate that… honey,” he said in Linda’s voice. “I really do. I want to keep my secret. I want you to keep it, too.”
“Good,” Ginny said, leaning over him again – and this time she didn’t stop at his neck. Her lips, those perfect red lips, descended on his mask’s lips. They kissed, Ginny’s tongue nipping at him, a tiny snake within her. He was bitten, seduced.
“I didn’t want any of this,” he whispered as Linda. “I never… expected it.”
“Me either,” Ginny said, “but it’s turning out… even better than I could have planned for.”
She took his hand, pulling him insistently to his own bed. As he descended, like in a dream, he felt her scent engulf him once more. He was lost. She laid across him, her body pressing into his fake curves, her lips touching him again, every moment a new promise. They were falling into this together. Kate. Linda. Everyone would be fooled. No-one would know.
The thought of this, a hidden affair, a terrible and perfect deception, made a moan rise in his throat. Ginny found him, fingertips exploring, confirming his secret, taking him over completely.
