Burning Deceptions (Burning Torments #3)

Chapter 1

This was a very bad idea. Maybe the worst.

I twisted in front of the mirror, but it never changed the reflection staring back at me. Yep, that was me, dressed like a woman. And the worst part? I looked pretty damned good.

Granted, I’d made some questionable choices in my nineteen years.

There was the time I took my cousin Eddie’s advice and filled the half-full liquor bottles in my stepdad’s cabinet with water so he wouldn’t know we’d drunk ourselves silly.

He totally knew. Or the time I listened to my cousin Robert Earl and pierced my own ears to save a few bucks.

Well, I’d tried to pierce them. The needle didn’t make it all the way through before I screamed and, uh, fainted.

But this, this was next-level stupid.

“Stop complainin’, Asher,” Savannah—the cousin who roped me into this nonsense—said. “You look gorgeous as a girl.”

I shot her a glare where she perched on her dresser, then checked my reflection again.

She was right, unfortunately. I wasn’t unacquainted with wearing makeup.

My best friend, Jamie, and I had rimmed our eyes in kohl many times in high school.

I’d even worn black lipstick once or twice.

However, Savannah, in an effort to prove her point to our cousin, Morgan, had gone all out.

This all started with an argument between them.

The subject hadn’t been me, but rather if cosmetology technically qualified her as an artist. Morgan had said if there wasn’t a product at the end of it, like a painting or sculpture or something tangible that could be sold, it wasn’t artwork.

Savannah had argued that her artistic talents gave her the ability to transform something from boring to beautiful, and that was an art form.

Wouldn’t do no good asking how I got involved—and yeah, I had sorta taken offense at being labeled boring in this experiment—but here we were.

My brown hair I’d thought too short to do anything with had been fluffed and smoothed and gelled into some fancy style.

Deep purple shadow and new fake lashes framed my hazel eyes.

A dark pink made my cheeks and lips glow, and an overall dusting of some weird glittery shit made me sparkle.

Yeah, I was fucking pretty.

Then she zipped me into a black dress that made my naturally tan skin stand out, and holy fuck, I couldn’t believe it was me.

Morgan was gonna lose that fifty dollars they’d bet each other.

“Yeah, but will he convince anyone else?”

“Huh?” I turned as Morgan pushed off the doorframe and came into the room.

“He’s just Asher in a dress. No one’s gonna believe it.”

“Bruh—” I tried, but Savannah cut me off.

“You’re just bein’ a shit ’cause you lost. Of course he’s convincin’.” She waved at me. “You cannot stand there and tell me, Morgan Freeman Brandt, that Asher, or should I say ‘Ashley,’ couldn’t go out right now and catch a man’s eye.”

“Whoa. Hold up,” I said, having seen this train wreck before and knowing where this would crash. When these two got to arguing, it was usually someone else who lost.

Me. I was that someone this time.

“Oh yeah?” Morgan barked in Savannah’s face. “Then take him to that thing with you and prove it, or you ain’t gettin’ my fifty bucks.”

Yep, right there. “I ain’t gonna—”

“Fine,” Savannah snapped, eager to defend her work by going toe-to-toe with Morgan, and cutting me off, yet again. “If you’re ready to up the ante to a hun’erd.”

Granted, I probably could snag a man in this getup, but that wasn’t the point. “No—”

“Fiiiine. I’ll take yer money,” Morgan drawled.

“Time the fuck out,” I screamed and jumped between them, stumbling a bit when the dress forced my legs together. How in the hell did women move in these things? “Y’all gonna ask me if I wanna parade around in public like this?”

“No,” they said as one. Then Savannah added, “Come on, Ash. You know you’d win me that money.” She leaned in. “I’ll split it with you.”

“Oh, I ain’t doubtin’ you. If I were the judge here, then I’d say you won. But I can’t go out like this and try to convince some guy I’m a girl. There’s a word for it. I can’t think of it right now, but it’s bad juju.”

“Okay then.” Morgan straightened and glared at Savannah. “If he goes and ain’t convincin’ enough to at least one guy, then I’ll split my winnin’s with him.”

“What on earth is goin’ on—Ash?”

The three of us turned as Aunt Penny stopped right inside Savannah’s doorway. She eyed me up and down—maybe because I was in her dress—then hid her mouth behind her fingers but couldn’t hide the snort of laughter that came next.

“Momma.” Savannah stamped her foot and whined. “It ain’t funny. Don’t you think Asher could pass as a girl?”

Aunt Penny was one of my favorite aunts, and I had a shit ton of them to choose from.

Growing up, I’d run off to her house to escape the ruckus that was my own more times than I could remember.

As fortune would have it, she’d moved north near Birmingham a couple of years back.

With me at Cressmann University this year, I was close enough to the comforts of her house once again.

With a narrowed, assessing stare, Aunt Penny walked around me, while I tried not to squirm.

Savannah made me put on a pair of black pantyhose and heels with the dress.

The shoes I didn’t mind, but what she hadn’t mentioned was how uncomfortable the stockings were or that they’d make the hair on my legs all weird.

“Honestly, and I’m sorry, Asher, but you are a very pretty woman,” Aunt Penny said.

“Ha!” Savannah stuck her tongue out at Morgan.

“Still don’t mean shit. He’s gotta convince someone who doesn’t know him.”

“He does, does he?” I asked, but now I had three sets of eyes invested in this sham.

“Ashy. Ashy.” Serena, Savannah’s youngest sister, ran into the room. We really needed to close that fucking door. “Ashy’s pretty.” She beamed at me before reaching out with her candy-stained fingers.

“Oh no you don’t, heathen.” Aunt Penny snatched her back before she could ruin the dress.

Serena turned innocent eyes to her momma. “Is Ashy tryin’ to catch a man?”

“Yes, he is, baby girl,” Savannah said.

“No way.” Morgan shook his head.

Aunt Penny and Serena watched me until I finally threw my hands in the air. “Fine. Great googly fuck. What is this thing I’m goin’ to?”

“Eeeeee!” Savannah squealed.

And that was how I got wrangled into doing a lot of things that involved my extended family. Someone had an argument, a bet, or even a strongly worded discussion, and who became the deciding factor? Yours truly.

Three days after what was later called “the trial run,” the actual event I was supposed to whore myself out to arrived. Thankfully, it was a Halloween party for a children’s charity, so if worse came to worst, I could claim it was a costume.

Technically, the only thing on me that wasn’t an everyday kind of item was the tiny devil horns Savannah put in my hair.

The rest of it was, well, me in drag, I reckoned.

Tonight would be, uh, entertaining at the least. Either no one could tell, and I’d have the biggest internal laugh ever, or everyone would know, and I’d still have the biggest laugh, but probably much later, like after hours of therapy.

Savannah met me in the parking lot of this highfalutin venue. She’d had to “do me up” earlier in the day, then left me to get dressed with Aunt Penny’s help so she could be here to do her own costume and those for the event.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked, adjusting the choker Aunt Penny added to help hide my Adam’s apple.

“Yes, I’m sure. You think I’d stake a hun’erd dollars on it if I wasn’t?”

Good point.

“I’m surprised you walk so well in those heels.” Savannah grinned and winked.

“Shut up. It’s not that hard.” And instant karma, my ankle twisted slightly, and I had to reach for her arm for support. “Uh, mostly not hard.”

This time around, I’d shaved my legs. No one would ever know about that. I probably wouldn’t even tell Jamie, and he and I shared everything. The stockings fit much better this way, though. Thankfully, the dress hit below the knee because I didn’t think I had girlie knees.

All in all, I was a slim guy, which helped in some ways but not others.

The dress had a decent plunge Savannah said drew attention to my hairless chest—nope, not spilling that secret either—rather than my lack of tits, and this feather stuff at the neckline, which disguised that fact and the breadth of my shoulders.

A large sign directed traffic inside the hotel lobby to one of the banquet rooms. Coming from a small town where the closest Holiday Inn was pretty run-down, this place was swanky.

Thick carpets in the wide hallway made walking a bit of a challenge, but luckily, it changed once we were in the room for the event.

Dozens of round tables with chairs were sprinkled around, with a dais and podium at the far end. Long tables outlining the edges held finger foods, but I grabbed Savannah’s wrist and steered her toward the bar.

“Asher,” she warned under her breath.

I smirked and kept moving. “It’s Ashley tonight, honey, and no time like the present to test your magic.”

As far as costumes went, my skintight, black dress, exposed corset laced up my back, and heels were barely worth a second glance compared to others in the room, including Savannah.

She was dressed as Marilyn Monroe, and with her curves, she was rocking it.

Next to her, I doubted I’d be noticed at all. So, win?

Savannah graduated from cosmetology school at the top of her class—well-earned.

With recommendations from her instructors, she’d landed an amazing contract this event season.

You heard right. Cressmann, being one of the larger, well-funded metros in the state, had an “event season.” Of course, I’d had no clue about any of this prior to three days ago.