So ravaged, hungry for punishment. But he still looks put together, the same Noah. His tie is straight, no hair out of place. Even his glasses sit perfectly straight on his nose.
Physically, Noah moves with precision and purpose, a man on autopilot. His face is no different than his usual exterior aside from the hard set of his jaw, it clenches in anger.
He’s the eye of the storm, calm as he causes chaos.
“I didn’t do anything!” Dickie wails, the words muffled by his lips being squished against the wall, fighting to get free.
“And I didn’t do this.” Noah rams his fist into Dick’s kidneys, who wails in agony.
A hand touches my arm and I jump. Thea stands next to me, her focus on me while Reeve and Gabe have their eyes trained on Noah. The two don’t look as concerned as they do entertained.
“Do something!” I shout at them, waving my hand at the wailing going on behind me. I get ignored.
My stomach twists as I hear another grunt from Dickie, fists beating flesh.
“Thea,” I plead, looking into her warm, brown eyes. Only to be met with disappointment.
Thea shakes her head. “I can’t, Sayer.”
“Why?” Glancing behind me, I see that Dickie’s face is becoming more unrecognizable with each hit. His lip is busted, and his nose is crooked, blood flowing like a waterfall from it. Sucking in a breath, I look back at Thea, my eyes now begging.
But Thea is strong, shaking her head. “Noah needs to get this out.”
I stare at her, hoping my ears deceive me and that what she said wasn’t just crazy. “He’s going to kill Dickie!
Thea rolls her eyes like I’m being dramatic, but I know I’m not. Not as I turn around and watch as Dickie falls to the floor, crawling backward like a drunk crab to escape Noah’s slow, leisurely pursuit.
He’s going to kill him. There’s a menacing glint in those depthless blues as he prowls toward Dickie, the smile that brings chills to my skin grows as Dick’s back collides with the wall.
It’s a promise. It’s a threat. It’s a kiss of death.
I glance at Noah’s friends, but they still don’t seem concerned. Reeve and Gabe wear almost matching grins to Noah. Thea is the only one who seems to have a slightly somber expression, but there’s something calculated in her dark brown eyes.
I can’t let Noah do this. I’m watching with piercing horror as he closes in on Dickie, one of his hands wraps around Dick’s neck, slamming his head into the wall. The only sound in the penthouse is the crack the contact makes. Sharp and thunderous.
I suck in a tight breath. I don’t like this. I don’t like the look on Noah’s face. I could give a shit about Dickie, I’m barely paying attention to him. My entire focus is on Noah.
The stone coldness, it’s a stranger on the face of a man I’m just beginning to get to know again. I know he has a temper, I know I was already putting him in a mood by having this party, but I never intended for this to happen.
Not that it’s my fault Dickie doesn’t understand the word no. I don’t feel responsible for his actions in the slightest.
I just don’t want to be a character witness to a murder.
Noah lands a punch to Dickie’s nose, blood splattering on the wall. My entire body recoils. I’m not a fan of violence. With each blow Noah lands, the more sick I feel. I can’t keep watching this. I refuse.
Without a second thought, my feet take off and I’m catapulting myself onto Noah’s back, locking around him like a spider monkey as he’s gearing up for another punch. The second my skin touches his, his entire body locks up. Dickie stares at us with wild and dazed bruising eyes.
“Sayer,” I feel Noah say more than hear, his chest moving under my palms. “Get off me.” He’s coiled so tight, tense with a need to fight.
“Can’t do that,” I tell him with all sincerity. “I have this fear of blood and you’re splattering it around the apartment.”
Noah’s silent, his body still geared in his fighting stance while his hand is still wrapped tightly around Dickie’s neck, but his attention is on me. Listening.
Pressing my chest against his back, I bring my lips to the shell of his ear. “Noah,” I whisper softly, “Please stop.”
Dropping his hold on Dickie, who collapses to the ground in a boneless heap, I feel Noah’s body shift against mine and I squeeze him tight.
“Enough, Noah,” I whisper in his ear, hoping I can soothe this raging storm. “I’m okay. I’m here. With you.”
That seems to reach him.
Noah grabs my ankles that are locked around his waist, and he squeezes them. Not painfully, not gently. Reassuringly.
“Get him out of here,” Noah orders, voice rough. “Before I do what I really want to.”
Reeve and Gabe appear, flanking either side of Dickie and drag his limp body to the elevator where they unceremoniously throw him in.
As soon as the doors to the elevator closes, the music turns back on and the people disperse. Almost like the past five minutes never happened and they’re back to on their journeys of not remembering tomorrow.
I try to shimmy down Noah’s back, but he locks his hands around my legs.
“Noah.” I tap his shoulder. “I’m ready to get down now.”
“Too damn bad.”
“Seriously, Noah. Put me down.” I try to wiggle, only for friction to grow between my legs, feeling his muscled body against mine. Suddenly, I don’t mind being wrapped around him.
Until he opens his mouth.
“Hey, Sayer? Stop talking.”
Rude. Always so rude.
Normally, I wouldn’t, especially not when he barks it at me like an order, but there’s something in his tone that makes me heed his advice. So, my lips are sealed…for now.
Noah might fight with his fists, but I use my words, and I have a whole lot to say for him abandoning me in his cold, dark home all without a simple text explaining why.
Fused to his back, Noah walks across the apartment to a little door tucked beside his kitchen.
It leads into the laundry room, which quietly shuts behind us, cutting off the light and encasing us in darkness.
But before the door can shut completely, as Noah pulls me off his body and sets me on the washer, the metal cool against my thighs, I get a look at his face.
Wild eyes and a stone jaw, he’s still wired from the fight. And with Dickie gone, Noah’s changed his focus, shifting to another target.
Me.
And I welcome it with two words. Bring. It.
He wants a fight. He’s going to get one.
I sharpened my claws just for the occasion. After all, this is why I agreed to the party.
I’d rather fight with Noah than have him ignore me. At least when we fight, I know he sees me.
How messed up is that?
“What were you thinking?” he growls in my ear, the timbre as rough as tree bark. It grates against my skin, raising my defenses.
“Excuse me?” I force out, unsure what he’s implying. “I wasn’t doing anything. Dickie was—”
“Not that.” Noah cuts me off, pulling my knees apart and settles between my thighs. Bringing us closer.
“I don’t pay attention to you, so you decide to throw a party?” He speaks in a hushed tone that’s like a caress on my skin. “Think I’d come running back for the little girl wanting attention?”
Each question feels like a dart hitting the board, each sting more bitter than the last.
“You invite that little fuck here in an attempt to make me jealous?”
My eyes narrow in a glare he can’t see. I hate how he can always read me, knowing my motives even when I’m unsure of them myself.
“It worked, didn’t it?” I challenge. “You’re here and you’re jealous.”
“I’m here, all right.” He chuckles. “Gabe sent me a picture of all the fun I was missing. But I wouldn’t hold my breath on the jealous part.”
“Right. Because I beat up people all the t
ime just for the hell of it.” I don’t mean to, but my voice gets louder the longer I speak.
We might be trapped in darkness, making his face hidden, but that doesn’t change how tense the air is around us, crackling in vexation.
“He was in the way,” is all he says, tone neutral.
“You had him up against a wall!” I point out.
“He was in the way to get to you.”
He doesn’t say it in the way that speaks of butterflies swelling in my stomach, but more like a tornado ready to destroy me from the inside out.
Being in the dark, everything feels heightened. More intense than when we were in the closet at Heathen’s Hell, even more so than at the art gallery. Each had some, if little light.
Not like here. Where I only have my touch to guide me. Where I can only feel.
And he feels so strong, so sure between my legs I can’t focus on anything else as he shifts closer, eating the little distance between us.
My breath catches when I feel a stiffness brush against my thigh. His palm cups my cheek, finding my bottom lip. He traces it. “Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?” Lost in the feel of his touch, the fight inside me morphing to something else.
“Have this party?”
“Because I wanted you to notice me.”
Maybe it’s the room, the lack of light that makes things feel more alive, or maybe it’s the wine I drank earlier that has me opening up in a piece of raw honesty, though by now the alcohol has left my system.
So maybe I’m tired of playing games and even though I started one to get him here, I want Noah to know what’s been eating me.
“I notice you,” his voice rough.
“Then why have you been avoiding me?”
“You’re a weakness.”
“I’m not weak.” Indignation fills me. So does hurt. “Sure I’m not the most physically active or fit but—”
His mouth covers mine, promptly shutting me up. “You’re not weak, Sayer.” His nose traces my jaw, my lips parting as I’m robbed of air. “But you make me weak.” His nose leads him on a path to my ear where his teeth graze the lobe, pulling at it. “In the eyes of the world, you’re my weakness.”
His words pierce my chest, but not as much as the emotion behind them do. Raw and real, honesty bleeds through them. An arrow piercing my chest, a bullseye to my heart.
I reach up, grabbing the ends of his hair. “Show me,” I dare, pulling him back to my lips.
But before we can touch, something crashes outside the door, sounding like it shattered into unfixable pieces.
With a sound of frustration, Noah pulls away and storms out of the room. Leaving me flushed on a dryer.
“Everyone out!” he roars, moving to the speakers and shutting off the music.
I trail after him, not leaving the doorway of the laundry room as people make a mad rush to leave the apartment, wanting to get away from Noah’s wrath.
“Except you three.” He points to Thea, Reeve, and Gabe. “Don’t fucking move.”
Thea and Gabe stop walking.
Reeve wraps an arm around Gabe’s shoulders smiling. “We’re in trouble,” he mock-whispers into Gabe’s ear.
Gabe doesn’t react.
It takes three trips and Noah packing the elevator past the capacity limit to get all the party guests out, but when they are, Noah takes inventory of his littered apartment.
He toes an empty champagne bottle, that sharp jaw jumping as he kicks it to Gabe, who stops it like a soccer ball.
Noah walks to the couch and thumbs the paint that’s dotted the cushion. His thumb comes back with red paint.
He cuts Reeve a nasty look. “You’re paying for this.”
Reeve shrugs, uncaring.
When he finds a bra hanging from a lamp, he picks it up with two fingers. His eyes flick to me, down my chest.
I glare as I cross my arms over my chest. Yeah, I’m stilling wearing one, perv.
The bra falls to the floor.
“Clean this shit up,” he barks at the four of us, stomping across the room to the elevator.
“Where are you going?” I call out, displeasure rising. He’s leaving? Again?
“Out.”
Out. I don’t like that word. “Stay,” I counter, moving toward him, but he shakes his head, the doors starting to close.
And he doesn’t stop them.
I glare, leaning into the anger that’s pumping my veins instead of the little crack in my chest that stings with the knowledge he just left me. Again.
Once he’s gone and it’s the four of us, I expect them to leave as well, leaving me to clean up a mess I didn’t help create, and I’m not proven wrong.
Gabe’s phone dings with a text. Without looking up from the screen, he says, “Let’s go.”
Thea and Reeve fall into step as Gabe walks to the elevator.
“Uh, no.” I step in front of them. “You’re not leaving me here to take care of this by myself.” The three share a look and some kind of silent communication happens before me.
“No,” Gabe says sternly while looking down at Thea, who’s doing a weird dance.
“Oh yes,” she nods.
“This won’t end well, Thea,” Gabe warns.
“Which is exactly why you should let her do it, G,” Reeve interjects. “Keep our boy on his toes.”
“What are you three talking about?” I ask the three of them, feeling out of the loop.
Gabe sighs, the sound defeated, as he motions for Thea to explain.
Slowly, she looks at me and grins. “Do you want to see where Noah went?
They won’t tell me where we’re going, but Thea did give me a set of rules in the elevator ride down for when we get to our destination.
Rule one: Stick close to her side.
Rule two: Do not engage in conversation of any sort.
Rule three: Do not look at anyone for longer than three seconds.
When I asked where the heck we were going, she added a fourth rule: No questions.
I still asked questions even though they all went unanswered.
Why did I need to listen to these rules? Why were they being so secretive about our destination? What am I letting them lead me into? Why is Reeve smiling like he ate the canary? Seriously, out of all three of them, he was looking like he was on the best high of his life, ecstatic for what’s to come.
Even some of Thea’s excitement had been replaced with anxious energy by the time we slide into the backseat of the waiting car Jensen had pulled around to the front of the building.
It only took about two minutes of being squished between Thea and Reeve to piece together where we’re headed.
The wharf.
Confusion fills me. There’s nothing there but warehouses and loading docks. Why would Noah go here?
The city is full of so many secrets and buildings pretending to be something they’re not, we could be going to a whorehouse masquerading as boat storage and I wouldn’t be surprised. Lead drops in the pit of my stomach with that thought, images of Noah with someone else…it’s not a picture I want to see live.
Our tires crunch on a loose gravel path as Jenkins brings the SUV to a crawl until we’re parked in front of a rusted out industrial warehouse. I stare at it. Noah’s here? Not to stereotype his rich ass, but this looks like the farthest place his Italian loafers would ever touch.
But I’m the only one that seems to think so. In unison, Thea, Gabe, and Reeve open their respective doors and climb out.
When I don’t move, Reeve reaches in and yanks me out. My feet stumble and I slam into his chest.
His arms snake around my shoulders, keeping me pinned to him. “If you wanted me to hold you, all you had to do was ask, Baby Brooks.” His lips graze my neck before I pull away. Gabe slaps him upside the head.
“Knock it off,” Gabe grumbles, the sound close to a roaring storm.
“Why? Are you jealous?” Grinning, he saunters closer to Gabe. “Do you want your big b
ody wrapped up in these arms, Ruiz?”
Gabe’s face doesn’t change, but his eyes crinkle in the corners in amusement. He pushes Reeve away, who laughs and sends Gabe a wink.
“Children,” Thea chides with a smile.
How are they all smiling? It’s freezing out tonight, made even colder by the frigid ocean breeze. Ice daggers pierce past my coat, stabbing my skin. “What’re we doing here?”
“For the show.” Reeve’s smile stretches and it does nothing to comfort me.
“Show?” My voice is small, drowned out by the sharp wind.
Thea links her arm with mine, giving me a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry, you’re safe with us.”
Safe. I haven’t felt safe since finding out someone was in my apartment. The word feels lost inside me, the meaning clear but the action missing. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe again. No matter who’s around.
But I squeeze Thea’s arm back as we move toward the rusted door, and as we walk, I take in our surroundings. Or lack thereof. This place is abandoned, save for our car, aside from our footsteps and the shrieking wind, it’s as quiet as a cemetery tonight.
My heart beats in tune with Gabe’s fist as it bangs against the door.
A little slat on the door opens, revealing only a pair of eyes. “Password.”
Seriously? I feel my eyes widen. I want to make a joke about us being five, but I bite my tongue. Something tells me the password isn’t going to be ‘fart for brains’ or something of equal juncture.
And sure enough, Gabe shucks off his jacket and rolls up his shirt sleeve, flashing them a tattoo on his forearm. It’s small, about the size of a half-dollar.
I don’t have to be next to Gabe to know what it is.
A black dragon mid-flight with webbed wings.
Of course I recognize it.
My sister has the same one. Noah has one. They all do. Tattoos they got in high school. At the time I thought they were living up to their reckless reputations, getting matching tattoos for the hell of it. I never attached any other meaning behind them.
Until now.
But what exactly?
The slat closes and the heavy door opens with a groan, revealing nothing but darkness.
Under the Lies Page 15