Gabe goes in first with Reeve close behind, but neither Thea and I move, our arms still locked together.
“Thea,” I start, wanting to know what the tattoo means but she squeezes my arm.
In a soft whisper, she says, “Remember what I told you.”
I barely have time to nod before she pulls me through the door which shuts immediately behind us and causes me to jump.
“It’s okay,” Thea reassures me before pulling me farther into the space. My steps are unsure by not being able to see right in front of me. It’s so dark. So quiet. Even are steps are light, barely making a noise.
I feel so off center, not hearing or seeing anything, until a soft crescendo starts to build, hitting my ears and building with our strides.
Voices. People.
Cheering. People are cheering.
What they’re cheering, I can’t decipher, but the noise soon becomes deafening as we get the first taste of light. A warm glow halos above an open door.
We walk through it and into a hell pit.
Literally.
My jaw drops, eyes widening.
It’s hotter than an inferno, and not just because there are people crowded in the room, packed like sardines. Wild flames dance on the wall in torches.
No one seems to care about the fires, though, not when their attention is focused on the center of the room. Where a metal cage sits.
A ring for fighting.
And in the center, on opposite sides, are two men. Waiting. One bounces with anxious energy, headphones in his ears, while the other stands there. So still. My eyes hone in on him. Bare-chested and broad-shouldered, his knuckles taped tight.
A perfectly sculpted back with muscles chiseled by an artist.
He’s turned away from us, but I know who it is.
Noah.
Tense and ready to fight.
I can’t take my eyes off him, not even to watch where I’m going. All I know is that Thea is leading me closer to the cage while Gabe and Reeve shove people out of our way.
A loud bang washes over the room, shaking the building.
Everything goes quiet as a girl with heels and a gold silk robe steps forward with a black cue card. A red number one is painted on it.
She walks it around the ring, her steps methodical as a few whistle or catcall toward her.
Asshats.
While the room seems to be focusing on the card girl, I look farther into the ring. Meeting the burning stare of my blue-eyed devil.
With his mouth pressed in a tense line and his eyes sharp and deadly, Noah looks every bit as frightening that he’s been rumored to be.
Back at his apartment, I realize, he was holding himself back. Controlled in all aspects including his anger.
Except for now, where the man can step aside and let the control go.
The opponents bump knuckles as a bang rings around the room.
And so round one begins.
Noah’s opponent makes the first move, fist to the face. Which Noah narrowly avoids, shifting backward before lunging forward with a punch of his own.
When Noah’s knuckles hit flesh, the crowd goes wild, screaming and jumping. Knocking their elbows and various limbs into me.
“If I leave here with bruises,” I hiss into Thea’s ear. “I’m never hanging out with you again.”
“Yeah, okay.” She laughs.
“Who’s Noah fighting?”
“I think his name is Thomas.” She shrugs beside me. “People are always volunteering to go up against him.”
People volunteer to get their face pounded?
“What is this place?” I turn back to the ring as Thomas gets up.
He staggers a step before he faces Noah, his face bloody with bruises already swelling his cheeks.
Who would volunteer to get their face beat in? Archaic simpletons. Masochists. The fragile masculine ego.
People who want to feel anything instead of always being numb.
“The Ring,” Thea answers. Both our focuses are on Thomas as he nails a jab to Noah’s side. I flinch at the sound of flesh hitting flesh, of Noah’s grunt that shouldn’t be heard over the deafening crowd but one I feel anyway.
“Noah comes here when he needs to work off aggression,” she adds, but I barely hear her. My entire focus is on what’s unfolding inside the ring.
On Noah.
He comes here when he needs to work off aggression. Me. I’m the aggression that’s thrown him in there tonight.
And he’s a force to reckon with. Moving with agile reflexes, he’s more calculated than his opponent, who’s throwing punches into the wind and hoping they hit. Noah’s are more purposeful. He knows when to advance and when to wane. While one moves like a rabbit on caffeine, the other conserves energy, building toward greater impact.
Thomas juts out a fist and hits Noah in the face.
I flinch at the sound and grow tense with Noah’s retaliation.
He fires back with enough force for Thomas’s head to snap back.
Thomas roars, not backing down. Landing two hits before Noah serves one back.
It’s vicious and bloody and dirty.
I hate it. I hate every second of being here. Of seeing Noah getting hit.
With every punch that lands somewhere on Noah, I recoil, stomach churning.
The cheers are ear-splitting when Noah lands a hit that has Thomas knocked to the ground. It spurs the crowd, making them get rowdier. They surge forward—propelling me into the fence.
A cry of pain escapes as my cheek gets embedded with the rough metal. I hear Thea shout my name, but I can’t call back, the air gets sucked out of me with the masses piling against me.
Noah’s head snaps to the sound, spotting me. I want to yell at him to pay attention to the fight, but I can’t. An elbow digs into my kidney making me cry out again. My eyes water.
The crowd’s focused on Noah while Noah’s focused on me. He starts toward me and my eyes bulge.
Is he crazy?
Focus on the fight! I want to shout.
Thomas, using Noah’s distraction to his advantage, charges.
Turn around! I try to scream, getting a taste of rusted metal instead.
Noah doesn’t. He keeps walking toward me and with a sucker’s move, Thomas tackles Noah to the ground, hitting his head.
The sound cracks like thunder around the room, taking my breath with it.
He doesn’t move.
Noah doesn’t move.
The room is still loud, people still screaming, but to me—it’s silent.
Silent as I stare at the broad, flattened form that is Noah.
He hasn’t so much as twitched.
No.
No.
No.
Get up.
Get up, I silently beg.
Any second, any second, he’s going to pick his head up.
Except, seconds turn to minutes and Noah still hasn’t moved.
Come on, Noah. Get up.
My gaze is locked on his still form, a weird sense of emotions overcoming me. I need Noah to be okay. He has to be okay. If Noah’s not okay, I feel I won’t be okay.
And I don’t know how to process that last thought.
The “ref” starts toward Noah, no doubt to call the round when Noah’s hand shoots out and grabs the ref’s ankle.
I gasp.
Slowly, Noah’s body moves, a swelling overtakes my chest as he shifts his face and meets my worried eyes.
Blood streaked face, he grins at me, still looking a little dazed, before twisting around in a roar.
Thomas is too busy doing a victory dance for the crowd to notice Noah, but he sure as heck notices him when his body gets tackled to the ground by a two-hundred-pound seething Kincaid.
Noah straddles the other man’s body, punching once, twice. That’s it. That’s all it takes.
Playtime is over, Noah’s had enough.
Now it’s Thomas’s turn to not move. The sight of him sprawled out on the blood
y, sweaty ground does nothing but bring dark satisfaction to me.
Noah climbs off him, snarling, “It’s over.”
He stalks out of the ring, much to the chagrin of the audience who groan and shout for him to get his ass back in there.
Noah doesn’t listen.
He hops over the fence next to me and pulls us away from the hoarding masses.
“Move!” he roars, shaking the building as much as the banging had.
People instantly part, his red sea moving with his command, and he pulls me through the crowd, into a door Reeve opens for us.
This man and his doors to hidden places.
We’re in a poorly lit hallway when he lets go of my arm, only to get in my face.
“What in the hell are you doing here?” he yells, even though we’re mere inches apart.
I cross my arms. “Thea invited me.”
“Did she tell you where you’d be going?”
I shake my head.
“And you decided what? To tag along on an adventure?” His hands pin themselves to the wall on either side of my head.
His anger grates against my skin. This man. I swear one minute he has me worried about him and in the next he has me wanting to rip his head off.
“You mean instead of staying locked in your penthouse with no form of entertainment, slowly going bored to the point of insanity?” I push at his sweaty chest. “Sorry, that’s not how I wanted to spend my night!”
“You aren’t supposed to be here.”
“And where do you want me, Noah? I feel like if it were up to you, I wouldn’t be allowed to leave your penthouse.”
“It’s for your safety,” he growls. “Isn’t that what I’m here for?”
“To protect me!” My voice rises. “Not to keep me as your prisoner.”
“I never said you weren’t allowed to leave. Come and go as you please.” He crowds me. “You’re not my prisoner, Sayer.”
“Then what am I? Why am I staying at your apartment if you’re never there?”
“Why’d you throw that party tonight?” he counters, avoiding my question.
“Thea threw it.”
“You didn’t stop it.”
“No.” I agreed to it.
“Why?”
I look him in the eye. “Because I wanted to see you.”
“Here I am.”
“Here you are,” I echo in a whisper.
We’re close, chest to heaving chest, our anger festering into something more. Something that tightens my chest, steals my breath and robs me of sense. I start to lean into him and him into me when a throat clears.
Reality washes over me as Noah pulls away with a curse. “What.”
Gabe stands behind Noah with his hands in his pockets. “We got a problem.”
Noah doesn’t move.
“It’s Seamus,” Gabe continues. “He’s outside asking for you.”
Noah swears under his breath, reaching around to grab my hand. We walk down the hall to where Reeve and Thea are standing, waiting for us.
Thea’s lips twitching is the only reaction from any of them. Their focus is somewhere else. On someone else.
“Seamus from Mrs. Montgomery’s party?” I ask, remembering his tattooed knuckles.
They ignore me. I huff, feeling Noah’s hand squeeze mine.
“What does he want?” Noah asks, and of course they answer him.
I glare at nothing in particular.
Thea worries her hands. “We don’t know. He’s just asking for you.”
Noah looks down at me. “After I deal with him, we’re going home.”
Knowing now is not the time to be difficult, I nod.
“When we go out there, get in the car and don’t open the door.”
Again, I nod.
Reeve hands Noah his glasses, a thermal black shirt and coat, which he quickly changes into.
Once he’s clothed, he grabs my hand again and we go outside where the wintery air bites into my cheeks.
We only get a short distance before Noah stops, letting go of my hand. A man in a charcoal coat and beanie leans against Noah’s car, running his finger along a knife’s blade.
Seamus.
“You rang?” Noah has a posture of leisure but his jaw ticks.
“We have business to discuss.” Seamus looks at everyone, including me, and it looks like he lingers on Thea for the longest.
She flips him off.
He only grins.
Noah ignores the interaction. “The only thing I have to discuss is the money you owe us before I start charging you interest up your skinny ass.”
“I’m here to change the agreement.”
Noah coughs a laugh.
“Oh, I think you’ll like this.”
Noah waits.
“A fight. You. Me. A week from now.”
“What’s in it for me? Aside from kicking your ass.” Noah’s indifference doesn’t change, but he’s intrigued. I can tell by the subtle way his stance changes, the widening of his legs, the crossing of his chest.
“Information.”
“Like you have anything we’d want,” Thea says, hands on her hips.
Seamus spares her the briefest of glances before turning back to Noah. “So you don’t want to know who’s after that hot piece of ass behind you? Or where you can find her sister?”
When we get back at Noah’s, we venture off in two different directions.
He heads for the bar, grabbing the first bottle within reach, while I go into the little bathroom near the kitchen, ransacking the cabinets for supplies. Thankfully, Noah keeps his first aid kit stocked.
Quickly, I grab hydrogen peroxide, cotton balls, and whatever else I can carry before leaving the bathroom to find Noah sprawled out on the couch, the bottle of whiskey dangling between his fingers.
The apartment isn’t as messy as I remember it. Most of the damage is confined to the kitchen and surrounding areas. The couch and the space surrounding it, including the coffee table, where Reeve was painting is surprisingly the cleanest. Those naked models were good for more than one thing it seems.
As I walk toward Noah, he lazily watches my approach.
He looks relaxed, dazed out in bliss, but I know he’s anything but.
Our car ride home from the harbor was in tense silence. Noah didn’t speak as he escorted me to his car leaving his friends and Jenkins with Seamus. He didn’t make a sound as he drove through the city.
I watched him the entire way. How the cuts on his face bled, at the stretched, cracked skin on his knuckles. He didn’t show he was in pain, but my poor, weak and caring heart wanted to tend to him nonetheless.
His eyes continue to follow me as I sit across from him on his coffee table, conscious of our ongoing chess game, not wanting to knock it over.
He doesn’t ask me what I’m doing as I methodically soak a cotton ball in peroxide and bring it to his face. He doesn’t wince as it touches his cut, instead he keeps his chaotic eyes on me.
But the stillness is a façade. Being this close, I can feel the energy buzzing through his veins.
Ignoring the hum that’s always present when we’re this close together, I go about tending to his wounds, putting bloody cotton ball after bloody cotton ball on the table next to me.
We don’t talk. But we don’t need to.
My skin is warm under his stare. I try not to focus on that as I soak another cotton ball, but it’s impossible. The magnetic pull that is Noah Kincaid is getting to me. Like a lasso around my body, he makes me want to lean in closer and closer until there’s no space left between us.
I try not to look directly at him as I bring the cotton to the cut by his mouth. My hand rests on his cheek and I pretend not to notice how he tilts his head into my palm. I pretend I don’t feel my chest beating to the point of pain.
I pretend to be wholly unaffected.
Until I look up.
And lock on his lips.
His lips that smirk when I’m unable to loo
k away. It’s been too long since I’ve felt them move against mine. So long since I’ve felt the commanding touch of his.
Needing to distract myself, I ask the question that’s been on my mind since we left the wharf. “Why’d you do it?”
He doesn’t ask what I’m talking about. He knows.
Why’d he agree to the fight with Seamus? I mean, I know why. He wants to fight in exchange for information—secrets—his favorite bets to place. What I want to know is the who.
Was it for me or was it for my sister. I almost don’t want Noah to answer, for fear of the latter.
But it’s that damn Achilles heel of mine, my budding inquisitiveness.
Noah takes a swig of whiskey, swirling the amber liquid between us while his lips glisten with unclaimed alcohol. I want to drink it from them. “Why do you think?”
“If I was fine with assumptions, I wouldn’t have asked.” I level him a stare. “I want you to tell me.”
“Demanding little thing tonight, aren’t you?”
“Will you tell me?” I roll a cotton ball between my fingers.
“There’s nothing to tell.” He shrugs. “We had a deal.”
“Bullshit,” I call, despite the seed of disappointment taking root inside me.
Noah’s brow raises. “Oh, is it?”
“It is,” I whisper. “I think you did it for something more. Something else.”
“And why’s that?” He’s still jazzed from the fight, but his movements are controlled, almost painfully, as he again takes a pull from the bottle. I didn’t see how much was in it when he picked it up, but it’s almost empty now.
“Because I don’t think you believe he knows where my sister is. And I think you’re desperate enough to find out who’s after me.”
He shifts on the couch, scooting closer so our knees are interlocked. He moves a hand up my thigh as he leans in close. “I can’t have anyone hurt you.” I suck in a breath as he wraps a piece of my hair around his finger. “And if Seamus has the answers, I’m going to get them.”
“Why?” I’m desperate to know. “Why are you doing this all for me?”
He leans in even closer, close enough for me to smell the whiskey on his tongue. “Don’t take me to be your hero.”
Slowly, Noah leans back and drains the rest of the whiskey before placing the empty bottle on the table next to my thigh. His cool fingers brush against me in the process bringing a weight to my chest and a pulse between my legs. A simple touch. He can do so much to my body with a single touch.
Under the Lies Page 16