Under the Lies

by Green, Sarah E.

  I look up, caught in the snare of Noah’s face. He’s watching me with a blank expression, eyes searching.

  He stands so close if I twitch my fingers they’d brush his wrist and I’m still so alone. A puzzle missing pieces.

  Noah reaches out, fingers grasp my chin. “You’re shivering.”

  “A-a-am I?” I hear myself ask, teeth rattling with the wind.

  “Yes,” he growls like he’s personally offended. He rips the beanie off his head and puts it on mine, pulling it down until it touches my eyebrows.

  God. Why’d he have to do that, now his hair has the perfect tousled look going on. I love how that’s the only part of himself he ever allows to be wild.

  We’re still so close, my breath mingling with his, and he smells so nice. Feels so warm.

  He starts to lean into me, and I lean into him. His hands slide along my cold cheeks when I pull back.

  That’s not why I came up here.

  I spin away before I do something stupid and try to kiss him on the rooftop, under the twinkling lights and fading stars and rising sun.

  Instead, I move toward Helga’s bodega, walking down memory lane in the process.

  Yes. It’s still here.

  My granddad’s record player. I gave it to Helga after he passed.

  “I would come here when I’d fight with my parents. Granddad would come and pick me up whenever I called him.” I glance over my shoulder and find him collapsing onto a deck chair. “He was always there when I needed someone. He’d never ask me any questions, either. Just showed up and took me back to his place. I’d come up here and just listen to music.” Dropping to my knees, I pull out a box, flip through to my favorite vinyl and pop it on the record player.

  I wonder if Helga comes up and still uses it, or if any other of Granddad’s friends do, it’s still in great condition.

  The music filters out and fills the roof deck.

  I sway to the beat, feeling more grounded than I have in a long time.

  This. Being here. This is what I’ve been searching for. This is like coming home.

  And it’s because of Noah. Because he decided to bring me here. When I woke up to his body wrapped around mine, I almost didn’t want to get up. I didn’t want to let go of the feeling of him, but even with that feeling, I felt like I was drowning with no one around to see.

  But I forgot. No matter how much of an ass he is, Noah sees all.

  Like right now.

  When I turn around to face him, he’s wearing the same expression he does when he’s buried deep inside me. Hungry. Desperate for more. Shifting in his seat, his hungry gaze taking their fill as I walk toward him—slowly.

  “Sayer,” he growls, low and warning. Yet he doesn’t protest as I run my hands up his legs, tracing the edge of his waistline. “This isn’t why I brought you here.”

  This isn’t why I came here, but here we are.

  His legs spread out and his knuckles grip the armrest on the chair.

  “I don’t care.” I straddle his lap. Arms wrapped around his neck. “Thank you for this.”

  He nods, his signature broody expression in place, but he hauls me closer and nips playfully at my chin. I almost jerk back. What is happening? Who is this man? So different from the guarded one I know.

  He’s like a new, illustrious creature and I don’t want to scare him off.

  So instead I bring my lips to his and kiss him, showing my thanks in a way words can never achieve. For this. For taking me home.

  We make out as the sun starts to rise, painting the sky in vibrant hues, but something just as colorful is happening inside me.

  I’m falling harder for Noah Kincaid than I ever thought possible and I’m scared I’m not going to survive the heartbreak to follow.

  Yesterday changed something. Within me, with Noah. Going back to my granddad’s unlocked secrets I’ve kept away, truths I’ve hidden from myself.

  I’ve always been afraid to live. I grew up sheltered, locked in a gilded cage of wealth. The only thing I ever learned how to do was be alone. Even when I left at eighteen, I merely escaped a prison to find myself in another, only this time the chains holding me back were mine.

  And my only reason for it was that I didn’t know how to live.

  I had no idea what I was doing at eighteen, had never taken care of myself.

  Distractions, I lived within distractions so I couldn’t acknowledge just how lost, how lonely, how completely miserable I was.

  Painting, creating, was my escape but for the past year, I haven’t even had that.

  It wasn’t until Noah came back into my life that I wanted to learn.

  Learn how to let go, be free from all shackles, from all the weight of the past, and live.

  Noah has opened my eyes to many things since I’ve been with him, casinos and caged fights. He’s piqued my curiosity and teased my wanting desire.

  He brought me to the one place that’s always been my home and since returning back from that rooftop palace I’ve realized what’s been holding me back all these years.

  I’m scared.

  Scared to walk outside all the crafted lines.

  Scared to be anything like my wild sister.

  Scared to be a disappointment when that’s all I’ve ever been to myself.

  And I’m tired of it.

  Noah has shown me that letting go can be more than scary. It can be bold. Thrilling.

  It can be electrifying.

  Noah is electrifying. Setting me ablaze with a single stare, a passing touch. Part of the reason I agreed to help Noah in the first place was because he made me feel the very thing I’ve been searching for.

  And yesterday, I saw a different side of him.

  The urgency of his steps as he rushed down the stairs, I saw that he always tries to keep tucked away.

  His humanity. The part that makes him soft, the caring side that looked at me with wild eyes and held me in his arms as the sun kissed the morning sky.

  Something changed between us during those early morning hours.

  And I’m not quite sure I can put a name on it. Not sure that I want to.

  Because the second I do it has the chance to get ruined.

  I’m too interested in where it’ll take me. What other secrets I can uncover from him and what else he can draw out of me.

  I’m walking across campus when a familiar figure catches my eye, a sense of déjà vu washing over me.

  With what feels like a lifetime ago, the same man was in that same spot, wearing the same exact charcoal pea coat, waiting for me.

  Slowly, I approach him. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Do I need a reason to visit the person I’m dating?” He pushes off the pole.

  Oh, right. We’re in public. Time to put on my thespian mask.

  “When it comes to you?” I force a playful smile on my face. “Always.”

  He puts an arm around my shoulders and pulls me close. And despite myself, I melt into him. I tell myself it’s because I want to steal his body heat and not because when I woke I was craving this very thing.

  Noah. His arms around me.

  “I thought we could go out to eat,” Noah says, walking us down the sidewalk. I feel the eyes of some people watching us as we go and it’s the only thing that makes me want to pull away. I don’t want this to be a spectacle. I don’t want to be a prop on display.

  But I stay tucked under Noah’s arm. For the extra warmth.

  And because I’m hungry.

  As if on cue my stomach rumbles.

  Noah chuckles in response.

  “Where are we going?” I ask when we reach his car, the sleek black sports car that’s still idling in a no park zone. “Not worried about someone stealing your car?”

  He gives me a look from over the hood before popping his door open, disappearing from view.

  Right, of course. No one would dare take his car. How silly of me to ask.

  I open the passenger door and slide in, tha
nkful for seat warmers.

  It’s not until we’re pulling out of the parking lot and onto the main road that Noah answers my first question. “I was thinking Thai.”

  My favorite.

  When I don’t respond, Noah spares me a quick glance, only to smirk at the surprised expression on my face.

  “I like it.”

  “Like what?” I study his profile. Strong and profound, I’ll never get over how he’s like a flesh and bone statue.

  “Surprising you.” That smirk grows, pulling at his cheek and crinkling the corner of his eye.

  “I’m sure I’m not the only one.”

  “I like surprising you, Sayer.” He shoots me another quick glance. “The way your lips part and how a crease appears between your eyebrows. It reminds me of the face you make when I’m inside you.”

  I feel my cheeks twinge in color, shifting in my seat. Knowing he studies me as much as I study him has my stomach doing flips.

  A quip is set on my tongue when a chime from Noah’s phone stops me as a sharp curse brushes his lips at the sound.

  “What?” he growls in answer, the device held in a tight grip against his ear.

  I strain to hear what’s being said on the other line, but Noah is the only person who has his volume turned deathly low. It doesn’t help that he’s only answering in nonverbal sounds.

  A grunt here, a growl there. Slamming on his brakes so fast that the seatbelt digs into my throat.

  It’s only when the call is over and he’s throwing his phone up on the dash that he speaks again. Low and pissed. “I’m taking you home.”

  “What? Why?!” I should be embarrassed by how panicked I sound over it. For allowing him to see a weakness. “What about food?”

  I don’t really care about the food. I care about what that phone call was about. What flipped his mood so fast.

  “There’s been a change of plans.”

  When he doesn’t elaborate further, I poke his arm. Hard. “Which is…?”

  “An alert from one of your sister’s old hangouts.”

  “What kind of alert?”

  “The kind we set up to know if or when she visits them.”

  Suddenly it feels like my heart is locked in my throat, beating fiercely. This is my chance to uncover more secrets, to see more of his world.

  To live.

  “I’m going with you, Noah.”

  He spares me a sharp look. “No, you’re not.”

  He wasn’t budging on this, but I refused to go back to that apartment. It was stagnant without him and I refused to play house cat while he was off gallivanting the city. He was taking me with him. Even if I have to force my way.

  And there’s only one way I’m going to do that.

  It’s time I start thinking like Noah, like I’m the smartest guy in the room. I might not have the strength of an ox like Gabe or the muscles behind blurring fists like Noah, but I have my mind. And my granddad always used to say the mind was the sharpest weapon in a person’s arsenal.

  And my mind? I’m going to wield it like a whip.

  “Yes, I am,” I counter, a smug smile fighting for entrance on my face. “Because by the time you turn around and take me back to your place it could be too late. And you’re not going to risk that chance. Not when Harlow could be within your grasp.”

  His hands tighten around the leather laced steering wheel.

  That smile wins, tugging at my lips as I stare at his profile, clenched in agitation. He knows I’m right.

  Everyone has a weakness, my granddad used to say. And Noah’s is my sister. I can see the war raging in his mind as he weighs the pros and cons of bringing me along. And I see the moment he makes the decision. His grip tightens one last time before he exhales the tension out and his posture deflates with it.

  I’m not fooled by it, he’s a viper between the blades. Relaxed, yet waiting to strike.

  “Fine,” he grits out like it pains him to say it. And it just might. Noah just relinquished some control. Control that I now possess. “But you’re sticking close to me. One step out of line and I’m tying and locking you up.”

  “Kinky.” I turn away to gaze out the window.

  “Sayer.” His growl brings chills to my skin. “I’m not kidding.”

  I twist back around, staring at his profile. “Neither am I.”

  He glares at the road from behind his glasses, frustration packed behind it.

  A small smile touches my face as I look back out the window, at the passing city. I might not have all the answers when it comes to Noah Kincaid, about what’s going on with my sister, but I’m about to get a little taste.

  As Noah pulls up in front of the building, this is the last place I’d ever expect to find my sister, further cementing the fact that we are related in blood only and strangers in everything else.

  Noah doesn’t look shocked as he turns the engine off. His features are set in determination, humming with pent up aggression, as his fingers find my chin and tilts my face to his. “Remember what I said.”

  I jerk out of his grip and push open my door. I don’t look back at him as I say, “I remember.”

  Stick close to him like peanut butter on bread, got it. No complaints from me.

  I feel more than see him round his car and stop at my side as I stare up the grand steps to the old, behemoth building. “My sister really frequented the library?” I can’t keep the disbelief from my tone.

  It feels so outside the realm of possibilities, but then again, before a couple weeks ago, I never thought I’d be in the position that I am. Living with Noah Kincaid. Sleeping with Noah Kincaid.

  Still, Harlow wasn’t much of a reader.

  I look up at Noah for answers, already to find him watching me. “She frequented what’s beneath it.”

  My skin tingles. “Beneath it?” I echo.

  Noah nods, reaching for my hand. “I’ll show you.”

  As we walk up the steps, I lace our fingers together, expecting him to pull away only for a smile to grow when he doesn’t.

  We walk through the library, between the stacks of well-worn books, all the way to the back of the building where a funny smell lingers, like mayo mixed with a warm egg sandwich.

  My nose scrunches in disgust the farther back we go. “If you’re leading me to some kind of torture dungeon, I’d like to know—”

  “If I was planning on locking you away it wouldn’t be anywhere near the smell of rancid food.”

  “Then where are we going?”

  “Haven’t you heard you’re supposed to not talk in a library?” He shoots me an annoyed glance.

  “Aren’t you the one that believes rules are supposed to be broken?” I ask as we go down a brightly lit hallway where the bathrooms are along with a door marked for authorized personnel only.

  He stops walking and I have to push my hands out to keep from running into his back. “Not the rules set up to keep you safe.”

  “Thought I wasn’t in any danger if I stuck with you.”

  A frown creases his face. “Baby Brooks, you’ve never been less safe than when you’re alone with me.”

  Maybe that should scare me, maybe I shouldn’t welcome the little thrill that shoots through me. Maybe I should do this, maybe I should do that. Maybe I should stop caring about what falls under should and shouldn’t and just give myself over to them instead.

  Pushing up on my toes, I bring our mouths centimeters apart. “I don’t believe you.”

  A rumble takes root in his chest and his arms shoot out to grab me only for them to grasp air instead.

  I slip out of reach, my back pressed against the do not enter door.

  It swings open beneath me. I start to stumble backward until Noah’s hands shoot out to stabilize me. “Always a klutz,” he murmurs, almost too low for me to hear. There’s amusement behind it.

  I brush his hands away. “I like to keep things interesting.”

  “That you do.”

  “Liar,” I laugh. “I’m dr
eadfully boring.”

  He looks at me like I’ve sprouted three heads. “You’re a lot of things, Sayer Brooks, but boring is a word I’d never associate with you.”

  His words touch me more than I can say. Words I’m not going to say as I push at his chest to get him to move out of the way. But of course, he doesn’t budge against my might.

  We’re still standing in the entryway to a set of stairs that lead down to the basement or something. No doubt to a lair of gross spiders.

  “Noah, move. Aren’t we supposed to be looking for my sister?”

  As I talk, I notice that the beginning of a smirk forming on his smug face and my ears pick up the faint sounds of music playing.

  My brows pinch in confusion until I remember what he said on the sidewalk.

  She frequented what’s beneath it.

  His smugness only grows as he takes my elbow. “Down we go, Miss Brooks.”

  “Down where?” I question as I take the first step. Noah’s standing just behind me, following me.

  “Go find out.”

  Letting me lead.

  A sense of power, control takes hold of me as I turn on the flashlight from my phone—because there is no way I’m walking down there without some sort of light. I’d break my neck and my ankle and bruise my butt if I tried. Noah moves silently behind me. Not complaining as I take the stairs one slow step at a time.

  There’s a fire in my pulse, a drum in my chest as the music gets louder. Excitement. I can hear saxophones, a piano. And is…is that at trumpet?

  With the help of my flashlight, I see a door at the bottom of the stairs.

  Where does it go and the soulful music lead?

  I try to find out when I reach the base of them, but there is no doorknob. I try to push against it. Nothing.

  Behind me, Noah chuckles as his arm reaches over my shoulder and does a quick, three knuckle knock against it.

  The door swings open.

  “I loosened it for you,” I grumble.

  Noah chuckles in my ear as his hand finds the small of my back and urges me forward.

  My mouth drops open as I do.

  “This lurks beneath a library?” This is the place my sister regularly visited? “A jazz bar?”

  Noah doesn’t say anything, just pushes me farther inside. I stumble into the lounge, eyes wide and soaking up everything.