Smiling, I peer up at him from under my lashes. “I think you’re the one that wants to get me off.”
“Damn right I do.” His nostrils flare.
I return my attention back to his cock. “What do I get if I do?”
Noah doesn’t speak for a long time, or at least it seems that way as I feel the carpet fibers bite into my knees.
Finally, he says, “You don’t know what you’re asking for, Baby Brooks.” There’s the grin I loathe to love. “But you’re about to find out.”
Before I can articulate a response, he has me by my armpits, hoisting me up, setting me on the edge of his desk.
I barely get my hands wrapped around the lip of the desk before he’s pushing at the hem of my dress and splitting my legs apart.
Fitting himself between them, he wraps a hand gently around my neck, thumb brushing my pulse when a throat clears from behind Noah.
I jump while he freezes.
His hand doesn’t leave my throat as he shifts his head to peer over his shoulder. I stretch my neck like a giraffe to see past his frame.
Gabe stands in the doorway, his thick arms are crossed loosely over his chest, amused as he stares at us. “Don’t stop on my account.”
Noah’s hand disappears from my neck, and as he turns around, his arms reach behind him to knock my knees together.
“What are you doing here?” he growls.
Gabe raises a brow. “How quickly he forgets.” Pushing off from the doorframe, he walks farther into the room.
“Gabriel.”
Gabe grins. “I’m here to escort you to the fight.”
“Fight?” Noah echoes my thoughts.
What fight?
Gabe’s brow goes higher as he clicks his teeth. “I’m disappointed in you, Noah. Never have you lost your mind over the taste of pussy before.”
“Gabriel,” Noah growls again, the sound deep in his chest. Warning.
Gabe grins. “Fine, I’ll fill your sex-clouded minds. The fight with Seamus is tonight. You still want those answers, right?”
Crap! I forgot that was tonight. And by the way Noah looks when I peer around his shoulder, so did he.
Noah nods.
Slowly, I slide off the desk. My body brushing against Noah’s backside.
“C’mon, boss,” Gabe calls, a dark smile on his face. “Let’s go have some fun.”
“Give me a second,” Noah tells him before turning to me. “Thea’s going to come get you and take you there. I need you to stick close to her and listen in case anything gets out of hand.”
I lift a brow. “Plan on things getting out of hand?”
He gives me a cold, serious look. “You never know at these kinds of things. So for both our sakes, stick close to Thea. Please.”
It’s the please that gets me. It sounds foreign on his tongue and I hear the worry behind it. It’s what has me nodding, promising I’ll stay with Thea.
Some relief finds its way onto his face and he kisses me so hard and fast, I barely feel it before he’s following Gabe out the door.
I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight, but hopefully we’re one step closer to the madness ending.
A heavy feeling presses down on my chest…the sooner this is over the sooner I’ll have to say goodbye to Noah.
Thea comes to collect me exactly ten minutes after Noah left.
“What’re you doing?” Thea asks when she finds me still in Noah’s office.
“Staring.”
She shakes her head at me and grabs my arm, pulling me out of the room. “We have to go.”
“Why am I even going?” I ask, hearing the pounding flesh from a couple of nights ago in my ears.
I don’t think I could handle watching Noah get hit again. The last time was bad enough. Him sprawled out on the ground is still fresh in my mind.
“Noah needs you there.”
Hearing the words Noah and need in the same sentence do things to me I can’t describe.
I let Thea lead us downstairs, to the car where Jenkins is waiting.
“Why does Noah have a driver if he never uses him?”
“He’s more for everyone else than Noah.” Jenkins glances at us from the rearview mirror.
“Why?” A light bulb goes off. “Because his parents?”
Thea nods. “He has to be in control. He doesn’t trust anyone else.”
I’m quiet for the rest of the ride.
Thankfully, it feels quicker than the last time we came here.
Once we’re out of the car, Thea walks ahead to the building’s door. After she bangs on it, a slate opens to reveal a set of eyes.
No words are traded as Thea pushes up the layers of her clothes to reveal her marked arm.
The slate closes and the door opens.
We’re in.
Before we reach the door that leads to the ring, Thea grabs my arm and slows our steps. “The same rules apply as last time, Sayer.”
I nod. My promise to Noah nags me.
“I’m going to add one more.”
I wait for her to elaborate.
“If anything happens, you run and hide like hell. Wait for me or one of the guys to find you.”
Her tone is grave and swallowing becomes difficult as I take in the matching expression on her face.
“What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know. Just promise me.”
I nod again, in promise.
She smiles, but it doesn’t touch her eyes. “Ready?”
I don’t get to answer before we walk into chaos.
The pits of hell are even more crowded than the last time. The air is more potent. Everyone buzzing with anticipation.
Thea, without the assistance of Gabe and Reeve this time, elbows our way through the crowd until we’re up on the chained link fence.
The ring is empty.
“Where are they?”
“This fight is a little different,” Thea tells me as if she heard my thoughts. “Noah and Seamus are going to be making an entrance.”
As Thea’s explaining, the lights go off in the ring and a hush falls around the crowded room.
Everyone antsy with what’s to come.
Two mega lights flip on, each illuminating the entrances to the ring, Spotlights that capture our opponents.
“In one corner,” Thea whispers for only me to hear. “Weighing in at two hundred and ten barrels of whiskey we have Seamus Kelly.”
The crowd goes wild, screaming and booing. Someone even throws a shoe. Seamus remains unfazed, a cool look of indifference on his face, the robe he wears falling to the ground when entering the ring, showing his stalk of fiery red hair.
“And in the other corner,” she continues. “Weighing two hundred twenty pounds of bad attitude is Noah Kincaid.”
Noah steps out and the screams are deafening. But he remains wholly unaffected as he makes his way down the small walkway, dropping his robe as he goes. He doesn’t stop until he’s in the center of the ring, his sole focus on Seamus.
Reeve, dressed in a black and white striped blazer with no shirt, who is the ref, makes the two opponents step forward. I watch his lips move but can’t make out the words.
He steps away as Seamus springs forward. Squaring a fist in Noah’s jaw.
I cringe, my stomach twisting, feeling the hit as if it was my own.
But Noah doesn’t waste any time with his retaliation. He attacks Seamus with a vigor I’ve never seen from him, punches with a vigor that shouldn’t belong to any man.
He hits and hits and hits, landing on Seamus’s ribcage, his shoulder, his gut and everywhere in between, leaving welts the size of fists in his wake.
Next to me, I feel Thea cringe with every hit Noah lands. I stare at her.
When she sees my questioning gaze, she looks away with a hardened face. “Kick his ass, Noah!” she screams.
The fight is dirty and gritty, neither man holding anything back. A couple of minutes in and already sweat sheens their b
odies.
“When does the fight end?” I shout in Thea’s ear. The crowd rowdier than the other night.
“When one of them can’t stand up anymore.”
Vicious. Archaic. People really enjoy this? I don’t understand it, not when my gut tightens and churns.
My throat closes when Seamus gets out of the hold Noah had him in, slamming an elbow on Noah’s back. He stumbles before righting himself.
Unable to stomach anymore, I look around at the crowd. Hoping that will distract me when I see a figure who catches my attention.
Not because I recognize them or because they stick out in a crowd. I notice them because they shouldn’t.
Dark pants, baggy jacket, and low hood pulled over their head.
Noah and his friends wear similar attire all the time.
It shouldn’t matter to me, it shouldn’t be worthy of garnering my attention.
But it does.
And as if they feel my stare, they shift toward me. A sea of people separate us, but I know they’re looking right at me.
Invisible spiders crawl down my back, making me shiver.
Slowly, everything else fades away. And not the kind of fading when it comes to Noah, where it’s just him and I in the room even when surrounded by people.
No, this is different, where everything disappears in stages.
First the noise goes, then the people, then it’s only the stagnant air and the feeling of knowing something’s going to happen, but you don’t know what.
Until I do.
They reach behind their back and suddenly a gun is in their hand, held above their head as one, two, three shots fire in the air.
All hell breaks loose with it.
People scream and shove, turning into frantic mayhem as it takes Noah and Seamus a minute to catch on that the sound wasn’t encouragement or cheering.
It was a threat.
A threat that’s staring at me. Barrel aimed at me. Chamber loaded for me.
I’m immobilized, railed to the ground in fear.
Some people have a fight or flight instinct in the face of death.
I have a scared opossum reaction where I freeze up.
I can’t move. Not even when my head is screaming at my legs to go, go, go.
The only movement I’m able to do is looking at Noah when he calls my name.
I see my truth in his face.
The pain in the knowledge that he won’t be able to reach me in time.
It’s so pure, so full of things he’s never said that my heart cracks knowing I’ll never see that raw emotion on his face again.
I don’t know where Thea went, or where everyone aside from Noah is, as another shot rings out. Masses are pushing and shoving, screaming and crying to reach an exit when everything happens so fast.
I wait for a blow that doesn’t come.
Instead, I get tackled to the ground. Hard.
My elbows and chin collide with the floor, unprepared. A loud popping pierces the air.
My body tenses and not just because there’s a man of hard, solid muscle sprawled out on top of me.
It’s enough to shake me from my possum chamber.
I buck my hips, shouting, “Get off—”
He smothers my mouth with his hand. I feel his lips press into my ear as he angrily whispers, “Shut the fuck up.”
Gabe.
I relax into the sound of his voice.
The popping goes off again, this time longer and even louder than before and my body goes tense again. It sounds closer.
My body starts to shake.
Gabe squeezes my shoulders, shaking his head against my temple. “You’re going to be fine.” His whisper barely audible.
Gabe shifts behind me and I peek to see him reach behind, pulling out a sleek gun of his own. He leans up a little and starts firing back.
I feel something zip by me. A bullet.
And then another one.
More fly.
Until suddenly…
They stop.
Gabe rolls off me as footsteps race toward us.
“Gabe,” I whisper, not getting an answer in return. Gabe gets to his feet, the gun rests casually between his fingers at his side as if he was holding a cell phone.
The footsteps get louder. Until they stop.
Reeve and Thea stop just short of where Gabe is standing above me. Both holding guns.
“The shooter ran off,” Thea pants.
“What happened? Where’s Noah?” Looking around I don’t see him anywhere. Dread settles in my stomach while my words seem to light a fire under Reeve’s skin.
“What happened?” Reeve growls, glaring at me as I get to my feet. “What happened was that some fucker decided to open fire on you and Gabe saved your life instead of going after the fucker.”
His words are accusing. As if he thinks I called up the people with the guns and asked them to shoot at me. Nothing like a little target practice to get the blood flowing.
I hug my elbows as I glare back. “Don’t act like this was my fault. I didn’t ask to be dragged here.”
“You’re fucking bad luck, Brooks. Throwing all the shits and balances off. I’ll blame you however I damn well please.”
Thea tries to put a hand on his chest, to calm him, but he growls at her, smacking her hand away.
“He’s drunk,” she explains.
“So you let him handle a gun?” I balk.
She rolls her eyes. “He’s not that drunk.”
“I’m not drunk at all, idiot,” Reeve growls at her. “My hatred for Sayer trumps my compassion for something that’s her fault to begin with.”
“Reeve!” Thea snaps. “Leave her the fuck alone. She didn’t plan this!”
“Why should I leave her alone?” He steps in her space, tilting his head. “Because you finally like a girl Noah’s fucking? Not my problem you don’t have friends outside of us.”
Noah. His name causes a siege in my chest. He’s still not with us.
Thea’s eyes widen in hurt that she blinks away as I look around the now abandoned warehouse. “Where’s Noah?” I ask again.
“Here.”
Twisting around to the sound of his voice, low and decadent, his face is fierce as he stalks toward us. Toward me. Even with the distance separating us I feel his eyes on my body, assessing it. Drinking me in.
Thea and Reeve continue to argue, but I don’t hear them.
I’m too busy being entranced by Noah’s powerful strides. And I don’t think. I run. Eating the distance between us with my steps until there is none and I’m jumping on him. My arms around his neck and legs twisted around his waist.
He catches me easily, not stumbling back in step. He’s solid beneath me, not moving. I’m not even sure I feel him breathing.
I don’t know what just came over me, but it was like an outside force controlling my body. And now I’m wrapped around him, holding tight while his hands are still at his sides.
Too grateful that he’s okay to care at first he’s not hugging me back. The feel of him is enough—a lie I try to convince myself of until I can’t.
He’s still not hugging me.
While he’s as still as an unmoving tree, my thoughts run at the pace of a sharp winter’s breeze.
Why isn’t he hugging me?
Should I not be hugging him?
I want to let go, but my body isn’t listening. I feel like it never listens when Noah is around.
And then slowly, almost unperceivable, his arms start to move.
They wrap around the base of my back, locking around me like bands of iron.
His head tilts, resting on top of mine. I don’t know what to do now for a whole new reason.
Noah’s touching me in a way he never has before. It’s not tender—a word like that could never be used for a man like Noah. He holds me as a necessity, like he needs to and can’t let go.
And I need him.
“They’re gone,” he growls, frustration bleeding from
his tone.
“Gone?” Thea asks.
“Just fucking disappeared. I need you to get on the city cameras.”
The events of tonight have crashed down on me like rubble from a tumbling mountain and I hold him a little tighter. His hold adjusts as well, matching my strength with his own.
Nothing else outside of us exists, not when I’m in his arms. Not when I never want them to leave now that I have them. And especially not as he whispers, “I got you, Sayer. It’s okay.”
His hand comes up to cup my neck and his thumb brushes my pulse. “It’s okay.”
At first, I’m confused, why is he saying that?
But then I feel something small and wet roll down my cheek, down my chest and realize why.
I’m crying.
I’m crying and didn’t even know it.
How numb have I really become?
Pulling away, just enough to be able to look into his restless face—a combination of fierce fighter still on the offensive and budding concern for me—I start to say something when Thea screams for us.
In a blur, Noah drops me from his chest and is shoving me behind him as he reaches for his gun…I balk, not even knowing he was holding one.
That killing machine was pressed against my back. He held me with such a need, such urgency, I didn’t even realize…
Not even being offended by Noah shoving me behind him, he is the one with the gun after all, I simply stretch on my toes and peer over his shoulder.
And see why Thea yelled.
It’s Gabe.
Gabe who’s been quiet this whole time.
Gabe who’s swaying with a nonexistent breeze.
Gabe who presses a hand to his side.
Gabe whose body just seems to crumble. Falling at the knees to the ground.
Reeve lets loose a string of curses, pushing his gun into Thea’s hand, and lunges to catch his friend before he hits the floor.
Gently, a word I never thought I’d think in terms of Reeve Morgan, he lowers Gabe to the ground, talking to him in a voice too low for me to hear.
I shoot a look at Thea, who mouths, Are you okay?
I’m a mess. And have been for weeks now…longer if I’m being honest.
Reeve clears his throat and I’m shocked at what I see.
Gone is the look of playful indifference and in place is an expression I never thought I’d see on Reeve Morgan.
Under the Lies Page 21