Page 182 of Under the Lies

I narrow my eyes. Why is she so happy? Usually, she’s not this expressive without at least two cups of coffee.

Leaning against the counter, I take her in. She’s still rumpled from sleep, wearing only my hoodie and knee-high socks. Her blonde hair is a tangled mess, her gray eyes still a little dazed.

She’s beautiful, my siren.

A year of being together and my need, my desire, my everything for her has grown. Heightened to a place I never knew could exist. There’s a lightness in my chest that has never been there before.

Happiness. I’m really fucking happy.

Because of her.

Only her.

I’m still a ruthless, fast-fisted bastard but Sayer brings out this softness inside me that’s only for her.

Running a hand up my chest, she presses up on her toes for what I think is going to be a kiss only for her to whisper against my lips, “Where’s my breakfast?”

“Delayed.” I grab her chin for the kiss she still hasn’t given me, but when I try to coax her for more, she pulls away. I sigh.

“Why is it delayed?” She crosses her arms.

“Because of your cat. I have to clean the counters before I can start.”

“Don’t blame Pan.” She sounds slightly deflated, disappointed in my answer.

“It’s his fault,” I argue, assessing her.

She takes a step away from me. “Well, get to it, Kincaid. I’m hungry.”

I watch as she walks out of the kitchen to grab Pan, snuggling him to her chest before I get to work on cleaning all the damn cat hair from the counter and start cooking.

On top of two cats, I now have traditions. It happened accidentally, neither of us even noticed that every Sunday I’d wake up and cook breakfast until one Sunday when I didn’t, but Sayer deemed it a tradition so now my ass is always making a feast early Sunday morning.

Surprisingly, I don’t mind it as much as I would’ve before she came back into my life. Especially when her entire face lights up as soon as the plate is in front of her.

I’d do anything to have her face like that all the time.

She’s mine. My family. Her and our two cats, though if Pan doesn’t shape up with his manners, he’s going back to live with Uncle Reeve, who now stops by just to see the cat. Sometimes we’ve come home to find him here, cuddling Pan.

This is what she’s always wanted. A family. People who don’t want anything from her except love.

And she has that. With me, with Thea. With Gabe, and hell, even Reeve. She’s a part of us now, of our fucked up dynamics.

I still try to keep her out of the illegal dealings as much as I can, to not incriminate her in case anything was to ever go wrong, but when she’s on a mission, she’ll annoy the fuck out of me until I give her details. So she now knows what I’m doing when I go on extended trips, what’s keeping me up late at night.

Everything. Sayer knows everything. All my secrets. All my thoughts.

The only thing Sayer doesn’t want is to actually participate in Underground affairs. She graduated from grad school with her masters and is now working at the museum.

“I want to save art, Noah, not steal it,” she once told me, almost a year ago. She hasn’t been to the holding room at The Underground since the time I brought her there. She doesn’t want to know what’s there.

She’s never tried to change me, to make me stop and I think I fell in love with her more because of that. Because she loves and accepts me just as I come.

Sayer did, however, make me anonymously donate the paintings we still had from when Baron stole from the Haven Harbor Museum over ten years ago.

She’s back to painting too. Her old bedroom here is now her art room. She’d spend an entire day in there if I wasn’t here to drag her out.

As for Harlow, I haven’t heard a peep since banishing her from the city. I haven’t cared to keep track of where she went or what she’s doing.

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