Page 4 of Under the Lies

Crossing my legs, I give him a blank stare. “You’d be surprised how little I’ve thought about you.”

His hand covers his chest, mock hurt on his face. “You wound me.”

“I wound your worshipped ego.” I roll my eyes. “You could benefit from getting knocked down a peg or two.”

He chuckles again, but he watches me with keen, alert eyes. “No one dares to do it but you.”

“That’s because you have the whole city afraid of you.”

“Except for you.”

Especially me.

I’m not afraid of Noah in the same sense as everyone else in town. I’m afraid of him because he makes me feel things I shouldn’t.

Noah reaches around me for the lemon drop and brings the glass to his lips, downing it in a swallow. His arm brushes mine as he places it back on the bar. “What brings you to my club, Baby Brooks?”

Whatever tingling feelings I feel from his touch get snuffed with that name.

Baby Brooks.

That’s all it takes for my teeth to clench and my irritation to rise. I push against him, jumping off the stool, stabbing a finger into his chest. “Don’t call me that. You know what my name is.”

Noah laughs, completely unbothered. As he should be since he’s the one that came up that god-awful nickname to begin with.

What started out as a name for Noah to call me when he was visiting my sister at our house quickly became the name everyone at our prep school adopted. I was always Baby Brooks, never Sayer and I hated it.

As much as I hate hearing it six years later.

“My apologies.” He sounds anything but apologetic. “What’re you doing here, Sayer?” he asks again and I don’t miss the mocking emphasis he puts behind my name.

Looking past Noah and out into the dancing crowd, I try and fail to find Brin.

“Sayer.” Noah draws me back to him.

“I’m here to have fun.” I’m here to remember how to have fun.

Noah pulls me away from the bar. “Then let’s go have fun.”

I swallow, but don’t fight him—too curious to know what he has in mind.

Our ideas of fun are on opposite ends of the spectrum. I like to stay firmly within the law while to Noah and his friends, the law is nothing more than guidelines on how to break them.

So, I let him lead me onto the dance floor, almost in a trance.

Noah is touching me.

Noah is touching me.

Noah is definitely touching me, my mind screams when his hands fit to my hips, moving them to the beat of the music. Slowly, rhythmically, Noah’s hips move against mine, rolling in sensual, heart-stopping thrusts.

Fun isn’t the right word for this. My skin feels charged, my blood humming. Alive. I feel alive. Noah is making me feel alive. My lungs are tight, my palms tingling as my hands entwine around his neck. Holding him close. Wanting to chase the feeling he’s created inside me.

We dance and dance, exploring not only the music but each other. His hands leave my hips only to roam my sides, my breasts, squeezing them as we move to a rhythm that makes me want the clothes separating us to disappear.

My hands leave his neck, going to his hair and pulling at the strands that sit longer on top than the sides.

The teenager in me, hell the current twenty-four-year-old me, is dying over having an all-access pass to feeling Noah up, to feel his muscles constrict under my passing palms. To feel his steady heartbeat pressed against my erratic one.

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