Page 3 of Under the Lies

Alarmed, my eyes snap to his as my stomach tightens. Noah’s coming. I know I’ve been spending the night hopelessly searching for him but now that the reality is happening, my palms start to sweat.

Do I really want to see him?

I don’t think I have a choice.

Finally, reluctantly, Mr. Neck Tattoo lets go of my shoulders. He doesn’t back away, though. His rancid breath brushes my skin as he reaches around to slide the lemon drop closer to me. Liquid splashes onto the bar. “Drink,” he orders.

“No.” Defiance chills my tone. I don’t accept drinks I don’t order myself, especially not when one is being shoved in my face by a bruising asshole.

Mr. Neck Tattoo is quiet behind me. Tense, but silent. I can still feel his warm, stale cigarette-coated breath on the back of my neck.

Until I don’t.

He moves away and I slump down in my stool in relief. A relief that doesn’t last long as another set of hands curve around my shoulders.

These hands are different—larger, broader, rougher. Commanding to the touch.

My insides trip over themselves as a shiver glides down my spine.

Six years and I still recognize his touch.

It’s hard to forget the way my body ignites with a trail of heat that settles between my legs, the way my heart feels too large to be contained in the cage of my ribs when one particular person is around and his touch is branded on my skin.

Noah.

He’s close, so close I can feel his chest, which is pressed against my back, still chilly from the frigid winter outside.

Cold or not, it does nothing to quench my torrid flesh as his unshaved cheek brushes against the shell of my ear. “Don’t like your drink?”

His voice is poison coated in sugar. Sweetly hiding what lies beneath. Temptation. A shiver slithers along my spine.

It’s a fight to keep my voice steady. Unaffected. “Not a fan of drinks from strangers.”

Noah chuckles against my ear. “I’d hardly call us strangers, Sayer Brooks.”

I would. Spinning around in my stool, I stare into the harsh, chiseled features of a man who radiates power and can, in fact, attest that we’re nothing but strangers.

I no longer know what haunts the depths of his eyes. And he no longer is responsible for mine.

The club is packed around us but everything gets drowned out, the music, the people, as I study Noah.

His face is a beautiful nightmare. Cruel by design. Perfection that only ever seems to unfairly grace someone so wicked. There’s no warmth in his stare as it pierces me, making me want to look anywhere but into those wolf-blue eyes behind his thick, black-framed glasses.

A predator’s gaze and a cold, dark heart.

Why couldn’t he have boils? Boils on his cheeks, above his eyebrows. I’d take the boils anywhere, not greedy with the placement. Just something, anything, that’ll make looking at him easier and not like I’m back in high school where watching my sister’s boyfriend leaves me flustered with a single stare.

But aside from a freckle that sits above his eyebrow, his face is blemish free.

I grew up seeing some of the most remarkable art the world has to offer thanks to my granddad being an art buyer but no piece he ever brought home had ever been as exquisite as Noah, who has the face of an old time star with a jaw carved from marble and an attitude as welcoming as an iceberg.

“Miss me?” Smirking, he watches as I continue to drink in his face, his features, his presence.

Miss me?

Does one miss the Devil after they’ve found salvation?

Does one miss the darkness when they’ve stumbled into the light?

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