Page 52 of Cold Hard Truth

“Why does my father want me here?” I change the subject, not really wanting to think about Sage and that girl after having to listen to them this morning.

Sage glances down to my bare legs while I fidget. “Don’t know.”

He’s lying, but I’m not surprised. He might not be a Twisted King, but he clearly still keeps their secrets.

Sage turns on the coffee pot before spinning to rest against the counter to face me.

I shuffle the cards again, unable to escape his attention. “I don’t get why I couldn’t just stay at the clubhouse.”

It’s not that I want to stay there, but watching random guys I don’t care about get blown by patch bunnies is better than facing Sage and his one-night stands.

“You never liked that place, and Kane doesn’t trust the guys at the club to not fuck you.”

“Like I’d let them.”

Sage smirks. “Fair enough.”

“But he trusts you?”

“Apparently.”

“Since your dick is clearly already occupied.”

I hate how much it stings to say that, even if I’ll never let it show.

We stare at each other for what feels like hours, when it’s probably less than a minute. Sage is pure static tugging at the iron in my blood. He pulls me apart the moment I’m in his presence, and all I want to do is draw my cards to get to the bottom of it.

A beep comes from behind him, finally splitting his attention, and he turns to the coffee pot. His back is fully inked. A giant cross sits in the center, stretching the length of his spine, when I’ve never knownhim to be religious. His tattoos are windows into the man who has lived a whole life since I left.

When he spins around, he has two mugs in hand, and he walks over to the table and slides one in front of me.

“What’s this?”

“Coffee.”

“Just coffee?”

“What else would it be, Lyla?”

“I don’t know. Poison?”

Sage smirks, and I hate that it has my heart racing. “Guess you’ll have to drink it and find out.”

I take the cup and feel the heat of the steam on my cheeks before taking a sip that sears my tastebuds right off. But I don’t flinch as he watches me.

“Delicious.”

Sage narrows his gaze as he sets down his mug. He pulls out the chair opposite me at the table and spins it around, straddling it. And I hate those little quirks that still remind me of him when I know he’s so different.

Lifting his coffee, he takes a sip, not flinching even though it’s scalding hot.

We sit staring at each other until a door opening at the end of the hallway catches my attention. A man barrels into the room, and it takes me a moment to put together who he is.

Mason is taller than I remember from meeting him at the tattoo parlor last night, and his height’s amplified by the low ceilings in the apartment. His shirtless, carved chest is on full display. And his dark blond hair is a complete mess.

If this is what these guys look like when they wake up in the morning, Kane definitely put me in the wrong apartment. Something must be in the water in this part of town because the two of them are distracting, to say the least.

“Where’d she go?”

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