Page 86 of Cold Hard Truth

“No.” I smile.

“Then you’re fine.”

“And what if someone walks in?” I glance at the door, knowing at some point last night Reed and Mason made their way back to the apartment.

I barely heard them, being mid-blackout and thoroughly fucked, but their doors closed. And now I’m completely naked, stretched out in the center of Sage’s bed. He’s lying between my legs, drawing imaginary pictures on my stomach, and the sheets are on the floor after we fucked them off the bed.

One touch and we turn to chaos. Limbs and need thrashing around. Sage isn’t sweet like I remember. He’sa beast, and I’m addicted to his desperation. I can’t feel my toes, I’m so relaxed.

“No one should be walking into my room unannounced.” He draws the line on the inside of my leg. “But if they do, they’re getting a good look at my ass.”

I laugh. “You do have a nice ass.”

“No,youhave a nice ass.” He wraps his hands under me and squeezes the globes of my ass before he shifts between my legs.

Releasing my ass, he slides his hands around my hips, to the butterfly he tattooed on my inner thigh.

“What is it with you and butterflies?” He traces the wings from one to the other, and my stomach tightens with his question.

“They were Ellie’s favorite. She said they reminded her of us because we were twins.”

“Why’s that?”

“Butterflies have bilateral symmetry.” I reach down and move from one wing to the other. “Their wings are identical.”

“But you and Ellie weren’t identical.”

“Not technically.” We had different eye colors, and she was slightly taller than me.

Still, people who didn’t pay close enough attention always thought we were.

“She said if a butterfly lost its wing, it wasn’t ever really lost because the other wing was just like it.” I press my lips together, remembering Ellie, and how people always called me strange, but she was just as odd as me. “After she died, that was comforting, even if it didn’t makesense. It reminded me of all the ways it’s possible to lose something—and all the ways to keep it.”

Sage looks down at the tattoo, resting his hand over where I’m absentmindedly tracing it.

“And this always reminded me of you.”

His gaze moves up, and he rolls off me, lying to face me on the bed and pulling us chest to chest. His fingers thread into my hair.

“I took the butterflies from the clubhouse and hung them up in the shop.”

“I noticed.”

A smile ghosts his lips. “It felt wrong to leave them there.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

It might seem small and insignificant, but they were Ellie’s. And the day I hung them in the clubhouse was the day Sage and I finally gave in to what we’d been circling. Of all the things in Twisted Roses, those are our secret—our truth.

“Can I ask you something?” Reaching up, I brush my fingers over the scruff that coats his jaw.

“That’s a loaded question.”

“Maybe. But I’m just curious.” I draw the line of his jaw. “What’s the real reason you didn’t patch in? Was it because of what happened to your dad?”

I’ve been careful not to bring his dad up, but we’ve slowly been broaching the subject of the last time we saw each other, and at some point, we need to face this.

When I was running from the basement, one of the men who was holding us hostage came around a cornerand grabbed me. Sage’s dad saved me, taking a knife to the gut in the process. And even when he told me to leave him, I knew he was dying.

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