Page 62 of A Smile Full of Lies
Sixteen
KNOX
I sawit happen in real-time through the security camera feed on the lines outside.
Ros’s mouth curled into a sharp, dark smile as she met the blonde’s gaze. That dangerous little smirk that twisted through my chest like electrified barbed wire.
“…Knox is my neighbor.”
My cock hardened instantly. She said it so casually. So fucking possessively.
I know him intimately, as a matter of fact,she’d added.
My knuckles flexed beneath the weight of the leather gloves, the sharp creak of the console beneath my hands cutting through the low hum of the security feed.
I heard the blonde’s sharp inhale through my earpiece. Saw her lips part in a stunned littleohon the monitor. The sheer envy etched across her face sent a dark bolt of satisfaction through my chest.
Ros didn’t see it, but I did. She didn’t even realize what she’d done… how hard she’d just staked her fucking claim on me.
Her body language was calm — shoulders relaxed, weight balanced on the balls of her feet — but that sharp note beneath her voice? That waspossession.That was Ros digging her claws into me and sinking deep.
And the kicker?
She thought I couldn’t see her. She thought I couldn’t hear her. But I was watching. I wasalwayswatching.
The dangerous little smirk that curled across her mouth when she told that blonde to fuck all the way off with her eyes alone? That was all for me.
And the fact that she’d never admit that to my face? That was fuckingeverything.
My cock pressed hard against the zipper of my pants, heat flashing beneath my skin as Ros turned toward the mansion’s door. Her chest rose and fell beneath the thin cotton of her hoodie. She was flushed — still rattled from that Nox Obscura video — but she was trying to cover it.
Tryingbeing the operative word, because Ros couldn’t hide from me. Not anymore.
A low growl scraped the back of my throat.
I could feel my pulse hammering beneath my skin as I leaned toward the monitor. My finger slid across the touch panel. A low vibration buzzed beneath my palm as the program responded instantly.
The security feed split — sixteen different angles cutting across the screen in crisp, high-resolution detail. The east hall. The grand staircase. The front entrance. The emergency exit. And her, my Ros, standing in line, waiting to be let into the entrance hall, instinctively distancing herself from the groupies.
Mine.
God, she was going to make it so easy. I’d paid Silverface, another MaskTok content creator with a following almost as big as mine, a hefty chunk of change under the table to make sure Ros got cut off from everyone else and shuffled into the entrance to the wine cellar once she was inside.
My mouth stretched into a satisfied smile beneath the mask.
I heard the bitter note of envy in the blonde’s voice.
“If she knows what Philip Knox smells like,” the blonde said, her tone pitched just loud enough to carry, “I wonder what else she knows about the guy that other people don’t.”
A sharp pulse of dark heat cut through my chest.
Ros didn’t flinch. Her mouth curved, slow and dangerous. She glanced over her shoulder, her gaze sharp and lethal.
“Wouldn’t you just love to know, sweetheart?”
Fucking hell.
My cock throbbed. A low growl rumbled out of my chest as I leaned toward the console. My hand tightened under the leather of my glove.
